Tin City Tinder (A Boone Childress Mystery)

by David Macinnis Gill

  “What the hell?” I yelled, then opened the door to a fire. “Holy shit!”

  Flames poured out of a bundle of sticks piled up outside the door, and a rivulet of fiery liquid spread down the gallery.

  Wrapped in a bath towel, I stepped back inside and grabbed the mini extinguisher from the pantry. As I doused the flames with foam, I realized this wasn’t some kind of prank.

  It was a warning.

  The sticks weren’t just stick. They were switches, freshly stripped and stacked neatly for burning, an old-fashioned way of delivering a message that had once been favored by the Klan.

  Somebody was sending me a message:

  Back off.

  With a broom, I swept the pile of switches and foam into the yard. Just in case they were still watching, I raised my middle finger and sent a message of my own.

  2

  Cedar and Dr. K were waiting for me when I finally reached the lab. Cedar sat at the table. Chigger was in her lap.

  “Sorry I’m late,” I said. “I was putting out fires at home.”

  “Metaphorically speaking, I hope,” Dr. K said.

  “Nope. Someone set fire to a bundle of switches on our porch. Probably just a prank.”

  “We’re glad you’re here, then.”

  There was a round table in the middle of the room. The table was stacked with circuit boards, a black box, and something that looked like a black sock stuffed with cotton.

  “Boone,” Cedar said with a tinge of excitement. “Hope you don’t mind, Dr. K’s trying to help me calibrate the N.O.S.E., and Chigger keeps acting up. That’s a problem because technically, no dogs are allowed in school, even in the name of science.”

  “Has Cedar explained that in return for helping,” Dr. K said, “you’ll be excused from the lab assignment?”

  “I’ll be glad to help,” I said. “What do I do? Record data? Calibrate the black sock?”

  “The most important part,” Cedar said. “Hold the dog.”

  I took the pup. He squirmed and try to jump down.

  “Hold him still, Boone.”

  “I’m trying.” I rubbed his belly. That calmed him.

  Cedar had inserted two metal probes the width of spaghetti into Chigger’s nose and secured them with white tape.

  “What’s with the probes?” I asked.

  “My apparatus measures water vapor when Chigger breathes.” Cedar said. “According to my research, dogs can separate the air they inhale from air they exhale.”

  “What it does it mean if the amount of water vapor is different?”

  “A beagle’s nose is highly evolved,” Cedar said. “It keeps the dog from resampling odors. See the slits in the sides of Chigger’s nose? They push exhaled air out. That stops it from blending with the new smells and diluting the scent. Keep rubbing, please. He’s getting bored.”

  The dog wasn’t the only one. My attention had begun to wander, too. “What’s the point in the water vapor? I thought beagles had thousands of scent receptors.”

  “They do,” Cedar monitored the laptop. “But it’s only part of the story.”

  “As Cedar learned,” Dr. K added, “Beagles as a breed have excellent noses, but almost every dog is capable of scent memory. There must be a physiological reason for his prowess, other than scent receptors.”

  “Okay, I understand that,” I said, “but what’s the ultimate goal here?”

  Cedar pointed at the over stuffed sock. “The N.O.S.E.”

  “Whose nose?”

  “Not whose nose, the N.O.S.E. Remember when I told you about the whole device at Red Fox Java?”

  “Um. Well. See.”

  “Basically, you didn’t listen to a word I said, and now you have no clue what I’m trying to accomplish.”

  “I do! But not…exactly.”

  “Dr. K, you were spot on. Holding the dog is the only job he can do right. Boone, you can rest for thirty seconds. The first set of measurements has been recorded.”

  “Hey,” I said. “That was harsh. Did I deserve that?”

  “Yes, you did, and I would give you a smack in the head,” she said, “if it wouldn’t mess up my data collection.”

  Dr. K laughed.

  It took me by surprise.

  I jerked, and Chigger tried to jump from my lap. The small piece of tape pulled loose, and one of the probes slipped out.

  A warning sound beeped on the laptop.

  “Boone!”

  “Sorry! He wiggles!”

  Chigger pawed the other piece of tape off.

  “Bad dog!” Cedar peeled the tape from the dog’s paws. “Dr. K? Do you have anything else we can use? This is messing up the readings.”

  “I believe so.” She hopped up from the table. “Let my check the first-aid kit in the storage area. We bought some of that expensive material that allows the skin to breathe…” Her voice trailed off as she disappeared into the storage room.

  Chigger began canvassing the floor for smells, while Cedar got the probes ready for another round.

  “I’m really sorry for not listening to you before," I said.

  Cedar punched a key on the laptop. “If you don’t want to take me seriously, fine, but I wish you’d show respect for my research.”

  “I meant no disrespect, Cedar. Really.”

  “What does N.O.S.E. stand for?”

  “Non canine…Odor Sensing…Ergonomically…thing.”

  “Not even close.”

  “Close enough! The word odor was part of it, right?”

  In the other room, Dr. K screamed.

  “What’s wrong?” I said, standing.

  The professor rushed into the room, her face white a bed sheet, hands flying around in an old-fashioned tizzy. “It’s gone! It’s been stolen! I have to call campus police. Get the dog out of the room quickly, please.”

  “What was stolen?” I asked.

  “Our store of explosive alkali metals!” she said. “Sodium, potassium, they’re all gone!”

  3

  Between the time that Dr. K called in the theft and the campus cop’s arrival, Cedar whisked Chigger down to the faculty lounge. That left me to pack up Cedar’s equipment while the cop filled out an incident report.

  “So you lost some metals, didja?” the cop said. She was middle-aged with a belly gut, spindly legs, and a page-boy haircut. “Wasn’t silver or gold, was it?”

  “No,” Dr. K said. “Worse than that. These metals are dangerous, not expensive.”

  “Dangerous huh? That changes things. Who’s got access to the storeroom?”

  The cop set her coffee down and dropped her newspaper on the table. The headline read: FIRE VICTIM IDENTIFIED

  “I have the only set.” Dr. K was growing more skittish by the moment.”But there are no signs of forced entry.”

  “Let me determine that.” The cop coughed. “What metal’s missing again?”

  “The alkali metals,” Dr. K said. “They’re very dangerous elements. Explosive material. There was a large amount of sodium. They have to be stored in oil because they can react with water. The chemistry faculty likes to use it to demonstrate exothermic reactions.”

  “Soda?”

  “Sodium. With an M.”

  “Show me the room where the theft took place.”

  “This way.”

  While they were in the storeroom, I read the paper. The fire victim was a woman named Consuela Vega, confirmed by AFIS records. Her daughter had been recently deported, and she had no other family in the area.

  The dots were connecting. The victim was Mexican, and she was elderly. Unable to escape, too weak to yell for help.

  I scanned the rest of the front page. Beneath the article about Mrs. Vega was a photo of my mom, standing in front of the row of open graves, her arms folded, staring down the photographer with a look I only saw when she was trying to take away my keys.

  The headline read:

  LOCAL VET FILES INJUNCTION.

  (Galax, NC) Local veterinarian,
Mary Harriet Rivenbark, has filed an injunction against Landis Land Holding, LLC, to prevent the relocation of a small family cemetery in a remote area of Allegheny County. “This is an atrocity,” Mrs. Rivenbark says. “The county planning commission is nothing but a puppet for developers, and it’s time for the citizens of Allegheny County to stand against them.” Rivenbark has organized a protest to (see A4)

  So Mom had really done it. She was fighting Trey Landis.

  Wow.

  “When you said sodium,” the cop told Dr. K, “I was thinking some kind of salt, not a pile of stuff that could be used as a bomb! I need to call Sheriff Hoyt pronto.”

  “Well, I did say it was explosive.” Dr. K wrung her hands. She looked small, frail, and vulnerable. “The other metals are in smaller quantities, but they can be even more dangerous. There were several vials of cesium. I should have discarded it years ago, but disposal companies charge so much, and the dean said we didn’t have the money in our budget.”

  “Uh-huh,” the cop said. “I’ll put that in my report.” She picked up her coffee and tucked the newspaper under her arm. “Did you hear about that Mexican lady? They’re treating the case like an arson now. They’ve got a suspect, too.”

  “Who?” I said.

  “Some vagrant named Stumpy Meeks.”

  Dr. K gasped and sat down hard at the table.

  The cop saluted us with the newspaper, a faraway look in her eyes.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Huh? Oh, yes. Fine.” She sniffled and managed a weak smile. “I’m fine, dear. If you will excuse me, I need to make a phone call.”

  Cedar passed Dr. K on the way out.

  “Is Dr. K all right?" Cedar asked. "She’s acting kind of weird.”

  “You would be, too,” I said. “If you suddenly realized that someone was using your lab supplies to make a bomb.”

  SUNDAY

  1

  After Sunday service, I decided to skip the usual after church lunch and give Cedar a call instead.

  “Hey,” I said. “The sun’s shining, and the weather’s warm. How about a day at the lake?”

  “Weren’t you supposed to be mucking out stalls or something?”

  “A day at the lake with you sounds much better.”

  “I should hope so!’ She laughed. “Sounds like fun, and I can use a break from my project.”

  “Really?” I asked, the wind ripping through the open windows of the truck. “Thought you’d say no.”

  “I’m not always inflexible,” she said. “Sometimes, I’m quite spontaneous.”

  I swung by Cedar’s house to pick her up. I wasn’t surprised when she came out in a white cover-up and a large shore bag.

  What did surprise me was the bright pink bikini that shown through the cover-up.

  “Do you have swim trunks?” she asked as she climbed into the front seat.

  “There’s a pair of cutoffs in the back.” I pointed my thumb at storage box in the truck bed. “Old habit. I used to water ski a lot, so I keep stuff on hand.”

  With traffic and a stop for lunch and drinks, it took the better part of an hour to reach the lake .The good news was that the families were beginning to leave in droves, having taken in too much sun for one day.

  I bought Cedar a chocolate cone from a lakeside store, where I changed into the cutoffs. When we reached the lake, Cedar ditched the cover-up and put it in her shore bag. With her tanned skin, the pink looked amazing on her. She had just the figure for it.

  She took a lick of her cone. “So that’s your secret for staying so buff? Drinking water while I eat ice cream?”

  “This buff thing is all new,” I said. “When I joined the Navy, my arms were so skinny, I couldn’t do five push-ups, much less the fifty my RDC made us do every time there was an infraction. A couple hundred every day for eight weeks, and you’d be buff, too. Not that you aren’t.”

  “Hey!” Cedar gave me a playful slap. “Did you just ogle my butt?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And?”

  “Nice.”

  “Nice? Just nice?” She slapped me again. “You can’t think of a more descriptive word?”

  ‘Sure.” I grinned. “Luscious. Firm. Cute. Bodacious. Inviting.”

  “Inviting?” She shook a finger. “Don’t press your luck, mister.”

  “You’re the one who asked.”

  “Don’t flash those dimples at me, either. It’s not going to work.”

  “I think it already has.”

  “Time to cool off, mister.” She pushed me into the lake, soaking me to the waist. “So tell me about the case. That’ll get your mind off my lusciousness. Stumpy Meeks? Is he really a suspect?”

  “I doubt it, but let’s forget the case like we’re forgetting your research.” I put an arm around her. “I’ve got more important things on hand right now.” I bent down and kissed her. “Want to come over and hang out tonight?”

  “That’s so inviting,” she said, pretending to be genuinely disappointed. “But I can’t. My project still isn’t ready.”

  “Too bad,” I said. “I was about to invite you to help muck out stalls.”

  “Just my luck. You know how much I adore shoveling horse poo.”

  For the next hour, we walked down the shore and then back. With sun setting behind the island, we climbed into an empty lifeguard stand. Technically, the lakeshore closed at dark, and we weren’t supposed to be there. I had spent most of my life on this shore, and I knew as long as you didn’t do something stupid like start a bonfire, no one would bother you.

  As the last light of day slipped away, the empty shore dark except for the glow from the lighthouse. We sat on the ground watching the waves come in. Cedar snuggled up close, shivering now that it was turning colder. I tried to warm her up by rubbing her arms and legs, which did nothing to get rid of the goose pimples.

  “You’re freezing,” I said. “I’ve got a blanket in my truck.”

  She shivered. “A warm blanket would be nice.”

  “Sit tight,” I said and jumped down from the stand.

  I jogged back to the parking lot and grabbed the blanket.

  “Here we go.” I spread the blanket over her. “That should warm you up.”

  “Not quite.” Cedar snuggled to my chest, head resting on my shoulder. “Much better."

  We kissed until the sun went down, and I was tempted to ask her what was next for us. But I didn’t want to ruin the moment, so I kept my mouth shut and sat there with this beautiful woman in my arms, watching the stars appear in the sky, and enjoying every second of it.

  MONDAY

  1

  After a long, hot Sunday spent cleaning out the barn and taking care of the cattle, Monday morning couldn’t come soon enough. I arrived early for class and found Cedar hanging out in the student lounge with Luigi and Gretchen.

  “Hey, Sheriff Hoyt was talking about you in the paper.” Cedar said when I came in. “Keep reading, Gretchen.”

  “This tragedy could’ve been avoided,” Gretchen read aloud, “if the folks sworn to protect the citizens of this county had done their jobs instead of tampering with my investigation.”

  “Tampering?” I said, my voice rising.

  “Let her finish.” Cedar pulled me onto the chair arm. “It gets better.”

  Gretchen cleared her throat. “Hem, hem. When ask if I was considering tampering charges, the sheriff said, I’m considering all kinds of charges. Uh-oh, Boone’s going to get busted.”

  “Not in this lifetime.” Cedar picked up her notebook and blew the eraser dust in Gretchen’s general direction.

  “Ew.” A fine cloud of dust settled on Gretchen’s flip-flops. She waggled her toes to clear them. “I was about to read the sports column about your outrageous ownage at tennis, but I can tell my reading skills are not appreciated.”

  “Whatever,” Cedar said.

  “I appreciate your skills,” Luigi said, his head resting on the desk. “Please, keep readin
g. It helps my listening comprehension.”

  “Really?” Gretchen let out a tiny squeal. “Okay.”

  Luigi’s comprehension was terrific. All he cared about was hearing Gretchen giggle. But their love was doomed, since Luigi was returning to Osaka soon.

  “Galloway possesses a bullet-like serve that she can place within four inches of a target. She demonstrated the feat for this reporter, destroying six different targets in a row. Wow. Huh?”

  “Impressive,” Luigi said.

  While Gretchen read, my thoughts turned to the morning’s news. So much happened since Friday that I was still sorting it out. Learning the victim’s identity was a mix of emotions. It was satisfying to know that she had been identified and that a face and name had been put with the body. She was now a person, and that gave me peace. But the fact that she may have died because Eugene Loach had too much hate in his heart to rescue her made my stomach turn.

  I hated dealing with human emotions. Human bones were another story. The information they held told you so much about a person’s body: How old they were, what injuries and diseases they had, what kind of dental problems they faced. But as my little voice reminded me, bodies couldn’t tell you names, and they couldn’t tell you personalities.

  Through the fog of my brain machinations, someone was calling my name.

  “Childress!”

  “Huh? Sir?”

  Dr. Echols, my history professor, stood in the hallway, looking at his watch. “Class starts in one minute. Care to make the journey into the past?”

  I blinked back to reality. My hand resting on Cedar’s bare knee. “Yes sir. On my way.”

  Echols disappeared down the hallway. I gave Cedar a quick kiss goodbye before jogging to the classroom.

  “All right, young people.” Echols dimmed the lights and pulled down a screen. “Let’s start off with a discussion of Roosevelt’s New Deal and its impact on the great State of North Carolina, shall we?”

  Like the class he taught, Dr. Echols was something of a time warp. He wore black pants, a short-sleeved dress shirt, and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses.