Poisoned Ground (6 page)

Chapter Twelve

Back at Sheriff’s Department headquarters in Mountainview, Dennis Murray and Gretchen Lauter were sitting at one end of the long conference table, drinking coffee, when Tom and Brandon walked in. Eight-by-ten photos of the murdered couple filled the cork board on one wall. Tom closed the door so their discussion wouldn’t be overheard by anyone passing in the hallway.

Dr. Lauter rose, straightened the jacket of her navy blue pants suit, and moved to the photo display. The three men gathered around. She drew a deep breath, let it out, and focused on the pictures. “I don’t think we’ll learn anything from the autopsies that we don’t already know. I didn’t see any evidence that they’d been assaulted. Struck, I mean. No bruises, no obvious broken bones, no bleeding anywhere except the bullet wounds.”

“And no sign that they tried to save themselves,” Tom said.

“No, none.”

“Somebody just walked into their yard with a rifle and shot them.”

“Exactly.”

“Had to be somebody they knew,” Brandon said. “Somebody they wouldn’t be afraid of if he showed up in their yard carrying a gun.”

“Dennis told me about the marijuana,” Dr. Lauter said. “I don’t mind admitting that completely floored me. But now that I think about it, it’s not out of character, not if they were growing it for people who needed pain relief. Do you think that points to a motive? Some dealer who didn’t like them cutting into his business?”

“I don’t know,” Tom said. “The plants weren’t taken. We found leaves and buds drying in the shed. It didn’t look like anything had been removed.”

“Hollinger’s the one acting like he’s got something to hide,” Brandon said.

“But everybody knows they were feuding,” Tom pointed out. “Hollinger would be a fool to kill both the Kellys. He’d know he’d be the first suspect. He
was
our first suspect.”

“If he did it during an argument, while he was angry,” Dr. Lauter said, “he wouldn’t have been thinking about consequences. Get a person mad enough and—”

The door flew open and a tall, dark-haired man in a business suit burst in. “I got here as fast as I could.”

“Ronan, let’s go in my office.” Tom stepped in front of him, trying to get between the Kellys’ son and the pictures before he saw them.

Too late. Ronan Kelly’s eyes had found the photos of his dead parents and fixed on them, his face contorting in horror, his breath coming in shallow gulps. “My God— Mom, Dad—”

“This way.” Tom locked a hand on his arm and forced him to swivel toward the door.

Ronan twisted his neck to keep the photos in view, as if he were still trying to make sense of what he saw. Tom had to shove him out the door. Keeping a firm grip on Ronan’s arm, Tom led him across the hall and into the office.

Ronan collapsed into a chair facing the desk, leaned over and buried his face in his hands. His broad shoulders shook with sobs. A few years older than Tom, he was a former high school and college football player, now an engineer who had maintained his athletic physique, but at the moment he was a kid who had lost both parents under horrific circumstances.

Tom sat behind his desk, waited for Ronan to cry himself out, and struggled to keep the barricade up against the memory of his own parents’ deaths and the grief that had overwhelmed him. He forced himself to mentally check through the questions he had to ask. And he reminded himself that until he was cleared, the Kellys’ son was as much a suspect as anybody else.

At last Ronan quieted, pulled a handkerchief from his pants pocket and wiped his face. He ran his fingers through his thick hair, which left it looking worse rather than better. Like Tom, he had inherited coal-black hair and olive skin from a Melungeon parent. “I still can’t believe this has happened.” Ronan’s voice broke on the last word. He paused a moment, took a breath, and went on, sounding a little calmer. “Driving out here, it was surreal, trying to get my mind around it.”

“Can I get you anything? Coffee?”

Ronan shook his head. “I’ve had so much caffeine already I’m about to jump out of my skin.” He sat forward, his face beseeching. “Tell me you know who did this. Tell me you’ve got him in custody.”

“I wish I could. But right now…” Tom shook his head.

Ronan slumped back in his chair and leaned his forehead in his palm.

“When will Sheila be here?” Tom asked.

“Tomorrow. She’s flying to Charlotte from Chicago, and I talked her into taking a hotel room and getting some sleep before she drives up here. I don’t want her driving through the mountains at night when she’s…God, I don’t even know what to call it, the way we’re both feeling. Shocked. Stunned.”

“When was the last time you talked to your parents?”

“Last Sunday. I try to call them once a week.”

“Did they say anything to indicate they were having problems with anybody?”

“Besides Jake Hollinger, you mean? That’s all I ever heard from Dad lately, when he got on the line. But Mom, no, she never complained about anything or anybody. She got along with everybody.”

“How serious would you say the trouble between your dad and Hollinger was?”

“Are you thinking—”

“I’m not thinking anything at this point. Just gathering information.”

“All right. Let me try to remember.” Ronan blew out a long breath and shifted his gaze toward the darkening sky outside the window while he gathered his thoughts.

Night was falling, Tom realized, and the wind had picked up, swirling a few fallen leaves across the parking lot. A couple of fat raindrops splattered the window glass.

“Hollinger…” Ronan began, then paused. “He’s right about that fence, you know. If he’d taken it to court, Dad would have lost. I surveyed it myself, but Dad wouldn’t listen to me, wouldn’t accept my conclusion. I’m an engineer, for God’s sake, and he wouldn’t take my word. But he wasn’t well, and he was getting worse, so I gave up trying to get through to him.”

“Were you ever afraid the tension between him and Hollinger might escalate?”

Ronan looked at Tom in surprise. “Escalate into Hollinger shooting Dad and Mom both? No. Never.”

“And they weren’t having trouble with anybody else?”

“If they were, Mom would’ve made sure Sheila and I never heard about it. She never wanted to worry us. They kept things from us, health problems and stuff like that. Dad was having trouble for a long time before it finally got so bad, just recently, that Mom couldn’t hide it from us anymore.”

“When was the last time you actually saw them?”

“Well…” Ronan shifted in his seat. “You know how it is. I’ve got a wife, kids, it’s not easy…”

“I understand,” Tom said, keeping any hint of judgment out of his voice. “I just need to know the last time you saw them.”

“I guess it was… Yeah, it was. Right after Christmas last year. We came out for a couple of days.” He added, as if reinforcing an argument, “All of us, the whole family.”

And here it was getting close to Christmas again, and Ronan lived within driving distance of his parents, one of whom had been suffering from Alzheimer’s, yet he hadn’t come to visit. All that was beside the point, though, if it had no bearing on the murders. “Do you have somewhere to stay while you’re here? I can’t let you stay in your parents’ house, at least not tonight.”

“What? Why not?”

“Did you know they were growing marijuana? And selling it?”

Ronan’s expression wavered between astonishment and amusement. “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

“No. They were growing pot in their cornfield, and they had a lot of plants under lights in the basement. We have to get them out before we can give you and your sister access to the house. I’ve got men over there now, but I’m not sure when they’ll be done.”

Ronan’s mouth hung open as the knowledge settled in. At last he expelled a short laugh that sounded like a grunt following a punch to the stomach. “Well, I’ll be damned. They were
selling
it? My parents were drug dealers?”

“In the strictest sense, I guess. But my information is that they weren’t selling it for recreational use. They grew it for people with terminal illnesses who need relief from pain. They probably gave away a lot of it.”

Ronan considered that for a moment. “Okay. All right. Yeah, I can see them doing that. That’s the kind of people they were.”

“You know about the Packard development, don’t you? The offer for their land?”

“Well, sure. I told them they ought to sell and move to one of those assisted living places where Mom could get some help with Dad. But they wanted to live out their lives on the farm.”

“There was a lot of money on the table.”

“I know. But…” Ronan shrugged. “It was their decision.”

“It’ll be your decision now. Yours and your sister’s.”

“I’ve got more important things to take care of. I can’t even think about selling the land right now.”

But plenty of other people, Tom knew, would be thinking about little else.

***

Wearing only boxer shorts and a t-shirt, his usual sleep attire, Tom sat on his side of the bed but didn’t lie down or turn off the lamp. Rachel had kept quiet while he ate his late dinner, letting him decompress a little after his long and stressful day. She’d been sitting up in bed trying to read while he took a shower.

Now she reached over to rub his back and felt muscles tight as ropes under the shirt’s fabric. “You might want to talk to Holly’s grandmother tomorrow. She was friendly with the Kellys, and Mrs. Kelly might have told her something that would help you in the investigation.”

Tom looked around at Rachel. “Like what? Have you talked to Mrs. Turner today?”

“For a few minutes, but she’ll tell you more than she told me. She hinted that she knew who killed them, but I couldn’t pry it out of her.”

“All right, I’ll talk to her.”

“By the way,” Rachel said, trying to sound casual, “some men from Packard stopped by here today. They said this farm would be a perfect location for a private airport to serve the resort.”

She expected him to be annoyed, but instead he laughed. “Did they say how much they’ll pay us for it?”

“I’ll take that as a joke.”

Tom shifted to face Rachel. “Forget about it. Don’t let them get under your skin. Listen, I’m worried about Joanna. Would you talk to her in the morning and ask her not to go to that meeting with the Packard people? She’s more likely to listen to you than me.”

Rachel shook her head. “She won’t stay away. It’s too important to her.”

“She’s the most visible and vocal opponent of the development. She’s becoming a target. The more noise she makes, the more trouble she’s going to stir up for herself.”

Rachel raised her eyebrows. “
Noise
? Is that what you call—”

He held up both hands to stop her. “Poor choice of words. And I don’t want you to go either, so I won’t have to worry about you.”

“But—”

“Just stay out of it. Can you do that for me? Please?”

“I’ll try.”

“Do more than try. Stay out of it. It’s none of your business.”

She hated to argue with him when it was late, he was exhausted, and they both needed sleep. But she had to protest, however mildly. “I live here, Tom, I’m putting down roots here. I invested every cent I had in buying that animal hospital. Anything that’s going to affect the whole county—and a good friend of mine—is my business.”

“Just wait it out. And tell Joanna to wait it out. That development is never going to happen. Nobody’s going to force her to sell her land.”

No, Rachel thought, they might do something far worse. She didn’t understand how Tom could speak with such certainty of a happy outcome to the trouble brewing in the county. Sure, staying out of it would be easy. All Rachel had to do was radically alter her basic nature and abandon her friend.

Chapter Thirteen

Mark Hollinger wouldn’t shed his brown leather jacket and he wouldn’t sit down. Like a skittish dog, he patrolled Tom’s office, halting as if to take the scent in one spot before jerking away toward another.

Tom leaned back in his desk chair, watching Jake Hollinger’s son and waiting for an answer.

“I don’t remember exact times. I wasn’t looking at the clock.” Mark paused at the window, his distracted gaze directed at the parking lot outside, his broad shoulders rising and falling in a shrug. He looked like a younger version of his father, with thick dark brown hair and a square jaw, his features drawn in bold strokes where age had blurred the lines on Jake’s face. Only those odd pale blue eyes had come from Mark’s mother. When the early morning sun caught them, their color faded and they gleamed like silver disks.

Tom fingered a pencil, tapped the eraser on the desktop. “Why was your father at the lumber mill? Did you have some kind of problem you couldn’t deal with? He told me you’re having a little trouble handling the business side of things.”

Mark swung around, an angry flush riding up his neck into his cheeks. “I handle the business just fine when I’ve got the right paperwork. But I keep hearing from customers about orders I didn’t know about and don’t have any paperwork on. It’s a mess sometimes.”

“A mess your dad created, so you have to get him to come in and straighten it out.”

Mark opened his mouth, closed it again, and seemed to be debating with himself before he answered. “Your words, not mine.”

“Was your father at the mill yesterday for an hour, two hours? Longer? Did he stay all morning? Past lunchtime? You noticed that much, didn’t you?”

“He was in the office. I was working with the men. I didn’t even see him leave.”

“Ah.” Tom dropped the pencil on the desk and sat forward. “So you can’t say for sure where your father was when Lincoln and Marie Kelly were shot.”

“That’s not what I—” Mark broke off, shoved his fists into his jeans pockets. “If he said he was at the mill, then he was.”

Tom didn’t respond to that. “How much do you know about your father’s relations with the Kellys?”

Moving to a wall of photos, Mark studied a head and shoulders shot of Tom’s late father, John Bridger, as if he were memorizing details of the face that looked so much like Tom’s. “They were good to my mother when she was sick. They gave her something for the pain that worked better than the pills. It helped her get some rest.”

“They gave her marijuana.”

Mark pivoted, hands raised. “Now wait a minute. I don’t know anything about—”

“Forget it. I’m not interested in the Kellys’ pharmaceutical business unless it’s connected with the murders.”

A spark of something like hope bloomed on Mark’s face. “You think it could? They ticked off some drug dealer, maybe?”

“I’m looking at every possibility.”

Mark’s expression collapsed into anxiety again. “Including my father. You actually think he would go over there with a gun and kill both of them just because they were fighting over that damned fence.”

“They had more important differences. You know that. The Packard deal is all or nothing. Your father stood to lose a fortune if the Kellys—and Joanna McKendrick—refused to sell. I’m trying to establish your father’s whereabouts at the time of the murders, but obviously you can’t help me.”

Fists in his pockets, his mouth clamped shut in a stubborn line, Mark tried staring a hole in the wall. If Jake Hollinger was counting on his son to give him a solid alibi—to lie for him, if necessary—he’d put his trust in the wrong person.

“All right.” Tom stood. “Thanks for coming in. Come see me again if you decide to tell the truth.”

That stirred a flash of indignation, but Mark didn’t issue a rebuttal. Without speaking, he yanked open the door and stalked out of the office.

Tom followed, and he entered the squad room in time to witness Mark’s encounter with Sheila Kelly Hayes, Marie and Lincoln’s daughter.

She rose from a chair beside Dennis Murray’s desk, clutching a black leather shoulder bag against her chest, its strap dangling. She’d scraped her long black hair back into a clip, but messy strands had escaped and hung around her face and down her neck. “Mark,” she said. “Hello.”

Mark Hollinger stopped in his tracks, then backed up a couple of steps to put more distance between them. Tom caught the deputy’s eye and shook his head to keep Dennis silent.

“Sheila.” Mark croaked as if he had something stuck in his throat. “Hey. I, uh, I’m sorry. You know, about your folks.”

“Thank you.”

“Well… I have to get going.” Mark gestured toward the doorway.

“I’ll see you again while I’m here, I hope.”

Mark nodded and hustled toward the exit.

Tom walked over. “Hey, Sheila.”

She pulled her gaze from the doorway where Mark Hollinger had vanished and tried to refocus, frowning at Tom as if he were an acquaintance she vaguely remembered but couldn’t quite place, instead of someone she’d known most of her life.

Tom laid a hand on her shoulder. “How are you doing? I wasn’t expecting you this early. I thought you were going to get some rest before you drove up here.”

“Oh…” An absentminded flick of one slender hand waved away his concern. “I couldn’t sleep. I gave up trying. I decided I might as well be driving.” Her olive complexion, which Tom remembered as warm and vibrant, appeared bloodless now, and she wore that stunned expression he had seen too many times. Bad news poorly received, not yet fully absorbed.

“Let’s talk in my office.” Tom took her elbow to steer her down the hall. They passed by Sheriff Willingham’s old office, which had stood empty since illness forced him to retire, and walked on to the smaller space Tom occupied. The name plate on the door still read Captain Thomas J. Bridger, although Dennis, formerly a sergeant, now held the rank of captain. When the new plate identifying Tom as sheriff arrived, he would tackle the hassle of moving offices.

He closed the door behind them.

Sitting in the chair facing his desk, Sheila hunched forward over the purse on her lap, rubbing her upper arms.

“Don’t you have a coat with you?” Tom asked.

“My coat…” She frowned. “I guess I left it in the car.”

“Have some coffee to warm up.” Taking his seat, Tom grabbed a thermos from the desktop and unscrewed the cap. He poured coffee into his own mug, which he hadn’t used yet that morning. “Here. This is good stuff, not the swill from the coffeemaker. I brought it from home.”

Sheila reached for the mug, took a sip, and held it in both hands. “I think I’m in shock. I keep hearing what you said when you called me yesterday, it’s playing over and over in my head, but I still can’t take this in. Murdered? My mom and dad
murdered
?”

“I know. I’m sorry I had to give you the news on the phone. Your parents were good people. They’ll be missed by a lot of us.”

“Where are they now?” Her voice trembled. “Will I have to—you know—identify them?”

“No, you don’t. They’re already in Roanoke for the autopsies.”

Sheila’s face crumpled and sudden tears dropped from her eyes and splattered her purse. Bending over, she clamped one hand across her mouth, and for a second Tom thought she was about to vomit. He watched the carelessly held mug, now resting on her purse, tip almost far enough to spill its contents. Her voice muffled, Sheila asked, “Did Dad do it? Did he shoot Mom and then himself?”

Startled by the question, Tom took a moment to answer. “No, it wasn’t like that. They were both murdered by someone else. We don’t know who yet, but we’re positive about that much.”

She slumped in the chair as if relieved, letting go of a possibility she had considered worse than the reality. Tom rounded the desk, took the coffee mug from her and set it on the desk. Covering her face with both hands, she burst into sobs.

Tom returned to his chair and let her cry herself out. Sheila’s raw emotion, like Ronan’s, touched a chord in him, a grief of his own so enormous that it still threatened to overcome him when he allowed himself to look squarely at it. With an effort, he turned his mind back to Mark Hollinger’s behavior, his unwillingness to lie for his father even as he refused to contradict Jake’s alibi. And why had Mark reacted so strangely when he encountered Sheila? Guilt? Did he suspect his father of killing her parents?

At last Sheila pulled herself together and dug a tissue from her purse to wipe her face and blow her nose. “I’m sorry,” she said in a voice still thick with tears. “I’m okay now, I promise. I want to help if I can. Is there anything you need to know that I can tell you?”

“Sheila…” Tom hesitated, wondering if he was about to set off another round of tears. But he had to ask. “What made you think your father might have done this?”

“He’s not him— He wasn’t himself anymore. I thought you probably knew that.”

“I know about the Alzheimer’s,” Tom said. “I can’t say I knew how bad it was. I hadn’t seen him in a while. The last few times Jake Hollinger called about their argument over the fence, other deputies handled it.”

Sheila grimaced. “It was mortifying for Mom, to have Dad behaving that way. I tried to talk to him about it. I begged him and begged him to let it go, forget about the goddamned fence.”

“And what did he say?”

She gave a short laugh. “He told me not to swear when I talked to my father. I was worried that he might get confused and lash out at Mom. But she insisted she could handle him, she had ways to calm him down.” Casting a speculative glance at Tom, Sheila added, “I talked to my brother on the phone late last night. He told me he was staying at Joanna’s place and we can’t go into the house yet because you found…something unusual.”

“You mean the marijuana nursery in the basement? Yeah, that was a little out of the ordinary, although pot farms aren’t really unusual around here. We’ve removed it all, so you and Ronan can use the house if you want to.”

Sheila looked as if she were about to speak, but apparently decided silence was her best option.

”Look,” Tom said, “I don’t care if you knew and didn’t report it. I realize they were trying to help sick people. But anytime there’s a murder and the victims are involved with drugs in any way, we have to ask whether there’s a connection.”

“My parents were just hippies who outgrew their era. I mean, Dad was a loan officer at a bank. How much less of a hippie can you be? But they both believed medical marijuana should be legalized. They weren’t drug dealers in any conventional sense.”

“No, they didn’t sell dime and nickel bags to school kids. But the people who do sell drugs that way might not take kindly to a couple setting up an independent operation.”

“Oh my God.” Sheila leaned her forehead into her palm. “I was worried about them being arrested, but I didn’t pressure them because Mom said the pot helped her manage Dad. She put it in his meals when he was getting wound up, and it mellowed him out. It never occurred to me they might be making dangerous enemies. Do you know who it could be? You must know who’s selling drugs locally.”

“We’ve cleaned up the local drug business twice in the last couple of years, but it’s the kind of crime we’ll never be rid of. There’s too much demand for the products.” Tom hated to admit he hadn’t been able to pin down who was running it now, but he knew somebody was. Business that lucrative didn’t die because its CEO did. Plenty of people were eager to step over the corpse and take charge. “Anyway, it gives us one possible motive to look at. Can you think of anybody else they’d been having trouble with?”

Sheila shook her head. Tears filled her eyes again, but she blinked them away and held onto her composure.

“What do you know about the resort development?” Tom asked. “A lot of people are angry at the holdouts. Your parents and Joanna McKendrick were standing in the way of the development. Now you and your brother are going to be pressured to sell.”

She shook her head, her lips twisting in a humorless smile. “No, that’s going to be my decision.”

“Oh? I thought you two would split everything equally.”

“My brother probably thinks he has an equal share, but he’s going to find out that he doesn’t. Our parents put everything in a trust for us. I’m getting three-quarters of it and he gets a quarter. They’ve given him so much money already that they thought that was a fair division. I doubt Ronan will see it that way.”