St. Albans Fire

Chapter 5

“Bobby didn’t have what it takes to own a farm,” Calvin Cutts said sadly. “Marie could never accept that. And when I gave it to Jeff and Linda instead-or at least made it clear that they would inherit it-she saw it as my betraying her family tree.” He shook his head. “She’s never been able to get past that.”

Gunther was confused by the reference to her family tree, also remembering that moments ago Marie had referred to Bobby as her son and the destroyed cows as Cal’s herd. “How were you betraying her family tree? Wasn’t Bobby both of yours?”

“Oh, yes. But Jeff isn’t. That’s the rub. Marie’s father lost the farm she grew up on. She’s a woman of some pride and saw his failure as a stain on her family honor. That farm had been theirs for a lot longer than this place has been in my family. To this day, she claims the bank did the old man in, but he fell apart and hit the bottle. From the time Bobby was born, she always saw him taking over here as a kind of redemption: a son of hers setting the legacy right.”

They were still in the Cuttses’ living room, the door closed since Marie’s violent departure.

“And instead you gave it to a troubled kid off the street,” Joe mused.

“Kind of, yeah,” Cutts admitted. “Actually, Jeff wasn’t such a stranger. I knew his folks before they split up and disappeared and left him behind. I always knew he was good at heart. He just needed a break.”

“How did Bobby see his joining the family?” Joe asked.

“He was okay with it,” Cal answered carefully. “I suppose there might’ve been some rivalry early on. But Jeff’s nine years older. It didn’t take them long to sort it out, and after that, they were like brothers. The way I see it, Bobby was actually kind of grateful. He was always better as a number two man-wasn’t comfortable running things. That’s what I meant before.”

“Your wife must have been upset, seeing an outsider doing so well at her son’s expense.”

Calvin hesitated before repeating, “My wife has a lot of pride.”

Gunther wasn’t going to argue with what had obviously become a mantra of sorts. He changed directions slightly. “Sounds like Barry Newhouse has good reason to be pretty angry at Bobby. What do you think he’s capable of?”

Cal echoed his son-in-law. “Not much besides drinking and wasting time.”

“He wouldn’t want to get even?”

Cutts paused, clearly rethinking his response, given Joe’s implication. “Ah,” he said. “He might. He’s had run-ins with the law before.” He dropped his gaze to the floor and let out a deep sigh. “My God,” he added softly, “what have we come to?”

Gunther kept going, hoping to keep the man functional. “What can you tell me about John Frantz’s son?”

Cal looked up, his eyebrows arched. “Rick? Good Lord. I don’t know. He’ll probably put his father into an early grave, but that may be as much John’s fault as Rick’s. John’s a little straitlaced. Why do you ask?”

Joe kept his reply vague. “I heard he might be seeing Marianne, too. Would you call Rick a violent kid?”

Cal pushed his lips out and reflected. “I honestly don’t know. All the black leather clothes and body piercing. The violent message is there, but I don’t know if he’s ever carried it out. He could certainly hold his own if it came to a fight, I guess.” He gave Joe a hapless look. “Sorry.”

Joe rose to his feet and crossed to the window. Leaning against the cold glass, he asked, “I’m sorry to get more personal, but I need to know a couple of private things.”

Still sitting on the couch, Cutts looked up at him open-faced. “Sure. Whatever you need.”

“How were your finances before the fire?”

Cal smiled wryly as he answered, “Blame the patient for the illness?”

But Joe shook his head. “If by that you mean that I’m thinking insurance fraud, I don’t believe you’re a man who would sacrifice his animals, much less risk killing someone. I do have to ask, though. Not to mention that you may not be the only one to benefit from the loss of this farm.”

Cutts sighed. “Finances were fine; at least normal. I own the farm free and clear, I have an equipment loan from the farm service agency with about thirteen thousand left on it, and I was about to take out ten thousand more to plant this coming season, as usual.” He paused before adding, “Now, though…”

In the silence, Joe repeated the question he’d asked of Calvin’s wife: “Insurance?”

“Some,” he answered wearily. “Not enough.” He stopped again, this time clearly arrested by some pressing thought, and then he placed both palms against his forehead. “God.”

“What?” Joe asked.

“Sugaring time’s almost here,” Cutts said, not looking up. “Bobby, Jeff, and I were going to set the taps next week.”

Gunther knew what this meant from having helped his own father years ago. Maple sugaring-far from the quaint hobby that many vacationers assume it to be-is a serious moneymaker for many farmers. Having been told of the farm’s physical assets by Jonathon, Joe calculated that Calvin could probably place about two thousand tree taps, generate some five hundred gallons of syrup, and maybe gross $10,000 a year selling wholesale-hard cash. No small change to someone netting only twice that much every twelve months. What Calvin Cutts had just heard was the metaphorical final coffin nail being driven home, assuming he hadn’t already reached that point. Part of the rationale behind sugaring was that you could do it with available resources: free scrap wood to run the evaporator, free sap, and free manpower, since it tended to be a family business. With his son dead and his spirit broken, however, Cutts was unlikely to have the heart to manage a sugar run, no matter how much money it might generate.

Joe wouldn’t pursue how this news struck him here and now; callous as it seemed, he had his own immediate needs to address. But he made a mental note to see what could be done about gathering this man’s sap for him, at the very least.

“Cal,” he said quietly, “I hate to keep at this, but I need to know something else. Assuming Bobby had nothing to do with the fire-that he was just an innocent victim-can you think of any reason why someone might want to put you out of business?”

Cutts looked up at him. Gunther wasn’t sure he didn’t have tears in his eyes. “Enough to destroy a man’s family? No.”

“Let me put it another way, then,” Joe persisted. “Have you done anything at all in the last several years that might’ve pissed somebody off?”

Calvin ran his hand through his hair. “Jesus, who hasn’t? For one thing, I’m a registered Democrat. That pisses my wife off right there.”

“Something you did,” Joe suggested. “Maybe involving a family member or a neighbor. A business deal.”

Cutts sat back in his seat, suddenly staring at Gunther in wonder. “My God, you think it could’ve been?”

“Anything’s possible,” Joe answered, not knowing where this was headed.

“Christ,” the other man murmured. “Last year, Billy St. Cyr and I had another run-in, but it couldn’t have anything to do with all this. That’s just too crazy.”

“Tell me about it anyway.”

Cutts still looked incredulous. “It was stupid. He drained a small wetland into my cornfield, and I called him on it. Instead of damming the ditch he’d just dug, like I suggested, he called the local ag agent on something he thought I’d done. He claimed I’d planted illegally close to a streambed, which I hadn’t-he got the regulation wrong. Anyhow, he was fined for his violation almost as soon as the agent showed up. It was totally crazy. He should have kept his mouth shut. Instead, he ended up losing a bundle and blaming me.”

“That was it?” Joe asked. “How big was the fine?”

“Not huge, and Billy’s got the money. He’s doing well. He takes advantage of every subsidy, every handout, and every financial incentive that comes down the pike, plus he sells off overpriced parcels of land to flatlanders looking for a piece of God’s country. He’s not a bad farmer, truth be told, but he’s a little shy on scruples.”

“He ever make an offer for your place?”

“No. If anything, he wants to get out.”

Gunther pulled on an earlobe, reviewing what he’d just heard. “You said this was another run-in. There were others?”

Cutts waved his hand tiredly. “All the time. Something like twenty years ago I sold Billy a truck that seized two months after he bought it, probably because he didn’t change the oil. He said I knew it was a lemon and that I should buy it back. I refused, and that was the start of it. He’s hated me ever since.”

“Has it escalated over time?” Joe asked.

Calvin shook his head. “Nope. It’s always piddly stuff, and it always comes up when he’s got nothing better to do.”

There was a knock on the door, and Jeff Padgett poked his head in. “Dad? The minister’s here. He was wondering if you’d like to see him.”

Calvin Cutts looked inquiringly at Joe, who immediately nodded. “Fine with me, Cal. I was pretty much done anyhow. You go ahead.”

Joe followed them both back into the front hall and, from there, saw a somber-suited man standing with Marie in the kitchen, speaking quietly. She looked thin and insubstantial next to him, her bony arms crossed tightly, her eyes glued to the floor. Joe couldn’t tell from this distance whether she was benefiting from the man’s words or simply waiting till he was done before tearing his head off. Her body language looked suitable for either option. For both their sakes, Joe wished for the former.

Without further ceremony, he let himself out, pausing on the front porch alongside the deputy sheriff standing guard-the same one he’d encouraged earlier to get a cup of coffee against the cold.

“Everything okay in there?” the man asked.

Surreptitiously, Joe noticed his name tag said “Davis.” “As okay as can be. Pretty hard knock to take. You find that coffee?”

The man smiled and nodded. “You bet. Felt good all the way down. ’Preciate it.”

“No problem.” Joe figured him to be in his mid-fifties, probably a lifelong cop like himself, but content to stay local and work the same patch he’d been born on. The way he was built conjured up a duffel bag wrapped in a coat.

“Guess you know the folks around here pretty well,” Joe suggested.

Davis chuckled. “If I don’t, I never will. The old-timers, that is. Lot of people coming in from away. Don’t know them so well.”

“Anything you can tell me about the Cuttses?”

The deputy made a face. “Not much to tell. They keep to themselves, like most farmers. None of them has any time to do much else.”

“No run-ins with you guys?”

Davis smiled. “Had a few with Jeff before he straightened out. That boy could drive like nobody I know. Old Calvin here saved his butt, sure as hell. But that’s ancient history-maybe fifteen years back, now.”

“What about Bobby?”

He shook his head. “Nope. Straight arrow. The girlfriend’s bad news, but I figured that was just a short walk on the wild side. Marie would’ve seen to that soon enough.”

Joe tilted his chin in the direction of the barn’s blackened skeleton. “Could she or her playmates have had anything to do with this?”

Davis mulled that over. “Anything’s possible, I guess, but nothing rings a bell. I’m talking sex, drugs, and booze with them. Nothing more violent than a domestic now and then-maybe disturbing the peace on a Friday night. The kind of stuff Jeff was getting into before Cal got hold of him. But Bobby wasn’t doin’ any of that. He just had the hots for Marianne. He didn’t hang with her crowd.” He gave a frown. “I can’t say I see this being connected to them. You could prove me a liar, though. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Joe patted his shoulder once before stepping off the porch onto the hard-packed snow. “Well, let’s hope we get lucky. I hate for this to drag on for too long.”

“Yeah,” Davis agreed. “Especially when they begin to pile up. People start getting antsy.”

Joe fixed him with a stare. “Pile up? What do you mean?”

The deputy looked surprised. “Barn fires. This is the third one in three weeks. You didn’t know?”