Firesetter in Blackwood Township, a Winnebago County Mystery

by Christine Husom

  “Right you are.”

  After Weber left, Queenie and I went into the house to cool off. My friend Sara phoned a while later. “Hey, Corky, I’ve barely talked to you all week. What are you doing tonight?” Friday was our usual girl’s get together night whenever we could make it work.

  “You’re not heading up to your parents’ place for your monthly visit?”

  “No, my dad’s got his class reunion, and it’s like a whole weekend deal. They’re busier now that they’ve retired than ever before.”

  “I’ve heard that happens.”

  “And honestly, as much as I love seeing them every month, the way time flies, I’ve been thinking every other month would be enough. We talk and text and email when we need to. The bonus is it would cut down on the number of times they’d be able to ask me if I’ve met a nice young man yet,” she said.

  I laughed. “You’ve met lots of nice young men. But so far none of them have been the right young man for you.”

  She laughed in kind. “Someday my prince will come.”

  “Don’t give your glass slippers away.”

  “I won’t,” she said.

  “Getting back to what I’m doing tonight. No special plans at all. You want to come over, go grab a bite somewhere, what?”

  “You tell me.”

  “All right then, come to my house. We can talk privately here without worrying about anybody overhearing us,” I said.

  “You have private things to talk about?”

  “Boy, do I ever.”

  “Oh boy. I’ll pick up something to eat. Chinese or Mexican?” she said.

  “Mexican sounds good. Anything you want.”

  “Drinks?”

  “I’ve got both beer and wine.”

  “Then we’re set. Is six thirty good?”

  “It’s perfect. I work tomorrow, so I turn into a pumpkin at ten,” I said.

  “That’s too early for the prince to show up,” she said.

  We were both chuckling when we disconnected.

  “I should spruce the place up a bit,” I told Queenie as I picked up a couple of throw rugs and carried them to the back deck. I was about to shake out one of them when I heard strange sounds from the back tree line. Like branches on the ground breaking from something stepping on them.

  I was barefoot so I ran in to the front closet where I’d left my running shoes. Queenie gave a little yelp at my heightened state. “Sorry, you have to stay here,” I said as I tied the laces on my shoes. I slipped out the back door and sprinted across the field to the small woods. I was panting and sweat had pushed its way out of most of my pores by the time I stopped to survey the area. The only living creature I saw was a sparrow sitting on a branch of a tree.

  I walked a few yards looking for signs, and that’s when I noticed some broken twigs. I picked one up, and the white interior indicated the break was fresh. I followed what appeared to be the path the trespasser had taken. It looked like he had gotten to the other side of the lake, but was nowhere in sight now. How fast was that guy, anyway?

  I looked around and listened for another minute or two then jogged back to my house. Queenie was watching me from the sliding glass, barking and wagging her tail. I stopped to shake out the rugs then went back inside. “Who do you suppose was back there this time? The same person, looking for his lighter maybe?”

  I cleaned through the house, not to my mother’s standards by any means, but the bathrooms and kitchen were sanitized, and the rest of it looked good to me. Then I watered some of my outdoor plantings that were stressed from the tropical heat wave without the benefit of any saving rain showers.

  By six thirty I’d showered and changed into a sleeveless, lightweight dress and laid out table settings, serving spoons, and bottles of water on the dining table. Queenie alerted me when Sara’s car rolled down the driveway. She let herself in the front door. “Honey, I’m home!” And when she saw me she added, “And you put on a pretty dress and everything.” It was white, with delicate peach and lime green flowers.

  I gave her a warm hug and took the take-out bag from her hand. “You know what, if we’re still doing this twenty years from now, that’d be okay by me. And you look very cute in that sundress.”

  “Thanks, and guess where I got it?” she said.

  “At Kristen’s Corner. Isn’t it nice Mother has good taste and a sense of style? When I go in there she tells me what I should get, and she’s right on. Saves me the stress of shopping.”

  “You’re funny. Some of us love to shop.”

  “Yes, you do. That shade of lilac is great with your coloring,” I said.

  “Thanks.” Sara had strawberry blonde hair and green eyes that changed shades depending on what she was wearing, what the lighting was, or how angry she was. The darkest I’d seen them was when she was raking one of her probationers over the coals for violating a condition of his release. She even had me shaking a little. Her tactic worked well in that instance, and the violator repented and toed the line after that. I would have too.

  I put the bag on the table and pulled some containers out and set them down. “This smells so good. I don’t think I ate lunch.”

  “Then you are in luck. Your favorite: shrimp fajitas. And your second favorite: margarita chicken. And all the good stuff to go with them.”

  “I’m in heaven. What do you want to drink?”

  “You got a Corona?” she said.

  “I do. Coronas and Modelos, both.”

  “I have to make a choice? I better have a Corona. Less alcohol.”

  “With our two-drink limit, it shouldn’t make much difference,” I said.

  “I just don’t want to fall asleep before you tell me all your private information.”

  We ate, and I filled her in on the happenings of the past three days. From my mother having coffee with David, Denny breaking their engagement, the shocker that the ring he’d given her belonged to his dead wife first, a deputy friend of mine—I couldn’t say who without his permission—was having a personal problem with a relative, we’d both gotten gifts of dead rabbits, a beekeeper creeper was caught on video delivering mine, the trespasser who may or may not have left a lighter on my property, and finally that someone—maybe the same person—had been back there a couple of hours earlier.

  Sara asked a ton of questions as I made my way through the stories of the different situations and then asked if there was anything she could do to help. “Corky, you make my life seem so boring. Thankfully so.”

  “I don’t think that’s altogether true. I know most of your probationers.”

  She raised her eyebrows and laughed. “Some of them keep me on my toes all right.” She leaned back in her chair and patted her stomach. “I ate too much.”

  “Me too, and it really hit the spot. Thank you.” I stood up and gathered the remains of our meal. “Let’s go sit on the deck. It’s cooling down a little.”

  “I’m fine with eighty degrees as long as the dew point doesn’t rival that number,” she said.

  Sara helped me clear the table then washed and dried the few dishes—even when I told her not to—while I wiped the table and counter. “Would you like something to drink?” I said.

  “I’m fine with water for now. Maybe a wine later, when I’m not so full.”

  We settled in Adirondack chairs on the deck, relaxing in each other’s company. Sara was my best girlfriend, and there was little she didn’t know about me, my family, my other friends, and my relationships. And vice versa. We’d helped each other through some rocky times and rejoiced in our good ones.

  “Sara, getting back to what we talked about earlier, you know, seeing my mother’s engagement ring on Denny’s wife’s finger. I was honestly freaked out. Should I tell Mother?”

  “I’d let it ride for now. Would telling her serve any real purpose?”

  “Probably not. It adds to the list of reasons in the ‘it’s a good thing they broke up’ column, but I think she’ll keep feeling more and more r
elieved about that as time goes on, anyway.”

  Sara nodded then cleared her throat as she leaned over the side of her chair and held my eyes with hers. “I have to tell you who invited me out for dinner tomorrow night. And I won’t make you guess because you couldn’t.” She looked like the cat that swallowed the canary.

  She hadn’t talked about anyone in particular for a while. “Who?”

  “John Carl.”

  “John Carl, my brother? That John Carl?”

  Sara reached over and gave my cheek a tweak. “I offered to help him with his home project. It’s more at the planning stage right now, as you know. Deciding what rooms to paint, whether to refinish the wood floors, things like that.”

  I was stunned. Every so often I felt like an outsider in my own family. Like when they forgot to tell me big news or to include me in big decisions. My brother had pined for his wife for a long time after she’d left him a couple of years before. “When did all this happen?”

  “Today.”

  “Just today?” Okay, I didn’t feel quite so left out.

  “You know John and I have been emailing and texting back and forth for, I don’t know, maybe two months now. With the things your mother’s dealing with and how nervous she’s been, he wanted to make this move as seamless as possible. John said when your grandparents get back from their resort at the end of the month, they’re planning to pack up and move to their condo in town,” she said.

  “That’s right. They’ve been going through things, getting rid of the stuff they’ve accumulated over the years that they don’t need. I guess their plan is to take some of the furniture and leave the rest for John Carl. He wants me to take any heirlooms I’d like, and I think our sister, Taylor, should get something, too. If she’s interested.”

  “I haven’t gotten used to hearing you say ‘our sister.’”

  “We haven’t gotten used to it either. Or having a sister in the first place, for that matter. And for the record, I think it’s cool you’ll be hanging out with my privacy-loving brother. You can be my spy.”

  Sara shook her head, and we shared a good laugh before saying our good nights. I pulled out my phone and sent my brother a text message, “I hear you have a date tomorrow night.” A few seconds later my phone dinged, “You can call it what you want.” I sent him a heart icon in return and then smiled.

  John Carl and Sara were a study in opposites and would be good together. When she was the storm, he’d be the calming presence. When he withdrew into his shell, she’d find a way to pull him out. When he married the first time I didn’t gain a sister, I lost a brother. If he married Sara I’d have both.

  “Corky, you’re putting the cart before the horse. You need to let nature take its course.” I smiled at my rhymed words then ruffled the fur on Queenie’s head. “Time for bed.”

  17

  Belle and Birdie

  Belle found Birdie sitting on their favorite branch of their special tree. Birdie seemed upset, and Belle had a strong indication of why. She sat down beside her and used her thumb and forefinger to gingerly turn Birdie’s face toward her own. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but it is gone. Maybe forever. I looked everywhere, retracing my steps three times, but I couldn’t find it anywhere.”

  Birdie drew her eyebrows together slightly, but not enough to cause a crease. She looked intently at Belle.

  “Birdie, are you telling me to find another one, a replacement?”

  Birdie nodded then turned her head in the direction of their old house.

  “All right. It might not be the same, but we’ll make it work. I’ll go see what I can come up with and meet you back here later.”

  18

  Saturday dawned hazy and a little cooler, but still no rain in the forecast for at least two days. The water levels of the lakes and ponds were down, and it seemed all of nature was begging for the skies to open up and deliver a good downpour.

  The five Winnebago County detectives rotated on-call duty on the weekends, and about as often as not, there were crimes that required them to report to the scenes. It was Smoke’s weekend on, and his vehicle was there when I pulled into the sheriff’s parking lot.

  I swiped my access card to get into the office and was struck by the silence. Without the hustle and bustle of sheriff’s command and clerical staff handling criminal and citizen complaints, stacks of never-ending paperwork, and all the other issues, it felt like a ghost town. Unless something major happened, the high-ranking officials had weekends off.

  Smoke’s cubicle was my first stop, and I found him leaning back in his chair reading a report. I sat down on a side chair. “Good morning. You’re here early. Something happen during the night that I missed?” I said.

  He pulled off his readers and rubbed his right eyelid. “Morning, Corky. Nope, nothing new. I got a stack of reports to review, and it’s a whole lot faster to get through it on a Saturday or a Sunday.”

  “I hear ya.”

  He pinched the area between his eyes. “At the end of a busy week, I appreciate a change of pace.”

  Hear, hear. It was easier for me to concentrate when I wrote reports and reviewed those from the deputies I supervised if I wasn’t interrupted every five minutes. “To let you know, there was another uninvited visitor on my back property last night.”

  Smoke tossed the paper on his desk and sat up straighter in his chair. “Same person?” He held a slight frown through my entire account then said, “We should think about installing a motion-detection camera on one of the trees back there. You found a lighter there Wednesday night after you spotted that trespasser, and my gut’s telling me it’s connected to the barn fires in Blackwood Township. I’m leaning more and more toward the theory they’re using farmers’ tree lines to get around covertly, and have been moving around virtually unnoticed.”

  “It seems like a good theory, Smoke. When that older gentleman made a similar suggestion after the Simmonds’ fire, no one there had seen anyone suspicious in the area. And I know you detectives have talked to the neighbors out there.”

  “I got a press release going into tomorrow’s paper.” He slid a sheet of paper my way. It said if anyone had information on the barn fires in Blackwood Township they should call the sheriff’s office.

  “Good. And if it’s kids doing it one of them may feel guilty enough to sing.”

  “If it’s kids, there may be up to three of them. No more. A bigger gang would have caught someone’s attention. It’s likely people know them, or would at least recognize them. Our deputies are out there patrolling the roads on a regular basis. My training leads me to believe it’s someone who lives in the area.”

  “I agree. Aside from the two incidents back by the lake—not including the beekeeper, that is—I haven’t seen others sneaking around, and no group of any kind. But I’m gone a lot during the day, when the fires were set.”

  “We’ll catch ’em.”

  I switched my train of thoughts. “Tell me more about the Simmonds. What were your observations of them, in general?”

  “Good people with well-behaved kids. They had a lot of plans, getting into 4-H and whatnot. In a nutshell, after a couple of hours talking with them, let’s just say they went from being excited about finding their dream place to wondering if they’re being targeted for some reason.”

  “They did? Of course we’re considering the same thing, given the family connection. And the fact they were estranged from each other adds another layer.”

  “No doubt. It’ll take a while for the Simmonds to get over their state of shock. Angela wants to reach out to her cousin, but needs to talk to her father about it first. And she’ll be able to do so very soon—she told me her parents are on their way from Wisconsin to visit.”

  “That’s good. I hope they can resolve their differences with the rest of their family. Sybil told me she has support, but it seems to me she could use more. And she doesn’t return my phone calls, which is driving me nuts.”

  “Could be
she’s retreating in her Golden Valley apartment, shutting herself off from the rest of the world while she takes care of everything she needs to.”

  “That’s fine as long as she’s doing okay. And returns my phone calls.”

  “Right.”

  “Smoke, I have something to run by you before I take off. I talked to Sara about it last night.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I found out the engagement ring Denny supposedly had custom made for my mother—”

  “With the emeralds around the diamond—”

  “Right. The emerald is her birthstone, and it must have been his wife’s too.”

  “Why’s that?” he said.

  “I was in his office, and he had his wife’s photo out again. I spotted that same ring on her finger.”

  His chin pulled back. “What?”

  “He used to have the photo displayed, but hasn’t since he and my mom got engaged. I guess I never paid attention to the ring she was wearing. It’s so small in the picture,” I said.

  “I didn’t catch that either. But what in the world?”

  “I know, and the question is, should I tell Mother that Denny deceived her, letting her think it was specially made for her?”

  “Damn.” Smoke studied his hands a moment. “As much as I hold to being truthful, that’s a tough one. I don’t think you have to offer information that’s hurtful if it serves no real purpose to do so. What’d Sara say?”

  “Basically the same thing,” I said.

  “Sounds like we agree on that.”

  “And so do I. I guess we’ll play it by ear.” I reached over and laid my hand on his. “Oh, then Sara dropped a little bombshell and told me my brother asked her out for dinner tonight.”

  “John Carl and Sara on a date?” Smoke smiled. “I think that’s a good thing. For both of them.”

  I’d pulled up to a service station on the north side of Oak Lea for a late morning cup of coffee when my phone rang. I smiled when I recognized the number on the display. “Sergeant Aleckson.”