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when I collided—literally—with good ol’ Reverend William
Jesperson. Ordinarily, Reverend Bill and I went out of our way
to avoid each other, but my shoulder connecting with his chest
made that impossible.
“’Scuse me.” I was glad I didn’t spill on him. Wouldn’t put
it past him to sue my sorry Lockwood ass.
He looked down the hall toward Pete’s office. “The chief
in?” he asked.
“Just stepped out,” I said. “Is this about the fire? Because if
it is, it’s me you should be talking to anyway.”
He scowled.“Now come on, Lockwood.You know I’m not
going to talk with you, so just tell Pete to call me.”
Pete picked that moment to walk in the door carrying coffee
and a pastry bag from Jabeen’s. He stopped in the hall and
looked from me to Reverend Bill and back again.
“Can I help you, Reverend?” he asked.
“You have any leads yet?” Reverend Bill asked him.
“You know we’ll tell you soon’s we know anything,”Pete said.
“Oh, come on,” Reverend Bill said. “You fellas know more
than you’re saying, and I think I have a right to know what your
investigation’s turned up so far, don’t you?”
172
diane chamberlain
“It’s ongoing, Reverend,” I said. “Nothing solid yet.” That
was putting it mildly.
“Did you see his nephew on TV this morning?” Reverend
Bill jerked his head in my direction.
“I missed it.” Pete took a sip from his coffee. I knew he was
itching to get at whatever he had in the bag.
“Well, it was quite informative,” Reverend Bill said. “For
example,did you know that Andy Lockwood got kicked off his
flight to NewYork for concealing a cigarette lighter in his sock?”
Pete raised his eyebrows at me. “Andy?”
Son of a bitch. “He didn’t get kicked off, Pete.You know
what Andy’s like. He saw the sign saying you couldn’t carry a
lighter onboard, so he stuck it in his sock.”
“And they didn’t let him board,” Reverend Bill said.
“Security needed to talk to him, so he and Laurel missed their
plane. They got on the next one.”
Pete’s jaw had dropped sometime during the back and forth.
“The boy carries a lighter around with him,” Reverend Bill
said. “And he turned out to be the big hero at the lock-in.
Doesn’t that seem a bit suspicious?”
“Andy’s experimenting like every other fifteen-year-old,” I
said. “Didn’t you try smoking when you were a kid?”
“Frankly, no. I thought it was disgusting then and I still
think so now.”
Bullshit. He grew up in tobacco country and never lit up?
“Look,” I said, “we haven’t ruled anyone out at this point.”
“I’m really talking to Pete here, Mr. Lockwood.” Reverend
Bill cut his eyes at me.
“And I appreciate you bringing this to our attention,” Pete
said.“Like Marcus told you, we haven’t ruled anyone out.” He
before the storm
173
ushered Reverend Bill toward the door, his hand in a death grip
on the pastry bag. “If you think of anything else, please don’t
hesitate to let us know.”
Reverend Bill held his ground.“You know, it’s easy for y’all
to take this lightly,” he said. “It wasn’t your church that burned
to the ground.”
Now I was pissed. “Three people died,” I said. “We didn’t
take the fire lightly when we were fighting it and you can bet
we’re not taking it lightly now.” I turned and walked into my
office, steam coming out of my ears.
As far as I was concerned, Reverend Bill looked like a
mighty good suspect himself. He’d been bitchin’ and moanin’
about his raggedy old church for years, and his congregation
was still a good bit shy of their fund-raising goal to build a new
one. Why not set fire to his church, collect the insurance
money for a new one and pass the guilt along to some innocent
kid? Andy was a perfect target. Theory didn’t hold water,
though. Even Reverend Bill wasn’t callous enough to burn the
church with kids in it. Or stupid enough. Lawyers were
already sniffing around for negligence. And the ATF agent said
the good Reverend was at a parishioner’s house when the fire
broke out, anyway. Airtight alibi, he said.
The forensic evidence was slight so far. We’d cut portions
of the remaining clapboard and sent it to the lab. It looked like
the accelerant was a mix of gasoline and diesel. That set off
lightbulbs in all our heads: the same mixture had been used in
a fire in Wilmington about six months ago. Old black church
slated to be turned into a museum, so they’d figured that one
for a hate crime. Plus, that building was abandoned. No one [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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