A stack of folders sat to Landry’s right. He took the top one and set it on the table in front of him. He flipped it open, revealing an ugly window into the past, half a dozen color photographs that he methodically lined up in the middle of the table.
The burned-out hull of a building, smoke rising as fire fighters doused the embers.
The dance hall with scores of students clustered in small groups, being questioned by the police.
The ambulance taking Colin away.
Beside her, Colin tensed in his chair.
“Brief history for those in the room unfamiliar with Brian Sterling’s case.” Landry pulled a sheet of paper from the thick folder and ran a finger across a bulleted list. “The only son of Molly and Benjamin Sterling, Brian was suspected of setting five separate fires as a juvenile but was never convicted, mainly because no one was hurt, the damage was minimal and his parents agreed to make restitution to the property owners as well as take their son to a therapist. That all changed when, at the age of nineteen...” He frowned and flipped the page as if looking for something else. “This doesn’t look right. He was a senior in high school? At nineteen?”
Peyton’s chest tightened. She hadn’t known about the fires. That hadn’t come out at the trial. It must have been part of a sealed juvenile record that the chief had convinced some judge to let him access. Her parents, and her brother, had hidden that information from her. Why? To keep her from doubting her brother’s innocence? If whatever had happened in his past was relevant in any way to the accusations against him when he was nineteen, the judge at his arson trial would have unsealed the records. Her parents should have trusted her to understand that, and to know that she would continue her support and faith in her brother. She knew him better than anyone. She loved him. Unsealed records thrown at her in a room full of police who wanted to hurt him didn’t change that. She drew a shaky breath and forced herself to answer the chief’s question.
“Brian had...difficulties in school. He was held back a year, so he was a senior the same time I was even though he’s a year older than me.”
“Thank you, Miss Sterling. Says here that a few weeks before graduation, Gatlinburg–Pittman High School held a dance at a place called The Barn, a combination restaurant and dance hall on a nature preserve just inside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Toward the end of the evening, Brian poured accelerant on the dilapidated original barn that was no longer used for dances, and set it on fire.”
“Wrong.”
He glanced up at Peyton. “Excuse me?”
“My brother didn’t set the fire.”
“Twelve jurors disagree with you and sentenced him to fifteen years in prison.”
“Juries wrongly convict innocent people all the time. I’m sure you’ve heard of DNA exonerating people after they’ve spent years in prison for crimes someone else committed.”
He sat back and glanced at Colin before continuing. “I can only deal with the facts as they stand right now. Your brother is a convicted arsonist. There were two people in that barn—”
“No one was supposed to be inside. No Trespassing and Danger signs were posted outside.”
“Yes, well, that doesn’t change the fact that a pair of randy teenagers snuck away from the chaperones at the dance and hid inside the barn for a make-out session.”
Her mother had been one of those chaperones. Why couldn’t you have kept a better eye on them, Mom?
“When your brother set the fire—” He held up his hands to stop the denial she’d been ready to make. “When the structure went up in flames and the couple was overcome by smoke and trapped by those flames, Deputy US Marshal McKenzie, at the time a senior at the same high school, rescued those people at no small cost to himself, as I’m sure you’re aware.”
“Yes.” She swallowed hard. “I’m well aware.”
Colin rested his forearms on the table. “Thank you for that history lesson, chief.” His droll tone said that he was anything but thankful. “What you all need to know is that Brian Sterling is a convicted arsonist with a complete disregard for human life.”
Peyton stiffened.
“You should consider him armed and dangerous. Approach with extreme caution. And be aware that if cornered, he could resort to setting a fire in order to escape. Now, Chief Landry, I believe you had some questions for Miss Sterling that might assist your teams in narrowing the search area?”
Landry seemed to take Colin’s interruption in stride and readily moved on to discuss her brother’s escape, along with three other convicts, grilling her with questions as he did so. At one point, he announced that marshals had questioned her father at his Memphis home, immediately after the escape, due to his close proximity to the site. Benjamin Sterling had denied any involvement, not that Peyton would have expected otherwise. Her father had always been one of Brian’s harshest critics. It was always she, and her mom, who stood up for him. The fact that the marshals had even considered that her father would help Brian was ludicrous.
“Your father claimed not to know where you were or how to contact you,” the chief said. “Do you know why he’d do that? He didn’t tell the marshals that you’d moved back to Gatlinburg.”
She clutched the edge of her seat beneath the table. “I imagine he thought he was protecting me. Having police at my business or home would have stirred up all the old gossip. It could hurt my café, the life I’m trying to build here.” And more important to her father, smear the precious Sterling name once again. Reputation was everything to her dad, far more important than his family.
The chief gave her a skeptical look then studied the notes in front of him. “Says here your mother passed away several months ago.”
She could feel Colin’s stare beside her. He’d seemed surprised to hear that she owned a café. And at the mention of her mom’s death, he seemed genuinely shocked. She regretted that he’d found out this way. But that didn’t mean that she was prepared to discuss the details. She was barely holding herself together. Discussing her mom right now would destroy her.
“My mother’s death has nothing to do with what’s going on with Brian. I’m not going to talk about her.”
To her surprise, Landry nodded and moved to other questions. She began to wonder whether talking about her mom would have been easier than hearing the details of her brother’s escape. Landry’s account of what had happened had nausea coiling in her stomach.
Brian was being transported along with three other convicts to the courthouse in downtown Memphis. Apparently, his lawyer had gotten him a hearing about alleged inhumane conditions at the prison. Since Peyton was well versed in the lawyer’s tactics, having worked many an odd job to help her parents pay for all those billable hours, she highly doubted that Brian was being treated unfairly. This latest complaint was likely based on Brian’s desire to get some time out of his cell. And he’d apparently taken advantage of the situation by escaping from the prison transport van.
“—and you claim you didn’t know anything about your brother’s plan?”
She clasped her hands in her lap. “Again, no, Chief Landry. As I’ve said repeatedly, I didn’t even know that he was out of prison until I saw him in my kitchen. Even then, it didn’t quite register. I thought his lawyer must have finally managed to get his sentence shortened and Brian wanted to surprise me. Before today, I hadn’t seen him in a little over three months.”
“Then you didn’t know that shortly after he and three other men got away, they were confronted by Memphis police officer Owen Jennings and one of them shot and killed him?”
She drew a shaky breath. “My heart goes out to Officer Jennings and his family. But, no, I didn’t know anything about it. I still don’t. How did they escape? How did the man who shot Officer Jennings get a gun?”