Blind Search

by Paula Munier

  “You can do it. Elvis will help you.”

  The shepherd whined. He wanted to come inside with her.

  “No, Elvis, stay.”

  She pulled her T-shirt over her face and went through the doorway. Crouching down, she duckwalked past the grill toward the counter. The smoke was thick. It was hard to see.

  She could feel the heat of the flames coming from the pantry.

  No sign of Lillian.

  Mercy dropped to her knees and blinked, peering through the smoke, eyes stinging. Through the blaze, she spotted Lillian sprawled on the floor of the pantry. She couldn’t get to her, not through those flames.

  There had to be a fire extinguisher around here somewhere. But where? She couldn’t remember, although she was sure she’d seen it. The smoke was too thick to look for it, and she needed to stay close to the floor. She closed her eyes, and imagined the inside of the Vermonter kitchen, trying to remember where it was. She pictured the grill, the pots and the pans, the chopping block. And there, on the wall by the chopping block, she saw the fire extinguisher in her mind. She opened her eyes and crawled over to the fire extinguisher, stood up quickly, and pulled it off the wall, and dropped down again, coughing. She scrambled toward the pantry and aimed the stream of foam at the flames lapping at the saloon doors and spreading along the walls.

  The worst of the fire was extinguished, at least enough to allow her to make her way into the pantry and over to Lillian. She cradled her in her arms.

  Lillian was overcome with smoke. “Henry.”

  “He’s fine. Don’t talk.”

  She grabbed Lillian under the armpits. The woman moaned, then fell silent. Mercy backed up, duckwalking back toward the back door, dragging Lillian over the wide old oak plank floor. She’d have sore thighs tomorrow—and Lillian would have splinters.

  Only a few feet more to the door. Mercy struggled to breathe through the thin cotton of her T-shirt. Her head swam, and she started coughing. Her butt banged the doorjamb just as she felt like she was going to pass out. She scooted to her left, into the open air, and struggled to her feet. She pulled an unresponsive Lillian out onto the deck.

  Elvis bounded over, licking Mercy’s face as she yanked her shirt off her face and gulped for air.

  Henry started toward them, clutching her cell phone to his chest.

  “Did you call nine-one-one?”

  Henry nodded.

  “Good boy. Now stay back. Let me get your grandmother out of here.”

  She dragged Lillian across the deck and down the main graveled path to the center of the garden, where two Adirondack chairs sat in front of a silver-blue gazing globe on a stone pedestal.

  She laid her down on the gravel. Henry hovered over his grandmother, accompanied by Elvis, trying to lick Lillian’s face.

  “No, Elvis.”

  Whoever had set this fire might be nearby, even out front, watching the place burn. The arsonist must have thought the place was closed. Empty.

  Worse, maybe the arsonist knew they were inside when he set the fire.

  Mercy looked around the garden, but she didn’t see anyone.

  She smoothed Lillian’s silver hair away from her brow. She felt for a pulse. Nothing.

  “Okay, Henry. Time to count. Very fast. A hundred beats a minute.”

  She placed the heel of her right hand at the bottom of Lillian’s sternum, and her left hand on top of her right, interlacing her fingers.

  She pumped Lillian’s heart, counting along with the compressions. “One and two and three and four…”

  Henry counted with her in a small voice that grew louder with every beat. Whoever started the fire probably didn’t know they were in the garden, thanks to that ten-foot privacy fence.

  The boy was screaming the numbers now.

  Lillian started coughing, and Mercy gently raised her up to a sitting position. “Quiet, Henry.”

  Henry stopped midscream. He stared at his grandmother as she continued a terrible hacking that subsided into gasps.

  Mercy was conscious of holding her own breath as she prayed Lillian would breathe easily once again. Finally, the older woman seemed to clear her lungs. Inhaling and exhaling.

  Henry put his head on his grandmother’s lap. Elvis sat at Lillian’s back, propping her up, the shepherd as spine.

  Mercy rubbed the woman’s shoulders and back. She thought Lillian looked a little better, less ashen. But she worried that she might be in shock. “Are you okay, Lillian?”

  “Fine.” She stroked her grandson’s hair.

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. I went into the back for Henry’s clipboard, and I heard a whooshing sound. All of a sudden, the pantry was full of smoke.”

  “Henry called nine-one-one. Help should be on the way.”

  “Clever boy.” Lillian managed a weak smile. Henry lifted his head and smiled back.

  “Stay right there.” Mercy ran to the fence and peeked through a small hole in one of the pine boards. She stared at her Jeep, whose tires were slashed. A nice complement to its smashed rear end. The tires on Lillian’s Subaru were slashed, too.

  She went back to Lillian and Henry and told them about the vehicles. “We’re not out of the woods yet. Whoever set this fire could be watching right now. If we go outside this fence, he could be out there. And with our vehicles out of commission, we couldn’t go very far very fast anyway.”

  “What do we do?”

  “The safest thing to do is wait until help arrives.” She looked up at the smoldering Vermonter. The fire seemed to be mostly out.

  Lillian followed her gaze. “You saved it.”

  “I’m not sure about that. Maybe if the firefighters get here in time…” She let her voice trail off. She did not say out loud what she was thinking, that if the arsonist was out there watching, and realized the fire was not worsening, he’d finish the job. And find them.

  “Is there a place to hide back here?”

  “A garden shed on the other side of the property.”

  “Okay, we’ll stay there until the fire department shows up. Shouldn’t be too long. Wrap your arm around my neck and I’ll help you to that shed. Come on, Henry. Elvis.”

  They made their way across the garden. The property comprised about an acre, and the shed was near the fence at the far southern edge, beyond several rows of corn.

  When they reached the small shack, Elvis pushed the broken door of the shed open, and they all tumbled in. Their shelter was a glorified tin shed about ten feet wide and fifteen feet long, but it would have to do. On one long wall hung dozens of tools—rakes and shovels and spades and pruners. The opposite wall held a potting bench crowded with pots of all shapes and sizes. A wheelbarrow stood in one corner, and a crude shelf on the short wall held a collection of garden stones and ornaments.

  Mercy eased Lillian beside a stack of bags filled with mulch, directing Henry to sit at her feet. “You two stay put.”

  “What about you?” asked Lillian.

  “Elvis and I are going to hide in the corn. Guard duty.”

  Lillian nodded. “Okay.”

  “No screaming, Henry. Got it?”

  “Got. It.”

  Mercy looked around and found a couple of old tarps, placing the green plastic sheets lightly over Lillian and the boy. “Sit tight.”

  She grabbed a shovel off the wall as she waved Elvis outside. The Vermonter was still standing, if a little scorched around the edges. Of course, there was no way of knowing the extent of the damage inside. For Lillian’s sake, and the sake of burger lovers everywhere, she hoped it wasn’t too bad.

  Together she and the Belgian shepherd ducked through tall ears of corn. She crouched among the stalks with Elvis, the shovel between her knees. Waiting for the blessed sounds of sirens, hoping Lillian and Henry were all right holding tight in the shed.

  Not for the first time that day, Mercy wished she had her gun.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  FORECAST: TURNING COLDER AN
D WINDIER BY LATE AFTERNOON. HEAVY SNOW EXPECTED TONIGHT, WITH ACCUMULATION OF MORE THAN ONE FOOT IN SOUTHERN VERMONT AND NEW HAMPSHIRE BY MORNING, MORE IN THE MOUNTAINS.

  TROY AND SUSIE BEAR huffed it back to the Bluffing Bear Inn parking lot in record time. He shooed the big black dog into the back seat, climbed in himself, and hightailed it out of the inn’s lot and onto the main road. The route was packed with tourists, but it was still the fastest way to Lillian’s burger joint.

  All the main roads in Vermont were crowded. Troy turned on his siren and his lights, and the leaf peepers parted like the Red Sea. He passed Harrington on the road going the other way, toward the crime scene, Becker at the sedan’s wheel. Sirens blaring and lights blazing. Becker honked, an obvious order from Harrington for Troy to stop and follow, but he ignored it.

  He kept speeding toward the Vermonter, counting on Thrasher to run interference with Harrington. The detective was head of the Major Crime Unit, and as such he’d tried to get Troy fired the last time that he’d disobeyed a direct order. He might try to do it again.

  Hell, of course he’d try to do it again.

  Insubordination. The one thing Harrington hated most.

  He turned onto Route 7. Susie Bear jumped up and down in the back seat, whining. She knew that when the sirens and the lights went on, the game was afoot. She wanted to get on with it as much as he did.

  “Calm down, girl. We’re nearly there.”

  As he approached a main intersection about two miles from the Vermonter, he realized all the peepers were pulling over to the side of the road—and not because of him. He slammed on the brakes as two fire engines lunged in front of him, careening around the corner through the intersection, their sirens clanging away.

  He sped after them. They lumbered ahead of him at a surprisingly fast clip. But not fast enough.

  He needed to go around them, like it or not. And they wouldn’t like it.

  “Hold on, Susie Bear,” he said as they flew ahead, the fire engines seemingly in pursuit. The fire trucks laid on their horns as Troy overtook them, passing them on the left and barely missing a startled tourist in a minivan.

  He barreled past the fire engines. They kept honking. Everyone was honking at him today. He was going to hear from Thrasher about that sooner or later.

  He figured he’d just outrace the firefighters, but when he took a left onto Depot Street, the fire engines took a left, too.

  “I’ve got a bad feeling,” he told Susie Bear as they roared past the hotels and businesses packing this main thoroughfare.

  The Vermonter was just up on the left, around a long curve, hidden behind a stretch of maples and oaks and birches aflame in color, lit by the setting sun. As Troy tore around the bend, he heard the sirens still behind him.

  Then he saw why.

  * * *

  MERCY AND ELVIS sat in the corn, waiting. A cool breeze blew through the stalks and the silk. Which might have been a good thing if the wind did not refuel the dying flames threatening the Vermonter. If the arsonist wasn’t refueling the fire himself, as she sat here doing nothing.

  Elvis kept nuzzling Mercy’s ear, his way of telling her he’d just as soon get the hell out of there. He didn’t like doing nothing either. The determined shepherd wanted to go back to the shed. He didn’t understand why they were stuck in a cornfield while the people they should be guarding were elsewhere.

  But she’d told him to stay and so he stayed. Elvis had to trust that Mercy knew what she was doing. She scratched that sweet spot between his triangular ears. He could be a patient soldier when he needed to be. The army taught him that. The army taught her that, too. Still, it was a lesson she had to learn over and over again.

  It was getting dark. Pretty soon the raccoons would be trying to get to this corn. She could see that Lillian had planted peppermint and summer squash around the corn in hopes of repelling raccoons. But some of the ears were nibbled at the top, meaning some kind of corn lover had been feasting on the sweet kernels.

  Elvis was twitching, in anticipation of the critters who might be able to scale that fence or burrow under it. Mercy didn’t know how deep the fence went, and how many creatures would try to breach it to nibble on the sweet corn that lay beyond it. The chipmunks and squirrels were probably asleep by now, or maybe the fire had scared them away. But raccoons stayed out forever; they were fearless annoyances of the first order.

  And they liked corn.

  She heard sirens in the distance. She thanked Saint George, patron saint of the cavalry, and one of Martinez’s saints. He’d had a saint for everything: Saint Anthony for lost things, Saint Valentine for luck in love, Saint Jude for lost causes.

  “Help is on the way,” she told Elvis.

  She assumed those sirens were for the Vermonter. Any other option was unthinkable. She hoped Henry and Lillian would stay put until she came and got them. Which she would only do when she was sure they were safe. She kept her eye on the door of the shed, which she could just make out through the cornstalks.

  She figured they were probably as desperate to move as she was. She’d been crouched down, sitting on her heels in a squat for ages now, and her legs were starting to ache. She could feel the sweat in her hair and at the base of her neck, trickling down her back. She welcomed the breeze, although now it was growing colder as the sun went down. Snow was in the air.

  If help truly were on the way, then the sound of the sirens should scare off anyone who was around. Namely whoever set this fire. She waited for the sound of the sirens to grow closer, but they seemed slow in coming. Farther away rather than closer.

  She heard a thump. She listened hard and heard a bang, the gate opening and closing. Elvis stiffened, and she could feel him tense up, ready to pounce. She put her hand on his head, steadying him. He needed to be quiet and so did she.

  She heard footsteps.

  Someone was walking along the gravel path. Maybe more than one someone. She heard the crunch of boots. Accompanied by shuffling. She closed her fingers around the shovel, the only weapon at hand. Besides the Malinois.

  The arsonist would not be pleased to find Henry and Lillian alive. Or her and Elvis.

  The sirens were back. Elvis’s ears ticked up at their return; he knew help when he heard it.

  They remained perfectly still. The footfalls got closer. The sirens grew louder, the footsteps grew louder. She could feel Elvis trembling with the relentless urge to move.

  “Stay,” she whispered fiercely. To his credit, the shepherd didn’t move. He sat on his haunches, ears cocked, but he stayed quiet. Still the good soldier.

  She heard movement, the rustle of the stalks as someone stepped into the corn. The stalks crashed and tumbled and split open. Mercy crouched, ready to attack, waiting.

  Susie Bear’s big pumpkin head broke through the corn. Elvis nuzzled her neck.

  Mercy laughed in relief and, as soon as she laughed, the dogs ran out of the corn, playing together like the carefree canine pals they were.

  She looked up, and there he was, silhouetted against the setting sun.

  Troy Warner.

  “Hi.” He reached out to her, taking the shovel in one hand and pulling her up with the other. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine.” She smiled at him. “Where are the fire engines?”

  “Right behind me. No worries. What about Henry and Lillian?”

  “Hiding in the shed. Did you see anybody out there? I was worried that whoever started this fire might be watching.”

  “I didn’t see anybody. No vehicle, nothing.”

  “Okay.”

  “I think you’re okay. If there’s a bad guy out there, he knows I’m here. And he’s not going to come after me.”

  He held open the broken door of the shed for her. Inside, the dogs barreled toward the tarp and sat nicely, tails thumping, waiting for them to pull the tarp off.

  “Come on out,” she said.

  Henry jumped up, and Mercy hugged him. She didn’t care whether he like
d it or not.

  * * *

  LILLIAN WAS NOT happy. Mercy stood next to the unwilling patient’s hospital bed in a private room on the second floor of Northshire Medical Center, where they’d moved her from the emergency room. The small space was already filling up with flowers and balloons from well-wishers. Word spread fast in a small town, and Lillian was one of this small town’s favorite daughters.

  Against Dr. Sharma’s orders, the patient wanted to go home. Mercy frowned as she listened to the earnest young doctor try to talk sense into the woman. Lillian lay there, hooked up to oxygen, looking small and vulnerable even as she argued right back. Elvis sat at her side, his head on the bed at her hip. Usually dogs were not allowed in the hospital, except for service dogs, but Dr. Sharma was a fan.

  Giving up on Lillian, the young physician turned to Mercy. “She must be staying overnight,” he told her with an air of certainty that only the likes of Lillian Jenkins would challenge. “We need to be running a lot of tests.”

  “I know.” Mercy also knew that keeping her down while her grandson was in danger was going to be next to impossible.

  “Not only is the fire itself containing dangerous chemicals, but she is also inhaling other potentially toxic chemicals released during the burning of materials in the restaurant environment.” Dr. Sharma leaned in toward Mercy, his dark eyes full of warning. “At her age, it is important that we are being very thorough in our examination.”

  “I’m right here,” said Lillian, her voice still hoarse from the fire. And with an unfamiliar crankiness. “And I’m not old.”

  Dr. Sharma ignored her. “She should be staying at least two days so we can be taking X-rays and doing blood tests.”

  “She’s worried about her grandson.”

  “The boy is doing fine,” said the doctor. “Very well considering what he is going through.”

  “We both need to go home,” said Lillian. “Now.”

  Mercy took Lillian’s hand in hers and squeezed. “You know that’s impossible. You need to take care of yourself. We’ll take care of Henry.”

  “His parents?” asked the doctor.