Tin City Tinder (A Boone Childress Mystery) Page 5

  11

  My family lived in a split-timber log house at the end of Tobacco Road. Lamar had built the house himself, and he had named the road after a bestselling novel about white trash. He said it made him laugh.

  It made my mother cringe.

  Lamar’s farm was about two hundred acres. He grew organic strawberries, Christmas trees, and scuppernong grapes. He also raised horses, miniature goats, and thirty head of Angus beef. Lamar had inherited the farm from his parents, who grew tobacco for fifty years. They passed away just before the tobacco market in North Carolina collapsed. Unlike many farmers in Allegheny County, Lamar had taken the death of tobacco in stride and diversified. He hated smoking anyway. It had killed both of his grandparents, parents, and only brother.

  I walked into the cabin to find Lamar nuking a plate in the microwave. Dinner was warmed up lasagna, one of the three he had baked over the weekend. With two firefighters and a veterinarian in the house, we never knew when dinner would be served, and Lamar liked to be prepared for any emergency.

  He didn’t look up when I shut the door. I thought of heading upstairs to the loft. If Lamar was ignoring me, maybe I would return the favor. But doing that would only prolong the inevitable.

  I put the plastic container way in the back of the freezer and grabbed a beer. I drained it while Lamar set a casserole pan and a tossed salad on the table.

  “Plates,” Lamar said.

  “Silverware, too?”

  Lamar grunted a reply.

  It was easy to tell when Lamar was perturbed. Most people yelled when they were upset. Lamar got very quiet and started fixing things. In high school, I learned about Occam’s Razor, which posits that the simplest solution to a problem is the right one. When Mom remarried, I learned about Lamar’s Hammer, which posits that the first step in fixing anything is to give it a good whack.

  TV has lines rolling through it? Whack.

  Glove box rattling in the truck? Whack.

  Vent fan humming too loud in the bathroom? Whack.

  Lamar sat at the table. His chair wobbled. He made a sour face like he’d sucked a lemon.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  Lamar turned the chair upside down. He hammered the offending leg with an open palm. He sat down and wiggled his butt. It didn’t rock anymore.

  I spooned lasagna on my plate. “Where’s Mom?”

  “Horses.”

  Horses was code. It meant that she was angry, too, and she had put herself in timeout. Taking care of the horses calmed her down, soothed the edges of her ragged temper. When Mom got mad, she got loud. It didn’t last long, but her temper was a sight to behold. That kind of flash fire anger didn’t bother me. Lamar’s cold stoicism always unnerved me more.

  “Let’s eat.”

  “What about Mom?”

  “She’ll be along.”

  For five minutes, neither of us spoke. I didn’t have much of an appetite. My mind was on the finger in the freezer. I wanted to give it to Abner tonight, before Mom found it next to her veal cutlets.

  After pushing my food from one side of the plate to the other, I’d had enough. “There’s something I want to run past you.”

  Lamar nodded for me to go on.

  “Remember the house fire over in Duck? The empty house that caught fire in the middle of the night? Out of curiosity, I went over there today and found—“

  Lamar stopped chewing. “Once firefighters leave a site, you need a search warrant to go poking around.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Now you do.”

  Lamar stared into the distance. He chewed his food fifty times. He wiped the corners of his mouth. He took a drink of water.

  The longer he took to speak, the more curious I became.

  “Boone, serving as a firefighter is serious business. It takes determination and discipline. It also takes teamwork.”

  “I known that. I’m not a kid.”

  “Which is why I’m giving it to you straight. Today, you broke the most fundamental rules of the job. You tried to be a hero, and you almost got killed. Rookies make mistakes. Lord knows I made my share, too, but you took it to a new level.”

  “Yet this morning, you toasted me. With beer that I bought.”

  “That’s tradition. What was I supposed to do, embarrass you?” Lamar wiped his palms. He looked into the distance again, growing silent.

  I waited until I couldn’t stand not to. “What’re you trying to say?”

  “Speaking as your captain, you’re on probation from the Allegheny VFD. “

  “Probation?”

  “One more slip up, you’re suspended.”

  A rushing sound filled my ears. It was a waste of breath to argue. Once he’d made a decision, Lamar never listened to reason. He just hid behind rules and regs like they were bulletproof glass.

  But I could still see him behind the glass, and he couldn’t erase the evidence I already had. With Abner’s help, I could prove the Tin City and Duck fires were related. That they were both started by bombs.

  “Have it your way, Captain.” I walked outside to the back porch and dialed Abner. “This is Boone again. Forgot tonight was bingo night or whatever lie you tell to cover your visits to the Widow Neff’s house. Meet me tomorrow, 0630 at the Town & Country. Don’t be late, or I’ll take my evidence to the Hyphenated Lady instead.”

  TUESDAY

  1

  The next morning at 0630 hours, I found my grandfather inside the Town and Country restaurant. He was slouched over a table crowded with a ketchup bottle, salt-and-pepper shakers, sugar, and a bottomless decanter of coffee.

  Abner’s silver hair was so shaggy, it looked like matted fur, and his face was hidden by a wild salt-and-pepper beard a pair of thick framed glasses. His body was a shorter, more weathered version of mine.

  He looked up as the waitresses showed me to the booth. “You’re twenty two minutes, seventeen seconds late.”

  “Make that forty-three seconds.” I slid into the booth and ordered coffee. “Your watch is fast.”

  “Jeet?”

  “Huh?”

  “Did you eat yet?” Abner formed each word distinctly. “I’ve been snacking.”

  “Snacking?” The waitress snorted. “Honey, we’ve been open a half hour, and you’ve about eat us out of house and home.”

  Abner waved her away. “Shoo, urchin.”

  “What’d you call me?”

  “Ignore him, ma’am. My grandfather was raised by wild pigs.”

  “I could tell that by the way he dresses.” She snorted and stuck a pencil behind her ear. “And the way he smells.”

  “Don’t insult the woman who brings your food, Doc. It’s an excellent way to get poisoned.”

  “The food here will kill you either way.” Abner removed a matchbox from his pocket. With a well-rehearsed flourish, he set it on the table. "What's inside the box?"

  “How many?” I asked.

  “Five.”

  “Size?”

  “Varies. Smallest is a couple millimeters.”

  “Human?”

  “You tell me.”

  I slid the box open. There were five bone fragments inside. The smallest was two millimeters long. The largest was five millimeters. Not much to work on. I unfolded my napkin and moved the fragments onto the cloth. Four fragments were white, which suggested bleaching. The fifth was darker. Which could mean exposure to fire or burial, or recent death.

  “Light’s too low in here,” I said. "Got a magnifying glass on you?”

  “Yep.”

  “Can I borrow it?”

  “Nope. Carry your own tools.”

  He’d been preaching that mantra since I was in kindergarten and Abner introduced me to the university lab. We started with whole skeletons, then bones, then skulls and hips, until I could decide if any bone were human or not. If it were the right bone, I might even be able to guess the sex or age.

  “Luckily, I’m prepared for just such an em
ergency.” I took out my multitool and flipped out a small but powerful magnifying glass. “These four bones are human, probably from the ethmoid and the zygomatic arch. The fourth is definitely the hypoid. Their uniform color suggests bleaching. No, wait.” I touched one of the fragments with the tine of a fork. The tine sank into the bone, which left powdery residue on the metal. “Those four bones have been cremated.”

  “The last one?”

  I turned the fragment on edge to see the structure of the bone. “The striations aren’t consistent with human patterns. See how they form a different striation? They may be mammalian. Doc, are you trying to sneak a bear claw by me again?”

  “Ha!” Abner slapped the table, upsetting the silverware and drawing stares from the other diners. “Right again. Now, what about the sex of the human?”

  “From that sample? Not large enough.”

  “Female.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “By the diamond stone left in the cremains. The operator didn’t do his job.”

  “You saw the cremains.” I put the fragments into the matchbox. “That’s cheating.”

  “Not at all. A forensic anthropologist looks at all evidence, not just the crime scene.” He stared over his glasses, eyebrows as bushy as caterpillars. “Speaking of evidence, give me the particulars of your case.”

  “It’s a weird one.”

  “I like weird.”

  “Even for you.”

  While I gave him all the details, the waitress set an order of liver and onions on the table. Abner speckled the meat with pepper and cut out a square.

  “Since there was no body on site, I don’t think the finger is from a recent death,” I said. “Right?”

  Abner didn’t answer. He crammed food in his mouth and got lost in his thoughts. “Let me see the finger.”

  I passed the plastic box under the table. “I’m not used to looking at specimens like this.”

  “You see the discoloration of the flesh?” He held the box close to his chest so the other diners couldn’t see it. “That’s an indication of embalming. There’s some trauma to the joints, as well.”

  “It’s soot.”

  “More than soot.” Abner passed the box back. “Who’s leading the fire investigations?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Nobody? How the hell are they going to catch the perpetrator?”

  “You think it’s arson, too?”

  Abner such a chunk of liver from his teeth. “Your evidence came from an embalmed individual, suggesting well-preserved remains, possibly from a metal coffin of some sort. It takes a whopping amount of force to blow open a buried coffin and send limbs flying. Which leaves me with two questions: Who blew up this house and where’s the rest of the body?”

  “My thoughts exactly. But like I said, there weren’t any other remains.”

  “You sure?”

  “The man who found that definitely would’ve told me.”

  Abner picked his teeth with a toothpick. “There are three reasons firebugs commit arson: Money, pleasure, and to hide evidence. Which was it?”

  “Maybe this will answer your question.” I pulled out the waste pipe I’d collected. “I found this in a creek. A hundred yards away from a burned out house.”

  “The one in Tin City?”

  “No, in Duck.”

  “Cast iron waste pipe.” Abner picked it up. “I’ll have a friend run some tests.”

  “What about the finger?”

  “You could turn it over to law enforcement,” Abner said, “and face a whole bunch of questions about how you came to possess evidence. Or you could give it back to Stumpy and let him tell the sheriff.”

  “He tried. Hoyt thinks he’s a no-account drunk. His words, not mine.”

  “Maybe he won’t believe a no-account drunk, but he might believe an old buddy.”

  “You and Sheriff Hoyt are friends?”

  “Not friends exactly. We used to get along pretty well, but now, I think he’s got a different feeling for me.”

  “He dislikes you?”

  “Dislike is probably too mild a word,” Abner said. “It’s more like pure hatred.”

  2

  Traffic was starting to clog the highway when I reached Stumpy’s house. Despite what Cedar had said about Stumpy’s housekeeping skills, the outside looked well-kept. The siding wasn’t covered with the green scum that plagued mobile homes. The patio was clean. The picnic table was smoothly sanded and finished with clear lacquer. As far as a could tell, there was nothing wrong with this picture.

  Then I noticed a huge dent in the side of the trailer. About two-thirds of the way down. Looked like somebody had backed a car into it. Something heavy had definitely hit the motor home.

  “Can I help you?” Stumpy called through the window.

  “It’s me, Boone Childress.”

  Stumpy opened the trailer door and released a wave of stink. He looked at me with choleric eyes. He wore a white shirt with a T-shirt underneath, brown polyester slacks with no belt, and black nylon socks. His toenails stuck through the nylon.

  He held a skillet full of rendered bacon fat. I wondered if he was going to offer breakfast or throw hot grease on me.

  “Brought back the finger.” I showed him the plastic container. “Like I promised.”

  The lines under his eyes softened. “I was about to eat a bacon sandwich. They throwed out the meat out at the Piggly-Wiggly, so I took out of the trash. Want some?”

  My stomach lurched. No way was I eating spoiled bacon. “Not hungry. You wouldn’t happen to have a drink of water?”

  “If you ain’t minding well water. Gets sorta tangy.”

  “We have well water.” I followed Stumpy inside. “My dentist could swear to that. I’ve had cavities since I was three.”

  “Don’t talk to me about no dentists.” Stumpy stuffed the finger into his freezer, then took a seat at a dinette table. “You’re Mary Harriet’s boy, ain’t you? She’s good people. Heard you was in the service.”

  “Got out around Christmas time. I’m going to ACC for now.”

  “Good to be home?”

  “It’s an adjustment.”

  “Family’s funny like that.” Stumpy filled a slice of bread with four strips of fatty bacon. He slathered it with mayonnaise. “An education’s one thing they can’t take away from you. Everything else is fair game.”

  “I saw a dent in your trailer.”

  “What dent?”

  So it was definitely new. “Did you hear any noises before you found the finger?”

  “Something woke me up, that’s for sure. It wasn’t just me rolling off the couch. I’m used to that.”

  “Any other body parts besides the finger? Big chunks of metal?”

  “The one finger is all I found.” He took a huge bite of the sandwich. A glop of mayonnaise oozed onto the table. “There’s something’s fishy going on, though. These two old boys been snooping around ever since the fire.”

  “Don’t say?”

  “You making fun of me?”

  “No, sir, I’m not.”

  “Wouldn’t be no first, I tell you what. My family’s been laughing ‘hind my back the whole time, but like I told them, I heard two booms that night—a little one and a big one.”

  Two booms? That was the first I’d heard of that. “Did you show the dent in your trailer to the sheriff?”

  “Hoyt ain’t caring about no dent.”

  “What about the finger? Are you going to show it to him?”

  “No way, no how. Cops all think I’m crazy. That scrawny deputy come around yesterday. He wrote my statement down, laughing the whole time like I was the village idiot. I could tell.”

  “You said two men were snooping around?”

  There was one strip of crinkled bacon left in the bowl. He picked it up and offered it to me.

  “No thanks.”

  “Suit yourself.” He gobbled it down. Another belch. He fanned the gas away and yawned. “Time
for my nap.”

  It was time to go, anyway. “Thanks, Stumpy. Been nice seeing you.”

  “Let me pass on some advice.” He held the door open for me. “Stay out of family business, if you know what I mean.”

  He winked, and I nodded, but I had no idea what the man was talking about.

  The door shut, and the blinds closed.

  As the town drunk, Stumpy was like a janitor in school. People treated him like he was invisible, so he heard and saw all. Gut instinct told me he was hiding information, and I had to figure a way to extract it.

  Stumpy Meeks may have been done with me, but I definitely wasn’t finished with him.

  3

  For my date with Cedar, I wore a black blazer and a pair of dark jeans. I chose a restaurant called The Point near on Red Fox Lake. It was a drive from Galax, but the steaks were juicy and the view from their dock was so sweetly romantic, it could cause a blood sugar spike.

  When the server seated us outside, the sun was just setting behind the mountains, and the yellow-orange sun was shimmering on the glass smooth lake. The reflected light glowed on Cedar’s face, making her even more beautiful.

  “You always seem to be framed by the sun.”

  “It’s my personality,” she said. “Solar flares are drawn to gingers. It’s a scientific fact. Look it up.”

  She wore a strapless little black dress that pinched her narrow waist and left her tanned shoulders bare. The server had to ask twice before I noticed him handing me a menu.

  “Oh. Yeah. I was…”

  “Distracted?” He placed a basket of corn muffins on the table. “Would you care for a drink?”

  “Could you bring us a bottle of your house wine, please?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  He left, and I looked at Cedar. “You look fantastic.”

  “You clean up mighty fine yourself. Nice jacket.”

  “This old thing?” I said. “It’s just something I picked up at the thrift shop.”

  “Nice. I like a guy who knows how to handle his money.”

  The server brought the wine and poured us both a glass.

  “A toast," I said.