Molly: House on Fire

by R. E. Bradshaw

  When she didn’t comment, Brad continued, “I’m sorry, Molly. I’m sorry you had to live like that, but Joe said he knew you’d make something of yourself. Said he’d never seen a more independent, smart little girl. He watched your career and bragged about you.”

  Molly’s head snapped around to face Brad. “Who did he brag to? Who else knows who I really am?”

  Brad put his hands up in surrender. “Don’t get excited. He never told me what your name was now or where you were. Said it was best if no one knew. I didn’t ask him why and I don’t think he told anyone else. He only told Leslie to find Molly Kincaid. She doesn’t know who you are and I wasn’t sure until I saw you at your old place.”

  “Is Leslie your wife?” Molly asked. That name kept popping up in the conversation. Molly finally wanted to know who she was and how she fit in this picture.

  Brad smiled. “No, Leslie’s just a friend. I married a girl from Raleigh, Tammy. We have two boys. Brad Jr. is twelve and Nick is ten.”

  “Congratulations,” Molly said, truly happy for him, but still, who was Leslie? She teased Brad, “Does your wife know you’re picking up attractive women at the local hospital?”

  Brad laughed. “I wasn’t picking Leslie up. We’ve known each other since fifth grade. And by the way, Leslie is a friend of my wife’s. She called me when Joe died tonight. She had his things in a box and didn’t know who to give them to, since she can’t get back in the house, yet.”

  “What happened to Joe’s wife?” Molly remembered meeting her a few times, when Joe would take Molly for ice cream with his family. Sue was always nice. His daughter, Cheryl, was four years younger than Molly, and she remembered holding her when she was a baby.

  “Sue left Joe, right after Cheryl graduated from high school. Moved out to Montana. Joe never talked about her, so I don’t know what happened, but she left town and never came back, not even to see her grandchild. Cheryl and Joey were all Joe had, except Leslie.”

  Molly tried again. “And Leslie is?” She left the question open for Brad to fill in the blanks.

  “She’s Joey’s psychologist and kind of a surrogate big sister to him. When Cheryl was killed, there wasn’t anyone left to take care of Joe, so Leslie stepped in. She’s been running herself ragged, what with visiting Joey in jail and staying with Joe at the hospital.”

  “I guess that’s why she was so upset when I refused to take the kid’s case.”

  Brad nodded. “Leslie is passionate about two things, her work with Autism, and Joey Erickson. She was disappointed that you didn’t care to help.”

  Molly straightened in her seat, defensive. “It’s not that I don’t care. I offered to find him a lawyer.”

  “Joe wanted you. Said you could fix this. I don’t see how, but Joe was convinced. I was doubtful, like Leslie. Couldn’t figure out how Joe thought a lawyer like you would drop everything and come to the rescue.”

  “And you never put it together that I might be Molly Harris?”

  “No, I guess if I’d seen your picture, but I’ve been so busy trying to keep Joey out of trouble in jail, and with Joe dying, I haven’t had time to think about much else. Lots of people named Molly, so it didn’t register.”

  “Did he do it?”

  Brad understood the question. “No, I don’t think Joey stabbed his momma nineteen times. I think someone wants us to think he did.”

  “He was found on the scene, covered in blood, and defied the police, from what Leslie told me. He sounds guilty,” Molly said, processing the evidence as a jury would.

  Brad leaned back on his door. “Joey has Asperger’s, it’s an Autistic Spectrum Disorder.”

  Molly interrupted. “I have a former client with Asperger’s.”

  “Then you know how challenging social interaction can be for someone like Joey. Leslie’s been able to make real strides with him. He’s still awkward around strangers, but he’s so much better than he was. Joe and Cheryl couldn’t have been happier. It looked like things were going to work out so he could go to college, with Leslie’s help. He’s a computer genius.”

  Molly relaxed against the seat. “What are you not telling me?”

  “Joey’s eighteen and a specimen of manhood. He had so much energy, Joe started him lifting weights and running when he was in middle school. He’s strong as an ox and he’s been known to lose his temper, but only on walls, doors, trees, and such. Leslie says that’s out of frustration when he doesn’t understand something. Never put his hands on a human being or an animal in anger.”

  Molly’s eyebrows rose. “And yet he was found over his dead mother covered in blood.”

  “He found her with the knife sticking out of her chest. He reacted. He pulled the knife from her body just when the responding officer walked through the open front door. You can imagine what the officer thought. Joey dropped the knife as he was told, but he would not let the officers near the body, until Joe got there. Joey was confused, that’s all. He didn’t mean any harm. Joe calmed him down and I came along right after. It was a gruesome sight.”

  “There’s more to this, Brad,” Molly said. “You’re holding back something.”

  Brad’s mouth curled into a smile. “You always were smart. Yes, there is more to this. The knife used to kill Cheryl was the same type used and left at three other murders over the last year. There are other similarities to the victims and crime scenes. The investigators believe Joey is the serial killer they’ve been looking for. He’s being charged with four counts of capital murder.”

  Molly bit her bottom lip, a habit when she was processing. She sat across the table from sobbing grown men, who proclaimed their innocence until she bargained a lesser sentence, and then came clean about their crimes. It was true Molly never lost a murder trial, but she never made it to the courtroom with a blatantly guilty client. To her knowledge, Molly had never freed a guilty one either. Plea-bargaining was an art and Molly practiced it frequently with great skill. Guilty rich clients paid her to get them the best deal possible. Capital murder cases were long, drawn out, and time consuming. It would take the involvement of the whole criminal law division of her office. It surprised her that she was even considering it, but something about Brad’s manner was nagging at her. He knew something he was not telling.

  Molly continued to dig. “Can they put him at the other crime scenes?”

  Brad sat up, putting his coffee on the dash. He spoke while he opened his door. “Wait here, I need to show you something.”

  He pulled the trunk latch, stepped out, and walked to the back of the car. Molly felt and heard the trunk lid close. A few seconds later, Brad returned, holding a four-inch stack of folders. Molly assumed they were copies of Joey’s file, but when he handed it to her, she saw “Sarah Harris” printed on the edge of the top folder.

  “What is this?” Molly asked, almost afraid to look.

  “Molly, I went to see Joe last night. He knew he wasn’t long for this world. He was in and out of consciousness, but he told me some things. He told me where to find these files hidden in his garage. Then he said the strangest thing. ‘Sarah Harris was murdered and the same man killed Cheryl.’ He said the proof was in these files. I gotta tell you, I looked through them and I don’t see what he was talking about.”

  Molly stared down at the folders in her hand. “Is that all he said?”

  Brad scratched his chin. “Well, he did say one thing, but it didn’t make sense.”

  Molly raised her eyes back to Brad. “And what was that?”

  “He said it all started in 1983 with the fire. Would that be the fire Branch’s brother died in?”

  “I don’t know, Brad. I have no idea how Joe could connect that with his daughter’s murder, almost thirty years later.”

  “The last thing he said to me was, ‘Tell her the answer is in there.’ I assume he was talking about you.”

  Molly still did not open the files. “You never told me if they could connect Joey to the other victims.”

&nbs
p; Brad hesitated, and then gave the bad news. “All of the victims were employed by or were associated with customers of a single company, PBG. That stands for Programming by Genius. Joey is an employee of PBG, writing software programs for the military. Leslie got him the job.”

  Molly stated the obvious. “Oh, that’s not good.”

  “That was enough to convince them they had their man.”

  “His fingerprints were on the weapon that killed his mother, but not at the other crime scenes, I suspect.”

  Brad started talking excitedly. “Exactly, and no physical evidence that he was ever at the other scenes. He had opportunity, because Cheryl’s been working the graveyard shift since he got in high school. It paid better and Joe was home most nights, but he couldn’t swear to Joey being home, because he was taking pain medication that knocked him out. But Joey has no motive.”

  “Serial killers often have no motive that a normal person could understand,” Molly added.

  “I just don’t believe it, Molly. I don’t think that boy did this or the others.”

  Molly opened the top file. The first page was her mother’s toxicology report. Someone had circled a section in red. Molly could not read it in the dim light.

  “Hey, turn on the interior light for a second,” she told Brad.

  The light popped on and Molly refocused in the bright glare. She looked at what was circled, reading it once, and then again to be sure. She closed the file and looked at Brad.

  “I’ll take the case.”

  Brad was confused. “Why? What did you see?”

  “My mother was murdered and I know who did it. If Joe was right, he killed Cheryl too. The question is, what did he want from them and did he get it?”

  “Who, Molly?” Brad asked, nearly coming out of his seat.

  “Jarvis Branch.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “We bought it when we got married thirteen years ago,” Brad was saying, as he escorted Molly to her room in the bed and breakfast that he and his wife operated. “Foundation was laid in 1872. It was in really bad shape by the time we got it. Damn near rebuilt it from the ground up, took years, but Tammy’s happy with it. We stay pretty busy with courthouse traffic and tourists in the warm months.”

  “Guess you’re used to having homeless lawyers staying here,” Molly said, laughing.

  “Shoot, we’ve had lawyers here for months during murder trials. It’s a close walk to the courthouse and we give a law enforcement discount, even to defense attorneys.”

  Brad jabbed her gently with an elbow to the shoulder, chuckling, just like when they were kids. He opened the door of the third story bedroom at the top of the stairs. Molly stepped through the door, a smile broadening on her face. At one end of the room, a spiral staircase led up to the tower that rose out of the steeply pitched irregular roof. Young Molly would stand on the street and gaze up at this old Queen Anne house, dreaming of what it would be like to have a tower to play in. Only princesses had houses like that. Molly was a street urchin. She could only see from the outside what the life of the privileged must have been like. Now, Molly knew the lifestyle of the rich and famous very well. Still, when she saw the tower stairs, the little street urchin returned.

  “May I go up there?” She asked Brad.

  “Sure, it’s all been redone. I like to go up and look out at the lights at night or read on a quiet Sunday.”

  Brad placed the towels and washcloths he was holding on the bed. Molly held on to the tee shirt and sweatpants his wife, Tammy, offered, since Molly had no clothes with her. She also had Joe’s stack of files.

  “The bathroom adjoins with the next bedroom, but there’s no one in there, so you don’t have to share. There are new toothbrushes, combs, deodorant, and stuff under the sink. You wouldn’t believe what folks forget to bring.”

  Molly chuckled. “Or forget to pack all together.”

  Brad laughed and then his expression changed. “Thank you, Molly. I know this is going to be hard on you, but if there is anything I can do to help, you just let me know.”

  Molly looked around the room. The bed was a reproduction, but tastefully decorated in Victorian blues to match the soft-pedaled blue flowers in the wallpaper. A roll top desk sat by the large bay window. She could make this space work. “Do you have Wi-Fi here?”

  That was not what Brad was expecting, but he answered. “Yeah, Joey helped me set up a network. The password is ‘dhouse,’ no space.”

  “Are you booked up? I only noticed two vehicles out back.”

  Brad looked confused. “No, you’re the only one here. That’s Tammy’s van and my old truck. I don’t think we have any other guest scheduled until the weekend.”

  “If you rented out every room at the regular rate, what would that be a day?” Molly was already making plans.

  “Depends on whether they eat here or not, but around seven hundred.”

  Molly turned to face him. “I’ll give you a thousand a day for the whole house. I might need access for a month or more. I hope not, but if so, you will need to send your reservations elsewhere. I’ll reimburse those people for their trouble, as well.”

  “Good Lord, Molly. Are you bringing an army?”

  Molly smiled. “Pretty close. At first, it will just be my partner and me, but this is a capital case times four. My associates and I will have to take apart each case, find the problems with the prosecution’s theories and, although we don’t have to prove innocence, it’s always nice to have an idea what really happened, or a plausible alternative. With luck, pretrial, we find enough to dismiss the case before a jury is ever seated. If not, that is a completely different set of things to prepare for. In addition, I’m going to try to have my mother’s case reopened. It takes a small army to handle a case like this and I’d like to house them here, where they’ll be safe.”

  Brad’s brow creased. “Well, I’ll have to talk to Tammy, but I can’t see her turning down steady income.”

  “Good,” Molly said, setting the files on the desk by the bay window and pulling back the curtain. She peered out the window and without turning around said, “I received an email telling me not to come back to Dobbs County. Someone doesn’t want me digging around in this mess. I need to know who knew Joe wanted to see me. I’m pretty sure Jarvis sent the email, but if he didn’t set Joey up, someone else did. Staying in a house with an armed police officer looks pretty good to me right now.”

  “We have an alarm system,” Brad said, trying to reassure her. “Nobody’s coming in here without me knowing and Tammy is a hell of a shot.”

  “That’s even better,” Molly said, turning around. “Well, I should let you get back to duty. When does your shift end?”

  He looked at his watch. “About fifteen minutes ago, it’s one-fifteen. I called in when we were on the way over here. I was the floater tonight anyway. Tuesdays aren’t usually very busy.”

  “Thank you, Brad, and tell Tammy thank you, too. I’ll see you in the morning. What time will I be able to see Joey? I’ll need to buy a clean set of clothes, until I have some brought down from Durham.”

  Brad started backing out of the room. “Go on and sleep till nine. Then Tammy will make you some breakfast and help you with the shopping. I’ll try to arrange to see Joey about noon. I’ll call Tammy when I know. Get some sleep, Molly.” He started toward the door, but then he stopped and turned around. “You’re going to have to tell me what happened in that fire. If I’m going to help you, you have to tell me the truth.”

  Molly felt her stomach turn over. She did not want to alienate the only ally she had. She took a step forward and in an attempt to distract him, pulled out the coin case. “I think this is what Jarvis is after. His brother thought my mother had something that belonged to him. That’s why he was beating her the day he died. She didn’t know I had it. Old Man Branch gave it to me and told me to hide it, and I did. I dug it up tonight.”

  Brad stepped closer, taking the case from her hand. He studied it carefully and
then handed it back. “I heard a legend about some gold buried to keep the Yankees from getting it. People say Old Man Branch’s granddaddy promised to hide quite a bit of gold for some fella from Charlotte. No one ever found it. Some say the Yankees took it. Others say that’s how the Branch family acquired so much power — money and guile. Old Man Branch was the only good one out of the whole bunch, they say.”

  “His sons cancelled out his goodness, then.” Molly was doubtful that the Branch brothers learned how to be so sadistic on their own.

  “His wife, Drusilla, she was the evil one from what I hear. Babied those boys and they could do no wrong. She was the old man’s second wife. Folks say she drove him into an early grave. Some say she poisoned him.”

  Molly felt her anger just below the surface. “It’s time one of the Branch boys paid for his crimes, Brad.”

  Brad nodded in agreement. “We’ll get him. We have Molly Kincaid on the case, and she doesn’t lose. Good night, and welcome home.”

  Brad closed the door behind him. Welcome home, yeah right. Welcome back to hell was more like it. Molly dropped the clothes on the bed, put the towels in the bathroom, and crossed to the spiral staircase. Climbing to the top of the tower, Molly found a sleeping Waitesville spread out before her. She walked in a circle, looking at the city of her birth. Pulling the phone out of her jacket pocket, Molly hit a speed dial number and waited for an answer.

  A sleepy voice finally croaked, “Hello.”

  “Randy, this is Molly.”

  “Molly? What’s wrong?”

  “I hate to do this, but I need you to go to my house and pack some things for me. I’ll email you a list of what I need.”

  Randy still was not getting it. “What? Where are you?”