by Hillary Avis
Amara nodded. “Here in my purse.” She dug out a folded piece of paper and held it out. Bethany opened it and read the words that were scrawled jaggedly in permanent marker.
YOU DON’T KNOW SQUAT ABOUT BEING A GOOD NEIGHBOR. KEEP THAT DOG LEASHED OR YOU MIGHT NOT SEE IT AGAIN. G.
Bethany flipped the sheet over and saw that the note was written on the back of a flyer advertising a meeting of the Newbridge Historical Society. “You should give this to the police! It could be evidence.” She handed the note to Kimmy so that she could read it, too.
Kimmy skimmed it quickly and sighed with relief. “It doesn’t say he was going to kill Sharky, Auntie. I knew he wouldn’t do something like that.”
Amara pursed her lips and held Sharky up in front of her like a baby. “It said I wouldn’t see you again, didn’t it, love? What else could it mean?”
Bethany furrowed her forehead, thinking. “It does seem sinister. What does he mean, ‘you don’t know squat about being a good neighbor’? Is that just about the dog?”
Amara put Sharky down on the floor and shrugged, her earrings swinging. “Who knows. Old men complain about everything. He didn’t like my beautiful swan porch, he didn’t like my dog, and he didn’t like that I am friendly to everyone.”
Sharky started gnawing on the leg of the coffee table, making a horrible grating sound against the wood. Bethany nudged him with her toe to get him to stop, but he just growled at her with the table leg still in his mouth, and she didn’t press her luck.
Kimmy laughed disbelievingly. “What? How would friendliness make you a bad neighbor? That makes no sense. I’m starting to think Mr. Washington is getting senile.”
Amara sat back on the sofa, seemingly unaware that Sharky was attempting to fell the coffee table with his teeth. “You know how it is. You like someone they don’t like, and they call you an enemy.”
“Ah, there’s the real story.” Kimmy gave Amara the side-eye. “Go on, tell us—who has his goat?”
“Who doesn’t?” Amara shrugged again. “He even had that terrible woman from the historical society bothering me.”
“What woman?” Bethany asked, surreptitiously taking notes on her phone.
“She means Fancy Peters, the president of the historical society,” Kimmy explained. “She’s been harassing Auntie since she built her swan porch. You’ve probably seen her around town. She’s the one who rides the old-fashioned tricycle and wears antique clothes.”
Bethany wrote down the name. “I think I’ve seen her at the restaurant. Why doesn’t she like the porch, though? Isn’t that swan head antique?”
Amara nodded. “It was part of the largest carousel in New Orleans—we called them flying horses even though they were all kinds of animals. My swan was carved in Paris, France, in 1918 and then shipped all the way across the sea as a gift to celebrate the city’s two-hundredth birthday. It was painted—”
“With real gold,” Kimmy finished. “Don’t get her started on the swan. The historical society was ticked off about the porch addition because our house—Auntie’s house—was a safehouse for escaped slaves before the Civil War. All renovations and additions are supposed to be approved by the society to make sure they are historically accurate.”
Amara waved her hand. “Screened porches are a necessity! Even in 1850, mosquitos were biting people. I don’t know what bug flew up her—”
“Auntie!”
“I was going to say skirt.” Amara finally noticed the little dog’s destruction and pried Sharky’s jaws from the coffee table. The leg had been reduced to what looked like a bundle of toothpicks. “She came by yesterday evening to say that I shouldn’t be allowed to inhabit such an important piece of Newbridge history. She said I didn’t deserve my own home! I was so angry, I—”
Kimmy gasped. “You didn’t hit her, did you?”
Amara pursed her lips and frowned. “I don’t engage in such nonsense, child. I told her to stop living in the past. And I said she looks like someone’s mail-order bride in those puffed sleeves and petticoats.”
“You didn’t!” Kimmy looked horrified. “No wonder George said you’re a bad neighbor!”
Amara sat up straight and looked straight ahead, avoiding Kimmy’s gaze. “That woman doesn’t live on my street. She’s no neighbor of mine.”
Bethany broke in. “Do you think this Fancy person was mad enough about the porch to set your house on fire?”
Kimmy shook her head firmly. “No way! The historical society is interested in preserving history, not destroying it.”
Amara put her hand on Kimmy’s arm to stop her from saying more, and leaned toward Bethany. “Who can say? Maybe she was trying to scare me out of town.”
Kimmy looked skeptical, but Bethany saved the two names in her phone to give to the police. One of them might very well be the arsonist.
Chapter 5
Tuesday
HISTORIC HOME BURNS
By Robin Ricketts
Newbridge, CT—In what Fire Marshall Miller has deemed “the clearest case of arson” he’d ever seen, a 200-year-old Hosanna Street home went up in smoke Sunday night. Owner Amara Caldwell sobbed outside the smoking wreck of her former residence on Monday morning while clutching her beloved pet.
“I barely escaped with my life,” Caldwell claimed.
Police continue to investigate but have not released the names of any suspects. No clear motive for the arson has emerged.
“THAT’S ALL THEY PRINTED about it.” Bethany put the newspaper beside her breakfast plate.
“Claimed?” Amara spat out. “Claimed? How can they call my house a smoking wreck and then imply that my life wasn’t in danger?” She pulled the crust off her toast and tossed it under the table where Sharky gobbled it up.
“If they can’t confirm your story with another source, they can’t print it as fact,” Bethany explained. “They just say ‘claimed’ because they have to take your word for it.”
“Don’t worry about it too much.” Kimmy brought three cups of coffee over to the table. “It’s not like the Newbridge Community Observer is exactly the Times. Probably some college kid wrote the article.”
A loud knock at the door made her jump just as she was setting down the mugs, and the coffee sloshed all over the table. She dove for a kitchen towel, and Bethany rose to answer the door.
“Who the heck is here at seven thirty in the morning?” She ran her hand through her hair, hoping it didn’t look like an unpruned hedge. At least her pajamas were slightly more passable as regular clothes than yesterday’s—these had a giant giraffe head printed on one leg instead of dancing bananas.
She opened the door and saw two cops standing awkwardly on the front porch. The cottage’s porch was so small that the two officers had to crowd together until they looked joined at the hip. Bethany recognized both of them. One was Officer Perez, the woman who had tried to stop them from entering Hosanna Street yesterday. The other looked familiar, but she couldn’t remember his name.
“Officer Cooper,” he said, extending his hand. Ah, yes, the smug one who had razzed Officer Perez. Bethany wondered how she felt about being paired with him. From the looks of her, not too happy. “This is my junior partner, Charlene Perez.”
“Call me Charley.”
Bethany shook Officer Cooper’s hand and smiled at Charley, who smiled back.
“We need to speak with Amara Caldwell. Is she here?” Cooper asked.
Bethany nodded. “Come on in. We’re having breakfast. You want some coffee?”
“Please,” Charley said gratefully. “We didn’t have time to stop before we came over. Cream and sugar.”
“Just black for me. None of that girly stuff.” Officer Cooper chuckled, elbowing his partner.
Bethany rolled her eyes and poured two cups of steaming coffee from the pot, swirling cream and sugar into one of them. As the cops pulled up chairs to the kitchen dinette, she handed each of them their cups. With a fierce growl, Sharky leaped down from Amara’
s lap and attacked Officer Cooper’s bootlaces. The portly cop yelped in surprise and almost tipped his chair over backward as he scooted away from the ferocious little dog.
“Oh no!” Kimmy scrambled under the table and grabbed Sharky, holding him at arm’s length while he yammered and drooled, trying to get to Officer Cooper. “Let me shut him in the bathroom so he doesn’t bother us.”
Amara sipped her coffee, her eyes fixed on the table’s red laminate top. She hadn’t greeted the officers or even acknowledged they were there! Worried that they were making a poor impression, Bethany cleared her throat and asked, “What can we do for you?”
Cooper smiled, trying to catch Amara’s eye, but she studiously avoided making eye contact. “Well, we just came to tell Amara here that we’ve released the scene. You can go back to collect any personal items.”
Kimmy returned from the bathroom in time to overhear his remarks and put her hand on Amara’s arm. “I can drive you over there, Auntie.”
“Is anything left?” Bethany asked.
Charley nodded. “Some of the rooms toward the back of the house are just smoke-damaged. The staircase and second floor aren’t safe, though.”
“You ladies be careful, now,” Cooper admonished. “Don’t take risks just to retrieve your favorite lipstick.”
Amara looked up, her eyes glittering. “I don’t need your advice about visiting my own home. You’ve delivered your message, and now you can go.”
Kimmy clutched her great-aunt’s arm more tightly and smiled at the cops. “So sorry. It has been a difficult couple of days.”
Officer Cooper raised his eyebrows and sat back in his chair. “Oh, we’re not going anywhere just yet. We have a few questions for you about the fire. You said you were sleeping?”
Amara nodded. “Sound asleep.”
“So you didn’t hear anything or see anything unusual before you went to bed?”
Bethany waited for Amara to tell the officer about the threatening note and the visit from the historical society lady, but she just shook her head firmly.
“No, no, all as usual.”
Why didn’t Amara mention the potential suspects? Maybe she has altercations with her neighbors on a daily basis. She might not think it was out of the ordinary, but Bethany certainly did! And the cops needed to know what was going on in the neighborhood if they were going to figure out who set the fire.
“It wasn’t exactly a normal afternoon. Sorry, Amara, but it wasn’t. She received a threat from her neighbor George Washington.”
“It wasn’t a threat!” Kimmy said. “It was just a note. A reminder to keep her dog out of his yard.”
“Do you have the note?” Officer Cooper asked, fishing an evidence bag out of his utility belt.
Amara sighed and put her huge tapestry purse on the table, riffling through it to find the note. “It’s in here somewhere—you’ll just have to wait for me to go through it all.”
“We got time,” Charley said, leaning forward and putting her elbows on the table. Officer Cooper shot her a look that said not that much time.
“While you’re waiting, there’s someone else you should take a look at.” Bethany pulled out her phone to check the name she’d written down. “Fancy Peters. She’s president of the historical society, right, Kimmy? And she stopped by Amara’s house on Sunday evening to complain about the new addition.”
Charley smirked. “The giant swan head?”
“The whole screened porch,” Kimmy explained.
“It was a gift from France!” Amara said loudly, finally producing what looked like a shredded napkin from her purse. Officer Cooper held out the evidence bag and she dropped it inside.
He smoothed the note inside the clear bag and looked up at her. “What is this, a joke?”
Bethany peered over his shoulder. It was the same note Amara had shown her the night before, but it was nearly unrecognizable. The writing was smeared and half of the paper was missing altogether! “What happened?!”
Kimmy and Amara exchanged a look, as if each were daring the other to speak. Amara was pure steel, her eyes narrowed to slits, so of course Kimmy broke first. “Sharky,” she said, looking as guilty as if she had chewed up the paper herself. The little dog must have heard his name, because Bethany heard him yapping even though he was down the hall and behind the bathroom door.
Cooper stared at her in disbelief. “You’re telling me that the dog ate the evidence?”
Kimmy nodded, looking miserable, while Amara trained her gaze on the light fixture and complete avoided eye contact with anyone at the table.
The cop threw the evidence bag down on the table. “This is trash! We can’t even read it!”
Charley slid the bag toward herself. “I’m sure we can get something from it. Doesn’t hurt to try, anyway. We appreciate you turning this over to us, don’t we, Coop?”
Cooper’s face had lost all of its smug humor. He only had eyes for Amara, and his voice was cold. “We’ll find whoever set this fire. Doesn’t matter how long it takes or how much we get jerked around, we’ll find ’em.”
Bethany swiped through the notes on her phone. “Hey, I wrote down what the note said. Here it is.”
Cooper sneered. “That’s what you say it said. A little convenient that you didn’t take a photo, isn’t it? Why should we believe you?”
Charley rose from the table and cleared her throat. “Email what the note said to me. Think of anything else and let us know, OK?” She handed a business card to Kimmy and pointed to the email address on it, and then to the telephone number listed. “And that’s my direct line. You can call me for updates on the investigation.”
“They can call the non-emergency line at the station,” Cooper said, pushing his chair back from the table.
“OK,” Kimmy said, slipping the card into her purse that was sitting on the counter. “We won’t pester you.”
“It’s fine,” Charley assured her. “You are the victims here, and we want to make sure you’re taken care of.”
Cooper snorted, and muttered under his breath, “Dog ate the evidence, my hat.”
Amara’s steady gaze at the light fixture wavered for a moment, and a vein pulsed in her forehead—she looked about to blow. Bethany jumped up from her seat. “Why don’t I show you out?”
She walked the officers to the cottage door and held it open for them. Cooper went straight to the squad car parked out front, but Charley paused for a moment in the doorway.
“I have to say, I was surprised to see you here. I knew the vic—I mean, I knew Amara Caldwell was staying with her niece, but I didn’t realize you lived here, too. Are you and Ms. Caldwell...an item?”
Bethany shook her head. “We’re just roommates. We met in culinary school and have lived together ever since.”
“Perez! Get a move on!” Cooper shouted from the car.
Charley stepped out onto the porch. “Any boyfriends, exes hanging around?”
“No—I mean, Kimmy broke up with her girlfriend a few months ago, but it was friendly.”
“What about you?”
Bethany blushed, thinking of the humiliating date she’d had the night before. “I’m seeing someone. He’s in real estate here in town.”
“Is it serious?”
Not serious enough for a proposal. “Not really.”
“But he knows Ms. Caldwell. Does he know her family?”
Bethany shrugged. “He eats at her restaurant and knows her name, but I don’t think they’ve ever had a real conversation. I doubt he even knows she grew up in Newbridge.”
“Perez!” Officer Cooper had his arm out the window of the squad car and was drumming his fingers on the side of the door.
Charley glanced over her shoulder at him. “I should go. One thing—if you think of anyone else who has a grudge against Ms. Caldwell or her aunt, can you call me? Sometimes it’s hard for victims to be objective about people they like. It could be helpful to have your perspective on their inner circle.” She handed B
ethany another copy of her business card.
Bethany nodded. “I’ll do that.” She watched Charley walk down the path to the police car and slide into the passenger seat. It was hard to know whether the two cops had some kind of schtick going, or if they really had such different communication styles. Cooper seemed like he’d made up his mind that Amara was involved in the arson, while Charley had been more understanding. But the conversation on the porch seemed different, like maybe Charley thought that Amara was withholding information—or that Bethany was.
As the police car drove away and she stared at the business card in her hand, she realized something. If they’re looking at Amara’s inner circle for potential suspects, they’re looking at me.
Chapter 6
Tuesday
FROM WHERE BETHANY stood on the sidewalk, Amara looked like a ghost haunting a graveyard. Her back bent, she moved slowly through the wreckage of her former home with Sharky tucked underneath one arm, using her cane to poke through the piles of belongings the fire department had salvaged from the ashes. Half-burned books, smoky glassware, cracked statues, and withered houseplants dotted the blackened front lawn.
Kimmy stowed a cardboard box of cookware in the trunk of her car. “Do you think we can get the swan on the roof rack?”
Bethany shook her head. “I tried lifting it and the thing weighs a ton! I mean, literally. I couldn’t even budge it. We’ll have to get some kind of forklift to move it, and even then I don’t know where we’d move it to.”
“I’m sure she will want to put it back on the house when she rebuilds. We’ll just need to store it until then.”
“Does she even want to rebuild? Maybe she should use the insurance money to move somewhere else.” Bethany eyed the neighboring houses. In more than one window, she spied onlookers—none of whom had come out to express sympathy to Amara for the loss of her home nor to offer help with the salvage efforts. “It doesn’t seem like she has many friends on Hosanna Street.”
“She’s lived here for twenty years—I doubt she’d want to be anywhere else.” Kimmy loaded a box of knick-knacks into the car and used her shoulder to wipe the soot off her forehead. “These people know her, and they know me. They don’t wish our family any harm. They’re probably just nervous. Who knows what that Officer Cooper has been saying when he questions people, or how the arson investigators were treating them yesterday. In this neighborhood, nobody wants to get mixed up in police business. They’ll come out of their houses once this investigation is over.”
