Joanna nodded and wiped tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I don’t know what Meredith will do without Cam. The newspaper’s out of money. She can’t keep it going by herself, that’s for sure. And Cam was her only family here, she’ll be alone now. Lindsay has her own life in Roanoke.”
Lindsay. The Taylors’ daughter. Cam’s death would bring her back to Mason County. Rachel quickly stifled the apprehension the thought stirred up. She couldn’t expect Tom to go the rest of his life without ever encountering his ex-girlfriend. He might be seeing a lot of her in the course of the murder investigation. Rachel wouldn’t let herself get tied in knots over it.
A distant look had come into Joanna’s eyes, as if long past events were playing out in her memory. “I’ll never forget the day we all came here. Five of us, four girls and Cam. We trained for VISTA together, and we rode into Mason County on a Trailways bus, ready to shake things up and free the people from the shackles of poverty. Volunteers in Service to America—it sounded so grand, and we thought a few weeks of training in Washington had given us all the answers to Appalachia’s problems.”
“You were awfully young to be saving the world,” Rachel said.
Joanna’s little laugh sounded sad, self-mocking. “Lord, what children we were. Hopelessly naive. One of the girls bailed within a month, just couldn’t hack it. And I quit and got married way before my year was up. But Cam and Meredith managed to hold onto some of their idealism.” Tears filled Joanna’s eyes again as she added, “Oh, lord, I feel like a great big chunk of my own history just died.”
“I’m so sorry,” Rachel said.
Joanna drew a deep breath and wiped her eyes. “Who could have done this?”
“I’m really worried that—” Rachel started, then broke off.
“Worried about what, sweetie?”
“I’m afraid Tom’s going to zero in on Ben, just because they had an argument this morning.”
Rachel expected Joanna to scoff at the idea of Ben as a killer. Instead, she sighed and said, “Well, it’s always a bad idea to fight with somebody who’s going to get murdered the same day.”
Chapter Four
“So what do you think?” Brandon asked on the drive out to see Meredith Taylor. “Did Ben Hern kill him?”
Passing the entrance to his own small sheep farm, Tom realized he wouldn’t get his western boundary fence repaired this weekend after all. And he wouldn’t spend much time with Rachel or his nephew Simon until he arrested Cam Taylor’s killer. “We don’t have any evidence against Hern or anybody else at this point,” he told Brandon. “Let’s not jump to conclusions.”
Brandon, still young and green enough to get excited about a murder case, had been jumping from one conclusion to another since they got in the car. “Well, what about the county supervisors?” he persisted. “Taylor ticked off all of them at one time or another, didn’t he? He wrote that story in the paper about Cochran using county property to build his new deck. And he accused Charlie Baier of giving county contracts to his brother-in-law, and he wrote about Ralph—”
“I’ve already got Dennis looking into all that,” Tom said. “The trouble is, it’s been about a year since the last of those stories ran in the paper, and none of the supervisors suffered any real damage. Nobody was paying attention to Cam’s muckraking anymore except his diehard supporters. Besides, I can personally alibi every one of the supervisors. I was at their meeting this morning, trying to talk them into buying the department a new radio system. That’s where I was when I got called out about the shooting.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s right. Well, maybe one of them hired a killer, or got a relative to take Taylor out. People can hold grudges a long time. And what about his wife? She might’ve done it, or got somebody to do it.”
“Let’s hear what she has to say, and see how she reacts to the news.” Tom knew he couldn’t write Meredith Taylor off as a suspect, but he doubted she was involved. “I think she’s going to take it hard. She’s always been…I guess fragile is the word. High-strung, sensitive.”
“My mom really admires her,” Brandon said. “You know, because she tutors kids and teaches grownups how to read and won’t let anybody pay her. Mom says she won’t even take eggs from people that keep chickens.” He paused, then added, “You dated their daughter, right?”
“Yeah,” Tom said, “in high school. Meredith used to come to the home games with Lindsay when I was captain of the basketball team. I’d see them up in the stands, and every time I scored, Meredith jumped up and down and screamed louder than anybody else in the place.”
“But I thought it was kinda recent that you were dating the daughter. Like last year.”
“We got back together for a while.” One of the most ill-considered moves of his life, and not one Tom wanted to discuss with the junior deputy. “I’ve always been friendly with Meredith, but Cam was hard to warm up to. The man didn’t know how to relax. I don’t think he ever did anything just for fun. He was always working on something, one of his community projects or a story for the paper. I think he felt like he couldn’t slow down for a second, he had to keep trying to make a difference.”
“Mrs. Taylor sure gave up a lot to stay here with him,” Brandon said. “I mean, her family’s rich, her dad’s a Senator—”
“Was. Senator Abbott died of a stroke last year.” Tom turned onto the secondary road that would take them to the Taylor house. This was a hilly area with few places level enough to build on. Trees climbed the mountains on both sides of the pavement. “Meredith actually takes a pretty dim view of the way her family lives. They made a fortune in high-end real estate development up in New York. I’ve heard Meredith say that if she had their money, she’d give it all away.”
As long as Tom had known them, the Taylors had occupied a simple five-room clapboard house—chronically in need of paint—on a quarter acre of land, with a goat pen and a vegetable garden taking up the back yard.
“So she doesn’t get any money from her family?” Brandon asked. “She didn’t inherit anything when her dad died?”
“Not that I know of.” Tom was reluctant to pass on personal details that he knew about only because he’d been close to the Taylors’ daughter, but Brandon was part of the investigation and would sooner or later have to hear everything that might be relevant. “Her parents cut her off financially when she married Cam and decided to stay here.”
“Trying to make her change her mind?”
Tom swerved to avoid a big chunk of rock that had rolled down onto the pavement from the hillside. “I guess so. Obviously it didn’t work.”
“So where’d they get the money to buy a newspaper?”
“Meredith’s aunt gave it to them. Gave it to Meredith, I ought to say. A lot of people don’t realize that the paper is in Meredith’s name only.”
“No kidding? Hunh. Her husband always acted like it was his baby.” Brandon snorted. “I’ll bet you anything Taylor married the Senator’s daughter thinking he was gonna be set for life.”
Tom shook his head. “No, you don’t understand Cam. He could rant and rave about the inequitable distribution of wealth until your eyes glazed over, and he wasn’t interested in getting rich himself.” Tom glanced at Brandon and grinned. “You think it’s wrong to marry a woman with money? Have you broken that news to Holly?”
Brandon sighed like a man with a heavy burden to bear. “I tell you, that inheritance is gonna cause more trouble than it’s worth. Everybody in the world’s lining up to get some of it. A new park, a new wing on the hospital, a new library. And Cam Taylor was after her too. If Holly paid for everything people are asking her to, she wouldn’t have a penny left. But I made her promise not to let anybody talk her into anything.”
“Good. Don’t let her waste—Jesus Christ, look at that.” Up ahead, a plume of smoke rose above the hills. “This is all we need, a forest fire on top of a murder. Call it in, will you?”
While Br
andon struggled to get a signal on the radio, Tom accelerated, the cruiser’s tires squealing on the sharp twists and turns. He lowered his window and sniffed. The tang of smoke in the air was almost pleasant, not yet overpowering. Maybe the fire was confined to one small area and they could catch it in time. “Can’t you get through?”
“No signal.” Brandon clicked the call button on the handset repeatedly, but they were hemmed in by mountains on both sides and all he raised was static. Abandoning the effort, he dug his cell phone out of his shirt pocket and pressed a button. “No cell signal either.”
“We’ll use a land line at the Taylor house,” Tom said. “We’ll be there in two minutes.”
The clapboard house of the Taylors’ nearest neighbor came into view on the left. Now that they were closer, Tom realized the smoke was rising above the patch of woods between the two properties.
Brandon leaned forward to take a better look. “I don’t think it’s the woods on fire. It’s something up ahead.”
Tom already knew, with a sick certainty, what was burning just out of sight. He sped past the trees, and there it was. Smoke billowed from the rear of the Taylors’ house.
Tom swung the car to the side of the road and jolted to a stop.
Meredith’s old Plymouth Reliant sat in the gravel driveway, but she was nowhere in sight.
“You think she’s still in the house?” Brandon said.
“If she is—” Tom didn’t finish the thought. He released his seat belt, jumped out and broke into a run. “Keep trying the radio!” he called back to Brandon.
“Captain!” Brandon yelled after him. “You can’t go in there!”
Tom halted twenty feet from the house, his gaze raking the front windows, searching for a face. He saw nothing but gray smoke beyond the glass. He darted around to the back. Smoke spewed from open windows and swirled into the sky. The kitchen door was a solid sheet of fire.
In their pen, half a dozen goats bleated in panic and banged their hooves against the chain link fence.
Tom raced around to the front of the house, up the steps and onto the porch. He grabbed the doorknob, praying the door wasn’t locked. It was. Tom beat on it with his palms, yelling, “Mrs. Taylor! You in there? Meredith!”
Brandon charged up the steps. “I finally got through on the radio. Firetruck’s coming.”
“There’s no way they’ll get here in time to save the house.” Tom could hear the old, dry wood crackle and pop as flames ate into it. “The whole damned thing’s going to come down. But if she’s in there—I have to go in.”
“Captain, I don’t think—”
“Stand back.” When Brandon hesitated, Tom barked, “That was an order, deputy. Get down in the yard.”
“Look, boss, you can’t—”
Tom slammed his booted foot against the door. With a loud crack, the wood splintered and part of the door collapsed inward. Smoke poured out, enveloping him. Coughing, Tom kicked at the rest of the door until he had a big enough opening, then he stooped and edged through it.
Smoke stung his eyes and throat and nostrils, and sweat poured down his face. He dragged a handkerchief from a pocket and swiped the perspiration out of his eyes, then clamped the cloth over his nose and mouth. No fire in the front room yet, but the smoke was so dense he couldn’t make out the furniture. Toward the rear of the house, leaping flames flashed red and yellow through the murk.
Tom dropped to his knees and crawled a few feet into the room, using one hand while holding the handkerchief over his face with the other. His shoulder slammed against something hard and a spear of pain shot down his arm. Tears streamed from his burning eyes. He could barely see the outline of the coffee table he’d collided with.
He uncovered his face long enough to yell, “Meredith! Where are—” A new odor clogged his nostrils and made him gag. The stench of burning flesh.
“Captain, get out of there!” Brandon called from the porch.
It was too late. If Meredith was in one of the back rooms, she wasn’t alive anymore. And he couldn’t go blindly into a wall of fire. He had no choice but to retreat.
I’m sorry, Tom thought, envisioning the pretty blond woman who’d cheered for him at basketball games and made hot chocolate for him and her daughter afterward. I’m so damned sorry.
***
Tom was standing in the road with Brandon, watching flames devour the house, when a voice from behind startled him. “Well, I guess I won’t have to put up with them no more.”
Tom and Brandon swung around. An old badger of a man, low-slung and square-bodied, leaned on a cane and observed the burning house. Satisfaction showed in his little smile and the crinkles of amusement around his eyes.
“Lloyd,” Tom said in acknowledgment. “You think this is a good thing?”
Lloyd Wilson’s smile broadened. “Good for me. Damned glad to see it.”
“That’s a callous attitude, even for the likes of you.”
Anger lit Wilson’s cloudy brown eyes. “Don’t preach to me, boy.”
Tom stepped closer and leaned into the man’s face. “Did you just call me boy?”
Wilson shuffled backward a couple of feet, scrubbing a hand over his mouth. “I didn’t mean nothin’ by it. Your color don’t matter to me.” He added in a mumble, “You know what it’s been like between me and the Taylors.”
“I know you’re always wasting our time, calling deputies out here to deal with crazy little stuff. Crap that reasonable people could handle just by sitting down and talking.”
“Ain’t no talkin’ to Cam Taylor! Thinks he always knows what’s right, he’s gotta teach the rest of us how to live. Well, good riddance to him. And them damn stinky goats and that yappin’ dog too.”
Tom studied Wilson for a moment. “What makes you think you’re rid of Cam?”
Wilson flung a hand toward the house. “He can’t come back here to live, can he? Look at it. Roof’s goin’ now.”
Tom turned to see the tin roof melting, sagging. With a last whoosh the rear wall of the house collapsed in a shower of sparks. A second later the front and side walls crumpled, forcing out a gust of hot, smoky air that Tom felt on his face a hundred feet away. What remained of the roof settled over the wreckage like a twisted shroud.
If we’d gotten here ten minutes earlier, five minutes—
He looked at Lloyd Wilson. “You wouldn’t happen to know how this fire started, would you?”
Wilson drew back. “What the hell you accusin’ me of?”
“Just answer me.”
“Don’t you go claimin’ I set that fire.”
“I’m starting to wonder,” Tom said. “You’ve been telling me how glad you are to be rid of the Taylors.”
“You little snot!” Wilson slashed the air with his cane, making Tom flinch to avoid a whack in the head. “I ain’t gonna stand here and let you accuse me of god knows what all.”
With a huff, Wilson pivoted and limped off down the road to his own place on the other side of the woods.
“What do you think, boss?” Brandon asked as they watched him go. “Would he set somebody’s house on fire?”
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Tom said. “When my dad was in this job, he was always after Lloyd for one thing or another.”
“Her husband being murdered, though—you think the old man could’ve done that too?”
“I don’t know what to think at this point,” Tom said. “It’s always possible the fire has nothing to do with Cam’s death. And it’s possible Meredith isn’t in the house.”
But the sick knot in his gut told him he was looking at phase two of a premeditated double murder.
“He said the Taylors have a dog,” Brandon said. “You think it was in the house?”
“No idea,” Tom said. “If it’s still alive, it might be scared and hiding. Why don’t you walk around in the woods and see if you can find it?”
Before the fire truck with an onboard
water tank arrived, the remains of the roof had smothered most of the flames. The six volunteer firefighters climbed down from the truck and stood with Tom, watching the glowing embers. In the back yard pen the goats bleated and bawled, probably more hungry than scared now. Brandon returned, without the dog.
“Fire’s dying out by itself,” said the crew’s captain, a middle-aged man with a day’s growth of stubble. “But we’ll douse it so you can get in there and look for a body.”
While the firefighters emptied their water tank on the wreckage, Tom found a bag of goat feed in the shed next to their pen and fed the animals. If Lindsay had lost both parents in one day, he thought, how the hell would he find the words to tell her?
By the time the site had cooled, the county fire chief had shown up to take charge. Tom and the chief used a couple of two-by-fours they found in the shed to lift sections of the melted roof. The nauseating odor of seared flesh grew stronger as they peeled away layers of wreckage. In the area that had been the kitchen, where charred appliances and a wood-burning iron stove still stood, they found what they were looking for.
Her hair was gone, all of her skin and much of her flesh had burned away, and the body had contracted into a fetal position as the fire desiccated the muscles. But the overall size of the remains told Tom this was the corpse of a woman.
Crunching debris underfoot, he moved in for a closer look. The front of the skull, the cheekbones, the jaw had been smashed to fragments.
“The fire didn’t do this,” Tom said. “She was murdered before the fire started.”
Chapter Five
Tom sucked in a deep breath and lifted the receiver of his desk phone. He stared at it a moment, imagining Lindsay’s reaction to his gut-wrenching news. How the hell could he drop a bomb like this over the phone? He lowered the receiver back into its cradle.
She had to be told, and quickly. In the time it would take him to drive to Roanoke to talk to her in person, some coworker at the western regional headquarters of the Virginia Crime Lab would make sure she heard that two bodies with her last name were coming in from her home county.
Broken Places Page 4