Precarious Summer

by Lyn Cote

  Within minutes the volunteer returned with the pack and ripped it open. Both Carter and the firefighter whom he now recognized as a local carpenter pulled free two of the foil blankets and wrapped them around Tom and Audra. People began moving closer to the fire and Carter waved them back. “Back! Back!”

  As he paced up the alley, shepherding people back to a safe distance, Carter wanted to get Audra and Tom to the hospital in Ashford, question the fire chief and any eyewitnesses—all in the same instant. Dawn brightened around them.

  Noise from the firefighters continued. There were three more bangs. Carter stared up at black smoke filling the alley, straining skyward, blocking the dawn. People stopped moving forward and a few ran away.

  Another police car sped up the alley and rocked to a halt. Trish scrambled out and ran toward him. “Who’s hurt?” she called out over the din from the fire crew.

  “My stepfather,” Carter shouted in reply. He pressed a hand to his own forehead, throbbing as if it were about to explode. Why can’t I figure this out, God? Stop these fires?

  Carter kept watch on Audra and Tom from a distance as he controlled the crowd with Trish’s help while the firefighters battled on. They finally managed to get the fire under control. The fire chief located Carter in the crowd and halted in front of him. “This is one tough fire. So much grease, gasoline, et cetera on site. We’re going to be here a few more hours before it’s completely out.”

  A distinctive siren in the distance interrupted him. EMTs from Ashford had arrived at last. The ambulance pulled up a safe distance from the smoldering fire. Carter motioned them over. “We have two injured here. This woman, Audra Blair, and the man on the ground, Tom Robson.”

  The EMTs swarmed around Tom first and then Audra. The ambulance and the fire trucks were backlit by the pink dawn. One EMT hurried along beside Carter as he carried Audra toward the ambulance. The other two lifted Tom onto a rigid stretcher. “How serious is he?” Carter asked over his shoulder. “He’s my stepdad.”

  “He’s in shock. He’s suffered first and second-degree burns on his chest, face, and hands. If you have to stay with the fire, is there any other family that can come with him?”

  Carter looked at Shirley.

  “I can’t go, Carter. I’ve got Evie to take care of. Only Chad’s with her right now. Can’t you go with both of them?”

  Carter was torn. “I should stay and start investigating as soon as the firefighters put out the blaze.” But Trish was more than capable of securing the crime scene. Plus he couldn’t do anything here until the firefighters were finished and things cooled. That wouldn’t be for hours. Tom and Audra needed him.

  “Trish, take charge here!” Carter followed the EMTs. “After the firefighters are done, lock this crime scene up tight and post someone to guard it. I’m going to follow the ambulance.”

  “Yes, sir!” Trish jogged toward the fire chief.

  Carter hurried to his Jeep. Now that the ambulance was taking Audra and Tom for treatment, his mind could turn to the crime. Audra had said, “I heard it go off.” Shirley had heard something explode. He’d heard some small explosions himself. So that meant this was not just a case of a machine shop filled with greasy tools catching on fire. Definitely another arson, perhaps a booby trap like the first.

  And this time people had been hurt, and not just any people. They were two of the most important people in the world to Carter. Someone is going to pay for this. And soon. Then another thought stopped him. With this fire, was someone trying to get at him by attacking Tom?

  Chapter Seven

  That evening, Carter strode up the quiet corridor of the small hospital in Ashford. Shirley walked beside him with a paper shopping bag in hand. “I still can’t believe this happened,” she murmured.

  He reached out and squeezed her arm just as they arrived at Tom’s room.

  Tom was sitting up in bed. When he saw them, he switched off the TV. “Shirley! Son!” He opened his bandaged arms, making the IV tubes hooked to his left arm sway. Shirley hurried forward and kissed him.

  Carter stood back and surveyed his stepdad. Tom’s reddened face was covered with bandages and salve and his chest was bandaged like his arms. Carter had a hard time drawing breath. Why can’t I find any evidence to arrest this arsonist?

  “Carter,” Tom said, his voice low and grating.

  Carter walked to the other side of the bed and gently took his stepdad’s hand. “You look like you’ve been through a war.”

  “Yeah, and our side lost.” Tom managed a one-sided grin. “Carter, I know you feel like this is all your fault,” he said, “but it’s not. It’s the fault of whoever is setting these fires. Not you.”

  Tom’s kind words stung Carter’s eyes with saltwater. He blinked it away.

  Tom went on before Carter could reply. “Did you find any useful clues at my place?”

  “Our arsonist is getting better,” Carter admitted.

  “Why don’t you go find Audra and tell her what you discovered,” Shirley suggested, “and what’s happened since she left Winfield this morning? I can fill Tom in on everything you told me.” She turned to Tom. “I know you’ll say it isn’t necessary, but I’m spending the night here in this chair.”

  “Shirley, I...I’d be grateful.”

  Carter heard and then witnessed Tom’s love for Shirley from the glow in his eyes. Carter knew his mother would only have been happy to see Tom in love again. They’d loved each other so much. The memory of them together filled him like an inflating balloon. He swallowed, suppressing it.

  “Then I’ll leave you two for a few minutes.” Carter gently pressed Tom’s hand and waved good-bye. He walked farther down the corridor and stopped at the room number he’d been given for Audra. He’d last seen her in the frantic ER.

  Now she was sitting in the chair beside her bed, still wearing her hospital gown and robe. The ugly shapeless gown didn’t detract from her loveliness. But she looked downhearted and her hands were bandaged. He held out the bag of fresh clothing that Shirley had packed. “Hi.” Then as he thought of Audra beating out the fire on Tom’s shirt with her bare hands, his throat closed up on him.

  She stood and accepted the bag, their fingertips touching. “I’ll just be a moment.” Her voice was low and rough from the smoke just like Tom’s.

  Carter kept contact with her a fraction of a second longer than he should have. Then he stepped back into the hallway to give her privacy. He heard the rings of the white curtain scraping as Audra pulled it around her. He tried not to think of the woman so near and yet so beyond him. Why did circumstances keep drawing them together? Just so he’d notice how her sunlit hair drifted around her shoulders in the lake breeze? How her blue eyes lit up whenever her daughter smiled?

  Soon Audra joined him. “Is Shirley with Tom?”

  He tried to reel in his marked reaction to her, conceal any evidence of it. “Yes.”

  “Is Evie with them?”

  “No, Evie is spending the night with your mother and sister.”

  Audra halted and stared up at him. “With my mother?”

  Carter nodded. “Let’s go.” As he led her along to Tom’s room, he couldn’t stop his gaze from drifting to her. When they reached the room, she entered and hugged Shirley. Tom reached out and took Audra’s bandaged hand with obvious care. She hesitated and then took a step forward.

  “Audra, thank you,” Tom said. “The doctor told me I’d have been much worse off if you hadn’t—”

  Audra burst into tears and rushed from the room. Shirley started to go after her and then halted. “Carter, please, will you take care of Audra? Lois is going to pick me up here early in the morning so we can help Audra with her morning baking. Don’t worry about me and Tom.” When Carter delayed following Audra, Shirley pushed him toward the door.

  WITH HER HEAD BOWED and her hands tucked under her arms, Audra waited just outside the door. Then Carter was with her again, his masculine strength beckoning her. “I’m...sorry
for going off like that.” She didn’t look up, hiding her teary eyes. She felt crumpled like dough without enough leavening to rise. “It just brought it all back. I was so frightened.”

  “No problem.” He took her elbow. “Let’s get out of here. Hospitals depress me.”

  The power underlying Carter’s gentle grip heartened Audra. Suddenly she was able to inhale fully again. As the oxygen filled her lungs, she let him steer her out of the maze of hospital corridors and through the check-out procedure. Finally, he was helping her into his Jeep.

  The summer evening was well advanced. A golden twilight was fading and ribbons of purple layered the darkening sky. The sky reflected her mood. Fluorescent gold weighed down by heavy purple with more darkness coming. How am I going to be able to work in the morning? Her aching hands longed to rest in Carter’s.

  He joined her and turned on the Jeep. The radio had been left on. The voice of the local radio announcer came on. “...fourth fire in Winfield. Local business owners and residents are worried about this string of unexplained arsons. Sheriff Carter Harding was unavailable for—” Carter switched it off.

  Audra had only thought of the fires in a personal way, but the announcer must be speaking the truth. These fires could hurt the tourist trade. But she didn’t say anything about this. Carter’s tight-lipped, rigid profile told her how he was feeling about the crimes. He was being held responsible for not putting an end to them. What if he couldn’t find out who was doing this? And what if her new fear was true? Feeling helpless, she rested her hands in her lap and pursed her lips.

  When they reached the highway out of town, he turned to her. “How are you feeling? Your hands?”

  She leaned her head back on the headrest, trying not to imagine resting it on Carter’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I gave way like that. It’s just...” Maybe she shouldn’t bring up the fires. But that’s what was on both their minds, wasn’t it?

  “Just what?”

  She let out a sigh, ready to voice her fear. “It occurred to me today that all the fires except for the first have affected someone close to me. It made me feel...responsible.” She gathered up her courage. Saying this out loud, Lord, is so difficult. “Do you...do you think someone is really out to...get to me through them?”

  “No, I don’t.” His answer was swift and strong. “Wouldn’t it be easier just to set your place on fire and be done with it?”

  “Maybe the fire-setter wants to make me lose sleep first. Make me miserable.”

  “You might be correct,” Carter said in a different voice, his official-sounding, give-nothing-away voice. “But who would have a grudge against you?”

  Audra thought immediately of the irate phone calls. But why would he want to get back at her? Surely the shoe was on the other foot in this. In any case, bringing up the phone calls to Carter was impossible. Weakness swept over her. She felt herself folding up like a wildflower at dusk. “No one comes to mind,” she muttered.

  “Are you sure? You took a long time answering.” Carter cast a suspicious glance her way.

  “I’m sure,” she replied, eyes forward. “But maybe I’ve upset someone without realizing it. So they enjoy worrying, plaguing me. Like a cat playing with a bird before it eats it.”

  “That happens in psychological thrillers,” Carter replied with a shake of his head, “but in real life, we find that when we finally arrest the perpetrator, most crimes are pretty straightforward. Profit and revenge are the most common motives.”

  Audra sighed painfully. Her throat and lungs still caught and hitched a bit from inhaling smoke. She glanced at her watch. She had some minutes to wait before taking her next pain pill though her bandaged hands already throbbed. In the shadows, her unruly gaze shifted to the sheriff’s profile again.

  “I’m not surprised that you might begin to feel this is personal,” Carter said. “The same idea crossed my mind. I mean, Tom is my stepdad.”

  “But the other fires don’t have anything to do with you—not even the one at Shirley’s.” She dragged her eyes from Carter and looked down at her hands.

  “It would be if the person responsible knows how close Tom and Shirley are.”

  Cars passed them, wheels whining. “Then that implicates most everyone in town.”

  Carter nodded gravely.

  Being alone with this man distracted her. She told herself to concentrate on the fire, not on the sheriff. “Did you get any new evidence at Tom’s?”

  “Whoever did this rigged a trip wire at the back gate that set off a pretty powerful blast. The trip wire ignited a very short fuse connected to gasoline in a large metal gas drum Tom had in the shop. I found its remains scattered over the yard. The arsonist also filled and capped several more containers, some large, some small, with more gasoline and kerosene so that after the fire got started, there would be subsequent explosions—”

  “Like the one that nearly knocked me out.” And made her hands temporarily useless. How was she going to roll dough in a few hours?

  “Yes. Anyway, our fire-setter is becoming more skilled and therefore, more dangerous. I keep wondering who would know all this stuff about incendiary explosives and fires. There doesn’t seem to be anyone even remotely connected with the fires who would have a background in this kind of crime.”

  “Brent and I were talking about that just the other night. He said with easy access to the Internet, anybody could get this information.” She shrugged. “Anybody with a computer could get all the instructions to set a booby trap.”

  Carter snorted. “Thank you very much, Information Highway.”

  “Who do you think did it?” Then she bit her lip. Should she have asked this of a sheriff? She’d forgotten for a moment that Carter was the sheriff—he’d become just Carter, her friend.

  More than your friend? her conscience pointed out. She ignored it. This was too important. “Or can’t you tell me who you suspect?”

  Carter lifted one shoulder. “I know of one person who hates Tom—Doyle Keski.”

  She nodded, pursing her lips. “And...maybe I shouldn’t discuss that with you, but Chad worries me...” Her voice faltered.

  “Tom told me the night before last that he’d docked Chad’s pay because he’d taken an afternoon off without permission.”

  She wrinkled her brow. “I don’t think that would trigger something as drastic as blowing up Tom’s shop, do you?”

  “I don’t know. With his history, Chad is TNT with a very short fuse just asking to be lit. I’ve seen it before with kids who’ve been subjected to violence. They are easily triggered and usually act out the violence they’ve suffered.”

  “Do you really think Chad would do it?” she objected, even though she was the one who brought up his name. “He likes working with Tom. And in spite of the resentful things he says, I think he likes being with Tom. I mean, Chad couldn’t miss the stark difference between Doyle and Tom.”

  “That might have been what triggered this.”

  She questioned him with a glance.

  “Chad isn’t thinking very clearly. He’s only fourteen, and his feelings about his dad are all mixed up. He might feel that setting these fires so ingeniously would impress his dad. And the trip wire was set at the back gate, not the back door where Tom broke the wire. He was still nearer the alley than the door. If it had been triggered at the door, he could have been burned much, much worse than he was, or even killed.”

  Audra hadn’t considered that. But it made sense. That someone had stopped short of causing more serious injury. The burden she’d carried lightened a bit. “I really care about Chad. He’s been sweet to Evie and at first, so appreciative of Shirley taking him as her foster son.”

  “I think the reappearance of Doyle in town has ratcheted up Chad’s anxiety. He loves and wants to be close to Doyle and at the same time, hates his dad and wants to be protected from him. That’s a volatile mixture of strong emotions.” Carter paused and then muttered, “And I should know.”

  Drawn near
er to him, Audra identified first the deep vein of sympathy in Carter’s tone. She echoed it silently. It was common knowledge that when Carter was around Evie’s age, his parents divorced and then his mom married Tom. When Carter was around Chad’s age, his mom died of cancer. After the funeral, Carter tried to move in with his dad, who was another Doyle Keski, and was sent back to Tom. After that rejection, a rebellious Carter spent all of his high school years in trouble with teachers and the law.

  Which accounted for the shame evident in his final words. She knew all about Carter’s youthful rebellion from her uncle, who’d given a highly negative version, and from Shirley, who’d given a much kinder viewpoint. Should she say something? A silence yawned between them. “I don’t believe my uncle when he talks about you and Sarah,” she murmured at last.

  “Thanks.” His shadowed face—so determined, so compelling to her—twisted into a grimace. “But I was as wild then as your uncle says.” Carter closed his lips. Summer night had finally come with its lingering glow on the horizon.

  “Carter, I was only Evie’s age then, and all I remember of Sarah was her shouting matches with her father.” Audra wanted to add that her uncle was repeating the same grievous mistake with Brent, but didn’t. “I’m sorry Sarah died so young, but I don’t think you should carry guilt over your...wildness. When we’re young, we all do things we regret.” Like having a baby with a man who hadn’t really loved her. And setting up her sweet little girl to be hurt by her father’s rejection.

  “I know I’d have ended up in prison or maybe like Sarah, dead before I saw thirty. I owe my life to Tom and how he demonstrated God’s love toward me. You know that when I was seventeen, out of stupidity I nearly killed a kid in a fight at a party.” He glanced in her direction.

  She forced herself not to reach out to him, but she ached to comfort him.