Strangers (4 page)

Cheryl was right behind me; I heard her gasp. I said, “Garden hose?” without turning, heard her say, “No, we've never had need of one. There's an extinguisher in the kitchen—”

“Get it—quick.”

I ran over bare, sandy ground toward the shed. The smoke had an oily chemical smell—kerosene. Yeah, that figured. The flames and the pale starshine laid a sheen on the darkness, let me see the entire yard, parts of the neighboring properties to the right and left, a section of the desert beyond a low back fence. I kept on going past the shed to where I could look over more of the desert. Clumps of sage and stunted trees created patches of deep shadow, but I thought I detected movement, what might have been a running figure, on open ground off to the right. Then it was gone and I was looking at silver and black stillness. The coward or cowards responsible for this outrage had vanished into the night.

When I turned from the fence I saw that lights had bloomed in the house and yard to the left. Somebody yelled “Fire!” as Cheryl came running up with the extinguisher. I took it from her—small one, not much retardant—and ran over to the shed and worked the lever to get the flow started. The foam had some effect, not much. But only a small amount of kerosene had been used to start the fire, splashed over side and rear walls low to the ground, and the flames were patchy, scorching the boards rather than burning hot enough to consume them. Childish mischief, this and the rock through the window, rather than a serious attempt at arson.

A fat man in an undershirt appeared from somewhere lugging a much larger extinguisher. Half a minute later, two other men were there with shovels. It took the four of us working together, spraying foam and shoveling loose sand, no more than a couple of minutes to smother the last of the flames before a spark could set off the roof shingles.

“What the hell happened here?” the fat guy asked me. “Stinks like kerosene.”

“Deliberately set. Whoever did it broke the kitchen window with a rock, too.”

He scowled. “Who're you? Never seen you before.”

“A friend of the family.”

That ended the conversation. He aimed a look at where Cheryl was standing near the back door, shook his head, spat once on the ground, and waddled away with his empty extinguisher.

In the distance there were the ululations of approaching sirens. Firemen plus a sheriff's deputy or two—one of the neighbors had called in a report. The men with the shovels beat it out of there when they heard the sirens, leaving Cheryl and me alone. She had her head tilted downward, hugging herself, when I went up to her.

“No damage to whatever's stored in the shed,” I said. “Fire didn't burn through.”

“Nothing valuable in there anyway, just little pieces of my past.” Then, in a choked voice. “Damn them. Whoever they are—
damn
them.”

I took hold of her arm, felt her trembling as I steered her into the house. When I had her settled on the sofa again, I went back into the kitchen. The rock on the floor was just a hunk of limestone, nothing attached to it. I picked my way through the broken glass to the sink, found a tumbler in one of the cupboards, filled it from the tap.

Cheryl shook her head when I extended the glass, but she accepted it anyway and drank a little like an obedient child. The sirens were dying out into a series of chirps out front now. One, two, three vehicles, the last of them coming up a few seconds after the first two.

I said to Cheryl, “Better let me handle this,” and when she nodded jerkily I went to the front door and stepped out onto the porch. A modest-sized fire truck was drawn up behind my car, a green-and-white sheriff's department cruiser slewed in at angle at the truck's rear, and another cruiser nosed up behind that one. The Ford Ranger was gone—Matt Hatcher's wheels, evidently. A small knot of rubbernecking neighbors clogged the sidewalk alongside my car; one of them, the fat guy from next door, was talking to two red-hatted firemen and a pair of uniformed deputies. When he spotted me, he made jabbing motions in my direction.

He'd have told them the fire was out, but the firemen hustled up the drive into the backyard to make sure. One of the deputies moved to disperse the crowd; the other came up the front walk and onto the porch. Only he wasn't a deputy, I saw as he drew closer; not with a badge the size of a baseball pinned to his green-and-white tunic. Long and solid, three or four inches over six feet, a western-style hat shading an angular face, a micro communicating device clipped to one lapel. The big handgun in the holster of his Sam Browne belt looked to be a .357 Magnum.

He gave me a long, slow, measuring look before he said, “Evening. Little trouble here, I understand.”

“More than a little, Sheriff. You are Sheriff Joe Felix?”

“I am,” he said. He didn't seem surprised that I knew his name. But he had one of these tightly controlled poker faces that would reveal only as much of what went on behind it as he wanted you to see. “Arson and a rock pitched through the kitchen window. Pretty serious, all right. You in a position to see who was responsible?”

“I wish I had been, but no. One, maybe two perps, gone by the time I got outside.”

One eyebrow lifted a fraction. “Perps?” Then, when I didn't answer, “You the only other person here when it happened?”

“Yes.”

“And who would you be?”

“A friend of Cheryl Rosmond.”

“Haven't seen you before. Stranger in town?”

“Just arrived tonight.”

“Hatcher,” he said then. “Her last name's Hatcher, not Rosmond. How come a friend doesn't know that?”

“It's been a long time since we've seen each other.”

“How long?”

“Twenty years. I knew her in San Francisco before she married her son's father. I didn't know his name until tonight.”

“Uh-huh. And you just stopped in for a visit after all that time?”

“No. She called and asked me to come.”

“Mind showing me some ID?”

I took a step backward over the doorsill, to get into the light, and fished out my wallet. I could have only let him see my driver's license, but word of my profession and what I was doing in Mineral Springs would get around soon enough and it's always smart to be up front with the local law. I flipped the wallet open to the photostat of my investigator's license, extended it to him. He took it, studied the license for several seconds.

“Well,” he said. No other reaction; the angular poker face might have been chiseled from stone. He handed the wallet back. “You don't mind if I come inside, talk to Mrs. Hatcher.” It wasn't a question.

He edged in past me, taking off the hat so he wouldn't have to bend to get through the doorway. He had fair hair cropped close on a broad, bony skull. His cheekbones were jutting knobs, his mouth a straight, humorless line, his eyes under sun-whitened brows a cool gray green webbed at the corners by a radiating network of fine lines. Hard man, all right. And all the more formidable for his quiet demeanor and his methodical way of speaking. A man you'd be wise to walk soft around; a man you wouldn't want to cross in his bailiwick.

Cheryl was watching us from the sofa. She said dully, “Hello, Sheriff,” as Felix approached her.

“Mrs. Hatcher. Sorry to hear about your latest trouble.”

She said nothing, only nodded.

“More than likely the same kid or kids who broke your porch light,” he said, “but attempted arson's a lot more serious. We'll find out. You been getting any more of those phone calls?”

“Yes. Another one tonight.”

“My advice is the same as before: contact the phone company and change your number.”

“That won't stop the vandalism.”

“Give you some peace of mind, though,” Felix said. “The only other thing I can suggest is that you leave town for a while, until things quiet down.”

“You know I can't do that with my son locked up in your jail.”

“You've already done the only thing you can for him—get him a lawyer.” He glanced at me. “Nothing anyone else can do, either. An outsider would just be wasting his time.”

I said carefully, “Are you suggesting I should leave Mineral Springs, too, Sheriff?”

“Now why would I do that? You haven't broken any laws, have you? Or intend to break any?”

“No.”

He let a few seconds pass, those gray-green eyes fixed on mine. Then, “Only thing is, a California investigator's license isn't valid in the state of Nevada. As I'm sure you know. Have to be careful not to overstep your citizen's rights while you're here.”

“I have every intention of it.”

“Good. I wouldn't want you to get into any trouble while you're in this county.”

I said, “You have no objection to me talking to a few people, asking a few questions, do you? Unofficially, of course.”

“Depends on the people. And the questions.”

“And what I might find out?”

“Nothing to find out,” Felix said. “All due respect to Mrs. Hatcher here, we have the young man who committed those rapes in custody.”

“He's not guilty,” Cheryl said. “My son is
not
a rapist.”

“I wish that were so, Mrs. Hatcher. Truly. I wish the rapist was somebody who didn't live in this community, but facts are facts and the sooner you accept the truth, the easier it'll be for you to adjust.”

“Adjust,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “My God.”

The telephone went off again.

Cheryl jerked at the sound, started up off the sofa. I saw a muscle in Felix's jaw tighten, the only change in his stoic expression so far; he made a stay-put gesture to her and strode quickly to the phone, answered it by saying, “This is Sheriff Joe Felix.” Whoever was calling must have hung up fast; Felix lowered the handset almost immediately.

When he came back, he said to Cheryl, “I don't think you'll be bothered any more tonight, Mrs. Hatcher,” and then to me, “Show me the broken window.”

I led him into the kitchen. He took in the damage in a couple of glances. Then, his boots crunching on the broken glass, he leaned down for a look at the rock, but he didn't touch it. Even if he'd cared enough to take it with him as evidence, there was no point in it; that kind of rough surface does not take fingerprints. Straightening, he crossed to the window and leaned forward over the sink to peer out into the rear yard.

“Okay,” he said when he turned. “I'll go have a look at the shed. No need for you to come along.” He paused at the outer door. “Anything else I should know before I go?”

“Not about this, no.”

“If there is, at any time during your stay in Mineral Springs, you be sure to look me up and tell me. Right?”

Subtle warning. “Right,” I said, and meant it.

But he wasn't done yet. He said, “Cold tonight, and it'll get a lot colder later on. Better put something over that broken window so you and Mrs. Hatcher don't freeze before morning.”

“I'll do that,” I said. “But I'm not staying here. I have a room at the Goldtown Motel.”

“Okay,” he said, and went on out.

Cheryl was still sitting hunched on the sofa, now with a shawl draped around her shoulders. I had a foolish impulse to sit down next to her, offer her some comfort by putting an arm around her shoulders, but I didn't give in to it. I had more questions for her, too, but none of them needed answering immediately. It was getting late and what we both needed was rest.

I asked about hammer, nails, plywood or plastic sheeting, and she said everything of that sort was in the storage shed and told me where the door key was. Felix was already gone when I went out there. The shed's interior was thick with the stench of kerosene and charred wood; I used my pocket flash to root around until I found what I needed to cover the broken window.

Back in the kitchen I drew the dead bolt on the back door, tossed the rock out through the window gap, and then got to work. Cheryl came in while I was hammering nails and wordlessly began to sweep up the broken glass. She finished before I did, stood watching me until I was done.

“I'd better be going now,” I said then. “The sheriff is probably right that nothing more will happen tonight, but you might want to stay with a friend just to be safe.”

“No, I'll be all right here alone.”

“You're sure?”

“I'm sure. My late husband was a hunter and I know how to use his rifle.”

“Get it, load it, and keep it handy.”

“Yes. I will.”

“Okay, then. We'll talk again tomorrow. What're your hours at the Lucky Strike, in case I need to see you during the day?”

“Eight until five weekdays.” At the front door she touched my arm briefly and said, “Thank you, Bill. No matter what happens … thank you.”

I had that foolish comforting impulse again, and again didn't give in to it. I managed a reassuring smile and said good night and went out to my car on the now empty street. And as I leaned down to unlock the driver's door, anger flared up in me again.

Even in the darkness I could see the long, jagged scratch where one of Cheryl's fine, upstanding neighbors had keyed it during the earlier excitement.

 

4

As exhausted as I was I should have slept the night through, but I didn't. Awake much of the time, my stomach upset from the tasteless meal I'd forced down to still the hunger rumblings on the way back to the motel; restless and dream-ridden when I did sleep. Come morning I felt logy and on edge. A long, hot-cold-hot shower took away most of the sluggish feeling but not the tight-drawn edginess. Wednesday's weather, mostly cloudy and chilly, and the bland look of Mineral Springs by daylight, did nothing to improve my mood. And the extended waiting period from dawn until business hours began and I could talk to Sam Parfrey made it worse.

I killed an hour in a nearby coffee shop, where three cups of strong black coffee and an English muffin upset my stomach again. I hoped nobody gave me any crap today; the mood I was in, I was liable to give it right back and that was no way to begin a ticklish investigation in an already hostile environment.