Firesetter in Blackwood Township, a Winnebago County Mystery

by Christine Husom

  Smoke had stood and was close behind me. “Hello, David.”

  “Good to see you, Elton.” He slid the box onto the island’s countertop then shook Smoke’s hand.

  “Can I get you anything to drink?” I said.

  “No, Gramps’ dinner is in the car. I asked David to join us,” Mother said.

  “Okay, well um, that’s good,” I stammered then turned to David. “I’ve been thinking about your father, wondering how he’s doing.”

  He lifted his shoulders slightly. “He’s struggling with a number of health issues to be honest. And trying to come to grips with everything my brother did. But I get up here regularly, and I’ve hired a home health aide to help out. Dad wasn’t exactly happy with the idea at first, but now that he’s gotten to know Maggie, he’s more on board with it. He even admitted to me that he feels better having her there in case something happens. And they get along incredibly well, a big bonus. They play Scrabble and cards. Dad’s not as lonely anymore.”

  “I’m glad to hear that. You’ve both gone through a lot this year.”

  “Yes, and it’ll be one day at a time coming to grips with all of it. But it’s getting better little by little,” David said.

  I nodded. I was still trying to come to grips with it myself. So was Smoke, even more so than I was.

  “I guess we better get over to my dad’s. If you’re ready, David?” Mother said.

  “Sure. Good to see you, both.”

  “You too,” I said.

  When I heard two car doors shut I turned to Smoke. “What do you think?”

  “That your mother seems to be moving on. What do you think?”

  “Oh my gosh, Smoke. I think David is a genuinely nice guy. He’s caring. I mean look at how well he looks after his dad. But my mother is vulnerable right now, and part of me is afraid he’s going to sweep her off her feet, and the next thing you know she’ll be flying back and forth with him to Texas.”

  “And who will take care of your gramps if she does that?” he said.

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  Smoke put his hands on my shoulders and gave me a gentle shake. “I think you’re jumping the gun here. Kristen has devoted her entire adult life to caring for other people and running her business. She’s not going to make any rash decisions and leave your family hanging in the lurch.”

  I smiled and nodded. “I know that. She’s been the helicopter parent poster child for over thirty years and then started caring for Gramps when Gram died. Now that I think about it, it would be good for her to have more freedom, have some fun.”

  “No doubt.” He turned my body around to face the counter then dropped his hands. “Let’s eat. It smells too good to wait one minute longer. And you could stand to put a little meat on your bones.”

  Smoke too? “Why do you say that? I’m not that skinny.”

  “I didn’t say you were, but I know how you sometimes forget to eat, and we can’t have you wasting away. You need to keep up your strength to fight the bad guys.”

  I got out plates and utensils and set them on the island while Smoke took the containers of chicken and beans out of the box. We removed the lids, dished up our plates, and then he joined me in the common table prayer. My mother’s lemon herbed chicken was another one of my favorites, as was her shrimp and tuna pasta salad. And I could eat green and wax beans fresh out of the garden every day for two weeks straight before I started getting tired of them.

  Aside from our “mmm” sounds, we ate in silence for a time then Smoke said, “This is a purely selfish statement, but I sure missed your mother’s cooking when she was going through all that business with Denny.”

  “Me too. I’ve been spoiled forever getting the meals she leaves in my fridge or drops off, like tonight. I wish I liked cooking, because I have to admit I get tired of deli food and pizza.”

  “That makes two of us.” He put his fork down and leaned against the back of the stool. “I’ll help you clean up then I gotta shove off, take care of Rex, and get to bed early. And hopefully sleep.”

  I got up and shook my head. “Go ahead and take off. I’ll have Queenie lick the plates and silverware clean, so I won’t have to wash them.”

  He was still snickering when he walked out the door.

  28

  I woke up too early Monday morning, but couldn’t go back to sleep, and I stared at the ceiling for a while. A host of things were rattling around in my brain, both personal and professional. John Carl and Sara, Mother and David. Grandma and Grandpa and their move. Gramps. And Smoke, because.

  With all the craziness of the past week, it was no wonder I couldn’t sleep. Queenie stirred when I did. It was 5:15 a.m. The sun would be rising in about twenty minutes, but it was light enough to go on a run. Queenie joined me in some wake-up stretches then she whined while I freshened up in the bathroom.

  I looked out at the sky hoping to see a dark cloud, with the promise of rain, but no such luck. I dressed in running shorts and a t-shirt and we went downstairs. I let Queenie outside to do her business while I got my running shoes out of the front closet and my Smith and Wesson and pancake holster out of the safe. Then I called Queenie back inside.

  “You get to stay home while I go on a power run.” I grabbed my phone and clipped it on my waistband then adjusted my shirt so my weapon wasn’t obvious. Stepping outside, I drew in a large breath through my nostrils, appreciating the relative coolness of the early morning air. I walked to the end of the driveway, turned left, and ran past my grandparents’ place. When I reached the mile mark, I turned around to head back, and saw tendrils of smoke coming from the back of my grandparents’ barn. Dear God. I got out my phone, dialed 911 then took off at a sprinting speed toward it. Half a mile had never seemed so far away.

  “Nine—”

  “Rick, it’s Corky Aleckson. My grandparents’ barn is on fire. 3428 Brandt Avenue, Blackwood Township. Tell Oak Lea Fire to hurry.”

  “Copy. Are you injured, in danger?” he said.

  “No. I’m a ways away, running there. Call me back when Oak Lea is rolling. And call Detective Dawes.” I didn’t have my radio, but I knew Rick’s partner would be getting the page out that instant. I prayed at least two of the volunteer firefighters would be up and at ’em, or there’d be a delay before they responded. I surveyed the area and didn’t see a solitary soul moving about, either on foot or in a vehicle.

  I reached their yard in less than four minutes and was behind the barn four seconds later. Smoke was pouring out from around the old double door, and I was momentarily paralyzed by all-encompassing panic. Think. Rely on your training.

  I forced myself to look away from the smoke and examined the ground for footprints and vehicles tracks around the door. Nothing evident. The parched earth was doing us no favors with evidence collection lately. I felt compelled to see what was happening inside, but I knew opening the door and feeding the fire with more oxygen would be a mistake.

  My grandparents had a well about twenty away. A faucet with an attached hose, once used to water the animals and gardens, jutted from the ground. I was there in a flash, turned the faucet on full bore, picked up the end of the hose, and ran as fast as possible to the barn door. Water splashed all over the ground in front of me and on my feet and legs, but my only thought was getting water into the barn through the cracks between, and around, the doors.

  I’d stuck my phone in my back waistband, and when it rang I pulled it out and punched the talk button without taking my eyes off the barn. It was Rick in Communications. “Oak Lea is rolling out of their station with one rig as we speak. The second should be close behind, but I think Detective Dawes will be the first one there.” A sense of relief trickled through me. Smoke’s emergency response time rivaled Speedy Gonzales’s.

  “Thanks.” I pushed ‘End’ on my phone thinking that was a particularly ominous word at the moment. The department was stepping up their efforts to locate and stop the firesetter in his tracks. And if this was anothe
r one of his criminal acts—and I had little doubt that it was—he’d fooled us once again, lighting the fire hours earlier than the others.

  No flames yet reached out the cracks of the old doors, and I prayed the firefighters would get there before the barn was engaged. Random thoughts darted through my mind. Thank God we’d put our grandparents’ furniture and possessions in the shed instead of the barn, we weren’t related to the Hardings or Backstroms or Grants, were my grandparents being targeted as we suspected the others were? If so, what was the connection?

  I heard a car door slam and figured it had to be Smoke. When he came running toward me, I was struck by his apparel. He was wearing jogging pants and a t-shirt with his tactical holster and gun strapped across his chest. His badge and radio were clipped on his pants. “What in tarnation?” he yelled.

  “I don’t know. I’m trying to hold it together, but this feels like a personal attack on our family.” Sirens screamed in the distance, and I mouthed the words, “thank you.”

  “Let’s hope that’s not true. Another fire? We can’t say the firesetter’s crimes are escalating necessarily, because he started off in that mode from the get-go.” He reached over and tried to take the hose from me. “You’re shaking like a leaf.”

  I had trouble releasing my grip on the hose, but Smoke finally peeled my fingers off. “Adrenaline dump,” I said.

  “Yeah. Why don’t you go around to the front and direct the guys back here.”

  “I can’t leave my post. I have to stay here.”

  The sirens were deafeningly, obviously close. I willed them to hurry. Seconds later, the sirens cut out abruptly and were replaced by the loud crunching of gravel. Smoke handed the hose back to me. “I’ll direct ’em.” He went to the south side and waved them in closer. I backed away from the door, giving them a wide berth to do their job. Water from the garden hose stopped flowing when the truck ran over it then started again when it passed. “I’ll shut off the water,” Smoke yelled above the loud rumbling rig, pointing at the hose.

  The truck stopped and Chief Corey Evans and a young fireman named Jack jumped out. Both had their turnout pants and boots on, and Evans was also wearing his jacket, holding onto helmets and gloves. After Jack slipped on his jacket, Corey handed him a helmet and pair of gloves. In seconds, they were protected and ready to firefight. “Any animals in there that you know of?” Evans said.

  I shook my head. “It’s my grandparents’ barn, and I know there aren’t.”

  “Yeah, bad deal. Really sorry, Corky,” he said.

  Smoke peered into one of the back windows. “Lots of smoke, so it’s hard to see any flames, what the fire’s doing.”

  “There might be straw in there that hasn’t been completely cleaned out,” I said.

  The sirens from more emergency vehicles indicated they were getting close. Then one was silenced, and I heard Sergeant Leo Roth announce he was “10-6,” via Smoke’s radio. Roth was the area supervisor on the overnight shift. Seconds later a second fire truck pulled into the yard. “The neighbors should be awake by now,” Smoke quipped.

  Roth joined Smoke and me, and the new team of firefighters rushed in to assist, pulling on their gear as they did. Chief Corey pulled off a glove and held his hand a few inches from the iron door pulls. “Not radiating much heat. Jack, grab the hose. One thing on our side is that this old barn has outside air creeping into the cracks, which cuts down on the risk of an explosion when we open the doors. Let’s break the two windows first to direct any fire inward and upward. Wyman. Matty.”

  The three of them sprang into action. By the time the windows were shards of glass and shattered wood, the hose was in position. Wyman and Matty each slid one of the barn doors outward, and Corey stood in a ready-for-action position.

  My stomach was tied up in all kinds of knots, but when the doors were open and I looked inside, the fire was surprisingly and thankfully less threatening than I’d expected. “Hold off on the water, Jack. We’re gonna need to preserve the scene here,” Evans yelled then dropped the hose. The fire was small, about six feet in from the back door, and surrounded by rocks. My brain struggled to make sense of what I was seeing. Someone had built a campfire on the dirt floor.

  All of us gathered in front of the open doors, trying to grasp what the strange scene meant. Positioned on the outside of the rocks at twelve o’clock, three o’clock, six o’clock, and nine o’clock were four dead little rabbits. Jagged dark lines and specks in the dirt indicated where the water I’d squirted from the hose had gotten through.

  “This is really weird,” Corey said. The others added similar commentary. I was speechless.

  “Those little guys are layin’ there like they’re sleeping by the fire.” I think Matty said that.

  Smoke and I were the only two on site that had seen other rabbits similarly placed the past few days. Sergeant Roth spoke up, “Detective Dawes, you sent out that email yesterday asking if any of us had a rabbit left on our doorsteps.”

  “That I did. Turns out four of us have. And now we got this . . .” Smoke shrugged. “I don’t know what we got here.”

  “Some of the wood in the campfire must’ve been a little wet given how much smoke there is,” Chief Evans said.

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Smoke said.

  We were still standing there considering our next course of action when my mother and John Carl rounded the corner of the barn. Their outfits were casual like Smoke’s, minus the official equipment. Getting rousted out of bed for an emergency gave people permission to wear what they normally wouldn’t in public. Mother’s mouth was open and her hands were crossed on her heart. John Carl’s face was blank like he was too shocked to know what to say or do.

  “What happened?” Mother said.

  “I couldn’t sleep and went on a run and then saw smoke coming out of the barn so I called nine-one-one and then everyone started showing up,” I blurted out in one long breath.

  Mother and John Carl moved closer and Smoke said, “Except it turns out it wasn’t much of a fire after all. But you may not want to look inside, Kristen.”

  Mother looked at Smoke. “What is it?”

  “Viewer discretion advised. There are four dead rabbits laying around a campfire in there,” he said.

  “Oh.” That gave her pause, but John Carl wasn’t deterred. He moved in closer to see what Smoke was talking about.

  John Carl shook his head. “It looks like some sort of ritual. But who would be using Grandma and Grandpa’s barn for that?”

  Smoke put a hand on his shoulder. “The only thing we know for sure is that we don’t have a clue what we got going on here. And we need to start digging to find that out, so here’s the deal . . .” He turned to the firefighters. “Thank you, Oak Lea Fire, for your quick response, but you can get back to the station.” Then he put one hand on my mother’s shoulder and the other on my brother’s. “Kristen and John Carl, if you want to go in the house, have a cup of coffee, hang out for a while, that’s cool. We’ll be getting Major Crimes out here, and we’ll need room to work.”

  All of them headed off without saying much. But Corey Evans leaned in close to me as he walked by. “Let us know what you find out.”

  I nodded and said, “Kudos to you and your guys for getting here so fast. I really appreciate it.”

  “You bet. Super relieved you didn’t lose the barn.”

  “Thanks.”

  Smoke phoned Communications, and asked them to page the crime scene team then turned to Roth, “Leo, will you be able to stay on duty until we get Corky’s shift area covered? She’ll be tied up dealing with this mess.”

  “Yeah, no problem. I can cover the first half of her shift,” he said.

  “Thanks. I’ll have the chief deputy take care of the second half,” Smoke said.

  “I’ll start a sign-in log,” Roth said.

  I pulled out my phone to check the time. Six twenty-four. My shift would have officially started in thirty-six minutes. “I’m
going to run home and get ready.”

  “Literally? Roth can give you a lift,” Smoke said.

  “Yes, literally. It’s only a five-minute run. I won’t be too long.”

  “Wear street clothes, you’ll be doing detective work.”

  “All right.”

  John Carl’s car was on Brandt Avenue, so I popped into the house. Mother had brewed a pot of coffee, and they were both standing by the kitchen counter holding a cup with almost identical expressions of alarm on their faces.

  “Corky, that was really freaky,” John Carl said.

  “Your brother told me about how those poor little creatures were laying there like that. It boggles my mind that someone would do something like that. It’s sick. And why do you think they picked your grandparents’ barn for such a thing?”

  “The owners of the three barns that burned down were all gone at the time. We don’t know if they were crimes of opportunity, or if they were picked because there were no animals inside that would die in the fires.

  “The other possibility is the owners were targeted for some reason. But now we’ve got this campfire in Grandma and Grandpa’s barn, and that just adds a layer of confusion to it all. It doesn’t fit with the others.”

  “You know for sure someone started those fires on purpose?” John Carl said.

  “No question about it. But we’re struggling with a lack of evidence to prove it.”

  “What kind of evidence?” Mother said.

  “Like the use of an accelerant. Footprints at the scene. Tire tracks at the scene.”

  “So what are you going to do?” John Carl said.

  “We’re beyond frustrated.” I took a quick breath then said, “Besides the fires, there have been other strange things going on. I didn’t tell you about this because your plates are already too full, but someone left a dead rabbit on my doorstep last week. It was about the same size as the ones in barn.”

  Mother gasped and set her cup down on the table. “That’s horrible.”

  “Corky. Why?” John Carl said.

  “That’s the burning question. But I’m not the only one. Vince Weber, Todd Mason, and Smoke all got one too.”