Silent Protector

by Barbara Phinney

  Ian trudged into his house, not bothering with the lights, even though night had fallen. He lived next door to the Wilsons, and on the other side was the Callahan house. Stephen Callahan, one of several boys just a bit younger than Charlie, had latched on to the boy as a playmate. But tonight, their house was dark. Leo Callahan had managed to secure work at the resort’s work site as a general laborer. The work was hard in this heat, so Ian wasn’t surprised to see all the windows open.

  There were no streetlights in Moss Point. Down the road, the rec center had a security light out front, for all the good it did, with the dense foliage between the building and the rest of the village. From where Ian stood, he could see the bugs flying in and out of the light’s glowing circle, thick enough to look like snow swirling on a winter’s evening back home in Virginia.

  He’d seen plenty of snow the winter that came to mind. He’d taken off from his uncle’s house. Uncle Ed hadn’t wanted his younger brother’s bad kid, and that winter, Ian had had enough of the abuse. The snow that night had been thick, flying past the streetlights as Ian had walked the town until dawn.

  Shaking off the unpleasant memories, Ian looked out at the middle window, just past the small deck. A blurry silhouette walked past the high, small window. Liz was preparing for bed. A moment later, the light winked out.

  He turned away, flopped onto his couch and shut his eyes.

  Something jerked him awake.

  A yell. A loud and insistent dog barking. A glance at his watch told him that two hours had passed. He then looked over at the front window, thinking it odd to see a flickering, orange glow outside.

  He leaped up. A house was on fire!

  FIVE

  The Wilsons! Ian bolted out the door, his gaze shooting to the house on his left. But their small home was quiet and dark. Ian spun around.

  The Callahans! Leo was running outside, dropping a small child on the ground out front. He turned and raced back in the door. Ian tore across the thin, scruffy lawn to snatch the little girl, Stephen’s younger sister, away to safety.

  By then, Elsie was hurrying along the road, her house-coat flapping. Ian shoved the child in her arms. He practically ran into Leo on his way through the door. This time the man carried a sleepy Stephen in his arms.

  “Who else is in here? Where’s Jenny?” Ian asked.

  At that moment, Jenny appeared at the door. Ian took Stephen in his arms, tossing the boy over his shoulder. At the same time, he pulled Jenny Callahan away from the house.

  “It’s in the back bedroom!” Leo gasped out. He had an oddly deep voice for a skinny man. “That’s where it started!”

  Jenny grabbed her son. Elsie came close, still holding her daughter, and pulled the mother and child away from the house.

  “I’ve got a hose,” Ian called out. “Someone call the fire department.”

  “Already done,” George said, hurrying up. “Elsie, get into the house with Jenny and the kids. Lock the doors, and don’t come out!”

  Ian’s thoughts exactly. He’d been a marshal for too long to see this fire as a coincidence. Sure, it was two houses down from the Wilsons, but it could also be a ruse. Something to get everyone busy while the real target was sought.

  William Smith, the man suspected of murdering Jerry Troop, could be using this to empty the Wilsons’ house.

  Elsie was already on her deck steps, with Jenny close behind her. They herded Stephen, who was now awake and walking, into the house. With a relieved sigh, Ian caught a glimpse of Charlie at the threshold, before Elsie guided him into the house and shut the door. The commotion must have woken him up, but Ian was glad for it.

  Ian hurried over to the side of his house where a battered hose was wound over an old truck rim bolted to his house. He’d been on the island over five months and had yet to use it. The tap squeaked as he wrenched on it, but thankfully, water spat out the end. Leo grabbed it and ran, nearly plowing into Monica, who’d appeared suddenly with an empty bucket. Her house was on the other side of the Callahans, and judging from the drips of water in the bucket, she’d already tossed its contents on the fire.

  With a rake he found in his backyard, Ian hooked and then tore off the bedroom window’s screen, noticing that it was already ripped. Then he grabbed the hose and began to spray down the interior of the house. Thick black smoke with a smell of gas to it rolled out and upward.

  “Monica, fill up your bucket again!” he yelled.

  She raced away, leaving him to spray the fire as best he could. Water on a gasoline fire. Not the best choice, he knew, but the only one right now.

  George and Leo had found buckets of their own and were tossing water into the window. Ian had no idea how they managed to fill them so quickly, unless they’d run down the short trail between the Wilsons’ and his house to the old dock and scooped out gulf water.

  The whole time, Poco, the Callahans’ excitable mutt, barked and bayed wildly, prancing around. Ian heard Leo yell at him and chase him off, and a moment later, he could hear Jenny calling to the dog. The barking stopped, and a door slammed. Jenny must have brought the dog into the Wilsons’ house.

  Ian thought of Liz, wondering if she was awake. Why she wasn’t out here helping. He’d pegged her as that kind of person.

  The smoke slowed down, a strong sizzling reaching their ears, and Ian dared to hope that they had the fire under control.

  “The bed is still burning,” Leo panted out. “It was the only thing on fire when I first noticed it.”

  “It’s good you’re all safe,” Ian answered, still spraying.

  “We were sleeping in the living room. It’s the coolest place in the house.”

  “Whose bedroom is that?”

  “Jenny’s and mine.” He grimaced at the open window, where smoke no longer poured outward. “We had all the windows open, too, to catch a breeze. It’s the only way to stay cool.”

  Monica came up close after throwing another bucket of water into the window. Ian knew the dangers of going inside to continue to fight the fire, but with the nearest fire department at least half an hour away in Northglade, they couldn’t just stand there and spray from the outside. And if the mattress continued to burn inside the house…

  He handed the hose to Monica. “Keep spraying through the window. Come on, Leo, let’s get that mattress outside.”

  Thankfully, the mattress was no longer smoldering. They managed to drag it outside where Monica hosed it down thoroughly. Bedding and clothes in the room, plus a few small pieces of furniture, were tossed out the window. And finally, it seemed everything was under control.

  Ian pulled the mattress farther away from the house, leaving Leo and Monica to flip and move the other items around in search of hot spots. He was about twenty feet from the house when he heard Monica’s soft voice carry through the warm air.

  “Don’t ask me again. I won’t.”

  Leo said something deep and indiscernible in return. Then they immediately stopped and looked over at Ian. Standing beside the mattress, he could easily smell the petroleum products in the air but waited until Leo walked up to him.

  “What were you doing to start this fire?” he asked Leo.

  “Nothing. Like I said, we were all sleeping in the living room. I need to sleep. The work at the resort is hard.”

  At some point George had turned on Ian’s outside light, and in that light, Ian could see Leo’s face scrunch into a furious frown. Monica had slipped close, too, he noticed.

  “Leo, can you smell the gas?”

  Leo looked up, his gaze skimming past Monica’s nervous one. Ian watched both people swallow. Finally, Leo spoke. “I can now that you mention it. What does it mean? I don’t own a car, and I don’t have oil in the house. I didn’t do this.”

  “Do you use any oil at work?”

  “No, but it’s a construction site! There’s probably some there, but we’ve been installing solar panels the last few days. Except that work has been put aside because of the storm. The foreman
wants to wait until they figure out if it’s coming this way or not.”

  Again, his eyes roamed over to Monica’s. Ian caught her wetting her lips and stepping back.

  Ian bent down and peered at the mattress. A shard of smoke-darkened glass could be seen embedded in the outer cover. Flakes of burned cotton disintegrated when he poked them with the rake.

  A Molotov cocktail. A crude, yet effective way to set a fire. And the screen had already been ripped, he’d noticed.

  No, not ripped, he remembered, but rather sliced through quite neatly like with a sharp knife.

  Leo moved away, toeing the charred and soaking remains of his bedroom, bending occasionally to pick something up.

  “Someone threw gas on the mattress?” Monica asked. “Why—” Immediately, she shut her mouth.

  Again, Ian caught the nervous silent exchange between the two neighbors. Then everyone went quiet.

  “Do you think the fire’s out?” Monica finally asked timidly.

  “I’d say, but we’ll wait for the fire department to tell us for sure.”

  “I’ll leave then.”

  Ian looked at her. “Did you hear Leo yelling?”

  “Um, yes, I think so. Or maybe it was the dog. I don’t remember.” She glanced around before moving away.

  Ian watched her, noting how she still wore that simple dress she’s worn the previous day when he’d been pulling Liz from the sinking car. She’d found the time to throw it on, which in itself wasn’t suspicious, but, as she turned away from him, he noted that her hair was still piled high in the same messy bun she wore before, revealing the dress’s clasp at the nape of the neck.

  She’d managed to fasten that clasp, too, something he wouldn’t have considered to be that important, unless she hadn’t even gone to bed. It had to be after 1:00 a.m.

  The hairs on his scalp tingled, a sure sign to him that something wasn’t right.

  “How’s everyone at your house?” he asked George, who’d stopped beside him.

  “Fine. Elsie got the kids back to sleep, and she and Jenny have made a pitcher of iced tea.” George wiped his forehead with a faded handkerchief. “I expect we’ll be up for the rest of the night. The police and the fire department are still about fifteen minutes away.”

  “And Liz?”

  “You were bang on right when you said she was tired. She hasn’t woken up yet, even with Elsie putting the two boys in Charlie’s room with her.”

  It was a small mercy that she hadn’t driven away with Charlie tonight. Sure, she hadn’t been offered a car, but should she have found one, like his SUV now parked behind his house, she’d have been a danger to herself and Charlie.

  Ian pivoted quietly, his words for George alone. “Someone deliberately set this fire.”

  “I guessed as much, considering the smell of gas.”

  “But Leo and his family were in the living room tonight because it was cooler than the bedrooms.”

  “So someone who didn’t know that tried to kill him and his family? Or do you think Leo did this to himself?”

  “I was thinking it might have also been a diversion.”

  “It didn’t work. Perhaps because of Poco. He’s big enough and loud enough to scare off anyone.”

  Ian glanced around. From his view through the trees in the Callahans’ small backyard, he could see Monica opening her own back door. With a hasty glance over at Leo, she hurried inside her house. “And there’s something going on between Leo and Monica. They seemed pretty nervous around each other.”

  George peeked over his shoulder. “I don’t know why. Except…”

  “Except what?” Ian asked.

  He pondered his answer first, then finally said, “Except that Monica is heavily in debt. I don’t know who she borrowed money from, but I’d say it wasn’t from the banks. I do know she owes thousands of dollars and hasn’t paid anything back yet. She told Elsie at the women’s Bible study that she needs to make money fast. She was asking what she might do to get some fast cash.”

  Ian clenched his jaw, noting that both the Callahan house and Monica’s were nearly identical, both bungalows having been built during some distant boom time.

  Great. Another suspicion. The fire might have been a ruse to lure them away from Charlie, but it could have also been a mistake. Whoever Monica had borrowed money from could have been looking for their payment or putting pressure on her to cough it up.

  Though Liz’s dark, curly hair wasn’t like Monica’s medium-brown waves, they were both the same approximate age. Had Liz been mistaken for Monica when she’d been run off the road?

  Did that mean that Smith wasn’t on the island after all?

  No, Ian refused to slacken his vigilance because of a supposition.

  Hours later, after the fire department had arrived and the house was checked completely, the police report filled out and the mattress taken away by them, Ian trudged into the Wilsons’ house.

  Leo and Jenny had taken their daughter and were staying at a friend’s house at the end of the road, while Elsie kept Stephen, the little boy who’d befriended Charlie.

  “How are the boys?” he asked Elsie, accepting a tall glass of iced tea.

  “Fine. Sleeping like babies.”

  “And Liz?”

  “She didn’t wake up. That poor woman was dead on her feet, though she didn’t know it until her head hit the pillow. And you look pretty battered as well.”

  He smiled at her, thankful that Liz had stayed zonked out. She’d use this incident to walk off the island with Charlie, he was sure.

  Elsie’s front room curtains hung slightly ajar, and dawn was peeking through the eastern trees, a pink and dark orange glow that warned of bad weather ahead.

  A noise down the hall made both of them turn. Liz was coming out, wearing the dress that Elsie had given her. It was identical to the one Monica wore last night, and only then did he remember that Elsie had made the women in the village two simple dresses each. She’d been given bolts of different patterned material, and running off the same pattern of dress was probably as easy for the woman as cooking up a pot of seafood bisque or a plate of hush puppies.

  “What’s going on? There’s some boy sleeping on the floor beside Charlie. Well, he’s not now. I set him up onto the bed.” She looked from Elsie to Ian. “What’s wrong?”

  “The Callahans, the family beside my house, had a fire last night. Stephen Callahan is the boy in your room.”

  Liz gasped. “Is everyone okay?”

  “They’re all fine. Just the back bedroom was damaged, but thankfully they were all sleeping in the living room. Leo Callahan said it was cooler there.”

  “I’ll get some coffee on.” Elsie walked into the kitchen.

  Liz touched Ian’s arm. He smelled like smoke but hoped she wouldn’t notice. Or at least not notice that the smoke bore the oily hint of burning fuel. “How does this affect Charlie?” she asked.

  “We need to talk about that, but first, I need other answers.” He walked into the kitchen, with Liz on his heels. “Elsie, did Monica ever mention to you that she was in debt?”

  Looking up from her coffee canister, Elsie wore a shocked expression. “You know I shouldn’t talk about what we women say at our Bible study, Ian. It’s wrong to gossip.”

  “It’s not gossip. I’m trying to think of a reason someone would set fire to the Callahans’ house.”

  “Monica wouldn’t do that!”

  “I’m thinking that someone targeted the wrong house.”

  Elsie gasped. “You think that some loan shark tried to threaten Monica but got the Callahans’ house? Could it be that dangerous?”

  “It all depends on where she borrowed the money from. Why do you think it was a loan shark?”

  Elsie bit her lip, her brow wrinkling in worry. “She said she needed money right away and that she’d borrowed some and the people wanted it back now. She said they refused to wait, and though she didn’t admit it, I think she was scared of them. But she di
dn’t say why she borrowed the money or who from.” She shook her head. “That’s all I know, Ian, and don’t ask me anything more. This is horrible.”

  “Why would Monica borrow money in the first place?” Liz asked. “What’s her lifestyle like?”

  “The same as ours,” Ian answered. “Which makes it odd that she needs money because she hasn’t spent in a way that shows here.”

  “You hired her,” Liz pointed out, glancing at Elsie as the older woman looked deep in thought. “Did she say how she was going to spend her wages?”

  “Like everyone else, on bills,” Elsie answered quickly, putting away the coffee canister. “We all have bills, and Monica was complaining once how much groceries cost. She asked me the other day about starting a garden.”

  Liz’s expression went distant.

  Only when silence dropped on them did Ian notice her concern. “What’s wrong?” Ian asked.

  “I just realized something. When did this fire start?”

  “Around midnight. The police and fire department left about a half hour ago.”

  Her words hollow sounding, she said, “I slept through it all?”

  “Honey, you were exhausted,” Elsie said, pouring coffee. “You’d have slept even if a brass band paraded through that bedroom. Ha! With that dog and those boys, I think the noise was the same.”

  Absently, Liz accepted a cup of coffee and walked around the counter to the table. She sank into a chair, her eyes hollow. “I must have been really tired. That’s awful. I came so close to leaving last night. I had planned to leave if I’d had my rental. Think of how dangerous that would have been.”

  “But you didn’t,” Ian answered, sitting down beside her.

  “You’re certain that the fire was started by some loan shark looking to collect?” she asked him.

  Ian took a sip of coffee. “I don’t know. It was just a suggestion. There was a smell of gasoline to the fire, and the police suspect it was deliberately set. But we can’t rule anything out.”

  She set down her coffee mug. “This isn’t a safe place for Charlie anymore. Even you have to admit that.”