Out Of The Ashes

“I know. It’s not like me. If there’s one rule, it’s usually that the business owner or the landlord did it. But Charlie Kirkman is too stingy to properly insure his buildings, and... Daniel, you just had to be there. I mean, it doesn’t make any sense for her to spill it all. It was a sealed juvie record, and I would have had to move heaven and earth to get it unsealed. I might not have even thought to look at it first if she hadn’t said something.”

“So maybe it’s all an elaborate ploy to make you think she’s innocent.”

“Now you sound like me, and you’re always accusing me of being cynical.” Rob chuckled. He took a sip of bad firehouse coffee and grimaced, but swallowed another gulp down. He was on his third cup just for the caffeine’s sake. The downtown fire had started way too early. “Here’s what really doesn’t make sense. If she’d wanted to burn that place down, she could have left a cake in the oven or something on the stove and walked away. Nobody could have proven it was anything but an accident. This?” Rob shook his head. “A propane tank and a safety flare? It’s too obvious. Too stupid. Too brazen. And she—she would have known she would wind up a prime suspect.”

“But you just said you would have never thought to check her out—”

“Maybe not, but it would have come up, eventually. I do my job, Daniel, you know that.”

Daniel considered him. “Yeah. You do. And you’re good at it.”

For a moment, Rob let his thoughts wander back to Kari, weighing everything she’d said, every expression on her face. She’d been such an open, honest book. Everything—the pain, the misery, the fear—had been right there, as easy to read as one of those first-grade Dick and Jane primers.

The fear.

Kari had been afraid. Of what? Of who?

It hadn’t been a mortal fear, but more of a fear of having been betrayed. What had she said when he’d first mentioned arson?

Not again. Please not again.

“So what’s next, Rob Roy?” his brother asked him.

A momentary flicker of annoyance at his family nickname distracted him from his thoughts about Kari. Rob pulled his focus together and considered Daniel’s very valid question.

“Hmm. First I have to figure out exactly what sort of hole Kari Hendrix was in. Oh, and Charlie Kirkman. You never know. Even Charlie might have decided that a little insurance was better than fixing something—and maybe if that block was leveled, he could sell it. Maybe Kari—or some of his other tenants—didn’t want to leave. Or maybe somebody had it in for Kari.”

“I never knew cupcakes could be so deadly,” Daniel quipped.

Rob lifted his shoulders. “You got me. I’m not much for cupcakes. Give me a brownie any old day. But you know what I mean.”

“How long do you think it will take? To close the case?”

Rob rubbed at his eyes and considered whether another cup of coffee would help keep him awake. Fatigue and lack of sleep were catching up with him, and he still had the rest of the day to get through. “Probably not as long as it will take to write it up whenever I do figure it out. And definitely not as long as the grand jury and the trial will take.”

“I know. You’re always right, so why do those pesky lawmakers insist that you give the guilty party their day in court, huh?” Daniel grinned and winked at his brother. Then his smile faded. “I’m just kidding you, you know that, right? I meant what I said a while ago. You are good at what you do, Rob.”

For a long moment, Rob didn’t say anything. He looked past Daniel to the credenza behind him, loaded down with family pictures. There were Daniel and his new fiancée and her daughter, beaming at each other. There was a picture of the Monroe brothers, all around Ma—her birthday, Rob recalled. And at the far end, off to itself, almost as a shrine, stood a 5x7, a formal shot of their dad in his dress blues, back when he was chief.

Back when he was alive.

Before another arsonist had taken it upon himself to set fire to a building that had come crashing down on Rob’s dad—on all of the Monroes, come to think of it.

Rob stilled. An awareness, a memory, flickered.

He’d pulled the case file of that unsolved arson some months back and had been going through it again during his rare down times. And now he remembered.

That arson. It had been started with a propane tank, too.

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_e0e461c1-f5e5-553d-bb17-8276f0dc676c)

“DID HE DO IT? Mom! You have to tell me!”

Kari’s mom didn’t answer, just protectively pulled the opening of her terrycloth robe together with a shaking hand. “I—Kari—I—it burned? Your shop burned?”

Now Chelle Hendrix tottered past Kari, a hand raking through her bottle-dye blond hair. Kari wheeled around to hear the clatter of the coffee carafe rattling as Chelle managed to pour coffee into a mug, her hand shaking.

Kari started to speak again, but Chelle held up a finger, then went back to her coffee. She poured a boatload of sugar into it, then a flood of cream. After giving it a brisk, businesslike stir, she held the mug up and took a quaff from it like a man stumbling into an oasis after being stranded in the desert for days.

Fortified, Chelle tottered back to the kitchen table and sank with a sigh into a chair. “Now tell me. Seriously? Your shop? It burned?”

“Mom... I am so sorry. The first thing that I thought about was your retirement money.”

Chelle would have wrinkled her forehead in shock and horror, but her Botoxed facial muscles wouldn’t cooperate. Her throat moved in a visible gulp. “Oh, honey. Don’t you worry about me. Sure, I borrowed against my 401(k), but it’s you who’s been putting all that hard work into making a go of it. How horrible! Now grab a cup of coffee and sit down and tell me all about it.”

Thinking about coffee made Kari think about Rob, and thinking about Rob made her think about the case he was probably busily building against her as she stood in her mother’s kitchen. “I don’t want coffee. I don’t want to sit down—”

“Well, you’re giving me a crick in the neck, honey. Sit. If you don’t want coffee, fine, but at least sit.”

Kari sat. Her mother quickly grasped Kari’s fingers in her own perfectly manicured hands. “Kari, what happened? Did you leave something turned on? No, I know you didn’t—you’re so careful. I’ll bet it was that wiring. I knew that old dump of a building was a firetrap.”

“No.” Kari swallowed, tried to get the lump in her throat to dislodge. “It was arson. Somebody—” her voice trembled over the word somebody. “Somebody took a propane tank, leaned it against the back door and stuck a lit safety flare in the top of it.”

Chelle recoiled. For a second, she just stared at Kari with rounded eyes, her hands clenched into fists against her robe. “Kari... Kari...you don’t honestly think...”

“Where’s Jake, Mom? I need to ask him—”

“No.” The word was harsh and sharp and brooked no argument. Sometimes her mother dispensed with her dithery ways and allowed an iron maiden to peek out. “No. You will not.”

“Mom—”

“He’s back, Kari. He’s back, and he’s doing fine. We’re all—we’re all doing just fine.” Kari’s mom’s eyes grew shiny and wet with tears. “What you’re saying...it just isn’t possible. He was young, Kari. It was a mistake. A stupid, stupid prank that went all wrong and his friends—oh—his friends!” A shuddering sound of disgust escaped her mother’s lips.

Kari put a palm over her eyes, which felt as raw as if they’d been sandblasted. Now was not the time to argue about Jake. It had been a mistake all right, taking the fall for his crime.

Kari still remembered standing in front of the judge that day, reciting the words she’d rehearsed for her confession. It was supposed to be simple: she was a juvenile first offender, sure to get off easy for a property crime. It was Jake who would get sent off if he were found guilty—and he was guilty.

But, her mom had explained, Jake would get sent to real prison—doing real time, since he’d turned eighteen. And her mother assured her that Kari wouldn’t—probation, that’s all, just like Jake had his first and second time before a judge.

Only the judge hadn’t given Kari probation.

He’d given her four years in juvie.

Four years of hell.

It had taken Kari a long time to even be able to speak to her mother...much less Jake. In fact, it was only in the past six months that Kari had reconciled any small bit with her brother.

Her mother spoke now in a firm voice. “Kari, Jake wouldn’t have done this. He loves you. And you know he feels awful...just awful about what happened. Why, he was telling me about how that Charlie Kirkman was treating you, how he wanted to ram that man’s words down his throat.” Kari’s mom’s eyes rounded again. “You don’t think Charlie Kirkman did it, do you?”