Playing With Fire

by J. J. Cook

  “He told me he saw two men take Eric’s body out of the silo before the roof collapsed. He said they put him into the trunk of a Chevy Impala.”

  “A Chevy Impala?” Chief Rogers tapped his manicured fingernails on the table in irritation. “Any idea why he didn’t come forth earlier with that information? Or did he say something, Walt, and you didn’t bother telling anyone forty years ago?”

  “Deputy Chum—or anyone else—never said anything to me about this,” Walt denied. “We would have investigated. All of us knew, or we thought we knew, what had happened to my friend, Eric. We ignored it, and concentrated on him dying a hero so as not to upset the balance of this town. But we all know who Shu Carriker worked for. This wasn’t the only time he took care of Ben Carson’s dirty work.”

  It was out on the table. Brad Whitman furiously scribbled in his notepad.

  “Any ideas why Deputy Chum didn’t come to me with this information instead of you, Ms. Griffin?” Chief Rogers asked her.

  “He said he kept quiet all these years because he was afraid for his life,” she answered. “He only told me because he was leaving town and I’d been looking into Eric’s death since we found his bones at the firehouse.”

  “You think he was alluding to the fact that Ben Carson was responsible for the fire chief’s death and would kill Deputy Chum as well?” Brad Whitman sat forward and waited for Stella’s response, pen poised.

  “He never mentioned Ben Carson’s name,” Stella said.

  “In all fairness, Agent Whitman,” John added, “Chief Griffin is Ben Carson’s granddaughter.”

  Whitman’s eyes narrowed and then he wrote that information in his notebook. “I’m sure I don’t need to remind you, Chief Griffin, that this is privileged information that is part of a murder investigation.”

  “Yes, sir.” She knew a warning when she heard one.

  “That’s bull anyway, about Chum.” Chief Rogers shoved aside his empty cup of coffee. “I knew him all my life. We worked together plenty of times. He could’ve told me what he suspected and I would’ve protected him.”

  “Maybe he didn’t trust you, Don,” Walt observed. “Maybe he told Stella his secret because he knew she’d actually try to do something about it—whether Ben is her grandpa or not.”

  Chief Rogers didn’t like that at all. Stella thought for a minute that he might jump across the table and strangle Walt.

  Instead, he smiled. “I think we might need to conduct an investigation into our former police chief too. How did things like this happen and everybody turned a blind eye?”

  Agent Whitman took over the conversation. “First of all, Chief Rogers, I’m here to find out who killed Chief Gamlyn and why. If Mr. Fenway becomes part of that investigation, we’ll deal with that too. In the meantime, Deputy Chum’s murder seems to be part of what happened to Gamlyn forty years ago. We’ll include that in our investigation.”

  “I understand, Agent Whitman.” Chief Rogers gazed at Stella. “I’ll need a statement from you before you leave today, Ms. Griffin. And I want to know why you didn’t come forward with this information right away. You’re a public official. You have to be held to a higher standard and not go sneaking around behind my back trying to solve my crimes.”

  “Excuse me, Chief Rogers,” Whitman smoothly intervened. “We’ll be taking over this investigation from here on. Since there is some idea of local corruption that could be involved, it would be better for preparing our court case, and so that your citizens have a feeling of security. I believe that’s it. Thank you all for coming.”

  Stella would have laughed at the expression on Rogers’s face but she was afraid he might explode. He turned and walked out of the conference room, slamming the door on his way out.

  “Nice going,” John murmured as he reached her. “Now the state has the investigation. We don’t need help from them.”

  “I don’t know how this is my fault, but it sounds to me like someone needs to look for some answers that no one has bothered with in forty years. If I did that, I’m okay with it. And thanks for pointing the finger at me about Ben.”

  He shrugged. “Just trying to be fair. I don’t think you can be objective about this case. Think of how it will affect your mother if Ben is guilty of having Eric killed.”

  “I think you were trying to make your point about me being part of the Carson family, like you always do.”

  Before John could say anything else, Agent Whitman asked Stella to join him in his temporary office to give her statement.

  John gave her a mock salute and left the room. Stella ground her teeth, wondering what she’d ever seen in him.

  The town had given Agent Whitman a small “office” while he was there. It was all the two of them could do to get into the closet-sized room and sit down.

  “We don’t get special treatment in cases like this.” He apologized to Stella as they sat at the small foldout table. “You can imagine that local law enforcement doesn’t like us intervening in their work. They feel like we’re taking over their private turf and that it says something about the quality of their work.”

  “And does it?”

  “No. Not at all. Usually it means there are bigger fish to go into the fire. In this case, we’re actually investigating a link we discovered between your dead fire chief and thirty million dollars missing from the state accountant’s office.”

  “Forty years later?”

  “The mills of the gods grind slowly, Chief Griffin. And it helps when there is a murder investigation we can link with it. You see, we think that money ended up here, in Sweet Pepper. We think Gamlyn was murdered because he’d volunteered to help the TBI take care of this problem.”

  “What? Why him?”

  “He had friends in high places. He didn’t want that money allocated to the county. He was willing to work with us as a confidential informant on the case the state was trying to make. The TBI had heard rumors about what was going down long before the money went missing. We were waiting to see where it ended up. Then Gamlyn was dead. What does that tell you?”

  “He was in the wrong place at a bad time. How could you know about the money before it was stolen, and why didn’t you follow up after it was gone?”

  “Funding the county to take over municipal and volunteer fire departments was a long-term project of a legislator from this area—Barney Falk.”

  “Sorry. Not from here. Never heard of him.”

  “Yes. I know.” He smiled at her. “I’ve done my research on you or we wouldn’t be talking. Falk was a powerful man at the time. Some people say he still is, but more behind-the-scenes now. He’s retired and lives here in Sweet Pepper. We think he was doing a last solid for a friend—your grandfather—before he left office. Gamlyn stood in his way. It’s even possible he became aware that he was working with us.”

  “So they killed him.” Stella’s heart ached for all she had to tell Eric about the circumstances of his death. She thought things like this only went on in places like Chicago where everyone knew there was corruption.

  “I’m afraid so.” Agent Whitman shuffled through some papers on the table. “We’ve always had doubts about Gamlyn’s death being a part of his job. But there seemed to be no link between what happened and his position with us. When you all found that he’d been murdered, we felt it was justified to open the old investigation as well.”

  Stella took a deep breath. “What do you want from me?”

  Agent Whitman was an average-looking man with graying brown hair and the face of a schoolteacher. He had a pleasant smile. Stella once had an insurance agent who looked a lot like him.

  “Right now, I want your statement about what Deputy Mace Chum said to you. I’m not going to lie to you—we think you might be our best link to Ben Carson and his involvement in this. I want to know what you know about Gamlyn’s murder and the death of Deputy Chum.
Then I’d like your help figuring out how all of it fits together.”

  Chapter 20

  Stella didn’t know what to say. If the TBI was investigating all of this, Eric stood a better chance of getting real answers. Was she willing to spy on her grandfather as he was making peace with her mother?

  Agent Whitman was admitting he didn’t know for sure if Ben was involved in Eric’s death. She gave him credit for that since almost every other person in Sweet Pepper would lay Eric’s death at Ben’s feet.

  If asked, they couldn’t tell you how they knew, or any pertinent information. But if something bad had happened, one of the Carsons had to be involved.

  “I’ll be glad to tell you what I know. It isn’t much. Besides rumors, I don’t have any information that Ben was involved in Eric’s death. As far as I know, he doesn’t have an Impala.”

  Agent Whitman sorted through some papers. “You tell me what you know so far and let me see what I can find out about it. I understand Walt Fenway, the ex-police chief, got a listing of all the Impalas in the area during that time.”

  “Yes. He’s been looking through it. I’ve been working on other angles.”

  Stella told him about what Ricky Senior had said, including the questions she had about the music playing the night of the silo fire. “That’s not much after all this time. I noticed that there was a large group of improvements done at the pepper factory around the same time. I wondered about that, after I heard about the missing money.”

  “We’ve looked at that too. As you say, it’s been a while. All of the records at the pepper plant from the late 1970s and early 1980s were destroyed by a fire.”

  “That’s convenient.”

  “Exactly. All of it seems to fit together, but finding out that Gamlyn was murdered was the first solid clue we’ve had. Everything else might make sense with that—if we can prove it.”

  “So what do you want me to do?”

  “Would you be willing to ask your grandfather some questions?”

  “Sure. He knows I’ve been looking for answers. Asking him about Shu Carriker, now that we know, would fit in.”

  “Would you be willing to wear a wire?”

  Stella was uneasy about that request.

  She wanted her grandfather to be punished if he’d sent Shu to kill Eric so he could confiscate thirty million dollars, but did she want to be that heavily involved in taking him down? She wasn’t sure how her mother would feel about it either.

  “If you know about my background, you know this is my mother’s first time back to Sweet Pepper since before I was born. I’m not sure how either of us would feel about entrapping her father.”

  “Okay. I can respect that. You’re related to Ben Carson. Why don’t you think about it and get back to me?”

  “Sure. I’ll do that.”

  “In the meantime, if you hear any other information that we might need to solve this thing, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know right away. I sense there’s some hostility between you and Chief Rogers. I understand your hesitation to share your knowledge with him. I hope we can have a better working relationship.”

  He got to his feet, knocking a small lamp off of the table, and shook her hand. He gave her his business card with different numbers and emails on it so she could reach him at any time.

  “It was nice meeting you, Chief Griffin. I hope we’ll have answers for all of this before you have to leave Sweet Pepper.”

  Stella bumped into John and Walt outside on the sidewalk as she left town hall. They were standing next to the Cherokee.

  “Did you and Agent Whitman have a nice conversation?” Walt asked with a grin. “John and I were putting up some money on him asking you to wear a wire next time you go to dinner with the old man.”

  “I probably wouldn’t tell you if he did,” Stella replied. “But we had a good conversation about Chum and Eric. I think the TBI has some leads they’re not sharing with us. It sounds like this goes way back, before Eric was killed.’

  “Really?” John was immediately interested. “Care to share those thoughts over lunch?”

  “Not if it meant starving to death,” she told him with a smile. “I know you’ll take whatever I say back to Chief Rogers.”

  “He’s my boss. You don’t understand what it’s like to have the state come in and take over a case. They do what they want and find the answers they want. They don’t care if it’s good for Sweet Pepper or not.”

  “Maybe I’ll leave before it’s over and Agent Whitman will want to take you into his confidence because you’re the new fire chief. Until then, I’m not saying anything.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Stella. I don’t plan to take your place.”

  “Funny that you don’t know about the plan. Everyone else does.” She was suddenly tired of playing all the games. She wanted to go to the cabin and see Eric. “I have to go. I’ll see you later, Walt.”

  “Mind if I catch a ride back with you?” he asked after grinning at John. “I had to leave my truck in the shop. It’s always something.”

  Stella agreed to take Walt home. He lived outside of town in the Big Bear Springs community. They stopped and picked up lunch at Scooter’s on their way out.

  Walt was eager to hear what Eric would have to say about everything Stella planned to tell him when they got back to the cabin.

  It wasn’t going to be easy telling Eric the truth about all of it, especially after having seen him alive and passionate about his beliefs on TV. Maybe he wouldn’t be surprised that someone had killed him because he’d made himself a target. He’d never mentioned that he’d been working with the TBI.

  “Did I mention that I found something interesting in all those Impalas I’ve been looking through?” Walt asked as they drove up Firehouse Road.

  “No. I didn’t hear you volunteer that information at the meeting either.”

  “This is for you and me and Eric. I’m done with those others. I know if they can find a way to hang this on me, since I was police chief at the time, they will. You and me want to know the truth for Eric’s sake. That’s all that matters now.”

  “Okay. What did you find out?”

  “Shu Carriker had an Impala. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? I was thinking maybe me and you could take a ride over there and see if his wife still has it. I sat up with her a few nights after he went missing. I think she’ll talk to me. What do you say?”

  Stella was barely listening. She was staring at a “For Sale” sign that had been put up outside the cabin in her absence.

  It looked as though the town had decided not to wait until she left. Maybe it was a way for them to work around the problem with Bob Floyd. If they sold the property, anyone could take down the cabin.

  “Looks like Eric might be moving,” Walt commented. “So, what do you think about taking a gander at that Impala?”

  • • •

  It was as hard as Stella had thought to talk to Eric about what she’d learned. She was glad her parents and Doug weren’t there. She didn’t think she could hide the fact that she was speaking to someone they couldn’t see.

  Walt followed the conversation between the two as best he could while he ate two hot dogs with chili and peppers, and French fries.

  “I was working with them,” Eric admitted. “I thought it would help me keep the fire brigade going.”

  “And you’re the one who’s always telling me that I’m a firefighter, not a cop,” she accused. “What were you thinking?”

  “I was desperate. Why do you think I wanted to warn you off? I’m standing here, dead. I wish I had it to go back and do over.”

  “What’s he saying?” Walt asked.

  “That he was crazy to get involved in an undercover investigation,” she answered in her own interpretation.

  “I didn’t say that,” Eric pro
tested.

  “You might as well have,” she replied.

  “I think the TBI is doing all of this because you were killed, buddy,” Walt said to him. “I don’t think they had anything until we found you in the firehouse.”

  “And Shu Carriker was in my coffin.” Eric shook his head. “All these years. No wonder I couldn’t rest in peace.”

  Stella told Walt what Eric had said. He almost choked on his hot dog, laughing.

  “You’re taking this better than I thought you would,” she said to Eric.

  “Is that why you brought Walt back with you? So you wouldn’t have to tell me by yourself?”

  “I don’t like talking about you being dead. I can’t imagine what it must be like for you talking about yourself being dead.”

  Eric grinned wickedly. “You may be overthinking how I feel about it. Women are more emotional than men.”

  “Oh yeah, right. Women aren’t any more emotional than men. We just don’t bottle it up. I’ve seen terrible things working the last ten years as a firefighter—stuff that would curl your hair. You’re the one who got all moody because we found your bones in the firehouse and started cooking all the time so you could avoid thinking about it!”

  “Are you saying it’s good or bad that I cook?”

  Stella told Walt what Eric was saying, as soon as he’d stopped laughing over Stella’s defense of women.

  “You think cooking might bring your door?” Walt asked his friend.

  “Door?” Eric looked at Stella. “What’s he talking about?”

  “There’s a popular belief that spirits see a door or tunnel and that leads them to the other side,” she explained. “You haven’t seen anything like that? How about a white light?”

  “I woke up sitting in my rocking chair,” Eric told her. “I don’t know how long I’d been sitting there. It was like I’d been asleep. I tried to remember what had happened and then I tried to leave the cabin. There was no door, no light—definitely no tunnel.”

  Stella told Walt. “What happened when you tried to leave the cabin?”