Welcome to Harmony

by Jodi Thomas

  Tyler checked his watch. If he planned it right, he’d miss dinner but still get back in time to e-mail Katherine. As he drove out of town he thought of how much he knew about his Kate, and how little at the same time.

  He knew she was allergic to shellfish and liked to eat barbecue with her fingers even though it was messy. She’d said she loved rainy days when the earth was sleepy. She thought she was fat. She’d read Gone With the Wind every summer since she was fifteen and had never seen any of the Harry Potter movies. She collected crystal snowflakes for a Christmas tree she said she never had time to put up.

  Tyler waved to a farmer mending fence as he turned off one farm-to-market road and onto another.

  There were so many important things he didn’t know about Kate. He didn’t know how old she was. He knew she rented a two-bedroom apartment and she could hear planes flying over, but he didn’t know the town. He knew her favorite movies and TV shows, but he had no idea what she did for a living.

  Something important, he bet. She was a worker, he sensed that. And, as much as she dreaded work, sometimes she was dedicated to it. The few times she’d had to leave, or been late e-mailing, she’d said that it couldn’t be avoided. Once she’d said she was in D.C., but she hadn’t told him why. They’d talked of the capital but never of her career.

  He knew if he asked, he’d open the door for her to do the same, and he didn’t want to tell her he owned a funeral home in a small town she’d probably never heard of.

  Tyler passed a highway patrolman parked near the crossroads and decided he’d better pay more attention to how fast he was going and stop thinking about Katherine. But he knew that was impossible. She was in the back of his mind all the time.

  She was like honeysuckle in a garden. Most of the time you didn’t even notice it among all the flowers, but the smell was always there, welcoming. Katherine was like that in his head. Tyler laughed and hit the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. He couldn’t believe his thoughts. If he wasn’t careful, he’d be writing poetry.

  As he passed the McNabb place, he thought about Stella and Bob, who’d been married for forty years. Some folks thought it strange that Stella, an educated woman, being the high school home economics teacher, had married Bob, who had barely made it out of high school. But they fit together. More important, they seemed to really like each other. Bob waited outside in the car for her every time she kept the funeral home open at night. Tyler had never heard either one of them say a cross word to the other. Stella knew and talked to everyone in town. Bob waved, and that seemed enough.

  Tyler wished not for what they had, but that he and Katherine could continue to have what little they had for a few years.

  If he could just have that much, it would be enough.

  Chapter 23

  SATURDAY MORNING

  HANK MATHESON WALKED INTO THE BLUE MOON DINER with no illusions that Alexandra had called him to have breakfast. She’d been all business when she’d said, “Seven, tomorrow morning at the diner.” The only question in his mind was why not one of their offices?

  The place was deserted. The usual old guys who had breakfast every morning during the week weren’t here because on Saturdays the senior citizens served a free pancake breakfast and Sunday they’d all have coffee and doughnuts at the church before Sunday school. The two days away from the diner gave the old men new stories to tell Monday.

  With the regulars gone and no one in the downtown offices grabbing a meal before the start of a workday, the place looked closed. If Ronelle hadn’t been at her usual tiny table at the door, Hank would have thought Cass, the owner of the place, had simply left without turning off the lights or locking the door.

  “Morning, Ronelle,” he said as he passed by.

  She didn’t look up from her crossword puzzle book.

  When Hank took a seat in the back booth by the windows, Cass yelled to him through the pass-through window, “What’ll you have? Ain’t got no waitress this morning, so you’ll have to fend for yourself.”

  “Just coffee for now,” Hank yelled back. “I’ll get it.”

  He stepped behind the counter and poured himself a cup. He could see through the window that Alex was pulling up her Jeep beside his truck, so he poured her a cup as well.

  She hit the door moving fast. Ever since he could remember, Alex was like a storm. Warren used to complain about his kid sister, but Hank had always been fascinated by her. She was a woman who took life at full speed. Warren and he used to laugh that boyfriends had the half-life of Kleenex around her. She changed majors twice a year until Warren talked her into settling on criminal justice, and then she’d gone all-out straight through to the terminal degree, a master’s. Just like her big brother. Only for Warren, the career path had proven terminal.

  Hank shoved the memories aside as Alex slid into the seat across from him and unzipped her jacket.

  “The boys from the crime lab found a few things that point to the possibility that you’re right about the fires being set. They also said whoever did it had some knowledge of fires and a good sense of place. The guy’s exact words were, ‘Our arsonist knows the lay of the land.’ ” She met Hank’s stare. “There’s a good chance he’s either in law enforcement or one of your volunteers at the station.”

  “Shit,” Hank said under his breath.

  Alex took a sip of the coffee, then added sugar, giving him time to think. “I’m starving,” she murmured, more to herself than him.

  Hank stood and walked to the pass-through. “Two specials, Cass.”

  “Ain’t got no specials on Saturday,” he yelled back. “I can make you up two breakfasts, but you’ll have to take what you get.”

  “Two surprises,” Hank agreed, knowing that he’d eaten everything on the menu in this place, so nothing would be too shocking. “With whole wheat, scrambled, well done, and dry,” in case any of those words applied.

  “You got it,” Cass answered. “I’ll ding the bell when your order’s ready. Pick it up fast if you want it hot.”

  Back at the table, Alex smiled up at him, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. He wanted to pull her close and tell her everything was going to be all right. They’d make it through this trouble. But he knew she wouldn’t welcome sympathy. She needed someone she trusted to talk things out with, and he guessed he should be thankful that she considered him that. They might fight about pretty near everything, but they’d never lied to one another.

  “There’s more, isn’t there?” Hank asked.

  She nodded and waited until he sat down before she said softly, “The highway patrol has one suspect who isn’t either one of my men or one of yours. Right now they’re calling him a person of interest.”

  Hank relaxed. “That’s good news, I guess.” He didn’t want to think that one of his men could be setting fires, even though he’d heard about it happening a few times over the years.

  “No,” she answered. “Not good news. Their person of interest is Tyler Wright.”

  Hank shook his head. “That’s not possible.”

  “I feel the same way, but they’ve got records of people seeing him driving by at least three of the fire sites just before the fires.”

  Hank leaned forward, staring right at her. “I’m not buying any of this.”

  “You’d rather believe it’s one of your men, or mine?”

  Hank downed the bitter news along with his coffee and stared at the scarred wooden table between them. “Maybe my theory is just that, a theory. Maybe all these fires aren’t related. We’ve had six grass fires before in two months. Even the results on the Dumpster fire couldn’t prove that it had been set by someone other than the druggie. Maybe . . .”

  She leaned closer. “I know Tyler is your friend, Hank, and you stand with your friends to the end.”

  His head shot up, and he knew she was thinking the same thing he was at that moment. He’d been the first to the scene that night Warren was shot, and the EMTs had had to pry his friend’s body away
from him. Hank had been a full-grown man, educated and trained to deal with anything, but he couldn’t, wouldn’t let his best friend go. In those moments, he’d believed with everything he had that if he could just hold on tight enough, fight hard enough, he could keep Warren from dying.

  Hank saw the sadness in her eyes. The heartache he’d seen since that night. It had been three years, but now and then the pain twisted like an embedded spur.

  Cass broke their silent standoff by clanking two plates on the table. “I got tired of ringing the bell. Eat up, folks,” he said, then walked away.

  Alex looked down at the mound of food. “I’m not hungry anymore,” she said.

  “Me, either.”

  “I’ll want a list of all your volunteers dating back ten years.”

  Hank nodded. “You’ll have it in an hour.”

  “You staying at the station today?” She zipped her jacket. “You still got that feeling another fire’s coming?”

  “Yes to both.”

  She slid to the edge of the booth. “I’m staying close today, too. I’ll be working in my office if a call comes in.”

  “Dinner tonight, here,” Hank said in a flat voice. “We’ll go over any detail we find in a file. With our phones transferred to our cells, we’ll get any calls.”

  “Fine.” She looked at her plate of food. “With our luck, Cass will warm all this over and make us eat it for dinner.”

  Hank stood, dropping a twenty on the table. “Call me when you’re ready.”

  She climbed out of the booth, and for a moment they were standing so close they would have touched if one had shifted. Neither moved.

  A river of unsaid words flowed between them, and neither knew how to cross. Hank had sworn after last week that he wouldn’t be the one to try again. He stepped back, reaching for his hat.

  “It’s not Tyler,” he said. “I’d stake my life on it.”

  “I’ll still check him out.”

  “You do that, Sheriff.” Hank tried to keep the anger from his voice. It wasn’t fair to be mad at her for doing her job. But he knew it would be a waste of time. A man who kept a quarter in his vest pocket just in case he ran into a four-year-old princess wasn’t the kind of man who set fires.

  They walked past Ronelle, bidding her good day. She ignored them both.

  Chapter 24

  SATURDAY EVENING

  BOB MCNABB HAD NEVER CONSIDERED HIMSELF MUCH OF a farmer, but he leased ten acres five miles outside Harmony because Stella wanted to live in the country. He drove back and forth to wherever the Texas Department of Highways and Public Transportation sent him every day for thirty years to do highway maintenance, and then he retired and drove Stella around. When he was alone in the car, he liked listening to western novels on tape. He’d probably checked out every one the library stocked at least twice.

  When Stella retired from teaching, she began practicing what she’d preached all those years. She canned and made jams in the fall, quilted all winter, and gardened in the spring. She belonged to every ladies’ club in town and served as queen of the biggest Red Hat Society in the panhandle. She taught the youth classes at the Baptist church on Sunday nights, worked part-time at the funeral home when Tyler Wright needed her, and volunteered at the Pioneer Museum on the Square.

  Bob took on only one hobby: raising long-eared rabbits for the tristate fair every year. Stella, having been a professional, wasn’t allowed to enter her quilts or canned goods or even vegetables, but Bob could enter his rabbits. He had ribbons all over one wall of his small barn. Stella’s favorite joke was to introduce him as a rabbit wrangler.

  Tonight, he could hear Stella singing with the radio as he walked outside to smoke his one cigarette of the day. They made a pact years ago. He’d cut his smoking down to once a day, except after making love, and she’d stop bothering him about the habit. He’d thought it was a good rule, but to be honest there were a few times he’d have sex just to get to the cigarette afterward. Stella must have figured it out, though; about two years ago she stopped being in the mood. Bob didn’t know if she was no longer attracted to him in that way, or if she thought she was improving his health.

  He lit up and walked out by the barn. The land next to their few acres was leased for grazing, but it had been so dry lately he hadn’t seen cattle on it.

  Bob strolled all the way to the fence post watching the evening sky, wishing he’d see a cloud. Without rain, the warmer days coming would be even hotter. Even with the sides of the barn open, the rabbits would suffer, and Bob couldn’t afford to buy air conditioning for pets. A few days last year when it had been well over a hundred, he and Stella had brought in the rabbit cages. They’d stacked them in the kitchen and bathroom tub, but it had been a mess.

  He looked up, smelling something in the wind.

  Someone burning trash, he thought, then remembered the burn ban. Anyone would be a fool to burn, knowing the fine.

  Then he saw something black moving across the short grassland a few hundred yards beyond his fence. It moved like the shadow of a black cloud, shifting unevenly as it crawled toward him.

  “Fire,” he whispered with an intake of breath.

  He stared hard. The dry stubby grass burned so quickly, he could barely make out the flame between the smoke and the earth.

  Fire!

  Bob crushed his cigarette with his foot as he turned and ran back toward the house. “Stella!” he yelled. “Call the fire department.”

  She came to the door and stared at him. Then, behind him, she must have noticed the smoke. Her face seemed to go pale as the moon in the evening light. She put one hand over her heart, then took a quick breath and disappeared.

  Bob ran to the barn and began loading up the cages as fast as he could. He had his van full by the time she came around the house with the garden hose. A gray fog of smoke drifted between them. The black ground cloud had moved twenty yards closer.

  He took the hose from her hand, wishing it would stretch past the fence. “Get in the van and drive across the road with the rabbits. I’ll wet the fence line down.”

  Stella had never taken orders well, but for once she didn’t discuss his plan. She climbed in and gunned the engine. For a woman who never liked to drive, she looked like a racer flying down the road.

  Before she was out of sight, a pickup turned down his drive. The McAllen kid, Bob thought. He’d seen the boy pass by on his way to the old worthless McAllen ranch ever since the kid could see over the steering wheel. Everyone said he was a good boy despite being as crazy as his old man about the rodeo.

  Noah McAllen jumped from the truck before it stopped moving. “How can I help?”

  Bob motioned to the old washtub he used to clean up the rabbits for show. “Grab that and bring it to me, then get all the feed sacks you can find in the barn.”

  By the time Noah found a half dozen sacks, the tub was full of water and two more neighbors had arrived. They knew what to do. Noah might be only a kid, but he learned fast and did twice the work of the others.

  One man cut the fence with pliers he kept on his belt, and they all stepped into the field beyond Bob’s property. Barbed wire wouldn’t stop the fire; only a road would, and Bob and Stella’s home lay between the fire and the road.

  The four men took wet sacks and formed a line about twenty feet apart. Each man had to hold the fire line so that it didn’t reach the thick grass of the yards and flower beds or beyond to the house and barn.

  Bob worked as fast as he could, knowing that even if they held the fire, it would eventually bend and come up the sides. There wouldn’t be enough men to stop it then. Four men could hold one side of his property line, but it’d take a dozen or more to save the place.

  The black smoke burned into his lungs and his face, and Bob’s hands felt sunburned in the heat.

  He was aware of Stella even in the smoke. He’d hoped she would stay with the van, but he knew it was in her nature to come back and join the fight. She was passing out soaked sac
ks and tossing burned ones into the tub. She moved with the hose, spraying the men down as well as the ground when they came near enough for her to reach them. The fire constantly pushed them backward. Before long they’d be at the fence line. Bob tried not to breathe deeply as he fought harder.

  The sound of sirens filled the air moments later. Bob felt like it had been an hour since he’d first seen the fire, but it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes. The sheriff’s car pulled in first, and then the fire truck crossed the grass and headed toward the open spot in the fence.

  Another pickup, loaded down with men with shovels, pulled up near the house. The men jumped out and ran toward the fire line, holding their shovels high like ancient Scots going to battle.

  Bob stepped back as the fire hose came to life, spraying water over the grass in a twenty-foot sweep.

  Men with shovels dug a ditch in the ground between the barn and the grass. If fire came again, it would have to jump the line to reach the barn.

  He stared and watched, knowing how close he’d come to losing his home, Stella’s quilts, the rabbits. If he hadn’t seen it coming when he did . . . he couldn’t think about what would have happened.

  “You all right?” someone whispered as Bob felt a hand rest on his shoulder.

  He turned and smiled at the sheriff. He had no words. Thank you seemed an empty bucket, considering what they’d all done.

  She seemed to understand. “Your wife went in the house to wash up. The boys will take care of making sure it’s out. You look a sight.”

  When he didn’t move, she added, “It’s over, Mr. McNabb. You can rest now. It’s over.” She put her arm around him and tugged him toward the porch.

  “Your little brother was here when I needed him,” Bob managed. “Without him . . .”