Firesetter in Blackwood Township, a Winnebago County Mystery

by Christine Husom

  “And that brings up the next big question. Was that the case with the Simmonds’ barn, too? We don’t have the time or the manpower to keep an eye on all the old barns in the county, twenty-four seven,” I said.

  “That we don’t. I’ve been in touch with the State Fire Marshal, and going on the probability that we have a firesetter on our hands, I’d like to get a profile of who we should be looking for.”

  “A bold one, I’d say. Starting fires in broad daylight.”

  “Or an inexperienced one, maybe a pair of them, that don’t have a clue how dangerous it is to play with fire, especially when structures are involved.”

  “I remember reading that most children who die in fires are in ones they’ve set themselves.”

  “That’s a tragic fact. Children cannot be allowed to play with matches or lighters. Period, end of story.”

  As I looked around, a strange sensation zinged through me. “Smoke, I have the feeling we’re being watched.”

  “You and your doo-doo-doo-doo stuff, again.”

  “I can’t help it, doo-doo-doo-doo or not. Are you sure no one’s in the house?”

  He stood up from his squatting position and took a glance at it. “No one answered the door, but I can’t swear to it, no.”

  I turned away from the house. “It wouldn’t surprise me if Sybil was in there and decided she didn’t want to talk to you. Or any law enforcement. The day of the fire I saw her walking toward the house and thought she must have gone inside. But when I checked later, she didn’t answer the door, and I figured if she was in there she couldn’t make herself open it and talk to me.”

  “You might be right on there.” He brushed some ashes off the bottom of his pant legs. “Nothing new uncovered on this third go round.”

  Passing Gramps’ house on the way home sent me on a little guilt trip for not stopping to see him the past couple of days. And it reminded me I hadn’t checked in with Leroy about the beekeeper. After I got home and took care of Queenie’s needs, I changed into running clothes then the two of us set out for a visit.

  Queenie slowed her pace to match mine. With the sun’s sweltering heat beating down on us, I didn’t want to go too fast. When we got to Gramps’ door, I opened it and called his name. He was sitting in his usual chair in the living room listening to music on the radio. “Well, well, if you two aren’t a sight for sore eyes.”

  I gave him a kiss on his cheek and Queenie gave him a lick on his hand. He patted my hand then tousled Queenie’s fur. “That’s a good girl.”

  “How are you doing with this heat wave, Gramps?” I plopped down on the nearby couch, and Queenie stayed at his side.

  “Oh, not too bad. I get outside a little, early in the morning.” That meant he walked the short distance with his cane from his living room chair to his deck chair. My mother and I both encouraged him to do more walking and assisted him as much as possible. But after my grandmother died a few years before, he wasn’t motivated much anymore. He told us, “my legs are all played out,” on a fairly regular basis.

  I leaned in from where I was sitting. “Gramps, Mom talked to you about Denny, right?”

  He looked up from Queenie, jutted out his lips then nodded. “She did, and I have to say I’m relieved. Don’t get me wrong, I like the man, but I don’t think he ever quite got over losing his wife. And it gave me some heartache thinking Kristen might’ve been playing second fiddle to her.”

  Gramps had never said a word about that before. He often kept his deeper feelings close to the vest. “When did you figure that out, Gramps?”

  He scratched at the whiskers on his chin. “Oh well, I guess not long after they got engaged. Seemed to me that’s when some of the spark went out of their romance. And it wasn’t all Denny’s fault. Your mother was taken with him, that’s a fact, but not the way she was with your father.”

  “I’m with you on that one, Gramps. Carl died before I was born but sometimes it seemed like he was in the next room. I thought Mother was waiting until John Carl and I grew up to find someone new, and then someone found her instead. Denny swept her off her feet, all right. He was one lonely man after his wife died.” I regretted the words the second they were out of my mouth. I could have been talking about Gramps since Gram died.

  Gramps sniffed. “I’d never wish a stroke on anybody, but in Denny’s case it brought out secrets that never shoulda been kept in the first place. Not between two people who planned to spend the rest of their lives together.”

  Secrets. And big ones at that. “Our family’s had some major things to deal with this year.” Like discovering John Carl and I had an older sister no one knew about. We were all still off-kilter about that life-changing revelation.

  “That’s a fact. And for an old guy like me you gotta wonder how much the old ticker can take before it stops ticking.”

  I stood up and laid my hand on his heart. “It’s ticking a nice strong rhythm at the moment.”

  He gathered my hand in his and squeezed. “I’ll do my best to keep ’er going for a while yet.”

  “Good. Gramps, besides Mom’s sad news, there’s a couple of other things I was wondering about.”

  “Oh?”

  “Have you noticed a beekeeper working in the neighborhood? I saw someone in a suit over by my house, by Leroy’s field. I intended to ask him about it.”

  “A beekeeper, huh? Why, no, I haven’t. And Leroy would’ve mentioned if someone was keeping bees over at his place. He lets me know what’s going on.”

  “Okay, just curious,” I said.

  “You got a nice bunch of clover on your lawn. Maybe a beekeeper stopped to check out some bees getting the nectar from it.”

  “That’s a thought.” Or to deliver a little rabbit. “And I wanted to ask you about the barns that burned, the Hardings’ and the Simmonds’.”

  “Corky, you’re the deputy in this family. I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

  I snickered at his words. “I meant about the barns themselves, when they were built.”

  “As old as I am, that was even before my time.”

  I laughed some more. “I know how old you are. I thought your father might have told you barn-raising stories when you were young, like the one he built for his family. The one you owned before you gave your homestead to my mother.”

  “Well, I heard plenty about that one, that’s a fact. Seems to me my father was handy at most everything he put his mind to do. And come to think about it, he talked about helping a few neighbors raise their barns. When we went for Sunday drives, he’d point them out. And the Hardings’ was one of them I do believe. I kind of forgot about that.”

  “It was one of my favorites in the county. Did your father say anything about it, any fun facts?”

  Gramps thought a moment. “No, not that I can recall. Just that it was a hard day’s work, but it made a man feel good to help out his neighbor put up a barn like that. They’d have all the lumber cut and laid out ahead of time, and the men would show up with tools and muscles. The womenfolk brought baskets with enough food to feed the whole county.”

  “The good old days, huh Gramps?”

  “Most of them were, but some of them weren’t.” He scratched his chin. “What other barns did my dad point out that he’d helped put up? Oh yes, one that belonged to a family named Grant. It’s over there on Collins, down the road a piece from the Hardings. The Grants were getting up there in years and moved into town. Both of them passed on years ago. Nevins lives there now. Another one was over on Adler. It’s long gone now.”

  He shook his fingers in one direction, and then another. “The bank took the farm from ’em in the thirties, toward the end of the Great Depression. It eventually got sold to some other folks. They wanted the land, but not the buildings. The house, barn, chicken coop, and the rest of the buildings all collapsed over time. They removed them somewhere along the line. I haven’t thought about all that in a coon’s age.”

  “I like it when you take a walk
down memory lane,” I said.

  “I could keep on going until the cows came home, and then some.”

  14

  I showered and slipped into my sleeping outfit of a tank top and pajama shorts then headed to the kitchen for more rehydrating water. Queenie was at my heels when I carried the glass outside to the back deck. The evening sun was on the other side of the house, and I sat in a lounge chair in the shade, watching the leaves of the trees on the back of my property gently wave and twist in the breeze. Then another movement captured my attention. Something—someone—was on the ground dashing from behind one tree to another, pausing briefly each time.

  What in the heck? Bebee Lake was on the other side of the grove of trees. There was a little-used public access on its opposite shore, and it was not an easy trek from there to my property. I got the impression the person was on the average side, but at one hundred yards away and with an obstructed view besides, it was difficult to tell. I rushed into the house for a set of binoculars.

  I found them on the end table in the living room then ran upstairs to my bedroom for a better vantage point. Queenie was excited at the action and gave a little bark on her way up the steps behind me. I dropped to my knees a few feet from the window, scooted up to it, and peered through the lenses, adjusting them so the back area came into focus. A squirrel scampering up a tree was the only live action I saw.

  The tree line was too far away to activate my motion-detection camera, so that was no help. It was rare for anyone to be back there. Sometimes kids explored around the lake when their parents were fishing, but I’d only seen that happen a few times over the years. The person—I guessed was a woman—had darted from tree to tree like she was either playing hide and seek with someone or was trying to find cover. Since she appeared to be alone and was on my property, I wondered if she’d been spying on me.

  That thought sent the sensation of little critters crawling from my spine to the back of my neck. I wasn’t exactly frightened, but why would someone be watching me? I put down the binoculars and visually scanned the surrounding area with my naked eyes. The woman seemed to have vanished in the minute it took me to get from the deck to my bedroom.

  What in the world had she been up to? I pulled my cell phone out of my pajama pocket and called Vince Weber. “Yo, Sergeant, what’s up?”

  “Hey Vince, can you talk?”

  “Yeah, I’m alone, if that’s what you mean. What?”

  “I was wondering if you’ve had any contact with Darcie in the last hour or so?” I kept an eye on my back property while we talked.

  “Uh, it’s possible. She sends me text messages on a regular basis, which I ignore for the most part. Hold on and I’ll look.” There was a click and he was gone for some seconds. When he came back, he said, “The last one was at six forty-one. A little over an hour ago. Why do you want to know, if I can ask?”

  “She lives in St. Cloud?”

  “Yeah, this side of it, about twenty-five miles from here.”

  I headed down the stairs as I told him about the creeper on the back lot.

  “If I’m the one that brought that loony lady into your life, I am really sorry.”

  “Vincent Weber, do not go there. We don’t know that it’s Darcie, but I think it’d be a good idea for me to get a look at her in person. Someone delivered that bunny, and now someone’s been on my back property. If it’s the same person, things are escalating.”

  “If it’s fruitcake Darcie then they are definitely escalating.”

  “You said she’s still contacting you several times a day, or trying to?”

  “It’s been a lot more lately, maybe because I’m pretty much ignoring her. Ten, twelve text messages a day. A bunch of phone calls.”

  “Saying anything threatening?”

  “Nah, it’s the same stuff. ‘Vincent’—that’s what she calls me. ‘Vincent, just checking to see if you’d like to come over for dinner. Vincent, give me a call when you get off work. I’ve been looking at a dress, and I want to know if you like it.’ Stuff like that.”

  “Does she drop by, or have you seen her car parked in your neighborhood?”

  “She did stop at my house yesterday when I was at work and left me a note. If she hangs out when I’m gone, I dunno. I haven’t seen her parked nearby, watching me, nothing like that, or I would have dealt with it.”

  “Vince, that’s stalking. You don’t think so?”

  “Not exactly. It’s more like she’s pestering me, hopin’ I’ll give in.”

  “Okay, how about this? You meet her somewhere for a burger to tell her it’s over. You’re sorry, but you can’t see her anymore.”

  “What if she deals me the pregnancy card?” he said.

  “Tell her you’d like to go with to her doctor visit, see how she reacts.”

  “Huh.”

  “I’d like to be there so I can observe the way she walks, how she looks when she moves, see if she looks familiar, like one of the creepers.”

  “You gonna be in the restaurant or hanging out in the parking lot, what?”

  “We’ll figure that part out. After you set the place and date.”

  “Date. That’s a word I don’t wanna use for our meeting.”

  “Make it day and time then. Place, day, time.”

  “All right. I like that better. I know you’re right about me needing to end it once and for all. I shouldn’t have let it go on this long, but it makes it all the more awkward with her parents being my in-laws and all, whether they have much to do with me or not. But I gotta make a clean cut with Darcie. Especially if she’s spying on you.”

  “It needs to happen with or without me in the equation.”

  “Right. But I’m starting to think I should just ask her about the shenanigans. If she’d tell me the truth.”

  “And that’s just it. You haven’t seen her doing what you suspect her of. At this point it’d be a case of he said/she said.”

  “I forgot to tell you, I talked to my neighbors, asked ’em if they seen anybody on my property, and they haven’t. A reliable witness would be a godsend about now.”

  “For your deal, for my deal, and for the barn fires.”

  “You know it. Take care, huh?”

  “You too.” I dropped the phone back in my pocket, wondering about Darcie. Vince Weber and I had been together a number of times in the last few days. If Darcie was keeping close tabs on Vince, she might suspect we had something going on. She could have seen him at my house when he drove over with the blood drop. Or later that day when he’d stopped by the Hardings’ after the fire. It was possible she’d been in one of the cars that came and went during those hours. If she had seen Vince and me having our private discussion, away from the others, that might’ve led her to draw false conclusions.

  If Darcie was living in a fantasy world, she needed help, and that needed to happen sooner rather than later. Vince could get jammed up in a New York minute, and I did not want that to happen. He was a stand-up guy and a topnotch, rock-solid deputy.

  I went back downstairs and wandered around the main level, from kitchen to living room to den, taking loop after loop. I thought about calling Smoke, but there was no real reason to tell him about the suspicious person on my back property right then.

  Queenie plopped down on the big area rug by the patio door then divided her attention between her best human friend and the great outdoors. I stopped for a second here and there to gaze out the window and look for trespassers. As a kid, I had loved exploring and creating simple forts, places to retreat to when I needed some time alone. But I did that on my mother’s or grandparents’ land where I had permission, not on someone else’s.

  Was the person sneaking around on my back property still there, even though I couldn’t see her? She may be sitting on the hill overlooking the lake. Or hiding and watching. I ran back upstairs and changed into shorts, a t-shirt, and my running shoes then found Queenie by the patio door as I clipped my cell phone case on my waistband. “Want t
o go for a little hike, girl?”

  She jumped up and moved her head back and forth. “Front door,” I said. She ran on ahead and waited for me to open it. Then she ran around in circles wondering which direction we were headed. Queenie was only two, but I seldom leashed her, unless we went running on a county road. She was friendly and curious and checked things out, but she was trained to obey, and did so for the most part. What had I done when I lived in my house all by my lonesome?

  The sun was lower in the sky, but would not set for about a half hour.

  “We’re going down to Bebee Lake, and I need you to heel.”

  “Heel” was not a command I usually gave when we were out exploring the acres I owned, but she stayed with me as I jogged toward the wooded area. When we reached the tree line, I stopped and looked around but saw no one. The air had stilled, and I listened for the sounds of human movement but heard none. It was the time of evening when the daytime creatures had hunkered down until the sun rose again and the night creatures were starting to stir in their nests or other shelters.

  Queenie sniffed the ground, playing with fern fronds and other taller weeds that tickled her nose. I poked around checking for anything my trespasser might have left behind. Much of the grassy underbrush had turned brown with the heat and lack of rain. I studied the ground and the intermittent flattened depressions on the vegetation, made by either an animal or a human. I squatted down for a closer look. The pattern told me they weren’t made by a four-legged creature—it was either a heavier person with long strides, or a smaller one who’d jumped from point to point. What I’d observed from those few quick glimpses was an individual of average size, certainly not very large.

  I followed the path of depressions for a ways south along the tree line until they turned east. Then I stopped at the top of the hill overlooking Beebe Lake and visually scanned the area. The person had likely accessed my property from the public boat landing on the other side of the lake. But why? The hike from there to here took some effort. Add to that the curious behavior of the jumping, or stepping, from one tree to the next. From what I noticed, there were no flattened areas to suggest that he, or she, had sat down to rest or spend time there.