“Ass,” I said.
“Pirate,” he replied like we were playing a word association game.
“Ass Pirate! Ass Pirate!” Savage squawked.
“Look what you did,” Gabe and I said at the same time.
“Me?” I asked. “You’re the one teaching him horrible language.”
“Oh, okay. Savage just happened to teach himself the word cumguzzler then,” Gabe said accusingly.
“He came to me preprogrammed with that one,” I said defensively. “I refuse to take the blame for his salty language. Dirty Bird!”
“Ass Pirate!” Savage shot back, not following the program at all.
Gabe and I couldn’t help but bust out into laughter over the outrageousness of the situation. It was just what we needed to pull ourselves out of the somber mood we’d found ourselves in after reading about Emory’s situation. I turned on a new episode of our favorite couple fixing up houses for home buyers, and we enjoyed the rest of the evening. The world was filled with uncertainty, but there was no reason to waste precious moments on borrowing trouble before it arrived.
IPICKED UPDORCHESTERfrom the sheriff’s department the next morning because we needed Robertson’s house keys from the evidence locker. His house showed no signs of forced entry, so we locked the house up after we were through the day before and logged the keys in as evidence. A house fire call came over the radio while we were en route to Robertson’s house to look for another notebook that might contain notes about recent meetings. A farmer on a different road saw the plumes of black smoke and called 911.
“I don’t fucking believe it,” Dorchester exclaimed. “Did you recognize that address?”
“Sure did.” I flipped on my lights and siren so we could get there quicker. “This can’t be a coincidence,” I told Dorchester.
“Why’d the guy wait until after we discovered the body to torch the place? Why not torch the place with Robertson inside? There would’ve been a high probability that we ruled that the fire caused Robertson’s death,” Dorchester said.
“Maybe he wanted us to know he killed Robertson,” I remarked. “The fire could be his attempt to make sure we don’t find anything else. Maybe word got around that we carted off a bunch of boxes and he didn’t want us coming back to find anything else.”
When we arrived on the scene just a few minutes later, angry red and orange flames completely engulfed the old farmhouse. Acrid smoke filled the air and thick, black smoke billowed from the two-story structure. The firefighters had brought in water tankers, but nothing was going to save Robertson’s place. You could hear the fire roaring, wood splintering, and objects falling inside. The firemen battled the flames as best they could, but the old, somber house gave a loud, shuddering groan and collapsed in on itself.
I approached the man shouting out orders to the men scrambling to prevent the fire from spreading to the nearby barns. “Lieutenant, I know this is premature to ask but do you have any idea if this fire was accidental?”
“I can’t say which accelerant they specifically used right now, but I can promise you this was not an accidental fire. Sure, the house and the timber is dry, but it still burned too hot and too fast. The fire marshal and his arson dog will investigate once we put the fire out.” A call came over his radio about additional tankers on their way to assist from neighboring townships. “Excuse me, fellas,” he said then walked away to respond to dispatch.
Dorchester and I were only going to be in the way. Whatever evidence we had hoped to find had gone up in flames. Our only hope was that Robertson put his latest notes—if they existed—in his safe deposit box or gave them to his lawyer.
“Let’s go see Rylan Broadman,” Dorchester said. “We’ll get there a little early, but you can show him your bad cop if he gets lippy.”
Goodville was eighteen miles north of us, and it took thirty minutes to get to Broadman’s office. Instead of getting stink-eye from the receptionist that we were an hour early, she offered us a cup of coffee while we waited for the attorney to finish his call.
“We were so sorry to hear about Mr. Robertson’s passing,” she said sadly. “He was a sweet man.” I found it interesting that every person we talked to seemed to have a different impression of the man, although the receptionist’s comments were very similar to Alice Davenport’s.
We accepted a cup of coffee and had a seat in the reception area, which looked more like someone’s comfortable living room. The print and floral stripe fabric on the sofa and adjoining chairs was a little fussier than I would’ve picked, but it worked well with the classically styled furniture. I sat down in an armchair and looked through the magazines on the polished mahogany coffee table while Dorchester read the newspaper.
I had just chosen the latest Sports Illustrated magazine when a deep voice said, “Come on back, Detectives.”
I rose to my feet and faced the man who spoke. He didn’t look anything like I associated with an attorney. Instead of an expensive three-piece suit, he wore a pair of khakis, loafers, and a pale blue polo shirt. I noticed the calluses on Rylan Broadman’s hands when we introduced ourselves, which told me that sitting at a desk wasn’t all that he did each day.
When we got to his office, I noticed a collection of antique tractor toys on shelves and several aerial photos of a large farm hanging on his walls. “Family farm?” I asked.
“Yes. Fifth generation farmer,” he said proudly.
“Lovely place,” Dorchester said, admiring the black and white photos of an antebellum style mini-mansion that also hung on the wall.
“Thank you. It’s a lovely feeling to live in the same house as your family did dating back to almost the civil war era,” Rylan remarked and gestured for us to have a seat. His office was masculine and professional, but a welcoming place nonetheless. It felt more like someone’s home office rather than a professional one, but I could see where most people would prefer his type of environment. “Man, I hated to hear about Lawrence,” he said once we sat in the chairs across from his desk. “He was a good man.”
We broke the news to him that his client hadn’t died of natural causes because it wasn’t public knowledge yet. His reaction was as startled and genuine as Alice’s the previous day. We started off with the basic questions, like how long Robertson had been a client and what kind of services he provided him. We learned that Rylan had taken the practice over from his grandfather when he retired just like Kyle had taken over his grandfather’s veterinary practice. It seemed to be a common circumstance in smaller communities. Rylan told us that all of Robertson’s holdings—land and money—were in a trust and he became the trustee upon Robertson’s death.
“Were you his attorney of record during his negotiations with McCarren Consortium?” Dorchester asked. We knew that he had been from the notes that Robertson made so the question was thrown out there to see if we could trust the man to be straightforward with us.
