Chapter 7

 

I slept until noon Saturday and was pulling on a pair of jeans when the doorbell rang. I stumbled out of the bedroom, yanked the waistband over my hips, and zipped up. As I stretched my hand toward the doorknob, I considered the possibility that the person on the other side of the door might not be Corey, after all, but Bruce. I shook the sleep out of my head. Of course it was Corey. Bruce wouldn't have a reason to knock.

Just the same, I squeezed one eye shut and squinted through the peephole. Corey stood on the threshold, and her arms were weighted down with a grocery bag.

I opened the door as an icy breeze lifted her bangs, then curled into the apartment and ruffled my T-shirt. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold, or running up the steps, and when she smiled, the skin around her eyes crinkled. Her pale lashes looked transparent, and her eyes were as blue and as clear as an autumn sky.

"Morning," I said.

Her grin broadened. "You mean afternoon."

"Uh . . . so it is."

"Well? Can I come in?"

"Oh, yeah. Right." I quit gawking at her and backed up. "Here, let me get that." I took the grocery bag from her arms and carried it into the kitchen.

She followed me into the tiny room, and as I set the bag on the counter and peered inside, she flattened her hand on my arm. "I'll do it. Have you eaten yet?"

"Yeah. When I got home this morning."

She paused with a loaf of bread in her hand and turned to look at me. "Well, do you want something now?"

I shook my head. "Oh, but if you're hungry . . ."

"No. I'll wait." She unpacked a bag of potato chips and lunchmeat and a gallon of milk. "Want some orange juice?"

"Sure." I watched her rinse out two glasses. She wore the same black and purple vest as before, but today, she'd added charcoal-colored riding breeches flecked with horse hair. I suspected the purple knee-highs and white sneakers weren't the fashion statement she'd intended but the result of switching out of her riding boots. The look was common enough in the circles we ran in, and based on the horse activity around Warrenton, it probably wasn't out of the ordinary here, either.

"What's on today's agenda?" she said over her shoulder.

"I'd like to begin by going to the library and reading through the local papers, starting with the last week in January. I want to know everything that's happened around here that was significant enough to make the news. Especially the fires, not that I think Bruce had anything to do with them."

Corey handed me a glass of orange juice and took a swallow of hers.

"It's unlikely we'll find anything that's connected to your brother's disappearance," I said. "And even if we do, we may not recognize it for what it is, but getting a lay of the land feels like a good starting point. Then, when we get back, it'll probably be time for me to go to work, but maybe you could search through his computer this weekend."

"Sure."

"We need to find his phone book, too." I swallowed some orange juice. "His private one, I mean."

She lifted a carton of eggs and package of bacon out of the bag and frowned. "You haven't seen it?"

"Not yet. I've only had time to search the living room and kitchen."

She picked up the grocery bag and began to fold it, but her thoughts were elsewhere. She crimped the bag until it was half closed and paused. "You know . . ." she said so softly, I had to lean forward to hear her. "On my drive home the other night, I decided, if I'm going to be any help at all, I have to pull myself together." She looked into my eyes.

The refrigerator hummed to life behind me, and the walls of the tiny room seemed to push inward, moving us closer, until we were almost touching.

She tilted her head to the side. "You've been so kind and patient, Steve, and I really appreciate it . . ."

"But, you have every right to--"

"No." She held up her hand. "I promise. I'll do better."

I shifted my weight and rested against the opposite counter. "Corey, you've been fine."

She bit her lip, and when she shook her head, her short blond bangs flipped across her forehead. "No. I haven't. But, I'm taking my cue from the police," she glanced at the ceiling, "of all people, and I'm going to focus on the fact that we haven't found anything to indicate that he's in trouble or . . . hurt. He really could be all right."

"Yes, he could."

"And if he is . . ." a smile touched her lips, "I'm going to ask you to do one last thing for me."

"What's that?"

"Punch him."

* * *

"Tell me, again, what we're looking for."

I glanced up from a stack of newspapers. We'd taken over a conference table in the Virginia Room of the Fauquier County Public Library, but in actuality, we had the entire room and most of the library to ourselves. I was working my way through the Fauquier Times-Democrat while Corey checked the Citizen and several regional papers.

"Anything that doesn't sound . . . normal."

"Well, gee, Steve. If it's normal, it's not going to be in the paper."

I leaned back and ran my fingers through my hair. "Okay, we don't care that the board of supervisors has some tough budget decisions to make or that they're refurbishing a restaurant on Main Street or that the school board wants a bigger share of the tax pie." I paused and glanced at the article I'd been skimming about a planned renovation/addition to the county jail in Warrenton that was expected to cost more than the officials had predicted. Damn.

Corey leaned forward. "What?"

I tore my gaze away from the paper. "Uh . . . nothing." I cleared my throat. "I mean, I can't really predict what might be useful later. If you think an event has potential, jot it down or photocopy it."

"Okay." Corey did that thing she does with her legs, crossing them beneath her, while my gaze was drawn back to the jail article. What if Bruce had been arrested and was too embarrassed to tell his family? I didn't know if a standard missing person's report would spur the cops into checking their own backyard, so to speak. I jotted JAIL on my notepad and decided to look into it Monday afternoon.

Most of January held nothing of interest and consisted of articles covering suburban sprawl, a proposed hundred-and-fifty-four acre business park, tobacco revenues lost to online sales, more tax concerns. I flipped to the January thirty-first edition, and an article on the front page caught my attention. Or rather, the color photograph did. It sprawled across four columns and depicted a snowy nighttime scene of a mangled tractor-trailer hanging precariously from a guardrail.

FIRST SIGNIFICANT SNOWFALL CONTRIBUTES TO I-95 ACCIDENT

A Shreveport, Louisiana man was uninjured when the tractor-trailer he was driving jackknifed on I-95 northbound and mounted the guardrail. The incident occurred early this morning, around one o'clock, south of the Fredericksburg exit.

Maynard Blue, 45, from Shreveport, Louisiana was hauling a load of Libbey glassware when the tractor-trailer he was driving jackknifed and slid across three lanes of interstate I-95, causing the cab to mount the guardrail in the median.

According to First Sgt. Raymond Murphy, of the Virginia State Police, all three lanes of northbound I-95 were closed at one-fifteen and remained closed for the next two hours to allow emergency responders time to remove the tractor-trailer and clean up debris on the roadway. A crane from Reynolds Crane, Inc. out of Fredericksburg, Virginia was brought in to lift the cab off the guardrail.

First Sgt. Murphy reported that slick conditions likely contributed to the accident which is still under investigation.

Interesting. Even though I didn't see how it related to Bruce, I set it aside. I flipped through the rest of Friday's edition, then moved on to Saturday's, the first day of February and Bruce's last day at Stone Manor. The coverage was equally disappointing. Not one event or announcement or happening hinted at a possible connection, and I was beginning to think we were wasting our time. I looked across the table at Corey. Her paper had slipped into her lap, and she was chewing on her lower lip as she read something that had caught her attention.

"Find anything?"

She looked up. "Oh . . . ahem." She shook her head as she closed the section. "No. Nothing."

"You looked rather enthralled for 'nothing.'"

A faint blush rose to her cheeks. "Um." She licked her lips. "I, uh . . . I was reading about the Blue Ridge Hunt Point-to-Point. They have steeplechase and flat races." She slid the paper onto the shorter stack to her right. "Sorry. I got sidetracked."

I grinned.

Corey leaned forward in her chair, and her blue eyes sparkled under the lights. "It's just that it sounds like so much fun. I'll have to give it a try one of these days."

"Oh, boy."

"Oh, boy, what?"

I rested my elbows on the table. "Nothing. I'm sure you'd be good at it. You're light enough. Heck, you'd probably have to carry lead." I pictured Corey barreling across the rough terrain, crouched over her horse's withers with the wind in her face. And I pictured the rest of the field, bunched close, riding hard, the horses' legs swinging over the ground, their hooves slicing into the turf with a thousand pounds of bone-crushing weight behind them.

"Have you found anything?" Corey said.

"No." I settled back in my chair and turned over Sunday's paper.

MAN KILLED IN METH LAB EXPLOSION

A Warrenton man was killed in a meth lab explosion shortly after midnight Sunday. Andrew Johnson, 35, of 1379 Brittney Lane was pronounced dead at the scene. Neighbors called police when they heard an explosion that rattled their windows. When emergency responders arrived, an outbuilding on Johnson's property was fully involved. Police say there was evidence that Johnson had been in the process of extracting ephedrine, one of the ingredients necessary to produce methamphetamine, from a cold medicine. Officers evacuated several neighbors until the threat of additional explosions was eliminated.

Warrenton Police Detectives Jim Brandon and Daniel Sweeney discovered various solvents and fixers used in the production of methamphetamine in a back bedroom in the residence as well as a small amount of marijuana and assorted drug paraphernalia.

I checked the date in the header, Sunday, February second. I glanced at Corey, then studied the photograph of what was left of the outbuilding. Later that same day, her family had gathered to celebrate her birthday. Everyone except Bruce. His absence had been the first indicator that something had gone wrong. The article was unusual enough to warrant a trip to the photocopier. I skimmed the rest of the pages, then placed the section on top of the I-95 article.

Corey looked at the pile sitting off to the side and frowned. "You found something?"

"An accident on I-95 and a meth lab explosion."

"And?"

"Well, they beat county budgets and tax referendums."

"Drugs? Bruce wouldn't have anything to do with that."

"I'm sure you're right, but it happened on the second, so . . ." I shrugged.

"You're right." She looked back at the paper she'd been leafing through, but I had a feeling she wasn't focusing on the print.

An account of the first arson was printed in Monday's paper.

FIRE DESTROYS ABANDONED BARN

A suspicious fire destroyed an abandoned barn on Paddock Way south of County Road 628 early Monday morning. At approximately 1:15, John Nobel of Culpeper noticed flames shooting from the barn's roof as he drove west on County Road 628. Nobel used his cell phone to call 911, but when firefighters from Company Nineteen out of Warrenton Training Center arrived seven minutes later, the roof had already collapsed. Firefighters worked to contain the blaze and kept it from spreading to a house on the property. Both the barn and house have been vacant for several years.

Company Nineteen Firefighter Wayne Terry said losses are estimated at $70,000. The cause is still under investigation, however, arson is suspected since the barn was vacant and without electricity.

That section went in the photocopy pile as I reflected that the fire department had had a busy two days.

Corey looked up again.

"Barn fire." I explained the niggling suspicion I couldn't shake that the fires were someone's attempt to intimidate my boss. "And we should keep tabs on anything that impacts the farm, because anything connected to the farm could be connected to Bruce . . ." I noted the doubt behind her eyes and added, ". . . somehow."

She nodded, then flipped over a section and pulled it into her lap. I glanced at my watch. It was already ten after three, and I had to be at work by six. The room was warm and oppressively quiet, and the lack of sound and stale air bore into my skull and weighted my eyelids.

I flipped through the next five days and found an article covering the second fire in Saturday's edition. No wonder the sheriff's department had set up a roadblock with the fires happening so close together. The second fire had been discovered just after midnight by a neighbor walking his dog and involved a bank barn in the 8400 block of Dunnottar Lane. Where in the hell did they come up with these names, anyway? The third fire, my fire, happened five days later.

THIRD SUSPICIOUS FIRE IN ELEVEN DAYS HAS AREA RESIDENTS SPOOKED

A bank barn that has stood for more than one-hundred years was destroyed in less than three hours early Thursday morning. The barn, located at 8203 Cannonball Gate Road, belonged to Winifred and Jonathan Keller. No one was injured in the blaze, but losses were substantial due to a large assortment of agricultural equipment and hay stored in the barn. An estimate has not been determined but is expected to top $200,000.

Firefighters were on the scene for approximately twelve hours as mounds of half-burnt hay smoldered and rekindled, sending a huge column of smoke into the air that was visible from Old Town Warrenton. State Fire Marshall Chuck Holmes said the cause is still under investigation, but he was called to the scene almost immediately because of the rash of barn fires plaguing the area.

Units from Warrenton Training Center and Warrenton were dispatched to the scene. Assistance was also provided by the Fauquier County Sheriff's Office.

I scoured the rest of Thursday's edition and thought it interesting that the incident at barn seven hadn't made the paper. It wasn't even listed in the Police and Court Notes. I blasted through Friday's edition, then went to photocopy what little I'd set aside. When I came back, Corey had straightened our table and looked as ready to get out of there as I was.

"I'm starved," I said. "Let's get something to eat."

She slipped on her vest, and her gaze fell upon the papers stacked neatly in the center of the table. "We didn't do so good, did we?"

I shrugged. "Time will tell."

We went to Sullivan's Bar and Grill and chose a booth by the front window. The afternoon sunlight streamed over the rooftops across the street and angled through the bar's plate-glass windows where it pooled on the wooden floor. Light glinted off the cars parked along the sidewalk and winked across the glass as traffic moved along Main Street. Its implied promise of warmth was deceptive, at least on the other side of the glass. The temperature hovered in the mid-twenties and would drop fast once the sun set.

A muted TV screen flickered in the back of the room, and a local radio broadcast piped out of speakers in the ceiling, sounding louder than my previous visit since the bar was almost empty. I hung my denim jacket on a coat hook and offered to take Corey's vest, but she shook her head. "I'm still cold."

When I leaned against my backrest, the cushion was warm from the sun. "You might want to sit here." I patted my seat. "It's warm."

Her hand paused in midair as she reached for her napkin.

"I mean, we could switch."

She smiled softly. "Yeah, but the sun's in your eyes."

"Won't be for long."

"True." She picked up her menu and studied me over the top edge. "I had you pegged as a fast-food junkie. Guess I was mistaken."

Although I couldn't see her mouth, I had a sneaky suspicion she was grinning based on the deepening lines that radiated outward from her eyes. "Nah, you got me. I checked out this place the other night because some of Stone Manor's employees come here."

"Bruce?"

I nodded and watched her scan the room.

"Who'd you talk to?" she said.

"The barkeep. He's not here right now. When the waitress takes our order, maybe we should show her his picture. See if she knows anything. And there's one guy in particular I'm interested in. He's a big guy with long blond hair that he wears in a ponytail. Does he sound familiar?"

Corey frowned as she thought it over. "No. The last couple years, I've lost track of his friends, and it's gotten worse since he moved down here. I don't think I've been to his apartment more than twice. When I do see him, we're usually at our parents'."

I thought about my own sister. Except for her husband, I would be hard pressed to name one of her friends. Time apart, almost five years, and distance, three-thousand miles, had a way of doing that to a relationship.

Corey started to ask me about Ponytail but stopped when our waitress strolled over to take our orders.

I held Bruce's picture out to her. "Do you know this guy? He comes in here from time to time."

She glanced from me to Corey and snapped her gum as a blush crept into her cheeks. "Who wants to know?"

Corey looked at me, then sat taller in her chair and slipped her hands into her lap. "I'm his sister. He's missing."

"Oh." Our waitress exhaled as if she'd been holding her breath. "For a second, I thought you were gonna say you're his girl. He's missing, huh?" She checked both our expressions, then peered at the two-by-three photo. "We dated for awhile last spring."

"Do you have any idea where he is?"

She shook her head, and her long silver earrings whipped against her neck.

"What about friends? Do you know anyone he hangs with?"

"Uh-uh. We were strictly bedmates," she threw Corey a quick glance, "if you know what I mean. He comes in here with some guys from the farm he works at. That's all I know."

"When did you see him last?"

"Three weeks. Four. It's hard to keep track in this job."

"Do you know if he . . . dates anyone else who works here?"

"Not that I've heard."

"We're also looking for a big blond guy. Broad shoulders, wears his hair in a ponytail. You ever see him in here?"

She popped her gum and shrugged; then she handed Bruce's picture back to me. "Sorry."

She took our orders, and Corey watched her return to the kitchen. The sunlight slanted through the window behind Corey, highlighting her windblown hair and lighting the side of her face. It caught the edge of her eye so that it appeared lit from within. She lowered her head, and the trick of light was lost to shadow.

"Why are you interested in this guy?"

"The barkeep doesn't know who he is but said he hung out with Bruce shortly before he disappeared. A name would be nice."

I sat through the beginning of the meal, wondering how hard I should press Corey for information. I swallowed some iced tea, placed the glass on the table, and watched her pick at her chicken strips. "Don't you eat?"

She looked up and smiled. "Sometimes." She sat back in her seat and sighed. "I sense you're waiting for something. What is it?"

"I'm not really sure where to start looking for your brother. I have to admit, this afternoon was a bit discouraging, but I guess our best bet is for me to learn as much as I can about the people at Stone Manor."

"What's it like working there?"

I described the job and employee hierarchy, which was fairly basic and typical of most farms. Dr. Nash handed down orders to the stud manager who oversaw the crew, and as usual, there was little incentive for anyone else to assume a leadership role and, therefore, responsibility. As far as I was concerned, the practice smothered initiative and discouraged pride, and I was fairly certain it was driven by economics.

"Because of their attitudes, I'm particularly interested in two guys, Michael Tiller and Paul Genoa. Do you recall Bruce mentioning either one of them?"

Corey shook her head.

"Did he ever talk about problems at work?"

"No." She leaned back in her seat and picked up her Diet Coke. "Work was just that. Work. He isn't . . ." she paused, searching for the right word, "passionate about horses like I am. That's not to say he doesn't enjoy the job. He does, even though he's never cared much for riding."

"Like you?"

"Oh, God. Yes," she breathed.

"Who'd you ride today? It wasn't Sweetwater," I said, naming her chestnut warmblood.

Her eyebrows disappeared under her bangs. "How'd you know?"

I grinned. "You have gray horse hair on your breeches."

She glanced at her lap, then looked up at me and grinned. "Huh, so I see." She took a sip of her drink. "I breezed a couple horses at Bowie this morning."

My mouth fell open. "When'd you start that?"

"Couple weeks ago. I'm just doing it on the weekends, but I might start working at Washington Park in the morning, before I go to work. It'll keep me in shape."

"Uh-huh. Like you're not?"

She ignored the implied compliment. "So, what about these two guys?"

"Tiller's your typical bully, but he backs down easily enough. The other guy, Genoa, seems a bit unstable."

"How?"

"He's extremely jealous of his girlfriend, and she works at night, right before Bruce's shift."

"What's she like? Would Bruce be attracted to her?" I pictured Maddie's breasts pressing against her pajamas, and Corey must have read something in my expression, because she said, "Hmm, guess so."

I smiled. "Yeah. He'd be interested." I swiped my last French fry through a glob of ketchup and tried not to eye Corey's stack of chicken strips. "In general, what's Bruce like? Does he make friends easily?"

"Yeah. He's always had tons of friends. Male and female." She leaned forward and propped her chin in her hands. "But not close friends, and as far as I know, he's never been in a long-term relationship." She looked up at me through her bangs with the saddest eyes I've ever seen. "And I don't know why. He's funny and friendly and drop-dead gorgeous." She smiled. "At least that's what every girlfriend I've ever had has been sure to tell me. Repeatedly. But he never gets . . . close. I don't know. It's like he's searching for something he knows he'll never find."