by Jessica Beck
“Yeah, I thought about making the same offer myself, but I know that she wouldn’t accept it either, so why bother? Annie loves her cabin in the woods, and I’m not even sure she’s not right wanting to be there. After all, it’s the one place on earth that’s entirely hers.”
“Still, it wouldn’t hurt to make the offer,” I said. “She might like hearing it from you, too.”
“Of course,” Kathleen said, and then she stared off into space for a few moments before she looked at me again. “Pat, what’s your take on this mess?”
I thought about it, and then I realized that it was too soon to say anything just yet. “You know how it goes. You collect pieces until they begin to fit together. Often it’s not until the last second that things manage to come together.”
Kathleen nodded. “You two have become pretty adept at this, haven’t you?”
“We do our best, but we both fully realize that we’re no match for you,” I said sincerely. It wasn’t a matter of buttering our older sister up; it was the complete and unvarnished truth.
“Maybe, but folks open up to the two of you in ways they won’t with me. I have the authority of the law behind me, for all the good that it does me sometimes, but you two tap into the community in ways that I never could.”
“So then we complement each other,” I said.
“You do look nice tonight,” Kathleen answered with a grin. It was an old game we’d played a thousand times in our lives, intentionally misunderstanding each other.
“Thank you kindly, ma’am,” I said as Annie walked back in, carrying two sets of papers now.
“What are you two talking about?” she asked.
“How good I look tonight,” I said with a laugh.
“I don’t know about that, but I have a hunch that’s not all you were discussing. Were my ears burning for a reason, or was I the topic of conversation?”
She was good; I had to give her that. “We were just discussing the fact that you turned down my offer to stay with me tonight,” I said.
“And I’m pretty sure you’re going to turn me down, too,” Kathleen added. “The offer is good, though. It’s not too late to reconsider. You won’t hurt our feelings, either way.”
“As much as I appreciate the offers, I’m going to have to take a hard pass. I want to go home as soon as we’re finished here.” She paused to grin at me as she added, “Besides, Pat has to get up in the middle of the night to check on our fridge, and if I hang around here, he’ll probably make me do it.”
“I wish I could say that you were wrong, but I can’t,” I replied with the hint of a grin. “Are we finished here, ladies?”
Kathleen stifled a yawn as she stood and took one set of the documents from Annie. “These are the originals, I presume?”
“Yes, ma’am, as original as a copy of a copy can be. Will we see you in the morning?”
“You can count on it,” she said as she headed for the door. “Are you coming?”
Annie glanced at me before answering. “I don’t know, am I?”
“I don’t know about you, but I’m finished for tonight. I need to get to sleep, especially if I’m getting up in a few hours,” I said with a grin.
“Then I’ll say good night.”
After my sisters were gone, I locked up and turned off all of the lights. Before going to bed upstairs, I set my alarm for two a.m. It would be impossible for me to wake up otherwise, and I knew if our fridge conked out before we could get it repaired, we’d lose quite a bit in inventory for the grill.
At two a.m., I nearly hit the snooze button on my alarm clock out of habit, but something made me wake up enough to manage to get out of bed. I didn’t turn on any lights since there was a faint glow coming from the light outside the building, giving me enough illumination to see without destroying my night vision. Hopefully I would find the fridge running fine and be back in bed before I had a chance to come fully awake.
It was running like a champ, humming happily away when I checked it, and as I glanced toward the front, I noticed that the quality of the light outside suddenly changed.
Instead of the steady illumination of the lamp, the light was now flickering.
Hurrying to the front, I glanced outside and saw that one of our wooden rocking chairs was on fire!
Grabbing the fire extinguisher, I flipped on the lights—both inside and out—unlocked the door, and put the flames out before they could do much damage to the front porch, let alone the entire building. Once the fire had been extinguished, I pulled the chair off the porch using a towel from Annie’s grill and set it in the gravel where it couldn’t do any harm if it should happen to spontaneously combust again.
It was clear that someone had tried to burn the Cast Iron Store and Grill to the ground, and by the oddest of flukes, I’d caught it in time before it could do any real damage. Once I was sure everything was fine, I went back inside, got dressed, and then I made two phone calls that I wasn’t all that excited about making.
Kathleen showed up first. I was relieved to see that she kept her siren and lights off, but she nearly hit me when she raced into our parking lot. She still wore her uniform, as wrinkled as it was. “What happened?”
“I told you pretty much everything over the phone.”
Kathleen checked the chair, smelled it, and then she rubbed her hands over parts of it. After that, she did the same thing with the scorched section of the porch. “That was good work putting it out so quickly,” she said. “I smelled traces of gasoline. It could have been really bad.”
“Thank our cranky fridge,” I said. “That was the only reason I saw it in time.” She reached for her radio, but I stopped her. “What are you doing?”
“I’m getting a team out here,” she said, looking puzzled by my question.
“What good are they going to do?” I asked. “Why don’t we keep this between ourselves?”
“Have you completely lost your mind?” Kathleen asked me. “This isn’t a fluke, and you know it. Someone just tried to burn you out, and if you hadn’t spotted it in time, they might have succeeded.”
“I get that, but think how puzzled the arsonist is going to be when no one is talking about it in the morning. We might be able to use that to our advantage.”
“What did you have in mind?” Kathleen asked as she put her radio back into its clip.
“I don’t know yet, but what do we gain by calling in reinforcements at this point? You know, Annie knows, and so do I. The only other person who knows is the one who set the fire. Let’s keep that to ourselves for the moment.”
“We can do that,” she said, “although it’s against my better judgment. What makes you think they won’t try again?”
“I don’t, but I’d still like a chance to brace everyone about what happened here first.”
Annie drove up, saw the burned chair in the gravel, and then she hugged me. “Pat, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I replied. “I didn’t even get smudged, let alone burned.”
“That’s not funny, Patrick,” she said before turning to Kathleen. “I figured you’d have an entire forensic team here by now.”
“Our brother wants to keep the lid on what happened,” she explained. After she told Annie my reasons, my twin sister nodded. “I like it. Wow, am I glad that fridge was acting up. I almost don’t want to get it fixed now.”
“Well, I do,” I said. “One early-morning wake-up call is enough for me, and now I’ve had them two nights in a row. Let’s everybody go back to sleep and discuss this in the morning. How does that sound?”
“Good, except I’m staying here again with you, and don’t try to talk me out of it,” Annie said. “I want to blow up one of the air mattresses and sleep downstairs tonight in case the arsonist comes back.”
“Mind if
I join you?” I asked, knowing that I’d feel better having her there with me.
“Sure, why not?” Annie turned to Kathleen. “How about you? Care to make it all three of us?”
“If you need me, I’ll stay,” she said.
“There’s really no need, Kathleen. We’ll be fine on our own. I just didn’t want to leave you out,” Annie said.
“No worries, then. I have a hunch that whoever did this wouldn’t come within a mile of this place until morning, so you should be safe, and I’ve slept on those air mattresses before, remember? My back is still hurting from the last time.”
“That’s because you’re getting old and feeble,” I told her with a grin.
“I’ll race you any day, little brother. Just name the time and place.”
“That’s never going to happen,” I said, holding my smile. “Thanks for rushing over.”
“Hey, even if it weren’t my job, we’re family, right?”
“Right,” I said.
After she was gone, Annie and I set up the air mattresses and sleeping bags. I wasn’t expecting to fall asleep given the circumstances and what had just happened, but to my surprise and delight, I didn’t wake up until sunshine streaming into the Iron hit my face.
I’d somehow managed to fall asleep after all, and from the looks of my sister, she’d managed to nod off as well.
Chapter 16: Annie
Pat and I got up in plenty of time to get ready before we opened the Iron for the day. I had some clothes stashed there for emergencies, but I was running out, which was fine with me. No matter what, I’d be sleeping in my own bed tonight.
While he was still asleep, I crept upstairs, took a shower, and changed, and then I returned downstairs to find him awake.
Pat surprised me by sitting up from his air mattress. “How did you sleep?”
“Off and on,” I admitted. “How about you?”
“The same. At least our pyromaniac didn’t come back.” He stood and stretched, and then he began to deflate the mattresses.
“Do you need any help with that?” I offered.
“Thanks, but why don’t you get started in the kitchen? I wouldn’t mind some bacon and eggs this morning before we open. Is there time?”
I glanced at one of the big clocks we had on display. “We’re good. As a matter of fact, I think I’ll join you.”
As Pat disappeared upstairs, I got busy prepping some bread and the day’s specialty, a Tex-Mex meal that simmered in a cast iron pot on top of the grill. I’d also offer my standard fare of burgers and hot dogs as well as hot sandwiches, but I liked to have at least one different choice every day. After the main course was prepped and simmering away, I made some sausage gravy and started frying our turkey bacon. I wasn’t sure if Pat knew that I’d been substituting turkey for pork for the past few months, but if he’d noticed, he must not have minded. Not only was it less expensive, but it was healthier for us as well.
When he rejoined me, the bacon was ready, the toast was set to go down into the toaster, and I had seven eggs out. “Scrambled okay?” I asked him.
“If I don’t have to make them, they can be hardboiled for all I care,” he said. After taking a deep breath, he added, “If that’s coffee, I’d love some.”
“I’m way ahead of you,” I replied as I poured him a cup.
The first round of biscuits were ready to come out of one of my ovens, and as I put the pan on the rack to cool, Pat asked, “Is it too late to change my mind?”
“About the eggs?”
“No, that part still sounds good, but there is no way I’m going to be able to pass up sausage gravy and biscuits.”
The sausage was straight pork, enhanced with seasonings. So much for trying to feed him healthier, but I couldn’t refuse. In fact, I decided to have the same thing myself, substituting bacon and toast for a hot biscuit, split and buttered, and then smothered in sausage gravy.
It was delicious, but I’d have to start cutting back on what I ate or I was going to have to buy a complete new wardrobe two sizes larger, and that was something I was not at all eager to do.
After we ate, I cleaned up and got ready for our first customers of the day, while Pat consulted with Skip about his plans for finishing our Christmas display. Edith glided in on her own, and after a few greetings, she ensconced herself back in her postal lair.
I was ready for our first customer of the day when Pat unlocked the front door.
At least I thought I was.
But then someone stomped in, putting a damper on what had been, up to that point, a pretty good day.
“What can I do for you, Gordon?” Pat asked one of our suspects as I joined them up front.
“You can call off that she-devil of a sister of yours,” Gordon said angrily.
I smiled sweetly at him. “I can’t imagine what I might have done to upset you.”
“I’m not talking about you,” he growled, “and you know it. I mean the sheriff. She needs to stop coming around my business, or there’s going to be real trouble.”
“Are you threatening Kathleen?” Pat asked angrily, and I was right there with him. We might tease among ourselves, but no one, and I mean no one, threatened one of us without consequences.
To my surprise, Gordon lost quite a bit of his volume as he responded, “I don’t mean she’s going to be in trouble. I’m talking about me.”
That was interesting. “Why? What’s going on?” I asked him.
“There are some folks I work with who aren’t the most understanding people in the world, if you know what I mean. I never realized they were keeping an eye on my dry-cleaning business until this morning. Your sister wasn’t gone three minutes before there was a knock on my door. I was told in no uncertain terms that if I didn’t extract myself from this investigation, and fast, I’d be looking for more than a new business to run.”
“Did they actually threaten you?” Pat asked him. “You should speak to someone in law enforcement about that.”
“What are you trying to do, get me killed?” he asked, his voice going a little higher and louder as he said it.
“No, but you can’t just let someone threaten you like that,” my brother replied.
“You don’t understand. I have no choice.” He took a deep breath, and then he said, “I need your sister to hear something.”
“Why didn’t you tell her earlier?” I asked him. “You said she just left your shop.”
“I couldn’t talk to her there. I’m pretty sure the place is bugged.”
Was this man rampantly paranoid, or was someone really keeping tabs on him? “Your friends, I take it?” Pat asked.
“If you can call them that,” Gordon answered.
“Why don’t you just call her?” I suggested.
“I will, if I can use your phone.”
“Do you honestly think your cell phone is tapped, too?” I asked him. What kind of people was he mixed up with, anyway?
“I don’t know, but I’m not willing to take the chance. Will you talk to her for me?”
Pat frowned, and then he shook his head. “No.”
“No? Please. I’m begging you.”
“I’ll call her on my phone, and you can speak with her directly yourself,” Pat said firmly. “That’s the most I’m willing to do.”
I wasn’t sure that I would have been able to take the same firm stand my brother just had, but I certainly wasn’t going to go contradict him. We always did our best to speak with one voice, particularly when we were investigating a case.
“If that’s the best you can do, then I guess I’ll just have to take it.”
Pat nodded, dialed Kathleen’s number, and then he said, “Someone here wants to speak with you.” After that, he handed Gordon his phone, and then he moved over
next to me so he could hear their conversation, too.
“Listen, you have to stop coming by my shop. I know, but it looks bad. Okay. Sure. I’m going to tell you something now that could get me in a lot of trouble. Why would I do that? Because the people I’m in too deep with could do a lot more than lock me up. I was making a pickup in Charlotte at about the time Timothy was murdered. No, I can’t give you the guy’s name, but I stopped off at an all-night convenience store to get something for my stomach right before I left, and I know I’m on their security tape. Yes, I saw it in the corner.” After he gave her the address, he said, “Okay. I understand that. If there’s a problem, find a way to tell me about it without coming by my business, would you? Fine.”
He hung up the phone and handed it back to Pat.
“You really are scared of these people, aren’t you?” I asked.
Gordon shrugged. “I didn’t say what I was picking up. If nobody digs too hard into that angle of it, I should be fine. Well, at least I’ll be better off than I am at the moment. Thanks for helping.”
“You’re welcome,” Pat said. “Just out of curiosity, what were you picking up?”
“Paper towels,” he said with a grimace. “Boxes and boxes of paper towels.”
That might have been what it said on the outside of the boxes he’d collected, but I doubted seriously that was the contents inside. “Okay,” Pat said.
Gordon must have smelled the sausage gravy simmering on the stovetop. “That smells great.”
“Would you like a bite to eat before you go?” I asked.
