Murder on the Lunatic Fringe (Jubilant Falls Series Book 4) (6 page)

“Oh, no, I couldn’t.” Jerome shook his head humbly, but his eyes were sharp. Addison’s eyes were just as hard, neither she nor Jerome trusting each other.

In my position, you catch these things, the looks, the funny glances and the words with two meanings.

“So you were a guard at the American embassy? Does that mean you have a law enforcement background?” Addison asked. “I know the sheriff’s office is always looking for new recruits. Prior military service puts you a few steps further up the hiring ladder.”

Jerome shook his head. “Thanks, but no thanks. I enjoy what I’m doing.”

Duncan smiled. “There’s nothing like working the land, is there? My wife tells me you’ve got llamas and alpacas. What do you use them for?”

Jerome began to talk about the animals and I relaxed. Duncan opened the grill; potatoes wrapped in foil already sat on the hot coals. As he and Jerome talked, Duncan laid four pink steaks on the grill, their juices sizzling. The sun was warm and I heard cows mooing in the distance. Beyond the cornfield that stood between the old white farmhouse and the road, cars drove by only occasionally.

When the steaks were done, we filled our plates and chatted as a warm breeze made the green cornstalks sway.

For the first time in a long time, I felt safe. Jerome and Duncan were talking American football now—Jerome was actually laughing. Addison listened as I told her more about how I made yarn and how I dyed it. We ate our meal, good, simple farm food, and when our plates were clear, Addison passed around the plate of brownies.

I helped her bring the paper plates and bowls back into the old kitchen, putting the bowls in the sink to soak. Addison wasn’t so different from a lot of the women I’d grown up with, even though she was older than me. She had a husband, a daughter, a home to be proud of, and she was a professional. Her husband was a nice man. He stood up for Jerome, didn’t he?

Was this what it was like to have a home? A community? I hadn’t felt this way since I was little girl. Maybe Jubilant Falls, this funny little Ohio town, would be where I could put down roots, maybe I could even...

No, I told myself. Stop thinking like that! It could never happen.

The table was clear and the afternoon lunch was over. Duncan reached out to shake Jerome’s hand.

“Thanks,” Jerome said. “Thanks for everything.”

“I just wanted you to know that not everybody in Jubilant Falls is like Doyle McMaster,” Duncan said. “What he called you is not acceptable here. We’re a small town, but we don’t accept small minds.”

Jerome looked Duncan straight in the eye. “I’d be lying to say I’d never been called a nigger before. I’d also be lying to say I didn’t beat the shit out of the white man who did it—and I’d do it again. It’s not often that a complete stranger steps in like you did. I appreciate that.”

“I must thank you for your kindness, too,” I said. “We must have you over for dinner. I cook you complete Russian meal.”

“That would be very nice,” Duncan said. “We’d love it.”

As Jerome drove us back to the Lunatic Fringe, I laid my hand on his muscular thigh.

“They seem like nice people,” I said tentatively. “It would be nice to have friends here.”

Jerome nodded. “I’m sure they are, but we’ve got to be careful. They can’t know the truth.”

“Is that why you don’t like Addison?”

“I don’t trust anyone who could possibly blow the lid off our situation. It’s too dangerous.”

I sighed as Jerome turned the Cherokee into the drive. “Jerome, wait! Stop!”

I pointed to the pasture where the llamas paced nervously up and down the fence line, making their odd, rhythmic, high-pitched alert sound, one they made only when they sensed danger.

Jerome slammed the car into park. He pulled a handgun from the holster around his ankle as we both jumped from the Jeep and ran toward the fence. Jerome got there first.

“Oh God.” He knelt on the ground. It was dark, but I could see the carcass just outside the fence line.

It was Dasha, my cashmere ram. His throat was slit, nearly severing his magnificent head. The wound continued down his gray belly, his intestines spilling onto the grass, dyeing the dirt beneath the green grass a dark, dark red.

Sobbing, I sank to the ground.

“He’s still warm,” Jerome whispered. “This just happened. Who ever did this knew we were gone and knew when we were coming back. Katya, we’re being watched.”

Chapter 9 Addison

“Goo-ood morning, darlin’!”

I don’t know what the hell time Earlene Whitelaw got into the office in the morning and I still wasn’t convinced she did anything but delegate, but I had hopes I’d be able to get my first cup of work coffee poured before I had to deal with her.
So much for my luck.

Figures. It was Monday.

Sliding into the employee break room just outside the pressroom, I mumbled my morning greetings.

“Penny—Addison, I was just thinking…” Earlene probably wasn’t that tall, but with Miss Texas pageant hair sprayed high above her head and her insistence on wearing six-inch stilettos, she towered over me. She clenched her hands together and smiled hopefully at me, like a recalcitrant four-year-old, looking for forgiveness.

“What, Earlene?” I wanted to pound my head against the coffee machine.

“I was thinking about bringing a group of residents together, in a-a—” Her Texas accent was thicker than most natives’.

“Focus group?”

“Yes. A focus group.”

Oh, Jesus. Don’t do this to me, I thought. As the newspaper business continued to limp along, I heard stories from other editors at chain newspapers about how head office bean-counters who had never spent a day in a newsroom suddenly decided it was a great idea to bring in folks from the community to find out what they thought of the news coverage. The suits would sit and listen to what people thought, nod sagely, promise the moon and then dump the responsibility on the newsroom, which was already trying to do twice as much with half the staff.

The
Journal-Gazette
struggled ever since the economic crash, with outdated computers and a second-rate website that crashed on a regular basis. Advertising revenue was slowly coming out of the tank, but the days of a twenty-eight-page, two-section hometown paper were long gone, thanks to the Internet and Craigslist.

“What exactly do you think you’ll get out of a focus group?” I poured my coffee and started toward the narrow stairs that led to the second-floor newsroom, knowing she’d follow me, teetering on bright yellow stilettos with turquoise flowers on the toes.

“Well, I believe we’d hear what the community thinks.”

I stopped half way up the stairs and turned around. “Earlene, I can tell you what the community thinks: They want more local news coverage. That takes a bigger staff. They want a bigger paper. That takes more advertising. They say they want more good news on the front page, but the truth is nothing, nothing sells better than sex offenders, fatal car crashes or homicides.

“The day I have a story where a sex offender is shot, or where a pedophile dies in a car crash, the circulation department practically pees themselves with joy over the jump in single copy sales. You can only put so many stories of Happy the Clown visiting a kindergarten class on the front page!”

“I just thought—”

I turned and started back up the stairs, then stopped.
After all, she is your boss,
a little voice said. These last eight months since she’d taken over for her father had been tough, but she was learning. She’d also brought a large pile of cash from her fourth divorce settlement that staved off further staff furloughs or cutbacks. There was even talk of new computers in the newsroom.

“All right Earlene, I’ll tell you what,” I said, clutching my cup handle so tight my knuckles hurt. “If you want to put together a group of community members for a meeting, I’ll sit down with them and I’ll listen. I won’t promise any more than that.”

Earlene clapped her hands, like she’d just been promised a trip to the zoo.

“I have some folks in mind for the group. Let’s meet this afternoon.” She turned and, steadying herself with both railings, headed back downstairs to her office.

I sighed, knowing I’d just been railroaded.
Kill me now, God. Kill me now.
At least the meeting was after deadline.

Once in the newsroom, I flipped on all the lights and turned on the police scanner. Dennis Herrick usually got here right after I did. Photographer Pat Robinette, and reporters Marcus Henning and Elizabeth Day would be in momentarily. Graham would follow them about fifteen minutes later, after he’d stopped at the police station for morning reports.

I stared up at the white dry-erase board on the newsroom wall, where reporters listed their upcoming stories. So far, the front page would have Graham’s gorge rescue story from Sunday with photos, and Marcus had an update on the city swimming pool. Since she hadn’t been here on Friday to update me on Monday’s stories, Elizabeth hadn’t updated the board. I knew she had two stories ready to go—a profile on the new principal at Jubilant Falls High School and the story of a Golgotha College sophomore who just returned from a mission trip to Romania. The one that fit would be the one we used.

I walked into my office just off the newsroom and flipped on the computer. As everyone got settled in, I perused the Associated Press wire, looking for national and state stories of interest.

Right on schedule, Graham wandered into my office doorway, holding the weekend police reports.

“So how’s Duncan?” he asked.

“He’s got a lovely shiner, but he’s fine,” I answered.

“How do you want to handle this?”

“We don’t make a big deal of any other minor assault. Just because the victim is my husband doesn’t mean we should change policy. List it in the blotter.”

“Already got it written out for you.” Graham handed me a sheet of paper.

I took it from him and began to read: “
Doyle McMaster, 31, of Jubilant Falls, was arrested Saturday about noon following an assault at the Grower’s Feed Mill. According to police reports, McMaster got into a physical altercation with the victim after McMaster reportedly used a racial slur. A second man was also struck when he tried to intervene in the altercation. McMaster was charged with misdemeanor assault; both victims’ injuries were minor and were treated at the scene.”

“It’s not a ‘physical altercation,’ it’s a fight. You also didn’t include McMaster’s address or the feed mill address,” I said, handing the story back to him. “Change those and it’s fine. Didn’t you tell me McMaster was possibly involved in some hate crimes in the next county?”

Graham nodded. “Assistant Chief McGinnis said the police there are watching some suspicious activity, but there’s nothing local yet. He said he’d let me in on anything when it happens.”

I nodded. “Anything else going on?”

Graham shuffled through the reports. “Not really. This is mostly blotter stuff—a couple public intox charges and a teenager took his mom’s car without permission. Stupid stuff.”

“OK. Well, write them up as briefs for the public records page. By the way, did Gary say anything about Jerome Johnson to you? The black guy McMaster hit?”

“No, why?”

“Just asking.” I waved him out of my doorway. “No big deal. Go get started. Keep an eye out on that hate crimes thing, though—if McMaster gets nailed on anything out of town, we need to do a story.”

Graham nodded and headed back to his desk.

With Graham’s story on the gorge rescue, the front page came together easily that morning. We only had to use a small amount of wire copy, a short story about a tropical depression threatening to turn into a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. After catching what few errors there were, I sent the last page down to prepress nearly twenty minutes early. I ducked back into my office and closed the door: I had a few phone calls to make.

Whoever Jerome Johnson was, I didn’t trust him. We may have all sat beneath the tree in my front yard yesterday and shared a meal, but that didn’t mean I believed his story about growing up in Virginia, or joining the Marine Corps or living in Ashtabula. Something about that man pegged my bullshit meter and I was going to find out why.

I punched Gary McGinnis’s number into the phone. He picked it up on the second ring.

“Hey Penny. How’s it going?” Gary and I had known each other since high school. We were comfortable with each other, the kind of ease that comes from working together for years, building trust, but knowing where the boundaries between a cop and a reporter lay. If he could tell me, he would. If he couldn’t, I knew when and how to push.

“Not bad. Hey, I need a favor. You know the deal Saturday where Duncan got hit in the eye by Doyle McMaster?”

“Yup. What do you need?”

“I need information on the other victim in that mess, Jerome Johnson.”

“What do you need it for? A story?”

“No, not really.” Briefly, I explained about seeing Johnson taking photos of Pat and me on Friday afternoon, his odd hostility at our doing a story at Katya Bolodenka’s farm, and his story on Sunday about meeting her in Ashtabula. “I just don’t trust him, Gary, and if Duncan is going to be inviting this guy over to my house on a regular basis, I’d sure as hell like to know who I’m dealing with.”

“Let me see what I can do. I’ll call you back later this afternoon.”

***

“Hi Penny! Ya’ll come on in!” Earlene had her back to the open door when I knocked. Her elbows were planted on the Queen Anne credenza behind her matching writing table. She recognized me by my reflection in the makeup mirror she held in one hand; the other was carefully outlining her lips with a red pencil.

She smacked her lips together, blending the liner with her cherry red lipstick, and turned around, clicking her matching nails on the desk surface.

Following her father’s retirement, before she even knew what the word deadline meant, Earlene’s first project had been to remodel the publisher’s dark masculine office. She pulled down the knotty pine paneling, and had new drywall hung in its place. Baby-chick yellow paint now covered the walls. She’d also replaced her father’s desk with the more feminine Queen Anne writing table and credenza, but kept the towering bookshelves that lined two walls.

She’d also replaced the two Morris chairs in front of the two desks with more feminine upholstered chairs in matching yellow striped fabric.

Behind the desk, above the credenza was a six-foot tall self-portrait of Earlene herself in full English equestrian apparel, mounted on a sleek black thoroughbred. She appeared considerably younger; her hair was still platinum blonde and her waist was thin and trim—whether that was fact or the painter’s doing, I couldn’t tell. She cupped her riding helmet under one arm and held the reins with the other hand. Her jacket was royal blue and her light tan jodhpurs slipped into the tops of black knee-high riding boots. In the background, a large barn sat at the end of a long line of oak trees.

Her third husband had the portrait painted at the beginning of their short-lived marriage. It hung in the foyer of their palatial Fort Worth home and when they split up, it had been the one item he had gladly given her. Everything else had been bitterly debated, but in the end she’d walked away with half his oil money and all of his Porsche. It was parked next to my Taurus in the employee parking lot with the vanity license plate ‘WAS HIS.’

“So, let’s get started. I have a bunch of people I’d like to include in this little focus group.” Earlene ruffled through the papers on her desk. “Oh wait—here’s the list.”

“Before we get started, I want you to know that I have some fundamental problems with letting a focus group dictate our coverage,” I began.

“Oh, no—don’t you worry about that, darlin’! I just want to get the pulse of the community, hear what people are thinking. These are folks who have come by my office and introduced themselves to me and I thought they’d make a good sounding board. The first name is… let’s see… Reverend Eric Mustanen.”

“He’s pastor at the Lutheran Church,” I said, nodding. “He comes to the newsroom every year during the week before Ash Wednesday with his annual listing for mid-week soup suppers and Easter services and again at Christmas. He seems like a reasonable guy.”

“Angus Buchanan?”

“Hmm. He might be a problem.”

Redheaded and beefy, Angus Buchanan was the local car dealer and reminded me more of a polled Hereford bull than someone who spent thousands upon thousands of dollars in advertising with us each year.

I had to remind him periodically that he might have the right to determine what goes in his ads, but he couldn’t influence my newsgathering. He snorted like a Hereford bull, too, when he stomped out of my office.

“But he spends so much money with us!”

“That’s the ad department. That’s not the news department!”

“He did say something about a story that ran last year that he wasn’t happy about.”

“One of his mechanics was caught selling meth. He was selling it from his apartment, not out of the dealership. We never identified him as one of Angus’s employees, but he took offense that the story ended up on the front page.”

Earlene cringed. “Oh. That is unfortunate.”

“Earlene, the last thing I’m going to do is to temper my news coverage to suit our advertisers. This guy was caught with a meth lab in his living room, for god sake! It’s not my fault he decided to sell to an undercover cop! We only reported it. Am I supposed to know the name of every Buchanan Motors employee?”

“Well, that is true,” she said slowly. “Here’s a couple more names: Naomi Callum and Hedwig Ansgar.”

“They are both presidents of the area’s two garden clubs,” I said. Retired teacher Naomi Callum was the leader of the upstart Plummer County Peonies, which had been founded in the 1950s.

Hedwig Ansgar, another retired teacher, presided over the older, more sedate and prestigious Garden Club of Jubilant Falls, which had been founded during the town’s golden age in the 1890s. Hedwig was nearly as big and beefy as Angus Buchanan, but better dressed. I privately referred to her as The Dowager Empress.

While anyone with an interest in getting dirt beneath their fingernails could join the Peonies, those who wished to join the Garden Club had to be nominated by a current member, vetted by the membership committee and approved by a two-thirds majority. Many of the ladies who belonged were married to Jubilant Falls’ old guard business and themselves tottering toward decrepitude, but they managed to have their finger on the social pulse of the city.