Vestavia Hills

However, the first thing that occurred to him was to ask the first person within range, "Didn't the fire bell ring?" the sound of that would have reached his home as well.

"No," said the man, "I don't think they played it because a lot of people started running right away, and they started throwing water buckets."

Safety practice, however, should not have been ignored: ringing a fire bell was a matter of common sense.

"It was tampered with," said a man with a beard, who had inadvertently heard the conversation between Nicholas and the other man.

"How?" Nick said with an already challenging look.

"This is what I heard: they immediately took action to put out the fire, and someone went to ring the fire bell, but they were left with the rope between their hands and the bell off from the turret and chipped."

"Are you sure?"

"Hey, that's what I heard, I'm not a firefighter."

Nick was already lost in a thousand thoughts.

It made no sense to destroy the fire alarm, even for a criminal town.

The spreading of the flames would have damaged himself, his eventual home or those he could aim to rob; not to mention the cultivated fields that were located just outside the town, just behind and not far from the church, which was a source of sustenance for thieves and criminals as well. Maybe it could have been the act of a deranged man who doesn't even have any survival instinct. Or perhaps a firefighter himself, unstable or vindictive?

A thousand hypotheses could be made. But for a crime, you always need a motive, and who could have something against the Reverend? What did he hope to achieve? It had to be for revenge: what interests could a humble person like a shepherd have affected?

Nick didn't like to attend church very much and only sporadically had he been dragged to the service by Annabeth's persistence; however, he knew the Reverend, and he could not believe any revenge against him.

The obvious next thing to do now was to look for who had experienced the fire firsthand: the Reverend Johnatan Abblepot himself.

By the way: why hadn't he given the alarm immediately? Why wasn't he in the square gathering at least the signs of solidarity of his congregation? Was he dead trying to fight the fire himself?

Nicholas cursed himself for his curiosity of an unmarried woman who had fixed him to a thousand assumptions without having taken a step, and for wasting time with those men in the square as if he was an ordinary passerby.

He made his way through the crowd, asking if they had seen the Reverend. But they all said no.

He continued to go further, and, as soon as he was near the fence that surrounded the lawn of the church, he could still feel the terrible heat that sprang from the damage of the fire even though it had been extinguished.

The planks of the fence were still white, and contrasted with the black remains, as if they were a crooked and mocking smile towards the tragedy that had happened.

"I'm police officer Nicholas Abbot, and I want to speak to Reverend Abblepot right away," Nick said to the first fire officer he met.

"I'm sorry, sir, but I don't know where he is," replied guiltily.

"He is not here?!" Nick yelled

"No, sir, I mean that the Reverend is not here. We couldn't find him in the vicarage. Nor in the surroundings. And believe me, I was one of the first ones to arrive. "

The news did not immediately breach, as it should have in Nicholas' mind, still affected by recent events.

But when he rationalized it, the news hit him like a punch.

He said in a calmer but still tense voice: "Are you telling me that Johnathan Abblepot was not at home last night and still hasn't shown up?"

The firefighter replied, emphasizing the words: "I cannot know, sir, if the Reverend was not at home last night. I'm just saying that when we ran to the vicarage to wake him up, in case he slept through that hell nearby, he wasn't there. And even now in the surrounding area, no one has seen him. "Now, it was the man who was indisposed by Nick's attitude.

Nick understood that the information that the firefighter could give him would not go far beyond what he had already heard.

Nicholas managed to approach some other people, finding out that there was no sign of Reverend Abblepot.

"My son told me he saw him on the church lawn two days ago."

"I went to church to pray, but he wasn't there. I thought I saw his shadow in the window, but not him in person. "

"I even looked for him at his house. I knocked at the door three times: nobody answered. "

Everyone had their own story to tell, but in none of them, there was a hint of where the Reverend was. It seemed that they hadn't seen him for at least a couple of days.

Nick had to make a decision: to either carry on working on the boy's death case, or to continue investigating the mysterious church fire, and the disappearance of Johnathan Abblepot.

He knew he couldn't ignore what happened at Church Yard, and hoped he could reconcile the two. He had to find out more about the Reverend's disappearance, and what was behind the burning of his parish.

Once back home, there was no need for Nicholas to explain to Anna what had happened in town. The news went round fast.

Annabeth knew Reverend Abblepot.

Religion was a serious matter to her: she had talked to the Reverend several times, and she liked him.

“My God, Nick. Something bad has surely happened to him. But who could have wanted such a thing?! Destroy the church!”

Her husband replied as if he were already writing notes for the investigation: "It is certain that the two events are connected. But we don't know what did happen, or didn't, to Reverend Abblepot."

"Do you mean he could have set the church on fire!"

"I'm not saying that, how can you think that? However, for now Abblepot is a missing man. There seems to be no evidence that anyone has hurt him or made him disappear. To tell the truth there doesn't seem to be any proof of anything, not even that there is someone behind this incident. "

"If no one is responsible, what else could have happened? Did the church catch on fire due to terrible bad luck, and the fire bell fell from the column by itself? Did the Reverend, frightened by a possible accusation, want to escape? Which of these theories seems credible to you?! "

"Calm down, Anna, you're taking this too personally. I also believe that the recent disappearances and deaths around here are related to what happened last night. I have already spoken to the station: we will deal with this matter. I will deal with this. "

Anna clutched a tea towel in her hands and gathered thoughts by rocking her head slightly.

She said, "Nick, there is something strange about this. There is something wrong; I would never want something like that happening here in Vestavia, in our town. "

Nick looked at her full of kindness, but he could not remain silent about his frustration: "Anna, bad and wicked things happen in every city of America."

"I feel there is something different in this case. I think something disturbing. I don't know ... don't ask me why, but it's like that. "

Nick preferred not to insist further, given his wife's nerves. Annabeth was particularly shaken by the incident, even if he didn't know why.

She needed to feel him close.