False Cast: a small town murder mystery (Frank Bennett Adirondack Mountain Mystery Series Book 5)

by S. W. Hubbard

  “So you’re telling me he broke into Courtney’s house and he’s been hanging out there with some girl?” Pam’s knee jittered up and down. “How old is that Veech girl? Did she pick him up and drive him there?” Pam held her head in her hands and rocked. “Please God—I can’t cope with a grandchild on top of everything else.”

  “Olivia is only twelve. I don’t know why she’s with RJ. How do they know each other?”

  “They don’t. RJ never hangs around with girls. I’ve never even heard him mention Olivia.”

  “What about Olivia’s foster parents, Lucy and Edwin Bates?”

  Pam shook her head until her hair flew. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go get him.”

  Frank prepared himself to break the worst news. “Pam, Dennis Webber’s old truck has been stolen out of his barn. I think RJ has been using it to take supplies to Ronnie, and then returning it. But this time it’s been gone all night and day. RJ knows how to drive, right?”

  “Ronnie let him drive his truck on the dirt road that runs along the brook on our property. Never out on the road.” Pam’s eyes opened wide and she lunged to get out of the patrol car. “Oh my God! I can’t believe RJ is helping Ronnie.”

  Frank pulled her back into the passenger seat and steered the patrol car around Pam’s SUV. “Ronnie kept supplies in your barn, right? Let’s go see what’s missing.”

  Frank pulled open the big barn door, revealing a dim, dusty interior. He pulled out his flashlight: ATV, lawn tractor, workbench, tools. He turned to face the long, western wall: cans, floor to ceiling. Tuna, beans, vegetable, fruit, soup, coffee—a fortress of non-perishables..

  “Holy crap! How long did it take him to get all that?”

  Pam sighed. “About a year. He’d drive all over looking for sales and dollar stores.”

  Frank ran the flashlight beam methodically across the shelves. The products were arranged by category, and Frank noticed holes where cans had been removed: tuna, applesauce, peaches, baked beans, and finally, Teddy Grahams. He heard a sharp intake of breath from Pam when his beam rested on that spot.

  Frank turned again and his beam fell on something else. The tower of cardboard boxes that had been in Pam’s hallway on his first visit had been moved out here. Now, a green logo printed on the side of each box faced him. He opened the top box.

  VitaVine.

  Frank took Pam back to her house and made her promise to stay put.

  “We’ve got an APB out on the truck. RJ can’t drive it for long without being spotted. Now, tell me—is there a spot where Ronnie and RJ might meet up? A favorite hunting or fishing location maybe?”

  Pam cradled her head in her hands. “I don’t know. I never paid much attention to where they went. I should have.”

  “What about this VitaVine stuff? How did Ronnie get involved in that?”

  “What does it matter?” Pam snapped. “It was one of his crazy money-making schemes. Ronnie was going to solve all our problems by becoming the vitamin king of the North Country. Ha!”

  “But who recruited him?” Frank pressed. “It could be important.”

  Pam met his gaze. Her pretty green eyes were rimmed with red but they didn’t blink. “I honestly don’t know.”

  Frank believed her.

  Chapter 39

  “Ronnie…someone in Keeseville…Anita…RJ and Olivia—there are too many connections for a coincidence,” Frank said to Earl. “In between looking for that truck, I want to find out more about this VitaVine network.”

  Earl was already clattering on his keyboard. “It’s a nationwide company headquartered in Wisconsin. Privately held, but they reported twenty million in sales last year. Testimonials from satisfied customers….hmmm…’helped me recover from cancer’…’cured my depression’…’I am no longer insulin-dependent.’

  “Amazing. Does it raise the dead?”

  “Only if you take all seven of the products at once.” Earl kept tapping. “There’s a whole thread devoted to it on Reddit. ‘Does it work?...Yes, it’s amazing…No, it’s crap.’ It goes on like that for pages.”

  “Someone donated a basket of it to the Library Luau.” Frank pulled out his phone and called Penny.

  “Who donated the VitaVine?”

  “Huh? What are you talking about?”

  “To the Luau. Who gave that basket of pills that no one bid on?”

  “Let me check my records. It’s certainly not something I solicited, but once word of the Tricky Tray got out, people started dropping off donations unasked. It might have come in when one of the volunteers was manning the front desk.” Frank could hear his wife scrambling through papers on her cluttered desk. “Here it is.”

  Long silence. “Oh my!”

  “What? Who donated it?”

  “Nancy Tomlinson.”

  Earl had never asked his mother or aunt where they’d gone to the VitaVine party. When he made the call, his mom confirmed that Nancy Tomlinson had been the hostess.

  “What’s the likelihood that Nancy will talk to us about VitaVine?” Frank asked Earl.

  “Slim to none. Meyerson told her she didn’t have to answer your questions.”

  Earl thought for a moment then a sly grin spread across his face. “How about if my Aunt Sheila calls her and says she’s interested in selling VitaVine and wants more information? I could tell her what to ask.”

  “You think she can pull it off?”

  “Oh, yeah. Sheila can really keep a straight face. She’s the family champion at Fictionary. I’ll get her prepped tonight.”

  The next morning, Doris came into Frank’s office and stood behind his desk, craning her neck to look out the window. “It’s so miserable out there. My niece Shelly is getting married tomorrow at noon. I told my sister that April isn’t the best month for a wedding in the Adirondacks. But no one listens to me.”

  Undeniably true. Frank kept typing.

  “Do you think it’s going to rain tomorrow? Will it be any warmer than today?”

  “You can’t predict tomorrow’s weather by looking out the window today,” Frank said. Hell, in the Adirondacks, you couldn’t predict the next hour’s weather by looking out the window.

  “I just wish I knew whether I’m going to need a coat. And if I’m going to be able to wear my open-toed shoes.”

  Frank tried taking a yoga breath, as Penny recommended. “Why don’t you go on weather dot com and see what they have to say.”

  “Earl usually helps me with that. But it’s okay—I can see you’re busy.”

  In his rational mind, Frank knew that Doris didn’t lie in bed at night plotting ways to aggravate him, but it sure seemed to be so. “Doris, Earl’s Great Grandma Gert is on Facebook and she’s nearly a hundred. You can Google for the weather.”

  “Oh, I don’t want to mess up Earl’s computer. I’ll wait. He should be back from the morning patrol soon.”

  Frank pulled his cellphone from his pocket and handed it to Doris. “Just press the sun picture and the weather report will pop up.”

  Doris plopped into a chair with the smartphone in her hand, as mesmerized as a toddler. “Look at that—they have the hour-by-hour forecast.” She began to recite the likelihood of rain and the temperature for every moment of the wedding day. Luckily, Penny arrived before Doris got to the reception outlook.

  “C’mon, Frank—I can’t take more than half an hour for lunch.”

  Frank grabbed his coat and headed for the door.

  “Wait, your phone! I’m almost done. Just let me see what it says—”

  “Keep it, Doris. I’ll be back by one.”

  As Penny returned Frank to the town office after lunch, they saw Doris out on the front walk, looking up and down. “Good Lord, is she still trying to read the clouds?” Frank said.

  He opened the car door and Doris charged toward him, a panicked mare running without regard to rocks, or ditches, or fences. “There you are!” She stumbled, and Frank lunged to steady her. “I couldn’t reach you because I ha
d your phone. And you weren’t at the diner.”

  Couldn’t the department get along without him for half an hour? “Isn’t Earl here?”

  “That’s what I needed to tell you. Olivia and RJ have been spotted in a cabin on the old logging road that leads to Sunfish Pond. Earl went over there by himself. I told him to wait for you, but he wouldn’t listen. I called the state police for backup, but the trooper is clear over by Schroon Lake.”

  Of course, Earl wouldn’t have risked missing Olivia a second time. He’d done the right thing, and, for once, so had Doris.

  “Here.” Doris thrust his keys and his phone into his hands. “It’s the cabin with the green roof. Go!”

  Frank headed toward his truck as Doris chattered behind him. “And she called, but she was so wound up I couldn’t make heads or tails or what she was saying, and I said are you sure, and she said…”

  Why was she still carrying on like this when everything was under control? Frank slid behind the wheel of the truck. “Who saw the kids? Who called it in?”

  “Pam. Pam Gatrell. RJ called her. The kids are out there with Ronnie.”

  Frank slapped the portable blue light on the roof of his truck and raced to toward Sunfish Pond. He had sped off so quickly he hadn’t asked Doris how long ago Earl had headed out. Frank hoped, prayed, that he was only a few minutes behind Earl.

  What was Ronnie intending to do with the kids? Was he planning another hostage showdown as a political statement? Surely he wouldn’t hurt his own son?

  John Brown’s last stand popped into Frank’s mind. The zealot hadn’t seemed to regret that he’d led his sons to their death in the raid on Harper’s Ferry.

  Frank’s foot pressed harder on the accelerator.

  He radioed Earl and got no response. Fished out his cell phone and called, but the call immediately rolled to voicemail. Of course there was no cell coverage out there. Whatever was happening, Frank would dive into it blind. Ronnie was armed. Earl wouldn’t talk him into dropping his weapon this time. Ronnie had his short taste of imprisonment. Frank knew the man wouldn’t go back. Maybe this time he would force their hands, demand to be shot so he could go down in a blaze of glory, resisting the tyrannical police. What headlines that would inspire! “Cops Shoot Man Who Resisted Bank Takeover of His Land.”

  And what if it came down to a gun battle between Ronnie and Earl? Would Earl be able to kill a man to save his own life? Earl had been wearing a badge for barely a month. He shouldn’t have to make that choice.

  He sped past the OK Café and the bait and tackle shop on the way to Sunfish Pond. As the road twisted, he caught glimpses of Stony Creek, high with the winter melt, rushing furiously toward the Verona Bridge, the bridge it had taken out during the Hurricane Irene flood. If only he understood Ronnie’s endgame. How had the kids ended up with him? Why was RJ bringing him the truck now? He could have smuggled it to his father right after the escape. Why wait? Frank wished he’d had the time to talk to Pam, but that wish was futile.

  A quarter mile from the old logging road, Frank killed the blue light. He jolted down the gravel road for a mile, and then pulled onto the shoulder when he spied the sun glinting off the taillights of patrol car between the trees ahead. He slipped through the woods, keeping the car in his sights.

  But as he crept closer, he could see the patrol car was empty. Where was Earl?

  A shot reverberated through the forest. A rifle shot, not the sound of a nine-millimeter.

  Ronnie, not Earl.

  He heard footsteps crashing through the underbrush, gaining speed as the runner drew closer. Ducking behind a large boulder, Frank drew his weapon and kept it trained on the spot where the runner would emerge. Ronnie was armed, and Frank knew he would have only a split second to decide whether or not to shoot.

  A figure raced into the clearing. Frank’s finger tensed on the trigger.

  “Stop! Drop your weapon or I’ll shoot!”

  The runner spun around, eyes wide with fear.

  Olivia.

  Frank lowered his trembling arm. They stared at each, too stunned to speak. Then Olivia ran to him and flung her arms around his neck. He hugged her, but there was no time to offer solace. He didn’t know who was behind Olivia. Ronnie might still spring on them.

  Frank pressed Olivia’s face into his shoulder to hush her and listened. He didn’t hear more footsteps, only the pounding of Olivia’s heart.

  “You’re safe now, Olivia. But you have to help me. Where are RJ and Ronnie? Have you seen Earl?”

  “RJ is with his dad in the cabin. Earl is in the woods.” Olivia took a shuddering breath and wiped her nose with her sleeve. “When Ronnie was looking out the window trying to shoot at Earl, I ducked out the back door and ran as fast as I could.”

  “Where is RJ?”

  Olivia’s eyes filled with tears. “He’s helping his dad. He won’t leave him.”

  “How far away is the cabin?”

  Olivia shrugged. “I just ran toward the woods. I didn’t know where I was going.”

  An arrow of fear stabbed Frank’s heart. Why had Earl not returned fire? Was he worried about hitting RJ? Or had he himself been hit? One part of Frank longed to put Olivia in the truck and drive her to safety. But he couldn’t risk leaving Earl here without back-up. Who knew when the state troopers would arrive?

  He pulled Olivia back through the woods to his truck. “I want you to crouch down under the dashboard and stay there. Don’t look out the window, you understand? I’m locking you in.”

  She nodded.

  Muttering something between a curse and a prayer, Frank yanked open the car door and pushed Olivia out of sight.

  As he stepped back to slam the door, he heard a sound from the cowering ball on the floor of the truck. “What did you say, honey?”

  She hid her head between her knees. Frank strained to hear her words.

  “I want my Daddy.”

  Frank bushwhacked through the woods as silently as he could. The quiet oppressed him. No more gunshots, but also no shouting, no movement.

  Soon he found a path that led uphill and hesitated. He didn’t think this was the way Olivia had come. But maybe the path led to a ridge that overlooked the cabin. Then he could get a wide-angle view of the scene. He climbed quickly toward a bright area where the trees thinned out.

  The path ended in a big rock outcropping. Frank flattened himself on the ground and crawled out to the edge. Thirty feet below him lay the cabin with the green roof. The patrol car stood in the drive leading up to it.

  He pulled out the lightweight binoculars he’d strapped to his belt. First he scanned the car: empty.

  Where was Earl?

  The cabin appeared closed up, but then he focused on the right front window. Something protruded from under the sash.

  The barrel of Ronnie’s rifle. Frank followed the direction it was pointed. He panned across the small clearing that surrounded the house and into the woods, training the binoculars on the dense green trees. Leaves. Branches. Trunks. Rocks.

  Where the hell was Earl?

  Then as he strained to focus, he thought he detected a movement. A low limb trembled. Some leaves closer to him shook. There was another outcropping like this, a little lower down between Frank and the movement.

  Was it Earl moving through the woods to get there? Or was the movement simply a chipmunk or a grouse?

  Suddenly a flash of light in his peripheral vision and an explosion of rifle fire. The branch he’d been watching splintered and fell.

  Frank scrambled back from the edge of the overlook and took cover behind a boulder. “Earl! Are you hurt?”

  In response, Earl shouted to Ronnie. “Send the kids out, Ronnie. My back-up is here.”

  “Good! Then I can kill more cops. End the government dictatorship.”

  Ronnie was coming totally unhinged. His money problems were a distant memory. Now he was on a bigger crusade, seeing himself as some kind of misguided freedom fighter. Earl would never talk him
down this time.

  “You don’t want your son and Olivia to get hurt,” Earl continued.

  Another rifle shot was the only reply.

  The lower ridge between him and Earl offered a good angle to attempt a shot into the cabin window. Earl appeared to be moving in that direction. Frank decided to meet him there.

  He crept cautiously down the trail, trying not to create any movement that would draw Ronnie’s gunfire. Clearly, Earl was unaware that Olivia had escaped. Had Ronnie realized it? Would her departure infuriate him? Or make him and RJ more willing to go down together as martyrs?

  “Show me Olivia, Ronnie. Let me see she’s okay,” Earl called.

  Frank cringed. Don’t ask that.

  His voice was closer. They were certainly converging on the same spot. Frank wanted to call out to Earl, but didn’t want to give away their location.

  A shout of anger from inside the cabin.

  Shit! Ronnie must’ve discovered Olivia’s absence.

  “I’m going to kill you!” Ronnie screamed. “Why weren’t you watching her? Can’t I trust you to do one thing right?” A crash, like the sound of the cabin door slamming.

  The situation was unraveling fast. No time for negotiating now.

  Frank drew his weapon and rerouted, crashing through the underbrush to get a view of what was happening. He broke through just as Earl appeared on the open ledge, just a few feet away as the crow flies.

  But Frank wasn’t a crow.

  Ronnie was out on the cabin porch, holding RJ in a chokehold with his powerful left arm. The rifle was tucked under his right arm, pointed in Earl’s direction, but hardly aimed.