Fire Angel

by Susanne Matthews

  Frank had been ten when he’d moved to Paradise and knew every inch of the area. He’d often trapped and guided with his father. He had easy access to every crime scene; in fact, he had access everywhere, delivering coffee the way he did. His face was such a common one that no one ever paid any attention to him. He had the best seat in the house at each fire, providing coffee. He walked in and out of the police station every day and was privy to all kinds of information.

  “How could he have taken me in like that?” He ran his hand through his hair. “I even asked him to help with the investigation. He sent us on a wild goose chase, first having me track down Temagami kids he knew were long gone, reporting that black SUV forcing him off the road, and then again claiming the vehicle was knocking over mailboxes. Officers have been combing the roads for a car he probably sunk in the bog.”

  “Jake, stop it. It’s not your fault,” Alexis said, reaching to touch his arm.

  He shook her off, too furious with himself to allow her to offer comfort now. People were dead because he’d been duped.

  “Not my fault?” He spat the words. “Of course it’s my fault.” He shook his head. “All along I kept saying the man was a ghost and I was right. Frank is exactly that—not because of any ephemeral state but because he can walk into any place in town and no one notices him. He’s as much a part of any room as the damn furniture or the paint on the wall. Essentially, he’s spit into my face and now he’s rubbing it in. That injury the night of the fire at Duffy’s I mentioned? I would bet anything that it hadn’t been from falling out of any dam tree stand.” He dropped into the chair. “Maybe I did leave my ability to solve cases back in the desert with my leg.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You wouldn’t be the first person who couldn’t see the forest for the trees. We know it’s him, but everything we have is circumstantial. We can’t prove any of it. This aunt his mother’s visiting could be an old family friend. That DNA from the butts and the unsolved murders is the strongest evidence we have, but we haven’t linked it to Frank. We need his DNA to match the evidence we have, but since he had a legitimate reason for being at the fire scenes, it’ll be hard to get anyone to believe us. I can’t see a judge ordering DNA testing on this. Add to that, the man’s a pillar of the community, like my uncle was. People won’t just take our word on this. No one’s going to believe he gets his jollies having sex with dead women either. We need to find something else, something concrete that proves he’s Fire Angel.” She frowned. “How did his daughter die?”

  “She crawled under the neighbor’s fence and drowned in their backyard pool—Leroy and Jethro may have built the damn thing, but I couldn’t verify it since the original owners sold the house and moved away within weeks of the accident. A couple of months later, Frank’s wife tried to kill herself in the same pool. The new owners heard the splash and saw Frank trying to fish her out with the long-handled leaf skimmer. Her arm was broken in the process. After that, the pool was filled in. A year later, his wife ran off and probably killed herself since no one can find her.”

  He huffed out a breath.

  “What if he wasn’t trying to fish her out but push her under?” she asked, sitting on the edge of the bed in front of him. “What if Frank blamed her? Those visits to the ER could’ve been for injuries that weren’t self-inflicted. Hester Rollins was an advocate for women. If she suspected Frank’s wife was being abused...”

  “She would’ve called Frank on it, and he wouldn’t have taken well to anyone interfering in his life. Son of a bitch. That’s what he had against the shelter. Providence House wasn’t around when his wife left him, but Hester inspired Maxime to open it. He sealed her into a tomb of her own making. How the hell do we prove this and stop him?” Jake reached for Alexis, needing the comfort only she could provide.

  “We set a trap. We bait him, draw him out, just the way he does the animals he goes after. He believes I’m dead, but what if he thinks you know that he’s guilty? What if I said something before I passed on?”

  “Then he would want to know what it was and shut me up, too. So, how do we do this?”

  * * *

  Frank, dressed in winter camo, hid in the shadow of the trees across the lake from Nick Pruett’s place. She had to be here. It was the only thing that made sense. The cock and bull story Ev had fed the Press was just that—a load of manure. He’d been around long enough to know that things didn’t move as quickly as they seemed to this time when someone died.

  Recalling the events of that night, he sneered. When Fate was on your side, you just couldn’t fail.

  He’d been at the hospital standing outside having a cigarette after delivering the box of flowers. He’d planned to go up after midnight, drug the guards and the nurses, and finish her off. Before he could act, an ambulance had pulled out of the bay, sirens blaring. Within minutes, much to his surprise, the two officers guarding Alexis’s door walked out. He’d recognized them when he’d walked by with the flowers, but wearing the wig and floral delivery jacket he’d stolen from that place in Ottawa, they hadn’t even noticed him. The men had gotten into their squad car, and left. Why? What had happened? There were only two possible reasons why the security would be called off. They either thought they had Fire Angel in custody, or Alexis had died.

  Desperate to know what had happened and unable to walk in and ask, he’d frozen his ass off waiting for the nurses to come out for their smoke break. Those bitches were regular chatterboxes. That first night, he’d been smoking a joint trying to get information. He’d called the main hospital and talked to his friend—the guy had a fondness for fresh liver and he made sure to have some with him. The man had confirmed that Jackson was the only one who’d been admitted and had suggested Vaca Valley. He’d come over and lo and behold, there was a Paradise Police vehicle parked out front.

  The nurses—one English from the sound of her, the other familiar, but he couldn’t place her—usually slipped out after one and talked up a storm. No one checked for eavesdroppers in the dead of night.

  Alexis had survived, bruised and battered to be sure, but she would be fine. Since she’d made it inside, she might’ve figured out something else about him with that weird hoodoo magic of hers. He’d planned to clean things up tonight, but perhaps she’d saved him the trouble after all. He’d stood by the trees, close enough to hear them but not to be seen.

  “Those were the scariest flowers I’ve ever seen—and the mice? Creeped me right out. Poor girl. I hope she’ll be safe wherever they’re taking her.”

  “Shut up, Louise. If anybody asks, she’s dead, remember? And her body sent back to California.”

  “Don’t get your knickers in a knot,” Louise answered, her British accent stronger than it had been. “No one can hear us out here but bloody Jack Frost. Is it always so damn cold?”

  The other nurse laughed. “Come late January, this will seem almost tropical.”

  Elation had filled him, knowing she wasn’t dead, but where was she? No doubt she’d been in the ambo he’d assumed had gone out on a call. All he had to do was follow Jake to find her. He’d gone home to get some sleep. When he’d dropped by the inn the next morning, the place was locked up tighter than a maximum-security prison, and everyone had vanished.

  Needing answers, he impersonated a reporter, looking for a quote on Alexis Michaels’s death, but the dragon on the phone wouldn’t put him through to Nick and fed him the canned line: “Reverend Pruett and his niece were estranged. He has no comment on her death.” To make matters worse, the bitch had hung up on him. She would get hers as soon as he had a chance.

  Intent on finding Alexis, he reverted to his main source, but Lynette’s lips were shut as tightly as those super glued doors had been. But he was a patient man. He watched. He listened. People talked. No one noticed him. When Matt Conway left the station around nine last night, he’d followed the man to Nick’s clinic. What a surprise to see David McKenzie, hero doctor supposedly in Afghanistan, open the door.
Who else was hiding here?

  Rushing home, he’d gotten his act in gear and called his part-timer to take over for the next day. Following one of his trap lines to the other side of the lake, Frank hunkered down and waited.

  The sun rose and with it the temperatures, turning the latest snow sticky. He was just about to give up and go home, thinking he’d been wrong about it being David at the door, when the same door opened and a little girl in a cherry red snowsuit came outside, followed by a Sheltie. Mia. He would recognize that child and the dog anywhere.

  Within minutes, Minette joined her daughter in the yard and the two started to play.

  The child’s voice reached him across the lake as she sang, “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?”

  The scene warmed his heart. He remembered watching Anna and Melissa play in the snow that last winter before it had all gone so wrong. He lowered the binoculars to take a drag on the joint he held in his other hand.

  If Mia, David, and Maya were here, then so was Jake, and if he was, then this is where Alexis was, too. He knew Jake well enough to know he would keep all of his eggs in one basket. His thoughts were confirmed when Jake opened the door to call them inside.

  He sneered, finishing his joint. So they thought to outsmart him, did they? The joke was on them. He hadn’t planned to hurt Mia and Minette, but all was fair in love and war, and this was war. If they got caught in the crossfire, so be it. He intended to have Alexis one way or another. Packing up his gear, he headed home, whistling “The Hearse Song” once more. He had so many things to do and so little time to do them.

  * * *

  Alexis, dressed in navy blue slacks and a pale-yellow sweater, sat in the recliner next to the fireplace in the living room. After two more days in bed, David had pronounced her fit to go, and she’d never been happier to get up and get dressed.

  Once she and Jake had hashed things out, he’d contacted Ev. The three of them had spent the last two days refining every aspect of their plan to trap Frank, checking all the possible loopholes, and ironing out whatever glitches they found. Now, the time had come to put their plan into action.

  Ev had sent Matt to London, Ontario to interview the officers who’d been in charge of the six cold cases where the DNA had matched what they’d found here. On his way, he would drop off a napkin for DNA testing. While they were sure Frank and Fire Angel were the same man, they needed the proof.

  The wily police chief had managed to get a sample of Frank’s DNA by offering him one of his wife’s brownies, asking him to compare it with his own, and then giving him a napkin to wipe his mouth. Frank had tossed the serviette into the garbage can, pronouncing Mrs. Lewis’s brownies every bit as good as his own and had left. Ev had retrieved that napkin, the only item in the can. Now, they had to wait for the results, but since they could take time and might be inconclusive, they had to trap Frank to prevent the next fire.

  “Ready?” Alexis asked when Jake and Ev came into the room with fresh coffee. “It’s almost time for him to make his morning delivery at the station.” She accepted the mug he offered her. “Thanks.”

  “I’m good to go,” Jake answered, raising his own cup to his mouth.

  “Then let’s do it,” Ev said. “Let’s get this son of a bitch. If I have to look at his rat-face one more time, I’m liable to punch his ticket.”

  Jake chuckled. “You’ll only have to play nice-nice once more, I promise.”

  He reached for his new cellphone, which he’d put on speaker so they could all hear, and dialed the station.

  “Paradise Police Department. Lynette speaking. How may I direct your call?” The dispatcher’s voice sounded loud in the silent room.

  “Hi Lynette; it’s Jake. Is Everett there?” he asked.

  “Jake,” she squealed, just as the door buzzer sounded. Perfect timing. “You poor boy. Hang on a sec. Frank’s here.”

  Knowing Lynette rarely muted the call, but rather just took her headset off and dropped it on the desk, they listened as the chair legs scraped along the floor when she rose.

  “Frank, just take the urn back to the breakroom, will you? I know Pierre usually does, but he’s on an out-of-town call.”

  Bingo! They knew she would let something slip; in fact, they’d counted on it.

  “Gone into North Bay?” Frank asked.

  “I don’t know. They never tell me a damn thing anymore. Hell, the place is practically deserted with Matt off to God knows where, too.”

  Frank chuckled. “All the more goodies for you,” he said, his voice trailing off as he moved away from her desk.

  “Sorry, Jake. Frank just brought in the coffee, and I’m shorthanded. I don’t know how we’re supposed to function under these conditions. How are you doing? It’s a real shame about Alexis. It’s another blow to her uncle for sure. He wanted to reconcile, but ... I hear he may be looking into suing the fire department for negligence.”

  Jake’s eyebrows rose in surprise while Everett rolled his eyes and shook his head.

  Alexis pressed her lips together. It seemed the woman was more than a little willing to invent the gossip she so freely spread.

  “The guys were asking about you. When are you coming back? That damn Fire Angel is still out there and people are afraid to go anywhere. They’ve canceled all kinds of events and activities for the week after Christmas.”

  “Just being cautious,” Jake said. “Is Everett there? I really need to speak to him.”

  “Oh gosh, sorry. I’m afraid he’s not here, and I don’t know where the blazes he is. This is the third time this week he forgets to call in and doesn’t answer his damn cellphone when I call him. I need to put a tracker on that man.”

  Alexis suppressed the giggle threatening to choke her. Ev was as red as a beet.

  “I see,” Jake said.

  His eyes were filled with humor and he was fighting hard not to laugh.

  “Can you give him a message when you see him?”

  “I sure can. Hang on, Jake, and I’ll write it down, but I need to settle with Frank first.”

  “Is that Jake?” Frank asked, his voice betraying his curiosity. “He still out of town?”

  “I think so. He’s calling for the chief who’s out God alone knows where. I tell you that man just has no respect for how hard I work.”

  Frank chuckled. “Tell Jake I said hi and I hope he’s doing okay.”

  “I will.” Lynette picked up the phone again. “Frank says hello. What’s your message?”

  The door hadn’t dinged to indicate someone was leaving, so Frank was biding his time, hoping to hear what Jake had to say. Alexis moved to the edge of her chair.

  “Tell him my plane lands in North Bay late afternoon and I’ll be at the station around six. Everything Alexis told me checked out and I have the evidence to prove it. We’ve got a match on the DNA from the butts on a couple of cold cases in Western Ontario. We’ll make an arrest as soon as I get back. Got it?”

  “Yes,” she parroted. “You’ll fly into North Bay this afternoon and be here by six with proof based on what Alexis said to make an arrest. Who is it?” she asked, her voice filled with curious excitement.

  Alexis fought not to laugh, imagining the woman coming through the line like some cartoon character.

  “You know I can’t tell you that until it’s a done deal, but I have everything with me to prove my case. Everyone will be surprised to discover who the Fire Angel is, and he’ll pay for what he’s done. I was shocked when she whispered his name to me, but I dug deep and it checked out. I’ve got to go, Lynette. They’re calling my commuter plane. I’ll see you soon.”

  He hung up quickly before she could ask any questions.

  Everett leaned back in the chair. “She’ll be chomping at the bit for the information and I’m pretty damn sure Frank will be, too. I’d better get to the station so she can give me the message.” He stood. “I’m glad you’re on your feet again, Alexis. We couldn’t have cracked this case without you. Don’t overdo it.”


  “I won’t. David, Mia, and Minette leave for the inn just after lunch. They won’t open up until Jake gives them the all-clear. He’s going to stay at the inn, too. I’ll remain here for a few more days until Frank’s behind bars, then I’ll make my stunning resurrection.”

  “When do you leave, Jake?” Ev asked.

  “Around two. I’ll take the back roads into North Bay then come back on the Trans-Canada. You’ll have someone meet me at the airport in one of the Hummers?”

  “I will,” he answered, nodding. “He would need heavy artillery to do any damage to that thing. You’ll be safe up until you get to the inn, but after that, it’s a crapshoot. You know that, don’t you? I can have the officer follow you—”

  “No. If the police vehicle is within sight, he won’t act. David will have my SUV out front at the inn, and I’ll change vehicles there. Have your man stay way back. We can assume he’ll be following us from North Bay, and once I switch to my car, that’s when he’ll make his move.”

  “What’s to stop him from shooting you when you move from one vehicle to the next?” Alexis asked, voicing the point that had been nagging at her.

  “He won’t kill me until he knows what I do,” he said, his tone confident. “Since Lynette was a little vague with the message, he may even think he still has us fooled.”

  “Still, you need to be careful. I don’t trust that bastard. He’s been one-step ahead of us all the time,” Ev said.

  “I agree,” Alexis chimed in. “He’s not stupid, Jake. Don’t make the mistake of thinking he is.”

  “I know, and I’m not, but this time the information he’s working with is the one we want him to have. I’ll be fine.”

  Ev nodded and pulled on his winter coat. “Won’t hurt to be vigilant,” he tossed over his shoulder as he left the room.

  Alexis set her cooling coffee on the table and stood.