6. June #2
“Where is this coming from, June?” Lucy’s voice had changed. There was something guarded in it.
“Please, Lucy. It’s important.” June drew in breath. “I know it’s hard to talk about this. Especially as one of those firefighters was engaged to your daughter.” She swallowed. “It’s hard for me too, as Shaun…”
“It’s not just that, June,” Lucy said. “Why are you asking about this?”
“Because I have some new information that I need to follow,” June told her.
Lucy was quiet for a moment longer, and when she spoke again, her voice had dropped further.
“They were all in the living room,” Lucy told her. “Together. All... unrecognizable.” There was a pause, like she was struggling to push the next part out.
“How?” June asked her. “How did you find them?” She tapped the pen on the writing plan trying to not to put faces to the pictures in her mind. “Like they’d fallen… or… or…”
“They’d been laid out?” Lucy added. “June, where are you getting this information from?”
“I can’t tell you that,” June told her. “So you found them like they’d been laid out on the floor?”
“It seemed strange to me how they were positioned on the floor,” Lucy confirmed. “I asked one of the other firefighters that had put out the fire if the bodies had been moved.” There was a moment of silence. “He said no one had been near the bodies.”
“Would you say they’d been laid out there?” June asked.
“I thought so,” Lucy said. “But I couldn’t be sure. I thought that maybe the firefighters had lied and moved them trying to find out if they were still alive.”
“I don’t think even a rookie would do that though,” June pointed out.
“No,” was all Lucy said. “June, why are you asking this? What have you found?”
“I need to know how four firefighters hadn’t tried to get out of a burning building,” June said. “Four highly trained and experienced firefighters. Big guys that could’ve taken down Gilbert Fry at any time. That is what I want to find out.”
“I…” Lucy went quiet. “This is not a good path to go down, June.”
Something in Lucy’s voice struck her as strange.
“Why not?” she asked Lucy.
“Because you are walking into danger,” Lucy warned, her voice dropping. “June, there is something I haven’t told anyone about all five bodies.”
“What was it?” June asked.
“I was told to leave it out of the report,” Lucy admitted.
“Who told you to do that?” June asked.
“Someone who called me, threatened me, and then showed me just how close they could get to anyone,” Lucy explained.
“You were threatened!” June breathed. “Lucy… why didn’t you tell us this?”
“I told Nigel,” Lucy told her. “He told me to ignore the threat and continue.” She paused for a while. “I continued examining the bodies and hadn’t gotten near finished when the morgue came to take the bodies away.”
“Who ordered that?” June pressed. “Surely only the families could authorize that?”
“Someone from the fire department,” Lucy replied. “I was ordered to release them because the person making the request was a senior fire chief.”
“Zane?” June’s brows shot up.
“No,” Lucy said immediately. “Definitely not Zane. I was so shaken by the threats and the calls I had gotten over the two days I had the bodies…” She cleared her throat. “Threats they kept showing me they’d carry out by targeting Margo, then… then Lacey, and even Willa.”
“Willa?” June breathed. “Lucy I don’t understand how Nigel could’ve let this happen. Did you tell him about the other threats?”
“Yes,” Lucy answered. “Turns out he was getting threatened too and the target was his father.”
“What did you do?” June asked her voice dropping. “Or rather what were you forced to do?”
“I had to leave off what I had already found on the report I gave Nigel,” Lucy admitted.
“I put that accelerant was found on Gilbert Fry’s shoes.
” Another pause. “But it was also found all over his and the other four bodies. I put that they died from the fire. Smoke inhalation asphyxiated them and the fire did the rest.”
“Lucy.” June kept her voice steady with a concerted effort. “Do you understand what you’re telling me? What you and Nigel did is obstruction of justice. Falsifying a coroner’s report is a felony. You could lose your medical license. You could go to prison.”
“I know,” Lucy whispered. “I knew then. That’s exactly what I was scared of. But I was threatened, June.”
“By Nigel?” June asked carefully, thinking about Shaun’s notes and how he’d kept referring to the enemy within. Could it have been Nigel? It didn’t quite fit, but he had closed the case down.
“No,” Lucy said firmly. “Anonymous. Notes. Phone calls. I showed Nigel the notes and there was no number to trace the calls.” She blew out a breath. “He told me what to do. And I cowardly did it.”
“No, Lucy,” June replied firmly. “You were protecting the people you loved.” She drew a breath. “What I can’t understand about what happened to Shaun and the other is how? How could anyone get close enough to five grown men, four of them firefighters, and douse all of them with accelerant?”
“I don’t know,” Lucy admitted. “Like I said, before I could run any further tests, the bodies were collected by the morgue and sent to the funeral home.”
“Lucy,” June breathed. “Why didn’t you ever tell us any of this?”
“I told Nigel,” Lucy repeated. “He was getting threats too. About his father. So we both did what we had to do to protect the people we loved.” She paused.
“Just to make sure we cooperated, whoever was threatening us, set fire to the new wing being built at the clinic. Not a big one. Just enough to show me and Nigel what they were capable of, and to remind us that we wouldn’t know who the next target would be if we didn’t do exactly what they wanted.
” She breathed heavily once again. “Nigel’s father was in the room closest to the new wing. ”
“Lucy.” June’s voice was softer now. “You should have brought this to us.”
“No,” Lucy said firmly. “I couldn’t. After Judy was hurt, I got a call from Nigel.
He told me I couldn’t tell anyone. That I had to stay quiet.
The threats had started up again. They told him that if he didn’t shut things down, they’d implicate his father in something terrible and then come after me. ”
“You should have said something, Lucy,” June persisted. She understood what Lucy was up against and even Nigel but that didn’t change the fact they’d both committed a crime by not doing so. “Does Tom know all this?”
“No,” Lucy answered. “But Dean does. I told him the night Lacey was injured. We both decided not to say anything because we knew you and Holt would figure it out. Besides, Nigel and I genuinely don’t know who is behind this. We just know we were threatened.”
“Lucy, I have to be straight with you. What you and Nigel did, falsifying a coroner’s report, withholding evidence from a federal investigation, that’s serious.
Even with the threats. The court might consider duress, but you’d both be looking at significant consequences.
You have to know that,” June pointed out.
“I’m well aware,” Lucy replied quietly. “But until we know exactly who is behind this, neither Nigel nor I will say anything publicly. And I’ll deny this conversation if I have to. June, whoever this is, they can get to anyone. They’ve been watching us for years.”