Barn Burner (Jubilant Falls series Book 1) Page 10

  Addison reached the door of the white marble city building and stepped inside, turning sharply to her left to descend the stairs to the basement police department. She’d have to ask Gary all these questions—and then question Sheriff Boderman about the barn fire.

  She opened a heavy steel door with the seal of the Jubilant Falls Police Department on it and walked to the dispatcher’s bulletproof window to give her name.

  “Assistant Chief McGinnis is still in a meeting, but I’ll tell him you’re here,” the young woman said.

  In a few moments, Addison was ushered back into Gary’s office where Marvin, Gary, and Sheriff Boderman sat waiting for her.

  “Got you all together at once—how’d I rate that?” she smiled as she seated herself and opened her notebook. “I was going to call you about last night’s fire later this afternoon, Sheriff. I’m glad you’re here.”

  Sheriff Boderman didn’t smile, but then Addison never expected him to, no matter what the situation. A tall muscular man whose dark hair had long ago turned gray, Boderman had been elected sheriff in the 1970s and held the position ever since. He was a dour old county politico, who fought change as long as he could and protected his turf whenever possible. That often led to conflicts between the sheriff’s department and the JFPD or the sheriff’s department and the state highway patrol. He knew Addison’s father Walt, but never extended the same trust to her that the city police—or everyone else—did. It often led to embarrassing stories in the Journal-Gazette with the sheriff insisting the emperor had new clothes when he was, in fact, buck-naked.

  Boderman simply nodded in response to her question, knitting his thick eyebrows together.

  “I’d like to interview the FBI agents who are here, if that’s possible,” Addison turned to Gary.

  “They don’t want to talk to the press right now,” Marvin interjected before his younger brother could answer. “They’d rather work behind the scenes right now and get a better idea of what’s going on before they say anything. They may only agree to comment during press conferences, and maybe not even then.”

  “So where do we stand on the Thorn abduction?”

  Marvin looked at Gary, who looked at Sheriff Boderman. There was a moment of awkward silence.

  “We’ve managed to clear one suspect,” Gary finally spoke.

  “Who is that?”

  “It’s Harmon Ripsmatta.”

  “What happened? Did he come forward? Did you have a chance to interview him?”

  “No. He was—” Gary began.

  Boderman cleared his throat. “He was found dead in that barn that burned last night. Shot twice in the head.”

  “Bucky, I mean Dr. Bovir just left here.” Gary steered the conversation away from the sheriff. “He’d done a preliminary autopsy and found two bullet holes at the base of the skull. The body has been transferred to the Collitstown crime lab for further analysis.”

  Addison scribbled frantically, her brain exploding with questions. How did he get in the Jensen’s barn? Who killed him? And why?

  “How did Dr. Bovir identify the body?”

  “He was identified primarily through tattoos found on the body and partial fingerprints, what we could get. We’re still waiting for next of kin to completely confirm it, but we’re pretty sure it’s him because of tattoos we found.”

  “Tattoos?” Addison looked up from her notebook. Gary shoved Ripsmatta’s mug shot across his desk towards her.

  “See the spider and the spider web on the left side of his neck there?” he asked.

  “Uh huh.”

  “Our body in the barn had the same tattoos.”

  “What about the shoe that was in his hand at the fire scene? The one that matched the shoes Lyndzee Thorn was wearing when she disappeared? Does this mean that he was the original kidnapper? Does this mean that you believe somebody else is involved as a secondary accomplice?” The words shot out of Addison’s mouth just as quickly as they came into her head.

  Gary held up his hands to stop her torrent of questions. “Hold on Penny, hold on.”

  “But what about the shoe?” she spluttered. “I know I saw a shoe!”

  The three men stared at each other.

  “There was nothing found on that body,” Boderman snapped. “We have no knowledge of any shoe.”

  The atmosphere in the office hung heavy with tension as the three men stared at each other. Marvin and Gary’s faces each had a look of disbelief; Boderman glared angrily back at them both.

  “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it,” Boderman said crossing his arms defiantly.

  “I saw a shoe that matched the shoe Lyndzee Thorn was reportedly wearing when she disappeared. The forensics technician found it and showed Mike Birger!” Addison was flabbergasted.

  “There was no shoe.” Boderman was insistent.

  “There was, and I’m going to report that in tomorrow’s newspaper!”

  Boderman took a different tack. “You must have been mistaken,” he wheedled. “Things look different after they’ve been subjected to the high heat of a fire. I knew your daddy, and he was a fine officer, but I know that he didn’t come home and discuss all the details of his day over the dinner table. You don’t know crime scene investigations and you really don’t know what you saw.”

  “I’m not some stupid broad and I know what I saw! Why are you doing this? It wasn’t all that disfigured, sheriff. It still looked like a shoe and I have no compunction at all of making you look like a fool!”

  “Again.” Gary McGinnis interjected. “Sheriff, I think you know that the biggest aid we can have right now is Penny and her newspaper. She can put more out there about this little girl than just about anybody. Like it or not, we have to trust her to provide that information. Somebody who was at Pop’s might read something that could jar a memory of something important.”

  His arms crossed defensively, Boderman leaned back in his chair, moving his hip to make sure everyone in the room could see his service revolver strapped to his hip.

  “So there was a shoe there.” Addison said. She wanted to add “and I’m not the dipshit female you think I am,” but didn’t. Instead she glared angrily at Boderman.

  Gary nodded. “Yes, but we don’t know at this point if it was definitely connected to Lyndzee Thorn or not. With all the publicity, it could be some sicko. We’ve asked the crime lab to look at the shoe and see if they can get some DNA off it.”

  Addison nodded. “Does this seriously change the direction of the investigation? I mean, do you think Lyndzee Thorn is dead?”

  “We’ve only got our hope and the family’s hope that she’s alive,” Gary said.

  “When will this be in the paper?” Marvin asked. “We haven’t notified the family yet.”

  “Tomorrow. We’ve just put today’s paper to bed.” Addison sighed.

  She hadn’t been back in touch with Jaylynn for a couple days—or Suzanne for that matter. Both women were struggling with horrible loss and probably needed Addison as a friend. But they also knew her well enough to know that the pursuit of a big story, whatever it was, could consume her.

  This time, it was too serious and she couldn’t let the enormity of the stories she was on outweigh her friendship with Jaylynn or Suzanne. She made a mental note to stop by Suzanne’s place on her way home tonight and give Jaylynn a call on her private line as soon as she could grab a minute or two to herself.

  “Let me know when you’ve contacted them and I can get a statement.”

  “You know this changes everything, don’t you?” Marvin looked somberly up from his hands that lay clasped in his lap.

  “Are we on the record?”

  Marvin nodded. “If one of our suspects is dead, that could mean a couple things. First, either two or more people were involved and something happened to upset that partnership. My guess is that Ripsmatta, since he’s got a record as a sexual predator, got killed by his partner after he tried to, or actually did, sexually assault Lyndzee.”


  Addison blanched.

  “That could mean the second suspect could see Lyndzee as a means for ransom money and she’s still alive,” continued Marvin McGinnis.

  “And minus a shoe,” Addison interjected.

  “Or…” Marvin held up his index finger. “She’s already dead and this was a way to let us know that. We could also start seeing what happened in the Getty kidnapping.”

  “Oh God.”

  J. Paul Getty III, grandson of the wealthy oilman, had been kidnapped in the mid-70s while living in Italy. Kidnappers, enraged after the penny pinching J. Paul Getty refused to pay ransom, cut off the boy’s right ear and mailed it to the family.

  “I have to say that there has still not been any ransom request, so these scenarios may all be conjecture on my part. We are still searching for our other suspects, Roy Castlewheel and Talley Lundgren. The FBI will be re-interviewing everyone we’ve talked to before.”

  Addison swallowed hard. “Any other scenarios?”

  “None that I want to go into at this time. I just want to find these two guys. I’d love to clear them of this crime, even if it means we no longer have any suspects. Our time to most likely find her alive—that golden 24—is long past, but I think she’s still alive. I don’t know why I think that, but I do.”

  “We need to go talk to the Thorn parents,” Gary reminded his brother.

  All four stood in unison. The meeting was now over.

  “Are you a praying person?” Marvin asked Addison.

  “I’ve been known to bend my knee on occasion.”

  “Then pray for this little girl. Pray hard.”

  Chapter 12

  “You’re that girl they’re looking for.”

  The Crazy Man put down the bottle in the paper bag and leaned forward, his scrawny arms on the knees of his dirty, torn jeans.

  Lyndzee nodded.

  “I tried to save you, you know.” He spoke fast, as if the words would explode from his mouth like so much shrapnel if he didn’t get them out quickly enough. His eyes were bright with some inner fire.

  You did?” Lyndzee gasped.

  The Crazy Man nodded. “The other man got to you first. I even tried chasing the car down the street. You hungry? You tired?”

  She nodded.

  Lyndzee stepped closer and sat beside him. Talley wrapped a tattered arm around her. The stench of body odor and cheap wine was strong, but for the first time since she walked out the door of the big white house, Lyndzee felt safe. Tears welled up in her eyes and cascaded down her cheeks and softly she began to sob.

  “There, there, there,” Talley patted her heaving shoulders. “Talley’s gonna take care of you. Everything’s gonna be all right.”

  “I see you at the college gate, My-my Mommy says you’re crazy, but you don’t hurt nobody.”

  “There’s evil in this world, Miss Lyndzee, and some of the biggest sins are right inside the gates of that church college—then there’s government conspiracies bigger than you know about. Your mom and dad don’t want you to know, but there’s phones that are tapped right to the FBI, radios that can hear your thoughts, and CIA agents who come tell me about government corruption right here in my camp. Right here! They tell me it’s ole Talley Lundgren’s job to make sure that ee-vile is brought to the surface.” The words came faster and faster; Talley tapped his chest as if to slow them down.

  “Is that your name? Talley Lundgren?”

  Talley nodded. “I’m not gonna hurt you. Let’s have something to eat and then we’ll find your parents. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow, though.”

  Lyndzee leaned back in fear. “I don’t want to wait till tomorrow! I want to go home now!” she cried.

  “Ssshhhh. Somebody will hear us!” He raised a gnarly finger to his lips, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Do you want those bad people to come find you and take you again? We have to wait until tomorrow because the CIA agent who tells me these things will tell us how to do it best. You don’t know who all is looking for you. We don’t want to give you back to the wrong people, now do we?”

  Lyndzee thought of the man called Rip, who had thrown her into the trunk of his car. She remembered the blow across her face and how scared she was as she ran through the woods. Maybe Talley was right. Maybe they ought to wait for this tomorrow. Besides, Talley had food and she was so hungry.

  She didn’t know what a CIA agent was, but if they had Talley’s confidence, they must be the right ones to listen to. But everyone said he was crazy, a warning voice inside her said. Do you really want to trust him?

  What else I can do? she thought. I’m cold, I’m hungry, my face hurts and I want to go home. I have to trust the crazy man.

  ***

  Duncan was sitting in the waiting room outside the police dispatcher’s window when Addison, her meeting with the McGinnis brothers and Sheriff Boderman over, stepped through the door.

  “You know, there’s no goddamn sense in you having a cell phone if you don’t carry it with you,” he snapped, twisting his John Deere ball cap in his fists.

  “I saw you’d called last night, but I just figured you wanted to know how the Jensen’s were doing and I was going to call you after deadline, then there was this guy’s body found in the barn—”

  “I don’t give a damn about the Jensen barn!” Duncan shouted.

  “What’s wrong? What’s happened? Is it Isabella?” Addison grabbed his arm. God, I’ve done it again, she thought, left everything behind in the pursuit of a headline. Something goes wrong at home and I’m not there— all I’m doing is chasing stories.

  Duncan nodded somberly, tears forming in his eyes. “She’s in the hospital. She tried to kill herself last night.”

  ***

  The next morning, Lyndzee slid her finger carefully around the inside of the empty baked bean can, catching the sweet sauce with her index finger. Sucking the sweet red-brown sauce from her finger, she’d never enjoyed breakfast more, not any one of Tina’s fancy meals or her mother’s fish stick dinners.

  Talley had warmed the beans in the can over the dying fire and handed it to her along with a broken plastic spoon for breakfast. He’d let her sleep in the lean-to, on a tattered sleeping bag that lay on a bed of pine needles and old newspapers. There were holes in the sleeping bag and the white stuffing bloomed from its insides like so many dirty chrysanthemums, but it was nice to have a safe play to sleep.

  She’d fallen asleep watching him standing at the edge of the camp, gesturing emphatically to someone in the bushes. She couldn’t see who Talley was talking to, but it had to be someone real, just in the dark where she couldn’t see.

  “I got to go get us more food, but you don’t leave here,” he’d warned, handing her the can of beans. “We want to make sure that we don’t give you back to the wrong people.”

  “What if somebody comes?”

  Run! Run like hell!” Talley had waved his long arms above his head, shaking them like a monkey.

  Lyndzee had laughed, but Talley cut her off with a wave of his hand.

  “I’m serious! This is not nothing to laugh about, Missy. There’s a conspiracy out there—and you could be the victim! I’m going out to find us some food. You stay right here. The agents came last night and they said the time’s not right for you yet. You need to stay here one more night.”

  “One more night! I want to go home today!”

  “Ssshhh! You can’t go yet! It’s not safe! Just promise me you’ll stay here.”

  Lyndzee sighed. “OK.”

  He’d handed her the opened can of beans and then loped off into the woods.

  Sadly, Lyndzee slid onto the ground, using the log she’d been sitting on as a backrest. Her stomach now full and the pain in her face lessening, she began to consider her situation.

  She looked around Talley’s camp. Cardboard signs nailed to broom sticks rested against the inside of the lean-to: YOU WILL PAY FOR YOUR SINS, DR. THORN, read one sign. Others read BAN THE GOVERNMENT THOUGHT POLIC
E and JESUS IS ASHAMED OF YOU.

  What had Daddy done to make Talley so angry? Lyndzee wondered. Maybe nothing. After all, Mommy said Talley was crazy. Maybe she shouldn’t stay, after all, even after all Talley had said. Lyndzee looked closely around the encampment. Empty wine bottles littered the ground

  Maybe what he was telling her wasn’t true, she thought. Maybe he would try to hurt her, too, like that man he called Rip. But why would he help her, then? Why would he let her sleep there, give her the baked beans to eat, and then go looking for more food, if he didn’t think she ought to stay?

  But what about her parents? Wouldn’t they be looking for her? She’d been missing two days. They must really be having trouble finding her, otherwise they would have her back home by now. She couldn’t wait here for them to find her, could she? She needed to get home—now.

  “God helps those who help themselves,” Tina always said.

  Lyndzee stood up, brushed off the seat of her jeans and looked around the camp. Which direction should I head? She thought. Would going back the way I came put me right back in front of that bad man?

  Maybe I shouldn’t go that way, she reconsidered. But if he was going to come get me, he would have followed me that first night, right? Maybe he’d given up and all I need to do is walk back out to that parking lot where I first ran away. And trying to walk with only one shoe sure didn’t feel good. She looked up at the clear blue sky.

  As long as I can see where I was going, she reasoned, I can probably walk barefoot OK.

  Lyndzee took off her remaining shoe, laid it in on the log and headed back into the woods.

  Chapter 13

  Addison knelt beside her daughter’s bed at Plummer County Community Hospital and laid her forehead against her daughter’s limp hand. Both wrists were bandaged and her face, though calm in sleep, was pale. An IV bag hung above the bed, its clear liquid-filled tube, snaked across the pillow, down Izzy’s arm and disappeared into a needle that in turn, disappeared into a blue vein.

  Sobs racked Addison’s shoulders as she held Isabella’s palm against her own cheek. “My baby! My baby!” she cried. “How could this happen? Why would she do this?” Her loud keening sobs echoed throughout the hospital room as Duncan, silent in his own grief, stroked her back.