Poisoned Ground (15 page)

“Maybe he was afraid to, because it might make him look guilty,” Dennis said. “This inheritance gives him a motive for killing her. But you and Brandon saw him right after the shot was fired. Wasn’t he too far away? You’re sure he couldn’t have killed her, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” Tom tapped his fingers on the will. “If we believe she was murdered because she wanted to sell to Packard, the killer could be almost anybody. And Hollinger, maybe the Jones sisters, too, could be in danger. But I still think there’s a good chance Hollinger was the target and Tavia was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“So who would benefit from Jake Hollinger’s death?” Dennis asked. “His son?”

“That’s assuming his son is his heir. Jake might have changed his will, too, and made Tavia the beneficiary. So if Jake had died instead of Tavia, his property would have gone to her.”

“Which would’ve made Jake’s son damned mad, if he knew—” Dennis broke off when his cell phone chimed. He pulled it from his shirt pocket and looked at the display. “Brandon.”

“Let me talk to him.”

Dennis slid the phone across the table.

“Hey, Brandon, it’s me,” Tom said. “How’s it going?”

“You need to get over here right now.” Brandon sounded breathless, frantic. “All hell’s breaking loose.”

Chapter Twenty-six

Tom saw the commotion from three blocks away, as soon as he turned onto Main Street, and when he powered down his window he heard people screaming insults and threats at each other.

Damn Joanna.
What made her think she could stage a protest march without attracting a mob from the other side? What had begun with a dozen men and women marching back and forth on the sidewalk had grown to at least fifty people spilling into the street, yelling, shoving, playing tug-of-war with protest signs.

The Main Street office of Packard Resorts was in easy walking distance of Sheriff’s Department headquarters, but Tom had decided to drive over in his cruiser so he’d have a place to stash anybody he arrested. Dennis would follow with the van they used for transporting more than one prisoner at a time.

Tom parked in the middle of the street and waded into the melee in search of his deputies. Opponents parted, stepping back from their confrontations to let him pass, then closed behind him to pick up where they’d left off. He found Keith Blackwood and yanked on his arm to claim his attention. “Get on the outside,” he shouted over the racket of the crowd. “Don’t stand here in the middle of it.” He located Keith’s twin, Kevin, and gave him the same order.

Brandon was trying to force two men apart, but the heftier of the two leaned around the deputy and threw a punch at a slight, bespectacled man carrying a protest sign. The second man’s glasses flew off and his nose spurted blood. Dropping his sign, he covered his nose with both hands.

Tom grabbed the attacker’s arms, jerked them behind his back, and handcuffed him before he realized what was happening. “What the hell?” the man sputtered, craning his neck to see Tom behind him.

“Shut up and settle down,” Tom told him.

Brandon was holding back the people around them as the other man, one hand over his bleeding nose, groped for his glasses on the pavement. With the toe of his boot, Brandon nudged them into their nearsighted owner’s grasp.

“Put this one in my car, then stay on the outside of the crowd,” Tom told Brandon. He foisted the handcuffed man on the deputy.

“Aw, shit,” the man groaned as Brandon hustled him away.

Where was Joanna? She’d started this, and now Tom was going to make her help him get it under control. With the advantage of being over six feet, he skimmed his gaze over the heads in the jostling crowd, looking for Joanna’s distinctive strawberry blond hair. He spotted her on the sidewalk in front of the plate glass window of the Packard office, and started toward her. The crowd shifted and he lost sight of her again.

The sound of shattering glass abruptly silenced the crowd. All heads turned toward the big window. A jagged hole gaped in its center, with cracks snaking outward on all sides. A cheer went up from some in the street, but most stayed silent.

Swearing under his breath, Tom pushed to the front, where Joanna and another woman peered in through the hole. They seemed not to notice that big shards of glass at the top of the window were loosening as horizontal cracks formed. Tom grabbed both women by the arm and hauled them backward just as the glass broke free and, piece by piece, dropped with a crash to the sidewalk. In seconds, a layer of splintered glass covered the concrete at their feet.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Tom demanded. He hadn’t seen Joanna break the window, but she’d been the one in the best position to do it. “What do you think you’ll accomplish with vandalism?”

Joanna drew back, indignant. “I didn’t do this. I was as surprised as anybody else.”

“All right, then who did? You were standing right here. You must have seen what happened.”

Joanna hesitated, opened her mouth, closed it again, as if debating what tack to take. She decided on defiance. Folding her arms, she returned his angry gaze with a stony stare. “I didn’t see a thing.”

Tom looked at Maureen McCoy, the other woman he’d pulled out of harm’s way. She was in her late thirties but looked younger, with her makeup-free face covered in freckles and her dark hair hanging in a braid down her back. “Did you do this?” Tom asked.

Her gaze darted to Joanna, back to Tom. “No.”

“Did you see who did it?”

“No.”

Tom turned to the crowd. “Can anybody tell me who broke this window?”

Some of them glared at him. Some dropped their gaze, refusing to meet his eyes.

Tom glanced around, spotted Brandon, and motioned him over. “We’re taking both of them in.”

“What?” Joanna and Maureen cried in unison.

“Do you want to go peacefully, or do you want us to cuff both of you?”

“You’re such a disappointment to me.” Joanna shook her head. “Whose side are you on? This is your home. Do you want to see it destroyed by a greedy corporation—?”

“We’re not talking about this on the street.”

A sudden buzz ran through the crowd, and a man yelled, “Look who’s decided to show up.”

The drama with Tom and the two women lost everybody’s attention as they turned to watch Lawrence Archer approach, ambling up the sidewalk as if he were out for a casual stroll. The crowd was getting worked up again, some of them jeering at Archer and promptly being shouted down in return.

Tom faced them and raised his voice to drown out theirs. “I want everybody off this street in two minutes, or I’ll charge all of you with disturbing the peace. We’ve had enough violence. We don’t need you stirring up more.”

They hesitated, shuffled around without moving far, waiting with keen curiosity for Archer’s reaction to the destruction.

The man stood before the hole that had been a window, scanned the shattered glass on the sidewalk, and looked up at Tom with a wry smile. “I don’t suppose you could recommend a skilled glazier?”

“You’re on your own, pal.”

Tom and Brandon escorted Joanna and Maureen to the van that now sat behind Tom’s cruiser in the street. Brandon helped Maureen mount the steps into the back of the vehicle, but Joanna shook off Tom’s hand and climbed in unaided. A couple of doors down, the manager and waitresses at The Mountaineer had come outside to observe the fracas.

As he closed the door on the woman who had been a friend to him all his life, he looked across the street to the animal hospital. Rachel stood at her office window, watching, too far away for Tom to read her expression.

Chapter Twenty-seven

The side door leading to the jail opened and Joanna strode into the Sheriff’s Department lobby, looking disheveled and angry. Rachel rose from the bench to greet her, braced for an outpouring of fury.

Joanna halted when she saw Rachel. “Don’t tell me you bailed me out.”

“You didn’t need bail. Tom isn’t charging you with anything. He let Maureen go too, but I guess you know that already. Her husband just picked her up.”

“He’s not charging me? Are you kidding?”

Rachel reminded herself that the distrust on Joanna’s face and the hostility in her voice weren’t aimed at her. For three years Joanna had been a steadfast friend, someone she could lean on, and she believed Joanna regarded her the same way. “He didn’t see you do anything. He’s not going to hold you responsible without any evidence.”

“Well, isn’t that magnanimous of him.” Joanna raked her tangled hair back from her face and yanked the hem of her jacket to straighten it. “He didn’t think twice about dragging us over here and locking us up. You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t feel grateful right now.”

“Joanna—”

“What are you doing here, anyway?”

“I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine. Don’t concern yourself.”

That stung. Rachel stifled her impatience and kept her tone mild. “Of course I’m concerned. I care about you.”

Joanna answered with a contemptuous grunt and started for the door.

Rachel fell in step beside her. “Is that so hard to believe? We’re friends, aren’t we?”

Joanna rounded on her, fixing her with a cold glare. “Your husband came to my farm yesterday and accused me of shooting Tavia Richardson. Has he told you that? If I didn’t have you and Robert McClure to give me an alibi, he’d probably think I killed Lincoln and Marie, too.”

For a second Rachel could only stare at Joanna, then she fumbled for words. “I’m sorry, I— I didn’t know about that.”

“Sounds like you and Tom haven’t been talking much lately.”

That was true enough. What else was he keeping from her? “Listen—”

Deputies Keith and Kevin Blackwood came through the front door, and Rachel moved out of their way. The lanky young men, identical blond twins, nodded in greeting to Rachel, then Joanna, and hurried past as if they wanted to avoid any verbal exchange.

“Listen to me.” Rachel stepped closer to Joanna. “You know I don’t believe you killed anybody. And I doubt that Tom does. Will you please talk to him? You might be able to help him solve these murders. You knew the victims, you know everybody connected to them. He’s desperate to keep anybody else from getting hurt, and you could probably tell him a lot that would help.”

“Did he tell you to come over here and waylay me and talk me into cooperating?”

Rachel resisted the impulse to throw back an answer in the same harsh tone. This wasn’t the Joanna she knew. This was a woman who felt she was under attack and couldn’t help lashing out. “He didn’t tell me to do anything and he doesn’t know I’m here. I meant what I said. I think you might be able to help the investigation if you sat down with Tom and talked to him.”

“Until he tells me to my face that I’m not a murder suspect, I’m not saying a word to him about anything.”

All Rachel could do was let her go, and as she watched Joanna shove the door open and storm out, she felt she was letting go of a friendship she had cherished.

***

Jake Hollinger slumped in a chair in the conference room, his hands laid limp and flat on the tabletop. He had come in willingly at Tom’s request but seemed removed from the situation, his mind elsewhere, his eyes dull and unfocused. His rumpled shirt and pants looked as if he’d slept in them, and he had a two-day growth of white stubble.

Tom switched on the tape recorder that lay in the middle of the table and gave his and Jake’s names and the date and time. Jake remained indifferent.

“We haven’t been able to locate any of Mrs. Richardson’s children,” Tom said. “Can you remember anything she said that might help us find them?”

Jake shook his head, the slow movement of someone too exhausted to put any effort into it. “She didn’t know where they were. All she had were old addresses. They abandoned her years ago. Decades.” Tears welled in his eyes. “I was the only person in the world who gave a damn about her.”

“How’s her cat doing?”

“How do you think? He hates being in a strange place. He wants to go home. He wants Tavia.” Jake’s voice choked up on the last words.

“He’ll settle down after a while. Call Dr. Goddard if you need any help with him.”

Jake didn’t respond.

“Why didn’t you tell me that she wrote a new will and made you her sole beneficiary?”

Jake released a long, weary sigh. “Because I knew as soon as you found out you’d get me in here and throw a lot of questions at me. And here I sit.”

“I know you didn’t shoot her. I was there, remember?”

“That won’t stop you. You probably think I hired a hit man or something.”

Tom let that go unanswered. “Did you change your will too and make her the beneficiary?”

He took the slight dip of Jake’s head as an affirmative nod.

“Your sole beneficiary?”

“Except the lumber mill.”

“Does the mill go to your son Mark?”

Another barely perceptible nod.

“But Tavia would have inherited your land?”

“What does it matter now? She’s dead. Why are you asking me about this?”

“How many people knew you changed your will?”

Jake hesitated for a second before he said, “The lawyer. Tavia. I guess the secretary who typed it. And Mark.”

“How did Mark feel about it?”

Jake stirred at last, shifting in his chair, sitting a little straighter. “I didn’t want him to find out. But he heard Tavia and I went to see the lawyer together. You know how it is. You can’t take a piss in this county without fifty people passing around the news.”

“Was he angry?”

“Hell, yeah. He hates Tavia. Hated her. He couldn’t stand the thought of her getting anything of mine. He thinks he’s
entitled
to it all, and I don’t have any right to decide who gets it. No right to spend any of it making life easier for myself in my old age. It’s all for him and his kids after him. I think he’d be happy if I dropped dead and got out of his way.”

Tom stayed silent a moment, waiting to see if Jake would retract what he’d said. He didn’t. “That’s a strong accusation against your own son.”

“It’s true.” Jake’s voice had dropped to an angry mutter. “I didn’t know what a selfish little shit he is until that offer from Packard fell in my lap. Then all of a sudden it was gimme gimme gimme.”

“What did he say about Tavia when he found out you’d rewritten your will in her favor?”

Before answering, Jake scrubbed his hands over his haggard face and flexed his shoulders. “I caught him at the house, going through my papers. He—”

“When was this?”

“Two, three weeks ago, not long after we saw the lawyer. Mark went in the house while I was in town, and I came home and found him pawing through the file cabinet where I keep financial records.”

“He still has keys to your house?”

“He did up to then.” Jake rubbed the back of his neck as if trying to loosen the tension there. “I changed the locks after that, he made me so damned mad.”

“To get back to my question, what did he say about Tavia when he realized you’d changed your will?”

“Called her a slut, a whore, a schemer, every name you can think of. Said she didn’t have any right to the family assets. Those are the words he used, the family assets, like we were some kind of aristocrats with a big estate that had to be passed down to the son.”

“It will be a big estate if you sell to Packard.”

Jake leaned his arms on the table and hunched his shoulders. “If that happens, it’ll be
my
money. And he won’t get his hands on a damn penny of it.”

“I don’t know much about the estate laws, but if you die without changing your will again, won’t your son get everything? Now that Tavia Richardson is out of the picture.”

“That’s probably what Mark’s counting on. But I called the lawyer first thing this morning, and I’ve got an appointment tomorrow. I’ll have a new will done and signed by the end of the day.” Jake paused, his lips twisting in a bitter little smile. “Provided I live that long.”

“What are you telling me? You think your son might have shot Mrs. Richardson? You think he’ll come after you next?”

Jake took a long moment to answer, clenching and unclenching his fists. “I’m just saying I’ll be sleeping with a gun next to me tonight.”