Out of the Ashes

by Cynthia Reese

So that was another nail in the coffin for the theory of Kari burning down her own business. Who would want to let down the mayor’s picky daughter? Or ruin her growing business, for that matter?

  “Did anyone not like Kari?” Rob asked. “Anyone who saw her as a threat or her business an obstacle?”

  Mr. Hiram screwed up his face in concentration. For a long moment, he just shook his head. A thought must have occurred to him, though, because his bushy white eyebrows sprang up in a classic “aha!” move. “There was a young man who seemed to agitate her—a repeat customer, I suppose. He’s been around more the past month or so. Tall, shaggy blond hair, wears T-shirts and those awful cargo shorts that hang from the waist and show off your underwear—oh, and flip-flops with socks.”

  That sounded like a spot-on description for Jake, Kari’s brother. “Could you pick him out of a six-pack if I brought you one?”

  “A six-pack?” Mr. Hiram frowned. “Of...beer?”

  “No, I mean, six photos of similar looking men. Sorry. My police lingo got the best of me.”

  Mr. Hiram had the audacity to smirk. “A six-pack, hmm? I shall have to remember that term. It will impress my wife—she’s always reading those police procedurals.” He began dusting off the spotless display case. “Why, yes, I believe I could. You bring your, eh, six-pack over to me and I shall give it a try.”

  “And what made you think this fellow agitated Kari?”

  “Well, they seemed to disagree, for one. They were talking excitedly the day of the fire. Oh, wait! I suppose you’ve checked out Mr. Charlie Kirkman? Because he certainly had a contentious relationship with all of his downtown tenants. And he was arguing with Kari that same afternoon.”

  Rob sighed to himself. The brother and the landlord—nothing new at all in the way of leads.

  “Yes, Charlie Kirkman’s been cleared of any direct involvement...and we can find no financial trail to indicate that he hired someone to do the job. But, er...” now Rob put his fingers to his lips and glanced ostentatiously to either side and said, “keep that under your hat, will you?”

  Mr. Hiram nodded. “You have my word. Let’s see...let me think.” Now in an absent-minded way, he pulled out a tray of watches from the case and began polishing them with his jewelry cloth.

  He’d made it to watch three before he said, “No, I can’t think of anyone who seemed to have a cross word to say about Miss Kari Hendrix. She does so many nice things for so many people. When Jack Stewart—they own the little bookshop down the street from her—wound up in the ICU, Kari made up a basket of treats for Mrs. Stewart and took it to her in the hospital. The only way I found out about that was when Mrs. Stewart came in here to buy a little thank-you gift for Kari. And Kari’s always donating things to the Downtown Association for raffles and fund-raisers. Look—there she is now—see Kari?” Mr. Hiram gestured with the cloth in his hand over Rob’s shoulder.

  “She’s handing out treats for the business owners who are still trying to salvage things.”

  Rob turned to see where Hiram was pointing. Sure enough, there was Kari, with a big basket lined with a gingham cloth, doling out...not muffins. A glazed pastry of some sort, from the looks of it.

  “Well, how could I have forgotten!” Mr. Hiram murmured to himself. “Alan Simpson—he owns the pawn and gun shop next door to Kari. He’d been after Charlie to move Kari down to another spot, so that Alan could expand the shop. I didn’t think about that until I saw them together just now. See? Kari’s handing him—oh, my, do you think she’ll bring one of those bear claws of hers over here?” The jeweler’s eyes sparkled with anticipation. “I could do with a little midmorning pick-me up!”

  It was as if Kari had read the old man’s mind. Rob saw her smile and nod at Simpson, then cross the street and head straight for the jewelry shop. A moment later, the bell jangled and she came breezing in.

  “Mr. Hiram! I brought you a—” The bright smile on her face froze as she spotted Rob.

  “A bear claw!” Mr. Hiram either didn’t notice her sudden stumble in speech or chose to ignore it. He put the watches back, deftly opened the walk-through gate between the counters and met Kari on the customer side. “I was just telling young Mr. Monroe here that I hoped you’d remember me.”

  “Would...would you care for one?” she asked Rob. She held up the basket with a great deal less enthusiasm than she had for Mr. Hiram.

  “Oh, you must try one!” Mr. Hiram urged. “They are addictively good! Why, my wife buys a half dozen once a week, just as a treat for me.”

  Rob picked up the pastry and bit into it. A rush of butter and sugar flooded through him. The bear claw melted in his mouth.

  “And I thought Ma was good in the kitchen. Is there anything you can’t cook?” he mumbled around the mouthful of heaven he was devouring.

  Kari’s cheeks were rosy pink, and she ducked her head. “Sure. I’m not really a cook. I’m more of a baker. So, you know...if it doesn’t involve flour and butter, sometimes I—well—I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

  She made a show of handing another pastry to Hiram and wringing out a promise that he would save it for his wife. With that done, Kari practically sprinted for the door. “See you around, Mr. Hiram!”

  “Wait, Kari, I’ll walk with you.” Rob brushed off the glaze from his fingertips and hurried after her.

  Out on the sidewalk, he saw how she bit her lip—an anxious habit he’d already noticed the previous times he’d been around her. “I assume this has something to do with the investigation?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Tell me about your relationship with Alan Simpson.”

  Kari seemed genuinely startled by the question. “Mr. Simpson? Who owns the gun shop? He’s my neighbor—shop neighbor, I mean. I don’t know him well, but he seems nice enough.”

  “He wasn’t pressuring you to move to another location?”

  Kari shifted the basket to her other hand and let out a breath of what sounded like exasperation to Rob. “Not pressuring, exactly. He wanted to expand his shop, but Charlie let me have the space because I agreed to pay a higher rent for it.”

  “Do you think Simpson would have resorted to scare tactics?”

  “Huh? You mean, did Mr. Simpson start the fire to burn me out? Why would he do that? His own shop suffered almost as much damage as mine—plus, he had all those bullets in there! He talked about how scared he was for the firefighters because he was concerned that the bullets would explode from the heat.”

  “Maybe he didn’t bargain on it being such a big bang?” Rob countered.

  Kari shook her head, a firm, decisive no. “Not in a million years. All he had to do to get me out of there, whether I agreed or not, was to offer Charlie more money. You know how Charlie Kirkman is.”

  “But you had a lease, right?”

  Kari snickered. “And since when does any lease from Charlie not contain a few handy loopholes for him, hmm? No, Rob. I don’t know who burned these buildings, but it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Alan Simpson, and it probably wasn’t even Charlie. Like I told you yesterday, I just don’t know who could have started that fire.”

  Rob had to admire the way she refused to throw anybody under the bus. Most people—and he had to admit that the majority of the people he interviewed in the course of a day’s work were of the criminal variety—wouldn’t have been so considerate. No, they would have jumped on the prospect of a pushy neighbor with the enthusiasm of a duck on a june bug.

  Still, it didn’t help further the investigation.

  “Kari...everybody I talk to keeps saying how nice you are, how you don’t have a single, solitary enemy. So why would someone go to the risk and the trouble of burning down your business?”

  “Maybe it was a prank gone wrong,” she said. “Do I ever know a thing or two about that.” Kari closed her eyes, apparently visualizing her own crime of ar
son so many years before. She opened them and fixed Rob with a glare. “But if it is, if it’s a kid out there who didn’t realize the destructive power of fire, well, maybe he learned his lesson. Because I for one realize exactly how destructive time behind bars can be. It wouldn’t fix anything, Rob. It wouldn’t rebuild these buildings. It wouldn’t pay one dollar to replace what was destroyed. If it was a prank, let it go. Just...please. Don’t make some other kid endure what I went through.”

  And with that, she did a crisp about-face and hurried up the sidewalk away from him.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  KARI SHADED HER eyes as she searched the early-morning crowd at the weekly farmers market and adjacent flea market just off the Waverly downtown area. Alice Heaton had said she would meet her here, but Kari couldn’t spot Alice’s roly-poly frame—she was even shorter than Kari—among the early morning bargain hunters.

  Alice had been the only good thing about juvie—the one saving grace. The cook had found her sobbing on her birthday, homesick as all get-out and had hauled her up to her feet. “You want a birthday cake? Well, all it takes is flour and sugar and butter. Why don’t you come on and we’ll bake one together?”

  Her call yesterday had been just what Kari needed. In the three weeks since the downtown fire, Kari had been going all out, trying to deal with fulfilling orders and wrangling with the insurance company—and its elusive insurance adjustor.

  But Kari still wasn’t sure she’d been wise to agree to meet Alice. After all, she had cakes to bake and piecrusts to roll out.

  A tap on her shoulder made Kari wheel around. There Alice was, all 4­10" of her, her cheeks round and flushed, her eyes full of their usual gentle smile.

  “Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes! No, let me look at you—girl! You’ve grown. Seems like yesterday you were nothing but a snip of a thing.”

  She let Alice wrap her in a hug and she tried not to cry. This woman had believed in her, had given her a chance, had given her a life, when no one else had.

  Alice patted her on the back. “Now, now. You cry if you need to. You don’t mind these folks. We’ll find a quiet corner and just talk if that’s what you’d rather do. It is hard, I know. That bakery was your dream, and you worked hard to make it a success.”

  But even if Alice had given her permission to fall apart, Kari couldn’t do it. Not here. Kari gazed at the bustle all around them. Little kids were dashing here and there, sporting handmade toys and finds from the jumble sale, while their parents dawdled through the fruit and vegetable stands under the big pavilion the city had built just for that purpose. Few towns as small as Waverly could boast such a vibrant local market.

  Still...she had a kitchen to get back to. “I’m okay, Alice. I’m glad you wanted to come, but I may not have much time to spend. I’ve only planned on making contact with another supplier of organic eggs. I don’t have a lot of free time. You know how it is. I’ve got three cakes to get out, and a double batch of cinnamon rolls, plus two dozen cupcakes—”

  Alice tucked her arm around Kari. “You always were a hard worker. But, child, the sun is out, it’s a gorgeous fall day, and you’ll get all that baking done. That’s why Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb, honey, so we could work after we’ve had a little fun. Didn’t I tell you that?”

  Kari smiled. “Only a million times. I’m sorry, Alice. I’m so glad you’re here.”

  Now Alice sobered again. “I was late because I stopped by your old shop. When will you get a check from the insurance company?”

  Kari breathed in the delicious aroma of hot mulled cider from one of the vendors. “I’m not sure, but...it will come. I’ve been driving myself crazy worrying about it because they’ve got to do this investigation. But right now, standing here with you, you make me believe that it will all work out.”

  Alice beamed. “Why, sure, it will. You’ve come through harder times than this, don’t I know that? Now you tell me all about it while we poke around and explore this place together.”

  And with that, Alice led her off to the tables with all their sparkling jars of preserves and the late-season produce spilling out of bountiful baskets and bins.

  It was only much later, when the sun began to rise in the sky in earnest and the crowds seemed even thicker, that Kari actually remembered her original intention. She spotted a colorful booth filled with jars of jams and wire baskets with smooth brown eggs on a bed of ice. A handwritten placard on the front of the red checked tablecloth proclaimed Locally Grown—Pastured Eggs.

  Kari left Alice at the booth with homemade soaps and her assurance that she’d come back in a moment. She hurried up the aisle between the stalls, working her way past the people inspecting late summer tomatoes and peppers and the very earliest of the fall butternut squash.

  “Excuse me, are these eggs organic?” she asked the woman sitting behind the table.

  The woman, her dark hair shot with silver and pulled back in a bun, looked up from the knitting she was clacking away at. “Organic? Well, no, not technically—it would cost us too much money to get the certification, but I can assure you, they’re from pastured chickens, and we use organic principles.”

  Kari smiled. Something about the woman seemed familiar. Maybe she’d been a customer? “I’ve definitely heard that before—the cost to get certified can be rather high. I guess for my purposes, I’m more interested in how the chickens were raised rather than if you actually can call them organic.”

  The woman nodded. “We have a farm right outside of town—try to grow as much as we can of what we need. Say, don’t you own that bakery?”

  “You mean the Lovin’ Oven? Yes.”

  The vendor tsked. “Now, that was a shame, that fire. Awful. I do hope you’re going to be able to stay in business. Our Taylor sure does enjoy your cupcakes.”

  So she was a customer after all. “I have a terrible memory—I seem to know you, but I can’t—” Kari shrugged, embarrassed.

  “Oh—you probably don’t know me. I’ve only been in your shop maybe twice. But now, my daughter DeeDee and my granddaughter Taylor? Maybe you’re thinking of her. The one who has the corn allergy?”

  “Oh, yeah!” Now the pieces of the puzzle clicked into place. “Sure, I remember—so DeeDee is your daughter?”

  “Yes, ma’am, and we are eternally grateful to you for the times you’ve been able to bake something safe for Taylor. I bake, mind you, but she does like fancy things.”

  “It’s truly my pleasure,” Kari said, satisfaction warming her. “And I hope your eggs will fit the bill. I’d like to buy local if I could.”

  “Well, now—the person you need to talk to about those eggs would be my son—he helps me out with them. Let me see—”

  Now it was the woman who was shading her eyes and searching. “Wait, there he is.”

  She pointed to another vendor’s stall two or three booths down, but all Kari could see was a sliver of broad shoulders in a plaid shirt through the crowd of bodies. “I don’t—”

  But the woman had a more efficient way of communicating with her son. From her apron pocket she produced a cell phone. “What did we ever do before these things came along?” she said with a wink. A quick call later, and the woman said, “He’ll be here in a jiff. Whatever questions you have, he’ll be happy to help. We’d love to have your business—you must use a lot of eggs every day.”

  “Yes, I do. But farm-fresh eggs are a luxury I can’t always afford. The price here seems more than reasonable.”

  “It’s a shame to charge more when all that those chickens do is live off our land—and we have plenty of eggs. Ah, here he is!”

  Kari looked up to see none other than Rob Monroe bearing down on her.

  * * *

  KARI WAS STILL befuddled a few minutes later as they sat on a bench away from the various market-goers. She was tr
ying to focus on what Rob was saying.

  “So, no, not organic, but almost, if there’s such a thing. We’re organic in spirit.”

  “I can’t picture you raising chickens,” she blurted out.

  It was true. She couldn’t. Fighting fires, investigating arson, sure, but chickens?

  “And why not? Don’t I look like a chicken man?” Rob’s eyes crinkled at the corners, his smile lighting them up. “I’ve been raising chickens since I was in fourth grade. It was my 4H Club project all through middle school and high school. I took blue ribbon prizes for three straight years—although, I have to admit, my dad helped me with my first project.”

  “Wow. That must have been nice, having a dad around.”

  For a split second, a shadow passed over Rob’s face, and she recalled that his father had died in a fire. An arson.

  A shiver ran through her.

  “Your dad wasn’t around?” Rob asked.

  “Uh, no. Don’t get me wrong...he’s not a bad sort. It was just, you know how divorce is...”

  “Not really. My parents stayed together, and I’ve never been married. Came close once, but...it didn’t work out.”

  Kari nodded her head toward a little girl about four, happily digging in the soil of the community flower garden. “I was about that little girl’s age when Dad left. My mom caught him with his secretary. Before then, things were...well, Jake says they were picture-perfect, but it can’t have been like that if my dad decided to fool around with a woman nearly half his age. He was a manager at a plant here, and he arranged for a transfer to another facility owned by the company.”

  “So do you see him?” Rob’s voice was gentle.

  “Not much. Having kids wasn’t anything he ever really wanted, I guess. He married the secretary, and moved up the company ranks, and then a few years later, she found him with his new secretary. He didn’t marry that one, at least...but they’re together. Out in California.”

  “Ouch. That had to hurt.”

  Kari shrugged. “Truth be told? I barely remember him being at home. Now, Jake...it really bothered Jake. Still does, I guess. And I think that’s why my mom...”