TO SAY THE SHERIFF was furious when I finished telling him what we had found would be a world class understatement. Gallagher was red-faced and yelling loud enough to be heard at the diner.
I stared at him. My face burned red, but I didn't want to rage back. I wanted him to check the lights. "I don't get why you're mad at us. You took down the yellow tape."
Gallagher turned to Syl. "I don't know you well Mr. Seaton, but I would've thought you had more sense than to visit a crime scene."
Syl's expression was impassive. "I didn't buy a ticket on your railroad."
It took me a couple of seconds to get it, and I laughed.
It took Gallagher a few more, and he didn't.
"I'm not railroading anyone, goddammit! Evidence is evidence."
"You missed some," Syl said.
Gallagher took a breath and struggled to lower his voice. "We may have. If so, we'll revisit."
I crossed my arms across my chest. "I think that black powder means someone had, I don't know, guns or fireworks or something in that barn."
He jabbed an intercom button on his phone. "Get me Harmon, will you Sophie?" He looked back at me. "There's probably a small amount of black powder on every barn floor in the county."
"Except for the Amish," Syl said.
I suppressed a grin.
Gallagher glared at him. "I saw those bulbs. Figured they'd been there."
I wanted to learn what Gallagher knew, so I kept my tone even. "I get that, but the fact that they came on after being in a vacant barn for a couple of years tells us they had fresh batteries."
He ran a hand over his beefy face and walked to the chair behind his desk. "Sit down. I want to know what you disturbed in the barn."
I flushed, and sat. Syl leaned against the wall. "I'll stand."
I decided not to mention Mister Tibbs. "We didn't…" I began.
Newt Harmon walked in, and Gallagher pointed a finger at him. "Get out to the Perkins' barn with some fingerprint dust and see what you can pick up at…" he pulled a piece of paper from a drawer and thrust it and a pencil toward me, "near some Velcro on the wall."
To me, he added, "Draw a diagram and put x's about where you saw the sticky stuff."
Harmon looked puzzled, but stood silently while I drew a rectangle with open spaces for the two doors, and marked the Velcro spots.
I turned and handed it to the deputy. "In the back you'll see two small lights near the door. They're round, battery operated. My family didn't install those. Syl and I touched the one on the right."
A harsh voice came from the doorway. "What were you doing in that barn?"
I turned to see Aaron Granger's frown and rigid posture.
"I wanted to see if I could spot something to clear Ambrose."
"Granger," Gallagher began, "you need to let me handle this."
He reddened. "You're letting her prowl…"
Gallagher cut him off. "If you think I don't know how to run an investigation, you have another thought coming. Back off."
Granger turned and left, fury radiating from his departing back.
Newt Harmon nodded at Gallagher and, with my diagram protruding from the pocket of his tan uniform shirt, followed Granger.
The palpable three-second pause in the room felt like time sitting in the corner as a childhood punishment.
Finally, Gallagher said, "I believe the facts support your brother's arrest. I will examine new evidence."
He pointed a finger at me, continuing my feeling of being scolded.
"But I have to be the one to find it. Right now, if something about those lights would exonerate Ambrose, it might be thrown out because you found them."
I sat up straighter. "But…"
"No buts," Gallagher said.
He looked at Syl. "I can't tell you where to go or not go, Mr. Seaton, but I advise you, both of you, to leave this to the police and the lawyers."
I TRIED TO QUELL SOME of my anger by working with Stooper for two hours as he finished planting at Dr. Carver's. I glanced at my watch. Almost three-thirty.
When all the plants were in and some mulch spread, Stooper and I took the fifty yards or so of edging and began to insert it at the edge of the gardens. I had tried to tell Dr. Carver to save her money. Most weeds spread their seeds via air rather than roots.
She had not been persuaded. I certainly didn't mind the work.
I stood to stretch just as my phone rang. Sharon's voice asked, "Melanie? You've heard then?"
"Yes, but I didn't know if you had, so I left the message about my extra room."
"I'm driving down now. Depending on what happens at tonight's arraignment, I may take you up on it. Ken Brownberg said he got a lawyer who will meet us when Ambrose is booked in."
"I'm sorry, Sharon."
"It'll be okay."
I felt a lump rising in my throat. "How can you be so sure?"
"I refuse to believe my husband will be convicted of a murder he didn't commit."
I didn't share her sentiment, but refrained from saying so. "So, meet you in the courthouse?"
A horn honked on Sharon's end. "I shouldn't talk and drive. See you at six."
I looked around for Stooper. When I arrived I had given him the run down about Ambrose's arrest, but all he'd done was mutter about rushing to judgment.
Stooper stood by his beat-up car getting a drink from a water jug. Not that I would mind him overhearing a conversation with Sharon. He's become my friend. A friend I would not have expected to have.
I knelt again and tried to focus on loosening the soil with a trowel to lay the edging evenly. I didn't give a damn about Dr. Carver's edging, but it paid the bills.
Stooper and I worked without talking for another ten minutes, so his voice startled me as much as his question.
"So, if Ambrose didn't do it, who did?"
I wiped my brow with the small towel I have on a belt loop when I'm working. "I don't know. I think someone used the barn. Needless to say, without our permission."
"For what?"
"Not sure. I found a little bit of black powder near one wall. I wonder if someone was making or storing fireworks."
"'Round here anybody dumb enough to make 'em would've probably blowed themselves up."
I laughed, but stopped, thinking. "I saw Nelson and his cousin, Harlan I think his name is, at the hardware store a couple of days ago. Nelson's usually got some scheme going on, doesn't he?"
Stooper almost snorted. "He wouldn't have the brains to make 'em. His cousin I don't know. Not from around here, is he?"
"Missouri."
Stooper stopped pressing edging into the dirt. "Guess the cousin could be bringing them up."
"Iowa cops watch some of the roads to make sure fireworks aren't smuggled in." I frowned. "Kind of hard to do it."
"Somebody's really organized about it, they wouldn't buy boxes of the stuff at that big red place just into Missouri."
I envisioned the bright red building, easily three times the size of our barn. "Good point." I stood and brushed off my knees. "I think I'll hang out at the hardware store for a few minutes."
Stooper grinned. "Andy'll love it."
I went over the "barn as fireworks hideout" idea as I drove toward the hardware store. Just about every main road into Missouri from Iowa has a huge fireworks sales point within a half-mile of the border. They were all open now.
You can buy sparklers in Iowa and charcoal snakes, but other fireworks are outlawed, except big displays by licensed vendors. I don't think much about them except to go to the annual displays in River's Edge.
I certainly didn't give illegal fireworks transport much thought. I've heard that for a few months every year, bringing in fireworks from Missouri can be as big a smuggling operation as bargain cigarettes.
I decided that before going to the hardware store I'd see what I could learn from Sandi. I'd expected to hear more from her or Ryan by now and wondered what they were up to.
The bell above the glass door tinkled as I walked into the South County News office. My eyes strayed across the area with reporters' desks, the so-called bullpen. Betty, the lifestyle columnist, sat at her desk near the back of the large room.
She's in her fifties and never acts happy about working, even though she gets to go to local school and social events. Betty had headphones on and was intent on her computer screen.
I could have made off with the laptop sitting on a desk near the door.
Scott Holmes walked out of the editor's office, and I held up a hand in greeting. He nodded and walked toward me. He carries himself with almost regal bearing, but I wouldn't say he acts stuffy. He's just a lot more formal than most people in town.
"Hello, Melanie. May I help you?"
He had almost reached me, and I realized his tight smile didn't reach his eyes.
"I wanted to talk to Sandi or Ryan. Or you," I added as an afterthought. "I can't figure out why Sheriff Gallagher arrested my brother."
His expression relaxed somewhat, and for a second, I thought I saw sympathy in his eyes. "I'm sure you'll catch up with them, but our work and your investigation have to be separate."
It took me a couple of seconds to get that he'd told Ryan and Sandi not to talk to me about what they found out. "Oh." Then I started to get mad. "Does that mean you don't want to know if I find out anything?"
He drew a breath that was almost a sigh. "No. It does mean that you turned down Doc Shelton's offer to serve as acting editor and that Sandi and Ryan are the reporting team on this."
I blinked and stood very still.
When I said nothing, he added, "I hope your brother is cleared of this. From what I've heard people say about him in the last couple of hours, he seems an unlikely murderer."
Had Holmes said anything besides hoping Ambrose was innocent, I might have told him to get off his high horse. Or maybe get on it and ride out of town. Instead, I said, "It does make sense. Okay."
He half-smiled. "I'm certainly not telling your friends to avoid you at Mason's Diner."
I thanked him and left. I felt more alone than at any time in the two years since my parents died.