Poisoned Ground (9 page)

Chapter Seventeen

Tom’s boots on the old floorboards sounded like an elephant crossing the quiet squad room, but Dennis was so engrossed in what he saw on his computer screen that he didn’t look up until Tom stood before his desk.

The dozen other desks lining the walls were empty. Tom had left the deputies to make sure everybody was safely off the school property so he could get back to the murder investigation.

“What have you found?” he asked.

“His sister was right.” Dennis sat back in his chair, nudging his wire-rimmed glasses snug against the bridge of his nose. “Ronan Kelly’s got major money trouble. I found a lot online, and I’ll probably come up with more on Monday when everybody’s back at work. I’ve got a ton of stuff here that I printed out, and I tried to come up with a rough figure for his outstanding debt.”

Dennis peeled a single sheet off the inch-high stack of printouts on his desk and handed it to Tom.

Tom scanned the figures. “Oh man. Almost a million? You’re sure?”

“That’s a conservative estimate. And those are bank loans, and money from investors. It doesn’t include the money his parents loaned him. The losses really add up when you try to start a business and fail, and Ronan failed in a big way. Hired a lot of high-priced people, took a lease on a fancy office suite, took out ads in business magazines. I was just reading a business column about some of his former employees threatening to sue for unpaid wages.”

“What kind of services was he offering? He’s a bridge engineer, isn’t he?”

Dennis straightened the edges of the paper stack. “I’ve learned more about building bridges in the last couple hours than I ever wanted to know. You’d be amazed at the opportunities out there.”

“You can amaze me some other time. Just tell me what happened with Ronan Kelly’s business plans.” Tom handed the paper back to Dennis, then stripped off his uniform jacket and tossed it onto a nearby desk.

“He had this idea—it sounds crazy, but a couple of other companies were already doing the same kind of thing—they were taking old flatbed railroad cars and salvaging the materials to make small bridges for community parks, golf courses, places like that. Bridges for walking, not vehicles.”

“Hunh.” Tom moved to the window next to the desk. Through the dirt-streaked glass he watched a dry poplar leaf as big as a dinner plate tumble across the parking lot in the wind and disappear under his cruiser. He faced Dennis again. “It does sound a little crazy, but I guess it makes sense. They got contracts for projects like that?”

Dennis shrugged. “Not enough, obviously. Like I said, a couple of other companies got there first, and it’s not that big a market. I guess Ronan was a copycat, not an innovator.”

“He hasn’t filed for bankruptcy?”

“I couldn’t find any record of it. He’s got to be hurting bad, but he probably wants to salvage his credit rating by coming up with the money to pay off his debts.”

Leaning on the windowsill, Tom summed up the situation, speaking more to himself than Dennis. “This is the perfect time for both his parents to die, with Packard standing by and holding out a fat check for their land. Ronan still believes he’s going to get half of that money. And what he believes, and whether he acted on it, that’s all that matters.”

“If he hired somebody to kill them,” Dennis said, “he would have been smart to get somebody from out of the area. Somebody who could just drive away afterwards and disappear.”

“That’s what I’d expect. But we’ve got other suspects closer to home.” Tom repeated what Mrs. Turner had told him about Tavia Richardson.

“I remember that tractor accident,” Dennis said. “Nine, ten years ago? The department didn’t investigate it. I never heard your dad or Sheriff Willingham say there was anything suspicious about it. You know, a lot of people thought it was a good thing, Sam Richardson dying. His wife got the insurance money and the farm, and she could stop worrying about him beating her to death someday.”

In the brief silence that followed, Tom wondered if he and Dennis were thinking the same thing: Tom’s father, who had been chief deputy and lead investigator for the Sheriff’s Department at the time, wouldn’t think twice about letting the death of a vicious, widely hated man go uninvestigated if it looked like an accident and the outcome was an undeniable blessing to his wife. Tom knew Dennis would never speak that thought aloud, any more than he would.

“Well, it’s an interesting theory Mrs. Turner has,” Tom said, “about Tavia killing the Kellys in a way that nobody would associate with her. It’s just crazy enough to be true. But I also think Jake Hollinger could’ve done it, or they could have done it together. Jake and Tavia want that Packard money pretty badly.”

“And now we know Ronan
needs
the money to stay afloat, and he believes he’s going to get it, or half of it anyway.”

Tom pulled his notebook from his shirt pocket. Flipping through the pages, he found the notation he’d made of Ronan Kelly’s cell number. He reached for the desk phone. “I’d better track him down and find out what he’s up to.”

***

The raw ugliness of the community meeting and the display of hostility between the Kelly siblings left Rachel in a foul mood, but her spirits lifted the instant she turned into Grady and Darla Duncan’s driveway and saw Tom’s young nephew coming down the front steps to greet her. She smiled as he hit the yard and broke into a run. Simon seldom did anything slowly.

While she unbuckled her seat belt, he rounded the front of her Range Rover. As soon as her feet touched the ground, he threw his arms around her. “Hey, Rachel!”

“Hey, sweetie, it’s so good to see you.” Rachel hugged him tightly and planted a kiss on his unruly black hair. Ten years old now, he’d started growing so fast that he seemed taller every time she saw him. Soon he would probably decide he was too big to be hugged this way. She’d better enjoy it while she could. “It seems like it’s been forever.”

Laughing at her, Simon pulled away. “It was just last weekend. That’s not forever.”

“Well, it’s too long. I miss you, and so does Uncle Tom. We’re going to have a lot of fun while we’ve got you all to ourselves.”

His grandmother, Darla, stepped out onto the porch of the big Victorian house, and as Simon’s gaze shifted to her the light dimmed behind his smile. Rachel caught a momentary glimpse of the fear and worry he was trying so hard to hide, but he swiftly banished every trace of anxiety from his expression and broadened his smile again. Pity and sadness washed through Rachel as she watched this little boy mask his own emotions for the sake of the adults in his life.

Rachel had to hide her own feelings behind a cheerful greeting. Darla looked awful. In the three months since she’d been diagnosed with lymphoma, she had lost twenty pounds and her skin had taken on a dull cast. Her brown hair, generously streaked with silver, no longer shone, and although she hadn’t lost all of it, she had noticeable thin patches. Like Rachel and Simon, though, she shoved reality aside and put on a happy face, smiling as the two mounted the steps to the porch.

“You think you can manage this little ruffian for a few days? Tom must have his hands full right now, so you’re probably going to be doing it all.”

“I can’t wait. You know I only married Tom so I could spend more time with Simon.”

“I suspected as much.”

Simon grinned with pure childish delight, and his olive skin couldn’t hide a flush of pleasure.

“You go get your stuff now,” Darla told him. “But let Rachel get Mr. Piggles. His cage is too big for you to carry.”

The boy took off at his usual top speed, the glass storm door slamming after him. From the porch Rachel and Darla watched him pound up the stairs.

Darla waited until he was out of sight. “Thank you, Rachel. I know if he’s with you and Tom he’ll always be okay.”

Darla wasn’t usually a hugger, and she startled Rachel by suddenly pulling her into an embrace.

Closing her arms around the older woman, Rachel could feel Darla’s ribs through her loose cotton shirt. “We both love that little boy. We’d do anything for him.” Tears burned Rachel’s eyes.
Don’t cry. For God’s sake, don’t cry.
“And we’re right here to help you anytime you need us. You’re going to beat this, you know.”

Pulling away, Darla blinked tears from her own eyes and forced a smile. “That’s what I’m planning on. I feel like crap, but the doctor thinks the treatment’s working. I guess I’ll find out Monday.”

“You’re getting the best of care.” Rachel still wished Darla would see a specialist at one of the Washington, D.C., medical centers, but she had never voiced that opinion because she recognized it as personal bias. Now she reminded herself, once again, that the University of Virginia in Charlottesville had an excellent medical school and hospital with specialists as skilled as any at George Washington or Georgetown. She was immensely relieved that neither Darla nor her husband, a deputy who worked with Tom, had ever considered sticking with a doctor in Mason County.

The storm door flew open and Simon thumped onto the porch, dragging a duffle bag. The backpack he wore bulged with schoolbooks.

Darla laughed and shook her head. “I think you packed everything you own. Are you sure you’re planning to come back?”

“Aw, Grandma, I need my stuff.”

Rachel hefted the duffle, exaggerating the effort required. “Darla, you’d better check on Grady’s coin collection. I think Simon might be making off with it.”

They stashed Simon’s belongings in the Range Rover, then carried out the roomy cage housing his guinea pig, Mr. Piggles. The little brown and white animal squeaked in protest at the movement but seemed mollified by Simon’s gift of three big peanuts.

Darla kissed Simon’s forehead, told him to be good, and buckled him into his seat. She walked around to the driver’s side with Rachel. “You be careful, okay?”

“Careful? Driving, you mean? I always am.”

Darla crossed her arms and hunched her shoulders as if suddenly realizing she shouldn’t have come out without a jacket. “No, that’s not what I mean. With all this nonsense going on about that resort, everybody taking sides and turning against each other— I know how much Simon loves the horses, but so many people are mad at Joanna McKendrick right now, maybe you shouldn’t take him over there tomorrow.”

Darla’s words stung, not because the advice was unnecessary but because it hadn’t occurred to Rachel—despite the vandalism to Joanna’s vehicle and the open hostility to her at the community meeting, despite the murder of Joanna’s closest neighbors—that Simon might not be safe at the McKendrick horse farm. What was wrong with her?

“I won’t,” she promised. “Don’t give it another thought. You have enough on your mind.”

Darla smiled. “Thanks. I know our boy’s in good hands. I’ll see you in a few days.”

Simon smiled and waved at his grandmother as Rachel backed out of the driveway. As soon as they were on the road and beyond Darla’s sight, his smile faded and his young face tightened with fear and anxiety.

Rachel reached over to touch his thick black hair, which felt so much like Tom’s. God, she loved this kid. He had already suffered the unimaginable loss of both his parents, in the road accident that also killed his beloved Bridger grandparents and almost killed Tom, who had been driving, and Simon himself. Now the comforting world his maternal grandparents had created for him was threatened by Darla’s illness.

“She’s going to be all right, Simon. I wouldn’t say that if I didn’t really believe it.”

He nodded and tried to smile, and Rachel hated herself for lying to him.

***

What the hell was the man doing? Tom had a fist raised to knock on the front door of the Kellys’ farmhouse when he caught sight of Ronan through the living room window.

Ronan pawed through the drawer of a writing table, sending envelopes and papers flying in every direction. Apparently frustrated at not finding what he wanted, he yanked the drawer free, carried it to the coffee table and dumped out its contents. He flung the drawer aside, and it crashed into the fireplace screen and dropped to the hearth. Leaning over the coffee table, he searched through the papers, dropping one after another on the floor.

Tom knocked and saw Ronan snap his head up, then stride toward the door, which led directly into the living room.

Ronan didn’t issue a greeting or an invitation to enter but left the main door standing ajar as he returned to his task.

Pulling the storm door open, Tom stepped into the chaotic scene. Sofa cushions lay askew. The doors of a cabinet under the TV set stood open and a couple dozen DVDs littered the rug in front of it.

“What’s going on here, Ronan?” The room smelled of hamburger and fried potatoes, and Tom noticed a crumpled fast food carryout bag half-buried under the drawer’s contents on the coffee table. “Did you lose something?”

“I’m trying to find—” He broke off as if afraid to say too much, and when he spoke again his tone sounded accusatory. “Did you take anything out of here? Any papers?”

Tom folded his arms across his chest. “Why? What do you think is missing?”

Ronan threw up his hands in exasperation. “Just
tell
me, will you? Did you take anything?”

Tom suspected Ronan was looking for something in writing from Packard that would indicate how much the company would pay for this land. The Packard proposal Tom had found in the kitchen, fixed to the tabletop with the sharp point of a knife blade, now rested on a shelf in the evidence room at headquarters. “If you think something’s missing, you’ll have to be specific. I can’t play a guessing game.”

Ronan sank onto the sofa, or tried to, but he landed on an unsupported corner of a crooked cushion and had to scramble to keep from landing on the floor. Face flaming, he shoved the cushion back into place and sat on it, his head in his hands. His voice came out strained and rough, as if he were holding back tears. “I just want all this to be over.”

Tom sat in a padded rocking chair facing Ronan. “Have you and Sheila made any plans for the funeral?”

“No.”

“Maybe that ought to be your first priority. You should be able to have the funeral and burial next week. I know your parents weren’t church-goers, so you might want a simple service at the funeral home. That’s easy enough to arrange.”