Murder Shoots the Bull

by Anne George

  It was an incredibly beautiful night. The air outside, I knew, would feel like cool silk. So before I poured the Cheerios, and still without turning on the lights, I slipped on some huaraches that were under the table, got the flashlight out of the junk drawer, and took several dog biscuits from the box. Woofer had disappeared inside his igloo right after supper, and I wanted to check on him.

  The first touch of fall was in the air, a dryness. The weather was still hot, but not the melting hot of late August. I walked across the yard, knelt and whispered to Woofer to come out and enjoy the night.

  I could hear his tail thumping, and in a minute he stuck his head out.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  He came all of the way out and accepted a dog biscuit. He was fine.

  I patted him and started back toward the house. It was then that I saw the flickering light at the back of the Phizers’ house. I stopped, puzzled. The light became a flame.

  Dear God.

  For a second, I couldn’t think what to do first. I started toward the Phizers’ but detoured into my kitchen and called 911. Then I had the presence of mind to realize I could call Mitzi quicker than I could run over there.

  Arthur answered sleepily.

  “Your house is on fire,” I screeched. “Y’all get out! Right now.”

  “What?”

  “Your house. A fire. Get out!”

  I raced down the hall to get my robe.

  “What is it?” Lisa was standing in her door.

  “A fire at the Phizers’.”

  Fred had gotten out of bed and was opening the blinds when I ran into the bedroom, banging my hip on the bedpost. I could see through the window that the small flicker was now a serious fire.

  “My God!” He grabbed his pants and was stumbling into them as he made for the door. “I’ve got to go see if they’re all right.”

  “Put on some shoes!” I felt across the bed for my robe. It hadn’t occurred to me to turn on a light, but as he left, he had the presence of mind to flip the switch. I immediately saw my robe, threw it on, and ran after him.

  We live three blocks from a fire station for which I was especially grateful this night. As I went out, one fire truck was already pulling into the driveway and the firemen were jumping off, yelling at each other. Another truck pulled up in front and the men ran across the yard.

  But above the flashing red lights of the fire trucks was the terrible sight of flames shooting into the night sky from the back of Mitzi and Arthur’s house. How could this have happened so suddenly?

  Firemen were dragging hoses toward the back of the house. Water was already shooting high in the air and onto the flames which hissed and sparked. I ran toward the front of the house, dodging firemen and waterhoses and saw Fred standing with Mitzi and Arthur.

  “You okay?” I was out of breath.

  “Oh, Patricia Anne.” Mitzi collapsed into my arms. “Oh, God, I can’t believe this!”

  “Are you all right?”

  “We’re okay,” Arthur said in a shaky voice.

  A fireman came running by. “Do y’all mind moving out to the sidewalk?”

  We moved. A small crowd of neighbors was gathered there already, watching. I wondered what time it was.

  “What caused it? Bad wiring?” someone asked.

  No one answered. We stood, huddled together, watching the orange flames, helpless. The air was heavy with smoke; my eyes began to burn. Several people coughed and rubbed their eyes, but no one left.

  And then, in a few minutes, from the front of the house we could no longer see fire snaking into the night sky. I hoped that was a good sign. I had seen enough fires on TV, though, to know that if it had crept into the attic, it could explode from under the eaves anywhere, everywhere. All we could do was wait.

  “Where’s Arabella?” I had just realized she should be there.

  “I hope she’s at her mother’s apartment. Come here, honey.” Arthur put his arms around Mitzi and pressed her face to his shoulder. “Just don’t look.”

  “But she’s not here.”

  To my relief, Arthur shook his head no.

  “This is awful,” Mitzi sobbed.

  “Maybe not, honey.” Arthur rubbed her shoulder. “Anyway, we’re out, and we’re okay, and that’s the important thing.” He turned to us. “The damn smoke alarm didn’t go off. If you hadn’t called, Patricia Anne, we’d still be in there.”

  Don Tripp from across the street overheard him and said, “You need more than one smoke alarm, Arthur.”

  “Hell, we have three, Don. None of them went off.”

  “Damn! You need to check those things every so often, you know.”

  “I do.”

  “Our wedding pictures, Arthur,” Mitzi sobbed. “And the girls’ wedding pictures.”

  “They’re probably fine. And the girls have copies of them.” He smoothed her hair. “Why don’t you let Patricia Anne take you over to her house. Make us all a big pot of coffee.”

  Mitzi looked up at him.

  “Okay? Will you do that? There’s not a thing you can do here.”

  “He’s right, Mitzi.” I said. “We can at least make everybody coffee.”

  “But I don’t want to leave.”

  “Please, honey.” Arthur nodded toward the house. “I think they’re getting it under control, anyway.”

  Mitzi looked at the firemen and the hoses, the flashing lights. “You think so?”

  “I do. And it’s chilly out here. You go make that coffee.”

  She looked at me. “Patricia Anne?”

  “We’ll be back in a little while, Arthur.” I looked around for Fred, but he had disappeared. I took Mitzi’s hand and led her toward my house.

  Lisa was waiting for us at the gate and holding a blanket. “I was just bringing this over,” she said. She wrapped it around the shaking Mitzi and led her up the steps and into the kitchen.

  “Woofer’s in here, Mama,” Lisa called from the door. “I brought him in so he wouldn’t get scared. Muffin’s still in my bed asleep.”

  I swear, my son Alan had lost his mind, taking a chance on losing this girl. I stood for a moment looking over at the fire that was now just sparks, grateful that it had been no worse.

  When I went inside, Mitzi was on the sofa in the den, wrapped in the blanket but still shivering.

  “Lisa’s making the coffee,” she said, her teeth chattering. “Why on earth would I be cold? It’s not cold in here.”

  I took her hands and rubbed them. They were like ice. Was she going into shock?

  I tried to remember what the first-aid manuals said. Head down? No. That was for fainting. Lord, all those years of teaching and all those emergencies, and I couldn’t think what to do. Well, getting her warm sure wouldn’t hurt.

  “Lie down, Mitzi,” I said, “and prop your feet up on this pillow.” If she got any worse, I decided, I would go and get one of the firemen. Some aspirin? That’s what they say to take if you think you’re having a heart attack. Wouldn’t hurt.

  I tucked the blanket around her and rushed into the bathroom. Mary Alice had talked me into joining a tap dancing class with her the year before and I had ended up the very first day with tendinitis. Haley had brought me a thing, God only knows what you call it, that you put in the microwave for a couple of minutes. It’s flexible and holds the heat for a half hour or so. I had wrapped it around my thigh for the tendonitis, and it had felt wonderful.

  I grabbed it, hurried back to the kitchen, and threw it into the microwave.

  “What’s that?” Lisa wanted to know.

  “A thing that you heat up and put on you.”

  “One of those microwave heating packs?”

  “I reckon.” I reached in the cabinet, got two aspirin, poured some water in a glass and took them to Mitzi. I was back in the kitchen by the time the microwave dinged. Lisa was looking out of the window at the Phizers’ house.

  “I think it’s over,” she said. “They’re rolling up one o
f the hoses.”

  “Good. Where’s Woofer?”

  “Asleep in the utility room. I’ll bring Mrs. Phizer some coffee.”

  The heat pack smelled like freshly baked bread. It was so hot, though, I had to wrap it in a dish towel before I placed it between Mitzi and the back of the sofa.

  “Lord, that feels good,” she said. “I don’t know why I’m so cold.”

  “You’ve been through a lot today.” What time was it anyway?

  Lisa came in with a coffee mug in one hand and the sugar bowl in the other. “This should warm you up, Mrs. Phizer. Put a lot of sugar in it.”

  “Don’t sit up too fast,” I warned.

  “I’m okay.”

  She wasn’t okay, but the coffee would do her good. She sat up, and I put the heat pack against her back.

  She put two teaspoonfuls of sugar into the mug, stirred it, and sipped carefully.

  “What time is it?” I asked Lisa.

  “A little after three.”

  The coffee shook in Mitzi’s hand. She reached over and placed it on the table. “If it hadn’t been for your call, Patricia Anne, I hate to think what would have happened.”

  “Your smoke alarm didn’t go off, Mrs. Phizer?”

  “Our three smoke alarms didn’t go off.”

  Lisa glanced around at me and frowned.

  “You forgot to check the batteries?”

  “Arthur said he checked them, but he must not have.”

  I hoped that was true. I didn’t want to think of the alternative. An alternative that Mitzi hadn’t thought of yet.

  The back door opened and Fred came in. The smell of smoke came in with him. “Everything’s under control over there, Mitzi,” he said, sticking his head into the den. “Those guys know what they’re doing. Arthur said to tell you that most of the damage is at the back, and the rest of the house is okay. Smoke, of course.”

  Mitzi teared up. “The house isn’t gone?”

  “Nothing that can’t be fixed, Mitzi. I promise you. The firemen are going to stay over there for a while longer to make sure. I came to get us some coffee. Arthur says he’ll be here in a little while.”

  “Y’all can sleep in the boys’ room, Mitzi.” The boys’ room had been my ironing and sewing room for fifteen years, but there were comfortable twin beds in there.

  “I’ll make up the beds,” Lisa said.

  “Thanks. I don’t think I’ll sleep much, but thanks.” Mitzi wiped the tears from her face. “I can’t believe three smoke alarms and not a one of them went off. Can y’all?”

  “There’s a police car over there, just pulled up. That’s probably what they’re looking into,” Fred said.

  Mitzi didn’t need to hear this now. And, truthfully, neither did I.

  “Take the coffee, Fred,” I said. “There are some Styrofoam cups in the cabinet over the refrigerator.”

  For once he caught on to the tone of my voice and left.

  Twelve

  Dawn comes slowly in September. I hadn’t gone back to sleep, though Fred and Arthur had come in around four.

  “You awake?” Fred whispered.

  I assured him that I was.

  He pulled off the pants he had on over his pajamas, got in the bed, and held me. He smelled like smoke, I probably did, too, and we lay there, our arms around each other.

  “Is Arthur okay?” I asked.

  “He’s lying down.”

  I rubbed his back between his shoulder blades. In a few minutes, his breathing shallowed.

  But sleep was lost for me. I watched the day beginning, first as a pale light through the blinds, a light I might be imagining, and then a definite brightness. I slipped from the bed.

  “What?” Fred murmured sleepily.

  “Nothing. Go back to sleep.” I pulled on some jeans and a sweater, found the huaraches I had had on earlier, and slipped down the hall. There was no sound from either of the other bedrooms. Hopefully, everyone was asleep.

  I stepped onto the back porch into a perfect late summer dawn. The sun hadn’t crested the horizon yet, but the sky was more blue than gray, with a pink glow toward the east. If I had come out at this time yesterday morning, I would have smelled the Carolina jasmine blooming along the fence. Today there was smoke.

  A heavy dew seeped through the weave of my shoes as I went to check on Woofer. He looked up, wagged his tail, and yawned.

  “Go back to sleep,” I told him, just as I had told Fred.

  I opened the gate and walked next door to the Phizers’. I wondered if the crape myrtle tree had suffered any damage from the fire. Mitzi’s beautiful daylilies had, I saw immediately. They had been trampled by the firemen or had a heavy hose dragged over them. I lifted one of the long stems that yesterday had held a deep rust-colored flower. When I let it go, it dropped to the ground.

  The crape myrtle tree had fared better. Hopefully, it was far enough away from the house that the heat hadn’t done any damage. I examined one of the lower limbs. While I was looking at it, the first rays of the sun broke across the horizon. It was a perfect beginning of a September day.

  And then I turned and looked at the house.

  I guess I had expected to see the back wall of the house gone, but it was standing. The kitchen windows as well as the back bedroom windows were knocked out, and the kitchen door was hanging askew. But it still didn’t look as bad as I had thought it would.

  Mitzi had a five-legged table that had belonged to her grandmother, a funny-looking table that was a conversation piece. Could the table still be there? I walked slowly toward the house.

  “Morning, Patricia Anne.”

  I jumped. I had been concentrating so on the damage to the house, that I hadn’t seen Officer Bo Mitchell of the Birmingham Police Department as she came around the corner.

  “Morning, Bo. You’re out mighty early.”

  “No, I’m out late. I get off work at seven.”

  Mary Alice and I had gotten to know Bo Peep Mitchell just before Christmas when a former student of mine had gotten us involved in a murder at a Birmingham art gallery. Funny and kind, Bo has never seemed tough enough to me to be a “Dickless Tracy” as she says the women are sometimes still called at the department, not always behind their backs. She’s also a very pretty woman, her skin a café au lait. The first time I had seen her, her eyes were green like my student Shatawna’s, the legacy, I supposed, of a Caucasian ancestor. Later I found out she had contact lenses that she changed to suit her mood. Today her eyes were a dark brown and her hair was plaited into cornrows.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, after a hug.

  “Guess I’m arresting you. You have the right to remain silent, you know.”

  “For what?”

  “Messing around, I reckon.” She held up some yellow crime tape. “They sent me out to put this up and here you are, already heading through the door.”

  I eyed the tape. “How come you’re putting that up?”

  “So folks like you won’t be messing around until we can get a good look.”

  “You think it’s arson?”

  “The folks downtown must think something.”

  A small blonde woman in a police uniform walked around the house. Probably still in her early twenties, she looked more like a college student than a policeman.

  Bo introduced us. “Patricia Anne Hollowell, Joanie Salk.”

  I’m sure I looked startled. Jonas Salk?

  “Don’t you just love it?” Bo said.

  “No, Bo Peep, I don’t. It drives me crazy.” The young woman caught my hand in a firm handshake. “It’s Joanie, Mrs. Hollowell. I tell myself my parents just weren’t thinking.”

  I smiled at her. “It’s a very nice name.”

  “Beats the hell out of Bo Peep,” Bo grumbled. “I think my mama plain lost her mind. Here.” She handed Joanie the end of the tape. “Go tie this around that drainpipe at the corner.”

  “They had three smoke alarms, and none of them went off,” I said.<
br />
  “Is that right.” It wasn’t a question. She already knew it.

  Joanie reached the corner and the drainpipe. “Is there some special kind of way I’m supposed to tie this?”

  “So it won’t fall off.” By this time, Bo was attaching the tape to the drain at the other corner of the house.

  “You putting this in front, too?” I asked.

  Bo shook her head no. “The front looks fine. It would just grab the attention of folks coming down the street.”

  “Should I leave some slack?” Joanie called.

  Bo rolled her eyes slightly at me before she answered, “Not much.” Then she asked me, “Where are the Phizers?”

  “Over at my house. I hope they’re asleep. The last two days have been unbelievable for them.”

  Bo nodded. “Mr. Phizer the one I’ve seen cutting his grass in shorts and wing-tip shoes and dress socks? Not much hair on top?”

  I grinned. “It’s not a pretty sight. But he’s such a nice man, Bo. And they’ve got him charged with murdering his first wife.”

  Joanie had rejoined us by this time.

  “But you don’t think he did it.”

  “Of course not. Arthur wouldn’t swat a fly.” I glanced at Bo’s watch. “What time is it?”

  “A little after six. Why?”

  “Y’all want some coffee? Come on and I’ll fix us some.”

  “You got any sweet rolls?”

  “Always.”

  “But what if the dispatcher calls us?” Joanie asked.

  Bo tapped the pager on her belt. “And you can run to the car every few minutes.”

  “Okay.”

  It didn’t take much intuition to realize these two were not headed for the partnership longevity of a Cagney and Lacey.

  The house was still quiet. I brought the coffee and sweet rolls out to the deck where Bo was sitting, her legs stretched out, her shoes off. Woofer had waked up and come to investigate the company.

  “Joanie’s gone to the car. She’ll be back in a minute.” She reached over and patted Woofer.

  I put the tray on the table. “He just came home from the vet yesterday. She thinks a possum bit him.”

  “Lot of them around.” Bo yawned, and then smiled. “Sorry?”