Annette Dashofy - Zoe Chambers 03 - Bridges Burned (12 page)

Twelve

Wayne Baronick showed up at the Vance Township Police Station a few minutes after five. Pete gathered the county detective and Officer Kevin Piacenza, who had Friday’s four-to-midnight shift, into the conference room to share and compare notes from the day.

Pete settled into a chair at the end of the long table, his notebook and a cup of coffee in front of him. “Did you find out anything about the Farabees?”

Baronick pulled his phone from a pocket. “You should be answering that question, since he’d moved to friendlier digs by the time I got to the motel.”

Pete noticed the puzzled look on Kevin’s face, but his officer knew enough to keep his mouth shut. “Are you telling me you didn’t accomplish anything this afternoon?” Pete growled.

Baronick chuckled. “You know me better than that.” He clicked his phone’s screen and read from his notes. “Holt and Lillian Farabee were married twelve years ago in Ashland, Kentucky. Her parents are both deceased. His mother and father are still living in that area. I tracked down their phone number and reached the old man, but he basically told me to get lost. Only not in that nice of terms. Said he hadn’t spoken to his son since shortly after the wedding. He’s never even seen his granddaughter and didn’t sound like he cared to, either.”

“Nice guy,” Pete muttered.

“Not from the sound of it. When I told him about his daughter-in-law’s death, he didn’t seem to care one way or the other. Nor did he care where his son and granddaughter were right now. He had no idea where they’d lived after they moved from Kentucky.” Baronick tapped the screen again. “I, however, found out anyway.”

Pete had no doubt. Baronick might be as annoying as hell most of the time, but he was a go-getter.

“Holt and Lillian Farabee moved from Ashland to Columbus, Ohio, which is where their only child was born. They bounced around to a half dozen locations in Ohio and Indiana, following big construction jobs, before moving to Monongahela County four years ago. He’s worked on a handful of building projects here and in Allegheny County, some big, some small.”

“What about the wife?”

Baronick scrolled through his notes. “She must have been a stay-at-home mom for a while because I couldn’t find any employment records on her until they moved here. She worked as a secretary for the Monongahela Technical Institute until two years ago when she got laid off. Since then, she’s had a few part time gigs at different shops in the mall. Nothing substantial or long-term. And I couldn’t find anything at all in the last seven months.”

Pete tapped his pen on his notebook. “Check the Home Depot in Brunswick.”

“Oh?” Baronick shifted in his chair. “Why?”

“According to Farabee, his wife had a job interview there the morning of the explosion, and they’d hired her.”

Baronick tapped out a note on his phone. “Learn anything else from him?”

Pete briefed the detective and Kevin on his interview with the grieving husband—leaving out any reference to Zoe.

“So he has no alibi for the time of the explosion,” Kevin said.

Pete shrugged. “Even if he had met with someone, he was still the last person to leave the house. He had plenty of time to disconnect the dryer and open the valve after his wife left.”

“And he had the know-how,” Baronick added. “Although it doesn’t necessarily take a skilled plumber or carpenter.”

Scowling, Kevin rubbed his chin. “But why kill his wife?”

Pete thought of Farabee’s slip-up.
We would have gotten through this.
“I have a feeling there was a lot of strain between them over money.”

“But a lot of couples fight over money,” Kevin said. “They don’t generally kill each other, though.”

“True.” But Farabee was hiding something, possibly flat-out lying, where his wife was concerned. Pete would bet his career on it. He was already betting his relationship with Zoe on it. “Dig around,” he said to both men. “I want to know what kind of marriage Holt and Lillian Farabee had and if anything had changed recently.” Pete aimed his pen at Baronick. “And see what you can find out about insurance.”

The detective tapped out a note on his phone. “If Farabee had a nice-sized policy on the wife, it could solve all his money troubles.”

“Check his homeowner’s policy, too.”

“But they’d been evicted,” Kevin said. “Would the policy still be in effect?”

Baronick rubbed his nose. “I’ll find out. What about the neighbor who lied about knowing they were occupying the house? Tierney?”

“He wasn’t home yet. According to his work voicemail, he’ll be back at his desk on Monday. I’m going to keep checking at his house every time I go past.” Pete pointed at Kevin. “If you see anyone around when you’re on patrol, call me. And brief Seth when he comes on duty, too.”

“Roger that, Chief.”

The police radios on Pete’s and Kevin’s duty belts squawked. Kevin quickly turned the volume on his down so they wouldn’t be faced with stereo transmissions. “Vance Base, this is Mon Dispatch.”

Nancy had left for the day, so Pete keyed his mic. “Dispatch, this is Vance Unit Thirty.”

“Unit Thirty, respond to a traffic collision with injuries. Thirteen forty-eight Phillipsburg Road.”

Good thing Nancy wasn’t there. “Ten-four, Dispatch. Units Thirty and Thirty-one responding.”

Kevin was on his feet even before Pete. “Isn’t that…?”

“Yeah,” Pete growled.

Baronick remained seated. “Someone you know?”

“I hope not. But we’re familiar with the address. It belongs to my secretary’s parents.” Pete followed Kevin out the door, calling back over his shoulder, “And there’s been an ongoing argument about hedges.”

Hot water was a marvelous thing, even when the temperatures outside sizzled. Hair damp, but the rest of her clean and dressed in a fresh uniform, Zoe stepped out of the crew shower room at the Monongahela County EMS and nearly collided with her partner.

“I was just about to knock and ask how long you were gonna be.” Earl Kolter crooked a finger at her. “We’re up.”

She jogged after him, through the front office and into the garage, grabbing her ball cap from the peg on the wall. “What have we got?”

Earl circled around to the driver’s side of Medic Two. “Traffic accident with injuries.”

She leaped into the passenger seat, and Earl tossed her the note with the address so she could start filling out a run report. As the ambulance rocked out of the bay and onto Main Street, Zoe grabbed the mic. “Control, this is Medic Two. We’re en route to…” She checked the note. “…thirteen forty-eight Phillipsburg Road.”

“Ten-four, Medic Two. Seventeen-twenty-three.”

Zoe jotted the time—the military version of 5:23 p.m.—on the run report and started filling in the little information they had at this point.

Earl flipped on the siren through town, easing around the cars that moved out of their way. “You want to tell me what’s going on?” he asked over the wail.

Zoe pretended to focus on the form on the clipboard. “What do you mean?”

“Coming in late? That’s not like you. What’s up?”

She fingered her damp curls. “The water heater at home is broken.”

“I got that much. All the more reason to come in early.”

“I intended to.”

She and Earl had been partners for years. On the job, they knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses. They’d developed a kind of communication shorthand, and working on a patient became a well-choreographed dance.

Between calls, they shared an easy friendship born of having each other’s backs in the trenches. On slow nights, they were hard-to-beat euchre partners against the other crew members. Off duty, she attended his kids’ birthday parties. He was part of the poker gang, which also included Pete, Sylvia, Seth, and Yancy.

Earl knew about her lousy romantic history, but was smart enough to not ask for details. When he fell quiet, she assumed he was going to let the matter of her tardiness drop.

As they reached the edge of Phillipsburg, for a moment traffic cleared. He reached over and silenced the siren. “You want to talk about it?”

So much for letting it drop. “Not really.”

Even keeping her eyes on the report, she caught the glance he shot her. “Does it have anything to do with Pete?”

She wanted to snap at him. Mind your own business. But getting snippy on the way to a call wasn’t exactly professional. Instead, she kept quiet.

Earl whooped the siren as they approached Dillard. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

She thumbed through the copies of old reports stashed in a pocket on the aluminum clipboard’s lid for no reason other than avoidance.

“Look. I don’t know what happened between you two, and you sure don’t have to tell me. But it’s like ambulance crew romances. Everything is hunky dory until you have a spat and have to face the other person at work.”

As if punctuating the point, they blew past the Vance Township Police Department. Zoe noticed Pete’s SUV wasn’t in the lot. It was late enough he should be off duty. In fact, with any luck, she wouldn’t have to face him all weekend. Maybe by Monday, she’d have sorted through this mess and could track him down and apologize.

Better yet…he could apologize to her.

Pete encountered stopped traffic and brake lights a half mile back, which was never a good sign. The knot in his stomach cranked tighter as he topped the hill a quarter mile shy of the scene and was treated to his first look at the accident.

Except for Kevin’s vehicle in Pete’s rearview mirror, there wasn’t an emergency strobe in sight. They were first on2 the scene. A southbound semi was jackknifed across both lanes, blocking Pete’s view. Damn. He hoped the tractor trailer had gotten in that position trying to stop as opposed to having collided with something. Or someone.

With traffic unable to get through coming from the other side of the crash, Pete cruised along the clear northbound lane, passed the stopped southbound traffic, and braked to a stop on the berm. Kevin parked behind him and met him as he stepped out. The whoop of distant sirens rising above the throaty rumble of idling vehicles told him they wouldn’t have to man the scene alone for long.

A few of the cars had shut off their engines and their occupants stood together in the road, talking in hushed tones. With Kevin on his heels, Pete jogged around the semi, noting the heavy black skid marks on the pavement as the trucker had made every effort to stop.

Besides the tractor trailer, three other vehicles with varying degrees of damage littered the two-lane road. It wasn’t hard to guess what had happened. Jack Naeser had nosed his Hyundai out a tad too far in order to see around those hedges. A white pickup had clipped his front fender, knocking the car into Naeser’s yard and sending the pickup into a 180, which left its back bumper rammed against the hillside across the road. A third vehicle, a black Toyota Rav4, must have slammed on its brakes to avoid hitting the truck only to be rear-ended by the jackknifing semi. If obvious damage was any indicator, the entire scene could have been much, much worse.

A woman remained behind the wheel of the Rav4. A concerned-looking heavy-set man stood at her passenger window and waved at the officers. Pete guessed he was the trucker and motioned to his officer. “Kevin, check them out.”

“Got it, Chief.”

The white pickup with the mashed right front fender was empty, so Pete headed for Naeser’s car. A familiar and noisy crowd had gathered next to it.

Jack Naeser sat on the ground leaning against the Hyundai’s driver’s door. He pressed his left hand to the side of his head, blood trailing down his face. Mrs. Naeser was on her knees next to him, weeping. Ryan Mancinelli, the hedge-loving son-in-law, stood over him, bellowing at Ashley, who raged right back at her husband. A tall man Pete didn’t recognize stood holding a cowboy hat and looking like he’d pay a small fortune to be anywhere except where he was at the moment.

Pete waded into the middle of the group and summoned his take-charge voice. The one that cut through most turmoil. “Ryan. Ashley. Give it a rest.” They both fell quiet, and Pete knelt beside the Naesers. “Jack? How bad are you hurt?”

Naeser lowered his bloodied hand to reveal a gash above his left temple. “I don’t know. Must’ve whacked my head pretty good when that guy creamed me.”

“I’m really sorry,” the cowboy sputtered, worrying the rim of his hat. “He pulled out smack dab in front of me. I never even had a chance to hit my brakes until it was too late.”

“It’s those damned hedges,” Mrs. Naeser said, her voice shaky.

“Look,” Ryan Mancinelli said, “I told you how awful I feel. What more do you want me to say?”

And then Mancinelli’s wife and mother-in-law launched into a renewed tirade about hedges being more important than Naeser’s life and stubborn jackasses and would-haves and should-haves.

The cowboy clearly would have preferred to face a raging bull. He took a big step back.

Pete’s take-charge voice wasn’t going to cut it. He stood, brought his finger and thumb to his lips and let loose with a piercing whistle that silenced everyone. He pointed to Mancinelli and his wife then to their house. “You two go wait on your porch. I’ll talk to you shortly.”

Chagrined, they nodded and headed away. Mancinelli reached for his wife’s arm, but she jerked it free. Pete shook his head. Happily ever after? Yeah. Right.

From the sounds of the sirens winding down on the other side of the jackknifed semi, he guessed medical help had arrived. He looked at the cowboy. “How about you? Are you hurt?”

“No, sir, I’m fine.”

“I need to talk to you as soon as we get Mr. Naeser taken care of.”

The cowboy gave his pickup a dejected glance and sighed. “I ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

Pete checked the progress of the emergency medical response and spotted Zoe and Earl speaking with the driver of the Rav4 through her window.