Fire Walk (A Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud Mystery Book 12)

by Melissa Bowersock

  The frown deepened and Hillenbrand looked at them more closely. “Yes, but that was decades ago.”

  Lacey pulled her notebook from her pack and glanced around. “Is there a place we can sit?”

  He didn’t respond right away. Lacey peered at him hopefully and after a moment’s hesitation, he relented. “Yes, of course. Come on into my office.”

  He led them to the back door from which he’d come, into a bright corner office with windows on two walls. He motioned to two fabric chairs set before a desk while he took the high-backed leather chair behind it.

  “We were looking at property records and saw that the church owned that property from 1921 to 1935.” She glanced up at Hillenbrand, but he made no response. “Do you know of any fires in the church during that time?”

  His blue eyes widened slightly, the smile lines at the corners disappearing. His face turned purposefully blank. “I’m, uh, I’m afraid I’m not the best one to ask about that. I didn’t grow up here, so I’m not terribly familiar.”

  Lacey nodded with a brief, understanding smile. The man was probably late forties, maybe fifty and obviously not old enough to have firsthand knowledge. “So you’ve never heard of such a fire? Do you know why the church moved from that location to this one?”

  “I’m not sure I understand,” he said. His voice was carefully modulated. “What does that have to do with what’s happened there lately?”

  “We’re not sure that it does,” Lacey said sweetly. “But we understand that there’s a… pattern of fires there. We’re just gathering all the data we can right now.” She tipped her head at him expectantly.

  He steepled his hands in front of his mouth and looked from Lacey to Sam and back again. Finally he cleared his throat and set his hands on the armrests of his chair.

  “I’ve heard,” he said, and he stressed that word, “that the church did burn down there. Then they built this one here. But that’s been… years. This church was built in the late 1930s, I believe. Before World War II.”

  Lacey jotted a note. “Might you know the year of that fire?”

  The hands came up again, shadowing his mouth. “No, I don’t.”

  “That’s okay. We can check records on that.” She glanced up from her notes. “Have you ever heard if they found the cause of that fire?”

  His eyes narrowed for just a fraction of a moment. “No. I never heard anything about that.”

  She nodded, as if that were no more than she expected. “Okay; not surprising when it was that long ago. We’ll have to see what we can find in police or newspaper records.” She closed her notebook, then had a thought. “Does Meadeview have a newspaper?”

  “Yes,” he said, scanning his desktop. “The Meadeview Clarion. It’s a once-a-week paper. Comes out on Wednesdays. I think I’ve tossed mine.”

  “No problem,” Lacey assured him. “We’ll find it.” She stood up and put her notebook in her pack, then stuck her hand out. “Thanks so much for your time, Reverend Hillenbrand. We appreciate your help.”

  ~~~

  FIVE

  “He’s lying,” she hissed to Sam as they gained the sidewalk outside. “Did you see how he kept covering his mouth? That’s like someone who says ‘yes’ when they’re shaking their head ‘no.’ It’s unconscious, but it’s a tell.”

  “I don’t know if he’s lying,” Sam said, “but I do know he knows more than he’s saying. And he doesn’t like your line of questioning. That was obvious.”

  “It certainly was.” They arrived back at the corner of Main Street. “Want to go see if housekeeping is done with our room? I need to do some serious research.” She glanced up and down the street, taking in the whole of the business district. “Or we could just walk around until we find stuff.”

  “Room,” Sam said.

  Housekeeping had been there and gone. While Sam cranked up the A/C to combat the August heat outside, Lacey fired up her laptop.

  First thing she did was a global search on the address. Several stories popped up in the Meadeview Clarion. One was about Beau’s planned convenience store. Two were about the fire last year, in 2017. Then two more were about the fire last month.

  “‘Started in the middle of the night… no cause of ignition identified… investigation continuing,’” she read out loud. “Well, that’s helpful. Not.” She checked further down the list of possible matches, but none of them were for Meadeview. Plenty of 401 Main Streets, of course, all across the country.

  She searched on the Clarion itself. The newspaper’s website had a search function of its own, but when she plugged in the address, she only got the same articles to come up. She wondered if they hadn’t digitized the early issues of the paper. That would mean more digging, possibly at the paper office itself. She looked up the address and wrote it in her notebook.

  What else? She searched for a library, in case they needed to go that way. The closest was a Berkshire County Library in Meade Falls. She wrote down the address for that, too, just in case. The county library probably served several of these small towns.

  Frustrated, she sat back in the chair and blew out a heavy breath.

  “No luck?” Sam asked. He lay on the bed with his phone, checking email.

  “Not much,” she admitted. Then an idea popped up in her mind. She did a search on the Methodist Church in Meadeview. And got a ton of hits.

  “Easter egg roll, ice cream social, choir practice, potluck. Looks like the church is the main social site,” she told Sam. She scanned the list of articles, dismissing most out of hand, but then her eyes caught on a date: 1931. The article was actually dated 1943. She read with interest.

  The First Methodist Church will be holding its first churchyard cleanup effort on Decoration Day, May 31, 1943. Members and non-members alike are invited to come out and join in the community effort to weed the grounds and restore the gravestones to their proper positions. This is the first major restoration project since the churchyard was moved to its present location from the old church at 41 Main Street in 1931.

  “Sam,” she called over her shoulder. “Listen to this.” She reread the article out loud, and by the time she finished, he was hunched behind her, reading over her shoulder.

  “What’s Decoration Day?” he asked.

  “I think that’s the forerunner of Memorial Day. Same date, at least. You did say the church on Main Street had a graveyard.”

  “Yeah. It was next to the church on the right side.”

  “So when the church burned down and they decided to relocate, they moved all the graves to a new location, too.”

  Sam stood upright. “So the fire was before 1931.”

  “Right.” She scanned the article again and had a brainstorm. “Did you notice the address?”

  Sam leaned in. “Forty-one? I thought it was four-oh-one.”

  “It is—now.” She plugged the early address into the search engine. “They must have renumbered addresses at some point. Maybe when the town really started to grow.” The computer chewed on the address and spit out several hits.

  “Bingo,” she said.

  The dateline was June 19, 1928.

  Deadly Fire Razes Church

  A deadly fire claimed the Methodist Church at 41 Main Street in the early morning hours Sunday. The volunteer fire department was called out, but the structure was already fully engulfed, and their efforts to stem the fire were unsuccessful. In the investigation that followed, it was determined that the fire claimed one life, that of eighteen-year-old Harmony Stowe, the church organist. Reverend Calder expressed shock and sadness at the development. “She was a lovely child, although she’d been experiencing some emotional problems. We shall pray for her immortal soul.” The cause of the fire has not been determined, but the investigation continues.

  Lacey turned sideways in her chair and up to Sam. “This has to be her.”

  Sam’s eyes were still darting across the lines of text, but his mouth was a thin, hard line. “Yes,” he said finally. “That has
to be her.” He reread the last bit. “‘Emotional problems.’ That’s putting it lightly.”

  “I need to print this out.” She left the window open in her browser until she could connect to a printer in the hotel’s business center, and opened a new one to the Clarion’s search engine. This time she typed in Harmony Stowe.

  October 27, 1926

  Harmony Finds a Home

  Harmony Stowe, sixteen-year-old daughter of Harold and Ramona Stowe, has found a home in more ways than one. When her parents were killed in an automobile accident last month, the girl was taken in by reverend Emmitt Calder and his wife, Agnes, to help with the family’s three children. Very soon the reverend discovered that Harmony possessed an angelic skill on the piano and he installed her at the organ in the Methodist Church to the delight of churchgoers. Harmony has truly found her home, both with the Calders and within the musical hymns of the church, a fitting place indeed.

  There was even a grainy photograph of the girl at the organ in the church. She wore a flower-print dress and her dark shoulder-length hair was pulled back on the top and tied with a ribbon, while the rest curled loosely across her shoulders. She was not looking at the camera, but concentrating only on her playing.

  “Pretty girl,” Lacey said.

  “Hmm,” Sam agreed. “So what would drive a pretty teenaged girl to burn down a church?”

  Lacey went back to the search results for Harmony Stowe. The only other mentions were as organist for the church during holiday services: Palm Sunday, Easter, Christmas. Lacey checked the dates on those; they ranged from October 1926 to July 1927.

  “Look at this,” she said. “She’s only mentioned as the organist until July of 1927, almost a year before the fire. Was she sacked? Kicked out of the church for some reason? It would seem to me if she was pissed about being kicked out, she would have retaliated before that.”

  “That is weird,” Sam said.

  “So what would get her kicked out of the church?” Lacey ticked off the reasons on her fingers. “Committing a crime, illicit sex, drug use. What else?”

  “I don’t know much about the Methodist Church,” Sam said. “Do they ban dancing, smoking, drinking? Wearing shorts, going to movies? I know some churches were that strict back then.” He angled his head toward her. “Remember Footloose?”

  “I think I’ve seen bits and pieces of it,” she said. “I don’t know how strict the Methodist Church is, either, but I would guess it was stricter back in the ‘20s than it is now.” She stared at the screen. “I need to print some of this stuff. I’m going to call the front desk.”

  She got the address and password of the printer and sent several articles off to be printed. As soon as the last one was launched across the airwaves, she went down to the office and picked them up. When she returned to the room, Sam was lying on his half of the bed with his cell phone, and she sat cross-legged on the other half and spread the articles out on the bedspread around her. She arranged them in chronological order and pondered the evolution of the story.

  “What do you think?” Sam asked. He put his phone aside and scanned the papers.

  “Well, the break, apparently, is here between July 1927 and June 1928. I think the first thing we should do is check with the police department and see if they have any criminal record for Harmony.”

  “Will they have records that old?”

  “No clue.” She shrugged. “We’ll just keep our fingers crossed.”

  “Where’s the police station?”

  She grinned. “Across the street.”

  She folded up the articles and put them in her notebook but decided to leave her pack in the room. They weren’t going to interrogate anyone, just ask for records. No sense going in like Rambo.

  The afternoon sun slanted across town and gave it a golden glow. The soft breeze was cooling to the skin. Lacey realized they could put a picture on a postcard and sell it as Small Town, USA. But even the prettiest small towns had dark underbellies.

  The police station was a square corner building across the street, putty-colored stucco with one wide front window and a windowed front door. As they pushed inside, a small bell dinged above the door.

  The front was only about a quarter of the building, cut off from the desks and offices in the back by a long wooden counter. A uniformed officer behind a desk noted their arrival and came to meet them at the counter.

  “Can I help you?” He was tall and slightly overweight—a big kid. Lacey thought he could not be thirty. He had dark hair cut in a buzz cut, a round face and cornflower blue eyes.

  “Yes. We’d like to put in a request for records according to the Freedom of Information Act.” Lacey smiled sweetly to soften the heavy-handed request. She knew the mention of the FIA always got their attention, and not always in a good way.

  “The, uh, Freedom, uh…”

  “You probably have a form for that, don’t you? For any time anyone needs public records?”

  The kid’s brow crinkled and his mouth turned down in puzzlement. He checked underneath the counter, pulling out papers and binders from cubby holes on his side, but obviously wasn’t finding anything that looked like what he needed. Lacey glanced at his name tag: Officer J. Bowen. He couldn’t have more than a handful of years on the force.

  “Uh, let me, uh, check,” he said finally. He pushed the last binder back under the counter and went to an office door to the side of the open desk area. Opening the door part way, he stuck his head in and spoke to someone.

  Almost immediately, he backed out and stood aside to allow another officer to precede him.

  The senior officer was almost as tall but not as heavy as the kid. He, too, sported a buzz cut, although the stubble on his head was considerably thinner than Bowen’s. He strode directly to the counter, the kid in tow.

  “Afternoon, folks.” His voice was breezy, confident. “What can I help you with?”

  “We’d like to request some records as per the Freedom of Information Act,” Lacey repeated with a smile.

  The officer took a stance at the counter, both forearms resting on the surface. “What kind of records?”

  “Public records,” Lacey said. “Police records.”

  “Uh huh.” The officer, T. Malby his name tag said, glanced from Lacey to Sam and back again, as if trying to decide if they were trouble-makers or not.

  “We’re private investigators,” Lacey supplied. She slid her card across the counter. “We need to see if you have any criminal records for a woman named Harmony Stowe.”

  Malby frowned as he read the card. “Harmony Stowe? Don’t know the name.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Lacey said. “She died in 1928.”

  The senior officer’s head jerked up. “Nineteen twenty-eight?”

  “Yes. Do you have records back that far?”

  Malby chewed on his lower lip. Lacey guessed he’d like to say no.

  “Yes. The department was created in 1919.”

  “Oh, great.” She smiled to Sam. “Is there a form we need to fill out?”

  “Hold on.” Malby strode back to his office, leaving Bowen to stand there with an uncertain look on his face. A moment later, the senior officer came back with a form.

  “Here you go.” He slid it over to Lacey and glanced back at Bowen. “In the file cabinet,” he said. Bowen nodded.

  “Do you have a pen?”

  Malby grabbed a pen from below the counter and slid that to Lacey, too.

  “So how come you’re investigating a woman who died in 1928?” he asked.

  “We’re actually looking into the property at 401 Main, where the fire was. That place seems to have a history of fires.”

  “Our investigation there hasn’t been concluded,” he said. There was a slight warning tone there.

  “We know.” She didn’t look up from her task. “That’s okay. We won’t be in your way.” She finished up the form and spun it around toward Malby. “I believe the usual window is five business days,” she said. “I
f at all possible, we’d love to have it sooner. I put both my cell number and my email address there. We’re staying at the hotel across the street.”

  Malby read over the form to make sure everything was filled in, and took his time about it. Finally he looked up at Lacey and Sam and nodded. “Okay. We’ll be in touch.”

  “Thank you.” Lacey smiled brightly at both officers, then she and Sam turned to go.

  Outside on the sidewalk, Sam rubbed shoulders as they walked.

  “What was that?” he asked.

  “Oh, just throwing their muscle around. Most cops aren’t crazy about private investigators. They’ll get over it… or not.”

  They stood on the corner.

  “What now?” she asked.

  He took her wrist and checked her watch. “Early dinner?”

  She shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

  ~~~

  SIX

  Abby was on the job. The cheerful chatterbox showed them to a booth, took their drink orders and left them to ponder their dinner choices.

  “Maybe we’ll need to check out those hiking trails sooner rather than later,” Lacey said. “There’s nothing here less than two thousand calories.”

  “Salad,” Sam said, not looking up.

  “I’m not a rabbit,” she grumbled.

  Abby returned with their iced tea and took their orders. “How you folks doing in our fine town?”

  “Great,” Lacey said. “It’s very pretty.”

  “You been to the creek yet?”

  Lacey looked up and handed over her menu. “No. Where’s that?”

  “Just back up the hill a little ways. If you go down Main a couple blocks—well, you’ll see a place where a building burned down—just behind that, through the forest, there’s a trail. It’s real pretty.”

  “We’ll check it out. Thanks.”

  While they waited for their food, Lacey drummed her fingers on the table.

  “Where else can we go to find Harmony’s story?” she mused. “She died in the fire, so apparently didn’t marry, so left behind no family, no descendents who might have heard her story. Do you think the church might have kept any records of why she was dismissed? If she was dismissed.” She had a thought and turned her eyes on Sam. “What if she just quit? What if she didn’t do anything wrong, but just left? Wanted to get out of the little town and see the world?”