Cross-Check

by Phil Lollar

  “Oh, yes! I remember you!”

  “Uh, yeah, well, could you tell Connie that Mr. Whittaker wants to talk to her, and that he wants her to meet him on Stone Bridge as soon as she can get there?”

  June smiled. “Really? That’s wonderful! She’ll be very glad to hear it!”

  “Yeah, I know,” Lucy responded. She cleared her throat again.

  “Are you feeling all right, Lucy dear?”

  “Yeah, I-I’m fine,” she stuttered, then added quickly, “Well, if you could give Connie the message, I’d really appreciate it. Bye, Mrs. Kendall.”

  “Okay, thank you, Lu—” Click. The line went dead. “—cy . . . um . . . bye.” She hung up the receiver, frowned, and muttered, “Strange.”

  The huge barn doors groaned as they opened, and two loud whinnies greeted Tom Riley as he entered. He smiled at the horses and said lovingly, “Well, good morning, Leah. Good morning, Miss Rachel! How are my two fine girls this morning?”

  Leah and Rachel nickered.

  Tom chuckled and continued. “Oh, that’s good! I’ll bet you’re ready for breakfast, aren’t you? Well, let’s get you some nice, fresh hay, shall we?” He forked hay into both horses’ troughs and then quickly mucked out their stalls as they munched on their breakfasts.

  “Looks like you both could use new salt licks, too,” Tom said. He retrieved the licks from the locker and began tying them to the stall gates. “You know, you girls are gonna have to amuse yourselves this morning.”

  The horses nickered again.

  “Yeah, I know, but I have to go to town for a council meeting.”

  Leah snorted.

  Tom chuckled again. “Well, I feel the same way, Leah, but I have to go ’cause we’re takin’ a vote.” He finished tying off the licks. “There, all done. Now, I’ll only be gone for a couple of hours, so you both just stay in the barn ’til I get back, okay?”

  The horses whinnied a response, and he patted both on their necks.

  “There’s my good girls. Bye now!”

  He turned and exited the barn, humming an old hymn, crossed the yard to his pickup, got in, started it up, and headed down his dirt driveway for the highway into town. He never looked in his rearview mirror, so he didn’t see the shadowy figure emerge from the south orchard and race across the yard toward the barn.

  Whit descended the stairs at Whit’s End and saw Lucy on the phone. When she saw him, a look of alarm crossed her face, and he heard her mutter what sounded like a hasty “Bye”—though he couldn’t make out to whom—and she quickly hung up.

  “Lucy?” he said.

  She swallowed hard, forced a smile, and said, “Oh, hi, Mr. Whittaker.”

  Whit also smiled. “You making a call or answering one?”

  She glanced at the phone. “Oh, uh, making one. Mr. Whittaker, I have a note for you.”

  “A note?”

  She fished it out of her coat pocket. “Yeah, uh, Connie came over to my house last night and asked me to give it to you this morning.” She held out a folded piece of typewriter paper to him.

  His brow furrowed. “Connie?”

  “Yeah . . . I guess she didn’t want to give it to you herself.”

  He took the note and opened it. It was typed. Odd. He read it aloud: “Whit: We have to talk. Please meet me at Stone Bridge at 10:30 a.m. Connie.” He flipped over the paper, but the back was blank. “Stone Bridge? That’s on the way out to Tom’s house . . .” He glanced at the grandfather clock by the front door. “And it’s past 10:15 now.”

  Lucy shrugged nervously. “I’m sorry, Mr. Whittaker, I got here as soon as I could.”

  He patted her shoulder. “I know you did, Lucy. It’s just that I’m supposed to go to the town council meeting at 10:30.” He contemplated the note again. “Hmm . . . I told Tom I’d be there, too.” He rubbed his chin and took a deep breath. “Well, Connie is definitely more important.” He refolded the note and pocketed it. “Listen, will you tell Eugene where I’ve gone, and that I’ll be back later?”

  Lucy nodded. “Sure.” She looked at him intensely. “Mr. Whittaker, are you gonna hire Connie back?”

  He smiled. “That’s what I’m gonna find out at Stone Bridge, Lucy.” He grabbed his coat and opened the front door, dinging the bell. “Bye!” He closed the door behind him.

  Lucy sighed deeply and muttered, “Bye.”

  “I’m home!” Connie announced. She closed the back door and set shopping bags on the kitchen counter. “Mom?”

  June called out from the other room, “Connie?”

  “Yeah, I got all the stuff you wanted, except that the store was out of regular milk, so I got this 2 percent instead. Is that all right?”

  June rushed into the kitchen, smiling broadly. “Never mind the milk! Guess what’s happened!”

  Connie gave her mom a puzzled grin and opened the fridge. “What?”

  “Whit wants to see you!”

  Connie nearly dropped the milk. “He does?”

  “Yes!” June said, nodding. “Someone at his shop called while you were gone. He wants to meet you at Stone Bridge right away!” It was her turn to look puzzled. “I wonder why he wants to meet you there?”

  Connie fairly threw the milk carton onto the shelf in the fridge and shoved the door closed. “Who cares, as long as he wants to see me! Do I look all right?”

  June chuckled. “You look just fine, sweetheart.”

  Connie shuffled around the kitchen table and opened and closed her hands. “Oh, Mom . . . I’m so nervous!”

  June grabbed her shoulders. “I’m sure everything will turn out fine. Take a breath.”

  Connie followed her mother’s instructions—a deep inhale and slow exhale. She looked at her mom and then threw her arms around her neck. “Thanks, Mom.” She released the hug and bolted for the door. “I’ll let you know what happens!”

  June brushed away a happy tear and called after her. “Bye, sweetheart!”

  “Bye!”

  Odyssey Town Hall was filled with the usual buzz of low conversations that preceded every town council meeting. Council members and the few citizens who attended such proceedings milled about, exchanging pleasantries and local gossip. Off to one side, Dr. Regis Blackgaard and Philip Glossman discussed the most pressing matter before the council that day.

  Glossman dabbed the sweat from his upper lip with a handkerchief. “The way I see it,” he whispered harshly, “we still don’t have enough votes to win. Of the five council members, I’m solidly behind you, and Riley is solidly against you. The other three sway according to popular opinion. I hope you brought more documentation about your plans for Blackgaard’s Castle.”

  Blackgaard looked relaxed, as if he were on a stroll in the park. “I don’t think we’re going to be needing it, Philip,” he intoned quietly. “Today, popular opinion will be on your side. Why don’t you start the meeting?”

  Glossman’s eyes darted around the room. “But Riley isn’t here,” he said.

  “No, he isn’t.” Blackgaard sniffed his boutonniere casually.

  Glossman mopped his forehead and licked his lips. “Dr. Blackgaard—”

  “You worry too much, Philip,” Blackgaard interrupted, adjusting his shirt cuffs. “Just do your part and let me handle the rest.”

  Richard Maxwell peered out from the cover of the orchard and watched Tom Riley’s truck rumble down his long dirt driveway and head out on the road running through the farm. Once the truck was obscured by the dust of the road, he emerged from the trees and slunk to the back side of the barn, carrying a container of kerosene.

  He knew Blackgaard wanted him to set the barn afire, but he also knew he didn’t have to go that far. Instead, he quickly gathered a pile of hay and deadwood from the trees, sloshed the kerosene all over it, and pulled a box of matches from his pocket. Control, he thought. The point was to keep Riley from the vote. A pile of burning debris that made it look as if the barn was burning would do the trick.

  Maxwell peered around t
he barn and saw the dust from behind Riley’s truck. Good, not too far away. He removed a match from the box, struck it, studied the small flame for a moment, then bent down and flicked it onto the pile.

  The kerosene erupted into a small fireball. Maxwell yelped and jumped back instinctively, landing on his back. The flames grew, and the black smoke from the debris rose into the air. Suddenly, he realized his left arm was very hot. He looked over at it.

  His shirt was on fire.

  He had sloshed kerosene on it, and the fireball had ignited it. He jumped up with a roar and tore off the shirt, sending buttons flying everywhere. He tossed it to the side and scrambled away.

  The shirt landed on a hay bale leaning against the barn wall. Maxwell turned back just in time to see it burst into flames, which seemed to leap up the wooden barn wall at an alarming rate. He watched it with frightened fascination, broken only by what sounded like screams coming from inside the barn. He froze in horror.

  The horses!

  Tom Riley continued humming the hymn happily as he drove, even managing to grind the old truck’s gears in time with the tune. After one particularly loud grind, he glanced in his rearview mirror. What he saw there made him stop both the truck and his humming.

  “What in the world!” he said aloud. “Smoke!” He rolled down his window and popped out his head. “Looks like it’s comin’ from—” An icy shiver shot up his spine, and his eyes widened with panic. “No!”

  He slammed the truck into gear, and its steering column squealed in protest as he turned around and raced back to his farm and the column of black smoke that now billowed from it into the sky.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Stone Bridge was one of the lovelier spots on the outskirts of Odyssey. True to its name, it was a small bridge made of stone that spanned Trickle Creek, which was fed by Trickle Lake on Forest Mountain, and ran through several meadows, pine groves, and Tom Riley’s farm. The bridge was set in one of the groves and was a popular spot for strolls, picnics, and lovers to go courting.

  It was deserted this morning, however, Connie noticed as she rode up to it on her bike. She saw no one except for the familiar figure of her former boss, John Avery Whittaker, who stood at the apex of the bridge span. Connie parked her bike at one side of the bridge, took a deep breath to stop her stomach from bouncing around her insides, and headed up the bridge to him. He turned to meet her. “Hi, Whit,” she said.

  “Hello, Connie,” he replied.

  “Sorry I’m late—” She stopped and rolled her eyes. “Why is that always the first thing I say to you?”

  Whit smiled. “That’s okay. I just got here myself.”

  There was an awkward pause. Whit gazed at her steadily, hopefully, with his piercing eyes. She finally took a deep breath. “Whit . . . I owe you an apology for the way I acted the last time I saw you. I really wanted to talk to you, but I guess I got kinda weirded out when I saw you’d hired Eugene back.”

  “Connie, there’s a whole story behind that—”

  She stopped him. “I know, I do. That’s what Eugene said, and that’s what I keep telling myself. But all these thoughts kept creeping into my head . . .” She lowered her eyes. “About you playing favorites . . . about you liking Eugene better than me . . .”

  His gaze softened. “Oh, Connie. Listen, I owe you an apology too. I was pretty—how did you say it?—‘weirded out’ when I saw you with Richard Maxwell, so I didn’t say the things I could have said, either.”

  Connie’s brow furrowed. “But I’d only met him a couple of minutes before you came in. Besides, what’s wrong with Richard?”

  Whit shook his head. “It’s a long story.”

  “Oh!” She brightened. “Well, it doesn’t matter now. When I got your message, I knew everything was gonna be all right!”

  He gave her a puzzled smile. “My message?”

  “Yeah!” she said with a nod. “When my mom told me you called this morning, I was so excited I nearly jumped out of my skin!”

  His puzzled look morphed into outright confusion. “Connie, I didn’t call you.”

  She blinked. “You didn’t?”

  “No. I came here because of this note you sent to me.” He pulled it from his coat pocket and handed it to her.

  She took it and said, “Note?” She opened it and scanned the words.

  Whit nodded. “Lucy said you told her to give it to me . . .” His head jerked up with an epiphany. “And that was right after she hung up the phone. Oh, dear.”

  Connie also looked stunned. “Come to think of it, my mom didn’t say who called this morning. She just said the shop called.”

  Whit chuckled. “Looks like Lucy engineered this whole thing.”

  Connie looked over the note, still perplexed. “But why?”

  Whit shrugged. “Maybe so we could talk. Pretty nice of her.”

  Connie sighed heavily. “I don’t know why she’d want to do anything nice for me, especially after what happened up at camp.”

  “Oh? What happened?”

  Connie turned and looked at the creek. “Lucy and another girl were caught outside their cabins after hours, and I had to send them home. I didn’t want to. I even gave them both a second chance the first time they did it.” She glanced at him. “But if I learned anything from getting fired, it’s that there’s a reason for rules, and when you break them, you have to suffer the consequences.”

  Whit’s face broke into sheer delight. “Really?”

  “Yeah, I realized that—” She glanced at him again and saw him beaming at her. “What? What did I say? Why are you smiling?”

  “Connie, I hired Eugene back because I saw, firsthand, that he understood why I fired him. You’ve just shown me you understand too!”

  “Oh!” she said, scarcely breathing. She swallowed. “So . . . where do we go from here?”

  Whit smiled so wide that his face almost couldn’t contain it. “Well,” he said, bobbing up and down on the balls of his feet, “if you’re not too busy—if you don’t have any plans—I know of an ice cream, invention, and discovery emporium that . . . that . . .” He placed his hand on her arm tenderly. “That sure would love to have you come home.”

  Connie choked back tears. “Oh, Whit!” She grabbed his neck and hugged him as tightly as she could. He hugged her right back. It was a moment of pure bliss.

  Suddenly they broke apart. “Do you smell . . . smoke?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Yeah . . .” And then she saw it. She pointed behind him. “Look!”

  Whit whipped around. “Good grief!” In the distance, a huge plume of black smoke billowed into the atmosphere.

  “Somebody must be having one huge barbeque!” she marveled.

  “That’s no barbeque. Something’s on fire! Something near Tom’s place!” He took off toward his car.

  Connie raced after him. “Hey! Wait for me!” she shouted.

  They hopped in, Whit started the engine, and they peeled out, headed for Tom’s farm.

  A few minutes later, Philip Glossman gaveled the meeting to order. The room quieted. “Well, ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “it appears that Mr. Riley had more important things to do than attend our town council meeting today. Perhaps he’ll show up later, but in the meantime, I suggest we get on with the business at hand. And the first item on the agenda is the vote to grant a business license to Dr. Regis Blackgaard.”

  Maxwell sped around the barn and raced through its open front doors. The horses’ eyes were wide with panic. Tongues of flame were now probing through the slats in the back wall and licking the interior. Smoke collected in the barn loft and was slowly descending to fill the structure. He spied the horses’ nameplates attached to their stall gates: Leah . . . and Rachel. His sister’s image flashed through his mind—Rachael!

  He bolted to the horses’ stalls to open them, but the animals’ fear of the flames, the smoke, and the stranger in their midst made them buck, rear, and kick about their pens, stomping at their stall gates, nipp
ing at him with their teeth, and lashing out with their forehooves. He fell back, momentarily more afraid of them than he was of the fire, looked around the barn, and decided on a different tack.

  He grabbed a bucket and ran out into the yard, looking for a water source, and quickly found one—a pump and trough next to a round pen near the back of the barn. He raced to it, shoved the bucket under the faucet, and turned on the spigot. Water cascaded into the bucket.

  As he filled the pail at the back of the barn, Tom Riley drove up to the front of it. He slammed on his brakes, leaped out of the truck, bolted to the barn, and grabbed the fire extinguisher sitting just inside the door. Maxwell, in his panic, had failed to notice it.

  Riley cooed soothing words to Leah and Rachel, popped the pin on the extinguisher handle, and was just about to spray down the back wall when the tiny flames creeping up it flashed into an inferno.

  Maxwell had filled the bucket to the top. When he lifted it, he realized it was so heavy that if he tried to run to the front of the barn with it, half the water would slosh out before he got there. So he decided to go to the fire’s source on the back wall. He lugged the bucket in that direction and saw a sight that made his heart nearly stop.

  The fire had not only crept up the barn wall, but it had also gone back toward the pile of debris and had surrounded and lit the container of kerosene. Without thinking, Maxwell lifted the water bucket and, with a loud groan, heaved its entire contents onto the container.

  The fire exploded. Billows of flame and jets of burning kerosene spat in all directions, but mainly at the barn’s rear wall. Maxwell was knocked on his back again. Hissing, scalding steam mixed with the smoke to block his vision and singe his hair and eyebrows.

  In the barn, Riley was also knocked backward. His head slammed against the barn door, and he thudded to the ground in the doorway, unconscious. Leah and Rachel screamed, bucked, and reared in terror.

  Maxwell struggled to his feet, shielded his face from the flames, and trudged through the smoke to the front of the barn. He saw Riley lying in the doorway, not moving. He took a step toward the old farmer, but he stopped when he heard an engine accelerate and saw through the smoke a car turn onto the farm’s dirt road.