He raised a brow. “Maybe not to you.”
She tapped her toe anxiously. “You ought to be hound-dogging the murderer instead of terrorizing little old ladies.”
“What makes you think I’m not?”
Lexie clenched the plate so hard her knuckles turned white. “You’re taking your sweet time about it. Meanwhile, my life’s become a living hell.”
“Solving a murder is no piece of cake. We’re talking two here, along with Elton’s assault.”
“I think you’re in over your head, Gabe Stevenson. I think I could do a better job of getting to the bottom of this. It is my town, after all.”
Gabe stiffened. “Don’t even think about doing anything stupid, Lexie. Let the law handle things.”
“In the meantime, how do I survive? My business is ka-put-ski and the whole town hates me.”
“You’re a resourceful woman. You’ll think of something.”
Lexie glared at him. “How dare you be so condescending? You have no idea what I’m going through.”
He was silent for a while, as though mulling over what she’d said. “I will tell you this and only this. Someone doesn’t like you, Lexie. Someone I think is very strong and driven by jealousy. I believe they’re responsible for all the recent crimes and they may be after you.”
Lexie shivered. “What do you suggest I do? Hire a bodyguard?”
“Tell me who might want to hurt you and why. In the meantime, lay low and be careful.”
Who would want to hurt me?
Lexie’s mind was a blank. Soul weary, she rested her head against the bars. This was terrible. Like a nightmare. Deep down, she feared it might never end.
“Hey.”
Miserable, she glanced up at Gabe.
“I know you love to hate me. But I’m your friend. Not the enemy. OK?”
Despite her irritation, Lexie relaxed at the sound of Gabe’s smooth, reassuring voice. Smooth and reassuring like the devil’s forked tongue. With her index finger, she rubbed the ache between her brows. “I’m tired of all this.”
“I know.” He smiled. “If you’re really good, I might get you out of here in a couple of hours.”
“Oh, joy,” Lexie said.
“By the way.” Stevenson’s hazel eyes twinkled mischieviously as he looked her up and down. “Nice tutu.”
Lexie’s face prickled with heat as she watched him stride back to the sheriff’s office.
Everything was quiet.
It was nearly midnight and black as ink outside in the crisp November air, except for the bright stars and luminous moon that covered the sleeping neighborhood with a silvery cloak. Dark branches on the old elm tree outside Lexie’s bedroom window scratched the glass, like the fingernails of a night creature tapping to gain entrance.
She sat back in the dainty chair at the writing desk in her bedroom and snapped her journal shut. The only light was the small lamp on her desk, an amber glass antique that had been in the family for years. Originally kerosene, someone along the way had wired it for electricity. Shadows from furniture danced around the room, creating an eerie atmosphere.
Lexie shivered—why, she didn’t know. Maybe a goose had walked on her grave. There was no reason for her to be so jumpy, but she felt funny. She and Aunt Gladys had stayed close to home since the jail incident and everything had been fine. With the café closed, Lexie had too much time on her hands and Aunt Gladys whined with boredom. She’d kept both of them busy cleaning the house, weeding the backyard, and painting the restaurant area. Since Christmas was right around the corner, they’d made several batches of Grandma Castleton’s suet pudding and put it in coffee cans to steep with age.
Always, niggling at the back of her mind, was one unsettling fact. Her savings were getting low. After the attic renovation, Cousin Bruce’s bribe money was nearly gone as well. Gabe had told her to lay low and she was doing her best. Sooner or later she and Aunt Gladys would run out of mundane chores and cash.
Then what would they do?
One thing was certain, they couldn’t starve. She’d have to go out in public and try to find a job. Or try to get a hold of Bruce again. Cousin Bruce— the great escape artist.
Lexie sighed with weariness and recalled her mother’s quilting frames. She could dig them out of the garage and set them up to make a quilt. That would kill some time and Eva would get a new cover for her dorm bed. Whether she needed it or not. There was fabric and batting and yarn in one of the hall closets where she stored her craft items. She wouldn’t even have to leave the house to gather sewing notions. Making the quilt would probably kill them with sheer boredom, but it’d keep them busy.
For the moment, at least, Aunt Gladys was asleep upstairs. Everything was peaceful, though a creepy sensation continued to tingle Lexie’s spine. With difficulty, she ignored it. It was not the time to give in to unease. It was the time to concentrate on where she was heading with the mess that had become her life. And when she wrote in her journal, she had the chance to reflect on things.
Wearing her comfortable old gray sweats and slippers and sipping a cup of chamomile tea, she’d written about the Halloween Festival/jail fiasco. While it had been frustrating to live through, in retrospect, it was funny.
Two old ladies in a cat fight? Transvestites in Moose Creek Junction? She smiled, despite all the damn trouble her aunt could manage to brew up. She was, however, extremely glad it was over. She didn’t want to think about what mischief the old gal might get into next.
Lexie’s journal was a relic of the divorce class she’d taken right after she and Dan had broken up. The therapist had encouraged the group to write down all their feelings of rage and sadness in order to vent them. Hopefully, instead of allowing negative emotions to remain bottled up, if you wrote them down and aired them, you could get rid of the hate and keep it from festering.
She’d felt foolish at first, writing about her deepest inner thoughts. Afterward, she became hooked. The journal became a journey of her soul and she realized things about herself. She found out that since she was a little girl, she’d felt overshadowed by her powerful preacher father and outspoken sister. She’d never felt good enough, no matter what she tried to achieve, so she’d quit trying.
That’s the reason she’d so easily latched onto Dan Lightfoot, even though she’d sensed in her young heart he would be difficult. He was strong and commanding and believed in her. At the time, his attention was intoxicating and addictive. As the years rolled by, Lexie let herself believe she needed him to exist and overlooked his transgressions: the physical abuse, his controlling attitude, and his extramarital affairs.
She glanced down at the slightly bent joint on her right ring finger. She’d injured it during a particularly bad argument with Dan in which she’d dared to fight back. Her fighting back hadn’t accomplished a thing: she’d only managed to injure herself.
The fight had finally knocked some sense into Lexie, however. A woman shouldn’t have to be hit in order to be loved. It wasn’t right. It was physical abuse, pure and simple, even though Dan believed it wasn’t. To him, he was just letting her know who was boss. It’s my way or the highway, he’d told her. His words had extinguished the light in Lexie’s soul and her love for him had withered and died on the vine. Her bent finger symbolized her determination to get her life straight again.
Lexie’s nostrils twitched and she wrinkled her nose. Sniff, sniff.
An odor tickled her nostrils and made her sneeze. Smoke?
It really did smell like that. It seemed to be coming from somewhere in the house. A smoke alarm’s loud, piercing shriek pierced the stillness. It sounded like it was coming from downstairs. Lexie’s frayed nerves snapped.
She stood and saw a curl of gray mist coming in under her door.
Aunt Gladys.
Random thoughts flashed through her mind and she started to hiccough. Either Aunt Gladys had lit candles for another Ouija board ceremony and one had fallen over and caught something on fire, or Frenc
hie had snuck upstairs and they were having another medicinal smoke and had caught the sheets on fire. She grabbed her purse and checked the door to make sure it wasn’t hot, then slid from her room out into the hallway. Holding an arm in front of her mouth and nose, she made it up the night-lit stairs to the attic, coughing and hiccoughing alternately. She flung open Aunt Gladys’ door, hurried to the bed and shook the elderly woman’s shoulder.
“Wake up, Aunt Gladys!” Hiccough. “Fire!”
Aunt Gladys moaned and rolled over to stare at Lexie with bleary eyes. “Tired? Yes, of course I’m tired …”
“No, we’ve got to get out of here,” Lexie urged between hiccoughs. “The house is on fire.”
Aunt Gladys sniffed and coughed. “Oh, my …” She sat up and reached for her robe and slid on her slippers. She also managed to grab her glasses before Lexie threw a protective arm around her shoulders and dragged her down the smoky stairs and out into the frosty night air.
Standing on the sidewalk, Lexie shivered as the smoke alarm pierced the chill night like a finely sharpened sword. Through a fog of disbelief, she noted most of the smoke was billowing from her kitchen, on the west side of the house. Distressed, she struggled to recall whether she was paid up on homeowner’s insurance.
What a ridiculous thing to worry about!
Shock had taken hold of her, clenching her tightly in its grip. The smoldering house in front of her wasn’t just any house. This was her parents’ house. Her grandparents’ house. No amount of insurance could replace the sentimental value of the heirloom Victorian.
Another loud shrill pierced the night air—a fire engine.
“Hell’s bells. This is all my fault,” Aunt Gladys sobbed as she slipped on her robe. “I left a candle burning in my room.” A fit of coughing overtook her and she bent over to wheeze.
“Who knows, hiccough, how the fire, hiccough, started, Aunt Gladys.” Lexie patted her aunt’s shoulder reassuringly, shivering mightily in the cold air, glad someone had called the fire department. Her head still swam with confusion, but it wasn’t the time for blame. “The important thing is we weren’t hurt.”
“You mean you’re not mad at me?”
“Heaven’s no.”
“You’re a good egg, Leslie.” Aunt Gladys began to cough again, her shoulders trembling.
Lexie held tightly onto Aunt Gladys until the fit passed. The fire could have been caused by an electrical problem, she thought to herself. Or someone could have started it.
The question was, who?
The neighbor from next door, Al Whitcomb, a tall, elderly, barrel-chested man with a thick black beard hustled out of his house wearing his sweats and a heavy jacket. Lexie thought he must look a little like Blackbeard. “Are you two all right? I saw the smoke when I took out my trash and called the fire department.”
“Thanks, Al. We’re fine.” Lexie wondered why Whitcomb was taking out the trash at such an ungodly hour of the night. She shivered when an icy breeze sliced into her and she curled her cold toes in an attempt to keep them warm. It didn’t work. They were slowly becoming ice cubes.
Trying desperately to suppress hiccoughs, Lexie looked around, noticing several people stood on their porch steps talking excitedly. Did someone set the fire in order to burn her out and run her out of town?
Was it one of her neighbors? Were they that devious and desperate? Or was it the person Gabe said wanted to hurt her out of spite and jealousy?
The murderer?
Despite her paranoia, all Lexie could process was that she and Aunt Gladys were safe. Eva was safe in her dorm room at college. The fire department was on its way. Everything would be all right.
She hoped.
“I know who did this.” Aunt Gladys held up a crooked index finger. “It was that boy-man. Junior. He’s been fooling around up on the roof and I knew he was up to no good.”
Lexie patted her aunt on the shoulder. “It doesn’t matter.”
Siren blaring, the Moose Creek Junction volunteer fire fighters rounded the corner in a well-outfitted red and gold ladder truck and barreled toward the house. Within seconds, fire fighters in hats, rubber boots, and yellow jackets poured from the rescue vehicle, unleashed long hoses, and headed up to the smoking house. Like a well-oiled machine, the men hoisted their hoses and doused the licking orange fire, daring it to stay alive under a good wet shower. The stubborn flames lit the sky with a sick, unnatural glow and Lexie’s stomach sat in her abdomen like a lump of bread dough.
Before long, the fire seemed to be under control. A fire fighter, his yellow rubber slicker covered with ash, walked up to Lexie, Al, and Aunt Gladys. He was a tall, burly man with a sandy-colored handlebar mustache. The crinkled lines around his eyes were lined with gritty soot and dirt. Lexie got the impression of a mad hornet coming their way.
“I’m Chief Bob Plowman,” he said sternly as he walked up to them. “Was everyone out of the house?”
“Yes,” Lexie said.
One of Chief Plowman’s eyebrows cocked. “You the owner?”
Lexie nodded and hiccoughed. She took a deep breath and swallowed.
“You’re lucky,” Plowman said. “Fire’s out. Were you cooking anything?”
“No. Is the house …?” Lexie was almost afraid to ask the question. “Salvagable?”
“Sure. Damage was contained to the kitchen. You’ll have to hole up somewhere while the fire marshal conducts his investigation and your insurance company can get someone out to do repairs.”
Plowman nodded at an ambulance. In her shock, Lexie hadn’t noticed its arrival. “They’ll check you folks out,” he said.
One of the ambulance attendants walked over to Lexie, a short, rotund fellow with a serious expression. “You all right, ma’am?”
“I’m fine.” Hiccough. “But my aunt isn’t.”
Aunt Gladys clutched Lexie’s arm as another paroxysm of coughing racked her frame.
“Smoke inhalation,” the attendant said, taking Aunt Gladys’ elbow. “And let’s check you out, too. Just to be on the safe side,” he said to Lexie as he took Aunt Gladys to the ambulance.
The bustling EMT crew asked both Lexie and Aunt Gladys questions as they sat in the back of the ambulance. They covered them with blankets and took their vital signs. Lexie’s hiccoughs finally stopped, but Aunt Gladys’ cough didn’t seem as though it was going to quit any time soon.
One of the paramedics had Aunt Gladys lie on a gurney and covered her mouth with an oxygen mask. Then he approached Lexie and said in a low voice, “Your aunt’s condition has us concerned. She’ll need to go to the hospital in Westonville for observation for a few days. Her lungs may have been burned slightly by the smoke. That coupled with her age and high blood pressure … well, we’d better be safe than sorry.”
“Of course.” Lexie clasped her blanket more tightly, angrier by the minute about who would have the nerve to burn her house down. Then she thought of Bruce and his callous attitude toward his mother. She’d told him to come and collect his mother, hadn’t she? It wasn’t safe for Aunt Gladys to be here. Now look what had happened.
The EMTs continued to fuss over Aunt Gladys and Lexie tried not to think the worst. They were doing their jobs, doing everything they could for her.
“Leslie?” Aunt Gladys clawed at her oxygen mask, staring at Lexie with questioning eyes.
Lexie held her wrinkled, age-spotted hand. “Don’t worry, Aunt Gladys.”
“What’s happening?”
“They’d like you to go to the hospital for a few days for observation.”
“I don’t want to go.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I hate hospitals. The doctors and nurses are all such schmucks.”
“I promise you’ll be fine.”
“Don’t let them keep me there,” Aunt Gladys pleaded. “It’ll kill me if I have to go back and live in a place like that.”
“It’s only for a short time, then you can come home,” Lexie assured her, though she wondered where home would be un
til the house was repaired. Take it one step at a time, Lex.
Aunt Gladys gripped her hand tighter. “Promise me, Leslie. Promise me you won’t put me away again.”
Lexie’s heart melted. She knew despite the old woman’s penchant for driving her crazy, she couldn’t let her down. “I promise. I’ll bring you home as soon as you’re well enough. Now you’ve got to rest.”
“Thank you.” Aunt Gladys closed her eyes. “That’s more than my son, the idiot savant, ever offered to do.”
After the ambulance had hauled Aunt Gladys off to the hospital, red light atop the vehicle blinking in the swirling night mist, Plowman approached Lexie again.
He removed his hat and wiped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. “You won’t be staying here tonight, ma’am. You’ll want to call family or find someone to stay with for now.”
“You can use my phone,” Al offered.
She nodded.
“Me’n the boys will be working here a little longer checking for hot spots and making sure nothing starts to cook again,” Plowman explained.
“What happens next?” Lexie asked.
“We’ll get the county fire marshal over here in the next couple of days to determine the cause of the fire.”
“What if it’s arson?”
“The fire marshal will file a criminal report and turn it into the police for investigation.”
A lot of good that will do, Lexie thought. So far, they hadn’t been much good at ferreting out a murderer. She was certain they wouldn’t have much luck tracking down an arsonist. “Thank you, Chief.”
He gave a sooty grin. “Just doin, my job, ma’am. Just doin’ my job.”
CHAPTER 17
FOR PETE’S SAKE. THIS IS AWFUL,” LUCY TOLD Lexie the next morning as they discussed the fire. She had immediately come to fetch Lexie at Al’s after the fire, and they sat in Lucy’s front room, decorated in Mom and Dad’s hand-me-down Cold War furniture, along with Nana McCool’s ancient vacuum tube television with a dead spider in the screen. Of course, it no longer worked, but Lucy had covered it with one of Mom’s handmade doilies and placed a plant on it. A spider plant. How fitting, Lexie thought every time she saw it.
The Saucy Lucy Murders Page 26