Firesetter in Blackwood Township, a Winnebago County Mystery

by Christine Husom

  “That’s crossed my mind a time or two. I’m sure dealing with the reality that Denny neglected to tell her he owned a house in Iowa hasn’t helped, by any stretch of the imagination. And that she found out about it from someone other than Denny, under the worst of circumstances, besides.”

  “Mother lost a good measure of trust over that, no question. You know, she finally talked to him about it the other day. Asked him why he’d kept that from her.”

  “What’d Denny say to that?”

  “He didn’t give much in the way of an explanation. Just said he wasn’t keeping it secret to be deceitful, something like that.”

  “Ah, that’s a cop out if I ever heard one.”

  “So Mother interpreted that as he doesn’t love her. Not deeply enough, anyway. Not if he’s keeping the house his dead wife inherited hidden from her.”

  “I can’t say I blame her.”

  “Me either. If Mother didn’t feel Denny needed her right now, I think she’d be tempted to break their engagement.”

  Smoke raised his eyebrows and sucked in a big breath.

  I drove home, and after attending to Queenie, stripped off my smoky-smelling clothes in the laundry room. A three-quarter bathroom with a walk-in shower was adjacent to it, via a connecting door. I headed in then shampooed, soaped, and rinsed twice. As I towel dried, I still imagined the odor of smoke clinging to my body, my hair. Some smells were like that. They lingered in the memory long after they had dissipated in reality.

  I turned on the hair dryer and bent over to dry my long, blonde hair from the inside out. It was still damp when I brushed it and secured it behind my ears with barrettes. I dressed in a sleeveless top and shorts, slipped on sandals, and then Queenie and I headed over to Gramps’ house. We spent a couple of hours enjoying each other’s company, playing Scrabble, eating a bowl of ice cream, and talking about John Carl’s upcoming move and Denny’s recovery.

  “Gramps, I’m heading into town to see Mom. Is it all right if Queenie stays here a while?”

  “Of course she can. As long as you want.”

  “Can I pick up anything for you at the store?”

  Gramps patted my hand. “I can’t think of a thing I need from town.”

  I stood up and kissed his cheek. “I love you, Gramps.”

  I was at Kristen’s Corner minutes later, expecting Mother to be there. But her helper, Candy, told me she’d left to meet a friend for a cup of coffee.

  My mother wasn’t the “meet a friend for coffee” type. Unless there was a specific reason to do so, usually relating to business or volunteer work. “Oh, okay. Who’s she with?”

  Candy shook her head. “She didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. She said she’d be back in a half hour or so. I’m sure she has her phone with her if you need to get hold of her.”

  “No biggie, I’ll catch her later.”

  “All right then, Ms. Corky. I’ll tell her you stopped by.”

  “Thanks.” I walked to my car wondering why in the heck my mother’s meeting a friend had piqued my interest like it did. Then I realized the simple truth—I was worried about her. Mother’s mission in life was protecting her children to the best of her ability, and that often meant not telling John Carl and me things that might cause upset. Knowing how much stress she’d been under the last months made me wonder if she’d found someone outside the family to confide in, to lessen the burden for us.

  I got in my car and swung around to the back parking lot, checking to see if Mother’s car was there. It wasn’t. It was easy enough to drive by the few coffee spots in town. When I saw her SUV parked in the side lot of The Coffee Shop—they were the first one in town to claim that not-so-original name—my curiosity got the best of me.

  Plus, an iced latte seemed like a refreshing choice right about then. I wasn’t six feet into the shop when I stopped dead in my tracks. My mother was sitting at a table with a man I knew from a previous case. They were holding hands and their heads were bent in close, like they were having a private conversation.

  My mother was holding hands and talking intimately with a man who wasn’t her fiancé. In public.

  I bolted out of the shop and turned right, instead of left, taking the long way back to my car. I jogged around the block, slowed down somewhat by my flip-flop sandals. Then I took a few laps in the parking lot, trying to rein in my confused thoughts. Why was my mother cozying up to David Fryor, of all people? I had no doubts he was a good guy, and she’d known him since high school. Add to that they both had elderly fathers that needed their attention more and more as time went on. So they had that in common.

  Maybe they were offering each other mutual support.

  The problem I personally had was I’d killed David’s brother in the line of duty, and that put me in a troubling position. Whether or not David and his father blamed me was not the point. It was that seeing him again brought me back to that awful day.

  I climbed into my GTO thinking there were plenty of other people in the world my mother could commiserate with besides David Fryor. Like her fiancé, as the prime example. And that’s when it hit me—when I’d looked at their interlocked hands, something was missing. Her custom-made engagement ring. Mother had a lot of explaining to do.

  6

  Belle and Birdie

  The fire had done a fine job indeed. There was nothing left but a pile of blackened shards of what had been the barn’s roof and walls. The barn had served as both a sanctuary for animals and a prison for her sister. For her gentle sister.

  Belle wanted to cheer, to laugh, to celebrate, but when she looked at the sad, small smile on her sister’s face, all she could manage was a dismal one of her own. “Birdie, we talked about this. A lot. I thought it would make you happy, that it would free you.”

  Birdie stared at her, making Belle understand there was more to do. Getting rid of the barn and the other things Belle was doing were all good, and they helped Birdie in her healing process. But it wasn’t over yet. Birdie’s imploring look confirmed what Belle knew too well.

  “So where to next?” Belle asked.

  Birdie lifted her eyebrows.

  “Of course, that’s exactly what I was thinking. But we should wait a while until things calm down a bit. Don’t you think?”

  Birdie shrugged.

  “We’ve got plenty to keep us busy.”

  7

  I sat in my car for a few minutes, watching the front of the coffee shop for Mother and David then fished the phone out of my shorts pocket and called Smoke. It was nearing five o’clock. “Are you at the office?”

  “Nah, I couldn’t stand the way I smelled any longer. I’m home, about to step in the shower. We wrapped up at the Hardings, and I’ll finish the reports in the morning. I’m calling it quits for the day.”

  “What’d you find?” I said.

  “No trace of any accelerants. We identified where the fire started, but not what sparked it.”

  “That’s something, anyway. I can pick up something to eat, if you’re hungry.”

  “Now that you mention it, I haven’t eaten since breakfast. But I have to ask what this is really about, Corinne? I get the feeling it’s more than a sudden compulsion to feed me.”

  “I need to run some things by you.”

  “About Weber?” he said.

  “No, it’s about all the moving parts I mentioned earlier.”

  “Ah. Okay then, how about this—I’ve got burgers in the freezer we can throw on the grill. You want to pick up buns and a side dish?”

  “Do you have pickles?” I said.

  I heard him rattling around, probably in his refrigerator. “That’d be negative. But I do have catsup and mustard.”

  “Baked beans?”

  “Ah, let me look.” I heard him moving cans in his cupboard. “Nope.”

  “I’ll do a little shopping and be there in a half hour, maybe forty minutes.”

  “Don’t go all crazy shopping, buying out the store,” he said.

&n
bsp; “Yeah right, you know how much I cook. I basically shop in the deli section and around the outside edges of the grocery store. The endcaps.”

  “From what I know about it, you don’t need to do a whole lot of shopping. But then not everyone has a mother like Kristen who supplies her daughter with tasty dishes on a regular basis.”

  “I am spoiled having a mother who’s an amazing cook, all right.” Thinking of my mother and what was going on in her world made my shoulders tighten up. And she’s a keeper of secrets. “See you in a bit.”

  Neither my mother nor David had left the coffee shop when I pulled out of the parking spot and drove to my favorite grocery store. One that had good deals on the ends of shelf rows, and saved me trips down the aisles on a quick stop. I picked up a jar of dill pickles sliced lengthwise for sandwiches, a can of baked beans, deli coleslaw, and a rotini pasta salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, and black olives dressed with Greek feta vinaigrette. I was in line at the checkout counter when I remembered the hamburger buns and headed to the bakery section. I spotted Sybil Harding picking out a package of the bakery’s best chocolate-chocolate chip cookies.

  “Hello, Sybil.”

  She lifted her head and looked at me from the other side of the cookie display table with the same quizzical expression she’d worn earlier.

  I was casually dressed, but didn’t look that different with my hair down, sans the badge and side arm. “Sergeant Aleckson,” I said.

  “Oh. Sure. I guess I wasn’t expecting to see you. It threw me off for a minute.” Noting our exchanges earlier in the day, I had a feeling things like that happened to her fairly often. “I better get going,” she said.

  “Take care, and like we told you earlier, call with any questions or concerns that may come up.”

  “I remember.” She held the cookies to her chest and scooted away down the aisle. Places to go and things to do, it seemed.

  I shifted the groceries in my arms and used my thumb and pinkie to secure a bag of buns. By the time I got back to the checkout, Sybil had paid and was hurrying out the exit door. It was probably best to give her a few days before contacting her again, after she’d had time to talk to her grandparents and got things figured out.

  I took a side trip to the Hardings’ farm so Smoke had enough time to get ready. I parked on the gravel road and sat in my car studying the scene. A puff of smoke surprised me when it escaped from the barn’s debris then disappeared. It added to the sad and lonely feeling that hovered over the whole farmstead. Sybil said she checked on the place in her grandparents’ absence, but I wondered if she spent any time there at all. It gave off strong vibes of being abandoned, especially now that the stately old barn was gone. There were no vehicles sitting in the yard. If Sybil was there, she could have parked in the garage and gotten into the house posthaste before my arrival.

  I pulled into Smoke’s driveway, knocked on the door that led from inside his garage to the kitchen, and then let myself in. Rex shifted his attention from Smoke to me and ran over and gave the back of my free hand a lick. “Hey boy, it’s good to see you, too.”

  Smoke was pulling premade hamburger patties out of a box and setting them on a plate. We were both dressed in shorts and t-shirts, and when I saw he was barefoot, I kicked off my sandals. “You need help with the groceries?” he said.

  “Thanks, I got it. You told me not to go crazy so I managed to limit myself to a single bag.”

  “Good girl. The grill is fired up, burning off whatever was left on the grates the last time I used it.”

  I set the bag on the counter and pulled out the groceries. “I’ll put the salads in the fridge until we’re ready.”

  “Mind grabbing me a beer? And one for yourself, of course.”

  While I popped the top off the bottles, Smoke sprinkled steak seasoning on the burgers. I took a sip of the cold brew. “Mmm. Now that hits the spot.”

  Smoke picked up his bottle and clicked its neck against the neck of mine.

  “Cheers. Hot day, cold beer,” I said.

  He took a good swig then set it down and leaned back against the counter. “You are right on there. So tell me what’s up.”

  “You think David Fryor is a good man?”

  Smoke’s eyebrows came together as he considered. “I thought we had that conversation a few months ago. Why David all of the sudden, did something happen?”

  I took another sip, set the bottle down, and shrugged. “It’s not about his brother’s case, if that’s what you mean. No, it’s about David and my mother.”

  He stood up straighter. “You’re not thinking of setting Kristen up with him, if things go further south with Denny? The guy commutes from Texas to spend time with his dad.”

  “I know that, and no, no, not at all. Here’s the deal, I saw the two of them at The Coffee Shop holding hands, with their faces this close to each other. . .” I stepped in so our faces were inches apart and was momentarily distracted. I backed up before I was tempted to completely close the gap. “And my mother was not wearing her engagement ring.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t get it. Kristen was faithful to your father for nearly thirty years after his death, and now she’s stepping out on Denny a year after their engagement?”

  I reached back with both hands and pinched the back of my neck to release some tension. “I have no idea. Remember last spring, when I walked in on them hugging in her shop?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Mother said they were comforting each other.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt here. Like you said, she’s faithful to a fault, so I don’t understand her behavior and I needed to talk to someone—you in particular.”

  “She’s the one to talk to,” Smoke said.

  “I know, but I like running things by you first. It keeps me grounded.”

  He pulled me in his arms, and he felt even better than he looked or smelled. I moved my smooth leg slowly against his hairy one. His hold gradually changed from comforting to sensuous as his fingers moved from my shoulders to my back.

  When Rex barked we both jumped slightly, and that’s when we heard a car door slam in the driveway. Smoke pulled away. “Now, who’s that?” He took a peek out the window, let out a noisy breath, then turned to me. “With the fire, and everything else today, I totally forgot Marcella was coming over.”

  “What?” Dr. Marcella Fisher, a psychologist we’d met on a case some time back. She’d been interested in Smoke ever since.

  I stepped back into my sandals, and hoped to escape out the front door before she saw me, but I wasn’t fast enough. Smoke opened the kitchen door for her. When Marcella walked in holding a carrying case, we shared an uncomfortable moment of staring and mutually sizing up the situation. Then she said, “Hi, Sergeant, I thought that was your car in the driveway.” How many other 1967 red GTOs were there in town?

  It took me a nanosecond to fabricate an explanation. “I just dropped some things off, and I’m on my way home. Have a good evening.” I bolted, with Smoke on my heels.

  “Corinne, stop. Come back.”

  I didn’t turn around as I quietly spit out, “Three’s a crowd.” I climbed into my car then gathered every ounce of self control I could, preventing myself from peeling out of there and creating a worse scene. I was upset with my mother for confiding in David about whatever it was, angry at Smoke for being forgetful and dense, and jealous of Marcella.

  Instead of going straight home, I turned on Collins Avenue for another look at the Harding property, mostly to distract myself from dwelling on personal issues. I parked about a hundred feet from their driveway, got out, and stood there reliving the events of that morning. It seemed like they had happened yesterday, or the day before that. The gravel on both Collins and the Hardings’ driveway was dry and compact, so there weren’t deep depressions from the heavy vehicles as one would expect. The hot air closed in around me, and coaxed beads of sweat from my pores.

  There were
only three other homes on that stretch of Collins Avenue. Deputies had interviewed the neighbors, asked them if they had an idea of what might have caused the fire. I was curious if they’d learned anything of value, and would find out when I was back at work. It struck me for the second time that evening how lonely the farmstead seemed. Eerily so. I visually scanned the stones of the barn’s base again, admiring the way the mason had fit them together so artfully. I wondered if my great-grandfather had helped with the raising of it all those years ago. My Gramps Brandt might know the answer.

  A movement in the attic window of the house caught my eye. I squinted against the early evening sun and focused on the window for a moment before looking over the rest of the house. I saw nothing else move inside. The leaves on the branches of a tree in the side yard waved back and forth as a gentle breeze disturbed the otherwise still air. That may have caused a moving reflection on the window’s glass. Or else I was imagining things.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket, and when I pulled it out and looked at the caller, I dropped it back in my pocket. Whatever Smoke had to say could wait until I was in a better mood. After a last look at the property, I climbed back in the car and headed home. When my phone buzzed a minute later, it stayed right where it was.

  I picked up Queenie from Gramps, and when we pulled into my driveway, as the garage door was opening, I spotted something furry on my front step. I came to a quick stop in the garage, told Queenie I’d be back to get her, and jogged over to get a closer look. It was a rabbit, lying on its side and obviously dead. An ominous feeling settled in me as I thought about what Vince Weber had told me that morning. He’d found a dead rabbit on his step a few days before.