by Leslie Caine
“They’re co-chairs,” Michael interjected. “And speaking of chairs, Shannon, how about allowing our guests to sit down?”
She sighed and whirled on a heel. “Let’s go into the living room. Now that all the hammering and sawing’s stopped. Lunch break. They can never follow any kind of a schedule, except when it comes to stopping work. Noon to one every day, it’s quiet as a church around here. And by four P.M. on the dot, they pack up and race out.”
“Can I get you anything to drink?” Michael asked us. “Water? Coffee? Jim Beam?”
“No, thanks,” we answered in unison.
To Shannon I said, “Audrey had mentioned last week that you’d managed to block BaseMart from moving into city limits.”
“Right. But, of course, the city council has no control over Crestview County, which is precisely where that chunk of property’s located. Not to mention my home!”
“I’m confused,” I admitted. “I didn’t see the newspaper article. What chunk of property?”
“Pate wants to put his store in that big open field behind his house,” Michael explained.
“I remember that they were trying to get the rights to build that area into a store, but—”
“He wants to put a store in his own backyard?” Sullivan interrupted, incredulous.
“It was front-page news. I’ll show you.” Michael began to rummage through the red woven basket that was beside his wife’s feet.
I massaged my forehead. It was a struggle to care about this, when we were sitting just a room away from the very place where I’d found poor Taylor’s body.
“Erin, are you all right?” Shannon asked.
“I’m fine. I’m just trying to think, that’s all.”
“You’ve dragged her out here three days after discovering her brother died in our house,” Michael told her as he handed a newspaper to Steve. “Remember?”
“I’m sorry, Erin,” she managed. “I truly am. And I really wish this could wait, but once Pate breaks ground for BaseMart, the energy lines will be so vile, this house will be cursed forever.”
There was a noise in the attic over my head. It sounded like a squirrel or something, scampering across the floor. “As I said earlier, I didn’t know Taylor at all, really, but he’s still my brother. It’s been extremely upsetting.”
“Oh, I know,” Shannon replied. “Imagine how it’s been for us. It happened in our home, after all.” She peered at my face as though it was smudged. “I should call Ang Chung to come speak with you. He does these Taoist mediation sessions, too, that are nice and relaxing.”
“That’s okay. But, getting back to your problem, frankly, if Pate builds a megastore across the street, there isn’t much Steve and I can do to help you.”
“Short of physically moving your house,” Sullivan muttered under his breath.
Shannon hopped to her feet. “That’s it! We’ll move our whole house! That’s our only hope!”
“Shannon!” Michael scolded. He fired a quick, penetrating glare in Sullivan’s direction. “We can’t afford that!”
As though she hadn’t heard, Shannon paced excitedly around her chocolate leather coffee table and prattled on. “It’s the perfect solution. We’ve got lots of acreage to work with. Oh, I wish Ang were here! He’d be able to tell us precisely where we should relocate.”
“But…what happened to stopping Pate’s store from expanding into the Crestview area?” Michael asked his wife. “You’ve been worrying about how the store’s going to suck away all the money from downtown Crestview. That all the shops and galleries will go out of business.”
Sullivan was scanning the newspaper article. “According to this quote, Pate insists that’s a ‘small price to pay’ in exchange for bringing cruddy goods to the town at cheap prices. Claims it’s going to be fabulous for our local economy.”
“It sure won’t be great for our personal economy,” Michael said, “no matter whether we move this house or not. Hon, even if we put it on the back corner of our property line, we’re going to have a huge, ugly store, right across the street from us!”
“We can plant a big copse of trees in the front and install a long, meandering driveway through them,” Shannon said promptly. But she plopped down on the sofa with an air of defeat.
“Pate might be bluffing,” Sullivan suggested. “He’ll lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in property value himself. The store would be even closer to his house than to yours, so—”
“Oh, they’ll be bulldozing his house down as well, but he doesn’t care about any of that. He just wants to force me to sell to him. That’s why he’s putting in that hideous porch roof and all sorts of god-awful things. Next he’ll be moving in a trailer. You watch. What does he care? He’s a millionaire many times over. He intends to hang out here in Crestview, till he drains this town dry of every drop of cultural interest and integrity and character. He’s plotting to put a BaseMart auto-repair shop right where we’re sitting!” she wailed.
The rustling above our heads was growing more and more distracting. “What’s that noise?” I asked, looking at the ceiling.
“It’s nothing,” Shannon replied. “Those darned raccoons must be back.”
“Raccoons?”
“We’ve had a problem with them off and on for years,” Michael told us. “But she doesn’t want me to call the exterminator.” He waggled his thumb at his wife.
“We hardly ever go up there. And it’s not like they bother us. Other than making the occasional scurrying sounds.”
The noise was growing louder. “It sounds as if the whole extended raccoon family must have moved up there,” I pointed out.
“But getting back to my problem, Erin, there has to be something we can do…other than moving the house itself. Even Ang says he’s stumped.”
“Shannon, a big store locating across the street is a bit beyond the limitations of what interior design can do for you,” I replied bluntly.
“I know.” She sighed. “It’s going to be a total disaster. Regardless of whether we move the house to the far corner of our property or not, we’ll still be stuck with the entrance road to BaseMart as a dead end, directly in front of our property. You might as well put a cemetery there, for all the bad energy bombarding us.”
“Honey?” Michael said. “Much as I hate to say it, maybe it’s time we consider taking Pate up on his offer.”
“Sell him our home? Over my dead body! How can you even suggest such a thing?”
“If we sell now, our property value will still be high. If we wait and Pate gets the okay from the county to build—”
“No! If that happens, we’ll get a new foundation built where Ang tells us to relocate. They moved that lighthouse in North Carolina’s Outer Banks that was too near the ocean. Compared to that, moving our house will be a snap.”
“But that’s going to cost us more than this house is worth, Shannon! That’s crazy!” Michael protested.
The racket above our heads was still increasing. Sullivan said, “Sounds like your raccoons are break-dancing up there.”
“They do seem to be a little more rambunctious than normal,” Shannon replied.
To me, it sounded like the raccoons were about to crash through the ceiling. Enough was enough. “I’m going to go take a look.” I left the room and headed for the attic door, which had been built into the tongue-and-groove wood ceiling in their family room.
I glared at the badly designed two-foot-by-three-foot door in the ceiling. The wood door had been hinged incorrectly—so that it had to be pushed open into the attic instead of simply pulled down. The flap was easy enough to open when climbing up; not so easy to close when coming back down. Well, if I had to be the one to confront a dozen break-dancing raccoons, two-timing Michael could handle the challenge afterward of shoving the pull-down ladder back into place, all the while keeping the door flap only partially closed.
I centered a wood splat-back chair underneath the opening, climbed onto the chair, and threw t
he door wide open with so much force that it bounced a little on its rubber bumpers. I reached up and grabbed the ladder and tugged it into place. The wood rung felt strangely hot. There was a strange flickering light above me. Now that the door was open, I smelled something that made my heart race. “My God,” I cried. “I think your attic is on fire!”
“That’s insane,” Shannon retorted.
“Insane or not…” I took a couple of steps up the ladder. I ducked as a small section of a joist on the roof cracked off, shooting down a cascade of hot embers. The noise had been crackling wood. Thick smoke stung my eyes. “Oh, God! The whole attic’s in flames!”
I had to get the door shut or the fire would spread downstairs along the ceiling! The far edge of the door was dangerously close to the fire—too close for me to climb up there and swing it toward the opening. I tried to grip the edges on either side of the hinge and shut it, but it was much too heavy to lift. I had to climb farther up the ladder.
Standing as high on the ladder as I dared, I yanked on the door. It wouldn’t budge.
“Erin!” a voice cried. Probably Sullivan, but I was too frantic to care. “Get down from there!”
I wasted precious oxygen to shout: “Just a second!” I had to find a way to shut this damned door! The added oxygen flow would only help fuel the flames.
Roiling mountains of thick black smoke clogged my vision and my throat.
“I’m calling nine-one-one!” someone cried—Michael, I realized.
I ducked, took a deep gulp of air, and tried once more to pry the door flap back toward the stairs. Again, it wouldn’t budge.
Without warning, something grabbed me by the waist. I was lifted and pulled off the stairs. I yelled, “Let go of me!” In one swift clean-and-jerk motion, Sullivan lifted me off the stairs and deposited me on the floor. Then he raced up the ladder, pulled the trap door partially shut, lowered himself onto the chair, then heaved the ladder back up as the door dropped into place.
“Let’s get out of here! Now!” he shouted.
“Somebody already alerted the police,” Michael announced. “Fire trucks are on the way.” He glanced anxiously at the ceiling.
“My artwork! I can’t leave it! Mike,” Shannon cried to her husband, “carry these pieces out. I’ll get the ones on the far wall—”
“No! Shannon, get a grip!” he snapped. “You can redo the paintings, if you have to. We’re all leaving this house now!”
“Fine! Fine!” she shrieked. But she didn’t move an inch closer to the door. “So we’ll all just grab a pair of paintings and go. Come on, people!” she cried over her shoulder as she dashed into her studio. “Let’s move! Each of you grab one of these paintings against the wall. Now! Hurry!”
The three of us exchanged shocked looks, but then raced after her. Michael reached for an oil painting near the door. Shannon cried, “No, not those! They’re not my best work! I said the ones against the wall.”
Figuring it would take longer to chastise her than to grab a painting or two, I complied, as did her husband and a glowering Sullivan. Dragging as many of the awkward wood-frame-backed canvases as we could, the four of us finally made it out of the house. Shannon set her two paintings down on the front lawn. “Put them here, everyone. We’ll stack them up. They should be safe this far away from the house.”
But Sullivan didn’t move to obey. Instead he was eyeing Pate, who was standing on his porch, speaking on his cell phone as he watched the Youngs’ roof. I turned to look. Six-foot-high flames were shooting out into the deep blue sky.
Shannon tore across the street toward him.
“I called nine-one-one.” He pocketed his cell phone. “They were already on the way.”
“You bastard!” Shannon screamed at him.
Pate took a step back. “What!?”
“You did this!” Shannon shrieked. She started to pummel his chest with her fists. “You set fire to my house! You’re trying to kill me!”
chapter 6
Michael dragged Shannon away from Pate and tried in vain to get her to calm down. Within minutes, sirens were once again wailing. Two chartreuse fire trucks arrived, along with a smaller emergency vehicle. A team of firefighters hooked up a hose to a hydrant. Soon a steady blast of water slashed across the flames. Shannon was in tears, all the while harping at the firefighters: “Save the north side of the house first! That’s where I do my painting!”
Though my client’s wishes were paramount, my heart was invested in the new construction on the southwest side. David’s team had started in on the “deconstruction” (as I liked to call it), which would allow us to install the column of glass bricks. Sullivan and I had redesigned the room as a combination art showroom/living room, and it was going to look amazing.
Provided it wasn’t burned to the ground.
In any case, that skuzzy Ang Chung was going to be doing his happy dance at how badly this fire would delay the remodel. I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d sunk so low as to torch it himself. That was a preposterous notion, though. How could he have gotten away with climbing into the attic this morning, unnoticed?
The temperature had dropped rapidly. Sullivan and I huddled together for warmth as we stood watching on the front lawn—a not entirely unpleasant sensation. Michael, the two-timing hypocrite, kept trying to coax his wife into his arms. She wasn’t even wearing a coat. Maybe her adrenaline was keeping her sufficiently warm.
Minutes later, the leaping flames had been extinguished, and the firemen were entering the house. The charred, gaping holes were sorry evidence that the roof had sustained considerable damage. Thankfully, judging from what I could glimpse through the open front door, the blaze hadn’t spread into the Youngs’ living quarters.
A police car parked in front of the house. Shannon dashed over to the first officer as he emerged. Pointing at Pate, still standing on his porch, she shouted, “That’s the man who set my house on fire! Arrest him!”
“Hey! Whoa!” Pate said, holding up his palms as he walked toward us. “I had nothing to do with this fire, Officer.”
“He’s been sneaking around in my home! He got to be buddies with one of my construction workers—and that guy wound up dead in my foyer! Just three days ago!”
Michael had been talking with a firefighter, but now he trotted toward his wife. “Shannon! Get ahold of yourself! Sorry, Officer. My wife is a passionate person. Sometimes she lets her emotions get the best of her and doesn’t think things through.”
“Michael!”
“She doesn’t mean to be officially accusing our neighbor, Mr. Hamlin, of committing a crime,” he persisted. “She’s merely speculating.”
Shannon glared at him. “Way to play Benedict Arnold! What’s the matter? Are you afraid Pate’s going to sue us? He doesn’t scare me!”
To his credit, Pate didn’t say a word.
“Did you see this man setting fire to your house, ma’am?” the first officer asked calmly, indicating Pate.
“Well…no. But I’m also not ‘merely speculating.’ I have plenty of good reasons to suspect him.”
“None of which amount to anything, I assure you, Officers, because I’m innocent.” Pate’s deep voice was calm, in striking contrast to Shannon’s. “I did not set your house on fire, Miss Dupree.”
“It’s Mrs. Young to you! I only use my maiden name professionally!”
“The very last thing I would do at this particular time would be to commit arson,” Pate assured the officer. He then focused his gaze on Shannon. “Think about it. The Sentinel already spread the word that I’m trying to build on a tract of land behind my house. Do you really think I’d be stupid enough to set fire to your home now? While my financial future is in the hands of local government officials?”
“I wouldn’t put it past you. Just look at that jutting roof, Officers! He aimed it right at my house! If that’s not proof that the man is trying to destroy my house, I don’t know what is!”
The two officers looked where Sha
nnon was pointing, clearly baffled by her accusation.
“Bad feng shui,” Pate explained, incorrectly pronouncing “feng.” “You know…the Chinese art?”
“Feng shui literally translates to wind and water,” I interjected. “It got that name because, with China’s geography, building a structure on high ground meant battling strong winds. Lowlands meant flooding.”
“Oh, right,” the one officer said, grinning. “Ya know, my wife got into that for a while. She even bought this ugly ceramic turtle and stuck it near our door. Said it’d protect the house.” He chuckled. “Here she lives with a cop, but she figures she needs a turtle statue to…” He let his voice fade as he watched a firefighter run past us, apparently only then remembering the situation’s gravity.
“So that porch roof across the street is bad for you?” a second officer asked Shannon.
“Of course it is! It’s shaped like a dagger! And it’s pointing at the window of my art studio!”
Pate grinned. “Personally, I happen to like the way it makes my porch look. Kind of dramatic and different. Don’t you think?” He glanced at Sullivan and me for confirmation. Under Shannon’s watchful eye, I didn’t dare blink. Truth be told, from purely an aesthetical standpoint, Pate’s roof had a certain appeal. He strode toward Steve, his hand extended. “I owe you an apology, Mr. Sullivan. I should have heard you out when you wanted to discuss my porch roof. I’m not real patient these days. I’m in the middle of a nasty divorce. Whole thing’s running me ragged.”
“No problem.”
As the men shook hands, Shannon grunted in disgust. “You sure were right about Pate being the megamacho type, Erin.”
Pate overheard and gave us a wry smile. He stepped toward me, and our gazes met. I was startled. The man had Paul Newman–like blue eyes. He clasped my hand in his. “Miss Gilbert, I just wanted to tell you how very sorry I am about your brother.” He gave my hand a gentle squeeze, then released it. “Taylor had a terrific sense of humor and a refreshing openness. His death at such a young age is tragic.”
