Doree shrugged. “He apologized for dodging me.”
“Want me to rough him up?”
The kid laughed, then her voice quivered as she said, “Just hold him while I do.”
Close to home, Bertha saw the glow of eyes along the side of the road. An animal out in the cold. She slowed the car and swerved to avoid it.
“Isn’t that Norman Bates?” Doree asked.
“Can’t be. He’s inside.” Then Bertha wondered if he’d slipped out behind them. She stopped the car, and before she could say anything, Doree swung the door open and hurried toward the big orange cat. A couple of feet from him, Doree stood still and talked softly, and the cat from hell came to her and rubbed against her leg. Doree stooped and picked him up. When she got in the car and he saw Bertha, he laid back his ears and hissed.
“Yep. That’s Norman Bates,” Bertha said.
“I wonder how he got out.”
“He’s a real Houdini. He can get wherever he wants to.”
Bertha sensed something wasn’t right. She turned out the headlights and rolled to a stop in front of the house. Doree reached for the door handle and Bertha touched her arm. “Wait.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“You and Norman stay in the car.”
“But…”
“Call 9-1-1.” She shut the car door softly, crossed the yard, and approached the front window. She could believe the cat got out, and that she’d left the kitchen light on, but something was wrong with the light. It flickered. Then she heard the buzz of the smoke detectors.
Through the front window she saw a finger of flame reach out to touch the hall carpet and travel on toward the ceiling.
Chapter Sixteen
Immobilized and in shock, Bertha heard a siren in the distance, then her neighbor, whose name she didn’t know, was beside her. “I called it in a few minutes ago. I was taking out the trash and smelled smoke.”
“Thank you.”
“How bad is it?” the woman asked. “Do you think it started in the kitchen?”
Bertha stood in the icy rain and shook her head.
A fire truck pulled to the curb and moments later a man came up behind her. “This your place?”
Bertha nodded.
“Is there anyone inside?”
“No. Unless the person who started the fire is still there.”
The fireman called out to the others, “No one inside.” Then he turned back to Bertha. “That your car there in the street?”
“Yes.”
“You need to move it out of the way. Pull it down the street. Our vehicles need all of this area.”
Bertha turned toward the Honda where Doree still waited, wide-eyed. She wasn’t aware of walking back to the car, but she got inside, started the motor, put it in gear, and backed up practically to the corner on the other side of the street. Since the arrival of the fire truck, people in the neighborhood were coming out of their houses. As Bertha walked back across the street toward the truck, a police car and a second truck and paramedics pulled up. The night was lit with flashing lights.
“Ma’am, you’re going to have to stay across the street.”
“I live here.”
“See that squad car?” The fireman pointed. “They’ll want to talk to you.”
“But it’s my house.”
“Yes, ma’am. I heard you.” He hesitated, then asked, “You have any idea how it started?”
“No. I’ve been away, but only for a little while. I think someone set it.”
Then Alvin’s ex-lover Randy was beside her. Of course he would be there. This was his beat. He took her by the elbow. “Come in out of the rain. You’ll be more comfortable in the squad car.”
“But Doree…”
“She and the cat are already there.” Randy took her by the elbow and led her away from her house to the waiting vehicle.
As Bertha got into the backseat next to Doree, she heard the girl say, “This has to be arson. Our cat was outside. He was inside when we left. Someone had to open our door.”
The officer behind the steering wheel craned his neck to look back at them; in profile, his big nose was a masterpiece. Probably been broken in two, maybe three places. “Did someone have a key?”
Doree faced Bertha, at first uncertain, then said, “No.”
“Not even a neighbor for emergencies?”
“Oh,” Doree said. “My mom’s secretary, Alvin.”
Bertha broke in. “She’s right. Someone got into the house without a key. Someone set this fire.”
The big-nosed officer behind the steering wheel said, “Now why would anyone do that?”
While he didn’t say it was her imagination, Bertha heard the skepticism in his tone. He might as well have said, “You’re a silly old lady. Your imagination has run away with you.”
Randy took his place in the passenger seat and said, “If Judge Brannon says it was arson, then it was.”
The guy turned to Randy and gave him a smug look.
Randy said, “We need get a list of neighbors and interview as many as possible right now.”
Big-nose appeared to regret his cynicism.
Feeling like the top of her head was going to blow off, Bertha opened the door, got out, and walked toward her opened front doorway. Big-nose got out of the squad car at about the same time, but he was too busy to notice which way she went. This time she walked around to the side door to the family room, avoiding all the commotion.
The smoke was thick and stung her eyes. The first firefighter she saw was wearing a mask and was busy with an ax, cutting holes in the wallboard as she walked, holding her breath, past him into the kitchen.
The man in a mask, who’d asked her to move her car earlier, came toward her. He took her elbow, but she jerked it away. Perplexed, his voice distorted by the mask, he said, “You’re about fifteen seconds from smoke inhalation. Maybe a minute from death. Leave now.”
“Can you tell where it started?” Bertha asked.
He took her arm and tried again to lead her out. When she resisted, he bent slightly, lifted her with a grunt, and carried her over his shoulder out of the house, setting her down on the lawn in front of the garage door. Breathing heavily, his hands on his knees, he said, “Looks like it started over by the stove.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Bertha barely got it said before she was wracked with a coughing fit.
The fireman dropped to his knees, still gasping, and said, “There’s some kind of accelerant that trails from the stove into the hall.”
“I’m six foot tall and weigh 190 pounds.” Actually, she weighed over two hundred, but why bother with details?
“Come on,” a second fireman urged her. “Let’s get out of the way so these guys can work.” Then he knelt and said, “You okay, Cap? Need help getting up?”
Cap nodded.
The garage was a huge shadowed cavern with everything but the cars in place. Her Jeep was gone and Toni’s Honda sat down the street. Unable to stop coughing, Bertha trudged behind the firemen. They stepped over hoses in the yard. Water was turning to ice. A woman grabbed her arm. “Lady, you need oxygen.”
Bertha could barely speak, but she tried to wave the woman away.
“Come with me.”
Bertha shook her head.
The paramedic called over her shoulder. “Sam, I need you over here.”
With that, Bertha let the woman lead her to the back of an ambulance and got oxygen.
“We really should take you to the ER and have you checked out.”
Bertha stubbornly shook her head no.
“What the hell did you go back in that house for? I sat here and watched you and couldn’t believe my eyes.”
Through the mask, Bertha said, “Everything I own is in that house.”
The paramedic smiled. She was kind of pretty, with short dark hair and square shoulders and a nametag that said Linda. “You look like a smart woman.” She wiped Bertha’s face off with a coo
l wet cloth, which felt heavenly.
Bertha met her eyes. “I was thinking about my things, and I wanted to see how the fire started.”
“I heard someone say you’re a judge. Is that right?”
Bertha nodded.
“I’m always surprised when people who’re highly intelligent don’t have enough common sense to stay out of a burning building.”
Bertha’s eyes stung and tears streamed down her face. She didn’t want it to look like she was crying. It was the goddamn smoke.
“Here,” Linda said. “Let me wash your eyes out. Look up.” She held a bottle with a long tip over Bertha’s eyes and shot the stuff out. “Okay. Let’s try it with your eyes open.”
Bertha looked at her like she was nuts, and she got it in both eyes.
Another female voice said, “Is this Judge Brannon?”
Linda gave Bertha a tissue, which she used to mop her face and blow her nose. “Yep, this is the judge all right.”
Bertha could see better, and she was surprised at the soot on the tissue. She blinked several times and saw a blond woman about half her age in full firefighter gear.
“Judge Brannon,” Linda said. “My partner Wendy.”
“Do you remember me?” Wendy asked.
Bertha studied the woman. She was attractive, a blonde with gray eyes that conveyed no bullshit, a small buff frame that was lost beneath her oversized suit and gear. A woman in a uniform was something that always caught Bertha’s attention. She shook her head, no. “I’m sorry.”
Wendy said, “It’s okay. I looked a lot different back then.”
“Were you in my court?”
“You were my attorney in juvy. You helped my mother get me into drug treatment. Mom told me you’d been there too and you made a good life for yourself.”
“Thanks for telling me,” Bertha croaked, and started coughing again.
Linda said, “The judge swallowed some smoke.”
Wendy did a kind of a salute. “Sorry to bother you. I just wanted to say something.” With that she turned and strutted away like a beautiful alpha bitch.
People are more important than things,” Linda said. “If you weren’t so upset you’d remember that.”
“I need to get going. My daughter is alone in a police car.”
“Stay where you’re at,” Linda said, then added, “Looks like you singed some of your hair.”
Bertha sighed. “That was the last fire.”
A fireman came up to the back of the ambulance. He coughed and said, “Slipped on the ice. Can you tape up my wrist?”
While the Linda was distracted, Bertha pulled the mask off and slipped out of the open rear door.
Randy spotted her from the driveway and walked beside her toward the squad car. “You obviously won’t be able to stay here tonight. They tell me the structure is sound, but the arson investigators need to clear it. Can a neighbor help you? Do you need money?”
Bertha shrugged. “I have a credit card. How many motels take cats?”
“Most of them these days. You have ash in your hair.”
She leaned forward and brushed her hand across the top of her head. “I was hoping you’d be too polite to mention it.”
“Sorry.”
Bertha said, “This pisses me off.”
Randy rubbed her shoulder awkwardly, like Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory trying to deal with emotions he knew nothing about. “You’ll be all right.”
“I’m all right now. I’m walking upright and I’m furious.”
“Bad for them.” Randy removed his hand from her shoulder. “Look, you’re a judge. We want to put a man with you.”
“For what?”
“You need protection.”
“I’ll be all right.” She wanted protection less than she’d wanted oxygen.
“You have the kid with you.”
“I can take care of her. If someone comes for us, I’ll beat them to death with my bare, burned hands.”
Bertha motioned to Doree, and they headed for the Honda. She was tired to the marrow of her bones and unsure if she could stay awake long enough to secure a room for the three of them.
*
Doree snored softly in the other bed while the muted TV flickered, Bertha lay awake on top of the covers with Norman Bates across her feet. Her hair reeked of smoke, her eyes stung, and her feelings were jagged and unsteady. This tired, she found it hard to focus, but it wasn’t a lack-of-sleep tired; this tired went to her core. After living beneath her own private rain cloud, she was no longer scared; she was angry. In addition to Toni’s death were the nighttime phone calls, the assault and death of Scotty, the bomb in her Jeep with an unidentified death, and now a fire in her home. Why the hell would anyone come after her? What did she have? Sometimes she thought she had an answer, but it usually faded into more questions before she could ever make sense of it.
She forced herself to remember the last time she’d spent with Toni. They’d barely seen each other the day before the shooting. Bertha, knowing Toni had worked the late shift, left her sleeping. Things in court that day were ordinary. They’d had dinner together. Toni cooked vegetable lasagna. Doree rushed through dinner, and a friend picked her up to study for a chemistry test. Bertha had stacked the dishes, kissed Toni good-bye, and fallen asleep in front of the TV.
She remembered that Doree woke her when she came in around ten.
Bertha turned on the TV in the bedroom to catch the weather report. At midnight Toni came home. She sat on the edge of the bed and said, “I’m going back in. We had three call-offs. Ryker’s wife is in labor. Wilson’s on vacation.”
“Can’t someone else do it?”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Someone.”
“Sharon Hart can come in at two. I’ll be home then.” She kissed Bertha’s forehead. “I just stopped by to make sure Doree got home safely and you knew where I was.”
Groggily Bertha yawned. “I got it covered.”
“You go to sleep now. I’ll see you in the morning.”
When Bertha opened her eyes again, it was morning and she’d overslept. Toni lay spooned up behind her, sleeping. Bertha didn’t wake her. Doree was on the way out the door when Bertha stumbled into the kitchen.
The kid stopped for a moment and said, “Mom left a note. There by the toaster.”
Bertha nodded sleepily dragging herself toward the coffee pot.
Doree said, “She’s going in early. We’re on our own for dinner.”
They had delivered pizza and left some for Toni, but Toni hadn’t come home. So the last communication they had was a note by the toaster that Bertha had forgotten to read. What happened to it? Anne or Aunt Lucy had cooked and cleaned for a few weeks. One of them probably tossed it. Suddenly she wanted to look for that note. She wanted to go home.
Through a crack in the opaque motel curtains came the first whisper of dawn. Bertha hadn’t slept all night. Rolling over, as the cat protested, she sat up, pulled on her jeans, shoved her bare feet into her tennis shoes, grabbed her coat, and made sure she had the key. She checked on Doree, then carefully and quietly pulled the door open; cold air rushed in as she slipped through and pulled the door shut behind her.
An outside walkway went around the building with stairs down to the parking lot at each end and the center. The cold rain had stopped, but light shimmered on the wet walkway and steps. Toni’s Honda was parked next to the stairway on the north end. Their room was on the second floor; next to their door was a dirty white plastic table with two matching chairs. She sat in one and found it cold and damp. Great. In the dim light from the motel’s sign, she opened her cell and dialed; the phone rang and rang. She tipped her chair back against the rough siding and waited. A cold wind sent an empty potato-chip bag end over and end across the parking lot. When the voice mail came on, she hung up and dialed again. On her third call, a gruff and familiar voice said, “Lo?”
“It’s Bertha.”
“What time is it, ba
by?”
“I don’t know. Past five, at least.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I had a fire at my house.”
“So that was your place. I heard the call on my scanner last night. Are you all right?”
“I suppose, physically, at least.” Bertha sneezed. “With everything that has gone on the past few months, I needed one more thing like I need a case of shingles.”
“Where are you?”
“Doree and I slept in a motel last night since my house is a goddamn crime scene waiting to be processed.”
“Come over here. We’ve got plenty of room.”
“We’re okay for now, but thanks. The kid is going back to Indiana this afternoon.” Bertha sneezed again. “I just want to get to the bottom of this. It seems like the deeper I get, the more violence follows me around.”
“You catching a cold?”
Bertha pinched her nostrils together. “I have soot in my nose.” She fished in her jeans pocket for a partially used tissue. Finding none, she wiped her runny nose on her coat sleeve, then sighed. “I’m feeling crushed with the weight of everything.”
Pop asked, “What can I do to help?”
“You still meet with that group of retired cops—you know, for breakfast?”
“Yep.”
“Do you trust them? I mean, can I trust them?”
“Sure.”
“I’d like to put our heads together and figure out what’s going on and how to stop it.”
“Not a better bunch of guys.” Pop hesitated, then asked, “You think this is coming from the department? ”
“I don’t know. Why would anyone go to all this trouble? I don’t have a damn thing or know anything that’s worth all this crazy shit.” Bertha stifled a yawn. “Can you all have lunch with me tomorrow? I mean this afternoon.”
“Probably. I’ll call around and get back to you—will you be at this number?”
“Yeah. Thanks, Pop.”
She shoved her phone into the back pocket of her jeans.
The motel sat on a frontage road; beyond it was a four-lane state route. This early, traffic was intermittent—mostly delivery trucks.
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