by Jessica Beck
"You hit a nerve, there’s no doubt about it. I just wonder if that’s why she’s leaving town so suddenly."
"Do you think she stole something of value from one of her customers?" I asked him.
"I don’t know, but I kind of doubt it. I’m more inclined to believe that she garnered some information from something someone left behind, and she’s getting out of town while she can."
"Moose, she was angry, not frightened, when I asked her the question."
"That’s exactly how some folks react when they’re scared. Did you see her eyes?"
I admitted, "No, I was so shocked by the way she responded to my innocent question that she caught me completely off-guard."
"Well, I was looking straight at her, and they dilated the second she heard what you were asking. Something’s going on there that we don’t know about yet."
"I’m not all that surprised," I said. "To be honest with you, I’ve felt lost during most of this investigation."
"It’s a stumper, there’s no doubt about it. This does speed up our timetable, though. I’ve got a hunch that Penny might be tied into whatever’s been happening around here."
"Would you mind sharing with me what you’re basing that on?" I asked.
"Would you be satisfied if I told you that it was nothing more than years and years of experience dealing with people of all types?"
"Not really, but do I have any choice?"
"No, as a matter of fact, you don’t," Moose said with the hint of a chuckle in her voice.
"I didn’t think so. Where should we go next? Should we stop by the hospital and check on Ron? I’d love to hear exactly what it was that he was so desperate to tell me."
"I’m afraid that there’s no need. I already touched base with Gracie. She said there was no change in Ron, and they don’t expect anything for three or four days."
"I was afraid of that," I said. "So, where does that leave us?"
Moose thought about it for nearly a full minute before he said, "I think we should take another swing at Jan Bain. She should be at Wally’s place by now, but I’ve got a hunch that she’s not going to be here much longer, either. Victoria, if we’re not careful, we’re going to lose all of our suspects before we’ve had a chance to figure out who was behind stabbing Wally Bain."
"I just hope Sheriff Croft is having more luck than we are," I said.
"I’ve got a bad feeling that he hasn’t," Moose said.
"What have you heard?" I asked him.
"Not a thing, at least nothing that you haven’t heard yourself."
"Then why do you think he’s spinning his wheels as badly as we are?" I asked.
"Not only has there been no arrest in Wally’s murder, I haven’t heard a single rumor around town that he’s even getting close. Have you?"
I thought about it, and then I shook my head. "Folks have been surprisingly quiet about who might have killed Wally, now that I think about it, and I haven’t even heard a whisper that the sheriff’s about to arrest anyone."
"There you go," Moose said as he started the truck. "At least that means that we’re still in the race."
"I wouldn’t mind losing it, to be honest with you," I said. "All I want is for Wally’s murderer to get caught and go to jail."
"Then we both need to keep digging," Moose said.
"Let’s go see Jan," I agreed.
Chapter 11
"Is that smoke ahead?" I asked as we headed down the highway toward Wally Bain’s farm.
"It is," Moose said as he sped up. Behind us, I heard first one siren, and then another. "We’ve got to hurry."
"Is it Wally’s place, or Sally’s?" I asked.
"From here, it might even be Abel’s house," Moose said. "We won’t know until we get closer."
I thought about the eccentric old man’s living quarters, and how proud he was of where he lived. I would hate to see him lose the place, since he’d been so ingenious developing it all. It was literally a lifetime of work for him, and I knew that if something happened to his homestead, there would be no way that he’d ever be able to ever replicate it.
As we got closer, Moose said, "Well, at least it’s not Abel’s place. It’s too close to the highway."
I wasn’t sure why, but I was a little relieved to hear the news. Someone was going to lose something that mattered to them, but at least it wasn’t the old man that I’d recently grown so fond of.
The closer we got to the smoke, the more I began to realize that it was Wally Bain’s property, though I still wasn’t sure if it was his house, his barn, or both.
"Do you think Jan made it out in time if she was in there?" I asked.
Moose just shrugged. "It’s too soon to tell. I just hope we’re in time if somebody needs our help."
As we pulled into the drive in front of the house, I saw a sudden movement back in the woods away from the house.
Someone was running away!
"Moose, look over there!"
He followed my pointing finger, and a split second later, the person I’d spotted was gone.
"Did you see who it was, too?" I asked, feeling sick to my stomach about who I’d just witnessed running away from the burning house.
"It was Abel Link," Moose said, his voice heavy with sadness. "I can’t believe that he’d do something like this."
"It doesn’t make any sense," I said as the volunteer fire trucks started to arrive, with Sheriff Croft’s police cruiser not far behind them.
At least Jan’s car was nowhere to be seen.
We got out of Moose’s truck and were immediately met by the sheriff. "Any idea what happened here?" he asked us as we all stared at the blaze.
The fire chief, a man named Simon Hester who carried the insurance policy on our diner in his day job, came over before we could answer the sheriff. "Is there anybody inside?"
"Not that we know of," I said. "But we just got here."
That’s when Jan Bain drove up in her Cadillac. She got out of her car and started toward the house. I could feel the heat radiating from the blaze onto my face, and the smells coming from the inferno were entirely unpleasant. There were pops, bangs, and even a small explosion or two as the fire began to consume the house in real earnest now.
"What happened?" she asked in disbelief.
"We don’t know yet," Chief Hester answered. "Jan, do you have any reason to believe that anyone might be inside the house?"
"Nobody’s in there," Jan said as she kept her gaze on the leaping the flames.
"Are you absolutely sure?" Chief Hester asked again.
"If they are, they had to have broken in to get there. I deadbolted the door behind me when I left the place two hours ago, so I’m as sure as I can be."
The fire chief nodded, and then he started walking back toward his men, shouting directions as he walked. It was clear that they were making no effort to save the structure.
Jan shouted after him, "Aren’t you going to do anything to try to stop the fire?"
"There’s nothing we can do about the house," Chief Hester said calmly. "We’ll keep the ground wet between the house and the barn, but there’s nothing we can do to save your brother’s house. It’s too far gone. I’m truly sorry."
Jan couldn’t believe it. "Do you honestly mean to stand there and tell me that you’re not even going to try?"
He sighed heavily, and Sheriff Croft stepped in. "Ma’am, there are no fire hydrants out here, so all they have is what’s in their pumper truck. All anybody can do is to watch it as it burns, and try to make sure that it doesn’t spread."
Jan walked off to be alone, and the rest of us respected that desire. I noticed that Simon and his all-volunteer crew kept wetting the land between the barn and the house, but otherwise, they gave the fire itself a healthy respect in distance.
The sheriff waited until the volunteer firefighting crew was busy before he walked over to us and asked Moose, "How did you two happen to end up out here just as the place caught fire?"
"It was purely a coincidence. We came out here to speak with Jan," Moose said.
"But she wasn’t here when you got here," he pointed out.
"True, but we didn’t know that at the time," I replied.
"What did you want to talk to her about?"
"Her brother, Ron Watkins, you name it, we were going to grill her," I said.
"So, you were on a fishing expedition," the sheriff said softly.
"Sometimes it works, but most times it doesn’t, not that I have to tell you that. This is so frustrating," I said. "We keep hitting dead-end after dead-end. How about you?"
"I’m not ready to share just yet," he said. "So, there’s nothing you can add to what we’re watching here?"
I looked in Moose’s direction, but he refused to make eye contact. I knew that he and Abel were good friends, and it went against everything my grandfather believed in to turn in a friend, but this was too important to keep to ourselves.
"We saw someone running away into the woods when we got here," I said. Moose glanced in my direction, but it was my turn to dodge his glance this time.
"Why didn’t you tell me that when I first got here?" the sheriff asked as he stared into the nearby woods.
"Because it wouldn’t have done you one bit of good," Moose said finally. "You never would have caught him."
"I’m better than you think I am," Sheriff Croft said.
"You might be, but the man we saw knows these woods better than you know your own pantry at home."
"It was Abel Link," I said, so that Moose wouldn’t be the one who had to give up his friend’s name to the police.
"Are you trying to tell me that Abel started this fire?" the sheriff asked us in disbelief.
"We’re not saying any such thing," Moose said. "It’s like Victoria just told you, Sheriff. We got here, and then we saw Abel run away from the fire. That’s all we know."
"If he didn’t start this, why would he run?" Sheriff Croft asked.
"Maybe to keep us all from jumping to the same conclusion that you just did," I said. "I can’t believe Abel would do such a thing."
"The man’s half-crazy," Sheriff Croft. "Who knows what he is capable of?"
The sheriff headed toward his cruiser, but I stepped in front of him. "What are you going to do now?"
"Not that I need to approve it with you first, but I’m going to go look for Abel Link."
Moose shook his head as he joined me in blocking the sheriff’s path back to his cruiser. "You’ll never find him, and you know it. The man’s as slippery as smoke in a hurricane."
"Nevertheless, I have to try," the sheriff said.
"You’re not going to hurt him if you find him, are you?" I asked.
"I won’t do anything that I don’t have to do," he said solemnly.
"That’s not very reassuring," I replied.
"Sorry, but that’s not in my job description at the moment. Now, are you two going to step out of my way, or am I going to have to arrest you both for obstruction of justice?"
"There’s no need for that," I said as I pulled Moose out of his way. "We’re on the same side, after all, remember?"
The sheriff didn’t answer; he just stepped past us, got into his car, and drove away.
Jan watched him leave, and then she approached us. "Who would do something like this? It’s horrible."
I wasn’t about to tell her that we’d seen Abel leaving the premises. "It surely is. Did you lose much in the fire?"
"No, I was just about finished cleaning the place out, at least of everything I wanted. Thank goodness I stayed somewhere else last night."
"How do you think this is going to affect the sale of the land to Sally Ketchum?" Moose asked.
Jan frowned instantly. "To be honest with you, I’d forgotten all about that," she said. "I suppose she still wants the property for the land, but I can’t very well charge her the same price as though there was a house still standing on the property."
As if on cue, at that moment there was a tremendous crack coming from the house, and the roof collapsed in on itself. The flames whooshed up from the sudden influx of air, and the smells became even more acrid as the breeze began to pick up, spreading the stench of the fire all around us. A few sections of flaming debris shot toward the barn, and Chief Hester’s crew drowned them instantly. Though they were all just volunteers, they were an ambitious lot, and I doubted any flames would get past them. Once the roof collapsed and the flare-up that had ensued, the fire began to settle down in on itself again.
The chief left his crew for a moment and approached us as his volunteers kept up their vigilance blocking the last whisper of flames that tried to make their way to the barn.
"I don’t suppose the place was insured," Jan said as she looked at the charred remains of what had so recently been a house.
I wasn’t sure the fire chief had even heard her until he replied. "Wally was careful to keep his premiums paid up in full every six months, just like clockwork."
Was that a reflection of fire in Martha’s eyes, or was it an actual glimmer of hope? "I’m surprised that he even had insurance."
"It wasn’t for a ton of money, but at least it should help some," Chief Hester said.
"Pardon me for saying so, but isn’t it odd that you’d be so conversant about my brother’s insurance policy without checking into it first? Surely you must service hundreds of folks around here, so how could you possibly know what kind of coverage Wally carried on the house?"
"Well, he dropped his premium payment off at my office two days before he was murdered, so it’s not likely to be something I’d ever forget. As a matter of fact, I was going to head out here tomorrow anyway and ask you if you wanted to continue the policy."
"Why wouldn’t I?" she asked.
"I heard you were selling the place," the fire chief said. "Was that not the case?"
"It was true enough then, though I don’t know what I could get for the property now. I’m not even sure Sally Ketchum wants it anymore."
"I’m willing to bet that she’s more interested in the land than the house or the barn," I said. "No offense intended."
Jan laughed, but there was a hollowness in it that hit me the wrong way. "How on earth could I be offended by that? I know the place was a dump. I didn’t need anybody else to point it out to me."
"It might have looked a little rundown," Moose said, "but as far as I could tell, the house had solid bones to it, a structure that could have stood another hundred years if someone hadn’t set it all on fire. Do you have any idea who might have done it?"
She looked shocked that my grandfather was even asking her the question. "Do you mean all of this wasn’t an accident?"
The fire chief shook his head. "There’s no way of knowing that just yet."
"But what if it were set intentionally?" I asked.
"How should I know? I left Jasper Fork a long time ago, and if I’d had my wish, I never would have come back here."
"You keep complaining about growing up here. Was it really all that bad when you lived here?" I asked softly.
"It was worse than you might imagine," she said. "I’ll be well rid of it." She shook her head as she looked around, and then she said, "There’s obviously nothing I can do here. I’m headed over to Sally’s to see if she’s still interested in buying the property. I can’t imagine what I’ll be able to get for it, but at this point, I’m not sure that I care all that much. Wally’s funeral is tomorrow, and I’m going to try to get the sale through as quickly as I can. I want to be finished with all of this and get back to my real life."
Jan got into her car and drove away.
Moose turned to the fire chief and asked him, "Simon, do you have any idea what made her so bitter?"
The insurance man looked around, but there was nobody near us. Still, in a lowered voice, he said, "I’m not surprised that you never heard about it, no matter how well connected you were to the pulse of the town back in the day. It was all kept pretty hush-hush, and t
he only reason I found out about it myself was because they needed me. Did you ever wonder about Jan’s bright red muscle car she had when she lived in town?"
I remembered the hot red Camaro, since I’d ridden in it more than once. "I thought she took it with her when she left," I said.
"No, she was driving an old Dodge when she left town for good. The fact is that Jan totaled her car on her way to Molly’s Corners late one night a few days before she took off. There was something odd about that wreck, though. I had a feeling that someone else was driving that night, but I could never prove it, and we had no choice but to pay off the claim."
"Who could have been driving?" I asked. Had Jan had some kind of secret life back then that I didn’t know about?
"There was talk, but I’m not sure anyone ever knew except Jan, and her passenger. One rumor said it had been Wally, drunk and a little crazy, but other folks thought it might be Penny or Sally. The three of them were all friends back then, as thick as thieves. Anyway, it was a long time ago, and the insurance barely covered the used car she bought. I think that’s why the company didn’t want to investigate. It would have probably cost them a great deal more than just paying off the small claim. It always stuck in my craw, though."
"Chief, we might as well pack up and go home. This thing isn’t going to spread," one of his volunteers said, just as there was another loud pop from inside the smoldering remains and fiery debris shot everywhere.
"Do you want to stand by what you just said, or reconsider, Mitchell?" he asked as he pointed to the glowing hot spots near the barn.
"Never mind," the volunteer said. They hosed down the embers, and then hit the house’s remains again with a steady stream of water.
"I didn’t think you were going to try to fight it at all," I asked.
"We’re not, but another pumper’s coming out from Molly’s Corners, and I’d just as soon get this thing put out before we have any more incidents."
As the water hit the charred remains of the house, hisses of steam and walls of smoke sprang up into the air.
Chief Hester said, "Moose, you might want to move your truck. We’re going to have four different pumpers here before we’re through."
