Murder on the Lunatic Fringe (Jubilant Falls Series Book 4) (17 page)

“Were you aware they were romantically involved?” I asked.

Dr. Simms pursed her lips again and looked sharply at her husband.

“Not until I read it in your newspaper,” she said flatly. “If this woman is the reason my son died—”

Dr. Reed patted her knee. “Ssshhh. I’m sure there will be an investigation.”

“You may want to trust what they say, but I’m not entirely sure I believe anything anymore!” she shot back at him.

“Have you spoken to her?” I asked.

“No, I haven’t spoken to her and at this point, I doubt if I would!” Dr. Simms’s anger broke through her reserved exterior. “We went over to the farm to get some answers and she refused to come to the door!”

“Who answered the door? Did anyone?” I couldn’t imagine these two walking up on that front porch to ring the bell, knowing their son’s body lay there just hours before. I imagine Peppin and his ninja feds probably already had the scene cleaned up and repainted, but still…

“No one answered at the farmhouse,” Dr. Reed said.

“What about the animals? Did you see any animals in the pastures?” I asked.

“The animals were still outside, grazing,” he said. “We walked around the back of the house and knocked at the door, but no one answered, so we walked into the barn. There was no one there, either.”

If Katya were relocated again, they wouldn’t leave those animals, would they? I wondered.

“Then we walked back toward this little house, between the main house and the barn—” Dr. Simms began.

“I know the building—your son lived there,” I interjected.

“Well, we knocked on that door, but no one answered there, either,” she said. “Even though we could hear two people arguing inside.”

“Two people?” I asked.

She nodded. “Yes. A man and a woman. It sounded like they were speaking Russian and they were very angry.”

“Both of them?” Did that mean Luka and his thugs had returned? Did Peppin also speak Russian? What were they arguing over? Was Katya in danger?

There was a knock at the office door. It was Earlene, fresh from the focus group meeting and clutching today’s edition in her manicured hands.

Chapter 27 Graham

“
What?
You were going to take a job at another paper and never even tell me I had a kid?”

“Maybe I was, maybe I wasn’t.” Elizabeth lifted her chin defensively.

“How the hell did that happen? I thought you were on birth control!”

“So something went wrong! Shit happens! Either way, how could I say yes to marriage with a man who puts himself in these situations, Kinnon? Somebody who’s off chasing the next big headline or the next big story because he gets some kind of adrenaline thrill out of it? What happens when something blows up in your face and you don’t come home for good? How could I do that to a baby—our baby?”

“A couple days ago, you were telling me how bored you were with your job! Then you tell me I can’t be involved in mine?” I ran both hands through my hair in frustration. “What do you want?”

“I want my kid to have the kind of childhood I had,” she said.

I threw my hands up in frustration.

“I want my parents close by so they can visit their grandchildren. I don’t want to be bouncing around the country because we move from newspaper to newspaper,” she continued. “I want to sit with my husband and kids at the supper table every night, not holding dinner because he’s off on some breaking news story somewhere. I want summers up on Lake Erie.”

“I can’t promise you that—nobody can!”

“Why not, Kinnon? Why not?”

“Because stuff happens to everybody and you can’t assure anyone their life is going to be smooth sailing. For God’s sake, look at me!”

Elizabeth sighed, resting her hands on her ample hips. An awkward silence hung in the air between us. Why was this relationship suddenly so complicated? When did the woman I thought I could bare my soul to, talk to about anything and everything suddenly turn into someone I didn’t know?

“When were you going to tell me you were pregnant?” I demanded.

“I don’t know.”

“You weren’t going to… to end it, were you?”

She looked down and sighed again then looked me in the eye. “I don’t know.”

“Did it cross your mind that I might want to be a part of that decision?”

“It’s my body, Kinnon. I’m the one who has to carry the baby. I figured I’d decide once I got to Akron.”

The coffee maker beeped and I turned around to pour each of us a cup. I handed Elizabeth her mug and slid into the dinette chair, awash in anger and pain.

“I can’t change who I am, Beth, any more than you can,” I began. “I’m going to chase stories—that’s what I do. As a human being, I have an obligation to do something to make this world a better place.”

“Oh, please—get off your journalistic high horse. You don’t have an obligation to come home every night to your kid?”

“When I know about him, yes. How can I provide for a kid I don’t know about?” I stopped as realization swept through me. “You’re running because you feel trapped. It’s why you started looking for a new job.”

“That’s not true, Graham.”

“Yes it is. You think you live in a predictable little town, work at a predictable, boring little job and suddenly, you’re pregnant. All you can see are walls going up all around you. You didn’t see my proposal as a way to get out of a bad situation. You saw it as the last door to your future closing.”

Beth was silent. Her hand gripped the coffee cup tightly, her knuckles white. The surface of the hot liquid quivered.

“That’s the real truth, isn’t it?” I asked.

She sat her coffee mug down on the dinette table and moved toward the door.

“I have to go now.”

I grabbed her arm. “If you don’t want to get married, that’s fine. If you want to go to Akron, that’s fine too. But if you decide to have this baby, I’m going to be a part of this kid’s life, whether you like it or not. I’m going to be the dad that I never had. I’ll pay child support. I’ll make sure that this kid never wants anything. Just let me be a part of his life.”

“Please, Graham, let go of me.”

“It’s my kid, too.”

Bursting into tears, she pulled from my grasp and left. This time, I knew she wouldn’t come back.

***

Two hours later, I sat in Sheriff Roarke’s office.

My old Toyota was parked at the curb; I’d returned the Mustang to the airport rental office.

Benny would be looking for that car, so going back to my old junker made sense. I couldn’t afford the daily charges much longer anyway. It didn’t matter anymore if I needed to hide from Elizabeth—whether she liked it or not, we were connected for life, or at least the next 18 years.

“So how did it go?” Roarke looked like he could use some sleep. “What happened?”

“Basically, I introduced myself to him, told him who I was.”

“You told him you are his son?”

“I had to. He took one look at me and recognized me. We really just talked about personal stuff.”

“That makes sense. He isn’t going to invite just anyone to the next Aryan Knights meeting. He’s going to want to know who he’s dealing with before he does that.” Roarke shuffled some papers on his desk. “I do have a couple things I need to pass on. Last night there was an incident in Collitstown where a black volunteer’s car was burned. He’d had a confrontation at a mall earlier in the week with a white man who fits Doyle McMaster’s description.”

“McMaster might not be the only one in on it. When I met with Benny Kinnon, he had injuries to his hands, like he’d been in a fight or something.”

“That so?” Roarke pushed a copy of the Collitstown police report across the desk at me. “These guys who are so proud of being white and right are usually too scared to show their faces when they pull this crap.”

I nodded.

“They don’t even have the balls to come in and ask for something in person. I got this today requesting a permit for a rally. Chief Marvin McGinnis also got one and the city manager got one. They want to rally on the courthouse steps but didn’t specify a date.” Roarke pushed a letter across his desk. There was no signature on the letter, just the scrawled words “Grand Wizard of the Aryan Knights.”

“Are you going to grant it?”

“More than likely—once we get a firm date and time and a verifiable name to contact. Their right to free speech is guaranteed by the Constitution, same as you or me. The police chief and I just have to get together to make certain that there’s plenty of space between these guys and protesters. This could get ugly fast, not to mention the cost of security.”

“Can’t you bill them for the costs?”

“When we don’t bill any other group that wants to rally on our courthouse steps? How fair is that when groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving get to kick off their events for free? Or when that anti-abortion group from the college holds their rally every spring? I have to have all hands on deck for that thing. If I charged the Aryan Knights for security and no one else, the ACLU would be all over me like nobody’s business.”

I nodded. “True.”

“When are you going to see him again?”

“Hopefully tonight.”

“What time?”

“He doesn’t know I’m coming. He said he didn’t want to see me again, so this won’t be a pleasant visit.”

“You need to be careful.”

We were silent for a moment. I decided to take the conversation in another direction.

“I saw on front page of the
J-G
this morning that Jerome Johnson got shot,” I said. “Addison included the part about the goats being slaughtered. Do you think Doyle McMaster had anything to do with that? I can’t believe that the owner was hiding from the Russian mafia.”

“I couldn’t either when Addison called me this morning. Like I told you, when Johnson came by the other day, he wouldn’t file a report. He told me that he went ahead and buried the animals on the farm, and he just wanted extra patrols in the area. I don’t know if he’d talked to anyone else or not. If I’d known the owner of the place was in witness protection, we might have been able to keep him safe.”

“Maybe when I meet with Benny Kinnon tonight, we’ll get some answers.”

“We will need you to wear a wire when you think you’ve gained his trust and he’s going to give you some good information.”

“That may take a while. He told me he doesn’t want to see me again.”

“Then why are you going back? Let me get one of our undercover guys—you don’t have to do this, Graham.”

“Yes, Sheriff, yes I do. This is personal.”

Chapter 28 Addison

“Addison, do you have a minute?” Earlene stepped into the office. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t worry,” said Dr. Reed. “We’re finished.”

The two professors stood and each shook my hand politely. I walked with them to the door of the newsroom at the top of the steps.

“Please tell your readers what Terrell was really about. Don’t let him end up as a footnote in this whole mess,” Dr. Reed said.

“I will.” I nodded and watched them as they walked down the front stairs to the lobby. At the bottom of the stairs, Dr. Reed took Dr. Simms’s hand, each taking comfort from the other in their horrible loss.

I returned to my office and closed the door. Earlene had taken one of my battered wingbacks, scooting it close to my desk and spreading today’s edition across my desk.

Here we go, I thought.

“Everything OK?” I asked as I sat down behind my desk. I hoped I sounded nonchalant.

“I really do need to allocate some resources for you to update this office.” Earlene looked around. “A little paint and some new furniture would do wonders for this place.”

“Is that what you came to tell me?” I asked, tentatively.

“No, what I came up here to do was talk to you about a couple things,” she began.

I swallowed hard.

“When I set up that group,” she continued. “I didn’t realize who I was dealing with. Mr. Spotts is, well… a handful.”

“I’m glad you saw that firsthand,” I said simply. “He can make my day a living hell, but it’s people like Spotts who can sometimes come up with the best stories. So, I try to listen whenever I think he’s got something—and even when he doesn’t.”

“I saw that. I also had a chance to look over your murder story on today’s front page.”

I winced, waiting for the ax to fall. What would she do? Compliment my diplomacy with Spotts—that was a stretch—then curse my story?

“I have to admit that when I first saw the story, I wasn’t real happy,” she said, touching her over-sprayed pageant hair. “I don’t like surprises, Penny, not when I find my husband in flagrante delicto with other women, as several of my lawyers referred to it, and not when I find a story of this magnitude on the front page of the paper I’ve been entrusted to run!”

“You weren’t here. I didn’t know how to get in touch with you and we had a deadline,” I said.

“You always knew how to get hold of Daddy when you had a big story!” she snapped.

“Your daddy knew what the hell he was doing!” I snapped back. Exhaustion was getting the better of me; I could feel holes in the filter between my mouth and brain getting larger. I didn’t care. I’d been up for fourteen hours on too little food and even less sleep, all in pursuit of one murder story. No pseudo-Texas bimbo was going to tell me how to do my job. “I knew I could trust his judgment! I don’t know that about you. All I see is you looking to everyone but my newsroom staff and me when it comes to news. Suddenly, I’ve got a focus group filled with egos and wackos led by a woman who’s never been in a newsroom in her life, telling me how they want me to do my job!”

Earlene pulled back, regaining her composure. “Excuse me?”

The words didn’t stop.

“Earlene, since you’ve been here, you’ve tried to learn a lot about the newspaper business, and I respect that,” I said. “But you still don’t know the what news is.”

“Do go on.” Earlene sat up straight, her words dripping in sharp Texas sweetness.