“You brought us taffy?” Brenda asked, perking up. “It was a really good treat.”
Dotty wagged her tail happily, thinking there might be something for her too. Lydia looked back and forth at the two expectant faces and realized she didn’t have much to give. She had already given the full box of taffy to Leo.
“I’m afraid I didn’t bring it with me. I wanted to check and make sure that no one here had any food allergies. And to check if there were any favorite flavors.”
“Well, there are no food allergies here,” Brenda said. “I would have learned that by now, with the meals we have here. I think we’d probably like any flavors you make though. That almond one was really good.”
Lydia reached into her purse. “I should have a few of the almond ones on me. I normally carry a few of my newest flavor with me. And I think I do have a dog treat in here too. I was going to give it to my dog, Sunny. But I don’t want to tease Dotty here. I can get another one for Sunny.”
Brenda happily took the almond taffy while Lydia handed the treat to the spotted canine.
“She’s a beautiful dog,” Lydia said as Dotty munched.
“She really is,” Brenda said. “And she’s the sweetest thing you’d ever meet. I love her a lot.”
Dotty finished her treat, and Lydia knelt down to pet the thankful dog. “What was it that you said about her before?”
“I don’t remember exactly what I was saying,” Brenda said as she chewed. “I was upset.”
“Did you say that Phil won Dotty?”
“Oh. When Dotty retires, she gets to move in with one of the firefighters. Both Phil and I wanted her. We did a challenge around the station to get her, and he won. I was upset, especially when he started ignoring me after that. I thought he was being rude. He wouldn’t even speak to me the day before he died.”
“But you’ll get Dotty now?” asked Lydia, wondering if the dog could be a motive for murder.
Brenda must have sensed what she was thinking. “I should. But why are you so interested in this? Is this because you’re related to the detective? Are you spying on me?”
“No. That was not my intention,” Lydia said.
“I wouldn’t kill Phil,” Brenda said. “I was mad at him, and I wanted Dotty, but we look out for each other here. And I wasn’t near the bachelor auction until I arrived at the scene. I was on the other side of town fighting a fire.”
“I didn’t mean to accuse you of anything,” Lydia said. “But I was curious about the last time you saw Phil Burns.”
“You mean when I saw the charred body of my friend?” Brenda asked defiantly.
“No. I mean when he ignored you.”
“We were at the station the day before he died. He was wearing his suit, and I asked if we had a fire to fight or if he was practicing his strut for the action. He just walked away and left without answering.”
“You’re sure it was Phil?”
“What do you mean? He was wearing Phil’s gear.”
“Could you see his face?” Lydia asked.
Brenda looked uncertain. “He had his mask on. Why?”
“Because Phil Burns might have been killed earlier than he was found. In fact, he might have been killed three days earlier.”
“Three days? That’s right after we decided who won Dotty,” Brenda said slowly. “I had thought he was ignoring me. But could it be that I didn’t see his face?”
“Is it possible?” asked Lydia.
“Possible,” Brenda said with an unhappy nod. “But I don’t like that you’re asking me this. Are you hoping to trick me into saying something? I didn’t kill anyone. I save people’s lives and homes as my job.”
Dotty barked as if in agreement.
“Well, is there anyone who might have wanted to hurt Phil?” asked Lydia.
“No. He was a good man. There was no one who wanted him dead. Myself included.” However, right after she said that she paused. “But I guess if money were a motive.”
“It often is,” Lydia said, encouraging her to keep talking.
“Well, we have life insurance policies in place based on the dangerous work we do. And if we are killed in the line of duty, it would go to a family member. I think it would go to Phil’s brother, Pete.”
“His brother,” Lydia repeated, thinking about what she had heard about the argument that the two brothers had recently. Maybe Pete had a stronger motive to kill someone he disagreed with. Maybe he killed his brother for money.
10
The Bothered Brother
“Can I help you?” Pete Burns asked when he opened his front door.
Lydia thought that he looked impatient rather than sad. She wondered if her excuse of visiting to express her condolences would work.
“Are you Pete Burns?”
“I am. Who are you?”
“My name is Lydia Doherty. I knew your brother,” she said, stretching the truth to include the time she had briefly seen the man she believed to be Phil helping put out the fire at Mona’s condo complex. The man she saw talking to Leo that day did bear a resemblance to the man before her.
“You knew Phil?” Pete asked. “And you came here to tell me what a hero he was? To let me know that everyone in this whole entire town misses him and mourns his death? To let me know how proud they are of him? To try and comfort me over the loss of such an amazing brother?”
Lydia considered him. His tone sounded sarcastic, but there was still a note of pain in it. She guessed that the relationship with the brother, if not deadly, was still complicated. She could understand sibling difficulties. She and Leo had troubles themselves after the death of their beloved uncle, and Leo had even considered her a murder suspect before. However, it was possible that the problems between the Burns brothers had bubbled over into murder.
It didn’t seem like singing Phil’s praises was going to get Pete to open up, so Lydia tried a different technique.
“No, actually.”
“No?” Pete asked, looking confused.
“No. I’m here because Phil owed me money.”
“He did? For what?”
“For the bachelor auction,” Lydia said, awkwardly. “I helped him with it.”
“Huh?”
“I gave him lessons on how to strut on stage,” Lydia continued, hoping that her lie made some sense. “He was nervous about his stage presence, and I taught him how to walk about confidently. He was supposed to pay me for it after the performance. I know the situation is sad and I’m embarrassed to come to you. But I do need that money.”
“You can give lessons on strutting?” Pete asked.
“Yes,” Lydia said, starting to regret her lie. “I will show you.”
She hoped that she looked convincing as she sashayed up and down the driveway. She exuded as much confidence as she could. Then she quickly said, “That’s all I can show you for free. Any more and I would have to charge you.”
“How much did you charge Phil for that?”
“A hundred dollars,” Lydia said. “And I normally wouldn’t mind under the circumstances, but I promised the money that he was going to give me to the community center. So I do need it right away.”
“Fine. I bet I have a hundred dollars in cash inside. Stay here.”
Pete went inside for a moment. Lydia hoped that he was getting the money (that she definitely would donate to the community center fund) and he wasn’t calling the police to report that a crazy person was outside.
He returned a few minutes later and placed the money in her hand. “It’s nice to know that Phil wasn’t completely perfect. He needed lessons to impress women on stage.”
“You didn’t like that he was doing the auction?”
“I thought it was stupid,” Pete admitted. “I think he decided to do it just to annoy me. He liked to do that. He completely ignored my advice when he went house shopping, and he bought a place that needs work all the time. We fought almost every time I visited him because of that. If he listened to me, he wo
uldn’t need to do repairs on it all the time.”
“Did you fight when he came over here?”
“We always met at his house. He’s allergic to my cat. He doesn’t want to go inside,” Pete said. “But I didn’t really want to go into his either. I wondered if he bought the house to spite me too. Sometimes little brothers love to push your buttons. No matter how big they get.”
“Will you inherit that house now?” asked Lydia.
“I guess so,” Pete said, considering it. “It would either go to one of our cousins out west or me.”
Lydia nodded. “I suppose I don’t have to feel too guilty about collecting this hundred dollars then. You’ll inherit his house. And you’ll probably get some money from a life insurance policy. Firefighters should have that in place.”
“You seem awfully interested in my inheritance. I’m not going to give you anything else without some sort of documentation or receipt. I only paid you now because I like the idea of Phil having to pay someone to learn to strut.”
“I understand. And this was all he owed me,” Lydia said. “If it helps, I am sorry for your loss.”
Pete shrugged. “I’m sure it will hit me later. But he drove me crazy when he was alive. And everyone loved him so much. That made me even crazier. But he was my little brother.”
“When was the last time you saw him?” asked Lydia.
“A week ago. It was clear something was bothering him. But he didn’t want to talk about it. That annoyed me that he wouldn’t open up. What was the point of getting together if we weren’t going to share? But I guess he was nervous about the auction and he thought I would tease him. I probably would have if I knew he was paying for strutting lessons.”
“You didn’t see him after that?”
“I didn’t go to the auction if that’s what you mean,” Pete said. “I thought the event was stupid. I didn’t want to watch it. Maybe if I knew that was the last time I’d see my brother, I might have gone. But I didn’t know that then.”
“He didn’t make it on stage. I wondered what happened,” Lydia said. “But the truth is that I didn’t see him for the last three days before the auction. I wondered if he was avoiding me so he wouldn’t have to pay. Of course, it could have been for another reason.”
“Like what?”
“He was killed earlier and simply placed at the crime scene.”
“Is that possible?” asked Pete.
“It might be,” said Lydia. “Do you remember what you were doing that day?”
“Are you trying to ask if I might have been able to kill my brother?” Pete asked. “You know, you ask a lot of questions for a dance instructor. And I’m tired of answering them.”
With that, he walked inside and slammed the door. Lydia sighed. She had gotten a lot of information out of Pete Burns, but she hadn’t gotten an alibi. There was certainly no love lost between the brothers. He would have to stay on her suspect list.
11
Style and Substance
“I can’t believe you went there alone,” Trina said.
She was sweeping the floor at the salon during a lull between customers. Her boss Felisha was nearby, shaking her head.
“I wouldn’t have gone inside his house,” Lydia explained after telling her friend about the conversation she had with Pete Burns. “But I knew you were at work, and Daniel didn’t answer my call before.”
“You should have waited for me. I love questioning potential killers,” Trina said. “And I like knowing that you have backup if you’re heading into a dangerous situation. Felisha, if my best friend is about to enter a situation where she might get killed, can I have some time off to help her?”
“Sure,” Felisha said, only half-listening. “You can make your own schedule.”
“She really does mean that,” Trina said. “You figured out who killed Rhonda from the salon. And Felisha does still technically owe me money for the repairs here. Which might have made a much more convincing lie than strutting lessons.”
“It worked,” Lydia said, though she couldn’t stop from laughing at the memory of her performance.
Trina laughed too but then got down to business. “You think Pete might have done this?”
“Well, he and his brother didn’t get along very well. And he should be getting money from the death.”
“That does sound like a good suspect.”
Lydia nodded. “But because it’s hard to pin down the exact time of death, it’s hard to figure out when alibis are needed. The killer needed to murder Phil Burns about three days ago, and he used fire as the way to do it. Then the killer placed the body at the building where the bachelors were staying, and he must have done something to make the fire start when it did. I think there’s something else too.”
“More than killing someone and moving the body?”
“I think the killer also started a fire across town so that Brenda and anyone else at the fire station wouldn’t be able to respond immediately if they got the call about the fire by the auction.”
“That makes sense,” Trina agreed.
“But that makes me think that the killer wanted all this to happen at a certain time and I’m not sure why.”
“Does Pete Burns have a good alibi for the time of the auction?” asked Trina.
“I don’t know. He slammed the door in my face before I could get that information,” Lydia said, frowning. “But I did raise some more money for the community center with my strutting.”
Trina tried not to laugh again and asked, “Do you think the person Leo was interviewing is involved?”
“Probably not,” Lydia said. “She looked terrified of being sued and was worried about her business. If she wanted to kill Phil Burns for some reason, I think she would have disposed of the body somewhere else.”
“Yeah. I wouldn’t want to hide a dead body where I work,” Trina said, looking around. “Plus there might be blood I would have to clean up.”
“What was that?” asked Felisha.
“Nothing,” said Trina.
“I just wish I knew when the murder really took place,” Lydia said.
“Actually, I might be able to help with that!” Trina said. “Because where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
“How does that solve the time of death?”
“Ladies at the salon love to gossip. And about anything out of the ordinary. That definitely includes fire.” Trina turned to Felisha. “What have you heard about fire recently?”
“Well, there was the fire by the bachelor auction yesterday that everyone was talking about,” Felisha said. “And there was another fire across town too. There wasn’t anyone that lived close by, but apparently, it was a grease fire and was hard to put out.”
“And fires earlier?” asked Lydia. “Like three days ago?”
Felisha thought about it. “There was a fire at a beach house where tourists were staying at where they lit a bonfire on the front lawn. It was called in quickly though so there wasn’t much damage. But that was about five days ago.”
“That couldn’t be it,” Lydia said.
Trina frowned. “If there had been another fire in town, I’m sure we would have heard about it. Unless no one who engages in gossip saw it at all. But that doesn’t seem likely. If we heard about how Mrs. Klusky’s pet ferret was lost from five different people, we should have heard about a fire.”
“I guess it’s possible that the murder didn’t happen in town where your clients could have seen it,” said Lydia. “Or maybe it was late at night and was contained somehow.”
“It does seem like this killer knows how to work with fire,” Trina said. “He used it at least three times.”
“Which makes Brenda seem like a more likely suspect,” Lydia said, sitting in one of the styling chairs.
“She might have killed him so she would get the dog,” Trina said, sitting next to her. “I don’t know if we would premeditate murder, but we would go to extremes to take care of Sunny.”
“T
hat’s true. And I need to remember to pick her up another treat on my way home. I gave hers to a suspect.”
“Maybe Dotty is the killer,” Trina said. “It makes as much sense as anything else right now.”
“I think that the killer disguised himself as Phil Burns to hide the time of death,” Lydia said, considering it.
“Does that take Brenda out of the running as a suspect?”
Almonds and Arson Page 5