Presumption of Guilt (18 page)

“Nope. Sorry. Looks like the delivery boy slept late today.”

The man brooded as he slurped his coffee. Oh, well. He could always read one of the magazines before it got loaded onto a truck for delivery. He grabbed one out of a stack of mail, propped his feet up, and began to flip through.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

A
ll that night, Beth lay awake in Lynda's guest room, anticipating the arrival of the
St. Clair News
on the front steps of a hundred thousand readers.

She dressed as the first hints of morning began to peek through her window, put her leash on Dodger, and A tiptoed past Lynda's room, then past the room where Jimmy slept, sprawled on top of his bedcovers. She went through the living room and kitchen and quietly slipped out the door into the early morning mist. She put Dodger down and walked him around to the front of the house. While he sniffed around in the bushes, she sat on the front porch steps, watching for the paperboy.

A tremendous sense of peace about what had happened with Nick last night enveloped her—only to be offset by a sense of dread about Bill Brandon.

She wondered if Bill had been arrested last night, if they'd found a way to make it stick so that he wouldn't be able to simply talk his way out of jail.

As the warm wind whipped through her hair, she pulled her feet up onto the top step of the porch. The sky was gray, but a faint pink hue crept up over the trees across the street. Maybe what happened today would wash away the sorrow and pain from the past.

Her eyes strayed up the street, where the paperboy should soon appear. She wished he would hurry.

At the end of the street she spotted a jogger dressed in black running shorts and a white tank top. She started to stand up and go inside, for she didn't trust strangers, especially not on this isolated street where no one ever came unless they were invited. And then she saw that the man was Jake.

He waved as he reached the halfway point on the block, then slowed his jog and walked the rest of the way, cooling down. When he reached the driveway, he picked up the towel he'd left on the trunk of his car, threw it around his neck, and came toward her.

“You're up awfully early,” he said, his breath still coming hard. He bent down to pet Dodger, who wagged his tail stub and slobbered all over him.

“So are you. I was just waiting for the paperboy. I didn't know you jogged.”

“Yeah, for about the last month or so. I'm trying to get in shape for my medical.”

“Your what?”

“My medical. I have to get a medical release to get my pilot's license back. This afternoon is the moment of truth.”

“Well, that shouldn't be a problem, should it?”

“No, ordinarily it wouldn't.” He sat down on the steps next to her and rubbed the sweat from his face. “But this false eye could play against me, so I'm trying to overcompensate with the rest. If I can prove I'm more fit than most people, they might overlook the eye.”

Beth narrowed her eyes and stared at him. “I didn't know you had a false eye, Jake. Which one?”

He chuckled. “If you can't tell, I'm not going to.”

“Your eyes look just alike. And they move together. I didn't know false eyes could do that.”

“They look just like ordinary eyes, but that's not what the licensing board cares about. They want to make sure that I can
see
like I'm supposed to. Half of my peripheral vision is gone now, so I can't fly for the commercial airline I used to fly for. They have pretty high standards. But if I can get my license back, I could buy a small plane and start a chartering service or something.”

“That's great, Jake. They'll give it to you, won't they?”

“I think so. I'm just a little nervous. A lot is riding on this.”

Thankful for the diversion, she asked, “Like what?”

He smiled and looked off in the direction from which he had just jogged. “Like . . . my relationship with Lynda.”

“I thought that was pretty solid.”

“It is. But I'd like for it to move forward. Have a little more permanency. I never thought I'd say this, but I don't want Lynda to just be my lady. I want her to be my wife.”

Beth grinned. “Does she know this?”

“I'm sure she suspects it. But I haven't said it, straight out.

Not when I have so little to offer her.”

“Lynda doesn't need much.”

“No, but she deserves everything.” He sat down next to her on the steps. “I've been out of work and living on savings and odd jobs since the accident. I want to have an income, and be contributing something, before I ask her to marry me.”

“That's admirable,” Beth said. “I hope somebody will care about me like that one day.”

“You're still young. No hurry.”

“Yeah,” she said. “And there's a lot of unfinished business I have to take care of before then.” Her eyes strayed back to the end of the street. Still no paperboy.

“Unfinished business?”

“Yeah. This article is just part of it.”

“Well, it should be here soon. But come to think of it, I usually see the paperboy when I'm jogging, and I didn't see him today.

He must be running late. Tell you what. I'll go shower, then if it still hasn't come, I'll go pick up one at the closest newsstand. I'm anxious to see it, too.” He got up and threw the towel back around his neck.

She smiled and watched him head back around the house and into the garage apartment. She wondered if Lynda had any idea how blessed she was to have a man like that in love with her.

After watching for the paperboy for a few more minutes, she decided not to wait any longer. She went back into the house and got her purse. Lynda was coming up the hall in her robe. “Beth, where are you going so early?”

“To try to find a newspaper,” she said. “The paperboy is late.

I'm just really anxious to see the article. There's a truck stop near my house that is always one of the earliest to get a paper. I'll go there and see if I can get one. I'll call you from home. Thanks for letting me stay here last night, okay? And tell Jimmy I'll be back to see him this afternoon.”

“Okay. He'll be fine.”

“Oh, and tell Jake that I'm sorry I couldn't wait.”

Beth carried Dodger out to her car as that sense of uneasiness crept over her again. After she'd left Lynda's isolated street, she scanned the driveways for the rolled-up newspapers that always came with the morning. She saw none. She grabbed her car phone and dialed the number of the newspaper, planning to ask someone in circulation if there had been some delay in getting the papers out that morning.

A discordant tone came on instead of the ring, and an operator's recorded voice said that the number was temporarily out of order.

She cut the phone off, frowning, and wove her way through the neighborhood, neat little houses all lined up with no newspapers in the driveways.

Something is wrong.

She dialed the number of the police station and told the sergeant who answered the phone who she was. “I'm checking to see if Bill Brandon was arrested last night. Larry Millsaps and Tony Danks were on the case.”

The sergeant checked his records, then came back to the phone. “No, I don't show an arrest made last night for a Brandon.”

She closed her eyes. “All right, thanks.”

She almost ran a red light, then slammed on her brakes and rubbed her forehead, trying to ease a rapidly escalating headache. What was going on? The telephone at the newspaper out of order, the arrest never carried out—She whipped a quick U-turn at the intersection and headed back in the direction of the newspaper office.

It took her a few minutes to get to the street on which the
St. Clair News
was housed. And then she saw why the phone was out of order. The building was in shambles, half of it burned to the ground, and the other half, though still standing, only a monument of crumbling brick and slanted beams, with smoke-scalded ceilings and walls, and computer equipment and file cabinets smashed where the building had collapsed on one side.

She sat stunned, staring through her windshield at the smoldering ashes.

She hadn't realized anyone was coming toward her until a police officer knocked on her window.

“Ma'am, you'll have to move your car.”

She rolled the window down. “I work here,” she said. “What happened?”

“There was a fire last night,” he said, as if that wasn't obvious. “No, I mean, how did it start?”

“We suspect arson, but we're still investigating. Now, if you don't mind moving your car—”

“But the paper! The paper got out this morning, didn't it? The paper will still be delivered!”

“I don't think there's going to be an edition today, ma'am.

Most of the machinery is toast.”

She sat back hard on her seat and covered her mouth. The article wasn't coming out. Not today. A sense of injustice crashed over her. Familiar injustice. Predictable injustice.

“When did this happen? Did anyone see who started it?”

“No, no one saw anything. Two men who were right in the area where the fire was the most concentrated were killed.”

“Killed? Oh, no! Who?”

He checked his clipboard, then asked her, “Are you asking as a member of the press, or a friend?”

“A friend!” she shouted. “Who died?”

“Off the record until we notify next of kin . . . Hank Morland and Stu Singer.”

She didn't know them well, but she did know them, and now she closed her eyes and hugged herself as if she might split right down the middle and fall apart. Had her article caused someone's death? Did she have to bear that guilt now, too? She slammed her car into park, cut off the engine, and climbed out. “I need to get in touch with Larry Millsaps or Tony Danks. I need to talk to them now. Get me their home numbers, please!”

“I can't do that, ma'am. But if you have some information about who might have started this fire, you can tell me.”

“Of course I know who started the fire!” she shouted. “It was Bill Brandon! You've got to tell them! Please, get in touch with them for me.”

He didn't seem anxious to call in such an emotional revelation from a woman who seemed unstable, but he went to his squad car and asked the dispatcher for their home numbers.

Beth was with him when the answer was radioed back, and she bolted out of the squad car.

“Ma'am? Where are you going?”

“To call them,” she said. “From my car phone.”

He came to stand beside the open door as she punched out Tony's number.

He answered quickly. “Tony? This is Beth Wright.”

“Yeah, Beth.” His voice was gritty, as if she had awakened him. “I tried to call you last night, but you weren't home.”

“What happened?” she demanded. “Why didn't you arrest him?”

“We couldn't get a warrant. Judge Wyatt was really hard-nosed about it. He said we didn't have enough evidence to arrest him.”

“Not enough evidence? Are you kidding?” She looked at the building, still smoldering, and cried, “Did you show him my article?”

“I did. But he doesn't have a lot of faith in journalism. He's going to have to see more. We plan to make it our business to get him more so we can get Bill Brandon today. We're stuck with his decision because he's the presiding judge in St. Clair. There's no one higher up to go to.”

“Well, if you're looking for evidence that Bill Brandon is too dangerous to be running loose, I've got it right in front of me.”

“What do you mean, Beth?”

“I mean that the newspaper article is not going to come out today, Tony, because there's not going to
be
a newspaper today, because Bill Brandon burned the blasted place down last night. He killed two people in the process!”

“What?”

She was about to cry, and she fought it, hating herself for it. “He did it, Tony. You know he did. Somebody told him about the article—he's got lots of connections. So he took care of it.”

“You're sure it was him?”

“He didn't sign his name, if that's what you want. He probably didn't even get within fifty feet of the building himself. He probably used his kids to do it, like he does everything. Think of that, Tony—such a dangerous thing, and the kids are so young . . .”

His pause told her she was getting too emotional, giving herself away, so she tried to rein in her emotions. “Look, you've got to arrest him before he does anything else. He stopped the presses last night, kept the article from coming out today. Now he has to get to the source of that article, and that, we both know, is me.”

“You're right,” he said. “Beth, stay there. Larry and I will be there in twenty minutes. Maybe we can find something to prove definitively that Bill Brandon or his kids were behind this. Something we can show Judge Wyatt.”

“All right,” she said. She glanced at the police officer's name tag. Lt. J.T. Mills. “Tell your friend Lt. Mills, so he'll let me stay.”

“Okay. Hand him the phone.”

She did, then got out of her car and took a few steps toward the building. Flashes came back to her, flashes of those late-night planning sessions with Bill and the rest of his kids, memorizing of blueprints, the endless drilling on which way they were to turn when they broke in, what they were to take, how they were to escape. She remembered the feel of her heightened senses as he'd let them out of his dark van, the urgency and adrenaline rush as they'd climbed into windows or cut glass out to unlock back doors, the smothering fear as they'd stolen through dark hallways . . .

Bill had never asked her to start a fire or take someone's life. But he was getting desperate now, and his crimes were more catastrophic. What guilt those children would live with! She hoped they didn't know they had killed someone last night.