A Broth of Betrayal (18 page)

As the drumming ceased and the flutist finished his tune, a scream sliced through
the air. Not the scream or war cry of an actor, but a chilling blade of sound that
cut through the hot summer atmosphere. It came from the construction site beyond the
Village Green.

Lucky had been aware of the heavy odor of smoke but assumed it came from the outdoor
grills at the edge of the Green. She realized with a shock it was the smell of real
smoke and fire. A hush ran through the crowd. People stood and looked around, not
sure from which direction the cry had come. Slowly everyone realized that something
terrible was happening. More shouts came from the construction site and several men
ran across the road.

Elias squeezed her hand. “Something’s wrong. I’m going over there.” He took off running
and Lucky followed him. When they reached the chain-link fence, flames were licking
the sides of the construction trailer. Nate and two other men rushed to the trailer
door where a metal bar had been jammed through the handle. Edward Embry was on the
site as well. He had located a fire extinguisher and aimed it at the door handle while
another man attempted to break a window in the trailer with a heavy wrench.

Lucky spotted Jack standing next to Nate. Jack tried to grasp the end of the bar lodged
in the trailer door but quickly pulled his hand away. Nate pulled him back and slipped
off his jacket.. Wrapping it around his hand, he was able to dislodge the metal piece
that was keeping the door secured. Another man had broken through the glass of the
high window, but as soon as he did, flames shot out and the man jumped back. Nate
yanked open the door of the trailer and, spraying the contents of a fire extinguisher
in front of him, attempted to enter the trailer. He was driven back by the heat and
flames. Two of the construction workers carried a heavy hose and another brought a
larger extinguisher to the blaze. Working furiously, they finally managed to control
the inferno. Elias had rushed through the break in the chain-link fence and, following
Nate, entered the trailer. They retreated immediately and Lucky saw Nate shaking his
head. They were too late to save Richard Rowland.

Chapter 27

L
UCKY, JACK AND
Elias sat quietly at a table by the window. The Spoonful was closed and all but one
of the lamps had been turned off. Elias had spent the day arranging for the transport
of Rowland’s body to the morgue in Lincoln Falls and was forced to juggle several
appointments at the Clinic. He smiled apologetically when he arrived at the Spoonful,
but Lucky assured him it wasn’t too late to eat. Their dinner date would not happen
tonight. She prepared a sandwich for Elias and two bowls of soup, one for herself
and one for Jack.

Jack muttered to himself as he struggled to use a spoon with his left hand.

Elias looked at Jack. “I hope that’s not too painful.”

“Nah, I’ll live. Just awkward. Thanks for fixing me up though.”

Lucky shook a napkin out on her lap. “I hope this is enough. Sage has gone home and
we just finished putting everything away.”

“It’s great and thank you. I didn’t have a chance to eat at all today. Never expected
to be sending anyone else to the morgue.”

“I doubt anyone in town woulda had much sympathy for Rowland, but doing that to him . . .”
Jack shook his head. “Just damn gruesome. Burning to death like that—with the whole
town right there.”

“I’m sure he was gone before we got the door open—smoke inhalation, which in a way
is a blessing. It would be very doubtful he would have pulled through anyway.”

Lucky shivered. “Let’s not talk about that anymore. I’m losing my appetite.”

“You’re absolutely right. I apologize.”

“Hard to push it out of your mind though. Whatever happened to Harry was bad enough.
He was one of us. But this . . .” Jack trailed off.

“Nate’s sure it was premeditated. An accelerant was used. Everyone disliked Rowland
and his car wash, but to kill him like that?” Elias shook his head.

Lucky took a sip of her soup. “I do know Norman Rank threatened him at the town meeting.
And Edward Embry had a nasty exchange with him at the construction site too, but maybe
that was because Embry was the one person on the town council to buck him. It’s strange
that two men have been killed within days of each other, but I can’t imagine what
the connection between them could be, or if there even is one. The only link I can
think of was the dispute over the car wash. And now, with Horace being robbed and
Elizabeth missing . . . are all these events related in some way? I’ve had Elizabeth
on my mind so much, I haven’t been able to think about anything else.”

“Still no word from Nate?” Jack asked.

Lucky pushed her bowl away. The thought of Elizabeth still missing had killed her
appetite. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I wasted a lot of time this morning talking
to Rod Thibeault.”

“Where did you see Rod?” Elias asked.

“I found a dirt track into the woods about three miles out of town. I pulled in. I
could tell a truck had driven through recently, so I followed the tracks.”

Jack’s face darkened. “You be careful. I don’t like that one bit. You’re a slip of
a thing and you’re out there all alone. You don’t know what you could run into.”

“Jack, believe me, I thought of that. If it hadn’t been Rod, I don’t think I would
have approached. He was coming out of a cabin with a large bundle.”

“Whose cabin?”

“His, apparently—or his Dad’s. He says they use it to go fishing. When I saw it was
Rod, I walked down to the cabin. We had a bit of a . . . misunderstanding.”

“What do you mean by that?” Elias asked.

“He was dumping a huge bundle in the back of his truck. I made him pull off the tarp.
I had this awful thought . . .”

“That he was dumping a body?” Jack’s eyebrows shot up.

“I didn’t really think so, but I had to confront him. I didn’t want him to drive off
with that thought in my mind, especially after . . .”

“After what?” Elias stopped with his fork in midair.

“I picked up some mail at Elizabeth’s house yesterday. There was a letter from the
State Bar addressed to Elizabeth. I saw what might have been a case number—or maybe
a bar number. I don’t know what it was, but it was some kind of code typed in the
corner, and the first six letters of Rod’s name—THIBEA. So I opened it. The police
had told us to let them know if we found anything suspicious or different or out of
place. I shouldn’t have opened Elizabeth’s mail, but curiosity got the better of me.”

“Elizabeth wouldn’t mind. Not under the circumstances,” Elias remarked.

“Turns out Rod has to go before a disciplinary board and Elizabeth has been called
as a witness.”

Jack whistled in response. “That’s not sounding good.”

“I think Rod realized that I might have found out about it, so he insisted on telling
me his side of the story. He said he got into an argument with a witness he thought
had lied on the stand. It got out of control and turned into a shoving match. Rod
claims he lost his temper because he knew the witness was lying.”

“Can’t say I blame him.” Jack was listening closely.

“Well, he certainly wouldn’t be allowed to talk to someone else’s witness, much less
accuse him of anything. He claims it just got out of control—at least that’s Rod’s
side of the story. He said Elizabeth just happened to be there at the time. She saw
the whole thing and that’s why she’s been called in as a witness.”

“Before the State Bar?” Elias asked. “That sounds serious. I wonder if that would
be enough of a motive for him to want Elizabeth out of the way.”

“He claims Elizabeth had offered to be a character witness for him and he wants Elizabeth
found as much as we do.”

“I’m sure she wasn’t the only witness. There could have been a lot of people milling
about who saw the argument or fight or whatever it was,” Elias said.

“Yes, but Elizabeth, as Mayor, would be an extremely credible witness.”

“What was in the back of his truck?” Jack asked.

“Camping gear. Just a huge bundle of camping gear.”

“Funny day for him to be out fishing, don’t ya think?”

“I thought so too. He said he just likes to get away sometimes. I asked him about
the court hearing that he claimed to have. He said the hearing was in the afternoon
and he had the morning off.”

“Well, if he likes Elizabeth so much, he shoulda been volunteering with the police,
not thinking about fishing!” Jack declared angrily. “But you two—you and Sophie—oughta
stick together, not go traipsing all over hell on your own. There’s safety in numbers.
Today you ran into Rod, but who knows what’s out there. I don’t want you to go missing
too. It’s no time to be foolish—not now.”

Lucky shivered. “You have a point, Jack. Maybe we should do this together. I tried
to call Sophie when I spotted that truck through the trees, but I couldn’t get a signal.”

“Jack’s right,” Elias said. “Don’t go out searching on your own. That’s exactly why
the police organize these things in groups—groups that stick together, I might add.”

“I’ve been browsing the websites that Sophie listed on the flyers.” Lucky sighed.
“It’s so frightening. Do you have any idea how many people go missing in this country?”

“It’s not something I’ve ever given much thought to.” Elias reached across the table
and squeezed her hand. “But I’m sure quite a lot of people are found, and maybe many
go missing voluntarily.”

“Why would someone do that?” Lucky asked.

“Who knows? Pressures they can’t handle. Desire to change their lives, but they don’t
know how. Temporary insanity.” Elias shrugged his shoulders. “But that doesn’t minimize
one bit the people who are kidnapped or harmed or worse.”

“Something awful’s happened, I can feel it.” Lucky bit her lip to hold back the tears,
frightened that one more connection would be taken from her, terrified that Elizabeth
could be lying in a ditch needing help or, worse yet, dead, like her parents, and
there was no one there who could help her. Jack quietly passed her a paper napkin.
She sniffed back the tears and angrily swiped her nose.

“We need to stay calm, my girl. Something has happened but we don’t know what. The
smoking lamp is out for now but we’ll know more soon.” Jack ate the last spoonful
of his soup. “It’s Harry’s death that bothers me most. Rowland—I can understand somewhat—not
the way he died, I don’t mean that; we were all pretty disgusted with him. We all
wanted him and his project out of town. But Harry . . . who the hell would want to
hurt poor Harry?” Jack shook his head.

Lucky tucked her damp napkin into a pocket. “I overheard Barry and a couple of men
making comments about Harry when he wasn’t at the demonstration—along the lines of
wondering if he was really committed—and then I think somebody said they’d seen him
talking to Rowland, which struck them as strange.”

“Harry was committed to the whole thing. He was definite about not wanting a car wash
in the middle of town,” Jack grumbled. “Besides, if they were gonna put it anywhere,
why not behind Harry’s shop? Be the perfect place for it. Out of sight—it’s zoned
right there, no neighbors real close.”

Elias looked thoughtful. “Could Harry have been trying to work out some kind of deal
with Rowland?”

Jack shrugged. “Anything’s possible. But it was a little late in the day for that.
The bulldozers were already at work. Construction had started.”

“I heard Norman Rank made some heavy-handed comments to Rowland at the demonstration—and
you say they almost came to blows at the town meeting?” Elias asked.

“That’s true,” Lucky replied. “It was very tense for a few minutes. Then there’s Ed
Embry. It’s obvious he had no use for Rowland and he took a lot of flack because he
wouldn’t go along with the rest of the town council.”

“Good for him,” Jack said. “Good to know one man couldn’t be bought off.”

Lucky heaved a sigh and gathered up the empty dishes. “Two murders in Snowflake. That
can’t be a coincidence. There has to be a connection, but those men led totally different
lives. They were completely different people.”

“Until last winter when that woman’s body was found, if anyone had told me a murder
could happen in Snowflake, I would’ve told them they were crazy,” Elias remarked.
“Now? I don’t know what to say. This time it was a local . . . two, I guess, if you
count Rowland. And neither one was an accident. Somebody locked Rowland in that trailer
and doused the thing with gasoline. He didn’t stand a chance. And no one noticed or
heard anything; we were all focused on the Reenactment.”

“Nate’ll have a hell of a time trying to figure out who could have been around the
trailer. There were mobs of people,” Jack said. “And a lot of people made threats
to Rowland.” Jack chuckled. “Norman Rank threatened to bury him in his own concrete.
And Ed Embry told him he’d drown him in his car wash.”

“Where was Rod Thibeault when the Reenactment was going on? Was he in town? Did anyone
see him there or talk to him?” Elias asked.

“I didn’t,” Lucky replied. “But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t there. He said he would
try to make it, but he could have changed his mind.”

“We have no way of knowing when the door handle was jammed. Rowland could have been
in there for a while before the fire started,” Elias said.

“He would have smelled the gasoline though, wouldn’t he? And started yelling?” Lucky
asked.

“Would we have heard him? Between everyone yelling and cheering and the drums and
sound effects, he might not have been heard. No one sounded the alarm until they saw
the fire.”

“And what about the break-in at Horace’s? Could that be connected to the murders?”

“I’d vote for Cordelia Rank on that one,” Jack said.

“Maybe, but why? She wanted the artifacts to go to a museum. If she stole them, that
could never happen. Any museum would investigate. And if she did want to steal them,
why not take the powder horn and the shoe buckles? Why go to all that trouble and
break in and just take the lead ball?”

“What did Nate have to say about all this?” Elias asked, sipping his iced tea.

“He isn’t convinced it was stolen. He thinks it could just as easily have rolled out
of the little jewelry box and fallen into a crack.”

“Did you search for it?”

Lucky nodded. “We all did. But it was dark and it was late. We were pretty tired.
We could have missed it. If she did steal that lead ball, it’s because, as Horace
says, it has rifling marks.”

“Oh, I heard all about that,” Elias said. “She had a conniption at the town meeting.”

“She certainly didn’t want anyone accusing her ancestor of being a traitor. She’d
do anything to maintain her DAR status.” Lucky giggled. Both Jack and Elias stared
at her. She wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry. That’s just too funny. Two murders and a robbery
at Horace’s and she’s worried about the DAR. How relevant is that?”

“Well, it’s late. Almost four bells. I’ll be on my way.” Jack stood and pushed his
chair away. “You okay on your own?”

“Sure, Jack. You go ahead. I’ll close up.” Lucky gathered their dishes and carried
them into the kitchen. Jack waved good-bye at the front door and headed home.