Lethal Little Lies (Jubilant Falls Series Book 3) Read online

  “We all are," I answered. "We all are."

  Silence sank around us again.

  "Tell me, PJ, why you want to quit school," I said. "I know we're worrying about your mother right now, but tell me why you want to come back here."

  "I don't think it's the school for me, that's all. I don't want to major in some science. I'm tired of living with a bunch of geeks with no social skills and questionable hygiene."

  "What do you want to do?" I asked.

  "I want to be a reporter. I want to do what you do, Dad."

  Before I could answer, the cordless phone, lying in the center of the kitchen island, rang. It had been an hour since the last phone call from Detective Mike Birger, who'd been put in charge of the search. I snatched it up, pressing the talk button with my thumb.

  "Hello?"

  "Mr. Henning, it's Detective Birger. We've found your wife."

  "They've found her!" I called over my shoulder. The kids broke into loud cheers and hugged each other. "Is she OK? Where did you find her? Did you catch whoever took her?"

  "She's injured, but she's alive. If you could meet us at the hospital, she's en route there now."

  *****

  Detective Birger met us at the emergency room’s glass doors at the Plummer County Community Hospital.

  “Can we see her? Is she OK? Where did you find her? Did you arrest anybody?” Our questions all ran together—I don’t know who asked what.

  Birger held up his hands. Our excitement at having Kay back was tempered—he didn’t smile.

  “Mrs. Henning was found in a hotel room near the highway, at the county line—she’s been shot.”

  “Oh my God!”

  “She took one shot in the right side. She’s got some internal injuries, some facial injuries—maybe from an assault—but the doctors think she’s going to be fine.”

  I sighed. “Thank God. Do you know anything else?”

  “It looked like she was held there. If you hadn’t called her, we wouldn’t have found her.”

  “What about the shooter?” I asked.

  Birger shook his head. “The shooter wasn’t there when we got there.”

  My shoulders—and the kids’—collectively sank.

  “When she’s out of surgery and able to speak, we’ll interview her and maybe she can give us some more information. We won’t give up.”

  Once inside, Birger led us up to the waiting room outside the surgical suite. As he waited outside, a nurse briefed us on Kay’s condition.

  “The detective told us Mom was shot?” Lillian spoke first.

  The nurse nodded. “Yes. It was a small caliber bullet that punctured her right side. She’s got some facial injuries, a broken nose. She’s just starting surgery, but should be out within a few hours. The doctors think she’ll be fine. If you’d like, there’s time for you to go get something to eat. The cafeteria is on the lower level. It’s open 24 hours.”

  “Why don’t you guys go get something to eat?” I said. “I’ll wait up here. I’ll call your cell if she comes out sooner.”

  “OK.” They gathered up their coats and stood. We walked out of the conference room, strolling toward the elevator. The door opened and I hugged Lillian.

  “I’ll call you when she’s out of surgery,” I said.

  She nodded. “I love you, Daddy.” She smiled wistfully and the three of them stepped into the elevator.

  Detective Birger met me as I came back to the waiting room.

  “I didn’t want to say this before, but we do have some other information,” he said. “Did you know that there were apparently ten voicemails on your office phone today?”

  “I knew some guy kept trying to call me, but since my book was published, I get a lot of those.”

  “So you ignore them?”

  “For the most part. We’re short-staffed at the paper. Addison would kill me if I spent my days talking up fans and signing autographs.”

  “Maybe you should have answered these calls. We think they could have been from the man who shot your wife.”

  Chapter 8 Addison

  My cell phone buzzed as I parked in front of the city building, two blocks down from the newspaper. It was Gary.

  “We’ve got Kay Henning.” Quickly, he filled me in on the details.

  “Awesome. Does Marcus know?”

  “He’s at the hospital, Birger tells me, and she’s in surgery. I’ve told your reporter to meet him at the hospital for the details. Where are you?”

  “Out front. Buzz me in and we can get started on this deal with Virginia Ferguson. She’s out of surgery, right?”

  “She died on the table, Penny. Rick Starrett’s a murder suspect now.”

  I hung my head in shock and disappointment. I’d gone to high school with Rick and his younger brother Rowan. So had Gary, for that matter. We’d watched from the sidelines as both of their careers took off, marveling at how two brothers from Jubilant Falls could both be so successful.

  When tales of Rowan’s professional hockey career became one personal debacle after another, it wasn’t easy for the sports editor to hear Mrs. Starrett’s tearful voicemails each time we ran a wire story. We ran both stories of his final conviction on federal fraud charges, and his suicide shortly after his release from federal prison on the front page the day they happened. The phone calls stopped then.

  His body had been found in his apartment—he’d shot himself in the mouth. Rick found him, after Rowan hadn’t shown up for his mother’s birthday celebration. He described the scene to me at the cemetery after everyone had left. I’d left that part out of the account of Rowan Starrett’s death and funeral.

  Rick was, literally, another story.

  Right out of college, Rick started working for the county. He went to night school to get his master’s degree in public administration, became Jubilant Falls’ city manager, and then was elected Plummer County commissioner before making the jump to various political appointee positions in Columbus.

  He had two teen-age daughters, an ex-wife he was on good terms with (they still spent holidays together) and was reportedly dating a state-level EPA lawyer. His black Pontiac Solstice was his pride and joy, loved only the way a middle-aged man could love a car.

  Since leaving Jubilant Falls, he’d moved up the ladder professionally and politically. He became known as the man to go to for favors, the man who could get things done. There was even some talk he was going to be appointed to the governor’s cabinet about a year ago. It was no surprise when the powers in Columbus asked him to run for state senate. It was supposed to be a shoe-in race, an easy victory until the commercials started.

  Rick was a successful man with a bright future ahead of him apparently—until tonight.

  Now, Gary McGinnis wanted to hear what I knew about threats Rick Starrett apparently made to a now-dead opponent.

  “OK,” I said and ended the phone call. I slammed the door to my Taurus and sighed as I walked toward the front door of the city building, angry and disappointed that the one person I knew whose life played out on a larger stage would fall so far, so quickly.

  I’ve written so many stories of sadness and disappointment. I really had hopes that this story might be along the line of those we’d written when Rowan Starrett’s hockey career was in full swing.

  It didn’t look like it.

  Silently Gary buzzed me in and wordlessly, we took the elevator downstairs to the police department.

  Disappointment hung between us as we stood silently in the elevator. It was like we didn’t want to believe that one of Jubilant Falls’ bright lights had gone out.

  That was one of the disadvantages of working in your hometown, I suppose. Gary and I had seen so many things happen to so many of the folks we’d grown up with—good and bad. Maybe if I’d worked at a big metro, like the Cincinnati Enquirer, that stuff wouldn’t have bothered me as much.

  As it was, I’d probably known a sibling, a parent, a cousin, maybe even a child or spouse of most of
the folks I’d covered on a daily basis. Sometimes, it didn’t bother me—there were just some folks who’d always been cursed to pair up on a serial basis with three of life’s dance partners: disaster, stupidity or bad luck. Most of those folks had stupidity on their dance cards more than once. Others had lives that never knew pain or stress until those moments just before I came into their lives and put their own personal crisis on the front page of the paper. Gary knew it as well as I did.

  The elevator door opened to the police waiting room. He waved at the dispatcher behind the bulletproof glass. She buzzed us through to the labyrinth of basement hallways and offices that made up the JFPD. I followed him down halls painted in institutional neutral colors to his assistant chief’s office.

  He pointed at a chair for me and slid behind his desk into his city-issue chair.

  “We’re on the record now, right?” I pulled a pen from my purse and opened my reporter’s notebook.

  “Yes.” He leaned back, stared at the ceiling and gave me the details, press release perfect. “JFPD officers responded to an address on East Harmon Street at six thirty-five this evening on the report of gun shots. On arrival, we found a 45-year-old female victim named Virginia Ferguson lying in the doorway of the home. She had been shot twice in the chest. We found a number of .38-caliber shells in and around the doorway. EMS transported Ms. Ferguson to the hospital, where she was taken into surgery and where she later died. Prior to going into surgery, the victim identified her shooter as Rick Starrett. The Jubilant Falls Police department is currently searching for Mr. Starrett, whose whereabouts are unknown.”

  “Got it.”

  Gary leaned forward and looked me in the eye. “So tell me what he told you in your office.”

  “Basically that she was the reason he lost the election—he specifically cited those nasty commercials that connected him with his brother Rowan’s theft and gambling charges. He was going to file a complaint with the Ohio Election Commission and basically, quote, ‘I’m going to hit her where it hurts.’”

  “That’s a direct quote?”

  I nodded.

  “When did that happen?”

  “Somewhere after deadline—in the afternoon.”

  “Sounds like motive to me.”

  “He was pretty pissed off, pounding on my desk.”

  Gary sighed. “We have uniforms out looking for him and a state-wide BOLO. That Solstice won’t be easy to hide.”

  “I hate to say it, but those ads would send anyone over the edge. They were vicious.”

  “They were nastier than any other local campaign. I don’t think I’ve seen worse in a long, long time.”

  “I haven’t either.” I stood and fished my car keys out of my purse. “I’m going to go put this story together so we can get it up on the Web site. Keep me in touch.”

  “Will do.”

  Gary walked me out of his office, past dispatch and to the elevator.

  “You know, of all the people, I would never have expected this out of Rick Starrett,” I said as the doors slid open.

  “Yeah. Of those two boys, you would have thought their mother could count on one good son.”

  *****

  Monday was close to becoming early Tuesday when I lit a cigarette and slid behind the wheel of my Taurus to drive two blocks and park in front of the Journal-Gazette building. I just had time for four puffs on the cigarette—the days of anyone in the newsroom smoking at their desk were long gone. Not that it mattered—I’d shut my office door, open the window and light up when the day went south, which it regularly did. Tonight, it would be enough to get me through the time it took me to write the story, post it on the Web, get back to the car and head home, even though there wouldn’t be time to talk over the job offer from Fisher Webb with Duncan.

  I locked the door behind me and headed upstairs into the newsroom. Someone had left their computer on and its blue screen cast an eerie flickering light across one corner of the room.

  I loved it here—the smell of stale coffee and old newsprint, the sound of the presses when that day’s pages began to roll through them. I stepped across the newsroom; flipping on lights as I walked past the desks toward my office at the southern corner and pushed open my door. The street light from the parking lot lit my office up with a cold white glow.

  I slipped behind my desk. There was a pang of regret as I thought about what I was about to commit to paper, but it looked like the golden boy I’d grown up with had tarnished.

  The computer flickered to life. I flipped through my notes, organizing my thoughts and began to write.

  Virginia Ferguson shot, killed

  Police seek former city manager as suspect

  By ADDISON MCINTYRE

  Managing editor

  Plummer County’s newest senator in the Ohio General Assembly died of a gunshot wound Monday and police are searching for the man who ran against her as the prime suspect.

  V irginia Ferguson, who narrowly defeated Rick Starrett in the Nov. 3 election, was found shot twice in the chest in the doorway of her Harmon Street home at approximately 6:35 p.m.

  She was transported to the Plummer County Memorial Hospital where she died in surgery, police said.

  According to Assistant Police Chief Gary McGinnis, prior to going into surgery, Ferguson told police it was her opponent, Rick Starrett, who shot her.

  Starrett had appeared at the Journal-Gazette offices earlier in the day, upset at losing the race, which was notable for the commercials which featured Starrett’s deceased younger brother Rowan, a former NHL hockey player who committed suicide, following his release from federal prison on gambling charges.

  Starrett’s whereabouts are unknown and police would like to speak with him regarding Ferguson’s death.

  The rest of the story was a brief synopsis of the two people and their political and public careers. Ferguson’s only took a paragraph.

  The final paragraph was standard in these kinds of story: “If you have any further information regarding this shooting, please contact Jubilant Falls Police at….”

  “Hello?” It was Graham Kinnon, coming in to write his story on Kay Henning. “Addison? You still here?”

  “In here—in my office!” I hollered. “Finishing up my story on Virginia Ferguson. Come on in and fill me in on what’s going on with Kay Henning.”

  Graham, in a white Oxford shirt, running shoes and blue jeans, leaned against the doorframe.

  “What’s up with Virginia Ferguson?” he asked.

  “She was shot tonight — and identified her shooter as Rick Starrett, just before she died.”

  “Wow.”

  “So tell me what’s going on with Kay Henning.”

  Reading from his reporter’s notebook, Graham repeated what Gary had told me earlier.

  I nodded as Graham finished reading.

  “You get quotes from Marcus?” I asked. “Anyone from the family willing to talk?”

  Graham flipped back a few pages on his notebook, “‘I’d like to thank the local police for finding my wife and the surgeons for saving her life. She’s always been the love of my life and the thought of being without her was more than I could stand.’”

  “He’s always had it bad for that woman.”

  “We should all be that lucky to be loved like that,” he said, closing his notebook.

  I glanced up from my keyboard to see at his face, but it betrayed nothing.

  “I’ll have the story done shortly,” he said, continuing to peruse his notes. “You want to take a look at it before we post it on the Web?”

  “No. You’re copy is generally clean. I’ve got to get home. It’s late and Duncan is waiting up for me. I trust you.”

  Graham nodded. “Thanks.”

  “Just make certain you’re back in here at seven-thirty. We’ve got a lot to cover. We obviously won’t have Marcus and people are going to be all over these stories. Make sure you shut the lights off before you go.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”r />
  I shut off my computer and headed toward the door. Duncan, no doubt, would be wondering why I was working so late for so little when Fisher Webb’s small piece of paper could bring such big change to our lives. It was a matter of whether I could make the change or not.

  The drive home was quiet, giving me time to think. Jubilant Falls’ city streets were empty, the yellow glow from the street lamps making the slush at the curb look dirtier.

  I’d grown up here in Jubilant, graduated from high school and, after college and a few other newspaper assignments, came back to work at the paper. I’d raised my daughter here and seen the town go through so many changes.

  The hospital salary would change so much. I wouldn’t be driving home, as I was now, at one on a Tuesday morning. We wouldn’t struggle any more. We could do things that my friend Suzanne Porter and her husband John did—pack up and go to Disney World, take cruises to Mexico or the Bahamas.

  Or simple things.

  Like dinner.

  Together.

  Every night.

  But could I give up the Journal-Gazette? I wasn’t sure.

  In a few more moments, I’d left Jubilant Falls behind, driving into the dark county roads. Soon, I was pulling up the long gravel driveway to our farm. The fields on either side of the drive had been filled with soybeans in summer. The moon shone blue across the snow that covered the fallow ground. The lights were off in the farmhouse. Duncan had gone to bed already.

  I flipped on the kitchen light, only to see Fisher Webb’s salary offer on the kitchen table, probably smoothed flat by Duncan’s hand. Water from the kitchen faucet—yet another item that needed repaired—dripped into the dinner dishes soaking in the sink.

  I sighed, walked across the kitchen to the staircase and flipped off the light. Suddenly all I wanted was sleep. Whatever argument could be made for me taking or not taking the job would have to wait.

  By four-thirty, Duncan was already making coffee when I made it downstairs. He was dressed in his Carhartt insulated coveralls, steel-toed boots and a toboggan. His gloves were shoved in his back pocket.