“Bruce is tough enough to pull through, Ellie.”
“I’m more worried about you and Cal Troyer, if it proves he isn’t.”
“We’ve all been friends for a long time.”
“Cal’s got Bruce on a prayer chain. Round the clock prayers. His whole church is at it.”
“You’d expect anything else?” Branden asked softly, not letting on that the news had startled him.
A mist appeared over Ellie’s eyes, and she turned her head.
Branden smiled sympathetically and asked, “Is Newell in the sheriff’s office now?”
Ellie turned back around with a handkerchief held loosely in her fingers.
Branden said, “I think you miss the sheriff, Ellie.”
“No!” Ellie said with obvious sarcasm, and dried her eyes.
“Ellie, if Missy Taggert is directing Bruce’s treatments, then he couldn’t be in better hands. She’ll get him what he needs, whatever it takes, and she’ll take him somewhere else, if she can’t get it here. She’s a strong and determined woman. She cares for him. And he’s going to pull through.” He had spoken it as a promise to himself, perhaps also as a prayer.
Ellie nodded and smiled weakly.
Branden let a calming moment pass and then asked, “Is the captain taking visitors?”
The radio came alive, and Ellie nodded yes, waving Branden down the hall as she sat down and rolled up to the console. Branden passed through the swinging door, tossed his coffee cup into a wastebasket beside Ellie’s desk, and heard her taking details from a deputy at the scene of an accident.
At the sheriff’s office, Branden rapped his knuckles on the door, entered, and found Captain Robert “Bobby” Newell staring blankly at papers on the sheriff’s big cherry desk. Newell glanced up, motioned Branden to a seat, and said, “I can’t believe the sheriff does all this paperwork.”
Newell had the powerful build of a weightlifter, and he filled out his uniform dramatically. With his short brown hair, square jaw, and heavy eyebrows he appeared rugged, capable. His large arms bulked at his sides, straining the fabric of his black and gold uniform shirt, and his powerful hands seemed out of place handling mere paper.
Branden took a seat in front of the desk and said, “Bobby, I’m sure he lets Ellie do most of that.”
Newell pushed his chair back from the desk and looked puzzled. Branden said, “I think she could use something to do out there.”
Newell said, “That sounds more like it.” He pulled forward, began stacking the papers together, and said, “Couldn’t figure how Robertson did all of it himself.”
“You hear anything about how he’s doing?” Branden asked.
“Stable, but not too much better is what the doctors say.”
“And your investigation into Weaver?”
“Dan Wilsher’s been going through some of Weaver’s papers.”
“I was out there with him yesterday,” Branden said.
“He told me that,” Newell said. “Also said you were going to talk to Brittany Sommers about the Weaver trust.”
“Did that this morning, Bobby. He and Sommers had just finished a big land deal with an outfit up in Cleveland.”
“Ordinary stuff?” Newell asked.
“Seems to be,” Branden said, and added, “The accident still troubles me.”
“Why?”
“That horse shouldn’t have gone down that way.”
“Taggert said you had her looking into something.”
“An autopsy,” Branden said.
“On the horse?”
“I think there’s something there.”
“Why?”
Branden shrugged. “A hunch. People report hearing a backfire, and that horse dropped over funny.”
Newell rubbed his thick fingers on his chin, thinking.
“You’ve still got some men on the case?” Branden asked.
Newell nodded yes. “Wilsher’s going through Weaver’s office with Niell, and he’s got two more deputies gathering facts about the accident. Then we’ll turn it all over to the highway patrol. It’s their case, anyways.”
“Give it more time, Bobby,” Branden offered. “I don’t think it was an accident.”
“You got that when you spoke with Sommers?”
“No.”
“Do you have something from Weaver’s trust papers that Dan Wilsher needs to know about?”
“No, but ...”
“Is there anything you can cite, other than your hunch about the horse?”
“No, Bobby. I just think there are loose ends, and I’d like to see us staying on it a while longer.”
“OK, but my deputies are stretched pretty thin, Mike.”
“I can work it as hard as I want,” Branden said.
“Doing what?”
“The personal stuff. You know, Bobby. Things the highway patrol isn’t going to get into. More from the witnesses, maybe.”
“We’ve got complete statements from MacAfee, Kent, and Weston,” Newell said. “Niell interviewed each of them twice, at the scene.”
“Memories change, Bobby. There’s the insurance angle and the land dealings. I can stay on it as long as I want, and it won’t cost your deputies a minute. I’ll just work the edges. Witnesses again. Land deal angles. Trust funds. You know. Anywhere, really. Besides, there’s Taggert’s horse autopsy that hasn’t come in yet.”
“Those buggy robberies are still a concern to me, Mike. Those masks make me nervous.”
“We knew there’d be trouble from that crowd someday,” Branden said. “My concern is that word about me is going to get out.”
“You think anyone knows?”
“Just two families. One where I borrow the rig, and one where I water the horse.”
“There should have been gossip by now.”
“Hasn’t seemed to be, yet,” Branden said.
“You’ve probably got only a few more rides before those kids find out.”
“I might need only one or two more, Bobby.”
Newell drummed his fingers on the desk and said, “Ricky Niell thinks he knows a way to track ’em down.”
“The sooner the better,” Branden offered.
Newell said, “OK,” and came around from behind the desk. He gathered up the papers and said, “Let’s go see Ellie.”
Out at her dispatcher’s station, Newell asked, “Ellie, is this the kind of stuff you do for Robertson?”
Ellie took the stack of papers and forms from the captain, fanned through the top ones, and said, “These should have been done already.”
Newell said, “Can you do them?”
“You don’t think Bruce does them himself?” Ellie said, laughing.
“Well, then. I’ve got my own sack of rocks to carry,” Newell said, and disappeared into the locker room at the far end of the hall.
Ellie waited until he had gone and said, “I suppose I’ve got you to thank for this, Professor.”
Branden smiled mischievously. “I thought you could use the distraction.”
“Thanks a heap, Doc,” Ellie said and started whistling softly as she sorted the forms and papers.
8
Wednesday, August 9
3:45 P.M.
WHEN the doorbell rang at the Brandens’ house, the professor was lying motionless on a long couch in the living room, with the lights turned off and curtains drawn. For nearly an hour, he had been thinking about J. R. Weaver’s death and Britta Sommers’s financial triumph. He rose slowly on stiff legs and opened the front door. In the bright light, he saw a man and a woman in upper middle age, holding hands. They were both dressed haphazardly, as if the cares of recent days had not permitted them the luxury of careful grooming. The woman had evidently applied some makeup, but her mascara was running.
“I’m Denny Smith,” the man said, “and this is my wife Lenora. May we speak with you, Professor?”
As Branden hesitated slightly, the woman’s eyelids fluttered, and a sheen of new tears appeared. She held a tissue beneath her eye and dabbed mascara from her cheek. “It was our son Brad who died in the fire out on 515,” she whispered.
Branden held the screen door open, and motioned them inside without comment. When he had closed the door against the outside heat, he ushered them into the darkened living room and turned on a small lamp on a table next to two swivel-rocker Lazy Boys opposite the couch.
“I’ve been keeping it cool,” he said, “but we can turn on more lights if you prefer.”
“Not on my account,” Mrs. Smith said, and sat in one of the chairs next to her husband.
Branden asked, “Can I fix you something cold to drink?”
They both declined, so he sat down on the edge of the couch and said, “How can I help you?”
“We want to hire you,” Mr. Smith said.
“Why, Mr. Smith? Because of your son?”
“Please, it’s Denny. And yes, to investigate our son’s death.”
“I’m already doing that, Denny. In a somewhat official capacity.”
“We want more,” Mrs. Smith said forcefully. “That truck driver was drunk.” Anger seemed to replace her tears, and she sat up straight on the edge of the rocker and eyed Branden with determination.
“I can tell you what we learn, as the investigation proceeds,” Branden said.
Denny Smith said, “Please, Professor. We can get that ourselves from the sheriff’s office. We want someone to go to Chicago. Track down this trucking company. Find out what you can about that driver.”
“It sounds like you’re building a case,” Branden said.
“We want to do what we can for our son,” Lenora said.
“Things are very preliminary right now,” Branden offered.
“I want to put them out of business,” Denny insisted. “Lenora and I. We’re not going to bury our son and just let it go at that.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t go to Chicago right now,” Branden said.
“What do we have to do, Professor?” Denny complained, sitting back and shaking his head.
Lenora took hold of her husband’s hand and said, “It’s all right, Denny. We’ll do it ourselves. We always have, anyway.” She looked reproachfully at Branden.
“You can do better than me, at any rate,” Branden said. “I don’t know Chicago. And I’m not a licensed investigator.”
Lenora had her purse open now, and she stuffed her tissues into the bottom of it. There was a look of determination in her eyes, almost bordering on spite. “If you won’t help us, we’ll do it ourselves.”
“Mrs. Smith,” Branden said. “Please. I really can’t help you. But you don’t have to do it yourselves, either.”
Lenora was on her feet, now, and she had her husband standing, too.
Branden stood up and said, “Hire a Chicago detective.”
Lenora stood in place and thought. Some of the indignation faded from her expression. Somewhat hopefully, she said, “We don’t know any Chicago detectives.”
“I do,” Branden asserted.
He excused himself, climbed the carpeted stairs to his study on the second floor, and came down holding a business card.
The Smiths were standing close together at the front door. He handed over the business card and said, “Get in touch with Bill Keplar. He’s a good PI, and you can trust him.”
The Smiths studied the card, and Denny slid it into his shirt pocket. As he opened the front door for his wife, Smith said, “Somebody’s going to pay for our Brad. Somebody’s sure gonna pay.”
9
Thursday, August 10
8:00 A.M.
BRANDEN heard the sirens early Thursday morning, while standing at the kitchen sink eating cold cereal. Out of curiosity, when he drove off the college heights in the east end of town, he swung hard right onto Route 62 and drove slowly eastward. Soon he found water spilling onto the highway from one of the country driveways. A hundred yards farther down the road, he took in a startled breath and turned to climb the long, curving blacktop drive to Britta Sommers’s house on a wooded hill.
The tires of his truck splashed through a steady flow of running water on the drive, and he could see dark smoke and billowing steam ascending beyond the stand of pines that blocked the view of her house from the road. As he came around the pines and made the turn at the switchback to her house, the firemen were coiling their hoses, pulling down hot spots, and extinguishing the last flames at the back of Sommers’s sprawling brick ranch house, where a large kitchen with tall windows had previously offered a peaceful view of the woods on the hill behind the house.
Branden stopped and backed his truck into the trees beside the drive. He approached the house on foot and saw that the front was nearly untouched by the flames. At the side of the house, the fire had spread along the roof line and burnt to the peak. The back roof had been laid open by the blaze, and the back of the house was a shambles of sooted brick and charred wood, water dripping freely from the remains of the roof, the walls, and the door and window frames. At the back, all of the windows had been shattered either by the fire or by the firemen, and blackened wood, soot, and splinters floated on the water that was still running out of the house at foot level. The grass around the back of the house had been trampled to mud, and the flower beds beside the house were littered with charred boards, roofing shingles, ladders, high pressure hoses, and broken glass and window trim.
He could see that nearly all of the inside kitchen walls had been destroyed, as had those of an adjoining study at the back of the house. Only the upright studs remained, charred, with irregular patches of blackened wallboard hanging here and there in the ruins. The kitchen counters and cabinets had burned and canted inward, spilling their contents onto the rubble on the floor.
As he crossed the flagstone patio at the back of the house, Branden’s feet crunched broken glass and splintered wood trim. Inside, he saw Captain Bobby Newell and the Millersburg fire chief working in the middle of the kitchen, painstakingly lifting boards, ceiling plaster, and sections of an interior wall from a long kitchen table that stood in the center of the room. He eased himself carefully through the back door frame and stood inside the sooty room to survey the damage.
Newell ushered Branden out onto the back patio and asked, “What do you smell, Professor?”