by Elle Rush
He hung back at the pumper truck, not wanting to disturb the men and women at work. His part came after the danger was over. It was almost an hour before Chief Mitchell came over, stripping off his soot-stained jacket. “I think we got lucky. We kept it to the cabin. Some of the trees got a little scorched, but it’s under control. The team will go over the scene again to make sure nothing’s left to flare up, but between that and the rain we’re supposed to get this afternoon, I’m not foreseeing any problems.”
“That’s good. Everybody is okay on your end?” Aaron asked.
“No injuries. Not even a scratch. We had a close call, but nobody will be complaining the next time I set more training. It really paid off today,” the soot-covered man said.
* * *
“Can I come up?” Aaron asked. “I need to know if it was an accident or intentionally set.”
“I can tell you that. The front door was forced open when we got here, and there was a barbecue full of briquets on its side on the living room floor. Maybe they were trying to use it to stay warm after they broke in. Maybe they had the munchies after a party. I don’t know. Nobody was here when we arrived and there were no vehicles around. The rest is up to you.”
“You’ve given me enough to start with. Thanks,” Aaron said.
He’d known the abandoned cabin was going to attract more problems. This was the last time he’d have to deal with it, though. Aside from a couple timbers still standing, it had collapsed in on itself and was now a smouldering wreck. It wouldn’t host any more parties. Or offer any more shelter to desperate travellers.
Just because the arsonists hadn’t been found at the scene of the crime, it didn’t mean they had escaped without a trace. Aaron made the rounds of nearby properties, but as he expected, most were empty for the season.
He got a lead at Hemingway’s Hideaway. The owners had come out from the city as part of an artists’ retreat. The night owls had seen something.
“Sure, there’s been a lot of traffic,” Antonio Soto-Rojas said. “There’s a young man with a pickup truck that’s been working in the vacant lot diagonal to us across the road. He’s mostly been clearing brush. He and some others constructed some kind of shed on the weekend.”
“That’s Bob Mackenzie. He bought the property and plans to build there next year,” Aaron told them, mostly to put their minds at ease if they saw Mac again while they were out.
“I’m glad to hear that. We could use some new development around here. I hate to say it, but so long as nobody was hurt, that fire was a blessing. Calling it a shack was a compliment. That old building was an eyesore, and a dangerous one at that.”
Aaron nodded. He wanted to agree, but he still had to investigate the fire. “Have you seen anyone around there?”
“You mean the fellow that’s been hanging around in that blue Toyota rust-bucket?”
“Could be. Can you tell me a little more about this person?”
The vehicle description sounded familiar. The description of the “not even twenty years old, shaggy, white-blond hair, maroon golf shirt everyday” sealed the deal. Aaron raised his hand to eye level. “About yay high? Skinny?”
“That’s the fellow.”
“I know the guy. I’ll talk to him. Thanks.”
“Anytime, Sheriff.”
Aaron drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. This was not good. The car and description matched Caleb Quentin, his son’s best friend. After working at Mac’s place all autumn, Caleb would know that Shelley’s Shack was perpetually empty. Aaron couldn’t imagine the young man purposely setting fire to a cabin, but the possibility that he broke in and the fire was an accident was a likely scenario.
But he had to check. He knew the teenager worked full-time at By the Cup, but he didn’t know if Caleb was on shift now.
He was lucky. The kid was there, behind the counter that was now covered in small, carved pumpkins. Aaron skirted the yellow caution tape marking the chiselled-out tile on the floor by the door where repairs on the old trip hazard were now underway. Rachel Best gave him a questioning look when he asked to speak to Caleb, but she stepped forward to take his place at the till without hesitation.
“Caleb, when did you get to work today?”
“Ten to six. Five-fifty. I opened today.”
“Can anybody vouch for that?”
“The customers can verify I opened the door at six. Some of them might have seen me through the windows before then.”
“Can I ask where you were last night?” Aaron asked.
The teenager rocked back on his heels, putting distance between them without stepping away. “Why do you want to know?”
“Did you hear about the fire at Shelley’s Shack on Shakespeare Drive?”
“Sure, everybody’s been talking about it.”
“Your car’s been seen in the area.”
Caleb immediately went pale, and a flop sweat appeared on his forehead. “I’ve been working with Mac out there. Cutting down trees and stuff.”
“Hmm,” Aaron said noncommittally. The kid had some sense of self-preservation, because he didn’t let himself ramble. He was pinching his lips together so hard they were turning white. “So, can you tell me where you were last night?”
“Bixby. I was in Bixby.”
“All night? Do you have a place there?” Aaron had run Caleb’s name through the computer at the office. His address was still listed as the same apartment block as Brooke and Jordan.
Caleb’s shoulders hunched forward, and his whole body sagged. “I was at the Mission Church. They have a shelter in the basement. I’m between places at the moment. They can tell you.”
Aaron’s heart broke at the news. Caleb was just out of high school; that was no place for a kid. “Where are you parents?”
“Vegas, last I heard,” Caleb said. “Once I turned eighteen, they said I was on my own.”
Aaron could only handle one problem at once. “I’ll talk to the church and confirm you were there last night. Then you’ll be in the clear.” But he couldn’t leave it there. “Is it safe? Clean?”
Caleb’s head came up a bit. “Yeah. It’s not bad.”
“Good.” He didn’t want to add to the kid’s stress, but he had to ask. “What would you say if I asked if you’d been staying at Shelley’s Shack over the fall?”
If possible, the kid had turned even paler. “Are you asking?”
Now was his moment of truth. Everything he knew about Caleb said the young man wasn’t a troublemaker, just a desperate kid in a bad situation. He hadn’t done any harm to anyone that Aaron knew about. And, according to Mac, Caleb had actually done some good and kept the shack standing longer than it would have without his help. Aaron didn’t know for certain that the Pineys hadn’t hired him to do repairs. Was it really his job to ask?
He had suspicions, but as Brooke had pointed out, suspicions did not a crime make. The very least he could do was make sure there had been a crime before he started grilling potential suspects. “Not at the moment. Stay safe and out of trouble, Caleb.”
It was a long drive to the station. His son’s friend had been homeless for months, and Aaron hadn’t had a clue. He wondered if Trevor had. All the Friday night sleepovers and the odd request to do a load of laundry a teenager shouldn’t have volunteered to do told a story, but Aaron forced himself not to jump to conclusions.
But now he had a burned-out cottage and a homeless kid. The first was his job; the second felt like his responsibility. His options as a sheriff were limited, but he could still act as a private citizen. He needed somewhere to start, and his brain was spinning too fast to pick a place. He knew who’d jump at the chance to help. Brooke was at work, but she had a lunch break coming up.
Can I see you?
Sure. After work?
Thanks. See you then.
Something deep inside of him settled. Brooke had quickly become a rock in his life. Between the two of them, they’d find an answer.
Chapter 27
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Brooke needed to sit on the corner of the mattress after making the bed. She was exhausted. Not from work, but from a lack of sleep over the last two nights. The Sunday night scene in the mudroom with Trevor played through her head on a loop. What was she supposed to do? She had to talk to Aaron; she knew that. But she had no idea what she was going to say.
She had chatted with Lucy on Monday night when the building manager delivered all the new keys. Brooke flinched again when she thought of the expense of Caleb’s actions, but if he still had keys, who knew how many other people hadn’t turned theirs in either. The security upgrade wasn’t a bad thing.
Lucy mentioned that there was still a waiting list for the two-bedroom units. When Brooke asked about the bachelor apartments, Lucy made a face. “Are you looking to downsize when Jordan goes to college?”
“Not me. A friend might be interested. Is one available?” The tiny suites were beside the manager’s office in each building. The bachelor suites took up the rest of the floorplan to match the two-bedroom suites on the upper floors.
“They’re all empty. The previous unit manager really let those slide. The more they stood empty, the less he worked on them, and the more they deteriorated. They’re all liveable, but none of them are nice. Honestly, I haven’t touched them either, although Charlie and Josie have discussed giving me a small budget for them. They need a complete overhaul.”
“I might know somebody who’d take one as-is, especially if it came with a discount since it’ll be the last one you work on,” Brooke said, thinking Caleb needed a cheap place. Safe and clean and worn was better than what he had.
“Some rent coming in for them would be better than the nothing I’m collecting now. If your friend wants a viewing, let me know.”
Now all Brooke had to do was talk to Caleb, gently inform him that she knew he was staying in his car, and let him know that she had an apartment he might be interested in without knowing how much he could afford. Easy-peasy. Then she’d spend the afternoon solving world hunger.
When Aaron asked her if she wanted to take a walk down Main Street, she knew something was up. He’d asked her to meet him during the gap between the end of her workday and her study group, so it was important, but it definitely wasn’t a date.
The thick frost from the last couple mornings had burned off, but the late fall weather was there to stay. The ground was littered with leaves, and stark, bare branches added atmosphere to the spooky time of year. The sun was already casting long shadows when Brooke met with Aaron.
“You look like you’ve had a long day,” she observed after their first two silent blocks.
“A day and a half, more like it,” Aaron said with a sigh. “The good news is I won’t have any more callouts to Shelley’s Shack for parties or intruders. The bad news is because it burned to the ground yesterday morning.”
Everybody had heard there was a fire, but there were few details outside of “on Shakespeare Drive,” and the fire crew had done a good job at keeping people away from the scene. She hadn’t expected to hear the entire structure was gone. “To the ground?” she repeated. “Was anybody hurt?”
“Thankfully, no. Also, yes, it’s all gone. It’s a mess. It was also deliberate.”
Brooke felt her jaw drop. “Arson? For sure? Do you have any suspects?” She didn’t know if he could tell her, but news of a criminal on the loose in Holiday Beach was scary.
“Not at the moment. I had one lead, but it didn’t pan out.” Aaron took her arm and guided her to the empty playground beside Schultz Middle School. “Trevor’s friend, Caleb.”
All of a sudden, she felt a knot form in her stomach. “He works at By the Cup with Jordan. You don’t think he…”
“His car has been seen in the area lately, so I had to talk to him. He had an alibi. Did you know he was staying at the homeless shelter over in Bixby?”
Her shoulders slumped in relief. Trevor had passed along her request, and more importantly, Caleb had listened to it.
“You did know,” Aaron exclaimed. “You were right. You have absolutely no poker face.”
“I heard about his situation a couple of days ago. I tried to get word to him that the Mission Church had a shelter to help people who were down on their luck. I wasn’t even sure he got the message. I’m awfully glad he checked it out.” He’d gone there just in time, by the sounds of it. She couldn’t imagine the terror of needing an alibi during an arson investigation. “But you’re sure it wasn’t him, right?” Trevor would be devastated if his friend ended up under suspicion.
“He’s in the clear. But if you knew, and you knew he was Trevor’s friend, why didn’t you tell me? You know that Lucy asked me to track down his family at the beginning of September. It explains why I couldn’t find any sign of them. How long have you known?”
“When I said I found out a couple of days ago, I literally meant two days. I found out and have been working on finding him a place to stay. I spoke to Lucy today, and I have another place on my list,” she explained. “You have to know that the situation isn’t easy.”
“You should have told me,” he insisted, his hot words blowing out a cloud of steam when he spoke.
“Remember on Sunday night, when I said I got some difficult news and needed a day or two to get my head around it? This was it, Aaron. I’m doing my best here. Your son’s friend is homeless. How can we help him?”
His next sigh wasn’t aimed at her. “Protect and serve is in the job description, but solving problems like this is beyond the scope of the badge. I wish I’d known earlier, though. I could have done something. Not officially, but personally.”
“I know that. We’re both worried. You have been helping, even if you didn’t know it. All those Fridays that you let Caleb sleep over, even when you were tired of the extra person in the house. You gave him a chance to have a roof over his head. You gave him a hot meal. You let him shower and do all his laundry.”
Aaron had been nodding along as she’d listed everything that he’d already done without realizing it. Until she hit the last item on her list. “What? He didn’t do all his laundry at our place,” he said.
“Didn’t you tell me he was constantly draining your hot water tank?” she hedged. She was certain he’d said something similar.
“I said shower.” He stared into her eyes. “Has Caleb been doing all laundry at my house? I knew there was a couple of loads. How could you even know that it was his?”
She should have stopped while she was ahead, but she wasn’t going to lie. “I saw Trevor with some stuff.”
“But how do you know it was Caleb’s? He and Trevor are about the same size.”
“You don’t seem like the type to have cartoon tiger towels.”
“We aren’t.” Aaron fell silent. For two very long minutes. “But I know where I could find some if I wanted them. We used tiger towels when we were stranded in Shelley’s Shack. You took them home to wash them after the fact.”
Busted.
“Which means Caleb was at the cabin,” he continued.
“He could have been there. Maybe. The towels looked like they were from the dollar store, though. I’m sure they weren’t the only ones in town.”
“You knew.” It wasn’t quite an accusation. It didn’t have the tone.
But it was too close for comfort. “I realized it was possible, but I didn’t have any proof. I haven’t talked to him in person aside from giving him my order at By the Cup.”
“Brooke, you suspected, and you didn’t tell me.”
“Aaron, I told you that I found out he was homeless on Sunday. Today is Tuesday. So far, I’ve gotten him into a shelter and possibly found a cheap studio apartment he can rent. What else do you expect from me?” She wasn’t Super Girl. She wasn’t even Semi-Super Girl.
“You knew about a crime. I expected that you would tell me, your boyfriend the sheriff, about it.”
“I’d be worse than Neil Dempsey if I’d said anything. Not only do I not have any pro
of a crime was committed, but I would also be pinning a target on Caleb’s back! I never saw him at Shelley’s Shack. I have no proof the towels in the cabin were his. There is no cabin anymore, so any proof he was ever there is gone anyway. All you have is proof that he wasn’t the person who set the fire.”
“Brooke, you’re reaching.”
“If he was there, do you have proof that he didn’t have permission from the owners? They haven’t called you back about pressing charges for the partiers, and that crew caused all kinds of property damage. For all you know, Caleb had permission to stay there—not that I’m saying he was there. Because I don’t know. And neither do you.”
“What are the odds of that?”
“I have no idea. What I do know is that if we broke into that place for emergency shelter and the owners didn’t care—and since they never got back to you, I think that’s a fair assessment—I shouldn’t assume they’d care if Caleb did the same thing.”
Her arguments weren’t convincing him. “You should have told me, Brooke. You’ve put me in a real predicament.”
“Welcome to my life. Now we both have secondhand information, we have no proof of anything, and we still have a teenager with no place to go.” Brooke had been right the first time. There was no right answer to this situation. There were just shades of horrible choices, and she’d made the best one she could. Now it was Aaron’s turn.
“I need to go. I have to deal with…” He swung his hand around, as if he could encompass the entire situation with one easy move.
“As the sheriff?” she asked. “Or as Trevor’s dad? I can work with Trevor’s dad on trying to help, but I can’t help the sheriff.”
He didn’t answer. He also didn’t kiss her goodbye when he left.
Chapter 28
The fire was long out but his temper was still blazing. Aaron changed into his rubber fishing boots and slowly made his way around the burnt-out shell of the cabin. He told himself that he wasn’t going to find any sign Caleb had been in the area, but he looked around anyway.