“Push the screen out, Jeffy!” I cried, making pushing motions with my hands. The window was small, but so was he.
“Come on, Jeffy, push the screen away. You can do it. Push!”
Wailing even louder, he pushed, and I had to dodge as the screen fell to the ground.
“Jump, Jeffy! Don’t be afraid. Come on and jump,” I yelled. “I’ll catch you.”
I wasn’t sure how much he understood or even heard over his panicky cries and I knew that all I could hope to do was break his fall. But I might as well urge him to fly for all the good it was doing, because he clearly had no intention of jumping out of a high window.
Smoke billowed out around him now so thickly that I could barely see him. But I heard him cough and choke and I was terrified that the flames would reach him any second. I turned to search for something—anything—that would let me help him and almost collided with a small wiry man who reeked of alcohol.
He carried a rickety homemade ladder that he set against the side of the building and immediately started to climb toward the thick black smoke.
“Bobby!” Jeffy sobbed. “I want my momma.”
“I know, dearie,” the man crooned. “You just come on out with me and we’ll go find her.”
The ladder wobbled and started to slide sideways and I rushed to steady it.
“Momma!”
“Come on, dearie. Turn around now and back on out to me . . . You can do it . . . That’s right. Bobby’ll take you to your momma. You just come with old Bobby.”
He managed to coax Jeffy halfway out, but then we heard June scream from somewhere behind him and he tried to scramble back in. Bobby gave a tremendous yank, though, and Jeffy came through with such momentum that the older man lost his footing and slid down the ladder. I managed to sidestep him, but Jeffy fell on top of us both.
A moment later, flames shot out of the window and began licking at the eaves of the roof.
I seemed to have turned my ankle and Bobby was cursing that his arm was broken, while Jeffy just sat on the ground and wailed like a three-year-old with no one to comfort him.
I limped around to the front of the shed and found Amos lying on the ground outside where he had managed to hobble before collapsing.
I couldn’t find a pulse.
The interior of the shed was like a raging kiln during the blasting stage and I began to shake as I realized that June’s agonized scream only moments ago had come from inside.
By the time the fire engines arrived, the roof had already fallen in on the first shed and the others weren’t far behind. The firemen managed to disconnect the propane tank on the car kiln and shift it out of the fire’s reach so it wouldn’t explode. After that, all they could do was wet down the surrounding area and try to keep the flames from spreading through the pine trees to the houses and sales shop.
The Hitchcocks arrived, reeling at the sight of this fresh tragedy. An EMS truck rushed Amos and Bobby to the hospital, but despite valiant efforts to resuscitate the old man, he did not survive this second stroke.
Connor Woodall called someone from Social Services, who came out and took charge of June Gregorich’s son. Poor bewildered Jeffy was still calling for her as they drove away.
It was almost dark before we got it all sorted out.
“Fern told me that you’d asked her what would happen if a pregnant woman ingested large doses of lead,” Connor said.
I nodded wearily. “Amos’s red mugs.”
I’d had lots of time to finish putting it all together while the official work went on.
“Lead crosses the placental barrier and can cause irreversible developmental damage to a fetus,” I said. “I don’t know how long she’d been searching for the maker of those mugs, but once she matched the stamp to the one on Fern’s website, she came straight here. That’s how she knew to kill Donny in a way that would totally shock and humiliate Amos. And she probably sowed the seeds of distrust that helped break up James Lucas’s marriage just so she’d be rid of a woman who might have noticed what she was up to. Then she cold-bloodedly waited till Amos was almost over Donny’s death before she killed James Lucas.”
Remembering how closely she’d questioned me about the likelihood of Davis coming back, I had a feeling that he had been her intended victim with the snake but that she’d muddled the cars.
“If Davis had died, then sooner or later she’d have gone after Tom deliberately. She wanted to strip away every reason Amos had for living.”
Connor sighed. “And I missed it all because she’d barely met Donny and she didn’t seem to gain anything by the other deaths.”
He handed me the mug, which I didn’t remember dropping.
“A souvenir,” he said.
Miraculously, it was still intact.
“You might as well keep it. There’s another one in the window of her bedroom.”
“She told Fliss it was to focus her harmonic energies. More like keeping her hatred focused, I’d say.”
I looked at the clear cardinal red that shimmered like a summer sunset.
A summer sunset, or a mother’s heart burning for retribution?
I hope Karen will appreciate what it cost.
The End
Also by Margaret Maron
Deborah Knott Novels
Storm Track
Kindle Nook
Home Fires
Kindle Nook
Killer Market
Kindle Nook
Up Jumps the Devil
Kindle Nook
Shooting at Loons
Kindle Nook
Southern Discomfort
Kindle Nook
Bootlegger’s Daughter
Kindle Nook
Sigrid Harald Novels
Fugitive Colors
Kindle Nook
Past Imperfect
Kindle Nook
Corpus Christmas
Kindle Nook
Baby Doll Games
Kindle Nook
The Right Jack
Kindle Nook
Death in Blue Folders
Kindle Nook
Death of a Butterfly
Kindle Nook
One Coffee With
Kindle Nook
Non-Series
Bloody Kin
Kindle Nook
Short Stories
Bewreathed
Kindle Nook
With This Ring
Kindle Nook
Deborah’s Judgment
Kindle Nook
Short Story Collections
Postcards from the Mediterranean
Kindle Nook
Five Christmas Gifts—A Holiday Short Story Collection
Kindle Nook
Be sure to visit Margaret’s website at www.margaretmaron.com and follow her on Facebook.
Uncommon Clay (A Deborah Knott Mystery Book 8) Page 23
