Live Free or Die

by Jessie Crockett

  “Sounds like the perfect time to start something new.” He reached over and touched my hand. I wished I wasn’t wearing a thick wooly mitten.

  “Like a New Year’s resolution?” I gazed up into his face and thought about all the failed diets, unbalanced checkbooks and classic novels never read. He must have read my mind.

  “That’s not as auspicious as I’d like.”

  “Not auspicious is a pretty good way to describe my experiences in the romance department. Augusta’s the expert at that sort of thing.” My cheeks heated up, and I felt for the door handle with my free hand. Hugh squeezed on my mitten as if to keep me from running.

  “I enjoy your company, Gwen. I’d like to enjoy more of it. I like that you think more about doing what’s right than looking good while doing it. I liked you from the moment you said you dashed out to the Museum fire in your lingerie instead of taking the time to change.”

  “It wasn’t lingerie.” I couldn’t believe it. The most romantic thing anyone had said to me in years, and it gets yoked together with my most public humiliation.

  “Well, it is to me. I love flannel pajamas. Besides, I’m not saying you were running around town looking like a tart. I’m saying you put others first, and I like that about you. It’s refreshing. Your whole damn attitude is refreshing. Look what you’ve got on right now, for Pete’s sake. Who else does that sort of thing?”

  “You sound like my sister. She always asks me if anyone else would be caught dead wearing the things I put on.” I wondered if he thought oversized t-shirts with paint spatters and big holes were attractive, too. I had a whole collection of those serving as summer pajamas.

  “I’m not Augusta.” Hugh peered straight in my eyes. “I meant it as a compliment.” Island music erupted from Hugh’s belt. He let go of my hand and checked the screen on his cell phone. “I’ve got to take this. It’s business.” Hugh spent a few minutes on the phone and looked preoccupied as he hung up.

  “That didn’t sound good,” I said.

  “It isn’t. House fire in Grantford. Looks like a Christmas tree caught on fire.” Hugh glanced at the lights sparkling toward us from beyond my lace curtains.

  “Anyone hurt?” I reminded myself to water the tree as soon as I got inside.

  “That’s why they called me. I’ve got to go.” Hugh popped open his door and walked around to my side. His eyes looked tired as he held the door for me.

  “Anything I can do?” I pulled off my mitten and reached out to touch his hand again. He held it in his own and lifted it to his lips. His mustache scratched against the back of my hand, and I felt the warmth of his mouth as he kissed it. My breath caught like it does when you think there’s one more step than there is at the top of the stairs.

  “See if you can get anywhere with Ernesto. Find out if he knows where Chris was having him take stuff. Maybe something will connect those two. And ask around the village. Find out if anyone saw them together or if Chris mentioned him.” I climbed my front steps, glad of Hugh’s steadying hand under my elbow as I noticed the ice built up again.

  “I’m a lot more inclined to believe Ernesto than Chris.” I pushed open the door and peered into the empty kitchen.

  “I agree. I’ll check in with you when I can. You have a merry Christmas.” He honked his horn as he pulled away. I stood watching his brake lights until they disappeared behind a stand of spruces.

  Christmas morning passed quickly, unwrapping gifts and talking on the phone with our mother and Owen and Josh. It was eleven o’clock before either Augusta or I got dressed. Augusta had allowed me to peel potatoes for dinner when the phone rang again.

  “Gwen, it’s Bernadette. I hate bothering you on Christmas, but Harold’s been pestering me to get you over here to speak to him.” I’d known Bernadette most of my life, and she sounded closer to tears than I’d ever known her to sound.

  “I’ll be over just as soon as I can.” Augusta stopped humming Christmas carols over a bowl of cake batter she had been stirring as soon as she heard me plan to leave.

  “Where are you off to this time?” She propped one hand on her hip and talked with the other one, the one clutching a dripping wooden spoon. Cake batter flew around the kitchen and reminded me I needed to re-wallpaper.

  “I need you to drive me to the hospital. Bernadette sounds like she’s teetering on the edge, and Harold wants to talk to me about something. I couldn’t refuse.”

  “Let me throw the roast in the oven to cook while we’re gone.” She whipped round grinding pepper over the prime rib and putting things back in the fridge while I found the coats and tried to remember where I put my purse.

  Three-quarters of an hour later we were standing in Harold’s room trying not to look shocked at how shriveled he seemed. Bernadette was shoehorned into a visitor’s chair looking like she had seen the end times Pastor Norling mentioned every time the news from Washington disagreed with him.

  “Darlin’, why don’t you and Augusta go on down to the cafeteria for coffee while I talk to Gwen?” Harold quavered. Bernadette struggled against the confines of the chair, using her ham-hock arms and beefy fists to pry herself up.

  “We’ll be back in a half hour.” She thumped toward the door, then changed her mind and went to Harold’s bed. Smoothing his brow with a flabby red hand, she bent with a grunt and kissed him. “I expect you to still be here when I get back.” She and Augusta sailed out the door.

  Harold once told me he joined the volunteer fire department to get away from Bernadette. He used to love her before he retired from forty-three years at the local sawmill. He said that he realized now that they had only managed to stay married for so long because he had almost never seen her. Since his retirement, they spent every moment of every day together except for his outings to the post office, the dump and the fire station. I wondered if he was glad of her company now that he was here in the hospital, waiting for a stranger to tear into parts of his body he was never going to see for himself.

  “How’s your Christmas been?” Harold asked.

  “You didn’t get me out here to ask about my holiday. What’s going on?” I sat on the edge of his hospital bed and waited. Harold wasn’t likely to be rushed into whatever was coming next, and I wasn’t eager to hear it. It wasn’t going make my day any merrier, whatever it was.

  “Ray tells me Ethel’s service is tomorrow.”

  “That’s right. There’ll be a memorial service since her body hasn’t been released, and she can’t be buried until the ground thaws.”

  “I’m sorry I’ll be missing it. Tomorrow morning I’m having some kind of plumber’s snake wound on up through my insides.”

  “You must be pretty worried.”

  “I told them they ought to just dose my prune juice with Drano and forget about all the fuss.” Harold sank even deeper into his pillow. “Right about now I wish I hadn’t survived the heart attack.”

  “Does this have something to do with the fires?” I scooched a bit closer on the bed. Harold closed his eyes and nodded. His chest expanded under the hospital sheet and then collapsed again as he let out a sigh.

  “I didn’t think it was going to get out of hand like this. I knew it was a bad idea, I’m not saying I didn’t. I just didn’t think anyone would end up dead.”

  “You know who’s setting the fires, don’t you? You’ve known all along. That’s why you wouldn’t call in the state.” Harold nodded, his eyes still squeezed shut.

  “I didn’t want to hurt Bernadette. They said they’d tell her everything, and I couldn’t face it. I never thought anyone would get hurt.” I remembered the conversation I’d overheard Harold having on the phone a few days before.

  “Who is it, Harold? You need to tell me before anyone else gets hurt.” I reached out and laid a hand over his.

  “Chris. It’s Chris and Ethel. Chris was setting fires in buildings that were underinsured in order to buy them on the cheap and either renovate them or, like in the case of that camp on the river, to le
vel whatever was left and build something more expensive on prime real estate. No one was ever supposed to be in the buildings when it happened. They promised me no one would get hurt and that they’d leave Bernadette alone.”

  “What were they going to tell Bernadette?”

  “When I was a younger man, a few years after Bernadette and I were married, there was a rash of wild fires in California. Fire departments from all over the country sent guys to help out, including ours. Bernadette and I were having some problems. She wanted me to do something more impressive than working at the lumber mill. I liked it where I was. So when the opportunity came up to get away for a bit, I jumped at it.”

  “When was this?” I vaguely remembered something about the fires when I was a young teen. My parents had been upset about it and my grandmother was sure it was going to spread all the way to Winslow Falls. She slept with a fire extinguisher tucked up in bed with her for weeks.

  “Thirty-five years ago. Hard to believe how long it can be for something to come round and bite you on your bony ass. Ethel was a waitress at a diner where a lot of us guys used to go and get something to eat after our shifts. Believe it or not, she was one fine-looking woman back then. And wild. The things she’d say flirting with you made you sweat. I’ve never been an adventurous man. I don’t even like to try a new brand of toothpaste.” Harold paused and let out another anemic sigh.

  “But there I was, risking my life every day, hanging around with a lot of men who were unattached. Before I knew it I started flirting back. When she called my bluff, I’ll admit I was scared and thrilled at the same time. I was only out there about three weeks, but it was long enough to get both myself and Ethel into trouble.”

  “Is Chris your son and Ethel’s?” I couldn’t believe it. It was impossible to imagine Ethel young and flirtatious and the sort of woman to lead a man like Harold off the straight and narrow.

  “That’s what she told me when she rolled into town eight years ago. I didn’t recognize her, of course, but she knew enough about me from the time we were together to keep tabs on me from a distance. She may have used a private investigator to locate me.”

  “But she and Chris have never let on that they’re related.”

  “I think they had a better working relationship than a personal one. Can you imagine having Ethel for your mother?” I couldn’t.

  “The fires only started a few weeks ago. Did they ask you for anything before?”

  “Ethel started with small requests for money. By the time Chris got here several years later, I’d drained off a big chunk of my pension and dried up a couple of whole life insurance policies. Once there wasn’t anything else to tap, Chris came up with the idea of using my position as chief to cover up the fires.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell Bernadette the truth? It was a long time ago. A lot of wives forgive those sorts of things.” I thought about my own marriage.

  “Bernadette and I don’t have any kids, Gwen, and not for lack of trying. I would have done just about anything to keep her from being hurt that way.” A tear drizzled out from under Harold’s sparse eyelashes and traced the large pores of his nose.

  “Did you set any of the fires?” Harold’s eyes flew open wide, and he shook his head.

  “I turned a blind eye, and I even gave a couple of tips for what not to do in order to avoid suspicion. But set them, no, I did not.” I wanted to believe him but the truth is I was so surprised, I couldn’t be sure of anything he had to say.

  “The autopsy results came back on Beulah.” I was starting to feel white hot and prickly. “She was hit over the head with something, and then her body was lit on fire to hide that fact. Was it Chris and Ethel?”

  “I don’t know. They never told me ahead of time which places they were planning to burn. They just did it, and then I ruled out anything but an accidental fire.” Harold’s hand trembled.

  “So you were as surprised as anyone to get a call out to the Museum and find Beulah lying there like that?” I realized I’d been raising my voice when a nurse in a hot pink scrub top poked her head through the doorway and scowled at me.

  “Why do you think I had a heart attack? I never would have hurt Beulah. She was my Sunday school teacher, for Christ’s sake.” Apparently, they didn’t get to the part about taking the Lord’s name in vain.

  “Does Bernadette know about all this business now?” I wasn’t sure how much of this was going to need to come out, and I didn’t want her hearing something like this through the police or the grapevine.

  “Yes, I know,” she said from the doorway. “The old fool told me everything.” Bernadette looked a little better. Her shoulders were upright, and there was an angry spark in her eye like she had decided to deal with the situation head on.

  “When did he tell you about it?” I asked.

  “Just after the heart attack. They’d gotten him stabilized and into the room. He didn’t want me to hear about it from a lawyer or, even worse, Ethel herself if he didn’t make it.” Bernadette came to stand next to her husband and laid her hand on his shoulder.

  “So you’ve known about this for days and never said anything?” I stared at her, a new unhappy thought growing.

  “I didn’t say anything, and I convinced Harold to wait and think about it before he did anything else stupid. Does it matter? Now that Ethel is dead, nothing else has burned.”

  “Someone killed Ethel and tried setting her house on fire. Chris is the best suspect.” I didn’t bother to mention to Bernadette she made a pretty good suspect herself. I’d seriously considered hitting Ethel over the head myself when she told me about Peter and the bank teller. If I’d found out it was Ethel that was messing around with my husband, even thirty-five years prior, I don’t know what I would have done. Bernadette had plenty of time between the time Harold told her what was going on and when Ethel was killed to work up a real head of steam.

  “What’s going to happen now?” Harold stared at me with so much worry I didn’t have the heart to accuse his wife of killing Ethel. If he had another heart attack and died, I wouldn’t be a lot less guilty than whoever killed Ethel.

  “I really don’t know. I’m just the assistant chief, remember. I expect you won’t be the fire chief any longer. A lot of people are going to be angry. I’m angry.”

  “I’m sorry. I never meant to cause trouble. I’m just a coward.” Bernadette squeezed his shoulder again.

  “You’d better get over that quickly. Things are likely to get unpleasant.” I stood and zipped up my coat. “I wish you the best with the surgery. Bernadette, give me a call as soon as the doctors are done with him tomorrow. I want to know how he makes out.” Augusta gave a little wave as we left.

  Twenty-Five

  Smells of roasting meat filled the house when we returned. My stomach grumbled, but I had no appetite. Augusta busied herself finishing up the potatoes and making a salad while I tried to track Hugh down by phone. His cell phone went directly to voice mail, and the dispatcher wasn’t much help either.

  “Try his home number.” Augusta suggested.

  “I don’t feel comfortable bothering him at home. This is business.”

  “It’s urgent. And he’s cute.”

  “You’ve mentioned. But he’s a co-worker. Even if I was interested, it wouldn’t be appropriate.”

  “Once it’s appropriate he won’t be around all the time, and the whole thing will fizzle.”

  “If it was meant to be, it wouldn’t fizzle.”

  “Trust me, fizzle is easier than sizzle. I can see sizzle available to you right now if you position yourself correctly.”

  “I don’t even want to think about what you mean by that.”

  “We can talk details later.” Augusta poured herself a glass of wine. I looked on the fridge for Hugh’s business card with the number on it.

  “I programmed it into speed dial. Hugh’s number two.”

  “Dinah’s was number two.”

  “I think you need a man more tha
n any more takeout pizza.” I hate it when Augusta’s right. I may have been ordering fast food too much lately. The number two button looked a lot more worn than the other buttons.

  “Can I get a little privacy? You’re making me nervous. You’re like the back stage prompter at a high school play.”

  “You’re just confirming my point. If it was nothing more than a business call, you wouldn’t be nervous.”

  “Please, go.”

  “All right, but I expect a full report. Don’t leave out any juicy details.”

  “There is nothing juicy here. I don’t even like juice.” Augusta snorted and carried her wine out of the room. I punched the number two button and paced as Hugh’s phone rang.

  “Hello?” a perky young female voice said into the phone after the fifth ring. Augusta was going to be disappointed.

  “May I speak with Hugh Larsen, please?”

  “Sorry. He never came home last night from his fire call. May I take a message?”

  “Yes, please do. Just tell him Chief Fifield, called and there have been some developments he should be aware of.” I hung up and sank into the rocker. I wasn’t looking for someone, so why did I care if some friendly young thing knew about whether or not he’d come to bed last night. Damn Augusta for putting foolish notions in my head.

  “Don’t let the girl on the line get you down.”

  “I can’t believe you were listening on the extension.”

  “I can’t believe you didn’t think I would be. How can I coach if I’m not watching the game?”

  “There is nothing to coach. I wasn’t interested anyway. This was all your idea. I just want to keep my life on an even keel.”

  “No, you don’t. You’re lonely and struggling. And horny.”

  “Am not.”

  “Well, you should be. The girl on the phone may or may not be a factor. Did you ask who she is?”

  “Of course not. It really isn’t my business.”

  “Call her back.”

  “No. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I’ve got more important things to think about, like arresting Chris and whether or not Bernadette killed Ethel.”