St. Albans Fire by Archer Mayor Read Free Book Online Page B

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