Breaking the Mould

by Victoria Hamilton

  Heidi’s eyes grew wide, big and round like two blue saucers fringed in navy mascara. “Can you see anything? Or smell smoke?”

  More sirens. “Let’s see what it is,” Jaymie said.

  They piled into her Explorer SUV, and Jaymie backed out of Valetta’s driveway, then followed the sound two blocks over toward the Emporium. Valetta, leaning out of the passenger-side window, frosty air pouring in battling the heater warmth, yelped, “Hurry up. I see smoke! It looks like it’s the Emporium all right. Crap . . . it’s a good thing all the paper information in the pharmacy is backed up to the hilt on the cloud. But I’ll have to order all new stock! Darn it.”

  Jaymie ducked her head, peering out the front windshield. “I don’t think it’s the Emporium, Val. Look . . . the smoke is drifting south, but not from the hill where the store is. It’s from a little south of that.” She pulled around the corner, narrowly avoiding the fire truck that careened to a stop by another. Firefighters were already on the scene pouring water on . . . “It’s the cider booth!” Jaymie cried.

  She bolted from the SUV, slamming the door shut, followed by Valetta and Heidi, and stood watching as the firefighters shot water on the booth, cutting branches from the pine trees nearby to keep them from catching. The sound of chain saws competed with the din of more sirens, shouts from the firefighters, and the crackle of the fire. The odor wasn’t bad at first, but the smoke billowing from where the hoses were dousing the booth was acrid and filled the air with cinders and ash. Townsfolk gathered, knots of worried people chatting, moving from group to group, huddled in coats and blankets, dogs barking, teenagers gaggling, seniors reminiscing about bygone fires in Queensville.

  Jacklyn Marley joined them, bundled up in a hooded puffy parka that reached down to her knees. She snapped photos with her cell phone, and Jaymie suddenly realized she should be doing the same. She whipped out her cell phone, handed her purse to Valetta, and took thirty or forty shots, first of the flames and the firefighters, and then, after some time, when it had been quelled, of the burnt, smoking wreckage of the small structure. She strode over to the lamppost, scanned through the images, and sent half a dozen to Nan, the editor of her food column at the Wolverhampton Weekly Howler, with a brief explanation.

  She rejoined her friends, who were huddled with Jacklyn Marley. Val looked up. “Jaymie, you have to hear this.”

  She joined her friends, and Val urged Jacklyn to repeat what she had been saying.

  “Don’t you think that it’s suspicious, this fire, when Evan just moved back to his house right behind it and had a confrontation with that handyman guy?”

  “What are you saying, Jacklyn?” Jaymie asked. She’d better not be implying that Bill had anything to do with this.

  Impatiently, she shook her head, her face shadowed, her expression hard to read. “I bet Evan Nezer set this fire.”

  It was possible, Jaymie admitted. “But he would be taking quite a chance,” she pointed out. “With his house right there.”

  “It’s not that close,” Valetta said. “The Emporium is actually closer. If the wind had been blowing from the southeast and stronger, embers and sparks could have flown. It would have been trouble for us.”

  “But winds were from the northwest, as they usually are,” Jaymie pointed out.

  She caught a glimpse of an older woman staring avidly at the quenched fire, the red flashing lights giving a grim illumination to her lined face. Jaymie moved closer. The woman was standing by a bicycle, watching the firefighters. She stood out because she was alone, no chattering neighbors for her, and her expression as Jaymie got closer, was . . . troubling. It was the same woman she had seen a couple of times before, most recently at the historic house after the heritage society meeting, speaking with Ben Nezer. She had to be Sarah Nezer, Ben’s mother. “Does anyone know that woman?” Jaymie asked, returning to Valetta, Jacklyn and Heidi.

  They all glanced where she was motioning.

  “That is Mrs. Sarah Nezer, abandoned ex-wife of Evan Nezer,” Jacklyn said, confirming Jaymie’s guess. In a puzzled tone she said, “It’s weird; why does she look so happy to see the cider house on fire? Unless . . . well, the fire is awfully close to her ex’s house, isn’t it?”

  “What are you saying?” Jaymie asked, turning her gaze to Jacklyn Marley. The ghostwriter appeared troubled.

  “Nothing. Nothing, really!” She stood staring. “It’s just . . . what is she doing here in the middle of town at this time of the night?”

  Jaymie looked back, but the woman was gone.

  Five

  It was a gloomy November morning in downtown Queensville, suiting Jaymie’s mood. She hugged her arms around her purse and yawned. Suspicion and anger had kept her awake all night, tossing and turning, Jakob snoring serenely at her side. As annoying as this was, she was still determined to somehow make Dickens Days a success, and so had filled her SUV that morning with all the stuff for her Dickens diorama and had parked close by so she didn’t have to tote it too far.

  But right now Jaymie stood with Bill Waterman watching the township fire inspector surveying the damage to the cider house.

  “Who do you think did it?” Bill asked. He had not been on the scene the night before as he lived out of town, and didn’t hear about it until the Wolverhampton Weekly Howler broke the news with Jaymie’s pictures in the online edition.

  “It could have been an accident,” Jaymie said, but her tone was half-hearted and unconvincing.

  The inspector, a broad-shouldered middle-aged man wearing a navy blue uniform, red and gold Queensville Township Fire Department patch on his shoulder, was crouched down, clipboard in hand, examining the electricity post and shaking his head. Bill strode over to speak with him. “Dale, there wasn’t even anything plugged into the electricity last night and there wouldn’t be until we were actually up and running,” he said, his voice loud enough that it easily carried back to Jaymie standing twenty feet away. “No matter what you think about the electrical outlet, it is not the source of the fire.”

  “Bill, don’t get your unders in a knot. I’m just checking.” The man stood and finished making notations on his clipboard, which he then tucked under his arm. He was a smidge taller than the older handyman.

  “What do you think caused it?” Bill asked, craning his neck at the booth, trying to see all the details.

  “You know I can’t hazard a guess at this point, and I wouldn’t even if I could. I’ve got a few more things to do, then I’ll be making my report to the police.”

  “So it’s arson?”

  “I didn’t say that,” the fire inspector said patiently, his lined face weary. “I would be making a report either way. You’ll have to wait like everyone else.”

  Bill paced back to Jaymie. “I know Nezer had something to do with it.”

  “We don’t know that, Bill,” Jaymie said, thinking of Sarah Nezer and her expression as she watched the fire.

  “I’m gonna make sure they consider it.” He strode off to follow the fire inspector, who stopped and turned, listening to the handyman.

  Valetta brought Jaymie a hot cup of tea in a thermal mug and stood with her across from the village green, staring at the burned wreck of the cider booth. It had been so cute, a simple square structure, about six by eight feet, with a marquee over the counter on which Bill had painted some sheet music. “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” was picked out in black notes, with the words in gold script, holly sprigs painted in the corners. Now it was a blackened shell, debris and burnt chunks littering the grass around it, the paint that was left curled and cracked, just one O showing. There was still an acrid smell coming from the wrecked husk whenever the wind wafted through it.

  What were they going to do now? Their annual Dickens Days festival featured free hot cider for tourists who had come for the beginning of Dickens Days. It was heavily advertised on their website, in their brochure and in all Dickens Days print and radio ads. The cider booth being destroyed changed everything, and was devast
ating to one of the heritage society’s two moneymaking events of the year.

  “What are we going to do?” Jaymie fretted, giving voice to her worries. “There’s no time to build another one.”

  Valetta, in deep thought, didn’t answer for a long moment. Finally, though, she leaned in to Jaymie and murmured, “You know, we do have a security camera mounted up on the top of the Emporium now. I don’t think it looks over this far, but it may have some footage of value on it.”

  Jaymie looked up in surprise but quickly looked back to the burnt-out booth, her heart and mind racing. “I did not know that.” She glanced up quickly and spotted a very small addition to the roof of the Emporium. “How did I not know that?”

  “It’s recent, and we didn’t exactly make it public.”

  “I hate to ask, Val, but would you . . . could I—”

  “Have a look at it before I tell the police? You know it, my friend in investigation. If you hadn’t asked, I would have suggested it. Let’s go.”

  They headed up the slight rise to the Queensville Emporium. As they entered and passed by the cash register, Jaymie waved to Gracey Klausner, granddaughter of the owners and soon-to-be manager, but followed Valetta to the back. There was a lunch room behind her pharmacy that doubled as an office that was rarely used in this digital age. The Klausners now had another one of their granddaughters, who was an accountant, looking after the books, but with everything available digitally now, she did that off-site. Mostly the room held boxes of overflow goods for the shelves. They lined the walls, piled high, cartons of baked beans, soup, juice boxes and pop.

  Valetta used it more than anyone as a lunch room when the weather was too foul to eat her meal outside, either on the porch or at the picnic table under the oak tree by the store. She pushed a chair over for Jaymie and sat down behind the desk, accessing an elderly computer. She tapped the mouse and brought up a split screen of wavery images that appeared to be a live view of all sides of the Emporium. “We’ve got four cameras set up and they digitally record everything, one month’s worth of video, before it begins overwriting old footage.”

  Jaymie squinted and stared at the screen. “So that’s the view we want, right?” she said, pointing to one of the four boxes. “Can we get that full screen?”

  Valetta adjusted her bifocals and tapped away at the computer keyboard, then moved the mouse pointer, accessing the correct video camera. “Look, you can see to the cider booth, just barely,” she said, pointing out the view of the village green. “I didn’t think you’d be able to. Maybe we hit the jackpot.” She wound back through the hours, the timer spinning backward. “When should I go to?”

  “Uh . . . maybe eight or nine last night?”

  “That early?”

  “We can scan quickly until we see movement, right?”

  “True.”

  “You never know what will be useful.”

  She found eight p.m. Jaymie leaned forward as Val scanned through quickly. It was weird, seeing the town’s activity in such a way. She caught a glimpse of her own SUV as she headed through town to Val’s place. Mrs. Bellwood scurried past in quick time with Roary, her pug, which stopped to pee on one post holding up the Emporium porch; Petty Welch speed-walked through town, then ten minutes later returned, her routine fitness walk now that she had moved into Queensville; cars came and went.

  A thin figure with a bulging shopping bag bustled across the street and disappeared behind the Emporium, then reappeared, the bag empty.

  “Who was that, I wonder?” Jaymie asked.

  Val stopped the film and glanced over at her. “You know, I noticed a while back a lot of gin and wine bottles in our recycling bin. I wasn’t worried about it, but . . . I noticed. Now, seeing this, I have a feeling I know who puts them there.”

  “Who?”

  “Really, Jaymie, you don’t know?” She backed up the video footage and restarted it at normal speed. “Look at the angle the person took as they crossed the road.”

  Jaymie watched. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. “That’s Georgina, my brother-in-law’s sister!” And manager of Kevin and Becca’s store, Queensville Fine Antiques. “She’s a secret drinker!”

  “And she hides it by bringing her empties and disposing of them in the Emporium’s recycling.”

  “I wonder if Kevin knows?”

  “Probably. How could he not? Maybe as long as she does her job well he doesn’t care.”

  “Does her job well? She’s rude, even to customers sometimes!”

  “Part of the shop’s charm, from what I’ve heard,” Val said dryly. “You would not believe how many tourists come in here chattering about the British manager over at QFA, and how she was so hoity-toity. Americans love being abused by a Brit.”

  Jaymie rolled her eyes. “Not me. But she does give excellent customer service. I’ve watched her. She’s knowledgeable and can source something in minutes. She’ll go out of her way to help a customer find something, and she can spot a fake and give a value within, as she says, a farthing.”

  “She’s never drunk on the job, right?”

  “Not that I know of,” Jaymie admitted. “I’ve never seen it, at any rate, and I’ve spent hours with her. It’s none of my business what she does in her off hours.” But was Georgina happy in her new job and new town? Did she miss home? She vowed to take more time to get to know her brother-in-law’s sister. In the past she had been so determined to stay out of other people’s business that sometimes she missed a cry for help, or an extended hand of friendship. Georgina was standoffish, but maybe that masked a friend waiting to be made.

  They kept watching and saw a shuffling fellow push a shopping cart along the street. He left it on the curb and took the same rout Georgina had, disappearing behind the Emporium, then reappearing with a bulging bag, which he put in the cart. He then continued on.

  “And that, my friend, is why I leave the gin and wine bottles in the recycling bin at the back,” Val said. “That’s Amos.”

  “Amos? I know him,” Jaymie said. “He was homeless, but now he rents a room from Johnny Stanko in his house down near the river.”

  “When I was a kid he was the school custodian, but he’s fallen on hard times, I think.”

  “He was the designated town drunk for a while,” Jaymie said. “Maybe staying with Johnny is helping his sobriety.”

  “I hope so, for his sake. He’s such a nice old dude.”

  As Amos trundled away with his cart, Jacklyn Marley could be seen circling the Emporium from the direction of the stairs that led to her apartment above. She jammed her hands in her coat pockets and disappeared off camera. Nine forty-five, and no smoke yet. A large male figure lumbered into sight, moving from the river side of town down the main street. Jaymie squinted. “I think that may be Johnny,” she said suddenly.

  “Good call!” Val said. “It is.” It was Johnny Stanko, who galumphed by with his recognizable gait. “He’s probably on his way to Cynthia’s.” Cynthia Turbridge, who owned the Cottage Shoppe, was Johnny’s sober buddy.

  It was fascinating to see the village life in such a form, folks coming and going, driving, strolling, jogging and walking their pets. Amos headed back, passing by the Emporium once again, pushing his cart off in another direction, past the line of pine trees, disappearing into shadows and then beyond the camera’s range.

  There was a period of inactivity, and then movement. “Who’s that?” Jaymie asked.

  A figure approached the cider booth from the Nezer house side, pushing through the pine trees. With the distance, the grainy black and white of the video and the booth obscuring the person, it was impossible to even figure if it was a male or female. He or she appeared to be clad in a long coat, but it was hard to tell.

  “I don’t know,” Valetta admitted, squinting at the screen. “But look!”

  There were some odd motions of an arm, something glinted in the glow from the light standard, and then a flare. There was an arcing flash and then, as the f
igure retreated between the pines, a flame flickered and built on the cider booth.

  “That’s it. That’s it!”

  Jaymie and Val watched as the cider booth erupted into flames, the flare blinding the camera at times. They witnessed the arrival of the fire trucks, and the firefighters’ swift action, then the moment that Jaymie rushed to the scene and shot out of the SUV.

  “It’s like a grainy black-and-white action movie,” Jaymie said. “Well, you have proved positively that it was arson. The firebug looked like they came from the Nezer property. Do you think it was one of them?”

  “I don’t know. It could be. Or it could be someone wanting to hide. Those pine trees provide good cover.”

  “You mean you think they knew about the camera on the Emporium?”

  “Not necessarily,” Valetta said, pushing her glasses up on her nose and squinting at the screen, where she had backed up the video and paused it, with the person throwing some flammable liquid, presumably, at the cider booth before torching it. “It could have been a convenient way to hide his or her actions from anyone passing by.”

  “I guess that’s true.”

  “I’m going to call the police. Can you see if the fire inspector is out there still?”

  As Jaymie had hoped, the fire inspector had already determined that it was arson and called the police. The destroyed booth was cordoned off with police tape, and Officer Ng was standing by it, arms crossed, legs splayed. She looked around but Bill had retreated. Haskell Lockland and Mabel Bloombury, representatives of the Queensville Heritage Society, stood speaking with the fire inspector and Detective Macadams, who had been promoted and replaced a departed detective a year before. Drifting over to join the heritage society members and eavesdrop, she heard the fire inspector reassure them that everything was being done as it should be.