Familiar Fire

by Caroline Burnes

  “Kate, there’s a lot of water under our bridge, but I can’t believe you think I was involved in any way in the destruction of property. Especially a church.”

  The rush of satisfaction she’d expected wasn’t there. She looked into his eyes and was caught for a moment by the amber light. She’d seen her future in those eyes once upon a time. “I can tell you that members of the city council called my office. One or two of them are positive you’re involved, at least in covering up some of the evidence.” There was no point in soft-pedaling the truth.

  Jake looked away, then returned her gaze. “You didn’t answer my question. I asked you what you believed.”

  Kate glanced down to make sure the black cat was still near. This was not going the way she’d hoped. Instead of the rush of victory, she felt only tired and disheartened. “You’ve got the timer, now maybe you can begin to make some headway on this case.” She didn’t meet his look.

  “I asked you if you thought I was guilty?” Jake’s words were brittle with emotion.

  It was a challenge Kate couldn’t ignore. She lifted her face and stared into his eyes. “If I had the evidence that proved you to be the arsonist or in any way involved, you’d be locked up.” She forced her chin up and steady and didn’t back down, though she had no heart for this any longer.

  Jake shook his head slowly. “Is that it? You don’t have the proof. So in your eyes, I’m guilty?”

  She saw the hurt in the set of his jaw, the way he compressed his lips as he nodded. Kate had expected to hurt him, but she surely hadn’t thought to feel the stab of regret that made her own voice roughen with emotion. “Look, Jake. You’ve got a motive for every fire that’s been set. You’ve got opportunity, and the good Lord knows you’ve got the expertise. You’re a prime suspect. Whether I like it or not.”

  “Answer me one question, Kate. Why did you come back to Silver City? You were long gone, nothing but a memory. Why come back to a town you claimed you hated?” His words grew hot with feeling.

  Kate’s own temper answered the challenge. “I’ve got as much right to be here as you do. What do you mean, why did I come back? I came back here to make a home, to settle down.”

  “The truth is, you came back to settle an old score. You’re letting your emotions control you.” Jake shoved his hands in his pockets. “A long time ago, what you felt for me was a helluva lot more than suspicion. Things didn’t go right, and ever since you came back to town, you’ve been trying to burn me. I’m not completely responsible for what happened in the past, and I’m not at all responsible for these fires. Now as the fire chief, I’m ordering you off the premises.”

  Kate swallowed the angry words that welled in her throat. “That past is over and done, Jake. I’ve set it aside. You need to do the same. What’s happening here has nothing to do with a couple of kids fifteen years ago. Five buildings have burned in Gilpin County. Five. Prominent businesses and homes. That’s the issue. Not the past. Keep that in mind. I’m going now, but I have every right to examine this property, or any evidence you might find. If you try to block me in any way, I’ll take it to the city council. I hope you won’t make me do that.”

  “You’re hoping with every fiber of your being that I will. That way you can get me fired and then frame me any way you like.” Anger made his eyes glow with a wolfish glint “Now leave before I do something I regret.”

  Kate felt the pure wind of reason wash over her. She looked at Jake and saw an angry man, one she didn’t know at all—had never known. “That hot temper of yours has gotten you in trouble before, Jake. I’d hoped you’d learned to control it. I guess not.” She scooped up Familiar and walked away without another word.

  Jake took a step to follow her, but stopped. Kate McArdle was a woman with an agenda. When she’d first returned to Silver City, hope had sprung up that maybe they could rekindle what had once been between them. It had been a stupid thought, and one that had reopened a painful wound. Kate was still Kate, with all the raw edges and anger. The promise of beauty that she’d had as a child was now full-blown. She’d grown up physically, but she was still the same teenager emotionally. The same dangerous, willful person.

  He sighed. With each step she put more distance between them, and Jake knew it was unbridgeable. Kate had returned to Silver City, but not because she’d learned to accept the past. She’d come to bury it And him, too. He watched her drive away in the old pickup that now bore the insignia of the Gilpin County Sheriff’s Office.

  “Ouzo!” He whistled at the black dog, who came rushing toward him. “Damn it all to hell, Ouzo. How is it that every time I turn my back, you’re into something else?” He knelt and began to pull the stickers from the dog’s thick coat. “You’ve lived out here for at least five years. Other dogs avoid these things. I think you roll in them.”

  Ouzo gave only a low whine and licked Jake’s hand. His big, brown eyes begged forgiveness.

  “Right. I know you’re playing me like a fiddle.” Jake tugged the last sticker free. “Now earn your keep. Sniff around here and find something.” He grabbed Ouzo’s fur. “Who did find that timer? You or the cat?”

  “Arf!” Ouzo wagged his tail. “Arf.”

  “It had better be you. We’re not being beat out by a team of a hard-hearted woman and a cool cat.”

  “Arf! Arf.” Ouzo put his nose to the ground and began to work.

  AH, SWEET MALARKEY, my territory has been invaded by a creature of the feline persuasion. A cat and a woman, a team of feline and female! ‘Tis a thought that would send a lesser dog into a frenzy of wally-globbering. But this flame-haired sheriff, a lass with the hair of a wild Irish princess, is the kind of woman who would set a poet’s tongue to wagging and a dog’s tail to thumping. It is a troubling sight—to see one of the dear creatures of the feminine persuasion with a pistol strapped to her hip. The cushion of her soft bosom is no place to pin a star!

  As a dog with a history, I know that all creatures have a place, but this is the West, where men are men and dogs are their partners. Ranching, mining, gambling, chasing Mrs. Tanner’s cats and Mrs. Williamson’s horses, jumping in Mrs. Carter’s swimming pool—this is not the work of women. And certainly not a place for a cat.

  I can see that the sheriff and her new sidekick are going to have to take a fall. A gentle fall, let me hasten to add. A wee, gentle fall. You see, the problem is that Jake suffers from some deplorable code of honor. Though the lass and the black devil cat are plainly trespassing on our case, Jake will do nothing to stop them.

  I’m under no obligation to follow the rules or to even acknowledge that there are rules. I live by the code of the West—Don’t get caught.

  It’s a long and glorious family history from whence I’ve sprung, one of skullduggery and the art of the quick escape. It was many years ago when the first of my line, Rustling Red, came over from the Old Country. He was a handsome rogue with a roving eye and a talent for herding other people’s cattle and moving them. Red developed a reputation—and a bounty—back in County Cork, so he headed out west where his talents were in high demand.

  He was running with a band of rustlers when they stopped over in Silver City for a night of whoring, gambling and cheating at cards. ‘Twas there, on a moonlit night, that he lost his heart to a handsome border collie who had come into town with her mistress. Though Red was a rascal and a rogue, he was also a romantic. One look into the eyes of Sassy and he was a goner.

  The Irish setter blood mixed with the collie, and a new breed of dog was born. Handsome, smart, and with a bent toward a criminal nature that has passed from generation to generation, until finally it culminated in the ultimate criminal mastermind, me. Lucky for Jake I’m here to look out for him.

  KATE EXAMINED the reports that had become an inch-thick stack on her desk. She recognized Jake’s handwriting, the neat letters, the professional black ink. She could find no fault with Jake’s investigation. He’d gone by the book—completely. There simply wasn’t enough solid evide
nce to provide a lead. With a sigh, she put the reports on the desk and looked at the cat. Familiar was perched in her office window watching the hundreds of pedestrians roam through the main street.

  Silver City had started life as a mining town with a rich vein of silver that had drawn prospectors from the safety of the settled East. It had been a wild western settlement with an abundance of saloons and the boom-or-bust men who drank hard and fought harder.

  In some ways, Silver City had been no different from the other mining towns that dotted the Colorado landscape. In other ways, it was very different. Silver City had boasted a doctor and an opera house. And one of the finest whorehouses in the entire West. One with a legendary madam who was known for her solid business sense, her beauty, and her generous heart. Silver City had been born at a time when the West was a wild and woolly place, and the men and women who populated it were larger than life.

  It was a time when a man could stake a claim and become rich overnight. Or else work his entire life away without anything to show for it but an empty hole in the ground and failing health. The landscape was dotted with those empty mines, and the hastily buried remains of poor prospectors who hadn’t made it through the winter.

  It had been even harder on the women.

  Now Silver City was one of the hot casino spots. A different kind of vein had been hit—one that brought in the nickels, dimes, quarters and silver dollars as the one-armed bandits spun and whirred and the roulette wheel jumped from fortune to bankruptcy. The old town had been carefully preserved—every inch of it—and turned into a gambling mecca.

  Kate got up and went to the window and began stroking Familiar’s sleek black hide. The cat had been a surprise. She’d read about Familiar and his ability to solve mysteries. But she hadn’t really believed in him. Not until he’d discovered the timing device.

  And he had found the device. No matter how much Jake claimed it was the dog, it had been Familiar.

  “You’ve been awfully quiet,” she said, scratching the cat’s ears until she was rewarded with a loud purr. “Are you thinking about the arsons?”

  “Meow.” Familiar arched under her hand. He hopped to the floor and went to the small refrigerator she kept in her office for the cream she liked in her coffee.

  “I do swear I’ve never seen a cat who could eat his weight in food. Your owner, Dr. Curry, warned me that you had distinctive tastes.” She went to the desk drawer and pulled out a can of smoked oysters. “So I got these for emergency food.”

  “Meow!” Familiar stood on his back legs and pawed at the can.

  “You also have a way of getting your point across.” She opened the tin and put it down for the cat. He dove into the oysters with gusto.

  Kate went back to her desk and picked up the reports again. The clearly established facts were that all five fires were set. At first Kate had not wanted to believe that the Double J fire should be counted in the more recent arsons. The ranch had burned some ten months before, but it was clearly a fire that someone had deliberately set Jake had found clear evidence of arson in each case. The problem was that he hadn’t been able to find clues as to the arsonist. Five fires and no solid clues. It was troubling.

  Even as she pondered the possibilities, Kate’s gut knotted. Jake Johnson was a skunk. He’d broken the unspoken code of the West and treated her in a manner that no woman deserved. But men weren’t what they used to be all over the country. His lack of chivalry didn’t mean he was capable of being involved in the destruction of a total of 2.3 million dollars worth of real estate.

  Jake was a heel, but that didn’t make him a firebug.

  But in all five fires, he hadn’t been able to come up with a single suspect. Even brilliant criminals made an occasional mistake. And in the past, Jake had been pretty good at solving arsons. Why had he suddenly lost his abilities?

  The logical answer was that the arsonist was either Jake or someone he was protecting. And Kate found herself chafing at either answer.

  So what was her problem? Why was she pacing her office, tying her own gut into knots on a Saturday evening when out on the streets the gamblers were coming in by the busload?

  Not a damn bit of it made sense.

  The sound of footsteps outside her office made her stop pacing. Her private office door burst open, and she took in the large man dressed in black. He strode into her office as if he owned the place, his silver hair a cloud of indignation around his head.

  “‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,’ but if you don’t find out who burned down my church, I’m going to take matters into my own hands.”

  Chapter Two

  Kate’s eyes narrowed and she pointed to the chair beside her desk. “Have a seat, Reverend Lyte.”

  “I have no time for sitting while the devil who set fire to my church runs free in this community. Five times he’s struck! Five buildings have burned. Why, Betty Cody is homeless. Homeless, do you hear? And my flock is homeless. Tomorrow is the Sabbath and where shall we gather to sing God’s praises?”

  “It’s not going to rain. Maybe an outdoor service would be a novelty.” Kate closed her eyes as soon as the words left her mouth. She didn’t like Reverend Theodore Lyte, but getting smart with a man who’d lost a church wasn’t going to make life any easier.

  “Sarcasm is lost on the Lord,” Lyte informed her in a pious voice. “Now who burned my church?”

  “I don’t know. Have a seat. Maybe you can give me some clues?”

  “Me? Clues?” Lyte grew indignant. “What are you implying?”

  Kate patted the back of the chair and walked around to her own. “Sit down, Reverend. Tell me a little about your church members.”

  Lyte took the chair but he sat on the edge. “I’ve been over this with Jake. I told him everything. I didn’t come here to repeat myself, I came to get some action.”

  “Bear with me,” Kate said in a patient tone. “Roy Adams asked me to get involved in this investigation only this morning. I went up to the church. It’s a fact that the fire was deliberately set.”

  “It was?” Lyte put a hand over his heart. “That’s what Jake said, but I didn’t believe it. I swear, no one would deliberately burn down a house of the Lord.”

  “In case you’ve forgotten, Reverend, there’s been a string of fires in Gilpin County.’ Homes, businesses, even Jake’s ranch. So far, we’ve been lucky in the sense that no one has been injured or killed. But we may not continue to be so lucky.”

  “Who would do such a terrible thing?” Lyte asked.

  “I don’t know yet, but I can assure you we’re going to find out.” Kate pushed aside Jake’s reports and picked up a clean pad and pencil. “Let’s start with obvious suspects. Is there anyone who would want to see Lookout Church burned? Someone who might benefit in any way?”

  Lyte gave her a blank stare. “We haven’t been a perfect church, but we’ve tried as hard as humanly possible. We’ve done everything to make this a better community. God doesn’t approve of all this gambling, all of this human folly, this waste. We’ve preached against it, but gambling is legal here. We’ve taken our stand up on the mountain where we’re above the errors of human nature. We always take a higher stand.”

  Kate nodded. “Is there a member of the congregation who has been unhappy? Someone who may have felt…left out?”

  Lyte started to answer, then paused. “I don’t think someone burned down a church because they felt left out.” He eyed her. “Do you? And what about the other fires?”

  Kate mentally gave Lyte a point for possessing more intelligence than she’d first thought. “No, I don’t. But I have to remind you that there’s been a rash of church burnings across the nation. None in Colorado so far, but the burning of your church could be unrelated to the other fires in this community. At this point, we can’t assume anything.”

  Lyte nodded. “I like that. I like the fact that you’re looking at this from all angles.”

  “So, there’s no one who might have a grudge
against the church?”

  “I didn’t say that.” Lyte looked down at his fingers, which he shaped into a steeple.

  “Is there someone who made threats against the church?”

  Lyte continued to contemplate his fingers. “Not against the church.”

  “Against you?” Kate leaned forward. Now this was getting somewhere. There had been nothing in Jake’s report regarding a personal vendetta.

  “The angry words were directed at me and the church. You see, for some time now Lookout Church has needed to expand. Our congregation has grown. We have children we want to pull above this den of iniquity here in Silver City. Our young people can’t walk the street without the sound of slot machines or the laughter of women calling them inside casinos…” Lyte looked at Kate and hesitated a half beat. “I mean, we needed a bigger church, better facilities for our young, more parking. But we’re bounded on all sides by the same property owner, and he refused to sell us any more land, though it’s undeveloped.”

  “And the owner would be?” A bad feeling crept into her gut. At one point in time, the Double J land had covered most of that area. But times had been hard for Jake. She’d assumed he’d sold some land, since he wasn’t ranching.

  “Jake Johnson.”

  Kate’s pen began to slip in her fingers and she clutched it tighter. “The Johnson ranch?” she said, though she needed no clarification.

  “Yes, the Double J property extends up Sentinel Mountain and surrounds the church. The land is virtually useless to a rancher, but Jake refused to consider selling us even fifty acres, not even that bare section which is nothing but a rock slide waiting to happen.”

  Kate digested this new tidbit. “What exactly did Jake say?”

  “He said he’d never sell. He said that ranch was his heritage and if his father hadn’t lost his mind and donated the original deed to the church, we wouldn’t be sitting out there today. Then he told me to get off Double J property and never come back.”