Free Blood Games by Jerry Bledsoe Page B

that her grandparents would have a place to stay when they came to visit. So much for the love nest theory.
    The officers asked about her natural father. His name, she said, was Steve Pritchard. He was a long-distance trucker who lived in South Dakota, but he was thinking of moving back to North Carolina and going into the real estate business. He was supposed to come to see her and her brother sometime soon.
    Did her natural father have any feelings about Lieth Von Stein?
    “He thought he was the best thing for me and Chris,” she said.
    Angela offered only sketchy information about her stepfather. His father, mother, and uncle had died recently and he had inherited some money. But she didn’t know how much.
    Her brother was in summer school at N.C. State and would be a sophomore in the fall, she said. He lived in Lee dorm, room 611-B, and she had called him there about five that morning to tell him what had happened.
    How did she and Chris get along with their stepfather? Lewis Young asked.
    Fine, she said. Just fine.
    Did she have any idea who might have wanted to kill her stepfather?
    The only thing she could think of was that it might be somebody he had fired at work. But she didn’t know whether he had fired anybody or not.
    At least the detectives came out of the interview with one bit of pleasing information. Angela had never seen the faded army knapsack that had been found on the back porch, and she was certain that nobody in the family owned it. Chances seemed good that the killer had left it behind. Perhaps it could help lead them to him.
    This was one of the busiest and most critical times of the year for Noel Lee. Priming time, time for harvesting tobacco, his primary cash crop. Temporary workers were prowling his fields in the hot sun, stripping the heavy leaves from the stalks. Others were packing the crop into bulk barns—long, trailerlike containers—where it would be cured golden with gas heat. Lee had little time for thinking as he oversaw his field hands, going from one field to another. But he couldn’t get out of his mind the strange fire he had seen early that morning after he had sent his hogs off to market.
    Lee told his mother about the fire when he went to her house for lunch. Later, she told his brother, Edward, with whom he farmed, about it, and his brother stopped by the fire site out of curiosity.
    When Noel Lee got home after finishing work that Monday, his phone was ringing. His mother was on the line. Did he think the fire he’d seen that morning might have had something to do with that murder in Washington?
    What murder? Lee hadn’t heard about any murder.
    It was right there on the front page of the Washington Daily News his mother said. On the TV news, too. A big executive had been killed in Smallwood. And it had happened just about the time that Noel had seen that fire. Could it be connected? Edward had stopped by the fire site, she told him, and he said it looked as if some kind of clothing might have been burned.
    It seemed a strange coincidence, Noel agreed. And after talking with his mother, he got his newspaper and read about the attack on the Von Steins. It did seem possible that the fire could be connected, he thought. He considered calling the police, then thought better of it. He didn’t want to look foolish. But the suspicious fire wouldn’t leave his mind, and an hour and a half later he picked up the telephone and called the Washington Police Department.
    Lee finally was switched to a detective who didn’t seem especially interested in what he had to tell him. The detective took the information and thanked him, but Lee had the distinct impression that that would be the last he’d hear of it. He thought the detective figured that he was just another kook trying to get in on a big event. He almost wished he hadn’t called, but he had done his civic duty. If the fire had anything to do with the murder—and the thought caused another shiver to course up his