Out of the Ashes

by Cynthia Reese

  “I am a detective, after all. Don’t try this at home, kids.” His quip was accompanied with a grin and a clang from yet another of her kitchen bowls. “Empty living room, box full of kitchenware, and bam, it just occurs to me that maybe you’re moving. Where’s the new nest?” A beat of silence, and then a tinge of suspicion crept into his next question. “You’re not leaving town, are you?”

  “My mom’s.” Just saying the words made the defeat sting all the more. “I’m moving to my mom’s.”

  He seemed to digest the words, chewing on them, staring at her as though he understood how ashamed she felt at this latest mess she’d found herself in.

  “So you really do have money troubles?” Rob closed up the battered lid of the box.

  “No more than usual—it’s not the rent here. I can afford the rent, just barely. No, it’s...well, my kitchen here is so tiny. I don’t even have a dishwasher.”

  He wrinkled his brow. “I don’t follow.”

  “State laws say that I can use a home kitchen to cook in, you know, to bake, but I have to live there. It’s the whole cottage industry law—as long as it’s home-baked goods in a regular home kitchen, then I don’t have to meet standards for a commercial kitchen.”

  “So...you’re moving in with your mom to use her kitchen?”

  “Yeah. Just, well, until I can—” Her face heated up. “Until I can save up to find me a new location that will pass a commercial kitchen inspection.” It smacked of Jake’s wheedled promises to their mom—just until I find another job, just until I save up for a deposit, just until I pay off these guys I owe.

  “Or the insurance money comes in,” Rob added speculatively.

  Kari couldn’t repress the snort of derision that bubbled up from her insides. “Yeah, right, like that’s going to happen. I can tell you when insurance is going to write out that check—half past never.”

  “But you did have insurance, correct?”

  “Sure. The whole bit, even paid extra for coverage in case of work stoppage. But it’s arson, Rob. And they’ll take one look at my record...” Kari shook her head. “Never mind. It is what it is. They’ll pay or they won’t. I’ve submitted the claim, so the ball’s in their court.”

  “They won’t pay out until my investigation is finished,” he reminded her.

  “I know that. So how can I help?”

  Did he look surprised at her offer?

  “I just had a few more questions.”

  “Let me guess. You’re going to be like that old TV detective that was constantly going, ‘Just one more question, Miss,’ aren’t you?” she asked.

  “Ma always said I was the curious type,” he acknowledged.

  “Ma—whoever Ma is—is right on the money.”

  “Ma is my mom, Colleen Monroe. She raised nearly all of us by herself after my dad was killed.”

  Kari’s stomach turned at the thought of someone dying because of a stupid fire. She hated fire. Making a conscious effort to shift her attention to something else, she asked, “Who’s all of us?”

  “Well, there was me and my brother Andrew, and you’ve met Daniel. And I have three sisters. Daniel had moved out—he was actually a professional baseball player in the minor leagues when it happened. But the rest of us were still at home.”

  “That’s—that’s quite a big family.”

  “What about you? Do you have just the one brother?”

  “Jake? Yes. It’s just me and him.”

  “How old is he, anyway?”

  “Believe it or not, he’s three years older than me. He just—Mom says he hasn’t found his true calling in life.”

  “But you don’t believe that.” It was a statement, not a question. Kari narrowed her eyes at his too-keen observation.

  “I guess I’m hoping for Mom’s sake that he’ll find that true calling sooner rather than later,” she said. She made to pick up the box, but Rob closed his hands over hers.

  “Allow me. Unless you want to give me another rendition of Clash of the Cymbals.”

  “No way. It sounded like I’d let a two-year-old loose in my cupboards. If you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it—my car is just outside.”

  “Wait, not the vintage Mustang convertible? Man, now that’s a car I could get excited about—”

  She laughed. “No, that’s my next-door neighbor’s—he’s going through a midlife crisis. No, mine’s the brown minivan with the peeling paint. The back door should be unlocked.”

  He pivoted with the box. “Just put it anywhere?”

  “Wherever you can find a spot. I’ll be there in a jiff—I need to grab a few last things from the bedroom.”

  Alone, she made one last tour of the empty apartment. It was a good thing she hadn’t had the money to buy a lot of furniture or bric-a-brac. She couldn’t have afforded the storage costs, and her mother’s house didn’t have the space.

  With a lump in her throat, she surveyed the sunny rooms she’d first seen just six months ago. So much hope. So much promise.

  “I’ll be back,” she whispered. “Maybe not here, but some place like this. Some place better, even. It’s not forever. It’s for now.”

  And maybe she’d even believe that eventually. But at the moment, Kari would have to pretend that she did.

  She tightened her hand on the handle of the big shopping bag with the toiletry items she’d waited to pack last, then turned for the door.

  It was as she was locking the door for the last time that she spotted what Rob was doing.

  The box was on the sidewalk. The doors to the van were open—all of them.

  And Rob was very carefully, very thoroughly, searching her vehicle.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “HEY!”

  Kari Hendrix’s outrage was near palpable as she closed the gap between the two of them in a quick jog. “What are you doing?”

  Rob laid the blanket he had in his hand down on the floor of the mini-van. “Shifting some things around. You did say anywhere.”

  “No! You were searching my van! You were—you used me! You were looking for evidence—”

  Rob squashed the guilty feeling that was worming its way onto his face. “I was doing what you asked. But should I, in my official capacity as an investigative officer, ask if there’s anything in this vehicle you mind me seeing?”

  Okay, so he had taken advantage of the opportunity to do a quick toss of the vehicle. He was law enforcement, and she knew it—or she ought to. He’d found nothing in the vehicle the least bit suspicious. The only evidence he’d found pointed toward a careful and frugal lifestyle—that and a predilection for toffee bars, if the little trashcan’s cache of candy wrappers belonged to her.

  “Well—no—it’s just—” Her expression was still full of wounded betrayal. “You could have told me that was why you came. And then I would have been prepared for you pawing through my things. That’s—that’s one of the things I hated most about juvie. They were always hunting and searching and—nothing was ever mine.”

  The words rang true, even to his cynical self. Or maybe it was because he had searched the van and come up empty.

  “I’m sorry. I was here. You had given me permission to go into your van—and my nosiness got the better of me.”

  “It’s your job. I guess I just allowed myself to forget that.” This last she said with a baleful resignation. “So was that the reason? That you came?”

  “Er—no.” Rob busied himself with putting the box in the van. “I really did have some more questions.”

  She pushed past him and dropped the bag in her hand into the seat. When she saw his eyes trail the path of the bag, she gave an exasperated sigh and upturned the bag, emptying its contents. Shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant and other toiletries fell out.

  “See an
y matches?” she snapped.

  For the first time ever, he regretted his devious cleverness when it came to his job. He had a reputation for being able to charm confessions out of arsonists—he’d even been called into neighboring counties to help out with the odd case. And this, today, had been something of the same. She’d offered, and he’d taken the opportunity to dig around.

  “Look, I said I was sorry,” Rob told her. “Maybe I wasn’t completely on the up-and-up with you, but if you’ve got nothing to hide, then no harm, no foul.”

  “Just because I’ve got nothing to hide doesn’t mean I don’t value my privacy—or a little trust. You really are cynical, aren’t you?”

  “Hey, you should look at it from the bright side—at least now I know you’re not hiding anything in your van,” he countered.

  Kari rolled her eyes. “Oh, wow. A cynic who’s a closet Pollyanna. How many times do I have to tell you? I didn’t burn my bakery.”

  “So who did? Give me one solid lead, one good suspect.” Rob heard the near pleading in his voice, and it scared him. He wanted her to be innocent. He wanted her to have nothing at all to do with the downtown fire. “Tell me who hates you enough to destroy your business and do a decent job framing you.”

  Her anger faded to misery. “I can’t do this, Rob. I didn’t do it when I was in juvie, and I won’t do it now. I won’t get myself out of hot water by pushing someone else in.”

  Rob shook his head in frustration. Looking at Kari Hendrix’s earnest face was only serving to confuse him. He kicked at pebbles strewn across the pavement by Kari’s beat-up van and pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “And besides,” he said in a sour tone that he hated, “you don’t know anything to tell.”

  She jumped—just a little jump, but one that he saw out of the corner of his eyes. Oh, yeah, Kari Hendrix had at least one suspect in mind. So who was she protecting?

  “That’s right.” She nodded her head a little too vigorously. “I don’t know anything at all to tell.”

  “Well, then. I guess it’s a good thing that I am a real, bona fide investigative officer, because...” He leaned forward, close enough to inhale the sweet flowery scent of her hair. “I will find this person, Kari. I will. With your help, or without it. It’s only a matter of time.”

  * * *

  ROB WENT BACK to the basics the next morning in his cramped windowless office. First he wiped the whiteboard clean of his previous scrawls and notes held up by magnets. And then he began again with what he knew.

  The fire was arson.

  The MO was a propane tank and a highway flare.

  The motive—just looking at the MO—was probably revenge.

  He swore as he looked at the vast amount of white space left on the board. In the past week, he’d found nothing—absolutely nothing— to point him in any direction except Kari.

  And yet, conversely, he’d found nothing to tie Kari to the fire. In fact, he’d found direct evidence giving her a fairly solid alibi: a surveillance video from a business across the street from her house had shown her working in her yard the afternoon of the fire, going into the apartment and not coming out until after the fire engines had been paged.

  And the apartment didn’t have a back door. He’d verified that today, though he’d already spoken to Kari’s landlord earlier in the week.

  True, there were windows on the back, but they were high off the ground with no good access point for a woman as petite as Kari. She would have caused an almighty racket if she’d come down on the bank of metal trashcans along the rear of her apartment. He’d canvassed her neighbors—nobody had heard anything or seen anything. And one of those neighbors was a nosy Ned with a telescope on his deck and a roaming sort of eye.

  Plus, Rob kept coming back to what he’d told Daniel that very first day: if Kari Hendrix had wanted to burn down her bakery, she could have figured out a way to make it look like an accident. The setup that had been used to start the fire, that MO so clear-cut a case of arson, was a clear threat or warning if he’d ever seen one.

  Somewhere, somehow, in this entire week of digging, he’d missed something. He knew it.

  So it was time to get off his backside and apply some elbow grease and shoe leather to the problem. He would go back and recanvass the business owners and employees downtown. Surely, someone had seen something.

  Maybe it was the fresh air or not being cooped up in the office, but Rob instantly felt more cheerful as he strolled down the sidewalk in the direction of downtown Waverly.

  The walk from his office was just long enough to lift his spirits—to Rob, Waverly was the right size, not too big, not too small, and the downtown part with its wealth of locally owned businesses had always been his favorite. He passed the carefully tended planters the Waverly-Levi County Garden Club kept overflowing with cheerful red geraniums and nodded to a rail-thin septuagenarian sporting a dapper fedora who was propped up against them.

  As he waved away an inquisitive bee, he spotted a group of toddlers cooling off under the interactive fountain in the pocket park just at the edge of downtown proper. Their moms sat nearby, laughing as the kids opened their mouths and drank in the cool water. Something about the kids’ exuberance, their innocence, made Rob chuckle, too.

  The burned-out remains of the buildings loomed ahead, but not even they could dampen his suddenly ebullient mood.

  What did poke the air out of his bubble was the big zero that he turned up with his recanvassing. Besides Charlie Kirkman, the landlord, no one had ever seen anybody give Kari Hendrix so much as a hard stare.

  For his last stop, Rob ducked into a jewelry store across the street, one with a good vantage point of the Lovin’ Oven’s front door. It was owned and run by the Sullivans, the same couple who’d been there since the 1960s.

  “Well, if it isn’t young Mr. Monroe!” Hiram Sullivan greeted him from behind the counter. “Make my day, sir, and tell me that you have finally been caught, and you’re here to pick out an engagement ring.”

  Rob laughed. The engagement ring deal was Mr. Hiram’s running joke with him—he said the same thing every time Rob came in. “You know me—a rolling stone, and all that. Nope, today it’s all official business, I’m afraid, but Ma’s got a birthday coming up, so maybe I do need something after all.”

  “Ah, a good woman, Mrs. Colleen is, and a very wise one. I saw her earlier this week with Mrs. Kimberly. Your brother and she have their bridal registry picked out.” Mr. Hiram nodded toward the tables of china near the front of the store.

  The idea of Daniel picking out china and other frou-frous boggled the mind. “Just let me know what they need toward the end and put me down for it—I know beans about wedding presents.”

  Mr. Hiram nodded approvingly. “An easy customer. Now what is it that I can help you with in your official capacity?”

  “I came back to ask again about the fire.”

  Mr. Hiram tsked and began polishing his spectacles with a jewelry cloth he’d pulled from his apron. “A sad thing, isn’t it? Is it wrong to be glad that it was on the other side of the street? At our age, we couldn’t start over. Our whole life is in this shop.”

  “And you’ve seen nothing out of the ordinary? Not in the weeks leading up to the fire?”

  “No, like I told you before, nothing that stands out. No sinister folks—how do you law enforcement people put it? Casing the joint?”

  The words sounded ludicrous coming out of the old man’s mouth, but Rob managed to suppress all but the smallest of grins. “What about Kari Hendrix? And the bakery?”

  Mr. Hiram pursed his lips, considering. “A nice young woman, if you ask me. Hardworking. Reminded me of Mrs. Sullivan at that age.”

  “How so?” Rob leaned forward on the jewelry counter.

  “Well, she did so much of the work. The curtains—di
d you know that she sewed them herself? And every week she’d put in a new display in the window. She was there every morning when I opened up, and she stayed late a lot of nights. And have you sampled her wares?” Old Hiram kissed his fingertips and closed his eyes in satisfied memory. “That woman knows her way around a kitchen!”

  “Did other folks appreciate her good points?”

  Mr. Hiram frowned. “You mean did she have a good business?” He cocked an eyebrow. “Not at first. It was slow going, and you could see how dispirited she was. She’d come out and give free samples on the sidewalk—we looked forward to those, but my wife always said we shouldn’t be greedy. I liked the little mini blueberry muffins the best.”

  “Her muffins are good,” Rob conceded. “So business was bad?”

  “Lately, no. She’d gotten on a roll...it was steady, and improving. A few days before the fire she came over with a basket of goodies for me and the missus, and she was excited about the orders she was getting—the mayor’s daughter had ordered her wedding cake. Kari was sure it was a good sign.”

  “Obviously she didn’t know the mayor’s daughter. Now, that one is a diva if I ever saw one,” Rob commented.

  “Oh, yes. Changed her mind three times about her engagement ring, and I thought she’d drive my wife mad going back and forth about the china. But I could see why Kari thought it a good omen—if she pleases Mattie Gottman, she has a shot at the wedding cakes for all eight of the girl’s bridesmaids.”

  “Eight?” Rob choked. “Who needs eight bridesmaids? I pity the poor guys they rope in for groomsmen.”

  “She’d wanted ten, but two girls had the temerity to say no.” Mr. Hiram dusted his fingernails against the twill of his apron. “Can you imagine?”

  “Saying no to Mattie Gottman? It takes a strong man—believe you me, I’ve had to do it. Not for the faint of heart.” Rob considered the import of what Hiram had told him. Kari had been given the golden ticket to high-society weddings, at least here locally. It would have translated into more work for her, he knew that.