Opal Fire (4 page)

Baldy took a few more notes and said, “Thank you, gentlemen. I think I have everything I need from you.”

Kirk nodded and guided Eddie away.

“What’s going on?” I asked my cousin.

“You won’t believe this,” she said. I could feel heat seeping from her, her temper in over-drive.

“Miss...?” said Baldy.

“Stacy Justice,” I said and stuck my hand out.

“My apologies. I don’t do that,” he said.

I lowered my hand and raised an eyebrow to Cin who made a strangling gesture with her fingers.

“I am Benjamin Smalls and what is happening here is standard company policy whenever a business is involved in a fire. This is the fire investigator for the claims office, Enrique Ortega.”

I nodded at Enrique and he smiled back.

“We already have a fire chief, Mr. Smalls,” I said.

Smalls looked at Tommy like he missed the winning kick in the Superbowl. “Yes, well sometimes in a town the size of Amethyst, not everyone is, how shall I put it? Up to snuff?”

“I’d like to snuff you,” Cin mumbled next to me.

“Pardon?” asked Smalls.

Cinnamon bit her lip.

“Say, you were there when the fire began, is that correct, Miss Justice?” Smalls continued.

“I was setting up behind the bar, yes.”

“Would you mind relaying your version of events?”

I told him exactly how everything had unfolded.

“Interesting.” He scribbled more notes. “So your dog was there and you insisted on retrieving him, while your cousin didn’t want you to bother,” said Smalls.

I stepped back, a bit stunned. “That isn’t what I said. She was afraid I would get hurt so—”

Cinnamon pinched me and I clamped my jaw shut.

“And you were never in the basement?” Smalls asked.

“No,” I said.

“And you were the only two people in the building?”

This guy was getting on my nerves so I decided to return the favor.

“Probably not.”

Cin gave me a “say what?” look.

“Come again?” Smalls removed his glasses and stared me down.

“These are old buildings, Mr. Smalls,” I said sweeping my arm over Main Street. “People have been coming and going in and out of these walls for nearly two centuries.” I lowered my voice and conjured up Birdie’s witchy tone. “We are never alone when the dead walk among us.”

Smalls dropped his spectacles and I caught them before they hit the ground. I leaned in and slipped them in his breast pocket.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice squeaky. He shook off a chill and cleared his throat.

“So then, no living, people. Besides the two of you?” Smalls asked, his voice trimmed with sarcasm.

Cin and I shook our heads.

“All right then. That’s all the questions I have. Thank you for your cooperation,” he said and he and Enrique jumped into a van parked on the street.

Cinnamon stood, anchored to the sidewalk, appearing helpless. I jogged over to the van.

“Wait a minute.” I knocked on the window and Enrique rolled it down. “What about the claim? What is she supposed to do now?”

“Now?” Smalls laughed and nudged Enrique who didn’t move. “Tell her to hire an attorney.”

“An attorney? Why?”

“Because, Miss Justice. Arson is a very serious offense.”

“Tommy, what the hell is going on? I thought I heard you say the cause of the fire was electrical?” I asked the fire chief. We were in Leo’s office at the police station.

Leo shot me a look and I realized my mistake instantly. I had heard that when I was in the basement, packed in a case of wine. The basement I wasn’t supposed to be in at the time.

“I never told you that, Stacy,” Tommy said.

Tommy was leaning up against the white brick wall, florescent bulbs bouncing light off his prominent forehead. Thor snored under Leo’s desk.

“Oh, right...what I meant was I thought I overheard someone else say that you said that.”

Geez, I was a terrible liar.

Tommy glanced from me, to Cin, to Leo. He sighed and pulled up a metal folding chair and removed his Chicago Bears hat.

“That’s what it looked like at first,” he said. “But then the deeper we got into it, it seemed that wasn’t the case. Just didn’t add up. And Enrique sure kept digging.”

Of course. What insurance company actually wants to dish out money for a claim?

“What didn’t add up?” I asked.

“The broken window in the basement, for one.”

“I thought the fire caused that?”

“No, someone broke that window. From the inside. Before the fire. I could tell from the glass pattern.”

I looked at Cin who was growing pale. “Cinnamon, did you notice the broken window?”

“No. It’s always freezing in that damn basement. I went to grab some napkins and straws and when I turned around I saw flames by the far wall,” she said.

“Near the window,” Leo added.

“Near the light,” I said.

“Right,” said Tommy. “That’s why wiring was my first assumption.”

“Okay, so the window was busted, what does that prove?” I asked.

“Have you ever heard of the fire triangle?” Tommy said.

I’d heard of the Bermuda triangle and I had a feeling I was about to get sucked into it.

“No,” I said.

Tommy took a pencil, a pen, and a sheet of paper off Leo’s desk to construct a visual for me.

“A fire needs three things to sustain it,” he explained. He grabbed the pencil and angled it. “Oxygen,” he formed a V with the pen, “a fuel source,” he punctured the paper across them, “and heat. Breaking a window in the basement would fan the fire and concentrate it in that area.”

“But it didn’t burn in just that area. It moved up. Does that mean windows were broken upstairs?”

“We didn’t find any. But when you walked in a minute later, Stacy, the gush of wind from opening the door sure helped it along.”

That unnerved me. I rarely helped Cin open up the bar. She was usually there alone, and I would swing by if she needed a hand, but we both intended to make the Imbolc celebration last night, before I forgot all about it. Had I not been there, what would have been the outcome?

“So what was the fuel source?” I asked.

Tommy glanced at Cin.

Cin leaned back in the swivel chair and said, “Tell her. Then you’ll know why it could not have been me.” She twirled.

Tommy put his foot on her chair and stopped her. “Cinnamon, I have known you all my life. For God’s sake I used to buy you beer when you were seventeen. I didn’t say you did it, but it will look that way so you need all the facts,” Tommy said.

“Cin, no one in this room thinks for a second you would set your own bar on fire,” I said.

“That’s right,” Leo put a hand on her shoulder.

“Mr. Small Dick thinks I did,” she said.

“Well, that’s the trouble with being short, bald, and having an unfortunate name like Smalls. Gives a guy Napoleon complex,” I told my cousin.

“I like to call it short man syndrome,” Cin said and grinned.

I turned my attention back to Tommy. “Let’s have it. What was the fuel source?”

“We can’t be certain at this point until the tests are complete, but we found broken bottles of grain alcohol so that’s where we’re leaning.”

“You mean like Everclear? The stuff people use to do a flaming shot? Cinnamon would never keep that in her bar,” I said.

“Thank you,” Cin said and crossed her arms, a smug look on her face.

“Enlighten me ladies,” Leo said. He sat down and put his hands behind his head, trying to look relaxed and confident, but his eyes held a hint of apprehension. He was worried.

“You want to tell the story or shall I?” I asked my cousin.

“Be my guest,” Cin said and twirled again.

I took a breath and launched into the story. “It was the town’s bicentennial, a few years back. Cinnamon found this recipe for a firecracker shot and thought she would give them away that night. Well the line was too long and Scully didn’t want to wait, so he swiped a few from the rail when she wasn’t looking, lit them all, and started downing them.”

“And before he knew it...” She stifled a laugh and that prompted me to giggle.

Leo raised an eyebrow at Tommy.

“I didn’t know a thing about this,” the fire chief said, hands up.

I snorted.

Cinnamon pointed at me, “He said he was pissing fire all night!”

“Cin, tell them about Monique,” I said.

Cin threw her head back and cackled. “That was the best part.” She clapped. “Monique was standing in front of Scully, trying to pick up some guy, and Scully burped on that last shot before he finished it. Her hair lit up like a Christmas tree! It was awesome.”

We were both in hysterics now. “And I did the honors of pouring a pitcher of ice water over her head to put it out,” I said. “She never used Aqua Net again.”

“And I never ordered Everclear again,” Cinnamon said, wiping a tear away.

Leo shook his head and rose. He wasn’t laughing.

“Didn’t you like our story?” I asked.

“It’s a great story. There’s just one problem.”

“What?”

“I checked with your distributor and he sent this fax. Cinnamon, it looks like your signature on the invoice,” Leo pushed the paper towards us.

I examined the order form. It did look like her signature. Approving delivery of one case of Everclear.

Cin fingered the paper and chewed her lower lip. She stood up.

“Why would I order a single case of anything? That doesn’t make any sense,” she directed this at me.

“It gets worse,” Tommy said.

I waited for the next bomb to drop.

“We found the case of bottles in a corner. There were eight missing.” He sighed.

I looked from Leo to Tommy. There was more. I could feel it. “What else?”

“Stacy, the booze was poured all the way up the stairs. There even seemed to be traces on the ceiling and the beams,” Tommy said. “And,” he sighed, “the sprinkler system was shut off at the control valve.”

My heart thumped at that news. If the fire was contained to just the basement, the possibility of a prank would exist. But for the trail to intentionally lead up the stairs, and with the sprinklers turned off, then whoever set it intended to burn the whole place down.

Or worse. Everyone in town knew Cinnamon would be there at that hour.

My grandmother’s voice rang in my head.
Death has paid a visit
.

“What?” Leo asked.

I didn’t realize I said it out loud. I shook my head and exchanged an uneasy glance with my cousin. Her face was stone.

“Are you saying someone tried to kill us?” I asked Leo.

“Maybe.” He paused. “Or maybe just Cinnamon,” he said.

CHAPTER 5

A few minutes later, I parked Thor in my office and barged through my boss’s door. He was on the phone, his giraffe legs stretched to the side of his desk. He held up a finger to me and I watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he spoke.

In a million years, I never thought I would be working for the Amethyst Globe. The paper was started by my father years ago. Shea Parker handled the business end of things while dad was all news. It won quite a few awards back then for our region of the world, and Parker has been hounding me to work for him since I was in high school. But I wanted bigger stories, better scoops. I wanted to work in a city where I made a difference.

Now, it seemed, I was.

I put my hands on Shea’s desk. “Parker, it’s important.”

He closed his eyes and nodded, holding up that finger again, still talking.

“Yep, not too much cheese this time alright, Joey. My star reporter here likes to eat healthy.” He made a gun with his finger and shot at me.

I reached over the desk, grabbed the phone from his ear and slammed it on the receiver.

“Hey that was Giorgio’s! Your favorite,” he whined.

“Take me off of everything but the Opal fire.”

“Everything?”

“Everything.”

“Can’t do it.”

“You better.”

“I need you to cover the ice lizard race.”

I don’t know why, but I had to ask. “What the hell is that?”

“They take these lizards, you see, and they line them up on the riverbank and then—”

I held up a hand, “I get it. Give it to Iris.”

“I can’t do that. It’s an important piece.”

“Ice lizards. That’s important?”

“Don’t knock it. They raised thousands of dollars last year.”

Again, I bit. “For what?”

Parker pursed his lips. “I think it was for a new city sign. They got tired of painting fresh numbers over the old ones when a baby was born, then re-painting when someone died. Unless it was for—”

“Shea!” I was this close to shaking the plugs from his head.

Parker stood. “What makes you think you can waltz in here at, uh...” He looked at his watch, which never kept good time, “lunchtime, and bark orders at me?”

“Because if it wasn’t for me this paper would still be covering pie-eating contests and your only advertisers would be church bake sales. Now put me on that story.”

“I can’t, Stacy.”

“Why the hell not? I was there!”

I could feel a vein throb in my neck.

“So was I,” said a voice behind me.

Which I now recognized as Derek, sneaking up on me yet again.

I faced him and plastered a hand on my hip. “What do you wear on your feet- ballet slippers?”

To Parker I said, “You gave the biggest story this year to a kid photographer.”

“I’m not a kid,” piped Derek.

I took a long look at Derek. His teeth were bright against his chocolate skin, his hair had a zigzag etched into it, he was wearing baggy jeans, a Snoop Dogg tee-shirt, and a pencil in his ear.

Except for the pencil he looked like a reality show contestant.

“Right, you’re the epitome of professionalism.”

“Hey, you were wearing a cape last night,” Derek said.

Okay he had me there. “But I wasn’t working.”

Derek protested a few more times but I ignored him.

I poked Parker in the chest. “It’s my story, make it happen,” I said and left.

Gladys Sharp’s desk was just down the narrow hallway. She was the research assistant for the paper. Gladys used to work at the grocery store, but when I signed on to be a reporter, she jumped at the opportunity to work at the Globe. The Geraghty Girls are to Gladys what Elvis was to rock and roll fans so I guess she thought working with me might get her a backstage pass, so to speak. Since she was the hardest working woman on the planet, I thought she’d be a good fit.

The research room was surrounded by floor to ceiling bookshelves with a few computer desks on the outskirts and a conference table in the middle.

“Hi Gladys,” I said. Gladys was surfing the web when I approached. She turned and smiled, her hair puffed out around her cheeks. Blue reading glasses clung to her nose.

“Hi, Stacy,” she said. Her dentures clicked as she spoke in her thick Polish accent. On the screen was a web page titled,
The Kitchen Witch Cooks Without a Stitch.

I pointed to the screen, “That could be dangerous.”

Gladys smiled, “Yes, but she has good recipes.”

I was all for that because Gladys couldn’t navigate an oven if Emeril Lagasse drew her a map. Which wouldn’t make a difference to me if she weren’t constantly trying to force home-cooked meals down my throat.

I pulled up a chair and grabbed a pen and pad of paper. “Listen, Gladys, I have some work for you.”

Gladys looked relieved. I got the impression she didn’t really want to learn how to cook naked.

“I need you to find some records on the building where the Black Opal is located.”

Gladys clapped a hand to her throat, “Oh, Stacy, I’m so sorry. You and cousin Cinnamon are fine?”

“Never better,” I said.

“You are trumpet.”

“Excuse me?”

“You know, like soldier. March on.” She made a fist and punched the air.

“Oh. I’m a trooper. Thanks.”

I wrote down the information I needed and gave her a list of references she could search. I thanked Gladys and pocketed the pen and paper.

When I got up to leave, Derek was standing in the doorway.

“I’m going to hang a bell around your neck, I swear to God,” I said.

“I’m pissed at you,” he said, arms crossed.

“You can’t be pissed at me. You’re not family and we’re not dating.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

I shrugged. “Those are the only people who ever get pissed at me. Everyone else finds me adorable.” I stepped around Derek and started back to my office to grab my recorder and a bag.

“Mr. Parker took me off the fire story,” he said, jogging after me.

“I know.”

“Well that’s not right, man. I earned it.”

He was on my heels. “You blew into town five minutes ago. You haven’t earned anything, Derek.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t want it.”

“That was yesterday. Today I want it.”

“So do I.”

“You are a photographer.”

“I’m a photojournalist.”

“You’ll take the next one.”

“That could be a while.”

“Not in this town, trust me.”

We reached my office and I turned to face him.

“Why are you following me?”

“Why are you such a bitch?”

He stepped back as he said it. All I did was glare at him and shake my head.

This was my family we were talking about, it wasn’t just a story to me. Cin nearly died in that fire. I nearly died in that fire. I would be damned if I was going to hand it over to a punk with an ego bigger than his camera. This investigation could be dangerous and I had no idea where it would lead. Derek knew nothing about this town or the people in it. They didn’t trust outsiders. I couldn’t risk him screwing up while my cousin’s life was at stake. Because surely, whoever would go that far once, would strike again.

Hand it over to Derek? No freaking way.

I was just about to put my hand on the doorknob when it occurred to me. “You never called him did you?”

Derek adjusted one of his cameras. He knew I was referring to last night, when I told him to let Parker know I didn’t want the piece.

I tapped my foot, waiting for his answer. He didn’t supply one and I didn’t have time to slap it out of him. It felt good to slam the door with him standing on the other side of it.

“You’re forgetting one thing,” I heard him say.

I sighed and peeked through a slat of the blinds.

Derek grinned and pointed to his camera.

Right. The photograph. Dammit.

He was wearing the only recorded evidence around his neck. The physical evidence, if it existed, would be tied up for a while.

Ever since Parker placed a lunch order, I had a taste for pepperoni, so I called Giorgio’s and picked up pizza and salad for a bite with Birdie and the aunts. They needed to hear what Tommy found and—God, help me—I needed to find out if there was anything in their bag of tricks that would help me discover the truth.

Thor and I followed the black iron fence that traced the front yard and I swung open the heavy gate. The Queen Anne house looked just as it did when I was a kid. Mom and I lived here after dad died and when she left, this was home until I went to college.

The front porch circled the frame, complete with wicker rockers waiting for passengers. Gingerbread dripped from every eave, painted in shades of teal, red and purple, while the body was a buttery yellow, like a Victorian mistress who knew how to accessorize. I climbed the stairs and cranked the antique bell.

A moment later, aunt Lolly squeaked the door open and blinked big, false lashes at me. Her dress was an off-the-shoulder ruffled number with a pink bodice. A big bow was wrapped in her kinky, copper hair and the blank look on her face told me the boat was in the harbor, but the captain was below deck, sipping a cocktail.

“I’m sorry, we don’t take pets,” she said.

Thor whined.

“Aunt Lolly, it’s me—”

“Please call again,” she said and slammed the door.

Damn, damn, damn. I might have beaten her to the finish line if my hands weren’t bogged down by a pepperoni pie.

When Aunt Lolly had too much going on, something as simple as one more phone number was enough to crash the hard drive in her mind. To compensate, her internal help desk deletes a file. Like the face of her grandniece.

I leaned on the house buzzer, hoping someone more lucid would show up.

“I’ll get it,” called a voice from inside.

The door opened again and my grandfather stood in the frame, his warm eyes happy to see me. I wondered why he was there. Especially since he didn’t live there and everyone liked it that way. It was much more peaceful without Birdie whipping platters at his head.

“Hey, sweetheart!” Gramps hugged my neck and said, “Here, let me take that for you.” He took the pizza and white paper bag with the salad in it and ambled towards the kitchen. Thor trotted after him.

It was a thirteen-room house with ornate woodwork and delicate furniture. The three guest rooms were located up the curved staircase and there was a parlor, a library, and a sitting area with a piano for guests to enjoy on the main floor. A locked door led to a long hallway and the private quarters.

“So, you stopped in for lunch on a Friday, eh? You’re a brave one,” Gramps said when we landed in the kitchen at the back of the house. He placed the food on the old apothecary table that served as a center island. Copper and cast iron pots and pans dangled just above it.

After I moved out, The Geraghty Girls decided to turn their family home into a bed and breakfast so Friday is the busiest day of the week. Between check-ins, the wine and cheese hour, meet and greet with the guests and menu planning, the day was usually fully booked for all three of them. But I needed their help.

“Well, Gramps, I came to talk with them about Cinnamon and, er...” I wasn’t quite sure how to say it since he didn’t buy into the Old Ways, but I didn’t have to. He picked up the clue and put up a hand. “Say no more, dear.”

Fiona whisked into the kitchen then, carting a tub of laundry. She wore a navy silk pants set, her auburn locks twisted into a chignon

“Hello, dear. What’s this for?” Fiona set the laundry on a chair near the back door and opened the pizza box.

“I brought lunch. I thought maybe the three of you could spare some time to chat. I need a little favor.”

Fiona glanced at the rooster clock on the wall. It was 12:30. “We have an early check-in this afternoon, but I finished the room already and I think Lolly prepped the appetizers.” Lolly was the chef and she was a good one too, as long as all her wires were connected.

“What’s the favor?” Fiona asked. She pulled plates from the walnut hutch.

“I learned a few things about the fire and I wanted to go over it with you. I was hoping you could help…” I fumbled for the right words, “sort things out,” I said finally, reaching for the silverware.

“Alright, sugar. You know we’ll always make time for you.” She patted my shoulder as she set the plates on the island. “Oh, I almost forgot, Oscar, Birdie’s bag is near the front door. She asked me to tell you to load it into the car.”

Gramps had just grabbed a slice of pizza and was deciding if he should risk eating first or fulfill my grandmother’s request. He looked around and determined what she didn’t see wouldn’t hurt him.