by J. J. Cook
“The roof is going! The roof is going!” JC’s words exploded over the radio.
As Kent and Stella reached a safe place away from the house, JC’s prediction came true. The large red roof folded into what remained of the structure.
The sound echoed across the lake and into the heavy forest that surrounded the community. Debris and ashes flew up into the bright blue sky. The image of the fire reflected on the still waters of the lake behind the house.
“Anybody live through that, Chief Griffin?” the lead EMS tech asked.
Stella shook her head. “We have a victim. Not sure who it is. We need the coroner. I hope no one else was inside.”
Kimmie, who was a bit timid, tapped Stella lightly on the shoulder. “Chief? I think Allen needs help. I tried to get him to take some oxygen. He won’t.”
Stella turned toward Allen. He was sitting on the ground with Sylvia and Hero beside him. Hero’s training to be part of the fire brigade had included gently taking a victim’s hand in his mouth and guiding him to safety. He was trying his best to help Allen to his feet, but the stubborn volunteer was refusing.
“Allen?” Stella shouted as she walked toward him. “Get over there and get some oxygen. You’ll ruin your lungs. I don’t know how long your mask was off, but it only takes a few minutes to cause permanent breathing problems.”
Tears were running down his face from his red eyes—another issue. His eyes had been exposed to the heat and chemicals in the house. They needed to be washed out.
“I can’t, Chief,” he told her. “I keep thinking about that man in there. Do you think it was Barney Falk?”
His voice was hoarse and gritty. Stella wanted to be sympathetic to his first experience finding a fire victim, but that would have to come later. Right now, he needed treatment.
She got him to his feet. “You need help. We take care of the survivors first, right? Then we deal with everything else.”
“Right, Chief.” He coughed as though his lungs were coming out of his chest. “Thanks.”
Chapter 3
The cleanup took hours. There was only a burned-out shell left of the house. The fire brigade had put up crime scene tape around the perimeter, and the Sweet Pepper police added caution tape for good measure.
The hot spots had already been hosed down by the time the coroner had finally arrived. Stella had sent the pumper and her crew back to the firehouse. The engine crew was getting ready to leave as well. There was nothing else they could do with the crime scene until an investigation could be launched.
“We’ve done what we could,” Stella told her volunteers. “Good job, everyone. Let’s go home.”
Two part-time Sweet Pepper police officers were assigned to stay at the site to keep anyone from getting hurt. Stella hadn’t seen John. She had to assume dealing with Bob Floyd had taken longer than he’d thought.
“I’ll need a report from you on this, Chief Griffin,” coroner Judd Streeter remarked as he walked by. He was a round, gray-haired man who seemed more likely to play Santa in a department store than to examine dead bodies. “Sooner rather than later.”
“I’ll have it on your desk tomorrow.” Stella was exhausted and didn’t stop to talk. She climbed up into the front seat of the engine. Hero shot in before she could sit down. He claimed his rightful seat between Stella and JC.
“That was a bear,” JC said as he drove back toward the firehouse. “You think Allen will be okay?”
“I hope so,” she replied. “You never know until something happens that you can’t get over.”
“You ever have a time like that?”
She nodded. “I had to take a few days. I was lucky. I had my father, grandfather, and assorted uncles who’d all experienced the same thing. When you come from a family of firefighters, you know the ins and outs.”
“I suppose so.”
“We’ll have to be Allen’s family on this. Only people who do the job really understand. We have to stick together.”
He agreed. They didn’t speak again as they returned to the firehouse, where the pumper crew had finished putting away their gear and cleaning the truck. They’d already refilled their water tank from the big cistern behind the firehouse.
No one left the firehouse even though they’d finished their responsibilities. Some stayed to take a shower. Others had something to eat and drink, or talked to Tagger.
Stella knew they were waiting for words of wisdom and comfort from her. She remembered doing the same thing with Chief Henry back home.
Bad things happened. She wished it could be as easy as that. She didn’t think of herself as wise or profound. She just did her job.
Being chief required more. She’d signed the contract. She had to find some words of comfort for what her volunteers had gone through.
Sylvia and Hero were running around the firehouse, barking and carrying on. Everyone was watching their antics and laughing. Stella laughed at them too as she went into the kitchen area.
As soon as they saw her, Kimmie and David, their light brown hair almost meshing, pulled the two dogs close and kept them quiet. All the laughter and talking abruptly stopped. The volunteers stared at her, waiting for what she had to say that would help make sense of what they’d been through.
Allen had breathed in some oxygen and had his eyes rinsed—he still looked rough. He got to his feet and apologized to the whole crew. “I don’t know what happened back there. I just lost it.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Stella said. “Most of you haven’t been in the position of finding a victim yet. I can tell you now—it never gets easier. It’s part of our job, but no one needs to apologize for falling apart. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t.”
Allen was usually the one who kept everyone’s spirits up with his funny jokes about his life as a barber in Sweet Pepper. Now he bowed his head and asked permission to say a prayer for the person they’d taken out of the burning house.
Stella was good with that. It was the best way to end her speech about finding victims. They’d each have a turn at that, the hardest part of their job, if they stayed with the fire brigade. It was inevitable.
When Allen was done with his prayer, Tagger asked, “Do you think it was Barney Falk?”
She hated to speculate. “I don’t know for sure. We won’t know until we have word from the coroner. The body was close to the blast and badly burned.”
“I think it was old Barney.” Allen’s voice was quiet with despair. “You know, he did a lot of good things for this town when he was our state rep. He brought in jobs and found money to do upgrades at the pepper factory.”
“He paved a lot of roads and helped get us started in the tourist business too,” Tagger added. “He was a good man. He’ll be missed.”
“Let’s make sure our ID of the body doesn’t go beyond this room,” Stella warned them. “I don’t want to see a headline in the paper tomorrow about firefighters saying it was Barney Falk that died. Everyone understand?”
They all agreed.
“What was that explosion, Chief?” David asked. “Was it something already in the house that went off from the fire, or was it a bomb?”
“I don’t know,” Stella admitted. “We won’t know until the investigation is complete.”
The group began to break up. Tagger was going off his communications shift, and Allen was scheduled to stay in his place.
“Are you sure you’re up for it?” Stella asked Allen.
“I’m as good here as I would be at home watching TV,” Allen replied. “Thanks, Chief.”
She let him stay. “I want to remind everyone that the town bought those dress uniforms for us to wear at Chief Eric Gamlyn’s memorial tomorrow at noon. I hope you can all attend. It’s part of being a firefighter. We honor the ones we lose.”
Everyone agreed to try to be at the cemetery the next day when a new statue, dedicated to Eric, was being unveiled. The mayor was going to say a few words, and the town council would be there
. She’d received a reminder text about it on her phone while they’d been fighting the fire.
It was good, she thought, opening the door to the Cherokee and waiting for Hero to jump in. She hoped it would allow everyone to see Eric more as a man and less as a folk hero. Not that she had anything against all the crazy stories about him. He’d saved her life. He was a hero in her books.
But she thought they should respect that he gave his life for the town too. He really was only a man, but he’d given everything he had to make Sweet Pepper a better place.
Stella drove up Firehouse Road, wondering again if Eric had stopped the bulldozer, and if everything was going to work out to save the cabin. Bob was certainly within his legal rights to tear down the cabin. She wanted to make sure all avenues to prevent that had been explored before she gave up.
For tonight, it was just nice to go home. She may have grown up in Chicago, but Sweet Pepper had her heart now.
It had only been a fluke that had brought her here. She’d been injured and had a falling-out with her boyfriend. The ad she’d seen in the station newsletter in Chicago, asking for an experienced firefighter to train the new fire brigade, had seemed like the perfect opportunity to get away for a few months.
Coming to Sweet Pepper had definitely taken her mind off her problems—and added several more she hadn’t expected. But for good or bad, she was now the fire chief. Sweet Pepper was her home, and she planned to keep living in Eric’s cabin.
Stella parked the Cherokee outside the cabin next to her Harley. The large truck, and the bulldozer it had brought, were gone. She hoped it was a good sign.
The porch light was on. Eric always turned it on when she left. It was the first of many clues that had led her to believe that something strange was going on when she’d first come here. She’d thought it was a prank at first, not willing to believe people were right about the cabin being haunted.
The door was open, and the smell of something wonderful cooking wafted into the evening air.
Hero ran in, almost knocking her down to get inside first. He barked and jumped at Eric, as he always did.
“You’re hungry, aren’t you?” Eric asked the puppy who twirled around and kept barking. “That’s what I thought.”
It was still amazing to Stella that not only did she live with a forty-year-old ghost, he could cook. She had to buy groceries every week. On the bright side, it saved her from eating junk food all the time.
“Whatever that is smells really good.” She shut the door. “I’m starving.”
“Help yourself,” Eric said as he fed Hero. “It’s rice with almonds, vegetables, and peppers.”
“Of course. Doesn’t everything have peppers in it?”
Eric sort of hovered in the small area around the rough-hewn wood table where Stella ate and kept her laptop. The cabin wasn’t large, though it had a small second story that was used for storage.
It still looked like an old hunting lodge, made of large, smooth logs that were stained a light brown color. There were three big rooms—living room, kitchen, and bedroom—with a large stone fireplace.
She’d managed to get rid of most of the deer antlers that had been everywhere when she’d arrived. They’d been used as cup holders in the kitchen and as lamps on the tables Eric had made.
Now there was only the ceiling light fixture in the living room, made from huge antlers. Eric really loved that piece, willing to compromise on her other changes if he could keep it.
The living room had a large brown leather sofa and matching chair with colorful Native American rugs and prints. The single bedroom had an oversized log bed in it with two dressers and a side table.
Tall windows overlooked the porch in back, the Little Pigeon River running by hundreds of yards below. The Smoky Mountains rose up beyond the river, their majestic face changing with each passing hour.
Stella loved sitting on the porch. The town had even put in a hot tub for her.
“What happened with the fire?” he asked.
“We had a victim. It was probably Barney Falk.”
“That’s what I was afraid of when I heard the address.” Eric monitored police and fire calls. “He was a good man. He did a lot for this area. He was too filled with his power and ego at the end, but he did a good job for a long time.”
Stella complimented the rice. It was delicious. Too bad ghosts didn’t eat. “He was one of the old guard, according to my grandfather. He said Barney was more dangerous than anyone else in Sweet Pepper.”
“Ben Carson should know. He’s as dangerous as Barney. Maybe a little worse.”
One of the many surprises waiting for Stella in Sweet Pepper had been finding out that her mother’s family was from that area. Her mother, Barbara Griffin, had never told anyone that she was a pepper heiress from Tennessee—at least not until Stella had already arrived there.
Stella had gone in blind. Her mother had called it not prejudicing her opinion against her millionaire grandfather. Ben Carson owned a significant part of the town, and all of the Sweet Pepper canning factory operations. He lived on a large estate a few miles away. Stella had found out quickly that almost everyone feared him—some actively hated him.
“Do you think someone got angry enough to kill Barney?” Eric asked.
She told him about the blast at Barney’s house. “It may have been a bomb.”
Chapter 4
“I think it’s possible,” Eric said. “I hope you can figure out who’s responsible. No matter what Barney did, he shouldn’t have died that way.”
“I know. I’m a little nervous about doing the investigation on this. I’m not really qualified. I could put what I know about bombs in my pocket. There’s bound to be fallout from this. He was an important man in the state.”
“You’ll be fine,” he reassured her. “There’s no one else. You’ll have to do the best you can. You could check with Ben first and make sure he isn’t responsible.”
“I don’t know why you and John are so against him. He’s been as good to this town as Barney Falk! He set up the canning operation, which employs most of the people here. He started building the vineyard. I haven’t seen him do anything but work for the town since I’ve been here.”
“Maybe it’s because he knows you’re watching him.”
This wasn’t a topic they could agree on. Stella knew that. Sometimes it enraged her, and she got into the old argument again anyway. But not tonight.
“Your memorial is tomorrow,” she reminded him, changing the subject.
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t attend.”
“I’ll take pictures for you. There should be a good turnout.”
“Thanks. At least since you’ve been here, I know what’s going on outside the cabin. Before that, well, let’s just say CNN doesn’t have much information about Sweet Pepper.”
Stella put her plate and glass in the sink and sat in the comfortable brown leather chair near the fireplace, slinging one leg over the arm. “Did you stop the bulldozer?”
“No. I didn’t have to. After everyone left, the driver was looking at it. It was out of fuel. He was cursing his partner, so I guess that’s what happened.”
“It was a close call. Do you think you could’ve stopped it before it took out the cabin?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not sure how strong my ‘ghostly powers,’ as you call them, are. I’ve never put them to the test. I hope I don’t have to. Did you hear anything from the police about Bob?”
“No. John never made it to the fire. I don’t know what happened.”
“Is there anything that can be done about it?”
“I’m going to find a lawyer. I noticed Hugh Morton is next door to the town hall. I was thinking about asking him.”
“You know he’s the town attorney, right?” Eric hovered toward the laptop she’d left sitting open on the table. “He went to school with Bob, Mayor Wando, and Nay Albert. They’re all still chummy.”
“Did you go to sc
hool with them too?”
“Part of the time. I left home before I finished high school.” He’d already started looking in the area Yellow Pages online for a lawyer. He’d become well acquainted with the Internet.
“No way! You didn’t finish high school? What happened?”
“My father died, and I had to get a job to support my family. I was the oldest son. That’s what I was supposed to do.”
“I guess it doesn’t matter. You’re famous anyway.”
“It was a different time, Stella. A lot of young people around here dropped out to go to work. Very few went to college. I was lucky—I left Sweet Pepper. That was an education in itself.”
“Yeah, that’s right. You worked as a lumberjack up north, didn’t you? That’s what your legends say, anyway.”
“I went up to Canada and did some work as a lumberjack. I also did some gold mining, and worked as a brakeman on a train. I learned to do a little of everything before I came back here. I was glad for it.”
“So you’re self-taught. You were a good fire chief, besides building the cabin and the firehouse and starting the fire brigade. What made you decide to start the first fire brigade?”
He looked at her over the top of the laptop screen. “Are you saying a few words on my behalf tomorrow? You’re usually not all that interested in my past.”
“Yes,” she admitted. “I thought someone else, someone who actually knew you when you were alive, would want to do it. Instead, they passed it to me with the lame excuse about me being the fire chief.”
“That makes sense to me. I’d rather have you talk about me.”
“So why the fire brigade?”
“Well, there was a loose group of men who did the work before the fire brigade. They never practiced and had no real firefighting equipment. When someone called to tell them there was a fire, they got in their trucks and met at the location.”
Stella was amazed. “You’re not talking about a bucket brigade, are you? What was the population of Sweet Pepper back then?”
“It was more like the garden hose brigade. All the men had really long garden hoses. They brought them along and attached them to nearby houses when they got to the scene so they could put out the fire.”
