Toni L.P. Kelner - Laura Fleming 06 - Death of a Damn Yankee

by Toni L. P. Kelner

  “There wasn’t anybody hurt, was there?” I asked Junior, who still hadn’t turned to look at us.

  “Not this time.”

  “We heard there’d been some other fires lately.”

  “Quite a few.”

  “Is there really an arsonist in town?”

  “Oh, yeah. Our firebug has been keeping himself real busy.”

  I made a face, hating the idea of something so nasty in Byerly. “Was this one arson, too?”

  “Apparently. The man who spotted the fire smelled gasoline.”

  “Any idea of who might be doing it?”

  “Laurie Anne, if I knew who it was, do you think that person would still be loose to set fires?” she asked, sounding tired.

  “I guess not,” I said sheepishly.

  “Are y’all planning on investigating this?” she asked.

  “No, thanks,” I said. “We don’t know anything about arson.”

  “Is that right? I would have thought that you’d know quite a bit.” Before I could respond to that odd comment, she said, “So you two just came to town to visit?”

  “We do have family here,” I reminded her, which kept me from having to lie outright. Lying to family was bad enough—lying to the chief of police didn’t appeal to me.

  “Quite a coincidence, y’all showing up right in the middle of these fires.” Now she turned, and I knew she was watching my face as I spoke.

  “Junior, I swear that we don’t know anything about the fires,” I said, taken aback by her suspicion. “Heck, until a little while ago, the only one I’d even heard about was the one at the Woolworth’s, and I thought that one was an accident.”

  “I suppose your visit doesn’t have anything to do with the mill buyout either?”

  I tried not to react visibly, but I sure wished that she’d stuck to questions about arson. “What do you think about it?” I said, knowing that she’d pick up on my evasion.

  “I don’t care one way or the other. All I care about is making sure that none of these hotheads decides to beat up on the other side.”

  A red pickup truck labelled “Fire Investigation” pulled up, and Junior said, “If y’all will excuse me, I want to see what the experts think about this fire. Unless there’s something about it you want to tell me.”

  I just stared at her, not knowing what she was getting at. “Junior, I don’t know anything—”

  “That’s right—you’re not interested in arson. Well, then, y’all enjoy your visit.”

  While she went toward the investigator’s truck, Richard and I headed for Aunt Maggie’s van, one of the few vehicles left in the parking lot.

  “I wonder what that was that all about,” Richard said.

  “I don’t have any idea,” I said, “but Junior sure has a bee in her bonnet about something.”

  “You don’t think the arson has anything to do with the buyout, do you?”

  “I don’t see how. The Woolworth’s burned down a couple of months ago, long before the Saunders came into the picture.” I believed what I was saying, but what Junior had said about coincidences bothered me. An arsonist came to town right before the first time anybody tried to buy the mill. Could it just have been a coincidence?

  Chapter 12

  Aunt Maggie got back to her van just as Richard and I did.

  “Did you find Tavis?” I asked her.

  “I sure did, and I told him that he ought to take into account the fact that the Saunders didn’t so much as lend a hand when that building caught fire.”

  “Tavis asked everybody but the fire brigade to stay out of the way,” I pointed out.

  “That’s what Tavis said, too,” she said, “but I just wanted him to have that in mind when he goes into that meeting. In fact, I told him I want to be there, too. Tavis is a right smart fellow, but when it comes down to it, he’s a politician. Nobody would spend half his free time running the fire brigade and the other half running the union if he didn’t have something bigger in mind. He only started working nights at the mill so he could have his days free for glad-handing. I want to make sure that he remembers the people he’s supposed to be working for.”

  It was just starting to get dark as we pulled out of the parking lot, and Aunt Maggie said, “Do y’all have any plans for the evening?”

  “Not a one,” I said.

  “Y’all can have my car, if you want. Augustus is picking me and Bobbin up in his truck so we can go to an auction. Unless y’all want to go with us, that is.”

  I looked at Richard, and though he said, “Whatever you want,” he looked tired. Or maybe I felt tired myself at the thought of staying at an auction as long as Aunt Maggie always did. “I think I’d just as soon get to bed early tonight. I don’t know what it is about traveling that’s so tiring, but I’m beat.”

  “Suit yourself,” she said.

  We got back to the house, and found Augustus already waiting, and they took off while Richard and I went inside to grab cold bottles of Coke and head down to the den in the basement. The living room is much nicer, and the television set in there is larger, but somehow we always end up in the den. The carpet has worn through to the bare concrete in places, the couch is upholstered in a hideous floral pattern that unfortunately never fades, and the recliner has been battered by countless children and grandchildren, but it’s an incredibly comfortable place to hang out.

  Richard and I planted ourselves in front of the television, and were debating whether or not to order a pizza when we heard the front door open. Somebody called out, “Hello? Anybody home?”

  “We’re down in the den,” I said, and a minute later, Aunt Edna came in.

  “Hey there,” she said. “I was driving by and saw the light on, and thought I’d see if y’all were here.”

  “Well, we’re glad you did,” I said. “Come on in and have a seat.” I’d been looking forward to loafing, not visiting, but at least Aunt Edna didn’t work for the mill, so maybe she wouldn’t start debating the buyout. “Can I get you a Coke-Cola?”

  “Not right now,” she said, sitting down in the armchair opposite us. “What are y’all watching?”

  “Xena: Warrior Princess.”

  “Oh, I like that. You ought to see Tiffany and Crystal pretending to be Xena and that little gal Gabrielle who runs around with her.”

  “I bet they’re cute,” I said, wondering if Aunt Edna knew about the show’s enthusiastic following among the lesbian community, who were convinced that Xena and Gabrielle were more than just friends. From the gleam in Richard’s eye, I had a hunch he was thinking about the same thing, and I gently poked him with my elbow as a hint not to say anything.

  The show started, and the three of us watched without speaking for a while, but by the first commercial, I decided that Aunt Edna hadn’t just been passing by. There wasn’t anyplace I could think of that she could have been going that would lead her past Aunt Maggie’s house, and she wasn’t even watching the show. Her eyes were aimed in that direction, but as far as I could tell, she was staring above the television, at a rack of demitasse cups that made up Aunt Maggie’s latest collection.

  “Aunt Edna,” I finally said, “is there something on your mind?”

  “Why do you ask?” she said, not very convincingly.

  I just looked at her.

  “You’re right, Laurie Anne. There’s something I want y’all to do for me.”

  “I’ll turn off the TV,” Richard said, reaching for the remote.

  “Lord, I don’t know where to start,” Aunt Edna said, and the sadness in her voice made my heart ache. “I’m not much of a letter writer, but I imagine Nora has kept y’all up to date on what’s been going on with me and Caleb.”

  I said, “We hear y’all are getting along real well.”

  She smiled for a second, but then it was gone. “I guess that’s part of the problem. Linwood doesn’t approve.”

  “I’d heard that,” I said carefully.

  “I don’t think it’s Caleb,�
� she said thoughtfully. “He’s been just as nice as he can be to Linwood, Sue, and the kids, and Linwood seemed to like him at first. They even talked about Linwood going to work for him. But somewhere along the line, somebody made a joke about Caleb and me getting married someday. That’s when Linwood started making trouble.

  “First, Linwood started showing up when Caleb and I wanted to be alone. He always acted like it was a coincidence, but he didn’t fool me for a minute. I swear, it reminded me of when Ruby Lee used to go sit on the front porch right around the time my dates would bring me home, so she could keep us from kissing good night. Of course, Ruby Lee was a child then; Linwood’s supposed to be a grown man.

  “I’ve tried to be patient with him, because I know it must be hard for him, and I’ve tried to explain the way I feel. He won’t listen—every time I bring it up, he has something he has to do or someplace he has to go.

  “When Linwood realized that Caleb wasn’t going to go away, he really started acting up. He says terrible things to Caleb for no reason other than to pick a fight. Of course, Caleb understands what’s going on, so he lets it roll off of him like water off a duck’s back. I’m just lucky he’s put up with it as long as he has.”

  “Obviously he realizes how lucky he is to have you,” Richard said gallantly.

  “Aren’t you sweet?” Aunt Edna said with a fleeting smile, but the smile disappeared as she went on. “These days, Linwood is so aggravating that nobody in the family wants to be around him. Even Earl has stopped coming to visit.”

  “Linwood said some pretty awful things to him today,” I put in.

  “I know he did,” Aunt Edna said with a sigh. “The last time anybody other than me or Caleb would have anything to do with Linwood was Tiffany’s birthday party, back in February. I’d asked Sue what Tiffany wanted, and she told me that she wanted a boom box. Caleb went shopping with me, and wouldn’t let me get the one I was going to get—he wanted us to get a better one together. I let him talk me into it, and naturally I put both our names on the card.

  “Come the day of the party, Tiffany opened it and was just thrilled, but when Linwood saw Caleb’s name on the card, he accused Caleb of trying to show him up by buying his daughter a big gift. I tried to tell him it was half from me, but Linwood wouldn’t listen. He said Tiffany had to give it back. He even tried to take it from her, but she got upset and wouldn’t let go. With the two of them tugging on it, it hit the ground and broke, and Tiffany was just heartbroken. Linwood started kicking it, calling it a piece of junk, and by the time he was done, there wasn’t enough left to try to fix. Tiffany ran to her room crying—she didn’t even want a piece of her own birthday cake.”

  “The poor thing,” I said sympathetically. Tiffany was right on the edge of puberty, a tricky time for anybody. To have had her birthday spoiled that way must have been devastating.

  “That got Sue all worked up, and you know Sue has never been one to sit quietly when Linwood does something she doesn’t like. She lit into him something good, and told him he was going to have to replace that boom box and he’d better do it right quick. He tried to argue with her, but she wasn’t having any, and wouldn’t let up until he got in his truck and took off. Nobody was in the mood for a party after that, so after helping Sue straighten things up, the rest of us left, too.”

  “Did Linwood get the boom box?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, Laurie Anne. I’ve been afraid to ask. You see, that was the night the Woolworth’s caught fire.”

  I stared at her. “You don’t think…?”

  “Laurie Anne, I don’t know what to think. All I know is what I found out from Daphine the next day. She said that Tavis Montgomery called her that night to let her know because of the fire being so close to her shop. Daphine went running down there, but it was all over by the time she showed up, and her shop wasn’t hurt. She asked Tavis what had happened, and he said they were just lucky that Linwood had been driving by when the fire started so he could call for help. Of course, Daphine and Tavis made a big deal of him being a hero and saving all the other businesses, and so did the rest of us when we heard. Hank Parker even put a picture of him in the Gazette.”

  “But you don’t believe that’s what happened?” Richard said.

  “At first, I did. It never occurred to me to think otherwise until the next fire, a couple of weeks later. That night was like Tiffany’s birthday all over again. Caleb and I had stopped over at Linwood’s house, and sat down to watch the basketball game on TV. Then Linwood started arguing with Caleb about which coach is better or some such nonsense. Even though Caleb doesn’t usually let Linwood get to him, there are some things he won’t back down on, and basketball is one of those things.”

  Richard looked mystified, but I nodded. College basketball in North Carolina is darned close to a religion to its rabid fans, and though I didn’t follow that particular faith myself, I was familiar with some of its tenets.

  Aunt Edna said, “Sue finally told Linwood to hush up, and he stormed out the door again, and Caleb and I left not long after that. The next morning, I heard that Drew Wiley’s old chicken coop had burned down, and that Linwood had been the one to find it.”

  I was feeling sick to my stomach by that point, but I could tell from Aunt Edna’s face that there was more to come.

  “Linwood was a hero again,” she said, “but people didn’t make so much of him that time. The chicken coop was nearly falling down already, and there was nothing nearby that could have caught fire. Besides, by that time, everybody in town knew that the Woolworth’s fire had been arson, and it looked as if the chicken-coop fire was, too.”

  She rubbed her eyes wearily. “There have been four or five more fires since then, Laurie Anne: an abandoned barn, somebody’s outhouse, some empty storage buildings. And every one of them was arson.”

  “Was Linwood the first one on the scene for all of them?” I said.

  “No, only the first two. The others were reported anonymously.”

  “Was he away from home every time?”

  Aunt Edna bit her lip. “I’m not sure. I’ve tried to ask Sue, but she won’t even talk to me about it, which is why I think she suspects Linwood, too. I called their house one night and asked for him, and she said he was busy, but when I went by there a few minutes later on my way to the drugstore, his truck wasn’t in the driveway.”

  “Was there a fire that night?” I had to ask.

  “No, not that time,” she said, not sounding much comforted by it. “But it proves that they’ve both been lying to me. Anyway, I imagine y’all can guess why I’m telling y’all all of this. I know it’s not fair for all of us Burnettes to expect you two to solve our problems for us, but when you came to town this week, I thought maybe it was a sign from God that I should ask for help. Laurie Anne, Richard, I want y’all to find out whether or not Linwood is setting these fires.”

  “What do we do if he is?” I asked.

  “We stop him before anybody gets hurt. When Drew’s chicken coop went up, the whole roof collapsed. What if one of the firemen had been in there when it happened? What if Crystal had been in that building that burned today? I’ve read in the paper about old buildings going up and them finding out that homeless people had been living inside without anybody knowing it. Somebody could get killed, Laurie Anne, and that would be on Linwood’s head for the rest of his life.

  “You don’t know how hard it is for me to think this about my own son, but I have to know the truth. If he hasn’t been setting the fires, I’ll beg his forgiveness, but if he has been, we have to stop him.”

  “How?” I had to ask.

  “I don’t know. We’ll get the rest of the family to help if we have to.” She hesitated. “Until then, I’d just as soon you didn’t tell anybody else what I’m thinking. It’s bad enough to suspect my boy of something like this—I couldn’t stand my sisters knowing about it.”

  “What about the police?” I asked softly.

  She looked more troubl
ed than ever. “I’m praying it won’t come to that, Laurie Anne. Would you have to go to Junior?”

  I hesitated. Junior was my friend before she was police chief—I’d edged around the truth with her once already that day, and didn’t like the idea of doing it again. But Linwood was family, even if I didn’t get along with him. Besides, there was Aunt Edna to think of, not to mention Sue and the kids. Weren’t they worth bending the law for? “I don’t know that I can lie outright to Junior,” I said slowly, “but I’ll try to keep her out of it.”

  “Does that mean you’ll help?”

  I glanced at Richard to confirm what I already knew. “We’ll do what we can, Aunt Edna.”

  Tears came to her eyes, and she kneeled between the two of us to pull us both to her. “Y’all just don’t know how much this means to me.”

  Richard and I hugged her back, but when I looked over at him, I could see he was worried. So was I.

  Chapter 13

  Aunt Edna left after that, clearly relieved to know that we were on the job. Though I appreciated her confidence in us, I still felt a little overwhelmed. I’d been worried about only having a week to investigate the Saunders. Now we had to find out about Linwood, too. I slid down on the couch so that my head rested in Richard’s lap.

  “You must love me to put up with this,” I said to him.

  “Yup.”

  “Just yup?”

  “Is there something wrong with ‘yup’?”

  “It’s not exactly Shakespearean.”

  “How about this? ‘Doubt thou the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt that I love.’ Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2.”

  “Much better.” I let him stroke my hair, trying to relax. “First Burt’s Yankees, and now my cousin the arsonist. Maybe it’s time I started learning to say ‘no.’ ”