Lost Legacy (A Zoe Chambers Mystery Book 2) (13 page)

Most days, the cab of Zoe’s pickup felt cavernous, but with Officer Nate Williamson—whom they’d picked up at the police station—sandwiched between her and Pete, this wasn’t one of them. She’d heard rumors that Nate had once played pro football. She believed it.

By the time they pulled into Warren Froats’ driveway, the sun had dropped behind the surrounding hills, throwing the valley into shadows.

Zoe’s head had been swirling with the day’s events, from the call to pick Pete up at the hospital to Harry’s disappearance to Mr. Kroll’s shooting and finally, Carl Loomis’ suggestion that all the questions surrounding James Engle’s death could be answered so simply and so tragically as a medical misdiagnosis.

But now, as she parked next to the Police Department SUV Pete had abandoned when Froats drove him to the hospital, her attention focused with the intensity of a laser on one thing. Her father’s death—if indeed he had died.

Froats’ house trailer showed no signs of life. The windows were dark. The front deck stood vacant. “Maybe he’s not home yet,” Zoe said.

“Doesn’t matter,” Nate replied. He turned to Pete. “You have your car keys, right, Chief?”

“Uh-huh.” Pete opened the passenger-side door, fumbled with his crutches, and slid down from the cab. Nate slid across the bench seat and stepped out beside him.

Zoe didn’t move. Disappointment settled over her like the dusk settling over the valley.

Pete tossed his keys to Nate. “Go ahead and take it back to my place. I’ll catch a ride home with Zoe.”

“You sure?”

Pete caught Zoe’s eye. “Yeah. I want to introduce her to Warren Froats.”

“You’re going to wait until he comes home?”

“Yep.”

“Whatever you say.” Nate gave her a nod. “Goodnight, Zoe.”

“’Night.”

Pete stood next to the open truck door as his officer drove his SUV away. Then he motioned to Zoe. “You coming?”

“But no one’s home.”

“He’s home.” Pete slammed the door.

She looked around, wondering what Pete knew or saw that she didn’t. But she jumped out of the cab and rushed to catch up with him as he swept along on his crutches toward the house. Damn, he was getting good with those things.

“How do you know?” she demanded.

Pete tipped his head toward a patchwork-colored Ford pickup. “His truck’s here.” Pete stopped at the base of the porch steps and bellowed. “
Froats
.” 

“Down here!” The throaty reply carried on the sultry evening air from somewhere in the shadowy woods.

Zoe glanced at Pete’s cast. “Do you want me to go find him?”

Without responding to her, Pete shouted, “
Froats
. Get your ass up here.”

The only answer was the rush of the nearby stream. But in a few moments, a twig snapped and leaves rustled. Zoe caught sight of movement in the woods.

A tall, rotund figure in waders strode toward them, a fishing pole in one hand, a minnow bucket in the other.

“Pistol Pete Adams? What are you doing back out here?” Froats pulled up short. “And who’s this you brought with you?”

Zoe remembered the previous police chief as an imposing uniformed figure with close-cut hair. The scraggy mountain man with longish hair and a beard bore little resemblance to the picture in her mind.

“Warren Froats, this is Zoe Chambers,” Pete said.

Froats moved closer, eyeing her. “Don’t I know you?”

She extended her hand. “Yes, sir. I work on the ambulance. I was pretty new when you were still chief, but we responded to a few calls together.”

He grunted. Switched the fishing pole to his left hand and wiped his right one on his shirt before taking hers. “I’ll have to take your word for that. But it’s your name that’s ringing a bell for me. Chambers. Zoe Chambers.” He held onto her hand while he squinted at her and frowned. Finally his eyes widened. “Traffic accident. Must’ve been...what...twenty-five years ago? Fellow’s name was...Gary. Gary Chambers.”

Zoe’s pulse raced. “Twenty-seven years. He was my—”

“Father,” Froats finished for her. “You were the little girl with the big eyes. Never shed a tear, though.”

She hadn’t? She remembered such devastating sadness that she’d thought she’d have cried for weeks. Months. “You remember the accident?”

He snorted and released her hand. “It was a bad one. You don’t forget those. Never seen a body as badly burned as that.”

Zoe felt the air leave her like a deflating balloon. “You saw the body?”

“I was at the accident scene. Of course I saw the body.” He shook his head. “Damned shame. About as ugly a thing as I hope to ever lay eyes on. All charred.”

She swallowed hard against a wave of nausea and thought of the closed casket.

Pete cleared his throat. “Zoe, why don’t you give Warren and me a few minutes alone?”

He thought she couldn’t handle hearing the truth. Well, he was wrong. “No. I’m fine.” She fixed her gaze on the former chief. “How was the ID made?”

“Excuse me?”

“If the body was so badly burned, I gather identification must have been a challenge.”

Froats rubbed his jaw. “Well, it’s true a visual ID was out of the question. And the body was too burnt to lift fingerprints from him. As I recall, identification was made from personal effects. He was wearing his wedding band and a watch your mother had given him as a gift.”

“That’s it? What about dental records?”

“Probably.”

“Probably?”

“It was twenty-five—twenty-
seven
—years ago. I don’t remember every detail.”

Exasperated, Zoe looked to Pete, who gave her a nod. “We’ll check the records back at the station.”

“Why all the questions about your father’s accident?” Froats asked.

She opened her mouth to tell him about the note, but Pete cut her off. “Her mother’s in town for a visit, and it’s stirred up some conversation.”

Froats grunted. “I see.”

That made one of them. “Is there anything else you can tell me about the crash?” Zoe asked.

“Nothing you probably don’t already know.”

“That’s just it. I don’t know much of anything. My mother would never talk about it.”

He made a growling sound in his throat and tipped his head toward his porch. “All right. Let’s sit down.”

Zoe followed Froats up the steps then turned back to Pete, who leaned on the railing at the bottom. “Do you need a hand?”

“I’m fine here.”

Poor Pete. His foot had to be throbbing, and here she was, dragging him around on her own private investigation.

Froats set his fishing gear on a battered table. “Can I get you something to drink? A beer maybe? Or a can of pop?”

“No, thanks.” She lowered to perch on the edge of a battered lawn chair. “What can you tell me about the wreck?”

The former chief dropped into a second chair. “Let me think. Well, it happened out in the game lands about a mile or so from Parson’s Roadhouse. You know that windy road?”

She did. Intimately. “That much I do know.” The exact bend in the road was burned into her memory, giving her chills every time she drove past it.

“Your dad’s car was run off the road by a drunk driver. The drunk slammed into a tree and wasn’t hurt too bad. But your father veered to miss him and went over a hill. Must’ve ruptured the gas tank. The whole car was incinerated.”

Zoe cringed at the mental picture. The thought of her dad trapped in a car, plunging over a hillside, bursting into flame. She clutched the arm of the lawn chair, bracing against a fog of vertigo. “What was the COD?”

“Hmm?”

“Did he die of injuries sustained in the collision? Or...” Or was he burned alive?

“I’m afraid I don’t know.” Froats’ voice was soft, as if he understood what she couldn’t bring herself to ask. “You’d have to check with the coroner’s office about that.”

She swallowed a hard, dry lump in her throat. “I will. Thanks.”

“I’m not sure what else I can tell you.”

Zoe didn’t know what else to ask either. “Thanks for your time.” She stood and moved toward the steps.

Pete held up one finger. “Warren, the other driver...the drunk?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you remember his name?”

“Sure do. He was the town lush back in those days. Picked him up for drunk-and-disorderly at least three or four times a month. It’s a damned shame it took something like that crash to sober him up, but to the best of my knowledge he hasn’t had a drop since.”

“His name?” Pete said.

“Loomis. Carl Loomis.”

Thirteen

According to Zoe’s watch, it wasn’t yet seven-thirty in the morning when she approached Pete’s door, but sweat already tickled down her back. With the humidity, she half expected to sprout gills at any moment.

As she stepped onto the concrete slab porch, the door swung open, and Sylvia stepped out. “I’m sorry, Pete,” she was saying. “But there’s just no way I can watch him today. Good morning, Zoe.”

“Morning, Sylvia.”

Pete stood in the doorway, wearing jeans and a t-shirt and braced on his crutches. Lines creased his forehead. “Thanks anyway.”

Sylvia paused next to Zoe. “What are you going to do?”

“Take him with us, I suppose. Nothing else I can do.”

“Harry?” Zoe whispered to Sylvia.

“Yeah,” she replied, her voice low. “It was a rough night.”

“It’s been
two
rough nights,” Pete corrected.

Sylvia shook her head. “Nothing wrong with his
hearing,” she said to Zoe.

“I can read lips,” he muttered.

“I had my back to you,” Sylvia snapped over her shoulder. Then she leaned close to Zoe’s ear and spoke softly enough that Pete couldn’t possibly hear. “I hope you’re up to this. No woman should have to put up with two Adams men at the same time.”

Zoe covered her mouth, feigning a yawn to hide her smile.

Sylvia fluttered a hand over her head as she ambled away. “Good luck.”

Pete held open the door for Zoe as she stepped inside.

Harry sat at the kitchen table with a heaping bowl of Cheerios in front of him. “Good morning, Sunshine,” he called to her with a grin.

“Eat your breakfast, Pop,” Pete said. “We have to get going.”

“Going? Where to?”

Pete sighed, and Zoe wondered how many times he’d already answered the question. “You’re going with me to work today.”

“Good. I like playing cops and robbers.”

Zoe met Pete’s gaze. Dark circles shadowed his tired eyes. “Are you all right?”

He snorted. “Yeah, I’m terrific. Any word on your landlord?”

“Nothing this morning yet. Mom and Tom didn’t get home until around midnight. According to them, Mr. Kroll has a closed head injury in addition to the gunshot wound. Doctors are gonna do surgery on him today to remove the bullet.” She pointed to Pete’s foot. “And what about you?”

“I told you I’m fine.”

“Uh-huh. That cast is only supposed to be temporary, right? Shouldn’t you make an appointment with an orthopedist?”

“Have you been comparing notes with Sylvia?” He maneuvered a clumsy turn away from her and crutched into the living room. “Damned coddling females.”

Behind her, Harry burst into gruff laughter. “Now you know how I feel with your sister always fussing over me.”

Zoe grinned and followed Pete, but he stopped before heading into the hallway at the far end of the room and raised one finger. “Stay there and keep an eye on him while I get dressed.”

“Okay.” Yesterday’s frantic search for Harry flashed through her mind. Obviously, it stuck in Pete’s, too. “I’m a little surprised you want me to drive you around again today. I figured you’d have Seth or Kevin be your chauffeur.”

“Seth’s already getting overtime pay to be on patrol while I’m laid up.” Pete hobbled out of sight, but called over his shoulder, “You work cheap.”

She laughed. “You mean you’re not placing me on the police payroll?”

“No,” he said from the other room.

“Well, crap. So what’s our itinerary?”

“First stop is the doctor who treated James Engle.”

“He’s in Brunswick, right?”

“Yep.”

Zoe mulled over the possibilities. She should have no problem convincing Pete to swing by the hospital and check on Mr. Kroll’s status. And if they were already at the hospital, she might be able to catch Franklin at the morgue or in his office across the street. Another thought occurred to her. “You didn’t say much last night after we left Warren Froats. What did you think about Carl Loomis?”

A loud thud reverberated through the house followed by some choice swear words from Pete.

Zoe started toward the hall. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Dropped my damned crutches.”

“Oh.” She backed up until she could see Harry through the arched doorway. He was still happily munching his cereal. “Does it seem odd to you that Carl Loomis turns out to be the man who supposedly ran my dad off the road?”

Silence greeted her question. “Pete?”

“Give me a minute to get dressed, will ya?”

She sighed. Fine. She returned to the kitchen and sank into a chair next to Harry. “How’re you this morning?”

“I’m great.” He tilted his bowl to corral the last of his Cheerios into his spoon. “Want some cereal?”

Zoe smiled. “No, thanks.”

Having no luck with the utensil, he set it down and picked up the bowl. Bringing it to his lips, he slurped the last of his breakfast, finishing with a contented sigh. “Are you joining us today?” he asked as pushed the bowl to the center of the table.