In Hot Water (15 page)

“And no evidence of what caused the explosion I heard?” She sighed. “I think I’ll have that coffee after all. Make mine mocha. I need the chocolate to get through the rest of the day.”

“Like I said, we’ll figure it out. We usually do. I have a few theories right now. Your part is over. Don’t take any chances.”

“All right. I’d like to have a few words with Gail.”

“Please don’t. The two of you getting together could expose you both to further violence. You’re a fire chief. She’s an arson investigator. Neither of you are equipped to do police work.”

“I hear you, Brad. I won’t get in the middle of it.”

He paid for both their coffees and left the coffee shop.

Stella saw him head into town hall. “I hope he doesn’t say anything to Chief Rogers.”

“He said he wouldn’t,” Eric reminded her.

“People have a way of following their own directions sometimes.”

“Speaking of which, you’re not going to get further involved in this, right?”

“Absolutely not.” She sipped her coffee and stared out the window at the people going by on the sidewalk. “Whatever happens, the police and the TBI can handle it.”

Eric sighed, a sound like a breeze going through the coffee shop. “Why don’t I believe you?”

S
tella drove back out to the site. She argued with Eric the whole way.

“I’m only going to see what’s happening out here. I know the investigation is over.”

Eric knew better. He knew Stella well enough to understand that she didn’t like loose ends. She was stubborn that way. He was afraid for her. “You can wait and read about it in the paper,” he said. “You’re going out there because you don’t want to give up.”

“Maybe. But I promised Brad that I wouldn’t interfere. I’m not going to say anything to anyone. Okay?”

“Outside of keeping you in the truck for the rest of your life there’s not much I can do about it, but it’s against my better judgment.”

“Seriously?” She turned off the Cherokee when they had reached the site again.

“You knew that I locked those men in their trucks last night. No big deal. I’m discovering new things I can do all the time. I think it might be because I’m getting out of the cabin. My horizons have expanded.”

The site was empty. Even the spectators had left the property once the dump truck and backhoe had shut down. Stella didn’t know where the drivers were, but she doubted that they’d be gone for long.

“This is our last chance to find a detonator or something else that could have led to an explosion,” she told Eric. “Let’s look around. You can get in and out of what’s left of the debris. I’ll search the area around it.”

“Is this your idea of not being involved?”

“Humor me. Help me prove what’s going on. I know you’re interested too.”

“But they can’t kill me again.”

“We’ll only stay until the drivers come back. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Eric disappeared. Stella began slowly walking around the site. As she’d thought, there were bits of debris everywhere that had been dropped by the backhoe. She found a blackened cell phone and a charred shoe. There were some plates and glasses that were black with soot but had survived the fire intact to be carted off to the dump.

She believed she was a minimalist sort of person—not many personal possessions—because she’d seen so many spots like this after fires. It made her cringe to think of all the small bits and pieces that made up life. It felt to her as though nothing, including fire, could take much from her.

Stella had never discussed this philosophy, although many of her friends in Chicago had remarked on the absence of “stuff” in her apartment. There were no pictures, no bric-a-brac. Eric had more things in his cabin than she’d brought with her from Chicago even though he’d been dead for decades.

All of Barney Falk’s possessions were colored with smoke and laid out for the world to see. No sign of a detonator or anything else that could’ve caused an explosion.

She’d never be able to prove what had happened. Without evidence, it meant nothing that she and her crew had heard the loud
pop
before the fire had started. Whoever had shut down this investigation knew that. He or she had played their hand and protected themselves from any prosecution.

Sighing, she looked out at the beautiful lake at the back of the property. The fireboat idea could work on these lots. There wasn’t enough room on a few of them to even get a truck behind the house. She hoped the town council would agree to fund the project.

A brown Jeep pulled up behind the Cherokee. A tall, tanned man, probably in his early fifties, got out. He wore a blue down vest over a blue plaid shirt. The wind blew at his thick white hair as he buried his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

“Who’s that?” Eric was instantly beside her.

“I don’t know. Did you find anything?” She tried her best to talk without moving her lips. If she spent much more time with Eric she might want to take up ventriloquism.

“Good morning, Chief Griffin.” The stranger held his hand out to her. “I’m Phil Roth. I developed this property. Shame about losing Barney. He was a great guy.”

Stella shook his hand but frowned as her eyes met his. “It’s a tragedy when anyone dies in a fire.”

“Yes it is.” He stared at the rubble. “I understand you have a plan to keep this from happening again.”

She wasn’t surprised that he knew. “Yes. The fire brigade is going to approach the town council about the purchase of a fireboat. If we’d had one the day of this fire we might have been able to save more of the house.”

“But not Barney’s life, huh?”

“We’ll never know. This fire wasn’t an accident, Mr. Roth. I don’t know if someone set out to kill Mr. Falk or if there was something else involved. We may never know.”

“That’s odd. I received an email report from the state arson investigator.” He frowned. “That report didn’t mention any of this. I can show you on my phone, if you like.”

“I believe you, Mr. Roth. I think some mistakes have been made in the investigation. I can’t prove much now.” She didn’t want to say anything more to him.

“I see. Call me Phil. I hope we’ll get to know each other well enough that I can call you Stella.”

“Of course.”

“So you think a fireboat is the answer?” he asked.

“To lakeside fires, yes.” She pointed out the limited area behind most of the houses and the steep drop-offs to the lake. “It would give us a better vantage point to fight the fires and probably save your residents money on their home insurance.”

“I can see you’ve thought this out, Stella. I think you’re on the right track.”

“Thanks.”

“Maybe we could have lunch and talk about this. You eat, right?”

She laughed, her creamy, freckled complexion turning red as she considered what Eric would make of his invitation. “I definitely eat. Lunch would be great.”

“Good.” He had a nice smile. “How about today? Say noon at the café?”

“Sure. I’ll be there.”

They shook hands, their fingers lingering before they parted. She waved to Phil as he pulled out from behind the Cherokee.

“Oh for goodness’ sake,” Eric complained. “I said you should find
someone
—not dozens of suitors.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. He was a nice man who offered to buy me lunch. Maybe I can convince him to help push the town council into funding the fireboat.”

“And that’s why your face got all red and your pulse was zooming. Typical.”

“My face got red from the cold wind—I have delicate skin and freckles. It happens. As for my pulse, don’t even go there. I don’t want to hear anything about you monitoring my vital functions.”

“It’s your life.” He shrugged. “If you’d rather play the field than settle down with one nice man, that’s up to you.”

“Did you find anything in the pile or not?” That was enough about her personal life.

“No. Not what you were looking for. I checked through everything on the truck too. It’s possible Gail removed a detonator when you weren’t here.”

Stella couldn’t argue with that. “I don’t know what else to do right now.”

She opened her investigation kit and found the container of white powder—the one she hadn’t given to Gail. She’d forgotten all about it.

“I still have this powder. I could have it checked to see if it’s cocaine. And I have the pictures I took of where I found it. It won’t prove anything except that cocaine was here. Barney Falk’s death will still be unresolved, at least as far as I’m concerned. But it’s better than nothing. They must have gotten to Gail if she didn’t send in the samples she had.”

“Are you going to give it to John to be tested?”

“I don’t know. John won’t be able to send it to the lab without Chief Rogers knowing about it. I don’t want to cause any more trouble between them.”

“Maybe you should test him.” Eric appeared in the Cherokee next to her.

“Maybe. Are you talking about John or Chief Rogers?”

“Chief Rogers. Keep some of the sample and give him some. See what he does with it. He may be obnoxious, but John and Walt could be right about him being a good man. Don’t forget, he
was
Walt’s choice to succeed him as chief.”

“I know. I know.” She started the engine. “Even if Rogers runs with it, I won’t like him any better.”

“You don’t have to. All you have to do is be able to trust him.”

Stella drove back into town. She was looking forward to having lunch with Phil. She wouldn’t admit it to Eric. He’d only make fun of her.

“If you don’t mind, I’m going to walk as far away from you having lunch with that rich developer as I can. I don’t want to sit through all those smiles and winks.”

Stella was trying to fit the Cherokee between two other cars in front of the café.

“That’s fine. But I don’t wink.”

“Okay. All that blushing and giggling.”

“I definitely don’t giggle.”

Eric grinned at her. “Whatever you say.
Tee-hee
.”

Before she could protest he was gone. She promised to get him back later and locked the Cherokee before she walked toward the café door.

Stella enjoyed her lunch with Phil. He was fun to talk to and had a way of saying things that made her laugh. He confessed to being a former businessman and an NFL team owner from Louisiana. They talked about their past lives and how they’d ended up in Sweet Pepper.

“I was raised in a town smaller than this, if you can imagine.” Phil worked on his sirloin steak. “We didn’t have a stoplight because that would’ve interfered with the gators crossing the road.”

“I really can’t imagine that,” she confessed over her pimento cheese sandwich. “When I came down here from Chicago, I couldn’t believe people could get by with real stores being thirty miles away. I never had a car at home. I found out right away that you need some type of vehicle here if you want to eat and have toilet paper.”

Stella was constantly looking over her shoulder. Maybe Eric wasn’t
officially
there, but his badge was in her pocket. He could be anywhere. She was definitely leaving the badge home when she went to eat dinner with Rufus on Friday night.

“Chief!” Ricky Hutchins Jr. stopped to talk as he held a gray tub full of dirty dishes. “I heard you put Clara and her family into a burning car. I wish I could’ve been there.”

“Me too. Clara and her family came out fine.” She introduced Ricky to Phil. “You would’ve been proud of Sylvia and Hero too. Hero jumped in the burning car without even thinking about it.”

“That’s great.” Ricky laughed. “I hope my dad gets out soon. I miss the fire brigade. Hell, I miss working on the trucks. I spend my whole life washing dishes and busing tables. My mom is a wreck without him. This has to end.”

Stella sympathized. “I know he’ll be back soon. You’ll have to fight JC to drive the engine again. He’s taken your spot, and he’s possessive.”

“Chief! I can’t believe you let him drive. What about me?”

“Someone with big rig experience had to drive. You know that. When you get back, we’ll work it out.”

“
He’ll
have to work it out,” Ricky promised. “I was there first.”

Lucille, Ricky’s mother, called from the kitchen. Ricky left their table reluctantly to ask what he needed to do.

“I’m afraid to ask why you put Clara and her family into a burning car.” Phil sipped his sweet tea and smiled at her.

Stella’s heart beat a little faster, and she thought about Eric talking about her pulse.
Could he really do that or was he faking?
She never knew with him. She wished Madam Emery had been a little more forthcoming—and a lot less creepy. Maybe there was a book she could get that would tell her the limits of Eric’s ghostly superpowers.

“Clara and her family have served us well at the firehouse.” She explained about the family of dummies Molly Whitehouse had made for them. “They’ve escaped every emergency without a scratch.”

“No doubt due to the excellent supervision of the Sweet Pepper Fire Brigade’s chief.”

Stella laughed and surreptitiously glanced around. She
wasn’t
giggling. Eric had made her self-conscious.

“Mind if I ask a question?” Phil pushed his plate away. “Are you expecting someone? You’re not married, are you?”

“No. I’m not expecting anyone. I’m not married.”

“The last woman I went out with that acted as nervous as you are right now had a husband looking for her. He was a six-foot-four, three-hundred-pound former Marine. That night didn’t end well for me.”

Stella tried to explain her nervousness without mentioning Eric. “I still can’t get used to everyone knowing who I am, I guess. I’m always expecting someone to come up and speak to me. It goes with being fire chief in a small town.”

Phil smiled and said he understood. They finished lunch and were getting ready to leave when town clerk Sandy Selvy ran into the café. She zeroed in on Stella with frantic eyes, her teased-high hair hidden beneath a bright green scarf.

“Thank goodness I found you,” Sandy said. “Willy Jenkins sent me to warn you.”

“What’s wrong?” Stella asked.

“There’s a special called meeting of the finance committee in about five minutes. Nay Albert is going to push for the council to go ahead and buy his boat for the fire brigade.”