Lady in Flames (2 page)

Roads are dead tonight, at least out this way. Rickety fencing lines the right-hand side for a quarter mile or so…a green utility shack on the left. A few dairy farms fly past. Most of the town is a bunch of straightaways.

This is the second fire in as many weeks. A blaze burst out at Union Chemical and it almost burnt the place to the ground. We caught the fire in time, but all agreed it looked suspicious. Folks were quick to blame one of the high school kids. Johnny Arson, they call him.

They say Johnny likes to play with fire. He set one in the school restroom one day. Got reamed for that. Then he lit one of the garbage bins afire behind the school. It didn’t burn long before a neighbor saw it.

His mom told the police she’d keep a better eye on him. They thought it was only a matter of time before he started something bigger, the way he loved fire. Maybe this was it.

Five miles melt. My boot’s still planted as the outskirts of population come into view. I ease up at the twelve-unit self-storage and coast to forty-five by the time I reach the quaint cottages turned winter homesteads.

Three blocks away I can see the glow of emergency beacons. I hustle the truck a bit further before leaning hard into a right turn on Muir Ave. The tires complain before straightening out.

Even in the partial light, I can see the thick, black smoke pouring out the first-level window of a brown bungalow. Not what I’d expect to see from a wooden house. Black smoke usually means gasoline.

Two firefighters already have a hose in the window, drenching it pretty good. They stand firm, feet shoulder-width apart, as if refusing to back down from something. Fenton’s nowhere to be seen.

Across the street, a portly EMT kneels next to a woman breathing from an oxygen kit. Three bystanders look on, hooded and huddled in bulky winter coats. I steer the truck to their side of the road and skid to a halt about ten feet away.

I grab my bunker gear and leatherhead from the passenger-side floor and hop out, slamming the door behind me. As I jog over to the fire engine, Fenton pops out from the other side.

“Looks like we don’t need you, Shaw.” Fenton’s black turnout coat is unfastened and his helmet sits tilted back on his head. He’s got those gnarled lips that look like he’s always sneering.

“Know how it started?” I motion to the still smoking house and drop my gear next to the engine.

“Nope, but it looks like gasoline to me. It’s Amy Armstrong’s house, you know.”

“Great.” Her dad is Buck Armstrong, the biggest blowhard in three counties. Owns a bar in town called Lady Luck. Once he gets wind of this, it’ll get messy. You can take that to the bank.

If that’s not gravy, the squeal of tires and an overworked motor turn my head to see Buck’s conversion van race up to the scene. The burgundy Ford stops in the middle of the street and spits out Buck and Jed Brenner, one of his cronies.

An unzipped ski jacket covers some of Buck’s gut. A checkered shirt is tucked into his trousers. The top few buttons of his shirt are undone, probably so women can see his gold necklace and chest hair.

Brenner’s lean and gaunt. Silver hair peeks out from under the winter cap that sort of rides on the back of his head. The collar of his overcoat is flipped up. Hands are crammed into his pockets. No doubt he’s got a flask on him.

They march over and Buck’s puffy, bearded face looks ready to explode. It’s a reddish-purple color. He lets loose every curse word there is, railing from one person to the next. Demands to know what happened. Says he heard it was arson.

Amy, just a little thing, stands up from the curb and pulls the mask away from her pale face. “I can’t deal with this right now! Just shut up and get outta here!”

Buck fires back at her. “Don’t sass me! I’ll be damned if I don’t get some answers!” He goes on to question some of the other onlookers as well as Fenton.

Brenner stands back, real shifty like. He never says a thing.

Buck gets around to me but just gives me an angry look. “I’ll bet it was Johnny Rollins. That little sonuvabitch! I’ll fix him. I’ll fix him good!” He turns to Brenner. “C’mon, let’s get back to the Lady and round up the boys.”

They stomp back to Buck’s van, and Buck’s got it in gear almost before he’s got it started. Tears up someone’s yard trying to do a U-turn.

I saunter over to one of the bystanders and nod to the house. “You guys see anything?”

A skinny man blowing into his cupped hands says, “No, I didn’t, but Blake here says he saw Billy Greener speeding away from here real fast.”

“What’s that now?” I lean in.

Standing next to skinny, Blake is a balding man with yellowish skin. A few strings of hair lay on his scalp. “Yeah, I was on my way home. Saw Billy booking out of here like he was being chased by the devil himself.”

“How sure are you it was Billy?” I ask.

“I’d recognize his jeep anywhere. He’s the only one around whose got them swamper tires.”

I wave over the officer who just arrived and then turn back to Blake. “I want you to tell
him
that.”

A Simple Maniac

February 26
th
, 2002 8:15 PM

Inside Vern Salters’ GMC

The moon blazes and the vicious cold air whips around the windshield. Gripping the wheel, heat blasts over my cracked hands as I listen to the pop and sizzle of radio with a broken antenna. The frigid winter road lies ahead in a long line of starlit nothing.

Most of Halgraeve is bedded down for the night, and that’s the usual way of things. There’s not a whole lot that’s changed in the twenty-eight years I’ve called it home.

The battered street signs look the way they always have, bent and riveted to rusted posts flaking away their green paint. Friday night heroes reign at the bowling alley, its gravel parking lot lined with their second-hand horsepower. And kids still try to score beer at Slick’s Drive Thru when they can.

I did my time like everyone else, thought about getting out, and then never did. It could have been different. I could’ve taken a job elsewhere, moved to the city. It was just simpler to stay here. I know how things work; I know my environment. What’s coming around the corner usually isn’t a surprise.

After school, I bought a small house just outside the square in the center of town and then started doing construction engineer work for the county. I may have bypassed opportunities but I’m O.K. with that. There’s something straightforward and satisfying when things are uncomplicated.

Things haven’t been that way lately, though. Some of the sick and mindless kids in town have taken to beating innocent people for no reason. They don’t take money; they don’t say anything. They just come out of nowhere and take you down. That’s what I hear, anyway.

Everyone is on edge, and rightly so. There’s not much policing that gets done in Halgraeve and downtown is dead after dark. It would be easy enough to get caught up in something you didn’t want.

I’m not too worried about it, though. There’s a permit in my wallet that says Vernon Salters is licensed to carry a concealed handgun, and I always have my Sig on me. It’s the best kind of insurance.

I downshift before going into the next bend, mapping out the rest of my evening. I’ll go at the weights for an hour and probably nuke some leftovers. Then I might have a beer…

The burning glow of a road flare interrupts. A half-mile ahead, there’s a small car pulled halfway onto the shoulder. The driver waves both arms trying to flag me down.

Usually I only stop for women or the elderly, but on a night like this, I’m thinking anyone could use a hand. I shift again and let the motor wind down before applying the brakes.

Coming up behind the disabled vehicle, my headlights douse the scene, illuminating a girl sporting a dark green winter coat. She shields her eyes, backing up a step or two.

I catch a hint of her simple features and the tresses of auburn hair not covered by her white snow hat, and I’m sure I know her. It’s Melissa Downy; I went to high school with her.

Seeing her splits me between relief and unease. I’m glad it’s me who came by to give her a hand, but there’s that unspoken something between us that we never did work out.

Once stopped, I open my door, lean out, and place one foot on the step rail. “Melissa?” I call over the motor.

“Who’s there?” She can’t see in the glare.

I step down around the door and walk toward her, voice still raised. “It’s Vern.”

Melissa’s eyes are red and she’s shaking. “Vern Salters? You don’t know how glad I am to see you!” She sniffs.

“Are you alright? What’s wrong with your car?” I instinctively reach out to give her a hug, hesitate, and then hold out one arm.

“I don’t know.” She returns my one-armed embrace, her head planted against my chest. “Everything just kind of died. First the radio, and then my lights went. The engine gave out after that. I tried to get as far as I could before it was completely gone. It’s so cold I didn’t know if I would have to walk.”

She pauses, as if flustered, and then launches into a spiel. “A few cars went by, but I couldn’t get anyone to stop. I was going to go use the pay phone at the garage up the road, but when I got close I thought I saw shadows moving behind the building. I was too scared to go the rest of the way; I thought maybe it was those kids who are attacking people. So I walked back here, but then I started hearing things in the field…” She stops and looks at me, head tilted like she’s ashamed. “You probably think I’m silly.”

“Not at all. Here, pop the hood.” I move around her to the front of her rusting Escort. “Try to start it.”

All I hear is a clicking noise when she turns the key.

“Nothing,” she says.

“Probably the alternator.” I lower the hood to a few inches above the engine bay and then drop it. It clangs shut in response. “C’mon, we can call a wrecker from my place—it’s only a few miles away.”

Melissa grabs a black shoulder bag and her purse from the passenger side and then locks her car. She walks with me over to the truck.

I help her up into it, making sure she’s settled before I close the door. I do a quick scan of the area as I walk around the back of the truck and then hop in the driver side, rubbing my numb hands.

“So what are you doing out?” I ask as I put the shifter into first and then ease out the clutch.

Melissa wraps herself in her arms and shivers again. “Just on my way home from work.” She flexes her fingers in front of the dashboard vents.

I crank up the heat. “Where’s that?”

“The nursing home over on Evers Road—Potter Oaks.”

I nod and steal a glance. She has that same freshness about her…that clean sweetness that always held my attention. I could never put my finger on it; there’s just something about her that grabs me.

Conversations come rolling back—not specific conversations, but times where I thought we were close to…something. I don’t know if she ever felt the same way. I like to think she did.

Melissa turns with a polite but tired attempt at a smile. “What about you?”

“The same. On my way home. I work for the county—we’re working on a bridge down in Brinson. Kind of a late night…”

A pair of speeding headlights pops into the rearview. I keep my eye on them as they draw a steady bead on us. A half-mile and they’re close enough that I feel the need to double-check my speed, just in case it’s a cop.

No time—a red light on its roof ignites, urging me to pull over.

“Son of a…,” I trail off into the rearview.

Melissa whips around to see. “Are you speeding?”

“No, not really.” I let up on the gas and steer to the shoulder. Once the truck is at a crawl, the cruiser behind us speeds around to the front and parks diagonal to the berm as if to keep us from escaping.

Wide-eyed and taken aback, Melissa asks, “What kind of cop is this?”

My gut tightens when I see there are no markings on the car and that the emergency light is one of those cheesy things you see in police movies from the eighties. Then when the plainclothesman steps out from the driver seat, I reach behind to the small of my back to get my gun. “He’s no cop.”

Willis Freed—the local crazy, the village idiot, whatever you want to call him—he’s not right in the head. Some people think he’s harmless, so they leave him alone. I’ve got no reason not to, but I don’t trust him. There’s just something about his mannerisms…

His dull, waxy brown hair is cut close enough to see patches of his scalp. Close-set eyes strain in a near-permanent squint. His mouth is pasted with a reckless sneer. Pudgy, almost heavy set, Willis moves with an “I’ll get to you when I get to you” pace. He motions for me to roll down my window. “Where ya goin’, boy?”

“What’s it to you?”

Willis steps up a few feet from the door, swaying like he’s got nervous energy. “There was a big chemical fire down here two weeks ago.”

“Yeah, and?”

“Well, what was you up to that night? Driving around with your pretty girlfriend?” He leans over to peek at Melissa. “Or was you hanging ’round Union Chemical?”

Melissa turns away, casting a nervous glance from the corner of her eyes. Her mouth shrinks to a small line.

I lean forward to block Willis’s view. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at, but I think you should get back in your car.”

Willis tilts his head like dogs do when they’re confused. Something in his voice changes—a slight change in urgency. “What? You think I’m not worth respecting? Like I’m some other bozo from town?”

My pistol hides from view under my right leg. I don’t know whether Melissa saw me place it there, but my hand rests next to it on the seat, just in case I have to pull it. “I’m not who you’re looking for,” I say to Willis.

He reaches up to scratch the back of his head and chuckles, revealing what looks like a revolver crammed into his belt. “How m’I supposed to believe that?”

I freeze dead, my eye on his belt. Was that a gun? Who let the psycho have a gun? “Listen,” I say with as calm a tone as I can fake, “we’re on our way home, OK? We just want to get in from the cold. No harm in that, right?”

Willis leans in, one hand on the door frame. He stares with a deranged focus and exhales deep, musty breath. “What if I don’t want you to go home yet?”