CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Paige stared at the contents of the shed which included fertilizer, nitro, water-gel explosives, gallon cans, detonators, and blasting caps stored in crates. Her pulse ratcheted up. “Corbett?”

“We’re missing something.” Sam paused. “Someone.” Sam fell silent again for a moment. “Paige, talk to the clerk. The lease on this shed ends in two days. We need to find out if it was renewed. The rent was paid in cash to someone. Find out what the clerk knows about Ralph Melville.”

As she walked away from him, Sam took his phone from his belt. Paige overheard him speaking to someone at the Columbia office.

Paige drove Sam’s truck back to the storage office. Inside, the clerk had resumed his seat behind the desk.

Paige crossed the room to him. “Mr?”

His face beamed. “Darby. Keith Darby.”

“Mr. Darby, I need an address for the man who rented shed one-hundred-twenty-three.”

Darby turned from the sleek laptop on the old worn desk and tapped the keys on the old desktop computer beside it. “205 Langtree Street.”

Paige accessed a directory from her phone. Melville had given a false address, one that belonged to one of Kirk County’s local parks. Paige moved on. “The receipt lists a cash payment. Mr. Melville came in himself to remit payment?”

“That sounds right.”

“What can you tell me about him?”

“Actually, nothing. I’ve never met him. This is only my second day on the job.”

“What about before you? Who was here before you?”

Darby shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Paige would speak with the owner next and find out. “Has Mr. Melville extended the rental period?”

Darby accessed the computer again. “No. He’ll need to come by and pick up his stuff. I was told in such cases we give some leeway. People forget but if no further payment is received, then we cut the lock and empty the shed to rent again.”

“How long has he rented that shed?”

“Eight years.”

Eight years. Lonny Corbett was not Melville.

Paige noted Darby’s contact information, much to the man’s delight, then returned to Sam’s truck, but didn’t drive back to where she’d left him.

She called Sam with an update on her conversation with Darby. “The owner lives on this property. I’m going to speak with him, ask him about the last guy who worked in that office.”

“Call Harry with what you find out,” Sam said. “He’s digging into any Ralph Melvilles.”

Paige ended the call. The owner, Gordon Penson, lived in a house as far from the storage sheds as it was possible to get. He was a grizzled man who groused at being disturbed the instant he opened the door.

He glared at Paige. “Well, what do you want?”

Paige held up her identification. “Are you Gordon Penson?”

“Who else would I be?”

Paige ignored the comment. “Mr. Penson, do you know a Ralph Melville?”

“Who is that?”

“He rents one of your storage sheds.”

“Don’t know any of those people who rent my sheds. Don’t want to know them.”

Paige moved on. “I need the name and address of the person who held the office job before Keith Darby.”

“That’s what you bothered me for? That good for nothing, lazy bag of bones? Worked for me for ten years, then up and leaves me high and dry, without a word three days ago. No notice to find a replacement. I had to hire the first idiot I found.”

“His name, Mr. Penson?”

Penson’s eyes slitted, became calculating. He rubbed the white stubble on his chin. “I’ve heard that helping the FBI gets a man a payout for information.” His eyelids lifted and the dull eyes sharpened. “If I give you his name and address, how much do I get?”

Paige gave him a hard look. “How about you get to step back into your house instead of being charged with impeding an investigation and spending some time in one of our jails?”

Penson’s lips became so thin they disappeared into his wrinkled mouth. “I’ll tell you, but know this, I’m going to check on that information payout, and when I do, you’ll be in trouble, missy.” He stabbed the space between them with two gnarled fingers.

He went back into the house, slamming the door in Paige’s face. When he didn’t return, she thought he wasn’t going to and she was going to have to knock again, but then the door flew open. Penson flung what looked like a card for an old rolodex at her then slammed the door again.

In Sam’s truck, Paige called Harry. “Michael Townsend worked in the storage facility office when Melville rented the shed.” Paige gave Harry Townsend’s address.

“We’ll follow up with him.” Harry disconnected.

When Paige returned to the storage shed, several agents from the Columbia office were grouped around Sam. She parked behind a couple of government issue SUVs and left the truck.

Sam left the agents and the techs to their assignments, then met Paige on the road. They went into the truck. She told him of her conversations with Penson and with Harry.

Her nerves were humming. “Sam, this didn’t feel like Corbett from the beginning and the more we find out, the more it doesn’t. Melville has been renting that shed for the last eight years. Corbett was an adolescent. We’re back to that.”

Sam pushed back the driver’s seat that Paige had adjusted to her shorter height. “No, this isn’t Corbett and we keep bumping up against that eight-year time frame.” Sam drove away from the storage shed facility. “The lease on the shed is up in two days. Melville didn’t renew it. Sounds like he wasn’t going to need it after that time. We need to find this guy fast.” Sam moved his shoulders against a tension Paige could see had them bunched tight. Sam’s cell phone rang. He hit the dashboard call button. “Harry, what have you got?”

“There aren’t any Ralph Melvilles living in Kirk. I’ve expanded into the surrounding counties and cities, but I’m thinking the name Ralph Melville is as false as the address he provided. About Townsend? He lives with his brother and sister-in-law in their house. Three days ago, Townsend didn’t return from work. The brother filed a missing person report. So far, nothing.”

Paige didn’t like the coincidence of that and a glance at Sam showed he didn’t either.

“Get a court order for Penson’s customer list,” Sam said. “Someone may know Melville.”

“Got it.”

“See if there have been any reports from demolition sites of explosives going missing or stolen,” Sam continued. “Likewise with retailers for fertilizer and the like. Go wide. Melville had a shit load in that shed. No way he got all of that from Kirk. Melville rented the shed eight years ago. Go back eight years.”

“On it.”

Sam ended the call. “Melville’s patient. He’s been putting this plan together for a long time.”

Paige’s stomach roiled thinking of the time Melville had had to perfect his plan. “He may not know we made him and he may come back. If we have agents all over the place, we may lose our chance to nab him.”

“Once our people finish with the shed, we’ll set up a surveillance, but Melville, whoever he really is, is not coming back. Melville knows he’s been compromised and he’s getting rid of loose ends, like Corbett. Corbett wasn’t in on this with Melville. Corbett’s age at the start of it doesn’t work. Here’s the way I think this went down.

“Along with the three houses we know about, Corbett also robbed Melville’s house. He found the receipt and the key and came out here. Corbett saw what Melville had and tried to shake Melville down.”

“Like he did with Clayton Garwood.”

Sam looked over at Paige. “Yeah, only for a hell of a lot more than five hundred dollars, no doubt, then Melville killed him.”

Paige put the rest together. “That’s why he told Adams he was coming into a big score and why he told Hailey he would be paying back all the money he owed her. This clears Adams of all but the trafficking.”

Sam nodded.

“In addition to taking the receipt and the key, Corbett also took Hendershot’s watch,” Paige added. “But was it from Melville?”

“And where does Hendershot fit in?” Sam rubbed a hand down his face. “What if Hendershot found out about the bomb plot? The bomber, Melville, found out that Hendershot knew, then got him to stop on that road in Haldonville some way and killed him before Hendershot could act on the information. Eight years later Corbett breaks into Melville’s house, stumbles on to all of it, and Melville kills Corbett.”

“It fits. It could have played out that way. If so, where has Melville been all this time? And why has he waited eight years to carry out the threat?”

Sam released a harsh breath. “We don’t know if Kirk County is the target, or just the place that Melville chose to store his materials. Columbia would be a more likely target than Kirk. Melville did not renew his lease on the shed. Because he plans to carry out his attack before the lease expires in two days and won’t need the shed after that? We need to know if any foreign or domestic politicians are going to be in the city.”

“Two days,” Paige said grimly.

“Yeah.”

“We have his stuff. We may have shut him down.”

“Unless this wasn’t all of it,” Sam said. “Until we know for sure, we’ll go with him having a stash in another location and that he’s going to carry out his threat somewhere in two days time. The question is where?”