Poison Town (19 page)

“I slept the whole night through for the first time in a month. That next afternoon, I asked a friend to buy me some wine. I wasn’t going to drink alone. I was going to keep the wine on hand, just in case. But that night, I lay in bed like an owl. I was living in utter terror.”

“So you drank to be able to sleep.”

Margaret whimpered and nodded. “Yes … yes.”

Pamela had never felt such compassion for her mom as she did at that moment.

She checked the rearview. Good. The man in the silver car was gone.

“What is he doing?” Margaret looked with furrowed brow directly past Pamela, out the driver’s side window. Pamela’s eyes followed hers …

It was him!

The man in the black coat who had parked next to them on the square! He was riding right next to them, staring in at them unabashedly.

He’d been following the whole way …

Pamela looked ahead. She had a car in front of her and couldn’t speed up, so she took her foot off the gas. But the man slowed too, staying directly beside her.

“What on earth is he doing?” Margaret pleaded. “Do you know him?”

“No!”

“What is he saying?”

They could see the stranger talking brashly, wagging his head. Of course they couldn’t hear him. Pamela tried to read his lips while watching the road, too.

“Get away from him,” Margaret said. “Oh dear … do something!”

“Mom, I’m trying—”

There was a gap ahead, and Pamela sped up, but it was as if his car was affixed to hers. He stayed right there, even with her.

She knew there were exits ahead; she would drive off the next one.

“Get my phone from my purse,” Pamela ordered.

Her mom snatched the purse from the floor and dug in. “Where is it? There’s so much junk in here …”

“Stay calm, Mom, it’s in there.”

The man would not budge from her side.

A sign showed the next exit in one mile.

“Got it!” Margaret handed the phone to Pamela.

The man was shaking his head, forming what she guessed were exaggerated cuss words with his sick mouth.

What he didn’t realize was that Pamela was not unfamiliar with terror.

“You see this?” She shook the phone at him. “Nine. One. One. You ever heard of that?”

“Pamela, stop!” Margaret grabbed her arm. “You don’t mess with a freak like that. Oh my word. He’ll kill us!”

“Be quiet, Mom.” Holding the phone above the steering wheel where the man could see it, she punched in one number at a time, exaggeratedly, like a child pecking initials on a keyboard: nine, one, one. “You see what I did?” She talked sarcastically to the man, holding up the phone, though she knew he couldn’t hear her. “Po-lice. Po-lice. You understand?”

“You are crazy,” Margaret said. “There’s an exit coming.”

“I know, we’re taking it. Hold on.”

The exit ramp was within sight.

Suddenly, the silver car swerved toward them.

Pamela dropped the phone and ripped the wheel right.

Margaret screamed.

The car jolted and bumped off the road, vibrating loudly against speed bumps and into the cinders as Pamela tried to correct.

She couldn’t stop or he would be on them.

Keep going!

She straightened the car, looking desperately in front and in back for a way out.

But the man’s car was there, sticking to them like a Doberman.

He was laughing.

“Get the phone,” Pamela said. “Tell them where we are.”

The exit was there.

Pamela drove fast in her lane, as if going past the exit.

“Hello?” Her mom had picked up the phone.

The white lines for the exit formed a V, with a huge sign pole right in the middle.

“Mom, hold on tight.”

At the last millisecond, Pamela jerked hard right, flying over the white lines.

Margaret squealed as their bodies slammed left.

The car just missed the sign pole and blew down the ramp.

Silence.

“Is he back there?” Pamela asked.

Margaret put an arm on the seat and craned back, out of breath. “No! Keep going. You did good, you did good. You’re so brave …”

Pamela turned right and gunned it up a four-lane road, but slowed when she hit traffic. It was a congested retail area she usually avoided.

Margaret handed her the phone. “I don’t think the call went through.”

Pamela continued to check her rearview.

No sign of him.

Who was he?

Does he have some connection with Granger?

Why did he pick us?

Chapter 20

It was Monday night in the
Dispatch
newsroom. Jack and Derrick were on and off their phones, frantically scribbling notes, fingers flying over keyboards in their side-by-side cubicles. Pam was home safe with the girls and Margaret, thank God. Although she hadn’t been able to get the tag numbers from the car that followed her, her description lined up identically with the man in black who had been harassing the Randalls—right down to his cleft lip.

What did the stranger want with Pam? Was he warning Jack to lay off the story? Jack had postponed the interviews with the Brinkman girls and Leonard Bendickson and dashed home to meet Pam and Margaret that afternoon. They’d agreed not to tell Rebecca and Faye about the incident. Margaret, who was badly shaken, was not shy about pouring herself a healthy Scotch on the rocks while they waited for the girls to get home from school. Pam’s hands were clammy and the color in her face was off slightly, but Jack could tell she was determined to be the calming influence her own mother had never been.

As Jack and Derrick exchanged notes and talked back and forth at their desks, he became more convinced they were getting closer and closer to blowing the lid off the corruption at Demler-Vargus—and what he believed was a deadly cover-up exploding all around them.

The evening deadline at the
Dispatch
had passed, and only a few employees remained in the dark newsroom. Cecil’s office, however, was a hotbed of activity. His lights were burning brightly, and Nigel and Pete were in there with him. Soon Jack and Derrick were expected to report to them with an update on the Demler-Vargus story.

“Dude,” Derrick called over the partition, “the Doyle fire was in the Colonial Lake section of Charleston. That part of town is high cotton.”

“How do Barb and Emmett move from the poor east side of Trenton City to a prestigious neighborhood within a chip shot of Broad Street in Charleston?”

“The same way Amy’s parents moved to that big house in Columbus.”

An email popped up on Jack’s computer from the reporter at Live5News TV in Charleston he’d asked for details about the Doyle fire. As he read it, chills swept over him.

“Dude, you’re not gonna believe this.” He read it aloud to Derrick:

Jack,

I can help you, but this is all OFF THE RECORD until we go live with it (I’ll let you know when—likely tomorrow). Barb and Emmett Doyle didn’t know what hit them. They were found in the master bedroom, middle floor of the three-story house. Autopsies show both died of smoke inhalation; they never made it out of bed. Fire marshal believes accelerant was used to start fire in kitchen and mudroom on first floor. Sign of break-in through carport below building. AGAIN, THIS IS FOR YOUR EYES ONLY for now …

Good luck,

Patrick Roe

Derrick was in Jack’s cubicle by the time he finished reading it. “Dude, is this for real?” His eyes were huge.

“I’m afraid so,” Jack said. “The Randalls aren’t safe.”

“Are
we
?”

Derrick was saying what Jack was thinking.

“Seriously. This is starting to freak me out,” Derrick said.

The last thing Jack needed was for Derrick to unravel. “Keep cool. We’ve gotta go over our questions for Bendickson.”

“Cecil wants us in there.” Derrick looked toward the editor’s office.

“I know.” Jack looked too.

“What did the Doyles know about Demler-Vargus?” Derrick said. “It was something they found out working in the plant.”

“What does Amy know?” Jack said. “She’s the one we have to get to.”

“And the Brinkman girls.”

“We’ll find out tomorrow.”

“Are they safe?”

When Jack looked through the big window to Cecil’s office again he saw his boss glaring at him. Cecil threw up his hands and yelled something.

“We’d better get in there,” Jack said. “Bring your notes.”

Cecil sat behind his huge desk with his fingers locked behind his head, and Pete and Nigel sat along the front edge of the desk, as if on barstools. Over the next ten minutes, Jack and Derrick spilled everything they knew about the Demler-Vargus investigation. The more they talked, the higher Jack’s hopes got that the editors would turn him and Derrick loose on the story full time.

“Okay, look.” Cecil sat up and pulled at his stringy hair. “I know you think you’ve got a big story here, and you might, you very well might. But right now, in reality, we’ve got very little hard news, if any.”

“And obviously,” Nigel said, “you guys have spent a lot more time on this than we gave you. Derrick, I wish you were this committed to the other news on that side of town.”

“I don’t like that,” Cecil said.

“Look, we’ve already covered the Spivey Brinkman disappearance,” Nigel said. “But there’s no tie to Demler-Vargus.”

“He’s an alcoholic with an up-and-down past,” Cecil added, waving it off. “Until he turns up and officially blows the whistle with some concrete evidence, that’s a non-lead.”

Jack had told Derrick before they went in to remain calm. The editors were a rough bunch. Sometimes things worked themselves out by simply if he just them talk till they were blue in the face.

“If the Doyle thing is arson, that’s of interest,” Pete said.

“Yeah, but again, what’s the connection to Demler-Vargus besides their former employment there?” Cecil said. “We got nothing to fit the pieces together—unless there’s something you haven’t told us.”

“We need time,” Jack pleaded. “We’ve gotta dig deeper. We’ll find evidence.”

“What about all the crazy stuff going down with the Randalls?” Derrick said. “That’s news!”

“You’ve said yourself most of that is off the record, because they’re still trying to make a deal with Demler-Vargus,” Nigel said. “All we have is a bunch of opinions and accusations. By now, you guys should know what’s news and what’s not. It sounds to me like this thing needs to play out longer before it deserves any more of our attention.”

“But if you give us time, we’ll find the smoking gun at Demler-Vargus,” Jack said. “Cecil, this is an exclusive. No one else is onto this.”

Nigel pursed his lips and examined his watch. Pete stood with his arms crossed. Everyone was waiting on Cecil, who rocked back and combed his fingers through his hair.

Jack went around the desk and whispered to Cecil, “Amy Sheets is the answer. She has what we need.”

Cecil shook his head and sat up. “No, Jack. That’s still not an option and never will be. Forget it.”

Jack wondered if Cecil would be that loyal to him if he ever had to disappear. The thought crossed his mind that Cecil may have been romantically involved with Amy, and that’s why he was covering up her whereabouts—but that was not only unrealistic, it was laughable.

“Here’s the deal,” Cecil said. “Derrick, you keep tabs on the Randalls. That might turn into something. But I’m going to tell you both right now—and listen to me good—the last thing this paper needs is a lawsuit, especially from a monster like Demler-Vargus. And believe me, they could bring it. They would destroy us. We’re running on a shoestring as it is, and all the pressure stops right here.” He pounded his desk.

“Cecil, I can’t believe you. This is a major scandal.” Jack searched the editors’ faces. “People are missing. People are dead! My wife was run off the road. We’ve got to stay on this. I guarantee it’ll pay off.”

“Man, ya’ll, if this ain’t news I don’t know what is,” Derrick said.

“You’ve made that clear.” Nigel smirked.

In the back of his mind Jack knew Cecil had a point. They needed hard evidence before they could print anything negative about Demler-Vargus. They needed Any Sheets and Spivey Brinkman. They needed the Brinkman girls to talk. He wondered if the Bendickson interview was even worth their time.

“Jack.” Cecil stood, flapped his tie, and came around the desk. “There’s a new Farley’s Home Store in Pell Town. It got robbed this afternoon.”

Jack wilted.

“There’s surveillance video. Two-man job.” Cecil wasn’t making eye contact; Jack knew what was coming. “It’s the second Farley’s to get held up in the metro, and I want you to cover it. No more time on Demler-Vargus until we’ve got a real story.”