Fire Blight Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or places are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity. All other characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination.

  Copyright © 2019 by Nat Williams

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book all or in part, in any form, except for brief portions used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of this book is a theft of intellectual property.

  ISBN: 9781705358122

  Fire Blight

  A Novel

  By Nat Williams

  CHAPTER 1

  “Will that do it for you?”

  Tiffany Clark stood behind the counter at Jack’s Shack, a convenience store on Route 116, near the edge of town. She rang up the items: a large fountain Diet Coke, a pack of chewing gum and a women’s magazine chock full of romantic advice, recipes, horoscopes, celebrity gossip and other meaningless drivel.

  Morella Watson hesitated. “Oh, I need twenty bucks of those scratch-offs.”

  “Feeling lucky, huh?”

  Morella grinned.

  “They’re for Dr. Van Okin. He’s gotta have his lottery tickets. The man’s a gambler. Whenever I tell him I’m stopping by, he always makes sure I bring him some tickets.”

  “What about you, Morella? Do you ever gamble?”

  “Girl, you know I’ve done some gambling. Married that guy nearly old enough to be my dad. Other than that, I’d probably pick the wrong horse in a one-horse race. But I suppose everyone gets lucky once or twice in life. What about you? Ever been lucky?”

  Tiffany Clark paused in thought for a moment. She looked up, seemingly at an invisible image floating before her, and smiled.

  “I got lucky when I was sixteen. At Monroe, up in Lancaster County, where I grew up. Eddie Reynolds took me to the edge of the woods at a bonfire. The fire was huge, flames shooting way up in the sky. And you know, you can’t see anything outside the pit if you’re standing around it. All your eyes see is fire, you’re dodging the smoke, trying to move to a place where it’s not so hot and you can breathe.”

  Morella nodded in agreement.

  “I can still feel the burn in my eyes from the smoke at a bonfire.”

  “I’m guessing Teddy was a hunk.”

  “Oh God! Had that face - looked like it was chiseled out of granite. And those blue eyes. They pulled you into him. Hot body, too. Hair was a bit long for my taste. A mullet that had seen its best days. Anyway, a real catch. Athlete and all.”

  “Sounds like you got pretty lucky.”

  “Yeah, well, my luck ran out the next day, when his girlfriend found out about it.”

  “Ooh! And you had another year at school. Bet that was a bit awkward, huh? Seeing her in class, at pep rallies, in the bathroom.”

  “Actually, we became pretty good friends. Turns out Eddie was getting lucky with a lot of girls that summer. One of them kicked him in the balls. Word was, for a week or so, he couldn’t take a piss without crying.”

  “Lucky for him he was able to keep his balls.”

  “I guess, but he sure didn’t swing ‘em around too much after that!”

  Tiffany bagged up the items.

  “So, how is Mrs. Van Okin doing?”

  “Some days she does all right. Some days she struggles. I’m hoping this is one of the better days.”

  “Well, she’s lucky to have someone like you looking out for her.”

  “Thanks, but it’s not that big a deal. Dr. Van Okin makes sure she gets taken care of.”

  Morella walked out of the store, took her package and placed it in the passenger seat as she started her sedan and headed back onto the road that would bring her to the Van Okin home in a few minutes.

  It would be her last visit.

  CHAPTER 2

  Morella Watson had grown fond of the Van Okins over the years. Elmer Van Okin was a well-known figure in Cherokee Camp. He had practiced medicine there for more than thirty-five years, even delivering a few babies whose mothers couldn’t make the forty-mile journey to the closest hospital with a maternity ward.

  Morella was 65, but had never considered retirement. At least not the kind that involves sitting on a swing on the front porch, watching the world go by. She finished a long career as a nurse, working mainly at assisted living centers. When she left Hamilton Acres after eighteen years, she knew she wouldn’t miss the sixty-mile round-trip drive every day. But she would miss helping people. So she joined Hearts and Hands, tending to homebound patients.

  A nurse who made house calls. She loved it.

  She was a bit on the shy side but had plenty of friends. To the shock of her parents – and the puzzlement of others – she got married at age seventeen to a man eighteen years her senior, who had two ex-wives. But to the surprise of everyone, Richard and Morella Watson had what could only be described as a solid marriage. The union produced two children, both of whom were doing well today. And Morella was able to find time to take nursing at a community college, where she received a degree.

  Richard had passed many years earlier and Morella never felt the need to seek out another partner. Her work, friends and family kept her busy.

  Norma Van Okin was a woman of great poise. For much of her life she was among the more prominent members of the community, holding leadership roles in a number of organizations. She was active in charities and civic projects. Her photo was often seen in the local newspaper, participating in a ribbon cutting for a new business or holding an oversized check that represented a donation to this group or that association.

  Her family had been a fixture in the community for decades. She was the only child of Russell and Sadie Adams. Russell Adams owned a few weekly newspapers, and in the 1950s he served two terms as a state representative. He passed on the love of public service to Norma, and she embraced the role, though outside the political realm.

  She married Elmer Van Okin while he was still a pre-med student, doing all she could to help him with his educational journey and eventually his practice. Early on, she worked at his medical office, but soon gave way to other employees as she stayed home after giving birth to Janet, their only child.

  But now her equanimity was slowly being drained by the creeping devastation of Alzheimer’s disease. It began as a forgotten name here, a misplaced item there. It gradually evolved into forgetting what she was doing and getting lost on a short trip to a store in town that she had visited hundreds of times.

  Morella rolled her sedan onto the circle drive that led to the Van Okin property, about a mile or so outside Cherokee Camp. The ranch-style house was very nice, though not extravagant by any means. The modest estate consisted of about two acres of sloping, well-manicured lawn, bordered by a line of pine trees. A sturdy pole barn, scenic pond and gazebo completed the homey place.

  She grabbed the small sack, climbed out of the car and walked up to the porch, ready to ring the bell shaped in the form of a brass doorknocker. She didn’t touch it though. Instead, she noticed that the door was ajar, open a few inches. Very odd.

  She called out, in a normal speaking voice. “Dr. Van Okin?” She put her mouth closer to the opening. “Dr. Van Okin?”

  She eased forward, tentatively pushing the heavy oak door. It swung open slowly, revealing a scene that would be burned into her memory.

  CHAPTER 3

  Cherokee Camp – referred to as C-Camp by most residents - is nestled among the rolling hills of southern Illinois, in the foothills of the foothills of the Ozarks. The land is in the southern tip of the state, bordered by the Mississippi, Ohio and Wabash rivers. It bears no resemblance to the black prairie soils farther north. Farmers labor to coax corn, soybeans, wheat and milo from the claypan soils. Small cow
-calf operations help some earn extra cash when prices are good. Fruit makes up a big part of the region’s agricultural output. Apple and peach orchards are concentrated in a wavy region fronting the Shawnee National Forest. Many say southern Illinois peaches are the best, even topping the legendary Georgia fruit. Geography may be the reason for the flavor but also for the region’s tendency to suffer crop-killing freezes. The orchards are at the northern extreme of optimal peach-growing climate, and every few years a hard freeze follows an early warm-up, killing the prematurely formed buds. Growers – especially those with large orchards – accept the risk with stoic resignation.

  From the end of World War II through the 1960s the fruit industry was booming in southern Illinois. Dozens of orchards delivered much of their harvest directly to a packing house in Coleton. Apples and peaches were then loaded onto freight cars lined up along a spur of the Illinois Central railroad line. The trains made regular trips to Chicago to unload their bounty.

  More than anything, advances in refrigeration and the expanding interstate highway system were responsible for trimming the wholesale fruit industry in southern Illinois. While large orchards remain, the regional packing house in Coleton and the “Fruit Express” connecting the community to Chicago are but faint memories today. Competition from Washington, Michigan and Japan cut into the wholesale apple market.

  Apples grown in southern Illinois are good; not superior to those from other corners of the world. But growers were invested in hundreds of acres of trees. And tree-fruit production is a long-term proposition, meaning those who grew apples in the past had little choice but to continue, searching for ways to make their crop profitable.

  The industry in southern Illinois remains, and is still strong in many places. But it has become more retail-oriented. Farmers now grow berries and vegetables to sell at roadside stands, farmers markets and groceries.

  Through the decades, as production expanded, labor became scarce. The number of teen-age boys willing to pick fruit for a few cents a bushel had declined, even years before every kid owned a portable electronic device that they treated like an extension of themselves.

  Migrating workers began replacing locals in the 1960s, largely poor Southern blacks and whites, seeking steady work and a new home. After a few years, the automobile factories in Michigan beckoned, drawing many workers from the orchards to Motor City and beyond.

  As help became scarce in southern Illinois, fruit producers looked to Mexico, taking advantage of a federal migrant worker program that allowed special visas for foreign agricultural workers. They came in droves, at first, eager to make a decent living, often sending most of their salary back home so that their families might have something, and even some day join them.

  The work was often seasonal, but many of the hard-working Mexicans managed to extend their visas and find work in the retail establishments around Coleton, Marble Hill, Cherokee Camp and other communities in the region.

  Cherokee Camp was named for a page out of a tragic chapter in American history.

  It was a pause along the Trail of Tears, the forced migration of the so-called Five Civilized Tribes from lands in the southeastern United States to regions west of the Mississippi River. In December 1838, thousands of members of the Cherokee Nation and others were marched across the southern tip of Illinois on their way to what is now Oklahoma.

  It was a particularly brutal winter. Soldiers were forced to cut through ice to obtain water. Scores of Indians died during the time spent in the region, most from starvation, exposure and disease. It took months to get across the nation’s midsection, a trek that should have taken only a few weeks. A stop along the way became a camp where Indians and soldiers awaited the spring thaw that would break up the ice on the Mississippi River and allow crossing.

  That Cherokee Camp was named for such a tragic piece of history has been lost on most residents. Many are aware that it was the site of something horrible. Some have put a positive spin on it, claiming that the name honors those who suffered and others who persevered.

  But most know it as C-Camp, and don’t think too much about the name’s origin.

  CHAPTER 4

  As her eyes scanned the scene before her in horror, the first thing Morella Watson noticed was the blood. It stained the furniture and pooled on the hardwood floor, filling the spaces between the boards. It covered the side of Dr. Van Okin’s face as if it were part of a mask.

  Dr. Van Okin’s body was slumped in his beloved La-Z-Boy. His bald head was distorted, and flecked with specks of red. In her mind, traumatized by the shock of the scene, Morella imagined that some would regard it as a fine piece of modern art.

  The front of Norma Van Okin’s evening gown was soaked in blood that made a pattern that was nearly a perfect circle around her heart. She was on a couch on the other side of the small table separating her from her husband of thirty-seven years.

  The television was on, the screen frozen with a notice from the satellite provider indicating a reboot of the server that updated the programming menu.

  Morella froze at first, then ran back to her car. She flung the door open and nearly jumped into it, grabbing at the cellphone in her purse, somehow able to hit 911. When the operator came on the phone, she did her best to describe what she had just witnessed.

  Then she grabbed the steering wheel with both hands, elbows locked, breathing so hard she had to will herself not to hyperventilate. She had to hold onto the wheel to keep from fainting, her fingers turning white from the tight grip. It took everything she had to remain conscious.

  It was not unusual that Sheriff Frank Bachelor would be in his office on Saturday morning. It seemed he was always behind in his paperwork, and he often carved a few hours out of the weekend to catch up. But the paperwork would have to wait.

  He was scanning electronic time cards when he got the notification from the 911 operator.

  “Let’s go, J.C.,” Bachelor called out to his chief deputy. Jerry Carroll pulled up from looking at his computer. “What’s up?”

  “Two dead. Maybe more. Let’s get out there.”

  Carroll looked as if he had been sucker punched. “Where?”

  “The Van Okin place.”

  “Shit!” Carroll finished off a fast-food breakfast sandwich that consisted of an egg, sausage and who-knows-what.

  They jumped in the squad car and quickly covered the short distance to the Van Okin home. Morella Watson remained inside her sedan, her hands still tightly gripping the steering wheel.

  “You OK?” Bachelor asked her.

  She nodded.

  “Did you see anyone?”

  She shook her head, still clutching the wheel as if she were frozen to it.

  “Inside!” Bachelor said to Carroll while he removed his pistol from the holster and held it with both hands, then headed toward the front door. Carroll did the same.

  They rushed into the house, Carroll a step behind his boss.

  “Gilbert County Sheriff’s Office!” Bachelor yelled at the top of his voice with both arms straight out, holding and pointing his service weapon, a Beretta 92.

  They took a quick glance at the bodies. Bachelor motioned to Carroll to check them, though it was apparent that the Van Okins were deceased and had been for a while. Carroll cautiously moved over to the bodies and checked for vital signs. He looked up at Bachelor and shook his head.

  Bachelor and Carroll then separated and moved through the other rooms.

  “Clear,” the officers repeated individually as they crept through the home, checking all spaces large enough to hide a person. The search took them into the attached, two-car garage. The space was clean, neatly organized and devoid of humans. Carroll checked the two automobiles parked there, even looking inside the trunk of the Buick. Nothing but jumper cables and golf clubs.

  Satisfied that no one was in the house, they continued outside to the backyard. The fenced-in area was bordered on the east end by a row of hedges. Carroll swept his eyes through them, lo
oking underneath and behind the bushes.

  Bachelor cautiously approached a twelve-by-twenty-four-foot shed constructed in a trendy lofted barn style. The door was unlocked.

  “Gilbert County Sheriff’s Office,” he shouted, standing outside and to the side of the structure’s only entrance and exit. He then quickly pulled open half of the double-door entryway, pointing his firearm and sweeping it across the small space. Parked inside was a riding lawnmower. Shelves lined one side, and various yard tools hung from hooks, including rakes, shovels, and a weed trimmer. Two bicycles, which looked like they hadn’t been ridden in years, hung from another wall.

  There was a workbench at one end, next to a basin sink.

  Bachelor let down his guard, along with his weapon after being convinced no one was hiding here.

  After finding nothing, the two officers returned to the front of the house. Bachelor got on the phone and requested assistance from the Forensic Sciences Command, a division of the Illinois State Police. He called two other deputies in from his force to help with securing the scene and asked for further assistance from the Cherokee Camp Police Department. He then called Gilbert County Coroner Ben Taggart.

  All hands on deck.

  CHAPTER 5

  One Week Before the Crime

  Janet Purcell plucked a peach off a tree and took a big bite. The fruit was slightly soft and juicy, bursting with flavor. She gestured to a tanned and muscled man who was walking through the orchard, looking for problems. There are always problems lurking: weeds, disease, damage from browsing by deer and raccoons. Dive-bombing birds looking for a cheap dessert.

  “These are ready,” she called out. “We’ll need about a dozen pickers. Let’s go a little early tomorrow. They say the mercury’s gonna pop around noon.”