St. Albans Fire

Chapter 3

Joe Gunther sat on the edge of his car's open trunk, slipping his coveralls off and storing them behind him. He was parked among a half dozen other official vehicles in the farm’s dooryard, between the remains of the barn and the farmhouse across the road. The contrast was harsh and resonant-on the one side, the picturesque, if worn, well-loved shelter of a hardworking family, and on the other, the still-smoking heap of what had once been their livelihood. If ever there was a snapshot defining the financial tightrope such people walked, this was it.

He stood, slammed the trunk, and headed toward the house, on the front porch of which stood a very large sheriff’s deputy, his shoulders slightly hunched against the cold. Gunther stepped carefully, mindful of the slippery hard-packed snow beneath his feet. He was wearing boots, as most everyone did in this county, which was still no guarantee against the odd slider.

“Deputy,” he greeted the man at the door, displaying his badge.

The man nodded silently in acknowledgment, not really checking.

“The whole family inside?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You want to take the chill off and get some coffee, they’ve got a thermos in the back of one of the pickup trucks near the forensics van. I’ll take responsibility.”

The deputy’s face broke into a grateful smile. “Think I will. Thanks.”

Joe entered the house quietly and stood in the foyer for a moment, listening. To his left was what appeared to be a small library or office, before him a bathroom and staircase leading up, and to his right were two doors, one to a living room, the other to the kitchen. Sounds of crying and muted consoling came from the former; the kitchen had someone rattling dishes and speaking softly. He headed there first.

Around the corner, he discovered two small children, a boy and a girl, sitting at a long wooden dinner table. The girl was drawing with crayons, the boy picking at a bowl of dry Cheerios.

Across the room, with his back turned toward them, a young man stood before the sink, running water over some plates and saying in a low voice, “Cindy, you sure you don’t want something to eat?”

The boy saw Joe instantly.

“Are you a policeman?” he asked, causing both the girl and the man at the sink to look at him.

Gunther smiled slightly. “Yes. My name’s Joe.”

“You have a badge?”

The man stepped away from the sink, drying his palms on his jeans. “Quiet, Mike.” He stuck out a damp hand as he approached. “Sorry. Jeff Padgett.”

Joe shook Padgett’s hand. “Joe Gunther. Vermont Bureau of Investigation.” He pulled out his badge and laid it on the table before the boy. “Honest.”

The two men watched the children peer at the gold shield as if it might suddenly move.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Joe murmured to Padgett, who he knew from Jonathon to be the deceased’s brother-in-law.

The young man shook his head in disbelief. “It’s like I’m dreaming, you know?”

“You going to find out why Bobby died?” the boy asked suddenly, looking up, his scrutiny over. His sister had already gone back to her drawing.

“That’s why I’m here,” Joe answered, pocketing the badge. He glanced at Padgett. “Is this an okay time to talk?”

Jeff Padgett hesitated a moment before asking his son, “Mike, you want to work on the model a little?”

Mike was clearly surprised. “Without you?”

“Sure. You can sort out the pieces. Make sure we got everything.”

The boy’s face lit up. “Sure, Dad. Thanks.” He left the table at a run and disappeared out the door. They could hear his feet on the stairs.

Satisfied, Padgett nodded toward his daughter, the younger of the two. “She’ll be happy forever doing that. We can talk over here.” He pointed at a small gathering of worn armchairs near a far bow window overlooking the back field.

“You want coffee or anything?” the young man asked as he led the way.

“I’m fine, thanks.”

They settled down opposite each other under the window, bathed in the sunlight coming off the pure white field.

“What do you want to know?” Padgett asked.

“I guess for starters, what was Bobby doing in the barn late at night? Was that normal for him?”

Padgett shrugged. “Depends. Would be if he heard something. You sleep with one ear open in this business, you know?”

In fact, Gunther did know, having been brought up in a house just like this. “What might he have heard? You been having problems?”

“Not particularly, but you know how it goes. Shi-I mean, stuff happens all the time. Something goes wrong with one of the cows and she lets out a yell, that might’ve woken him up. Or something falling ’cause it gets knocked over. Maybe he just couldn’t sleep. I go out there once in a while when Linda and I aren’t gettin’ along. Helps quiet me down.”

“How did Bobby seem lately?” Joe asked.

Padgett tilted his large, round head to one side. “Fine, I guess. Having a hard time with his love life, but who doesn’t, right?” He smiled suddenly, the flash of teeth startlingly out of context. Joe couldn’t resist responding in kind.

“One girl, one too many, or none at all?” he asked.

Padgett laughed sadly. “Oh, it was one, all right. Poor guy couldn’t see straight ’cause of her.”

“How do you mean?”

He glanced over at his daughter, making sure she wasn’t listening in. He continued in a low voice. “Bobby wasn’t a ladies’ man. Kind of shy and retiring. Somehow or another he hooked up with Marianne Kotch, which nobody could believe, and it totally messed him up.”

“Not a match made in heaven?”

“Not a match made anywhere. I told him to his face he was headin’ for trouble with her, but he just got mad. She only picked him to piss off her ex-boyfriend. It wasn’t serious for her. But old Bobby, I swear, he was making plans from the first night.”

“So they were intimate?”

Jeff was lost enough in his story that the reason for telling it was temporarily overshadowed. He chuckled. “Marianne Kotch makes it a point to get intimate with just about every man she meets. That’s what I mean about her not being serious.”

“But they continued being an item?”

“I think she felt sorry for him. She tried dumping him once. He went crying to her in the middle of the night. Made a big fuss. So she took him back. She wasn’t happy about it, though. Everybody but him could see it.”

“How were they lately?”

Padgett scratched his cheek. “Same, I guess-him the love puppy and her trying to find a way out. After he chewed me a new one, I generally avoided the subject.”

Gunther glanced out the window at the glaring, snow-covered view, a portrait of Bobby Cutts emerging like a ghost at the bottom of a pool of water. He knew this process well, and knew also that at this stage, it was difficult to tell reality from whatever he might be hearing, making it both easy and dangerous to jump to conclusions.

“Would you say Bobby was depressed?” he asked quietly.

“Frustrated is more like it.”

“What about Marianne? She must have been pretty frustrated, too. She ever complain that you know of?”

Jeff shook his head. “Nah. It was more how she acted around him, all pouty and resentful. But she and I don’t talk. Linda wouldn’t like it, not that Marianne’s my age or my type. But you know women.”

“I would never claim that.”

Padgett laughed.

“How’s the farming business been lately?” Gunther asked conversationally, hoping to coast on the genial mood between them.

His companion looked at him dubiously, his eyebrows arched, almost snide. “Lately? I’d have to say not too good.”

Joe shook his head, irritated with himself, but also caught off guard by the sudden sarcasm in Padgett’s voice. “I meant before. Any financial troubles?”

Padgett placed his hand on his forehead theatrically and gave Joe a quizzical look. “You know anything about farming?”

Gunther leaned forward in his seat, the edge in his voice designed to settle the man down a notch. “My father farmed his whole life. That’s where I was born. I’m talking reality here, not the all-farmers-are-martyrs-for-feeding-America line. I know about that, and I don’t argue the point. I’m asking about unusual financial problems, for you folks-personally.”

Jeff Padgett didn’t take offense. He actually laughed, albeit shortly. “I like that-martyrs. I never heard that one. Sad but true, though.” He looked at the floor in contemplation for a moment, before adding, “God, it sure does get complicated, don’t it? I mean, you’re right. We do sort of walk around holier-than-thou sometimes. I used to get tired of teachers doing the same thing, complaining about how they were underpaid and unappreciated.” He waved his hand in mock surrender at Gunther. “Okay, I get the point. The answer is no, we didn’t have any more money headaches than the next guy, I guess. I can’t say what this fire will do, though. Bobby’s death could change everything.”

“What was the insurance?”

Padgett made a face. “Less than it should have been, like everybody else I know.”

“Little enough to shut you down?”

The young man looked wistful. “You met Cal?” he asked.

Joe knew Calvin Cutts to be Jeff’s father-in-law. “Not yet. Thought I’d talk to you first.”

“He took me in as a teenager. Believed in me when most people figured they’d be visiting me in prison next. He put me to work, set me straight, treated me like a son, even took it in stride when Linda and I got together. And after I proved myself and she and I got married, he told me this place would be ours-the same place he got from his father before him.”

He pointed in the direction of the barn. “When something like this happens, it’s one of a farmer’s biggest fears. I suppose you know that, coming from where you do. But you deal with it. Hanging by a thread is who we are. And Cal is among the best I know at making it work.”

He paused, as if worried this might be taken as bravado, and returned to the shadow haunting them all. “I don’t know about Bobby, though. That’s gonna be rough.”

“Could you handle the load alone if Cal called it quits?” Joe asked.

Padgett sighed. “Depends on the money, like always. I’d do everything I could, I’ll tell you that. I say the same thing to the developers who come by, trying to buy us out. I do this because Cal used it to save my life. I owe it to him, to Linda and the kids, and because it’s all I want to do anyhow.”

This wasn’t said with any fervor. Instead, in contrast to moments earlier, the words came out almost mournfully, as if Jeff Padgett weren’t so much proud as resigned to what fate had decreed. But there was more, which Joe recognized from his own experience. He’d watched his father carry the same sense of destiny, as if farming, with all its insecurities and dangers and hardships, simply boiled down to the reason he’d been put on earth.

“Did Bobby get along with his parents?” Joe asked, mindful of all the odd feelings that feed a survivor’s grief, sometimes including an emotion that has little to do with love and harmony.

“Yeah,” Jeff said, immediately and unequivocally. “He really did. I mean, they’d have their disagreements, Marianne being a whopper, but it never ran to much. This whole family just seems to keep on going, you know what I mean? Like a tribe or something.” He paused and added thoughtfully, “I suppose that’s why I feel the way I do being taken in. It’s pretty special. You’ll see why when you meet Cal.”

Joe nodded. “I’ll do that next. I’m almost done, by the way. Just a couple more questions. When did you last see Bobby?”

“Gosh, let me think. We pretty much hang around the TV set at night, but some of us come and go.”

“You live here, too?” Joe asked, surprised.

Padgett gave a slightly crooked smile. “Yeah. I know it’s weird, but this is a whole lot nicer than anything I could afford if we were on our own.”

Gunther made a dismissive gesture. “No, no. Of course. Makes perfect sense. I just didn’t realize, is all.”

“Yeah,” the young man agreed. “A lot of families have almost done the same thing, though, building houses right next to each other and spending nearly every night together.” He hesitated and then added, “It is a little embarrassing sometimes, not to mention crowded.”

Joe moved him along. “You were telling me when you last saw Bobby.”

“Right,” Padgett exclaimed, clearly relieved. “I think it was on the early side, to be honest. I remember him saying he had something to do in his room.”

“How did he seem?”

“Normal, considering. I mean, I told you he was bummed out generally, but that was it.”

Joe followed that up. “You mentioned that Marianne probably took up with Bobby to get even with her last boyfriend. Did the boyfriend hold Bobby responsible?”

“Barry?” Padgett asked. “Oh, I doubt that. I mean, he is a jerk, and a bad drunk, but he’d probably just take it out on his animals. You should see his farm. There’s the flip side to Cal. Barry’s father is what gives farmers a bad name, and the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Whole family’s a waste of time. But I doubt any of them would go that far.” He waved toward the barn.

“What’s the last name?” Joe asked, not as ready to dismiss the possibility that Barry might have gone hunting for his rival, especially given his own family dynamics. It was clear by now that despite an apparently rocky youth, Jeff Padgett had become a genuinely nice guy and less inclined to think ill of his fellows.

“Newhouse. The old man’s Wayne. They’re three farms down, to the right. You can smell it before you see it.”

“Given their different styles and how close-knit this community is,” Joe continued, “how would you describe the relationship between Newhouse and Cal?”

“I wouldn’t. They barely talk to each other. That’s not a big deal, though, ’cause close-knit ain’t it. Lots of folks don’t particularly like each other around here. That’s one of the nice things about being surrounded by land-helps you keep your distance. The close-knit thing is mostly inside each family. The fact that Newhouse is a slob and a thief and out to screw everybody for a buck is more his problem than ours. And I’d still bet my bottom dollar he had nothing to do with that fire.”

“Why not?” Joe asked.

“What’s to be gained? It’s not like the properties abut, and Newhouse is sure as shit not in a position to buy anyone out, even if it was a distress sale.”

They both turned as young Mike ran into the room, his eyes bright. “Dad, I counted the pieces. There’re a hundred and forty-three. Can we put some of them together?”

Joe Gunther rose to his feet, making sure his last question of Michael’s father wasn’t misconstrued-and thus passed along the grapevine. “I’ll let you go. I wasn’t saying Newhouse had anything to gain, by the way. I just have to ask everything I can think of.”

Padgett stood also, stroking his son’s head as the boy wrapped his arms around his father’s leg. “I know, and I’m not saying him or Barry didn’t do it. I just don’t know why they would.”

Joe shook his hand in parting. “If there’s one thing I’ve discovered in this job, it’s never to be surprised by the whys.”