Feel the Heat

by Lorie O'Clare

  “Really?”

  “Sure. That’s how it always is.” She tried sounding relaxed and cheerful as she scribbled on the notepad in front of her.

  She wrote: He started the two house fires. Then added: Killed John Corelli.

  Captain Odgers’s eyes grew wide as he moved closer to her switchboard.

  “Now if that doesn’t just prove to me how much all those cops are assholes.”

  “Why do you say that?” Mary asked, glancing at her captain when he pulled his cell out of his pocket.

  “Because a beautiful woman is alone at the police station all day long while those jerks skip around town in their fancy uniforms thinking they are all that. But they aren’t. No one is protecting you.”

  “Maybe you should protect me,” Mary said, lowering her voice.

  “Mary,” he said, suddenly sounding exasperated. “I’m a very, very intelligent person. If guys with brains got all the pussy instead of guys with brawn, every lady in this town would be tripping over the others to get to me. I know if I came down there, you would arrest me.”

  “I can’t arrest anyone, silly,” Mary said. She thought she lied pretty well and almost grinned at the odd look the captain gave her. “All I do is answer the phones.”

  “You’re proving to me more and more what idiots our cops are. No wonder they didn’t guess those two fires were started on purpose. And I hate that there has to be a third, but it will be necessary. Then you’ll open your eyes and realize good looks don’t matter as much as brains.”

  “Why is a third fire necessary?” Mary asked, turning in her chair when Odgers jumped up with his cell pressed to his ear. He moved into the hallway, probably so he could speak and not be heard, but continually glanced at her and the switchboard.

  “Because, sweet Mary, you’re fucking Nate Armstrong.”

  Mary spun back around, gawking at her switchboard. “What? Why do you say that?” she stammered. Had the entire town come to that conclusion after seeing her leap into Nate’s arms plastered across the front page of the paper?

  “You’re too damn smart for him, Mary. I know you haven’t forgotten. Think! Think!” the caller began yelling. “Think and remember. You always were the smartest,” he said, his voice a cool, chilling rumble through the phone. “Next to me, of course.”

  There was a click and Mary leapt out of her chair. “Are you there?” she said. “Hello, are you there?” Then she slapped her desk in front of the switchboard. “Damn it!” she hissed, yanking off her earpiece when the light that was lit up showing the caller was on the line went dead.

  An hour later, Campbell, the fire chief, and Odgers talked quietly in the break room. Mary flipped her switchboard to speaker and paced, desperately wanting to be part of their conversation yet knowing she had to man the phones. There hadn’t been a call the entire time Campbell had been here, as if the entire town were hushed in quiet anticipation, already aware of the caller who had claimed responsibility for killing a firefighter, threatened to kill another, and said he did all of it because of Mary.

  “Campbell told Odgers they already suspected arson on the fire that killed Corelli.” Jeremy had returned in the cruiser shortly after Campbell showed up and had dubbed himself official eavesdropper. He’d made himself at home in the doorway of the break room, commenting from time to time on something the chief or captain said, as if he were supposed to be part of their conversation. Then just as easily, he’d slip away from the break room and come to her to give her an update. “Now Mary, you need to think,” he said, narrowing his brows as he gave her a firm look. “This fruit loop is starting fires and killing firefighters for you. Who do you think he is?”

  She hadn’t thought about anything else and was pretty sure she told Jeremy as much with a look. “I don’t know.” And it was bugging her to death. “There’s something familiar about his voice.”

  “Mary?” Odgers yelled from the break room.

  Mary stepped around Jeremy and entered the break room. “Yes?”

  “Meyers, man the phones!” Odgers yelled, then, without waiting for a response, gestured to the chair in between him and Campbell. “Have a seat, Mary.”

  Mary did and stared at the tape recorder in the middle of the table, noticing it wasn’t on. The two men had been listening to the phone call.

  “There are a few things this guy says that I want to ask you about.”

  “Okay.”

  “First of all, he is claiming responsibility for two house fires in the past month. Campbell tells me his men have already determined a small handmade bomb was ignited in the furnace of the first house fire,” Odgers said, letting his words fade off. He didn’t have to add that it was the fire that had killed John. The knowledge hung heavily in the air around them. “His men are over at the house that burned last night by the school. If they determine a bomb was ignited in the furnace, then our caller is more than likely definitely for real.”

  It hadn’t crossed her mind that they didn’t believe the caller at first. Mary had had a few prank calls over the years but none that sounded as twisted and weird as this call. He was too crazy not to be for real.

  “We’ve got commonalities in the two houses.” Campbell took over the conversation. “Both homes were old, made out of wood, had outdoor entrances to cellars that weren’t used as part of the family dwelling, and would go up in flame quickly if a fire was intentionally started.”

  “So our guy is either familiar with fires or simply observant and made good guesses on which houses would easily ignite into flame.”

  Campbell nodded. “It isn’t rocket science with some of these old homes. And the guy made a point of saying how smart he was.”

  “Which leads me to a question,” Odgers said.

  Mary pulled her attention from Campbell and switched it to Odgers. Her captain was watching her with those watery eyes and his bushy eyebrows pulled tightly together. “I want you to think hard, Mary. He says you already have all the answers.”

  “I know.” Mary relaxed her face in her hands for a moment. “I keep hearing him say that in my head and wish to God I knew what he meant by it.”

  “He also said you were the smartest in your class other than him.”

  “Anyone who went to school with me would know I often made honor roll.” She wasn’t bragging. “There were several of us who usually got the award at the end of each semester.”

  “Were there different levels?” Odgers asked.

  Mary wondered if he knew whether his kids ever made honors or not. He didn’t sound familiar with the award for grades, and Mary was pretty sure the schools still gave out the small ribbons for students who pulled all A’s.

  “Actually, there were. There were high honors, honors, and second honors. If you got all A’s, you got high honors. I think one B was honors and two B’s were second honors.”

  “Which one did you usually get? And was there someone who always did better than you?”

  “Lord, Captain. That was a long time ago.” She lowered her head again, dragged her fingers through her hair, and barely noticed when they tangled where her hair was tied back. She tried remembering grade school, then high school. Memories of being in the gym: her name being called, and standing and facing everyone when she was handed a ribbon for her hard efforts. Everyone would applaud and she’d always searched the kids’ faces on the bleachers until she found Nate. Usually he had made a face at her. “I remember the award ceremonies, but they all seem to run together. That was a long time ago.”

  “I understand,” Campbell said, reaching out and patting her hands, which she hadn’t realized until that moment she’d clasped together until her knuckles were white. “I’m happy if I can remember last week sometimes. But we still have a firefighter in danger,” he added, his tone clipped and concerned.

  His words grabbed Mary’s attention. And she was sure that was his intention. He studied her, understanding crossing his face. “We’re going to make sure nothing happens to Nate,” he ad
ded, and cleared his throat. “I’ve already sent one of my guys over to his place to check on him and he isn’t there.”

  Campbell didn’t say anything else but stared at her. Mary dropped her gaze but wouldn’t put her privacy over Nate’s safety. “He is asleep at my house,” she said under her breath.

  Thankfully neither man reacted to her admission. Campbell did pull out his phone, though, and placed a call. “Armstrong is over at Mary Hamilton’s house sleeping. You know where she lives? … Okay, good. Go wake him up. I want someone with him until we have this cleared up.”

  Mary glanced from her captain to the fire chief, more than anything wanting to race out of the break room and over to her house. She wanted to be with Nate. He would be safe and at the same time he would protect her. No crazy person would hurt either of them if they were together.

  “What’s that?” Campbell asked, still on the phone and looking at her and Odgers for the first time since his conversation began. “Positive confirmation? You’re sure?” He paused and nodded. “Excellent. Very good…. Yes. Go check on Armstrong. Have him give me a call.”

  He hung up his phone and stared at Odgers. “Both houses burned as a result of a homemade bomb being tossed into the furnace.”

  “Interesting.” Odgers scratched his nose, focusing on the tape recorder. “Mary, I need you to try really hard to remember the names of the other students who made honors while you were in school.”

  Nate grumbled as he headed down the stairs, ready to give whoever it was pounding on Mary’s front door a piece of his mind. They were hitting it hard enough to break it down and they were about to learn the hard way she wasn’t unprotected anymore.

  Nate flipped the lock and yanked the door open, then glared at a runt of a man standing in front of him, his fist raised to knock again. “Did I wake you?” he asked, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

  “What do you want?” Nate growled, and tried hard not to stare at the scars all over the puny man’s face.

  “Captain Odgers sent me over here, sir.”

  Nate stiffened, the fog lifting from his brain in the next second as he stared at the strange small man. “What’s wrong? Who are you?”

  The small man laughed, “It doesn’t surprise me you don’t remember me, Nate. But we went to school together. I’m Dudley Milestone. I started down at the station about a month ago, helping with reports and filing. I work with Mary.”

  The strange little man’s face lit up as he mentioned Mary. There was something vaguely familiar around the guy’s eyes, but Nate was pretty sure he’d remember a guy who looked like this.

  “Is there something wrong with her?”

  Again Dudley shifted his weight. “There is,” he said almost inaudibly.

  “What?” Nate didn’t mean to yell and scowled when the little guy winced. “What’s wrong with Mary?”

  “They sent me over to get you.” Dudley began wringing his hands. “Someone called into the station this morning and claimed responsibility for the two house fires in the past month, including the one that killed John Corelli,” the guy added, dropping his voice to a dramatic whisper.

  “Wait right there.” Nate raced up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and damn near dove into his clothes. He was coming back down the stairs with his shoes and socks in hand, still barefoot. His shirt wasn’t tucked in and he wasn’t going to think about what his hair looked like. It was his day off and Mary was upset. He would take care of her first and worry about him later. “Let’s go.”

  He frowned when his car wasn’t in the driveway. Then remembering Mary had driven his car to her house last night, he figured she must have used it to get to work this morning. She wouldn’t have had a way to get back to her car until she got off work and he drove her to it.

  “You’re driving,” he told Dudley, and glanced across the street when an older woman stood at her front door staring at him. Let the neighbors talk. They would just have to get accustomed to seeing him with Mary. “And gun it, little man,” Nate ordered, managing to squeeze his tall frame into the small car before adjusting the seat to give himself enough legroom so he could put on his shoes.

  The grotesque little man looked incredibly proud of himself.

  Mary paced the hallway between the break room and her dispatch cubicle. The captain was in the front hallway, talking quietly on his phone as he stared out the large window facing the street. It was after three. Two more hours and she was out of here. Once she was alone with Nate it would be easier to put all of this into perspective. The fire chief had headed back to his station, his morose look mirroring her own expression. She tapped her finger against her lips as she repeated the call in her head.

  There wasn’t any reason to play it back again. Since this morning she’d heard the recorded call a handful of times and it played in her head repeatedly, the man’s voice taunting her.

  “I’ve already got all the answers,” she mumbled, wishing she could make sense of it. All she could figure was the man meant she already knew him. Hell, she knew everyone in Meredith Curve. There weren’t many in town her age she hadn’t gone to school with. She couldn’t think of anyone she knew who would intentionally start a fire.

  Although today someone had proved they weren’t as right as she’d thought. Mary never would believe one of their own would hurt anyone in town. Meredith Curve had its bad guys, crooks and vandals. But as long as she’d been on the force, there had not been one single murder. She’d witnessed a few accidental deaths. Tragedies happened. They were awful. And up until this morning she had thought that was what John’s death was, a terrible tragedy.

  Now she knew he’d been murdered.

  “Mary, we need to talk.” Odgers stopped her pacing when he appeared in the hallway.

  The door to the police station opened and a wave of thick perfume floated toward her. She peeked around the doorway as Odgers turned and groaned.

  “Is it true you received a threatening phone call this morning, Miss Hamilton?” Jennifer Wilson was a splash of pink with too much makeup on her face and perfume applied heavily enough to be nauseating.

  “Where did you hear that?” Mary didn’t see what Nate had ever seen in this bitch.

  “Jennifer, you need to hold on for a few minutes.” Odgers took Mary by the arm and started escorting her away from the reporter.

  “I heard the caller holds you responsible for John Corelli’s death?” Jennifer called out, ignoring Captain Odgers’s comment about waiting a few minutes. Her singsong voice rang off the walls of the station. “Is it true there is an insane man in town so infatuated with you that he is trying to kill another of our honored firefighters?”

  Mary tripped over her own feet, Jennifer’s words slicing through her like a sharp knife.

  “Mary.” Odgers almost pulled her into the break room and turned her, holding both of her arms now. “Ignore her and listen to me.”

  Mary blinked, staring at Odgers’s watery eyes and thick, bushy eyebrows as they closed in on each other. “What’s wrong now?” she asked, not wanting to hear any more bad news.

  “I sent Pearson over to your house to meet the firefighters Campbell sent over there when Armstrong didn’t answer the door.”

  “I’ll go unlock it.” She tried turning from Odgers, but he held his grip on her.

  “Mary,” he stressed, sounding almost apologetic.

  “What?” She stared at him. “What’s wrong? Where is Nate?”

  “We don’t know,” he said on a sigh, and finally let go of her. “They managed to get into your place and searched the entire house. I’m told it looks as if he was asleep and dressed quickly, then left. A few of his things are still there, but, Mary, Nate isn’t there.”

  “He doesn’t have a car and I can’t imagine he would wake up this early in the day and start walking somewhere.” She shook her head, her brain already on overload, and this new bit of information simply wouldn’t sink in. “He’s got to be there, Captain.”


  Odgers shook his head. “Your neighbor across the street, Mrs. Rush, reported Nate Armstrong left your house about half an hour ago with a very small man, who appeared to be somewhat disfigured. He was driving a new, bright orange Volkswagen.”

  “What?” She almost stumbled backward but grabbed the counter and shifted her attention around the room before settling it on the doorway. There was a mean reporter out there who would have a field day with Mary’s frazzled brain. “You don’t think the man who called me went over to get Nate?” It didn’t make sense. “Nate wouldn’t take off with someone he didn’t know.”

  “We’re guessing the man probably told him something convincing enough to make Armstrong leave willingly with him. According to Mrs. Rush, this man was almost a foot shorter than Nate, possibly half his weight, with scars all over his face. He had brown hair, was dressed in slacks and a tie, and had a huge grin on his face when he got into his car and backed out of your driveway.”

  “And I’m supposed to know someone who meets that description?” She’d never actually lived through a nightmare before. It was definitely the most unpleasant experience she’d ever endured. “God, Captain, I need more clues.”

  “Okay. You went to school with him. He was smarter than you are. Apparently most would refer to him as very ugly. He obviously resents good-looking people. And he knows how to build a simple bomb and start a fire deadly enough to bring down a house.”

  Mary stared at him, listing his sentences in outline format in her brain and reviewing them as she willed a face from her past to appear. Smart and ugly.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered, covering her mouth with her hand. “There was a boy.” She hurried past the captain and down the hallway to Jennifer.

  Immediately Jennifer thrust her microphone in Mary’s face. Mary grabbed the thing and tossed it over her shoulder. “I need your help,” she began.

  “What the fuck?” Jennifer screeched, leaning over the counter and staring at her microphone when it clamored to the floor and rolled under a chair. “Get that right now, you snide little bitch,” she hissed, pointing her dagger-like fingernail at Mary.