Playing With Fire

by J. J. Cook

  A lot of people thought he’d been killed to protect Ben’s secret. That was yet another dirty deed laid at her grandfather’s feet.

  “Yes. It was so weird,” Ricky continued. “He was standing there in the middle of the burning building. I thought I was hallucinating! He was never a member of the fire brigade. He didn’t work at the silo either. I couldn’t figure out why he was there. I thought he was a ghost at first because we all figured he was dead.”

  Stella was confused. “Did he come out of the building?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see him come out. It was chaos, Stella. He was standing about ten feet away from me. I ran for the front door and got out of there.”

  “What happened next?”

  He swallowed hard. “Once the roof collapsed and we knew Eric was trapped inside, our world was crashed in too. Everyone was yelling and crying. We couldn’t believe it. A few of us even thought about trying to go back in and get him. Thank God they held us back.”

  She could imagine the scene. She’d been on calls where they’d lost firefighters, some were friends of hers. It was exactly as he described it.

  “Did anyone look for Shu afterward?”

  Ricky shook his head as he looked down at the floor. “I never told anyone until right now. I was scared of what might happen.”

  What he was saying sounded so much like what Chum had said. Stella didn’t understand what had made both men too scared to say anything about what they’d seen.

  “It was a different time.” He finally looked up at her. “You’re not going to like what I have to tell you, but I think it’s time someone said it. Your grandfather ran this town with an iron hand. No one defied him; except for Eric, who did it on a regular basis. The old man wanted the county to take over the fire service. He wanted to get rid of the fire brigade.”

  This didn’t come as any surprise to Stella. She’d heard this story before. “So you’re saying my grandfather killed Eric.”

  Ricky nodded. “Not him exactly—Shu did it. Shu was his go-to man. Any loose ends, he took care of them. Eric had gone to the legislature and made a lot of friends up there. There was even some talk of him running for a seat. Eric was popular, and your grandfather hated it.”

  “Okay.” Stella tried to get a handle on what he was saying. “So you thought all of this time that Shu had killed Eric and you didn’t say anything because you were afraid of what my grandfather might do to you.”

  “That’s it in a nutshell. After that night, Shu disappeared again. I kept my secret to protect little Ricky and Lucille. I guess I hoped I was wrong. I hoped Eric really died in the fire. Now I know different—and I know what happened. I’d be willing to testify in court, if need be.”

  Stella wasn’t sure what to think. All of it had happened so long ago. It was easy to blame it on her grandfather. Ricky and Chum probably both thought they knew what had happened.

  But were they right? The answer had stayed hidden in the firehouse wall for forty years. With all of this secrecy, was it possible to really figure it out? Every time she thought she had a handle on it, something new popped up.

  “Thanks for being honest with me,” she said.

  The part about the radio still bothered her. How loud would that have been turned up to hear inside the burning silo? Chum had said it was that sound that caught his attention outside.

  Stella didn’t think the deputy had heard Ricky’s radio inside the silo. Yet Eric heard it too, right before he died.

  Could Ricky have been one of the two men Chum saw putting Eric into the trunk? It would account for Eric hearing the radio playing in Ricky Senior’s pocket at one point, and Chum hearing it later when Eric was carried out of the silo.

  Was Ricky still lying to her? If so, what was he covering up?

  “I’m sorry. I should’ve spoken up before. I’m going to go right over and tell Chief Rogers about what happened. I hope it helps him find Eric’s killer.”

  Stella thanked him again and then went to rejoin her father and Doug.

  She liked Ricky and didn’t want to see him get into trouble. Something was still off about his account of what had happened the night of Eric’s death. She was going to have to go on with the investigation if she was going to figure it out. She hoped Ricky Senior and his family weren’t hurt by it.

  Barbara and Sandy had decided to come down and get Lucille to look through old high school yearbooks with them.

  Stella smiled when she saw big spoonfuls of homemade vanilla ice cream on top of their blueberry pie. The three women were giggling like the schoolgirls they once were as she passed their table.

  Sean was staring at them. “She wouldn’t even sit here with us. I guess we’re not good enough for her anymore. The pepper heiress rears her ugly head.”

  Stella thought for a minute that he was serious and was ready to defend her mother’s girlfriend time.

  Then he winked at her and drank the last of his coffee. “I think I need to run a little after all that pie. Maybe I should do a few laps around the firehouse.”

  “That’s fine with me.” She looked at her watch. “I have to go and continue my study on how peppers are made.”

  “You don’t need that if you aren’t staying,” Doug said.

  “I’d like a tour of the place anyway, if that’s okay with you,” she shot back. “I made Ben spend some money on upgrades to keep the filters from catching on fire. I’d like to make sure those are working properly as well.”

  “Well, count me in on the pepper tour,” Sean said. “I’ve always wondered how they get those tops on so tight. Doug, what about you?”

  Of course, Doug also wanted to go along. Stella took a deep breath and acted like she didn’t mind being shadowed everywhere she went. It was only for a few days.

  She wasn’t sure yet what was coming after that. She was trying not to think that far ahead.

  “Shh!” Pat Smith from the Gazette turned up the volume on the television. “Look. It’s about Sweet Pepper.”

  Stella turned and saw something she’d never expected to see—Eric—alive and dressed in a dark suit and a tie with the Sweet Pepper Fire Brigade emblem on it. He was addressing a crowd of reporters on the steps of the Tennessee legislature building.

  He was handsome and intense, his blond hair neatly combed back. He was fighting to keep the county from destroying everything he’d worked for.

  “Even with the money the state has proposed, the county fire service won’t be able to handle the calls from Sweet Pepper and other non-incorporated areas. Response will be slow and inadequate without a full-time, firefighting organization located in my town.”

  A man with short, dark hair came on the screen. Eric’s face was frozen in a small square on the side of the picture.

  “That was the scene forty years ago when Sweet Pepper’s fire chief, Eric Gamlyn, came to persuade state legislators to leave the firefighting system in his town alone. Some say he would have persuaded them, but Gamlyn was killed in a tragic fire that ended the debate.”

  The news anchor showed more footage of Eric talking to state representatives, shaking hands with the governor, smiling and waving.

  “Recently a horrific discovery was made at the Sweet Pepper firehouse. Chief Gamlyn wasn’t killed in a silo fire after all, according to county coroner, Judd Streeter. Gamlyn’s remains show that he was shot once in the head and then sealed in a wall. He was found, ironically, after a fire claimed most of the firehouse.”

  The news anchor related the story with a blank expression.

  “I haven’t seen Eric’s face since I was a kid,” Lucinda Waxman said with a smile. “He was as handsome as I remember. Why do the good ones always die young?”

  “All you have to do is go out to his cabin late one night and maybe he’ll give you a dance.” Tommy Potter from Potter’s Hardware laughed.

&nb
sp; The news report finished up with showing Chief Rogers and his pledge to find the person or persons responsible for Eric’s death.

  “Of course,” Tommy Potter said. “He’s running for reelection soon. He’s gotta make sure we feel safe.”

  Tears stung Stella’s eyes. It was one thing to live with Eric’s ghost. It was another to see him alive on TV. He had so much of his life taken away from him. Lucinda was right—he died too young. Maybe he would have run for the state legislature. Maybe he would’ve been governor.

  No one would ever know because someone hadn’t liked him fighting for his fire brigade and had killed him. The unfairness of it struck her like a blow to the chest.

  Her feelings were even stronger after the news broadcast. She had to find his killer—whether it was Ricky Senior or her grandfather. Eric needed justice for the life taken from him. She was going to see that he got it, no matter how long it took.

  It was all she could do to drive to the pepper plant and spend time touring it. She wanted to go straight home and reassure herself that the part of Eric that had survived was still there. She couldn’t free him from his half-life, trapped in the cabin, but she wanted to make sure that he was real.

  It was probably just as well that she didn’t go straight back, she realized as she drove to the plant. She would’ve ended up blubbering all over Eric and making them both feel worse.

  Instead she was almost finished sniffling and wiping her eyes when plant manager Greg Lambert met them at the main office.

  The original structure of the first pepper bottling plant was still intact from the 1800s. It was used as the office and administration building. The whole facility and distribution center covered more than ten acres and employed hundreds of workers.

  “Good to see you, Chief Griffin,” Greg said.

  He was probably in his sixties yet still maintained some of his youthful good looks. Life had been a disappointment to him and it showed in his face. No amount of time spent in a tanning bed could make his chiseled face less cold and hard or put warmth into his eyes.

  Stella introduced Sean and Doug. Greg acted as though he was thrilled to have them there. She knew better. He wasn’t that friendly. They got in one of the visitor golf carts and Greg took them to one of the large metal buildings.

  “Sweet Pepper was founded by the Carson family in the 1800s when they discovered the unique combination of soil and weather that grew the best peppers.” Greg gave his tour speech as they walked through the plant. “Of course, I don’t need to tell you that, Chief Griffin. It’s your family history.”

  Stella smiled at his attempt at humor. She was glad to see the new ductwork was doing just fine. There had been no regular calls for the small fires that used to occur here.

  About a hundred people were involved in getting the peppers ready for canning. The bright red, orange, and green peppers ran down from a conveyor belt into fresh water for washing and then were sorted by quality, color, and size.

  “Each of the buildings handles a different process,” Greg explained. “This is the first step after local farmers drop off their peppers. It ends with the bottled peppers being readied for shipping. There has been constant growth here since the first building became inadequate for the needs of the business. Probably the biggest growth spurt happened in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when four buildings and two, ten-truck loading sites, were added.”

  He went on to explain that those new facilities had sped up production like never before. “Today our peppers are shipped to twenty-six countries and every state in the U.S. Everyone loves the sweetest, hottest peppers in the world.”

  Stella considered the time frame he was talking about. In other words, a large amount of money was spent on the new facilities—right after Eric had died and thirty million dollars went missing.

  Could it be that obvious? Did Ben have his hit man, Shu Carriker, kill Eric during the silo fire so he could get his hands on the state money to improve his pepper-packing plant?

  Chapter 19

  Stella followed her father and Doug through the building as they listened to Greg describe how the peppers were processed and packed. She feigned an interest she didn’t feel. Maybe she needed to know this stuff, but her mind was on one thing—figuring out how she would prove who killed Eric.

  If her grandfather was involved in Eric’s death, he certainly wouldn’t admit it. No one knew what had happened to Shu Carriker. Chum was dead.

  It was hard to believe Ricky Senior would have killed Eric, despite the radio music Chum and Eric had heard that night. It was easier to think that Ben Carson was as evil as people in Sweet Pepper painted him, even though he had been nothing like that with her.

  In her opinion—wealthy, powerful men didn’t get that way by following the rules.

  Doug was right. There had to be a connection to someone who was still alive and trying to cover things up. Otherwise, Chum would be living it up in retirement instead of on a slab in the coroner’s office.

  But how did she even begin to follow the clues she had? Nothing seemed to go together.

  The tour was over. Greg gave them each a tiny bottle of peppers to take home. Stella wanted to give it back—she had several of them at the cabin. She wasn’t much of a pepper eater.

  Greg wouldn’t hear of it, so she thanked him and took the bottle with her.

  She looked around at the “newer” buildings that might have been built with blood money. There was probably a record of that money being spent—how much and when—if not where it came from.

  Stella realized she needed the police.

  Maybe it was time to come clean with Chief Rogers. He was really the only one who could investigate the trail of money. She could claim her right to be part of that investigation since it had all started with the fire at the silo and Eric’s death. She was the fire chief, even if she didn’t have that role forty years ago. There was no statute of limitations on murder.

  She had to take her chances with Don Rogers. She didn’t trust him, but not working with him on this might mean never finding answers.

  Stella found her perfect opportunity to talk to Chief Rogers when her mother called and suggested they all spend the rest of the day in Pigeon Forge. Stella told them she had paperwork to do and waved to Doug and her parents as they left Sweet Pepper to go sightseeing.

  Before she lost her nerve, Stella marched right into the police station and asked to see Don. His assistant told her he was in the conference room. Stella thanked her and went to find him.

  To her surprise, Walt Fenway and Judd Streeter were already seated at the big table with John Trump and Chief Rogers. There were two other men she didn’t recognize, although she was betting on the man in the dark suit being from outside the area.

  “Come right on in,” Chief Rogers said to her. “You’ve been part of the investigation, even if it’s only been an annoying, small part. You’re probably going to want to hear whatever Doc Streeter has to say.”

  He introduced the two men she didn’t recognize as Brad Whitman—the man in the suit—who was from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. Jerry Ryan, the younger man, was Judd’s assistant.

  They all shook hands and Stella sat down. She noticed Judd had a file folder in front of him. She hoped it contained good news.

  “Doc, why don’t you tell us your findings and we’ll go from there,” Rogers invited.

  “Thanks, Chief.” Judd lumbered to his feet. It was easy to see he was uncomfortable talking to people. He laughed and pulled at his beard. “I’m afraid my news isn’t very helpful. We were able to make a determination about the remains found in what should have been Eric Gamlyn’s coffin. The remains belong to Shu Carriker.”

  Everyone, except Don Rogers, seemed surprised by Judd’s statement. They all knew who Shu Carriker was. They just didn’t expect to find him in Eric’s coffin.

  Jud
d sat down, his face a little red. “This is my mistake. I take full responsibility. I don’t know how it happened, but there it is.”

  Jerry Ryan got up. His black hair stood straight up on his head, no doubt with some help from a hair care product. His T-shirt had the image of a man crawling out of a grave on it.

  “We were able—well, I was able to quickly learn the identity of the remains in the coffin. There was a metal rod in the right femur that had a number on it. Tracking it was simple. The subject seems to have died from a serious head injury that smashed in his skull.”

  “I think that was why I made the mistake,” Judd explained. “The bones were charred and the skull damage would have been consistent with a heavy object, like the roof of the silo, hitting the victim. I expected it to be Chief Gamlyn, like everyone else. I should have done a more thorough examination.”

  Judd’s hands were shaky as he sipped his coffee. His pale face wasn’t at all jolly. He looked like a man whose longtime career could be over because of a mistake he’d made in his distant past.

  “So there we have it.” Chief Rogers took a deep breath. “I think we can assume from this evidence alone that Shu Carriker probably snuck into the burning silo and shot Eric Gamlyn, for reason or reasons unknown. No doubt someone paid for that job. Carriker wasn’t able to get out of the silo after the job was done, and perished in the building.”

  “Then how did Gamlyn’s remains end up in the firehouse?” Brad Whitman questioned. “Was there another assailant who took the body out and made his escape from the collapsing roof?”

  “Who do we like for hiring Carriker to kill Gamlyn?” John stared at Stella.

  She knew what he was thinking. It was, no doubt, what everyone at the table was thinking.

  “Anyone have a thought on that?” Rogers asked.

  Stella knew she had to share her information. It wasn’t easy. “Deputy Chum told me something about the night Eric Gamlyn died.”

  All eyes shifted to her. Walt looked a little anxious.