After the Fire
Page 7
Chapter 7
The days that followed dragged. Bev had little to do until she received updates from the various investigators. She checked in with each of them and they basically told her to leave them alone to finish their reports. She stopped into the fire department to find out what information Ed Casey might have turned up. He was in the same waiting-on-other-people mode as Bev.
She cleaned her house when it didn't need it. Did laundry, including washing the bedspreads and pillows. She made elaborate dinners which both she and Emily pushed around on their plates without enjoyment.
On Friday, she received a report from Ben Tucker. His computer models showed that Mazzoli's wife had delivered a round of drinks to the table closest to the points of origin for the fire approximately five minutes before the blaze erupted. According to the models, the timing was perfect for her to have spilled alcohol in the corner, delivered the drinks to let it soak in and spread a bit, then to toss the lighter into the corner, and move away to the kitchen. It was a stretch, but it was, at least theoretically possible. Bev reviewed Mrs. Mazzoli's initial statement and called Casey, saying she'd like to talk to Mrs. Mazzoli again before Monday if possible. “I want one more shot at her before the cops get involved.”
On Saturday, Frank Rittenhaus called, inviting her to meet him for coffee at the motel. She said, “I'm laying low these days. Don't want to have to face the growing wrath of the locals. I also don't want to risk being overheard and having confidential information leak out. Come to my house. I'll make the coffee and we can talk without running the risk of being overheard by a plaintiff's attorney trolling for dirt.”
Emily walked into the living room as Bev was speaking. She grinned and said, “I was going to ask if I could go to the movies with some of the girls from the cheer squad. I'm thinking I should ask if you want me to clear out now?”
Bev laughed. “You don't have to clear out. I trust you to keep confidential matters to yourself, but you've been working hard and I think you should go to the movies and have fun.” They went through the 'who's driving' and 'keep in touch' routine.
Just before she left, Emily turned and said to her mother, “I appreciate the fact that you trust me to keep things to myself, but I'm under a lot of pressure at school to tell people things I hear at home. I'd just as soon not be told anything that I shouldn't know.”
Bev nodded and winked. “That's probably a good plan.”
Emily's friends pulled out of the driveway as Frank Rittenhaus pulled in. Bev waited by the front door. Rittenhaus handed her a bag of scones from the bakery. “These go good with coffee.”
They sat at the kitchen table and ate the scones while splitting a pot of coffee, reviewing one by one, the whereabouts and background information on everyone who had been in the restaurant, at least as far as they could tell in view of the fact that the coroner had not released an official list, which was deeply troubling to Bev.
Tucker had made a graphic model of where the dead and injured people were found. Rittenhaus added the locations of the staff and other patrons who survived, filling in details about them. Virtually all of the employees of the restaurant were locals. There were a few people on the wait staff who were students at the university. One of the bartenders was a former employee of Sonderland's car dealership; he had been fired for poor sales. Frank had not been able to establish any connection between anyone in the restaurant and the Prescott family. He ended by saying, “There is one odd thing. A week before the fire, the restaurant hired a new waiter. He told them he was a grad student. He said he had just moved to Stanforth from Dayton. He was evidently a good waiter, and he was assigned to work on the team that was serving the wedding party. Name given was Ryan Denworth. Turns out he's not a student. No such person lived in Stanforth that I could tell, nor Dayton either. What we don't know is who he really is. What is interesting is that there is one body that is still unidentified. “Crime lab is working on that. They're supposed to call me when they come up with something.”
Bev didn't say anything. She flipped through some of the files jotting notes here and there.
“Did you speak with Claudia Mazzoli?”
“Yes.”
“What did she tell you about the last few minutes before the fire?”
“Said she delivered a round of drinks to the wedding party. Evidently Sonderland was hitting the bottle pretty hard that night. Then she went to the kitchen to pick up some dessert orders.”
“Did she say anything about the financial straits of the restaurant or about her relationship with her husband?”
“She's sticking to their party line: yes, they were having financial problems and, yes, they fought about it at home, but it was the family business which they loved. She says she would not have done anything to harm the business, and especially not to have physically harmed her customers. She volunteered that if she or Ron were going to burn it, they'd have done it in the wee hours when no one would have been inside.”
“That's a more typical MO for insurance fraud cases.”
“My gut tells me the Mazzoli's are innocent.”
“Mine, too. Unfortunately, we can't use our guts in a court of a law. Who else had motive? What about the bartender. Disgruntled former employee?”
“Yes and no. He hated Sonderland alright. He went on for five minutes about what a loud-mouthed lying son of a bitch he was, but, in the next breath he told me he hated selling cars, and was much happier as a bartender. He liked working for the Mazzolis and said he loved working at The Barn because it had been his family's favorite place to celebrate happy occasions for generations. He came across as totally sincere. In fact, he said he was thinking about trying to get together with a couple of people to open a new place.”
“You think he might have been planning to start a new business and torched The Barn to eliminate competition?”
“I suppose a good attorney could twist the story that way, but he struck me as a nice guy. A real straight shooter.”
“Then our only remaining question mark is the waiter who lied about his identity. When will we know about him.”
“I asked the crime lab to put a rush on it. Maybe later today. Could be Monday. Hopefully, I'll have that information when you come in on Monday.”
“Okay. This is good stuff. Send your data regarding where the people were in the room to Ben Tucker. He can build that into his computer models. We'll need it for courtroom exhibits.”
He was preparing to leave just as Emily's friends dropped her off. Emily walked in the door and said, “Looks like my timing was perfect on both ends.”
Frank quipped, “I never met a teenager with such impeccable timing.”
Bev grinned and put her arm around Emily. “That's my girl!”
On Sunday, Bev suggested they ride their bikes to a nearby state park and hang out there for a while. Emily agreed, saying, “Let's pack a picnic for after our ride.” They spent several hours riding and talking. Then they pulled into a picnic area and gorged on grilled chicken sandwiches and raw veggies. After that, they went for a walk on one of the trails. It was late when they arrived home. Emily went to her room to catch up with her friends online. Bev took a shower and stretched out on her bed basking in the increasingly rare glow of a wonderful day spent alone in the company of the light of her life.