Death Under Glass (3 page)

I tipped my head to my left. “This is my good friend Carrie Stanford. She was summoned. I came with her.”

The detective left off his perusal of my muddy foot and shifted his attention to Carrie. “Mrs. Stanford,” he said. “Sorry to have to ask you to come down here.”

Carrie stiffened marginally. “That's Ms. Stanford, please. Russ and I are divorced.”

Nolan was too much of a professional to flinch at Carrie's sharp tone. “I'll remember that.” He introduced the two men with him—one, another gold badge member of
the Pace County PD. The other, Chief Fire Marshal Barker, extended a hand to both Carrie and me.

“Thanks for making the trip,” he said in a rasping voice that perfectly complemented his lined face and thick silver hair. “Easier if you see the damage for yourself.”

“Easier how? Why?” Carrie's brows dived toward the bridge of her nose, and anxiety raised the pitch of her voice. “I was told no one was hurt. Is that not true? Is that why I need to be here in person?”

Nolan rushed to reassure her. “Nothing like that. There's no evidence of anyone being inside. According to neighbors, the fire was started somewhere around four this morning, not within business hours.”

“Wait.” I put up a hand to pause the information. “You said ‘was started.' Does that mean—”

“Oh, yah,” Chief Barker ground out. “This here's the most suspicious fire I've seen in a long
time.”

C
hief Barker stood with us, inches from the threshold of what had once been Russ Stanford's law office, and swept the beam of a flashlight around the interior. He bounced the light against three distinct spots in the fire-damaged space—a blackened desk ahead and to the left, a corner deep to the right, and a doorway straight ahead at the other end of the room. “There, there, and there,” he said as he shifted the light. “See how they look worse than some of the other spots?”

Carrie and I nodded in vague unison. Where the walls enclosing the open-plan office appeared slick with soot or bubbled from heat, the areas Barker indicated were shrouded in almost unfathomable blackness. A piece of furniture that might once have been a desk was slumped
one-sided to the floor, waiting for the beat of a butterfly's wing to bring the rest of it down.

“Those are your likely acceleration points,” Barker said. “We got some testing to do so we can bring the science to the judge, but even just lookin' at this, this was most likely a set fire, starting in three separate points. Probably garbage pails, a little gasoline thrown in there.”

Following the thought, I murmured, “And three pails at the same time couldn't be an accident.”

“Exactly.” Barker swung back in our direction, where the sunbeams pushing through the blown-out windows washed away the gleam of the flashlight. “We'll do all the tests, of course. Check everything out. Meantime, you're gonna want to get some fencing put up around this place, keep folks from wandering in and getting hurt.”

“Put up fencing?” Carrie asked. “How do I—?”

“There must be a business, a company or something.” I looked to the fire marshal. “Right? Would they need some kind of certification or something?”

Barker's mouth softened into a kind smile. “You give me a way to get in touch with you, I'll make sure you get the names of some of the folks we know who do this sort of thing—the fences and cleanup and such.”

We stood in a silent huddle in which I waited for Carrie to say something and Barker waited for one of us to say something.

“After, we'll let you know when we can turn the property back over to you,” he said slowly, gaze locked on Carrie.

Her eyes widened and she nodded in understanding. “Oh, I'm done? That's it, right? I can go and you'll contact me?”

Barker smiled again. “Well I got nothin' else for you. But the detectives will have some questions.”

We thanked the fire marshal, and I did my best to shake off the sense of incongruity created by thanking a man who had shown us destruction. After Carrie gave him her business card with her contact information on it, she and I shuffled back across the sidewalk to where Detective Nolan stood, arms crossed, watching the other detective stroll away.

His gaze slid sideways as Carrie and I neared. “Let's get some coffee,” he said. He tipped his head in the direction of the coffee shop and, without waiting for us to agree or decline, started walking.

After a quick, wordless check with one another, Carrie shrugged, I grimaced, and we were off.

“I don't understand,” Carrie said as we hurried to catch up. “Why do I need to answer questions? It's Russ's business. For that matter, where is Russ? Why isn't he here?”

He slipped pinched fingers along the lapel of his suit, straightening what had never been out of place. “We're still trying to locate Mr. Stanford.”

“He's missing?” My question ended in an embarrassing squeak.

I thought Detective Nolan might have grinned, but the unusual tug of muscles around his mouth didn't last long enough for me to be certain.

“I wouldn't go that far just yet,” he replied, voice distinctly mirthless. “He's not answering his phone or his door. Just makes him out of reach, not missing.” He turned back to Carrie. “So it's up to you. You're a part owner and his ex-wife,” he said. “You need to answer questions.”

“Yes, ex-wife.” Carrie skitter-stepped and drew level with him. “Ex. What would I know?”

A little breeze of déjà vu stirred the hair on the back of my neck. The temperature may have been rising steadily toward steamy, but I didn't welcome the chill. “Please tell me you don't think Carrie had something to do with the fire.”

He glanced over his shoulder at me, his mouth a firm line accustomed to holding in secrets. “If that were the case,
you
would be waiting in your car.”

“Oh, you think so?” I said. I might have added a smirk, which might have been unwise.

“Still a possibility,” he said.

“As if you—” I began. But Carrie put a hand on my arm, and the quelling look she shot me made the protest slip away.

Carrie may not have spoken a word, but the caution in her gaze reminded me of the wisdom of keeping my mouth shut and smirk-free in the presence of detectives. I walked quietly beside her, all too aware of my capacity for letting my mouth get ahead of my brain. Or, more to the point, letting my default trust in people's good nature lead me into self-incrimination.

“Go ahead inside,” the detective said, lifting his chin to indicate the coffee shop before veering away. “I'll be right with you.”

Without a backward look in our direction, he crossed to the squad car blocking the street.

“Quick, while he's not looking. Let's make a run for it,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

Carrie kept her voice a fraction above a whisper. “We didn't do anything.”

“You sure? You're not lying to me about sneaking up here last night and torching your ex-husband's livelihood? Sounds like great revenge to me.”

“Except I still own half the property that livelihood sits on,” she said. “Or used to sit on, anyway. Setting fire to it would be a little like cutting off my nose, wouldn't it?”

She was right, of course. And the fact of her ownership would, I hoped, keep her from being dragged down to the Pace County Police Department station house for further questioning or—heaven forbid—arrest, and would keep that shine of innocence around her.

Unless of course there was a great insurance payout to be had if—

I stopped in my tracks and shut my eyes tight to banish the idea of Carrie having anything to do with the fire. Insurance payouts or no, Carrie would never do such a thing. She wasn't the arson type. She didn't even go in for decorative candles.

Before ducking into the coffee shop behind Carrie, I looked to see what was more important to Detective Nolan than starting his immediate semi-interrogation of her. He stood beside the squad car that blocked the street, talking with the uniformed officer. Clouds slid over the sun, momentarily softening the glare of the morning, so that when the light reasserted itself, it was easier to spot the sun's rays picking up streaks of gray and surprising hints of gold in the detective's hair and splaying a shadow of his broad shoulders across the pavement.

Nolan pointed to the opposite end of the street, the rookie officer nodded and tugged open the door of the car, and I became aware of the hazardous road my mind was about to wander down while gazing at the back of Detective Nolan's pale gray suit. I mentally smacked myself. The good detective did not merit my attention—not that sort of attention, anyway. What was wrong with me?

The rich, edgily bitter scent of coffee sneaked past me on a breeze.

“Are you coming?” Carrie asked from behind me.

I turned to find her hovering in the open doorway of the coffee shop. The same shop from which the aroma of coffee wafted. My taste buds awoke and my stomach rumbled. Hunger. Low blood sugar. That explained my new perspective on Detective Nolan.

“I think I have to eat something,” I said when I reached Carrie.

“How is that possible?” She held the door open to allow me to precede her into the coffee shop. “How can you think of food when I'm about to be questioned by the police?”

Telling her I wasn't the one about to be questioned would have been bad form. I smiled at a dark-haired girl wearing black slacks and a waiter's apron. “Anywhere?” I asked, waving toward the dozen or so booths stretching the length of the left side of the establishment. A dining counter stretched the length of the right. At its end stood the stout man with the apron who'd been standing outside the door earlier.

The waitress nodded. “Two?”

“Three, actually.” Carrie led the way to a booth in
front of the windows. She tossed her purse onto the seat and sat down with a thud of butt on vinyl. “I can't believe I have to talk to the police because they can't find my ex-husband. Russ and I have been divorced for almost a year and still he manages to ruin my day.”

I eased onto the bench seat opposite her, leaned my elbows on the table. “Carrie, you might still think Russ is a pain in the butt who makes your life miserable, but I don't think you want Detective Nolan to know that. Don't give him any cause to suspect you might be carrying a grudge. Or a torch, for that matter.”

She let out a breath, shoulders sagging as she exhaled. “Okay. You're right. Okay. I can do that.”

The waitress dropped a few menu folders on the edge of the table in the same moment Detective Nolan strode through the door of the coffee shop. “Can I get you something to start?” she asked.

Carrie ordered tea while Nolan echoed my request for coffee and slid into the seat beside me. Prior to his arrival I'd been mainly sitting in the middle of the bench. Now I would have to shift over to avoid his thigh pressing against mine for the duration. With the path my mind continued to threaten to wander, the last thing I needed was proximity.

“Here.” I tapped his arm, the bulk of his suit jacket preventing me from touching the man beneath. “Scoot out and I'll sit next to Carrie.”

“This won't take long.” He pulled a pen from his breast pocket and dropped his notepad on the table.

I huffed to cover my discomfort and reached for a menu.

Detective Nolan laid a hand atop the menu, stopping me from pulling it close. “I said it won't take long.”

“I'm hungry,” I said, doing my best to scowl at him.

At this, he turned his head, held my gaze. “Would you please not order until I've gone?”

Strange. Most professional-type people I knew were accustomed to doing business over a meal. Had that particular multitasking brilliance not yet reached the police department? How could that be? And yet there we were, Nolan's brown eyes locked on mine.

He slid the menu toward me. “Decide, but don't order.”

It wasn't a command, but a request, and not an unkind one.

I did a combination nod and shrug, and when the waitress dropped off our coffees and tea, told her I wouldn't be ordering just yet.

Cup of java in front of him, Detective Nolan opened his notebook and flipped to a clean page. Try as I might, I couldn't catch the contents of the pages previous to the blank he stopped on. It would have been nice to see, say, a list of suspects, with Carrie's name absent. But no such luck. She'd have to keep her name off any such list by excelling at the detective's game of twenty questions.

“You say you're divorced from Russ Stanford, is that correct?” he began.

With steady hands and perfect posture, Carrie prepared her tea. She confirmed she and Russ were divorced for just over nine months.

“Cause of divorce?” He didn't take his eyes off Carrie.

“Infidelity,” she said, lifting her teacup. “His.”

I wanted to reach across and pat her hand. The best I could do in the moment was catch her gaze and give her a sympathetic smile.

“You were awarded partial ownership of the property at 832 Broad Street as part of the settlement.”

She shook her head, keeping the teacup close but not yet taking a sip. “We bought it together after we got married. It wasn't awarded to me like some kind of consolation prize.”

Nolan made some marks in his notebook—the notebook he cleverly kept beside his coffee cup, blocking my view of its contents. I grabbed my own coffee and took a sip, followed by a gulp. My eyes popped wide, my taste buds rejoiced. It was the best cup of coffee I'd had since leaving the city. Sure, the coffee at Grace's luncheonette in Wenwood village tasted better than the brew Grandy's old drip coffeemaker produced, but this . . . this was smooth and strong, no undertones of burnt beans, no hidden staleness, all flavor. I closed my eyes and savored another swallow.

“I take it you're aware of the current value of the property.” He covered his notebook with a loose fist while he took a gulp of coffee. I watched, but he showed no sign of recognizing the amazingness of the coffee. Some detective.

Nolan continued, “Can you tell me how much the building is insured for?”

Carrie set down her cup, catching the edge of the spoon resting in the saucer. The clatter sounded deafening in the quiet of the coffee shop. “I believe it's no more than current market estimate.”

“You believe?”

She let out a little huff. “We were just starting out. We barely had the money to make loan payments. To insure the property for more than the bank required . . . we couldn't afford that.”

The waitress snuck up to us, order pad at the ready. I cut a glance at the detective who had been adamant I not eat until he left and gave the waitress what I hoped was an apologetic smile. “I need a few more minutes.”

Expression neutral, she wandered off, and I shifted my attention back to the policeman's version of twenty questions.

Nolan made a note, then looked to Carrie. “Is it likely given current market decline that the property is insured for more than its value?”

Carrie made a flustered little noise, her cheeks going faintly pink. “I suppose. I don't really know.”

“Any chance your ex-husband might have taken out additional insurance, say, for the business?”

Fueled by caffeine, my mental calculator put two and two together and flashed a sum. “You want to know if it's possible Russ set fire to his own building?” I asked.