A Question of Fire

by Karen McCullough

  He smiled and the effect nearly unbalanced her. Not just that he could smile, but to see how the lines of his face relaxed into astonishing charm and the warmth glowed in his green eyes. "Help me clear Danny, and I'll dismiss any and all charges," he offered.

  "You really want my help finding what Bobby knew?"

  "You have a good mind and access to resources that might be useful. You believe in his proof and want to find it as badly as I do. And since you're determined to pursue this... You still intend to? It would be wiser and safer for you to get out of it completely, you know."

  Cathy drained her tea and he poured more for her. "Yes, I'm going to pursue it," she stated. "I know it's dangerous, believe me, I know. I hope by now they're convinced I don't represent any threat to them. But even if..." She considered how to put her feelings into words without getting mawkish. "Oh, hell, this is going to sound sloppy and ridiculous, but it's the truth. I can't help thinking about Bobby and how he died. It haunts me. I've got to try to accomplish what he wanted, to get Danny off the hook. And find out who killed him. I can't not pursue it."

  "I see," Lowell said. "In that case, I think I'd rather be working with you than tripping over you all the time."

  "And I thought lawyers were supposed to be tactful."

  "This is Saturday. I'm off duty. And speaking of tact, are you going to tell me what happened at that party?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "You said Gary rescued you from an embarrassing situation."

  "Oh, that." Cathy felt herself blushing at the memory. "Not on your life." She finished the last of the food on her plate. "So, where do we begin?"

  The gleam in his eye suggested he hadn't given up, but he went along with the change of subject. "I've arranged with Danny and Patty go to the apartment this afternoon. Not that we're likely to find anything the police and the intruders missed, but we shouldn't take anything for granted, either. Patty wants to pick up some things and she's afraid to go back by herself; I'd also like to ask her some questions. Can you arrange to be free to come along?"

  "Let me find a telephone."

  There was one in the restaurant lobby. She called Ray and learned things were quiet at the newspaper office. He had no objection to her spending time on the murder case.

  Cathy followed Lowell to pick up Danny. They pulled in at the curb and she waited while he knocked at the Stark's front door.

  Someone opened it and he disappeared inside. Several minutes passed, and she was starting to wonder whether she should go after him, when Lowell reappeared at the door and signaled her to come in. She switched off the Honda's motor and got out.

  "You'd better come look at this," he said as she walked toward him.

  - 9-

  Saturday

  "What is it?" Cathy asked.

  He shook his head but didn't say anything, just opened the front door and held it for her. She walked in, then stopped in the small living room and looked around: furniture was overturned, drawers pulled out and their contents strewn across the carpet; trash cans emptied, and broken bits of knickknacks littered the floor. Danny and another man lifted a reclining chair which had been pushed onto its side. In the kitchen, Mary Sue Danforth exclaimed over the genealogy of the perpetrator.

  Lowell walked across the room and put a hand on Danny's arm. "Don't touch anything else," he warned, then called, "Mrs. Stark, Mrs. Danforth, come in here, please."

  "What happened?" Cathy asked.

  "Just a minute," Lowell answered as Danny's mother and aunt came in from the kitchen. Mary Sue was furiously red-faced, Betty Linn greeted them courteously in a wavering, shaky voice. Lowell looked around the room. "Danny tells me you found the house this way when you got home from the funeral?"

  Mary Sue answered. "No respect for the dead or grieving families. Imagine breaking into a house while a family's at a funeral. I say the world's a sad place when you can't even go to church—"

  "Excuse me, Mrs. Danforth," Lowell broke in. "Was the house locked while you were gone?"

  "Of course it was. We have more sense than to go off and leave it open. We don't invite every Tom, Dick, and Harry to come right in and make himself to home."

  "The door was still locked when you got back?"

  "Yes."

  "Have you called the police?"

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  Both women looked at Danny.

  "Forget that. It's not relevant. Your house has been burglarized, and that's a matter for the police. Where's the phone?" Lowell made the call, giving the bare minimum of information. When he hung up, he turned back to the women, who both stared at him dubiously. "Was anything taken?"

  "So far, we ain't found nothing missing," Mary Sue answered.

  Lowell turned to Danny. "Do you know Patty's number?"

  He nodded.

  "Call and tell her we're going to be late."

  The police arrived ten minutes later, but it was more than an hour before they were able to leave. In that time, the officers talked to each member of the family, dusted for fingerprints, found a window that had been pried open and talked to neighbors, none of whom would admit to having seen anything. They left, little wiser than when they'd arrived, promising to be back in touch as soon as they knew anything.

  Lowell all but dragged Danny out the door, over the noisy objections of his aunt, who regarded his presence as essential to the cleanup operation. Cathy breathed a sigh of relief when they shut the door behind them. A little of Mary Sue went a long way.

  Lowell stopped on the walk and looked at his companions. "I hope they didn't find what they were looking for."

  "I don't think so," Danny answered. Lowell looked at him. "When I first got in, I heard a sound out back. I think they were still here and ran when they heard us. So they hadn't found nothing yet. Another thing," he added, a flicker of smugness crossing his face. "They weren't the only ones who thought Bobby might've hidden something here."

  "You searched the house?" Lowell asked.

  "Ma wanted to clean up for guests after the funeral, so I offered to help. I checked the whole place."

  "You didn't find anything?"

  "No."

  Lowell stared at Danny, then smiled and clapped him on the back. "Good work." Danny's face changed briefly under the lawyer's approval, then resumed its usual guarded reserve.

  The two men got into Lowell's Datsun, and Cathy followed it to a modest house surrounded by an immaculate yard. The men alighted and went to the front door, returning a few minutes later with the small girl Cathy had seen in church. She still wore the blue dress.

  Lowell brought her to Cathy's car, opened the passenger door, and leaned in. "Do you mind if Patty rides with you? I think she'll be more comfortable."

  "Of course I don't mind."

  He backed up and said, "Patty Richardson, this is Catherine Bennett."

  "Cathy,” she corrected. “Hi Patty," Cathy added as the girl maneuvered herself into the car. "The lever's down there to move the seat back."

  She looked grateful as she slid the seat back. She had large, shy brown eyes. Lowell shut the door for her, then got back into the Datsun.

  "Miss Bennett? You're the lady Bobby talked to the night he... he..."

  "Yes." Patty remained silent, and Cathy had to work up her nerve to say the next words. "I know it's inadequate, but I really am sorry about Bobby. He seemed like a good, decent person. I'm sorry this happened; I know it must be hard for you."

  "Yeah, it's pretty bad; but worse for Bobby, I guess. I don't understand it. He was a good person, whatever anyone else may say about him. He was good and kind and—" She couldn't say more for the tears starting to run down her face.

  "There are tissues in the glove compartment."

  She reached in and took a handful. "I'm sorry, Miss Bennett."

  "Please, call me Cathy. What's to be sorry for? You've got a perfect right to be upset. I'm sorry if my being here makes it worse."

  "No. Oh, no, it's n
ot. Mr. Lowell told me how you felt about Bobby, and I'm glad you want to find out who killed him. I hope you do and he gets what's coming to him. Bobby didn't deserve to die." She wiped her eyes and nose. "You know what I'm sorriest about? Bobby will never get to see his baby, and the baby won't know him. It's awful. He was so excited, too. Ever since we found out, he's been working extra hours at the shop so we could save money to buy a nice crib and all. He would've made a good father; he always said he'd never treat a kid the way his father treated him."

  She stopped to mop again, but tears continued to roll down her cheeks. "We were gonna get married, too. Next month."

  Following Lowell, Cathy turned into a small parking lot next to a tired-looking, four-story brick apartment building. Danny led the way up a dusty staircase to a set of rooms on the third floor, while Lowell put an arm around Patty's waist and helped her up the steps.

  Patty unlocked the door, and said shyly, "The place is kind of a mess. I didn't try to clean up after the burglars or the police."

  "Good," the lawyer approved. "Better you didn't."

  It was a disaster, too, not unlike the mess they'd just left at Mrs. Stark's house. Cathy was getting tired of the heavy-handed style of redecoration.

  Patty showed them around. From a small living room, a tiny kitchen and dining area opened to one side, while on the other a short hallway led to two bedrooms with a bathroom between. Only the larger bedroom was in some order. Patty regarded it sadly. "The cops searched in there, too," she said, "but at least they were neat about it and put everything back where it belonged."

  The other bedroom had been converted to a workroom. A long bench occupied a third of the space and steel shelves lined the walls. All were covered with tools, broken and disassembled small appliances, and bits and pieces of electrical equipment.

  "Bobby liked fixing things," Patty said simply.

  "He was good at it," Danny added. "Someday he wanted to open his own shop for repairing things." The young man bent down and picked up a toaster oven from the floor. The door latch was broken. He cradled it gently, holding the door closed, and set it back on the bench.

  Lowell sat at the desk in the living room, sorting through scattered papers from the drawers. Most appeared to be bills or circulars. He looked at Patty as they came back in the room. "Where did the police find the drugs?" he asked.

  "There in the desk. Back of the bottom drawer," she answered. The lawyer shook his head, sighed, and looked disgusted.

  "Would you like some coffee?" Patty asked.

  "Yes, thanks," Cathy answered, and Lowell accepted also.

  Patty disappeared into the kitchen, and Danny went back to the workroom. Cathy looked around the sad living room. Windows filled one wall, and an air conditioner perched in the extreme left one. The front had recently been removed and hastily replaced: a loose screw hung out of one corner.

  Lowell went through each drawer of the desk in turn; Cathy walked over to watch. Aware of her presence, he reached back into the top drawer, pulled out a pair of bank record books, and handed them to her.

  Feeling guilty about prying into a dead man's financial affairs, she nonetheless flipped through them. The top one was a savings account record, showing a current balance of seven hundred and fifty dollars. It had been added to in increments of fifty and one hundred dollars over the last eight months. The other was a checkbook and she followed the ebb and flow of the balance which never went above eight hundred nor below fifty. She closed the books and handed them back to Lowell. "He wasn't living lavishly."

  "No." He dropped the books back on the desk and closed the bottom drawer. "There's nothing here. The air conditioner was taken apart, probably by the police, and there's only one heat register. I've already checked it out."

  A bookshelf stood near the desk; it hadn't contained many books to begin with, but they were now scattered on the floor. Cathy picked one up and started to replace it on the shelf. A framed photograph had been sitting there; it now rested face-down. She put the book down and picked up the picture.

  Patty and Bobby smiled out of it, arms around each other. It wasn't a close-up, but sharp focus revealed their faces in some detail. A strong resemblance between Danny and Bobby showed in the prominent cheekbones and angular jaws, as well as the curve of eyebrows and the dark coloring they shared. But Bobby's face held the poise and maturity of a man who'd come to terms with life, something Danny hadn't achieved yet.

  She replaced the picture, standing it upright on the shelf as Patty brought in a tray from the kitchen. Two cups of steaming coffee rested on it, as well as a pitcher of amber liquid, probably iced tea, and two tall glasses full of ice. Lowell took the tray from her and placed it on a table. Patty poured herself a glass of iced tea and sat on the sofa. Lowell took both cups of coffee, brought one to Cathy, then turned the desk chair to face the couch, and sat down.

  "Patty, you know what we're looking for, don't you?" he asked. "Do you have any idea what Bobby might have found, and where he might have hidden it?"

  She shrugged. "The cops already asked me and I just don't know. Like I told them, Tuesday night, Bobby told me he'd gotten word on some guy who might know something about the fire, and he was gonna go see him the next day. But I had to go to work, so breakfast was the last time I saw him. When I got home, he wasn't here and he didn't come back."

  Danny wandered in from the other room. Patty pointed to the tray, and he poured himself a glass of tea, then sat at the other end of the couch.

  "Did Bobby have a security deposit box or some other special place to keep valuables?" Lowell asked.

  "He didn't have any valuables to keep," Patty answered, shaking her head.

  "And you can't think of any place he might hide something?"

  "I'm sorry, Mr. Lowell, I just can't."

  He smiled at her. "Let's try a different approach. Obviously you don't know where Bobby went on Wednesday. Where might he have gone? If this were an ordinary Wednesday, say."

  "To work, of course."

  "Okay. Suppose he had the day off; then where might he go?"

  "Usually he spent his days off here at home, working in the shop. Sometimes he went to see his Mom, of course, and Danny; but more often Danny would come here."

  Danny nodded. Cathy had already noticed he seemed more comfortable in his brother's apartment than in his mother's house.

  "Did Bobby have any other friends he spent time with?"

  Patty thought about it for a moment.

  "There was Dave Jackson," Danny suggested.

  "Oh, yeah. Bobby sometimes went to the races with Dave."

  "Do you know his address or telephone number?"

  "No, but he worked at the body shop. They can probably give you his number."

  "Good. Anyone else?"

  She shook her head. "He didn't have many friends and he didn't go out much."

  The coffee was instant and not very good, but Cathy sipped it anyway. "He went to the races sometimes. Stock car races?" she asked.

  "He didn't go often. Once or twice a year, maybe."

  "Any other place he liked to spend time?"

  Something occurred to Patty. Cathy and Lowell both saw it, but she seemed hesitant to mention what she was thinking. "Yes?" Lowell prompted.

  "Well, you're gonna think this is kind of crazy."

  "Try us."

  "There's this old guy runs a junkyard down on Hudson Street. Calls it a spare parts dealership. The guy's really strange, but he used to let Bobby search his yard for old junk. Sometimes he'd keep a lookout if there was something special Bobby needed. Bobby liked the old guy and sometimes sat and talked to him."

  "Do you know the old man's name?"

  "No... No, wait. Ike, I think that's what Bobby called him. Old Ike."

  "And the place is on Hudson Street?"

  "Right."

  "Okay. Anything, anybody else you can think of?"

  "No."

  "How about you, Danny?"

  He shook his he
ad.

  Cathy ventured a question of her own. "Have either of you ever met or heard Bobby mention a man named Ed Hammond?"

  Patty and Danny both looked blank, so she wasn't surprised when both denied any knowledge of him.

  Lowell looked at her. "At least we've got a place to start."

  - 10-

  Saturday - Monday

  After they'd dropped Patty and Danny at their respective homes, Lowell leaned in the window of her car and asked, "Could you stand another cup of coffee? Real coffee?"

  Cathy admitted she could probably handle it. He got back into the Datsun and she found herself following him once again. She began to feel like the tortoise racing the hare since her Honda didn't have the kind of acceleration the Datsun could generate. She checked her rearview mirror several times on the way but didn't see another car following.

  Their destination proved to be a tiny, dark hole of a place in a small strip shopping center. Inside, however, the bakery-coffee shop featured tables topped with cheerful gingham tablecloths—real cloth, not vinyl—wrought iron chairs and gleaming brass fixtures. The heavenly smell of freshly baked bread drifted from the back.

  A fiftyish woman stood behind the display case/sales counter, putting out a batch of pastries so light Cathy wouldn't have been surprised to see them float away. They obediently kept their place, however, and the woman looked up and beamed at the sight of Lowell entering.

  "Peter!" she called across the room, at a level just below a shout. "Stranger! You've been neglecting us. Almost two weeks now!"

  Lowell smiled. The expression took several years off him so that Cathy, who'd guessed he was in his mid- to late thirties, was forced to lower her estimate. That look also held an unforced warmth and charm. He introduced her to Marilyn, the owner of the shop, and explained that the press of business had kept him away.