Broke: (27 page)

Chapter Twenty-nine

Hortense stood beside Immy with her fist stuck
halfway
into her mouth. There wasn't much that could render Mother speechless, thought Immy, but this was it. Drew quieted and watched,
through her tears,
hypnotized by the beautiful, terrible flames.

The
serene
sun, unconcerned, burst through a cloud bank and
sent a bright ray of brilliance into
the scene of chaos.
The three of them stood motionless while, i
n contra
s
t
,
firefighters dashed back and forth, aiming huge hoses and spraying futile streams of
hissing
water on the
building
. Some of them were
at
the sides of the house and Immy assumed some were in the back.

After he ran from the van,
Ralph had
stopped to
shout to
the firemen
that
no people were in the house, then
he'd
disappeared into the
backyard
. After what seemed like hour
s
, he reappeared with Marshmallow trotting beside him.

When he was far enough away from the house
fire
, Immy let Drew go. The child ran to her pig and sank to her knees, hugging the animal.
Marshmallow wore a leash
Ralph had fashioned out of his belt. Immy looked from it to Ralph
, questioning
.
Normally, the pig followed Ralph like a puppy dog.

"He didn't want to go anywhere," said Ralph. "He was trembling, he was so afraid."

Hortense plopped down next to Drew and hugged the pig, too.

"I bemember now,"
Drew
said. "I left him out inna
backyard
. I'm not sposed to do that."

"It worked out okay this time." Ralph patted her on the head.

"Damn animal."

Immy whirled
at the sound of
Sadie McMudgeon
's low, raspy voice behind her
. She
drew close to the woman
and put her face in Sadie's. "You shut up. That's my daughter's pet. Don't you talk like that." She kept her voice
low
, hoping Drew wouldn't hear her being rude. But she didn't want Drew to hear Marshmallow called a "damn animal" either.

Ralph stepped up beside
Immy
and the older woman stumbled
back a step, alarm in her eyes. "I didn't do nothing," she
mumbled.
"It was those men."
She hurried away.

A piercing scream sounded from inside the house. Immy flinched and turned toward the fire, still raging
mostly
unchecked.

"My Lord," said Hortense. "Someone is in there."

"Jesus," Ralph said "You're right."

The front door burst open and a shrieking figure rushed out.
F
lames
shot
from his hair and his clothing
left a trail of
smok
e
. He missed the steps and dropped off the edge of the porch, onto the jagged pile of splintered wood that had
once
been the railing. He kept up his keening while the firefighters threw a heavy cloth over him
to
put the flames out.

Over the smell of the burning wood, Immy caught the stench of burnt flesh and hair. Who was
that
under
the cloth?

Whoever it was struggled to throw off his rescuers. He was no longer burning. He stood and
gestured, waving his arms at
the house.

"He's still in there! He's in there burning!" the man yelled.

"Someone
else
is in there," said Hortense, restating the obvious. Something she never did.

In response to the burning man's shrieks, t
wo
dark,
silhouetted forms rushed into the blazing building.
One was taller, both
were
bundled in heavy protective clothing.
The front door wasn't burning yet, at least.

Panicked visions ran through Immy's head. She couldn’t help but picture her Uncle Dewey inside.
She willed the brave firefighters to find him before he died.

"Dirty double-crosser," the man went on, still at top volume. "Deserves what he's getting." He raised his arm and shook his fist at the house.

"It's Abe Grant," Ralph said quietly.

"How can you tell?" Immy asked. It was hard to see the man in the flickering light.

"I can't tell for sure, but that looks like his tattoos on that arm."

Immy squinted at him. The
markings on his unburnt arm
did look like the ones on the man she'd seen in Geoff's headlights on Friday, two short days ago.

The flames seemed to be dying down at last. The firefighters were spraying foam as well as water on what was left of the structure. The bottom two floors, at least in the front,
weren't too badly damaged, as far as Immy could tell
.
The roof had caved in, though, and the third story was mostly
gone.
Without the fierce flames, Immy noticed that, somehow, daylight had faded and it had become evening.

Immy held her breath, waiting for the
rescuers
to come out with the other person. She wanted to run over to Abe and ask him who was
still
in
side
, but he was being bundled into an ambulance. It flashed it lights and burped its siren, making Drew jump and
yelp
, then sped toward the hospital.

Immy tugged on Ralph's sleeve. He was as mesmerized as the rest of them by the flames. "Ralph, can you ask them who is in the house?"

"Are you sure you want to know?"

"I'll know eventually.
But y
es, I want to know now."

Then one of the fire
fighters
emerged, carrying a
bundle
over his shoulder. The second
firefighter
, a woman, trudged after him.
The man set the burden
onto the ground
and zipped it into a body bag.

Immy couldn't stand it any longer. She rushed over to the man with the body bag.

"Who is it?" She had to raise her voice this close to the spraying hoses and flames,
which were
dying, but not out.

"He's not IDed yet, miss," he said and pushed past her.

He set the bag gently into a second ambulance
. I
t drove away without lights or siren.

"Where are they taking him?" She
said,
still to the fireman.

"Morgue. He'll be identified there. Please stand back. You're too close."

The starch went out of Immy and she stumbled back to her family. Ralph caught her in his arms and held her for a long, long time.

Chapter Thirty

A BMW slid to a stop behind them and Jersey Shorr jumped out. She wore
wrinkled
gray sweats and flip flops, even though the night air was cold
this distance
away from the fire.

"What happened?"

Immy had never seen her less than put-together before. She looked older and s
horter
. Even less thin. "The house burned down," said Immy, in case Jersey was having trouble processing what she was seeing.

"How?"

"No idea." Immy tilted her head and
stared
at the
smoking ruins
. Drew raised her head and stared, too. A thin white wisp, distinct from the black smoke, curl
ed
upward from the wreckage
. It
drifted high overhead, and dissipated.

Drew smil
ed. "There she goes," she said.

A
truck
drove up and parked beside the van. Theo jumped out of the driver's side.

"What's going on?" he asked.
"We saw the smoke from miles away."

"Oh Theo," wailed Immy. "Dewey might be dead."

"Huh?" said Dewey, opening the passenger door and stepping down from his son's pickup. "Who says?"

"Dewey! You're alive!" Immy
rushed to
hug her uncle. "Then who
was
in there?"

"Someone
was
in there?" said Theo.

"Oh." Immy put it together.
The image from the parking lot last night tweaked her memory.
She turned to Jersey
to make sure she was right
. "Did you lose a key last night at D
a
iry Que
e
n?
"

"I don't eat that stuff."

"Do you eat a lot of garlic?"

Jersey gave Immy an odd look.

"
D
id you lose a key
recently,
another night?"

Jersey put on a haughty look and almost looked like her old self. "I do not lose keys. That would be bad business for a real estate mogul."

Or even a real estate small business owner, Immy thought.

"Then i
t has to be Geoff.
He and Abe were partners
with Lyle
.
That was his
key
last night at t
he Dairy Queen.
The key to this house.
I've seen him with one just like yours, with that plastic tag.
"

"Geoff lost his key?" Jersey asked.
"He told me you changed the locks and he had to get a new one."

No wonder everyone kept coming in, thought Immy.

"Yeah, I reckon it
's
Geoff
," Dewey said. "Him and Grunt and Lyle had this scheme going. I figured either Geoff or Grunt killed Lyle, then left me there to take the blame. I
tried to tell the cops, but
no one believe
d
me."

"
The
bull semen scam, right?" Immy said.
So Dewey had known Geoff was part of it, too. He hadn't said that before.

Dewey thrust his head at her, his eyebrows raised. "
That's the one.
There ain't no more.
"

"Language," Hortense said, cutting her eyes toward Drew, who was ignoring the grownups and leading Marshmallow around the vehicles.

"You never told me how you figure
d
out
where Lyle hid the stuff
, Immy," said Dewey.

"Marshmallow helped," Immy said.
Then another thought occurred to her.
"Does Geoff eat a lot of garlic?"

Jersey wrinkled her nose.
"Can't stay away from the stuff,"
she
said.
"He always reeks of either garlic or that cheap cologne he covers the smell
up
with."

Chapter Thirty-one

Two mornings after the Wymee Falls house fire,
Immy
sat in Hortense's kitchen with her mother and daughter and Ralph. It was
Tuesday
, but Mike Mallett had told Immy to stay home for a day or two.
She and Drew had slept in their old bedroom
,
on air mattresses,
and Immy had to admit it felt good.
Ralph was on patrol, but had stopped in for his mid-morning break
to give them the news
.

"Chief says Abe
Grant
has confessed to your kidnapping, Hortense," Ralph said.
"
Grant has
third degree burns over half his body. Must be in a ton of pain."

"That's what I figured," Immy said
, pouring ice tea for herself and
the rest of
the adults, and a glass of milk for Drew
.
Hortense put out a plate of gooey brownies she'd baked to celebrate the end of their mutual ordeals. "
He and Geoff kidnapped
Mother
,
and one of them killed Lyle Cisneros.
They've been looking for that canister all this time.
"

"Was the miscreant informed about my re
collection
of his ink designs upon his upper appendage
s
?" asked Hortense.

"
He was," Ralph said. "
He's trying to come clean with everything he can. It's like the thinks the courts will grant him leniency if he confesses to enough stuff. He says he killed Lyle, didn't even try to blame his dead partner, Geoff."

Drew and Marshmallow ran out through the back door, bored with grown up talk.

"Maybe," Immy said, "he thinks God will let him live if he confesses all his sins."

"My," Hortense said. "Maybe Sunday School has rubbed off upon you, Imogene."

"I'm not saying God
will
let him live, but maybe he thinks that."

"He's going on and on about robberies and assaults from years ago," Ralph said. "We're clearing up a bunch of old cases."

"So I was right," Immy said.
"Dewey wasn't involved." She couldn't be sure Dewey had been telling the whole truth. Maybe he
had
been in on the bull semen sca
m
. But she could be sure he hadn't killed Lyle Cisneros. Abe would surely blame someone else
, like Dewey,
if he could.

"Yep," Ralph said.

"Right about what?" Dewey walked into the kitchen
from the
backyard
.

"What do you suppose is the purpose of the front door?" Hortense asked.

"Keep out the flies, I reckon." Dewey reached past
Immy
's shoulder and grabbed a brownie. "I never knew you could bake like this, Hortense. I though
t
my brothers were the cooks in the family."

"They are no longer here," said Hortense. "Someone must keep body and soul together in their stead."

Immy hadn't heard her mother speak so unemotionally about her dear, dead, departed father since…well, since he'd departed.

"What conveyance did you use to transport yourself hither, Dwight?" Hortense asked.

They all knew Dewey didn't have a driver's license yet.

"Theo brought me. He's on an errand. He'll be along in a minute.
I went around back to say hi to Drew and that pig. I like that animal.
"

"Yeah, he's the one who found the canister," Immy said. "I think I told you that. Sometimes I think it might have been better if Grunt or Geoff had found it
the first time he looked,
and
had
gone away. How come Geoff used his own house for that?"

"He didn't exactly know
Grunt
and Lyle were running the bull juice scheme,
at first,
" said Dewey
, taking a seat at the table
. "He
thought he was
just let
ting
them crash there. I guess he was
n't told y
'all
were gonna
look at the house. Geoff never thought anyone would really want to rent it.
When Geoff found out what Lyle and Grunt were doing, he wanted in on it. They were using sperm from an old donkey belonged to a pal of Lyle's. Geoff runs some cattle somewhere west of here and he wanted 'em to use that.
That night, before I passed out, Lyle told
Grunt and
Geoff he'd decided he was more valuable
, since he'd gotten all the gism for 'em so far,
and wanted a bigger cut.
I saw his point. It's not that easy to collect that stuff.
"

Jersey had told Geoff
she wanted a bigger cut, too, in
their house flipping
scheme
, thought Immy. He was getting squeezed from everyone.
Immy had given the cops the address where she'd seen Geoff and Jersey together and they thanked her for it. She thought they probably had an open case for the house repair swindles.

"Lyle told
both of them
he'd put the juice can away for safe keeping," Dewey continued. "
That night,
Grunt was getting more and more riled up, started shoving little Lyle, shaking him. I tried to get up to protect him, but I was too far gone. Next thing I knew, you gals found me in that bed."

Dre
w and Marshmallow ran into the singlewide
so Drew could snatch a brownie and Marshmallow could beg a
rice
treat from Hortense.

"Y'all hear about that old biddy next door?" Dewey said, taking a
nother brownie.

Immy got a glass out and poured him some tea
to wash down all those brownies
.

"
Is there
a biddy next door
?
" Drew said
, pointing to the trailer next to theirs
. "
A
biddy hen?"

"Next to your Wymee Falls house, I mean."

"Sadie McMudgeon?" Immy asked.

"That's her name. She burned your house down.
Ain't that right, Ralph?"

Ralph agreed. "
She walked into Shorr's Real Estate and bragged that she'd cleaned up the neighborhood.
Said something about want
ing
a
reward."

"Sadie
set the fire
? Sadie?" Immy found that hard to believe
--f
or a few seconds. Then she realized that it made sense. The old woman had
a history of torching houses
. "What's going to happen to her?" Much as she disliked the woman, Immy hated to picture her in prison.

"They already sent her to the funny farm
,
"
Dewey said.

"What's a funny farm, Unca Dewey?" asked Drew.
She held her palms out, just like Theo did.
Immy hadn't realized how completely Drew had picked up his mannerisms.

"It is," Hortense put in, "an institution for
the purpose of
housing those with mental and emotional disadvantages. It is not properly called a funny farm. It is called a state hospital."

"Which don't make sense," Dewey said. "Should be called something else.
State don't mean mental state.
"

"I gotta go back to work," Ralph said. "Thanks for the brownie, Hortense." He pushed his chair back and
picked his hat off the table, then
headed for the front. He
stopped after a few steps and
turned toward the group
at the table. "Immy, could I ask you something outside?"
He dropped his hat.

Immy picked it up and followed him out. He seemed nervous.

Theo
's pickup
pulled up as they reached the bottom of the front steps. He ran toward them waving a new
spaper. "Look whose
picture is on the front page," he called.

He opened it up to show a blown up picture of Hortense with her chubby fist in her mouth, watching the house burn.

"She'll be…." Immy wasn't sure what Hortense would think when she saw the photo.

Theo went inside to show her.

"Immy…." Ralph looked at his feet and shuffled one foot in the dirt. He started over.
"I
mmy, I
've seen the way you've been acting about that real estate fella."

"Vance? You're kidding. He's gay."

"Gay?" Ralph's grin took up half his face.

"He's in love with Quentin, the one who co-owns the antique shop with him. I drove past there yesterday, just for the hell of it, and there's a sign in the window. They're closing up the business and moving to Wyoming. Isn't that something?"

"
Yeah, that's something."

His grin disappeared and he got a serious
expression
on his face. "
Immy, if you and Drew would like to, well, if you need a place to, you know…."

"Ralph!" Immy thought she understood. "Are you asking us to move in with you?"

THE END