Annette Dashofy - Zoe Chambers 03 - Bridges Burned (3 page)

Zoe made a face. “Very funny, Barry. How is he?”

“Physically, the guy’s in good shape. Vitals are slightly elevated, but considering…” Barry Dickson shrugged. “Emotionally, he’s a wreck.”

Zoe thanked her coworker, and he ambled off.

Pete leaned into the ambulance. “Sir? Mind if I ask you a few questions?”

The second paramedic pressed a final piece of tape onto the bandage and excused himself.

The man turned toward Pete and Zoe. Devoid of the mud, torment plastered his suntanned face. Zoe guessed he was about her age, although at the moment anguish piled on at least a dozen years.

“Has anyone seen my wife?” His husky voice carried a hint of a southern upbringing. “Maybe she got out.”

Pete put a foot on the back bumper and used his knee as a desk for his notebook. “What’s your wife’s name?”

“Lill.” The man choked. “Lillian Farabee.”

Pete looked up. “Farabee? Are you Holt Farabee?”

The man’s eyes widened. “Yes. Did you locate her? Is she okay?”

Pete shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I was under the impression you and your family had been evicted.”

Zoe shot a look at Pete. “Evicted?”

He nodded in her direction.

Holt Farabee steeled his shoulders, but his eyes didn’t reflect the bravado. “Who told you that?”

“One of your neighbors. I asked him if anyone was in the house, and he told me the place was vacant.”

Farabee deflated. He twisted the gold band on his left ring finger. “I guess it’s no use trying to hide it anymore. Yeah. The bank seized our house. But I kept a key.”

“No one changed the locks?” Zoe asked

Farabee gave her a puzzled scowl. “No.” He dragged the word out until it sounded like a question rather than an answer.

Pete jotted a note. “How long ago did you move out?”

“About three weeks, I guess.”

“And when did you move back in?”

“A few days later.”

Zoe climbed in beside him, taking the seat vacated by Barry Dickson.

Farabee stared at his wedding band. “We had no place else to go. No family around here. We couldn’t afford to keep living out of a motel.”

Fire Chief Yancy bustled past and did a double take when he spotted Pete. “There you are. Just wanted you to know we have the fire contained. It’ll still be a while before we get it completely out and can get in there to recover the remains, though.”

Zoe stifled a groan. Yancy wasn’t known for his tact.

“Thanks, Yance,” Pete said through a tight jaw.

Yancy waved, oblivious to the fact the husband of the remains in question was sitting there. “No problem.”

As the fire chief strode away, Holt Farabee let out a strangled groan and doubled over, burying his face in his hands. “Oh dear Lord. I’ve killed my wife.”

Three

Pete checked his notes while he waited for Holt Farabee to regain his composure. Zoe had draped an arm over the man’s shoulders and was patting him in the uncomfortable manner of one trying to soothe a complete stranger.

Farabee scrubbed his face with the back of one arm and tried to lean back in the ambulance’s bench seat, but whacked his head on the overhead storage bins. He muttered a curse then said, “I’m sorry.”

Pete wasn’t sure if he was apologizing for swearing, for making Pete wait to continue his questions, or for killing his wife. “Sir, do you want to clarify your last statement?”

Farabee rubbed the knot on the back of his head. “What?”

“You said you killed your wife.”

He froze. “Oh. No, I didn’t mean it like that. I meant it’s my fault. I mean…”

Pete thought Farabee was about to double over again, but he drew a deep breath and met Pete’s gaze.

“I mean,” Farabee said, obviously choosing his words with great care, “she’s dead because I moved her back into the house. We weren’t legally supposed to be here. But I wanted to fight the eviction order.” He paused, twirling his wedding ring on his finger. “I told her they’d take the house over my cold, dead body. Mine. Not hers.”

“I understand you have a daughter.”

Farabee nodded. “Maddie. Madison.” He slouched down in the jump seat, apparently having learned his lesson about the storage bin, and let his head drop back against the wall. “Dear God. How am I gonna tell Maddie about her mom?”

“Where is Maddie now?”

A troubled scowl crossed Farabee’s face as he stared at nothing in particular.

Pete had a feeling there was a lot more happening behind the man’s eyes than he was letting on. “Mr. Farabee?”

He blinked. “Yes?”

“Your daughter? Where is she?” Pete hoped the girl hadn’t been with the mother.

“She’s with a friend from school. I dropped her off earlier.”

Zoe, who’d been listening to the interview in silence, shifted in her seat to face Farabee. “Why did you take her to visit her friend today?”

Pete contained a smile. Zoe was thinking the same thing as he was.

“What do you mean?” Farabee asked.

“Is this a regular play date? Why today?”

He seemed clueless. “Lill had a job interview in Brunswick. I had a call about giving an estimate on an addition.” His jaw tightened, and again Pete had a strong sense the man was holding back. A lot.

“An addition?” Zoe prodded.

A flash of anger in his eyes quickly faded. “I’m a carpenter. Unemployed carpenter. Someone phoned about having me put a new addition on their house. I thought this might be the job to bail us out of this mess. But when I got to the address he’d given me, there was nothing there. I tried calling the guy back. Figured I’d gotten the address wrong. But there was no answer. No answering machine. Nothing.”

If Farabee was attempting to create an alibi for himself, he sucked at it. “Do you have the guy’s name and number?” Pete asked.

Farabee shifted in his seat and reached into his pocket. “The name was Smith.” He pulled out a phone and tapped the screen once, then twice. He turned it over in his hand and pressed a button. With a loud sigh, he said, “I guess it’s not waterproof. I’ve got everything written down in my car if you need it.”

“I do.”

Farabee studied his lifeless phone. “I need to go pick up Maddie. I don’t want her finding out about her mom from someone else.”

“I’ll have one of my men take you.” Farabee was in no condition to be behind a wheel. Pete noted the name of the family who was babysitting the daughter before directing Seth to escort Farabee and retrieve the information on “Smith.”

As Seth and Farabee drove away in one of the Vance Township cruisers, Zoe hopped down from the patient compartment and stood at Pete’s side. “I think I’ve been hanging around you too much,” she said.

Startled, Pete shot her a questioning glance. “Why?”

She motioned after the departing Holt Farabee. “Because here we have a man in obvious agony over a horrible tragedy, and all I can wonder is why he’s already so sure his wife’s dead when her body hasn’t been recovered yet.”

“You’re starting to think like a cop.”

Zoe gave an exaggerated sigh. “Oh, crap. Just shoot me now.”

Pete had a few more questions for Stephen Tierney. Key among them—how could he have missed the fact that the evicted Farabee family had moved back in? But Tierney was no longer part of the looky-loo crowd. Pete made his way to the house Tierney owned, hidden behind an eight foot tall wooden slat privacy fence.

Behind the fence was a fashionably oversized, cookie-cutter two story house, faced in brick and swathed in beige vinyl siding, same as the other four remaining homes. The lawn was pristine green turf bordered with expertly groomed landscaping. Of course, no one outside the fence could see it.

Tierney answered the door before Pete had a chance to ring the doorbell. “How soon before all those fire trucks are gone? They’re blocking the road, and I have someplace I have to go.”

“And where might that be?”

Tierney eyed Pete as if this were a trick question. After a moment’s deliberation, he apparently decided it was safe to answer. “The airport. I have to fly to Chicago on business.”

Pete thought back to their previous encounters and recalled Tierney worked for one of the conglomerates headquartered in Brunswick. “What kind of business?” Pete tried to keep his voice light, conversational.

The man continued to study Pete. “I’ve told you before I work at Monongahela National Bank.”

Ah. Yes. That was the one. “What time do you have to leave? I can probably help direct you out.”

Tierney relaxed. “Forty-five minutes. No later.”

Pete nodded amiably. “Not a problem. In the meantime, I have a few more questions for you.”

Tierney leaned against his doorjamb and crossed his arms, making it clear Pete would not be invited inside for coffee. “Make it quick. I have to finish packing.”

Pete thumbed through his notebook, but kept his gaze on Tierney. “You told me your neighbors had been evicted.”

“Right.”

“And they’d moved out a month ago.”

“More or less. Yeah.”

“Have you noticed any activity over there since they left?”

“Activity?”

Pete held the man’s gaze and waited.

“What kind of activity?”

Pete shrugged. “Cars coming and going. Lights. Anything.”

Tierney pushed away from the doorjamb. “Are you saying…someone was staying over there?”

“Are
you
saying you didn’t know?”

“Of course I didn’t know.” He slipped a finger into his collar. “Who?”

“Didn’t you see Holt Farabee running toward the fire a little while ago?”

“No. I came back here right after I spoke to you earlier.” Tierney loosened his collar from his throat. “You mean Holt was staying over there even after being thrown out?”

Tierney’s surprise seemed genuine enough. But something about the man was setting off Pete’s bullshit meter. “Not just Holt.”

“Lillian? And the little girl?”

Pete waited and watched.

“But, you said Holt came in after the fire. So he’s okay. And Lillian and their daughter weren’t home, right?”

“You expect me to believe you haven’t noticed anything suspicious? You haven’t seen lights over there? You haven’t seen their car in the driveway?”

“No. I haven’t.”

Pete took one huge stride closer to Tierney, who was several inches shorter, and glared down at him. “They’re only a hundred or so yards away from here. How could you not notice anything?”

Tierney held his ground and pointed toward the Farabee house. “Look.” When Pete didn’t turn, Tierney said again, “Look.”

This time, Pete obliged. Not only did the eight foot tall fence keep nosy neighbors from seeing Tierney’s exquisite landscaping, it completely blocked the view of the other houses in the development. Pete made a slow pivot, taking in the entire periphery. Not a hint of the farm bordering the property was evident. In fact, Tierney’s lot could have sat smack in the middle of the city, or on the moon for that matter, for all Pete could tell from inside the fence.

“No,” Tierney said. “I did not notice any activity. Now tell me…Lillian and their daughter. They weren’t home, right?”

Pete studied the man. “The daughter is at a friend’s house.”

Tierney appeared to shrink. “And Lillian?”

“She seems to be missing.”

“Oh my God.” Tierney reached out to steady himself against the doorjamb. Tears gleamed in the man’s eyes, and for the first time today, Pete believed Tierney’s reaction was sincere.

Zoe hiked to the highest point of Scenic Hilltop Estates, her feet squishing in her still-wet boots. The lot on the peak of the hill remained vacant and overgrown. She sat down in the weeds, plucking a piece of over-ripe timothy grass, browned from the drought and summer heat, and combed the furry seed head.

At the edge of the next lot, a sign proudly proclaiming the housing development’s name tilted as though a car had run into it.
Scenic Hilltop Estates
. What a joke. Paved roads looped around the empty pasture. Already, bits of green poked up through cracks in the asphalt. Mounds of reddish-orange clay indicated where additional houses should be, but brown, sun-dried weeds sprouted from the dirt spoke of aborted efforts. Scenic Hilltop Estates had boasted all of six completed homes. Five now. Of those remaining, three had shattered windows and two suffered melted siding from the heat of the fire.

Not so scenic.

Zoe stuck the stalk of timothy between her teeth and chewed on it, releasing a flavor that matched the smell of freshly mown hay. Bees buzzed nearby. A hot breeze whispered through the grass. Idyllic—except for the still-smoldering heap of rubble which had been the Farabee house.

Firefighters continued to pour water on it while several men wearing uniforms from the gas company stood nearby, waiting to sift through the debris.

Was Lillian Farabee in there? Zoe shuddered.

She spotted a familiar figure with a familiar gait striding away from a house with a high privacy fence. The kind with the slats so close together, no one could see in. Or out. Why bother living in “Scenic” Hilltop Estates if the only scene you wanted was a wall of wood?

As she watched, Pete stopped on the road, looked around, and headed up the hill toward her.

“What are you doing up here?” Pete asked. “Loafing on the job?”

“I’m not
on
the job. Everyone who needed medical attention has been treated. Until someone locates a body, there’s nothing else for me to do. I’m off duty today anyhow. So I’m just taking in the view.” She gazed across the valley to the next hillside. “If it weren’t for the trees, you could see my place from here.”

“Did you see the explosion from over there?”

“I felt it.” Zoe told him about working on the colt in the indoor arena when the blast occurred. She didn’t mention her visitor. “Did you get any answers from the neighbor down there in the fort?”

Pete scowled and turned to look down the hill. “Oh. The fort. Yeah. That guy’s an odd one. He’s from Pittsburgh. Moved out here to live in the country, or so he says. But he’s filed at least five complaints against Leroy Moore.”

Now it was Zoe’s turn to scowl. “Leroy?” The quiet, unassuming farmer who owned the bulk of the property between the housing development and the Kroll farm. “What kind of complaints could anyone have against him?”

Pete huffed a short laugh. “The cattle stink. The manure stinks. Moore’s running his tractor too early in the morning or too late at night or too close to the property line. Take your pick.”

She eyed Pete incredulously. “Are you serious? It’s a
farm
. And it’s been a farm forever. Did the guy not happen to notice it before he bought his property?”

Pete shrugged. “I’ve asked Tierney the same thing. He never gives me much of an answer.” Pete’s expression soured. “Didn’t give me much of one now either. He’s the one who’d told me the Farabees had moved out and the house was empty. I asked him why he never noticed they’d moved back in.”

“And?”

“He said he doesn’t see the neighbors coming and going because of his fence.”

“But still...There are—were—six lousy houses. How can he not notice someone living in one of them?”

“Good question. His reaction to hearing Lillian Farabee is missing and may have been home at the time seemed genuine enough. In fact, he took the news rather hard for someone who didn’t even know she’d been living a hundred yards or so from his front door.”

“Really?” Zoe pondered a few scenarios. Scenic Hilltop Estates, meet Peyton Place. “What do you make of that?”

“I’m not making anything of either Mr. Tierney’s poor neighborhood watch skills or his concern for Lillian Farabee. Yet. Believe me, I’m not letting any of it drop.”

Zoe didn’t doubt it.

“Speaking of not letting it drop…” Pete struck what Zoe thought of as his stance—right hand resting on his sidearm, left hand on his hip. “How about dinner Friday night?”

She winced. “This is my weekend on duty.” The three Monongahela County EMS nightshift crews worked every third Friday night through Monday morning, which made building a social life difficult.

“So you’re going to miss the poker game this week, too?”

“Unfortunately.” Zoe noticed some increased activity at the explosion site. At the same time, another familiar figure moved away from the investigators and headed up the hill toward them. “Here comes Wayne.”

Pete glanced over his shoulder. “All right. I know it’s short notice, but how about tomorrow night?”

“Tomorrow? Thursday?” She ran a quick check of her mental calendar. But it never seemed to be the previous commitments that got in their way. “Okay. I’m pretty sure I’m free.”

County Police Detective Wayne Baronick’s footsteps grew closer.

“Good. I’ll pick you up at six,” Pete said.

Before Zoe could reply, Baronick cut loose a piercing whistle. “Are you two having a picnic or do you want to know what I’ve come up with so far?”

Pete offered a hand to help Zoe up. “You may be off duty, but apparently I’m not.”

Baronick waited at the Scenic Hilltop Estates sign for them. Zoe took another long look at the bold lettering.

Pete’s cell phone rang, and he dug it from his pocket.

Baronick sidled over to Zoe. “You know,” the detective said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively, “if you ever get tired of hanging out with that old buzzard, I’d be more than happy to show you the town.”

“I already know the town.” She skimmed through the information about available lots and settled on the bottom two lines.

Dave Evans

Land Developer

The guy from the barn.

Pete put his phone away without answering it and glared at the detective. “What have you got?”

“I tracked down the name of the lending institution holding the mortgage on the…” Baronick motioned toward the debris field. “On what used to be the Farabee house.”

“And?”

“MNB.”

Zoe was about to excuse herself from the drudgery of cop talk, but Pete swearing loudly stopped her cold. “What?” she and Baronick asked in unison.

Pete looked like a wolf scenting blood. “Monongahela National Bank. And guess who happens to work for them.”