“Thank God for you all.” I told her as my voice cracked a little.
“Just doing our jobs, ma’am.” She said with a bit too much humility.
“So do you know what started the fire?”
“Well, we’ll have to let the fire marshal give the final word but it sure looks like it was started by someone.”
Suddenly Joseph shifted his stance. It was almost defensive.
“Who in the world would want to start a fire on our property?”
“There’s no way of knowing anything yet. Could have been a vagrant. Might have even been accidental. It’s just too early to tell for sure,” she told him.
I had more than a good idea of who it was but I didn’t want to say in front of them.
The firefighter looked towards the smoldering lot.
“Well, we’re gonna stick around for a little longer and make sure there are no flare ups then we’ll head out. You should try and get some sleep. I think the police are gonna keep an eye on this street for the rest of the night just in case; so it should be safe.”
Her words were somewhat comforting but I wasn’t worried. I knew exactly what this was. It was a message to back off. Dugray was telling to keep my nose out of it. I guess he didn’t know me very well. He’d just put my kids in danger. Oh yeah, it was on.
Chapter Eleven
The next morning, I had barely finished telling Cole about the fire in my vacant lot when he blurted that he’d meet me at Indian River Coffee and hung up. We both pulled into the parking lot at the same time. As we walked towards the door of the coffee shop I was being grilled by Cole.
“You’re sure you and the kids are okay?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“What about your house? Any damage?”
“No damage. Just some burned trees.”
I could see the anger in Cole rising so I tried to bring him down a little.
“We met a cute fire fighter lady and I didn’t see a ring. Bet I could get her number for you.”
“Are you trying to change the subject?”
“Maybe. Look I’ve been through all the emotions myself and I’m over the so angry I want to rip his head off phase.” I told Cole.
“Well, it may take me a little longer to get there.”
I could see him trying to compartmentalize everything so he could get back on the task at hand. To find Dugray before he did something else stupid and dangerous.
“So, we have Dugray identified at the scene of the office fire,” Cole declared as he walked me towards the coffee shop.
“Yes. We just need to find him so he can be arrested. He isn’t top priority for the police. I get that. But after last night he’s definitely top priority for me.”
“Me too! Now we have to go looking for him. That’s why we met here. I’m gonna need serious amounts of coffee for this.”
“I reached ‘serious’ a cup ago,” I confessed.
“And yet you still look tired,” he said, holding open the door for me.
“Well, I haven’t gotten much sleep for two nights in a row.”
“Maybe we should buy one of those boxes of coffee they use for catering,” Cole quipped.
I stopped and looked at him with wide eyes. “That’s a great idea! You’re a genius, Cole.”
“I was kidding! We are not getting a box of coffee!”
I walked up to order.
“Charlotte, don’t order a box. It was a joke. One cup, you hear me?” Cole said, practically begging now.
I carried my two cups of Breakfast Blend to Cole’s car. (He’d told me not to order a box!)
“You have a serious problem,” Cole told me.
“I do. I don’t know where to start looking for Dugray.”
“That wasn’t what I was referring to, but okay. How do we figure out where to begin our hunt? Truthfully, he could be long gone by now.”
“If he was going to leave town, he’d have done it already. He doesn’t want to leave his son, even if he can’t see him. He’s here somewhere. His car—“
I stopped talking as memories of his car at the gas station passed through my thoughts.
“What about his car?” Cole asked.
“His car was packed full of stuff! To the point you couldn’t see in the windows. Like he was living in it.”
“Well, we know he lost his house so that’d make sense.”
“Right. Where could he park his car though? Parks are patrolled. Even the Compound down in Palm Bay has a police presence more often than not these days.”
“Plus, he had to be positioned close to the office to get there during the fire, right? And when he showed up that night…he was probably nearby.”
“What’s near the office? Where could he hide out in his car?”
“I have an idea,” Cole said, excitedly. “Leave your van and ride with me.”
Cole drove us to an abandoned strip mall not far from our office. Local developers were known for letting older properties deteriorate while they built brand new empty storefronts to entice new businesses. For every outdated, unrepaired commercial property there were three shiny new ones with “for lease” signs.
This particular one had once held a daycare, a Karate school and a movie theater, among other things. Now, it was overgrown, colors faded, and a haven for homeless wanderers. Cole drove slowly around the back of the building.
A few men in ragged jeans and t-shirts stood scattered, leaning against the stucco walls, smoking cigarettes or sitting on the asphalt with a bag of their belongings. Steps away, a retention pond sat nestled by palm trees. A picturesque scene so close to the harsh reality of living on the streets.
“There’s a car up ahead,” Cole whispered, as if anyone could hear us.
“That’s his car,” I told him, sitting up straight in my seat.
“You sure?”
“I’m positive. Look, the front end is damaged where he ran into my van!”
Cole slowed to a crawl and pulled to the side nearest the pond. I took my baton from my purse.
“So, do we approach him?”
“Uh, no. I’ll call the police. You just keep an eyes on his car.”
At that moment, the driver side door opened and Dugray tumbled out, barely remaining on his feet.
“He’s drunk,” I said, stating the obvious.
“And he’s walking away. If I follow him in the car, he might run. Though I don’t think he’d get far.”
I put my baton back into my purse and opened my door.
“Call the police. I’ll just walk behind him.” I assured Cole.
I eased my way towards his car without him noticing me, and got within a few feet of him. As I stood near the back end of his car, one of the other homeless men suddenly yelled at Dugray. He turned and saw me. I stood there, frozen while he yelled a few expletives my way. He ran faster than I imagined he could, and tackled me. We fell to the ground with me on my back.
I struggled to free myself from his grips, but his body weight restrained me. He kept yelling and his spit fell onto my face. His fist swung by my face, but I turned my head in time to avoid impact. His next swing, however, hit me in the eye and top of my nose, and hurt so bad I yelled. At that point, I felt the relief of his weight no longer resting on me. Cole had grabbed him and got him easily into a restraint hold. I felt around the ground for my purse that had fallen off my shoulder, and removed my baton again. I told Dugray that I could take out a kneecap as easily as I took out his tail light so he’d needed to calm down. He did and Cole relaxed his hold just a little, and we remained there for three minutes. That’s when the police arrived.
The moments immediately after were somewhat blurry; partly because of the whirl of activity and partly because I couldn’t see out of my left eye. When I was finally able to focus on what was happening, I realized Cole was holding something cold over the left side of my throbbing face.
“That seems to be numbing the pain a little,” I mumbled, realizing it hurt some to talk
.
“Paramedics are going to take you to the hospital for x-rays and stitches.”
“Stitches?”
“He was wearing a ring, and it cut you up pretty good. You’re gonna look rough for a while, Charlie.”
“Ugh. Great.”
“I’ll call the kids and give them a heads-up for you.”
“It’s going to scare them.”
“The black eye, busted nose and stitches? Yeah, it’ll scare them. Should scare you, too.”
“Are you going to start a speech about safety and approaching criminals?”
“Not yet. I’ll give it a few days. But, the speech is comin’. I can promise you that.”
Cole and I sat in the sergeant’s office as he read through the reports on Austin Dugray. Once he had sobered up, he had confessed and revealed his whole plan.
“Mr. Dugray stated that he had frayed wires and purposely left some connections loose to cause overheating in the hopes of starting a fire at the law office. He stole his cousin’s fireman gear and used a scanner to learn that the fire had started and units were in route. While impersonating a firefighter, he entered the scene with the intent to search for any indications of his tampering and remove them. But, he was sent away and couldn’t inside to do so. Later, he saw the investigator’s car at the office and realized there was indeed an arson investigation. His bad wiring job had been discovered. So, he concocted a plan to place a defective microwave at the scene to throw off suspicion. Even went so far as to burn the exterior of the appliance beforehand. We have a couple of his homeless buddies’ statements about that.”
“That was the night Cole and I were there and my scream startled him,” I added.
“Correct. He knew the insurance adjuster would discover it, and it would alter the course of the investigation. What he didn’t know was that he was operating on old information. He remembered you, Ms. Ritter, complaining about the small microwave at the office when he was there regarding the custody of his son.”
“We replaced it with a bigger one,” Cole said, laughing. “Just so her enormous coffee mug would fit.”
“Actually, it was so you could heat those frozen dinners of yours,” I retorted.
Sergeant Atwood cleared his throat.
“Regardless…that was his biggest stumble. We will have surveillance video showing he bought that microwave, should we need it. There’s plenty of evidence along with his confession. I’d say it’s a done deal.”
“Think he’ll serve much time?” I asked.
“I’m sure. It’s sad. Much of this is because he was so distraught over not seeing his son. All he did was make matters worse,” the sergeant replied.
“Alcohol. He’s an addict. I hope he gets help.”
“That’s a lot of compassion for someone who damaged both your vehicle and your face.”
“Like the Bible says, ‘There, but for the grace of God, go I.’ That could just as easily be me.”
“Or me,” added Cole.
We left the police station, and Cole drove me home. My insurance rep had been kind enough to have my van towed to a local auto repair shop to get the back end fixed. They sent a rental to the house for me to use while the work was done.
“Look at that Toyota Rav 4 in your driveway,” Cole exclaimed. “So much better than a minivan.”
“I don’t get to keep it. My van is getting fixed.”
“You won’t be able to drive for a bit anyway. Your eye is still too swollen.”
“I better get to drive that rental at least once!”
“I’ll drive it for you,” Cole teased.
“Gee, thanks. Actually, I might need your help one day…or two.”
“Just give me a shout. I’ll be there.”
“I know you will. You always are.”
“That’s what friends are for, Charlie.” He said with a wink.
I started to get onto him for calling me Charlie but then I realized I kind of didn’t mind.
Valentine’s Day had arrived, and I still had bruising that required heavy make-up to conceal. Joseph and Carrie had taken Tommy with them to join their dates and friends at the dance at the community center.
I sipped on a mocha frappe I had bought with the gift card the kids had given me in my Valentine card. A half hour to finish getting ready, and I was jittery from both nerves and caffeine. Was this a date? No. We had already established this wasn’t romantic. Why did it feel like a date?
Choosing a vintage pale blue blouse, nice jeans and beige kitten heels, I got dressed and carefully applied my makeup. One could only hope there’d be soft lighting to disguise my phantom-of-the-opera looking face. Taking the last sip of my frappe, I was now ready to apply lipstick. This was a lot of trouble for something that wasn’t romantic.
Cole insisted on picking me up, and even brought flowers. I was truly surprised when we arrived at Smokey Bones. It was one of my favorite restaurants that I rarely patronized, being a single mom on a budget. We ate buffalo wings and drank sweet tea; shared stories and laughed…a lot. We even talked about our kids.
“All this with Dugray has definitely made me appreciate my time with Tyler and Brooke a whole lot more.” Cole confided.
“I can relate. I thank God for the relationship I have with my three every day.”
At the end of the evening, when he walked me to my front door; he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small, wrapped box and handed it to me.
“You shouldn’t have gotten me anything.” I scolded.
“It’s nothin’.”
I opened the box and inside was a silver necklace with a pink jeweled flamingo hanging from it.
“Cole, it’s wonderful! Thank you!”
“Glad you like it,” he said, grinning. “Well, I’d better run. See you tomorrow.”
He turned to leave, and I called after him. “Hey, Cole?”
“Yeah?” he paused near his car, and turned towards me.
“Thanks for…everything.”
“Sure, Charlie. Anytime.”
He opened his car door and stood there a moment just looking at me as if he was about to say something. Then he got in his car and drove away. I noticed he had put a My Kid is an Honor Student bumper sticker over the I Make my own Beer one. I smiled and looked down at my flamingo pendant necklace. It was one of the best Valentine’s Days ever.
EPILOGUE
SPRING break arrived at the perfect moment. Keeping the office running without a building, and then setting-up everything practically from scratch had left us all exhausted. On top of that, the kids had spring fever; so they were wound up and ready to go. Thankfully, my boss and his wife decided to reward the staff for all our hard work, and gave us bonuses. I used mine for a family trip to Sea World. Living just an hour and half from Orlando had its advantages. We could make a day trip to a theme park and have some major fun.
I had met with the Gaggle earlier that morning at their Tuesday morning McDonald’s gathering. They had bought my coffee, reminded me to put on sunblock, and given me instructions to text them when we arrived at the park, take lots of pictures, and text them when we arrived home, no matter how late. I assured them I would do as I was told.
I had sent Carrie into the garage to find my fanny pack, much to her horror (because of the fanny pack, not the garage).
“Hey, Mom? What are gonna do with all these flamingos? They’re still stacked up in the corner.”
“I’m not sure, why? Do you have something in mind?”
The grin on Carrie’s face scarily resembled that of the Grinch when he hatched his horrible idea to steal Christmas.
“I’m gonna toss them in the trunk, and I’ll tell you my plan when we leave,” she said, still smirking.
“Maymay, in my next movie, we will go to Sea World and follow God’s directions,” Tommy announced.
The interpretation of that was that we would go and use a map to get around. Tommy often mixed in episodes of shows or movies with real life. He had bee
n watching Josh and the Big Wall from Veggie Tales in which the lesson was to follow God’s directions.
“Alright, Tommy. And what do you think those directions will be?”
“To get a soda!”
I should have known. Not “see dolphins” or “visit Shamu;” it was all about getting a soda from some place new and different.
“Found my wallet,” Joseph announced, after a half hour of searching. That boy was going to be the death of me.
“You have got to keep up with things, and have your wallet in the same place all the time.”
“I know, Mom. I promise I’ll do better.”
We filled the cooler with bottled water and a few cans of soda, some string cheese, a couple of apples, and even some granola bars. I made sure I had dollar bills for tolls, and a car charger for our phones. Tommy had his headphones, Joseph had his earbuds, and Carrie had a book to read. We ended up talking to each other the whole way there.
Sea World gets a lot of hate, but we know them to be a place that accomplishes a lot with regards to rescues, research and rehabilitation. We have a large number of manatee that get sick or injured in our part of Florida, and Sea World takes great care to get them well and back into the wild. Stopping at the dolphin nursery, we listened to the presentation and watched the dolphins chasing each other under water. Then, we made our way towards the penguins; an exhibit that I was particularly anxious to see.
It was really cold inside, and there was literally snow falling over the hundreds of penguins; from chinstraps to rock hoppers. We stood there amazed and shivering.
“I told you guys that I worked with penguins when I was teenager, right? I was a volunteer at the zoo where I grew up, and we had black footed penguins from Africa.”
“I remember you telling us that!” Carrie replied.
“So, I guess you didn’t work in the cold like this?” asked Joseph.
“Nope. Our penguins required warm temperatures, thankfully. But, isn’t this exhibit amazing?”
Frappes, Flamingos, and a Fireman (A Charlotte Ritter Mystery Book 2) Page 9