Clouds without Rain (15 page)

Branden said, “You’ve done some studying, Ricky.”

“Just got a lecture from the fire marshal, yesterday,” Niell said. “Anyway, the marshal says it was torched by an amateur.”

Branden’s eyes questioned.

“He didn’t pour a long enough fuse,” Ricky explained.

Branden asked, “And how do you know the fire spread through gasoline that had been splashed all around? You said even on the walls.”

“That was the fire marshal’s call,” Niell said. “There are two types of charring patterns on the walls. Some near the floor that burned up inaVshape. Then others higher on the walls, that burned in an inverted V shape. There was also thorough burning in all the open file cabinet drawers, and on all the furniture. Like the fire started all throughout the back two rooms, pretty much simultaneously.”

Branden considered that as he followed Niell to a new location for a photograph and then said, “Who spotted the fire, Ricky?”

“A Millersburg cop. Bill Hadley. Coming in that morning for his shift.”

“Did he describe the fire?”

Niell said, “He saw tall plumes of dense, black smoke, found the rear of the house engulfed, and called it in.”

Branden said, “The black smoke fits with the gasoline.”

They stepped over scattered debris in the kitchen and started taking pictures in the study. A wooden desk was charred and blackened, the desk chair blown over backwards onto the floor. The metal filing cabinets had sagged from the heat of the flames. The drawers, all opened, held tangled wads of burned and water-logged papers. Branden stepped to the drawers and found all of the pages blackened to the bottom, where thin white edges that had been protected from the heat stood out against the black at the top of the papers. Branden tried to lift several pages from various drawers, but they crumbled as he pulled on them. Giving up, he came back to Niell and watched the photographic work for a while.

After studying the debris that had been scattered by the explosion, Branden said, “It looks as if stuff is blown in about every direction. Just scattered randomly. No apparent direction of blast.”

Niell said, “The fire marshal said that happens with low-order explosions.”

“This was a low-order explosion?” Branden queried.

“Yeah,” Ricky said. “Compared to what you’d get with gun-powder or plastique.”

Branden nodded, satisfied with what he understood now about the fire. He said, “I had hoped to search for some documents here.”

Wilsher shot a Polaroid and stood up. “There’s nothing left to see, Mike. Taggert has the papers that were laid out on the floor to burn, but there’s little more than ash.”

As Wilsher started to pack up his cameras, Branden asked, “Do you mind if I have a look through the rest of the house?”

Wilsher thought it over, said, “No,” and added, “but take Niell with his light there. The department turned off the electricity during the fire, and all the curtains were pulled before the fire. I’d like them to stay that way for now, so the whole house is dark.”

Branden passed through the kitchen and into the living room, Niell trailing with his portable light. “Sommers evidently isn’t much of a housekeeper,” Niell observed.

In the living room, laundry was piled on a sofa, and magazines were strewn across an end table and on the floor around the table. In the bathroom, the medicine cabinet was disorganized, and the countertops were scattered with an array of toiletries, some bottles spilled over onto their sides. The wastebasket was surrounded by a pile of tissues, cast haphazardly onto the floor. In the bedroom, the drawers and closets were open, and clothes lay in tumbled clutters, some still on hangers from a dry cleaners, others dangling out of drawers. Shoes spilled out of the closet onto the floor. The bed was unmade, and the sheets were pulled off, as if Sommers had intended to change them. The mattress had slipped a little off-center from the box springs.

Outside, Branden helped Niell pack the lamp, pole, and battery into their carrying case in the back of Niell’s 4x4. Then he thanked the deputy and said, “Something’s not right, Ricky.”

Niell rested his elbows on the side of the truck bed and said, “The house looks torn up.”

Branden nodded. “Exactly.”

Wilsher came out with his cameras and stowed the equipment in the trunk of his cruiser. At the back of Niell’s truck, he said, “Sorry about Sommers, Mike. Nobody’s been able to track her down.”

“There’s nothing more you can do?” Branden asked.

“Not unless we get another lead.”

“You know about the kid who shot J. R. Weaver’s horse?”

“You’ve got that nailed down?”

“Just last night. They weren’t certain, but Larry Yoder’s parents told me they think he was trying to tell them that he shot Weaver’s horse.”

“Where’s Yoder now?” Wilsher asked.

“The psych ward at Aultman Hospital,” Branden said.

“Now, that’s just great.”

“Maybe you could get a warrant for his home,” Branden offered.

“With him in a hospital and only his parents’ word? I doubt it.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to try.”

“That much I’ll do.”

“Let me know what you find?”

“Better than that,” Wilsher said. “I’ll ask you to go on the search, when we get the warrant.”

20

Saturday, August 12
12:10 P.M.

 

 

THE psychiatric ward at Canton’s Aultman Hospital was located on the fourth floor. Branden stepped off the elevator and found himself in a small waiting room with several chairs, magazine racks on the wall, and a single floor lamp. The door to the psychiatric ward was made of polished aluminum with a small reinforced Plexiglas window. He tried the door and found it locked.

Beyond the door, he could see a nurses’ station set back from a long corridor with doors to patients’ rooms on either side. When he rang in at the intercom beside the door, a nurse poked her head out into the hall. She looked him over skeptically from her desk and sat back to use the intercom, saying only, “Yes?”

Branden considered the range of official and unofficial pretexts he could give and settled for, “I’d like to talk to Larry Yoder.”

In a weary tone, the nurse said, “Mr. Yoder can’t have any visitors.”

Branden thought about a response for a moment, with his finger resting lightly over the intercom button. “I just need a few minutes,” he said.

“Mr. Yoder is heavily sedated and can’t have visitors.”

“I’ve come from his family,” Branden explained. “They’re worried about him and have asked me to inquire.”

“Even his family couldn’t get in to see him now,” the nurse said impatiently.

Branden’s hand slipped to his front jeans pocket, and he felt the reserve deputy sheriff’s badge there, wondering if a more official approach might open doors. He decided it wouldn’t.

“Then can you come out to talk with me?” Branden asked. He watched the nurses’ station and saw the nurse lean out over the counter and peer at him from behind the wall.

She studied him a moment and said, “I can’t leave the ward. We’re doing bed checks.”

“If I were to wait?” Branden asked, face close to the speaker.

“It’d be a while,” still leaning out over the counter.

“I’ll wait,” he said.

“Suit yourself, but like I said, it’ll be a while, and you still can’t see Mr. Yoder.”

“When you can, I’d appreciate it,” Branden said.

In the long hall behind the locked door, nurses and orderlies moved from room to room with clipboards. A nurse in a blue coat carried a tray of medicines in little white paper cups into the room nearest him.

He took a chair beside an end table piled with magazines. He waited there for nearly an hour and was idly turning the pages on his second issue of
Southern Living
when the nurse came out and repeated, “Mr. Yoder can’t have visitors.”

As he rose from the chair, Branden held out his hand and said, “I’m Dr. Michael Branden. From Millersburg. And I’m making a courtesy call on behalf of the family.”

The nurse, a tall, slender woman dressed in a sagging white coat, pockets bulging with pens, paper, tissues, rubber gloves, and a stethoscope, said, “I’m sorry, Dr. Branden. You know how it works.”

“Can you tell me anything about Mr. Yoder, then?” he asked.

“I can only say that his doctor has ordered no visitors. It’d be useless to try talking to Mr. Yoder, anyway, as heavily medicated as he is.”

“Can you tell me when he might be able to have visitors?”

“I couldn’t even guess when we’ll take his restraints off,” the nurse said and turned to key herself back onto the ward.

“Then can I speak with his doctor?” Branden asked.

“He’s not here now,” the nurse said, turning back to Branden with her hand on the latch.

“While he makes his rounds?” Branden suggested.

“Possibly,” the nurse said, as she swiped her magnetic key through the lock box. “That’s usually about 2:00 P.M.”

Branden checked his watch, saw the nurse retreating down the hall, took the elevator to the ground floor, and bought coffee and a sandwich in the hospital’s cafeteria. As he sat at one of the metal tables near a window, the insurance agent, Robert Cravely, approached Branden’s table, introduced himself, and sat down on the other side, saying, “Professor Branden. Are you here to see Larry Yoder?”

Cravely was a weary-looking man, with a pudgy build and no remarkable features other than what appeared to be a permanent haphazard look about him. His plain gray suit was rumpled and worn nearly threadbare at the elbows. His unstylish, narrow blue tie was loosened at the neck. He set a battered briefcase on the table, snapped the worn metal latches open, and rummaged through an assortment of papers. He brought out a small notebook and an ornate fountain pen.

Branden said, “If you’re here to see Larry Yoder, they’re not letting anyone in.”

“Tried earlier,” Cravely said. “So you tried to see him, too?”

Branden nodded. “The nurses won’t let me in. Why are you interested in Yoder?”

“The way I hear things,” Cravely said, “you figure Yoder shot Weaver’s horse.”

Branden was surprised. “You seem to know a lot about the case,” he said.

“I’ve got to,” Cravely said. “Like I said Tuesday, I work for the insurance carrier for the furniture company whose truck jackknifed on 515 last Monday. We’re not going to pay off with so many fatalities. Not until I understand all of the facts.”

Branden argued, “Your driver dumped his rig on top of a car and a buggy, and caused the deaths of four people. I should think you’ll be paying out a great deal of money before this is all over.”

Cravely gave a snide laugh and said, “And I suppose it’s a coincidence that you’ve got the coroner looking at a bullet they pulled out of the horse.”

Branden withheld comment.

“And I suppose you don’t think Larry Yoder, here, fired that shot,” Cravely pushed.

“I’m paying a visit on behalf of the family,” Branden said dryly.

“Right,” Cravely said with practiced sarcasm.

Branden took a slow drink of coffee and wondered what Cravely would do once he learned that Brad Smith’s parents had hired a P.I. out of Chicago. “Your driver had been drinking, and he came over that hill too fast. Yoder’s shooting the horse, if he did in fact do that, has no bearing on what caused your truck to wreck.”

Cravely put his notebook and pen back into the briefcase, closed the lid, pushed his chair back slowly, and stood up. With his wrist twisting the briefcase nervously at his side, Cravely said, “That was a new driver out there that day. The regular driver had taken sick. He normally makes two trips a week, year ’round, hauling Amish-made furniture to the stores in Chicago. But this new guy didn’t know the roads, and I doubt any jury’s going to blame my company for that crash, especially once it’s clear what Larry Yoder did to Weaver’s horse. He actually killed everybody out there, mind you, and our driver is to blame? I don’t think so.”

“Your man was drunk, Cravely.”

“Under the legal limit.”

“Not for a commercial driver.”

Cravely frowned thinly.

Branden added, “And it’s not at all certain that Larry Yoder killed any horse at all.”

Cravely snorted skeptically, turned, and walked out. Branden finished his coffee and rode the elevators to the fourth floor. When he pushed the buzzer at the door to the psychiatric floor, another nurse answered him at the intercom.

“Dr. Michael Branden,” the professor said. “To see Mr. Larry Yoder’s psychiatrist.”

The nurse replied, “One moment please,” and the speaker fell silent. After about a minute, the nurse asked, “Do you have an appointment?”

“Not really,” Branden said. “I’m from Millersburg, and I’m inquiring about Mr. Yoder as a courtesy to his family.”

After another delay, the door to the psych unit buzzed, and Branden pushed the latch and walked onto the floor, toward the nurses’ station. As he approached, a chubby doctor in a short white coat came out from behind the counter, stepped briskly toward Branden, held out his hand, and said, “Dr. Branden. I’m Dr. Waverly. Dr. Allan Waverly, The Third.”

His handshake was gentle and his hand was soft, the consequence of a profession spent handling nothing harsher than paper and pens, perhaps keyboards. His cheeks were puffy and shaded a delicate rose. His fair skin contrasted pleasantly with his fine black hair. His eyes, though haggard, took in Branden with an intelligent sweep, the inspection of a man accustomed to forming opinions quickly.

Branden shook the doctor’s hand and said, “Dr. Michael Branden, Ph.D.”

“You’re not medical?” Waverly asked, dismissively.

“Ph.D., Dr. Waverly. Civil War history.”

Waverly turned to fiddle with one of the charts that were laid out on the nurses’ counter. He took one of the clipboards, held it stiffly under his arm and said, “You’d never have gotten onto this floor if we’d known you weren’t medical.”