Fit to Die (6 page)

James almost choked on his cornbread. He didn’t want Bennett introducing Carter to Lucy. Why, she might fall in love with him and where would that leave James?

“Have you seen her?” James asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

“She was here earlier.” Bennett took a swallow of beer. “I saw her talking in a kind of serious way to Sheriff Huckabee.”

James looked around the room in hopes of spotting Lucy so that he could finally arrange a time to talk to her privately, but he didn’t see her. As his eyes wandered over the rows of townsfolk, they came to rest on a young man holding a cell phone to his ear. An attractive blonde was sitting next to him, and though she seemed to be batting her eyelashes and bumping her shoulder into his in order to get his attention, the man stared straight ahead with a look of horror spreading across his face.

Suddenly, James felt goose bumps erupt up and down his forearms. He stared as the young man snapped his cell phone shut, jumped up from the table, and headed directly toward where James watched in agitated fascination.

“Chief!” The young man urgently plucked the sleeve of a man seated behind James. The older man, who was deep in conversation with his tablemates, ignored his fellow firefighter at first, but the young man persisted. “Chief!” he said loudly. “There’s a fire!”

“Where, Brady, in the kitchen?” The chief and several of the other firefighters laughed and took fresh swigs of beer from their cups.

“No, sir. It’s the Polar Pagoda. That new ice cream place. It’s burning like crazy!”

The chief swung around to face Brady. “How do you know? We haven’t gotten a call.”

“My little brother just rode by there on his bike. He called me on my cell. The 911 call will probably come any second now, sir. We should get ready!”

Chief Lawrence looked down at his beer cup and then back at Brady. “You sure your brother ain’t just messin’ with you, rookie?”

“No, sir. He’s a good kid.” Brady fidgeted anxiously with his cell phone. “And there’s more, Chief!” he added, his voice rising a notch.

“What?” the chief demanded crossly, his eyes sweeping around the crowded room as he absorbed the possible problems of their situation.

“My brother said … well, he said he saw someone inside.”

At that moment, the alarm sounded.

As pandemonium erupted around him, James grabbed onto Bennett’s elbow and shouted, “Let’s go!” over the roar of the alarm.

Several firemen were shouting at a group of slow-moving patrons who had thoughtlessly parked their cars in front of the station house’s garage doors. It became quickly apparent that at least half a dozen firemen were perfectly sober as they expediently gathered their equipment and prepped the truck for an immediate departure. James couldn’t believe how little time it took before they were boarded and, with set expressions on their faces, clearly prepared to face whatever danger lay ahead.

“You’re blocking our truck!” Chief Lawrence roared at a flustered woman who squeaked and dropped her car keys onto the pavement. “Hurry, woman!” he yelled again, pulling on his jacket and helmet while signaling to the rest of his crew to board the truck. “Let’s go, rookie!” the chief beckoned to Brady from across the garage as the young man struggled to free himself from the grip of a petrified matron while simultaneously attempting to pull on a pair of flame-retardant boots. Meanwhile, Chief Lawrence gesticulated wildly. “Come on, son! You’re drivin’!”

James, Bennett, and a bewildered Carter threaded their way toward the front of the stationhouse, where a knot of townsfolk blocked the exit as they dallied with coats, hats, and gloves. Looking around, James caught site of Chilly Willy, calmly finishing his stew and watching the excited crowd with a look of bemusement. At that moment, one of the young firefighters placed a hand on Willy’s shoulder and gave it a wordless squeeze as he dashed for the fire truck.

The fleeting touch, which seemed to carry a mixture of pity and hope, alerted Willy as to the source of the fire. Observers cast Willy sorrowful glances as they realized that the popular and jovial newcomer might be facing a tragic beginning to his life in Quincy’s Gap. After the young man moved away, Willy dropped his spoon and jerked upright, his eyes trained woefully on the wailing truck as it inched out of the garage, still impeded by an old pickup that was slowly backing out of the driveway by an extremely short driver who seemed to have a serious distrust for his rearview mirror.

James felt a deep instinct to call out to the man, to offer his sympathies, but knew that his voice would never be heard over the clanging of the alarm. As the yellow fire truck, newly washed and polished to a lacquerlike shine, burst out of the garage bay, Willy pushed his way through the crowd and out into the parking lot.

As James, Bennett, and Carter headed for Bennett’s truck, which was actually a retired mail truck repainted a plain white, they spotted Willy in the parking lot next to the station. Apparently, his car had been parked in by an SUV the size of an Army tank.

“Willy!” James called out. “Come on! We’ll take you!”

Willy nodded gratefully and hustled into the back seat of the tiny truck. As Bennett started the engine, he switched off the radio and the foursome drove in weighted silence down Main Street. As they crested the hill leading to West Woods Shopping Center, where the Polar Pagoda was located, they could see a thick trunk of smoke spurting into the night sky. It reminded James of a tornado’s funnel, except that it churned in one place, like a storm intent on damaging a single target of wood and nails and concrete.

It took several minutes to reach the top of the rise as most of the participants of the fundraiser dinner had made their way to the scene of the fire. A long line of red taillights cruising past the burning structure on the end of the strip mall caused Bennett to swear with agitation and disgust.

“Vultures!” he spat, swerving around a red sports car that had pulled off on the side of the hill in order to get a better view of the action.

“It’s just what folks do,” Willy muttered, his eyes never leaving the aggressive orange and vermilion tongues of flame as they burrowed into the pagoda’s new beams of wood and darkened the fresh coats of red and green paint into irregular, blackened shadows.

James didn’t know what to say. He was torn between pity for Willy and the guilty thrill of watching the avaricious fire eat away at the little ice cream shop at a tremendous speed. A strong spring breeze wafted ashes across the parking lot and as Bennett turned the truck toward the conflagration, splinters of charred wood and debris still lit with devilish sparks landed on his windshield.

“And here I thought I was safe from disasters,” Willy said as he got out of the car and stared at his ruined business. James followed his gaze, noticing that the firemen were doing all they could to control the blaze, but the roof had already collapsed inward and great coughs of smoke emitted from the gap left open to the night air. An arc of water rained onto the burning structure, and several other firemen began taping off a perimeter around the building in order to keep the crowds at bay.

Willy, James, Bennett, and Carter watched in silence as the flames were finally drenched into feeble sparks. Thick smoke spread outward like a gray fog, covering the parking lot in a gossamer layer of ash. James could feel it coating his hair and skin like a dusting of gritty sand sticking to damp flesh. Willy opened his palm in order to catch some of the minute particles that once represented his entrepreneurial dreams. From where they stood in the parking lot, on a slight rise above the bustling firemen, the men noticed the arrival of two brown patrol cars. The strip of red and blue roof lights blazed, but the sirens had not been activated. Three men hopped out of their vehicles and began to confer with the exhausted firemen. James recognized Sheriff Huckabee and deputies Keith Donovan and Glenn Truett.

Two cars pulled up next to Bennett’s truck. James recognized Gillian’s environmentally friendly hybrid as well as Lucy’s dirty Jeep. Gillian, Lindy, and Lucy approached the dumbstruck group of men. James was delighted to see that Lindy appeared to be carrying a six-pack of soda. He felt like he had swallowed a mouthful of chalk and couldn’t wait to wash away the layer of grime that coated his tongue.

“We saw y’all up here from the other end of the lot. Thought you might be a bit parched by now so we ran out and got you some cherry cola,” Lindy said softly, handing each of the men a cold can. Bennett thanked her and awkwardly introduced the three ladies to Carter.

“Thank you kindly,” Willy raised his can to his lips and took a deep swig. He seemed to shake off the trance he had fallen under while watching the fire. “Nothin’ like a little cherry cola to bring things to light again. I reckon it’s not all as bad as it looks. I’ve got cherry cola, some new friends, and I’ve got a good insurance policy.”

“I’m glad you have your sense of humor intact.” Gillian put her hand on Willy’s forearm and smiled.

James stared at the charred structure that had promised to be a bustling ice cream parlor. The building looked like a whale beached on a square of ebony sand, long decomposed with a rib cage of black beams jutting up into the night air. Suddenly, he remembered what Brady had said about someone being trapped inside. As unobtrusively as possible, he pulled Lucy aside and shared what he had overheard the fireman report to Chief Lawrence.

“Didn’t you tell me that old Pete Vandercamp was going to be working the weekend shifts?” Lucy asked, gripping James by the hand.

James looked down as her soft fingers locked onto his. He covered her hand with his free one and tried to reassure her. “Yes, but it was just a kid on his bike reporting what he thought he saw. Maybe he was wrong. After all, it would have been getting dark by then. Could have just been a shadow. It could be nothing—a trick of the light.”

“Maybe, but I doubt it.” Lucy turned and pointed at the patrol cars. “After all, the Sheriff’s here,” she said worriedly as she gazed at the smoldering building. “Oh, James. I know Pete wasn’t the best of men. He drank and swore at us when we were kids and had always made lewd comments to all the pretty women in town, but no one deserves a horrible death like that. I truly hope they don’t find anyone inside.”

James put his arm around Lucy’s shoulder but could think of nothing to say. He believed that the boy had probably seen someone and that someone would most likely turn out to be Pete Vandercamp. From where he and Lucy stood, slightly above the perimeter of tape, they watched the Sheriff pull on a pair of firemen boots and follow an agitated Chief Lawrence into the remains of the Polar Pagoda.

“I’m going down there,” Lucy announced.

“Wait!” James held her firmly by the arm. “You might not want to see what they find if they do find something. It might look …” he trailed off as he noticed the others staring at him.

Gillian appeared next to James and crossed her arms over her chest. “What are you two whispering about?” she demanded.

Willy gazed at James and Lucy and then his jaw grew slack. “Do y’all know why Johnny Law is here? Is there more bad news? There talk of arson or somethin’?”

James decided that Willy deserved honesty. “There may be …
um … someone might have been inside. Caught in the fire. It’s not certain, Willy,” he said as gently as he could.

Willy shook his head emphatically. “No way, man. Nothin’ in there could have burned fast enough that …” he paused, “… Pete would have gotten out. He’s no nuclear physicist, but he’s got a survival instinct, same as the rest of us.”

“You’re probably right,” Lindy assured him, but her round eyes betrayed her fear.

“What’s that the Sheriff’s got in his hand?” Carter asked quietly, speaking for the first time.

Lucy peered through the dark as Sheriff Huckabee moved into the strong beam cast by the lights of the fire truck. “Those look like our standard plastic evidence bags. I can’t quite tell what’s inside.”

“From the long neck and the fact that they look like they’re made of glass—see how the lights are reflecting on the surface—I’d say they’re liquor bottles. One in each bag,” Bennett mumbled.

“Didn’t Pete drink Wild Turkey?” Lucy turned to James. “Remember all the empty bottles he kept in his car when we were in high school? You couldn’t pass him in the hall without breathing in whiskey.”

“Yeah.” James nodded, a queasy feeling spreading throughout his stomach.

“Well, one’s a Wild Turkey bottle but the other one isn’t. That’s Gentleman Jack, for sure,” Carter stated authoritatively.

Everyone looked at the new mail carrier with surprise. “Gentleman Jack? Do you mean Jack Daniels?” Lindy asked and Carter silently nodded. “How can you tell that from this distance?”

Carter shrugged. “Used to work at a liquor store. I could tell you what most bottles are without the labels and those two are easy ones. The labels have both turned completely black, but the shape is still obvious to me. Weird …” he trailed off.

“What’s weird?” Bennett prodded.

Carter jerked his shoulders again and glanced shyly toward the Sheriff. “It’s just that most folks don’t mix their whiskeys, you know. They stick to one brand pretty loyally.”

“Don’t look at me!” Willy threw his hands in the air with a sound that was part sob, part laugh. “I’m from a dry, Baptist household. I wouldn’t know whiskey, good or bad, from cough syrup, and neither one of those bottles is mine.” He watched as an ambulance pulled into the parking lot. “Oh Lord, please tell me that poor man didn’t drink two bottles full of that damnable liquor while he was on the job tonight.”

Lucy touched Willy’s arm as two paramedics unloaded a gurney from the back. By this time, most of the onlookers had dispersed. The fire was out and a sudden chill had appeared in the air. A few teenage boys sat in the rear of a pickup, but eventually, even they grew tired of the scene and motored noisily out of the lot and onto the street leading back to town.