“Jesse,” I said quietly. I went toward Charlie. “Where’s Jesse?” I could hear the fear in my voice. I could see from Charlie’s confusion he heard it too.
“Inside,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Greg handcuffed Charlie while Mike went into the house. I tried to push by them to find Jesse, dread growing with each step.
“Don’t come any closer.”
I stopped. The house was dark, but that didn’t matter. It was Jesse’s voice. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Nell. Get out of the house.”
“You too.”
“The floor. It’s collapsing around me. Charlie was trying to warn us,” Jesse said. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I could see his shape. He was standing in what had been a doorway between the kitchen and the dining room. I was where Charlie had been. Between us there was a huge gap that had, just moments before, been a hardwood floor.
“Mike, go around back,” Jesse said to the officer. “Charlie said there’s a ladder in the toolshed at the back. I’ll try to make my way back toward the kitchen and maybe we can lay the ladder across the holes.”
Mike left quickly, but I stood there, watching Jesse, assuring myself that he was okay. “What was the shot?” I asked.
“When a part of the floor collapsed, Charlie’s rifle fell into the hole and discharged,” Jesse said. “And who knows how much longer the rest of the floor will stand, so unless you want to fall into the basement, get out of the house. Now.”
I began a careful backtrack. The floor groaned slightly under my feet, and I got to the front door just as another section of wood cracked.
* * *
Charlie sat in the backseat of the squad car, his hands cuffed in front of him. I opened the door on the other side and sat with him. Greg and Mike were helping Jesse find a way out through the back door, and my watching would only make me more worried.
“What were you doing at the house?” I asked Charlie.
“Trying to get some things; you know, clothes and stuff. Whatever I could salvage.”
“What was the rifle for?”
“It was my dad’s.” He rested his head back against the seat. “My house is gone, Nell. I should have done something to check the wiring. I just hadn’t gotten to it and now there’s nothing. My room was above the kitchen, my parents’ room next to that. I tried to get up there to see if anything could be saved, but the stairs are shaky. I don’t even know if I have a change of clothes.”
“Does someone have a grudge against you?”
“No, why?’
“Because it wasn’t the wiring. Someone burned this down on purpose.”
Charlie blinked slowly, taking it in. “I haven’t lived in town in more than twelve years. I’ve only been back about six months.”
“What about Bill Davis? He seemed pretty upset with you the other day.”
“That was . . . no. It was a misunderstanding. He wouldn’t torch my house. Whoever did it could have killed me.”
That brought up an interesting point. “The fire started when you weren’t home, right? Because if you were home, you would have smelled smoke right away, stopped it before it got so out of control.”
“I was out for a walk.”
“Where?’
“By the river.”
“The river is pitch-black at night, especially in the winter. If you wanted to take a walk on a freezing cold night, why not go through town where there are lights, and people?”
“Because there would be lights and people.”
“So no one saw you?”
Charlie shook his head. “I didn’t burn my own house down. I know that’s what you think.”
“It’s not what I think.”
“I bet that’s what the whole town thinks.”
They didn’t yet, but once word of the arson got out, it would be easy to make the leap. I patted his arm. “It’s going to be okay.”
“How do you know?”
“Because.” I couldn’t think of a reason, so I just left it at that. I looked out the car window at the mangers and snowmen and Santa Claus decorations adorning the other houses in the neighborhood.
Because Christmas is five days way, and this guy who teaches kids, fights for his country, and is thoughtful enough to salvage a box of old sewing stuff can’t spend it in jail. That’s why.
Chapter 7
The police station was only a few blocks from Charlie’s house, and less than half a mile from mine. It didn’t take me long to head home and return to town with a few things for Charlie. But in the time I was gone I’d gotten three calls asking if Charlie was under arrest for burning his own house down. I could see why people were wondering. He had been handcuffed and put in a squad car. And Jesse had brought him to the station, gotten his official statement, and showed him to Archers Rest’s only jail cell. It’s illegal to cross police tape, even to go into your own home, Jesse explained. And with Charlie’s disappearing act yesterday, locking him up, even on such a small charge, was the only way to keep an eye on him.
When I got to the station, Jesse was waiting for me at the reception desk. He looked about as miserable as anyone could. I knew he took no pleasure in locking up his old friend, and if I could talk him out of it I was determined to. But that was a big if.
“What have you got there?” He pointed to the two quilted tote bags I was holding.
I put down one bag and took out a Jacob’s ladder quilt from the other. The pattern is just four-patches and half-square triangles, but it looks more complicated than it is. It wasn’t my prettiest quilt, or my most well made, but it was my largest. “I brought this for Charlie. Your blankets are prison blankets.”
Jesse smiled a little. “That’s sweet of you. He’s not a prisoner, though. Not officially. I’m not entering him into the books unless I have to, so Charlie doesn’t have a record. I need to know where he is, that’s all, and he just has nowhere else to go.”
“What about the bed-and-breakfast?”
“Full up. Some New York family rented the whole place through Christmas.”
“What about your place?”
Jesse hesitated. “I have a six-year-old daughter. If, and I’m not saying for sure he did anything, but if he did burn down the house . . .”
“I get that,” I said. Jesse was wrong about Charlie committing arson, but he had Allie to protect and I was all for his being careful. “He can come home with me. We have a pullout sofa in the sewing room.”
“Same answer. If anything happened to you or Eleanor . . .”
“What about one of his neighbors, or someone from the school?”
“I asked him. He said he wants to be alone to think things out. Besides, it’s already all over town that it was arson. I don’t think a lot of people will let him . . .” He left the sentence unfinished. “I mean, just in case . . .”
“Then we have to prove he didn’t start the fire. He needs a place to live. He needs friends.”
“He has you.” Jesse nodded toward my quilt.
“He needs more than me.”
I grabbed my quilt and the second bag and headed toward the cell. It was locked. Insurance purposes, Jesse assured me. Apparently you can’t let people spend the night in a cell and leave it open. But it still seemed cruel. Jesse unlocked it for me, leaned against the cell door, and I sat on the cot across from Charlie, who sat staring at the quilt I’d brought him as if I’d given him something worth millions.
“Oliver had a couple of sweaters at the house he said you could have.” I lifted them out of the bag and handed them over to Charlie. “He’s almost as tall as you, but maybe a bit bigger in the middle.” I smiled, but Charlie seemed too overwhelmed to comment. “And Eleanor sent some ginger cake and a flask of coffee.” I took the items from the second bag. “It�
�s decaf, so you can sleep.”
“Thanks. Don’t think I’ll sleep much, though.”
“Charlie, tell me exactly what happened last night. When did you leave the house?”
“About seven-thirty. I wanted a smoke and my mom would never let me smoke in the house. So even now I leave the house when I want a cigarette. Dumb, I know, but it’s still her house, you know, so it’s her rules. But when I got about half a mile from home, I realized I’d forgotten my lighter.”
“So you went home?’
“No. I needed to think.”
“About what?”
He shrugged. “I don’t belong here anymore. I’ve been gone too long and everyone is dead. I mean, I guess I don’t have anyone here anymore.”
“You have friends,” Jesse said.
Charlie nodded but didn’t look convinced. “I was trying to figure out if I should just pack up. Go somewhere for a fresh start.”
I had done exactly that myself. Just over a year ago, after a broken engagement, I’d come to visit my grandmother in Archers Rest, and stayed. I started a new, and better, life that included quilting, Jesse, lots of new friends, and an occasional attempt at amateur sleuthing. I didn’t disagree with Charlie that maybe his happiness lay outside the boundaries of town, but his problems were no longer going to be solved by a change of address card. Our surroundings were proof of that.
“What time did you get back to the house?”
“Maybe eight-thirty. I’m not sure.” He stopped and took a minute to find his voice again. “When I got back to the house, I tried to go inside, but it was too smoky. When I came back out, Mr. Schultz, across the street, told me he’d already called the fire department.”
“Where did you go last night? I saw you leaving when the fire was being put out.”
“I drove to Peekskill and got a room at a motel. I called the school this morning, and they told me to take some time off to deal with things,” he said. “What they meant was they didn’t want me around the kids.”
“That’s not true.” I looked up at Jesse to second what I’d said, but he nodded slightly and it told me all I needed to know. The school was pushing Charlie out for fear he was a danger to the students. With Allie in the first grade there, as much as I wanted to rail against the unfairness of it, I could see why parents would need to be certain of Charlie’s innocence.
“Everything’s gone,” Charlie said. “My mom’s stuff, her photos, everything. I went back tonight to see what I could save, and the only thing that didn’t seem too damaged was my dad’s hunting rifle. And now that’s in the basement, and who knows when I’ll be able to get it back.”
Charlie seemed to lose whatever strength he had just thinking about the scope of his loss. He lay back on the cot, wrapping the quilt around him, and stared up at the ceiling.
Jesse locked the door as I left the cell, and we went to his office to chat. Something had to be done. I just didn’t know where to start.
“You had a file labeled ‘Davis,’ ” I said when Jesse and I were alone.
“Did I?” He sighed. “Nell, that has nothing to do with this.”
“But if Bill Davis . . . They were fighting at the school and he seems like a bit of a hothead.”
“They had some differences about after-school programs. You really think that would lead to arson?”
“No.” I hated to admit it, because it was the only lead I had. “What about Mrs. Davis?”
“Because her husband had an argument with Charlie? Really, Nell, I know you want to help, but you’re grasping at straws.”
“No. Well, maybe. I just meant . . .” I didn’t know what I meant. “Allie had Mrs. Davis last year, didn’t she? As her kindergarten teacher. What was she like?”
“She was great. She’s really given her heart and soul to those kids. I don’t know what she’s going to do once the Archers Rest kindergarten class joins up with Morristown.”
“When is that happening?”
“September,” he said. “There’s only about a half a dozen kids entering kindergarten next year, so it just makes sense.”
“The fire department and now the kindergarten. We’re being taking over by Morristown.” It all seemed so sad. “I wonder what we’ll lose next.”
“It’s a good thing Archers Rest has so many crimes, or else I’d be gone too.” He winked at me. “So how’s your Christmas shopping going? I’m all done.”
“I still have a few gifts to get.”
“I hope whatever you’ve gotten me is as good as what I got you.” He was teasing. Nothing could be solved tonight and I could see he was ready to lighten his mood after a long, difficult evening. But as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t play along. Charlie was sitting in a cell with a quilt and some hand-me-down sweaters as his only possessions, and Archers Rest was being swallowed bit by bit by the larger town next door. We were losing something important, the sense that Archers Rest wasn’t just a dot on a map but a community of people who supported one another, and believed in one another. How to get that back seemed a bigger mystery than the identity of the arsonist.
Chapter 8
“Make a list of all the supplies we need for the Christmas party,” Eleanor instructed me the next morning at the shop.
“And a list of all the suspects . . . ,” I said. I was off in my own world, and I had been all morning.
“Excuse me?”
“If Charlie didn’t burn his house down, then someone did.”
“Nell, Christmas Eve is three days away.”
“Exactly. We need to figure this out quickly so Charlie can go home for Christmas. Well, go somewhere. So someone will open their home to him once we prove he didn’t have anything to do with the fire.”
“We have the party at the library on Christmas Eve, the benefit for Morristown’s fire department,” Eleanor said. I remembered; I just didn’t care anymore.
“Charlie feels like he doesn’t belong in Archers Rest. And now, with no home and no job and half the town thinking he’s an arsonist, I don’t blame him. I need to help him, Grandma—even if it means that I can’t do anything for the benefit,” I said. “I’m sorry. I know that’s important too.”
Eleanor studied me a long time, with the same expression Jesse said I often gave him when I was thinking about something important. Then she walked to her office, waking poor Barney from his usual all-day nap. “It’s time to open the shop. I’ll be busy, but you can handle it.”
All morning we had a steady stream of women in colorful clothes, and “I love stripping” buttons, running into their Internet friends and turning the shop into a party. Excited quilters grabbed precut fabrics, kits, yardage—anything they could get their hands on. It was festive but distracting.
Sprinkled in with the shop hoppers were townspeople trying to get the news on Charlie. “If he did it, then he didn’t mean it,” Bernie said. Our pharmacist and a member of my quilt group, Bernie was always ready to see past a mistake. And that’s what she felt this was, Charlie making a mistake.
“He’s sad,” Dru Ann Love, our local librarian, offered. “Too much loss. He acted out and it got out of control.”
The other women in the shop nodded in agreement. That was the general consensus. While a few people were relieved that “unstable” Charlie was locked up, most felt that though he was guilty it wasn’t his fault. Since the house was his, free and clear, no crime had been committed and no one was hurt but Charlie. A couple of them even had sharp words for Jesse for locking up that poor man. But no one made offers to open their home to him, or speculated about the real guilty party. For all their support, no one seemed to think Charlie was innocent.
As the afternoon wore on and I waited on group after group of shop hoppers, I could hear Eleanor on the phone making calls. Unfortunately I was too busy to eavesdrop, and the ch
atter of happy quilters combined with Christmas music made it impossible anyway. There was a slight lull of customers around three o’clock, but it didn’t last. Half a dozen kids from Charlie’s third grade class ran into the shop, breathless and excited, with Jacob leading them.
“My dad said you and Jesse arrested Mr. Lofton,” he stammered between breaths. “He said you think he burned his house down.”
“I don’t think that Jacob. Neither does Jesse. Charlie isn’t under arrest. He needed a place to sleep last night, so he stayed at the police station. As a guest, not a prisoner.”
“He didn’t do anything wrong, did he, Miss Nell?” Emily asked.
“No, he didn’t.”
“Why can’t he just put on his uniform and bust out of jail?” Jacob asked, then mimicked a superhero pose.
“It’s not that simple.”
“My mom said he can’t come to school and teach us,” Emily said. The worry in her voice was heartbreaking. “But we want him there. We have to do something so he comes back to school. What can we do?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I wish I did.”
“Can’t we give him our quilt blocks?” she suggested. “He said they were really good. Doesn’t he need them more than Morristown?”
“I don’t think . . .” I stopped. “Maybe,” I said. “Maybe that’s a really good idea. Ask your parents if it’s okay to come by here tomorrow after school. I have a project I want you to work on with me.”
“Will it help Mr. Lofton?” Emily asked.
“I hope so.” It was a start anyway.
* * *
When Eleanor finally emerged from her office, she was bursting with ideas, but I had one of my own. Not that she’d let me get a word in.
“Everything’s changed,” she said. “Everything. The party is still at the library and the raffle is still to raise funds for Morristown, but that’s it. The bake sale, the craft fair, and the silent auction are all to raise money for Charlie. Help him get back on his feet. The whole committee backs me up on this.”
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