Tin City Tinder (A Boone Childress Mystery) Read online

  At the table, Mom looked flummoxed. She conversed openly with her attorney, but the mic wasn’t picking up their voices.

  The chair had switched it off.

  “I reckon that settles it,” Charlie said. “Public comment is now closed. You folks are welcome to stay, but if you do, you’ve got to get quiet. Let’s move on to the first agenda item.”

  “Next time your dog gets mange, Charlie!” Mom yelled. “Don’t bring him to me!”

  The rest of the crowd quietly left their seats. They filed out of the room and then out of the building.

  “That’s so bogus,” Cedar said when we got outside. “There were a zillion graves. Mr. Blevins must have a huge family.”

  “I really hate that pompous ass Landis,” I said. “He acts like he owns the whole freaking county.”

  “He sort of does.”

  “Not the people in it,” I said. “So, that’s it for the evening. Want to go someplace private and make out?”

  “Very funny.” Cedar punched my arm, then steered us to the parking lot. “And very tempting, but YamFest starts tomorrow, and I have to make sure my project is perfect for the Olympiad.”

  “I could help you with it.”

  “Distract me from it, you mean.” She draped her arms around my neck and stood on tiptoes. “Remember to meet me on the courthouse green tomorrow. Don’t get occupied with your fires and lose track of time.”

  “You’re amazing, you know that?”

  “You’re not so bad, either, Mr. Childress.”

  Then, before I could stop myself, those three little words popped out of my mouth. “I love you.”

  For a long second, then five, then ten, Cedar said nothing. Finally, she slipped out of the hug and gave me a peck on the cheek.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Boone.”

  “Yeah. Tomorrow.”

  I waved as she and drove away.

  Holy shit.

  I told her I loved her.

  “Crap! I can’t believe I said that!”

  And I couldn’t believe she had left me hanging.

  No I love you, too.

  No I know.

  No That’s nice.

  Just a see you tomorrow.

  Oh man.

  More car doors slammed, and more engines started. I stepped into the shadows of the trees.I looked up into the night sky. The moon that had cast shadows the past two days was nowhere to be seen, and the stars that had burned so brightly over the lake seemed dim and very far away.

  TUESDAY

  1

  After Blevins’ revelation at the commission meeting, Mom had left the courthouse a defeated woman. To make matters worse, somebody let it slip that Abner was in the county holding pen, and she rushed over there to bond him out. She was livid that Abner told me and not her. She was even more enraged at me for leaving him in a cell.

  Since it was almost midnight when we got back to the house, she insisted that Abner spend the night in my room and banished me to the barn.

  “Go sleep with the horses!” she yelled. “You can see what it’s like to sleep in inhumane conditions!”

  “I spent three years in a ship’s rack,” I said. “A paddock is the Ritz in comparison!”

  So I had dragged an old quilt and a too-fluffy pillow outside through the darkness to the guest room beside the tack room. I settled in, cold and frustrated, my head like a hornet’s nest of thoughts and theories. By the time my mind finally gave up, my body was beyond exhaustion, and I slept like the dead.

  The stink of kerosene woke me.

  Disoriented by the lack of sleep, I threw back the covers. The light coming through the gaps in the wall changed the color of my skin to the orange glow of sunset. I covered my eyes, but one look told me all I needed to know.

  Fire!

  I sat up straight in bed, gasped, and sucked in a lungful of scorching air before my training took over. I dropped back on the bed, then rolled to the floor.

  On hands and knees I crawled to the door leading outside.

  Smoke roiled up through a crack in the wall next to the paddock, where the horses whinnied in panic.

  The horses!

  I pulled open the door and scrambled outside. A burst of cool air hit my face, and I slammed the door to keep from feeding oxygen to room. In the first light of dawn I saw the paddocks nearby. The doors were still shut, the doors barred with two by fours.

  I yanked them off and threw open the doors.

  The appaloosa mare snorted and then broke. She raced away from the barn with her head down and made for pasture. Inside the other paddock, the gelding reared up, hoofs pawing the air in front of me.

  “Out!” I yelled.

  The gelding refused. It turned its wild eyes toward the smoke, which was pouring down from above.

  “Come on! Out!”

  I ran into the empty paddock. Grabbed a coiled lead rope from the wall. Reached over the planking that separated the stalls and swiped the gelding’s flank with the rope.

  The horse bolted. Once it hit open air, it ran hell-bent for the mare.

  There was no time for me to congratulate myself. After taking a quick look at the fire—it was burning in the loft above the paddock—I sprinted down the path to the house.

  With one leap I was on the porch and through the kitchen door, happy for once that Lamar left the doors unlocked.

  “Wake up!” My deep voice rang out. “Fire! The barn’s on fire!”

  I snatched the phone from the wall. Punched 911. “Barn fire at Rivenbark house!”

  “Boone!” Lamar came down the hall pulling on his boots. “Get in your turnouts! Mary Harriet, go outside and start the pump!”

  “Got it!” Mom called from the bedroom.

  “The horses are out,” I ran after him to the vehicles. “I turned them loose.”

  “I left the herd out to graze last night.” Lamar pulled his gear from his truck. “There’s a two inch hose in the fire shed. Soon as the pump’s running, we’ll lay down a fog spray. That’ll knock the fire down so we can haul the equipment out.”

  “Got it.”

  In full gear I ran to the fire shed, an outbuilding Lamar had built a decade earlier when lightning took out one of the old tobacco barns. I had always thought of it an another example of Lamar’s paranoia, but now that I was hooking the two-inch hose to a line that ran down to the pond, I was glad my stepfather was a man with foresight.

  I ran toward the fire, the heavy canvas hose unrolling behind me.

  “Pump’s on!” Mom called from the house.

  I barely reached the barn before the hose charged. I twisted the nozzle to set up a fog spray.

  Knock it down, knock it down, Lamar’s voice played in my head. Stay under the fire. Heat goes up. Everything that rises must converge. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

  What action, I wondered as I attacked the fire, had caused someone to react by trying to burn down our barn with me in it?

  2

  The Allegheny VFD was the first company to respond. Julia pulled up in her truck ahead of Otto, and the engine arrived five minutes later. Julia set up the pumper so Otto and Julia could give the remnants of the barn a good soaking before the next stations arrived.

  I took the chance to get into full gear. Working with Lamar at my side, I used the hooligan and a fire axe to spread out the timbers so the water could reach them more easily. We took a break when the vollies from Galax and Atamasco arrived.

  No sign of Eugene Loach and his goons.

  Good. I didn’t want them on the property anyway. They were my number one suspects. Torching a man’s barn was a classic Southern gesture of intimidation, like burning switches.

  It meant shut up or die.

  The crew worked diligently until the morning sun rose. Dawn brought enough light to begin stowing the equipment, along with an eerie silence. The firefighters all seemed to conclude the same thing without talking about it: Some bastard had attacked one of their own with
the very devil they devoted their lives to destroying.

  When the last hoses were stowed and the pumper drained, Lamar called the firefighters together. They stood in a loose circle, facing him, helmets tucked under their arms or dangling loosely in their exhausted hands.

  “I want to say thanks for your time and your hard—“ Lamar paused. He looked around until he spotted me sitting on the steps of the galley, my helmet still on and my face dusted with soot. “Boone, come on over here. Like I was saying, thanks for all y’all did for us here today. Mary Harriet and me owe you one.”

  The vollies nodded and grunted.

  Julia patted her belly. “You done talking, Cap? My gut says its time to eat.”

  Lamar laughed, but his reply was cut short when blue lights hit the group.

  Sheriff Hoyt drove his prowler through the maze of pickup trucks. He parked near the house and killed the lights. “Looks like you folks had some trouble.”

  “Surprised to see you out this early,” Lamar said when they shook hands in greeting.

  “Mary Harriet called.” Hoyt took a seat on the steps. “Y’all got any coffee? I like it with a dollop of cream and two spoons of sugar.”

  Lamar leaned on the stair railing. “Boone, get the sheriff some coffee.”

  “Yes, Captain,” I said curtly and shucked my turnouts by the door.

  Inside, Mom was making pancakes and sausages. A pot of coffee was already perking.

  “Hoyt ordered coffee,” I said.

  “Cream’s in the fridge.”

  I retrieved it. “He said you called him.”

  “Don’t sound do judgy.” Mom sighed. “We’ll need a police report for the insurance company.”

  I poured the coffee into two cups. Outside, Hoyt’s voice rose. The sheriff talked with his hands, and the hands were moving faster. Lamar was talking, too, his mandible jutting forward.

  I knew that face.

  The captain was angry.

  “Lamar likes his black?” I asked.

  “He does,” Mom flipped a stack of pancakes on a plate. “One cup will be enough.”

  I doctored the coffee and took it outside. When I pushed the door open, Lamar and Hoyt stopped talking.

  “Drink up.” I handed Hoyt the cup.

  Hoyt thanked me, then asked, “Boone, exactly where we you when the barn caught fire?”

  “In the sleeping area. Asleep.”

  “How’d you know the barn was on fire?”

  “Smoke. Heat. Smell of kerosene in the morning.”

  “You got the horses out mighty fast.”

  “A fire’s a great motivator.”

  Hoyt blew on the coffee to cool it. “How about that Nagswood fire? You got there early.”

  “It was engulfed when I arrived,” I said. “What are you accusing me of?”

  “I’ll ask the questions,” Hoyt said. “Now about this Tin City house. You got that call mighty fast, too.”

  “I was in school dissecting a rat’s scrotum when the call came in. You saw me on the highway with Deputy Pete, and you got there before I did.”

  “Hoyt.” Lamar lowered his voice. “This is Boone, not some goddamn firebug. Somebody burned our barn, but it wasn’t him, and you know it.”

  “Who did then?” Hoyt said. “Where did it start?”

  “Call the fire marshal,” Lamar said. “He can tell you once he gets back from vacation.”

  “Don’t need him to tell me, since I just locked up the real arsonist.”

  “Who’s that?” I asked.

  “Why, your good friend Stumpy Meeks.” Hoyt tugged on the brim of his hat and nodded. “Thanks for the coffee. Y’all have a nice day.”

  3

  After breakfast was finished, I leaned on the hood of my truck drinking a bottle of beer. The odor of leftover sweat mixed with wood smoke, the worn cloth of the turnouts, and the battered boots that had protected my feet.

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “What’s wrong?” Mom came around the truck and took a seat next to me. “Sounds like you lost you best friend in the world.”

  “Worse. My research was ruined by the fire.” There was more anger in my voice than I expected. “I know that breaks your heart.”

  “Actually,” she said, “it does. I watched you pour your heart and soul into that project. Even if your research was disgusting, I’m still proud of the work you did.”

  Her words sunk in. I nodded and smiled.

  “You could always start over.”

  “I wouldn’t be able to get it together in time for the Olympiad,” I said. “I’ll have to hand in my data and hope even though I didn’t make the Olympiad, Dr. K still accepts the report and lets me pass the class.”

  “You are just like your daddy, you know.” Mom pointed to the field where five head of Black Angus. “I liked the cowboy in your father. Don’t laugh. It’s hard to think about a man who now works for an international bank as a cowboy. That’s because you’re only looking at the clothes, not the man who wears them. Close your eyes for a second. Feel the wind blowing? Catch the smell of the hay and the dirt? Now imagine your father on a horse, wearing a Stetson and chaps.”

  “Chaps?”

  “Wipe that smirk off your face. Imagine that field is the prairie, and there are a thousand head of Angus you’ve got to drive to market, and with the only thing in front of you is the wide-open frontier waiting to be explored. That’s what drew me to your daddy. He was a cowboy, and my whole life was new frontier.”

  “So what broke you up?”

  “That’s the problem with cowboys. When you live for the saddle, you see the rest of the world as a cow. I’m nobody’s cow.”

  I laughed out loud.

  So did she. “That didn’t come out right, but you catch my drift. Lamar’s proud of you.”

  “He said that?”

  “Lamar doesn’t say what he’s thinking. You have to read his signals.”

  “If he’s proud of me, why am I not back on the squad?”

  “I guess he thinks you’re not ready yet. Or he’s not ready yet. In Lamar’s eye, you’re not the worst kind of firefighter. He saves that spot for the guys who played it safe, who don’t do the grunt work or pack gear.”

  I knew that type. They were fire voyeurs, willing to watch, but never willing to step into the fire with his brothers. Last one in, first one out. That kind of guy would get you killed. Which was different from a man willing to get himself killed trying to be a hero. Heroes were dangerous, too. In their own way.

  “Now tell me about this pretty little Cedar and you.”

  “What about Cedar and me?”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “Since you’ve been back home, exactly zero girls had come around, and now I’ve seen you two together more than twice. That adds up to Cedar and you.”

  “It’s only been a week, Mom, and I’m not sure it’s going to work out.”

  “Are you blind? She’s crazy about you.”

  I shook my head. “I thought so, too. Now, I don’t know. I told her something important, and she just left me hanging.”

  “What did I say about reading people’s signals? Try reading hers.”

  “It’s not that easy. She mixes them up a lot.”

  “If it were easy, it wouldn’t be worth it, right?” she said. “Now get off your butt. Time for class.”

  “But I stink like smoke,” I said. “I need a bath.”

  “Sorry. I had to shut down the well pump to use the pond water.”

  “No shower?”

  “Maybe you could use the school’s? They still have showers in the rec center, right? It’s your choice, Boone.”

  I could either stink like sweaty charcoal all day or get naked in a locker room.

  “Some choice,” I said.

  “That’s how life is,” she said. “The hard choices are between the bad and the worse, not the good and the better.”

  4

  Forty-five minutes later, I walked into
the rec center’s locker room. I’d used up every bit of reserve, and even after wolfing down three coffees and a box of nutrition bars, I was so wrung out, I felt almost liquid. The whole time I was in the shower, was afraid I might go down the drain with the water.

  Every muscle in my body hurt, all of them. Fighting fires was a huge adrenaline rush, especially when it was your own property. How had the fire started? Lamar thought the source was a bad light socket in the loft, but I had to wonder about the timing.

  Maybe it was an electrical fire.

  Maybe not.

  I came out of the shower sopping wet, head bent low and moaning, and groped around for the towel I left hanging on a hook.

  “Looking for this?” Ronnie said, holding up the towel. It was dirty and wrinkled like he had rubbed it all over floor.

  Just what I needed. Wet, naked, and ragged out with a ticked off redneck holding my towel.

  “Whitey tighties?” Donnie stepped into the shower area, holding up my underwear. “It figures a sailor would be wearing man panties.”

  “You like them?” I said. “Keep them. As a souvenir.”

  I shook like a wet dog, flinging water out of my hair and all over the place. As the twins ducked, I walked past them to the lockers and started getting dressed.

  Ronnie tried to pop me with the dirty towel.

  I grabbed the end of the towel and jerked it free. “What do you morons want?” I tossed the towel into the locker and pulled on my shirt. “All the oil is sold out, amigos.”

  Donnie slammed me against the lockers. “Who you calling a moron?”

  “Let go of me,” I said, my voice calm and unwavering.

  It was a warning, not a request.

  “Or what? Get your slant-eyed friend to use kung fu on us?”

  “I said, let go of me.” My voice took on the hard edge of a man used to giving orders and having them obeyed. “Last time I’m going to say it, before you end up in the hospital.”

  This seemed to confuse Donnie. He looked back at Ronnie, who was busy dumping my book bag on the floor. Textbooks, notes, and pencils fell on the tiled floor, along with the newspaper article about Mrs. Vega.