Cold River (25 page)

“Yes, but they’re all wet,” Fran answered. “Are you coming down?”

“Let me get something on my feet.” Mandy noticed her hand was shaking as she opened a drawer to grab a pair of socks. Once she had her hiking boots on, she pulled on a jacket over her flannel pajamas. She clenched her teeth to stop the chattering as she headed down the circular staircase, leaning on the banister for support.

Out on the deck, Leesie and Fran stood staring at the charred swath on the wall. A tiny wisp of smoke curled up from the crack between two cedar planks. “You’d better hit that again, Leesie,” Fran advised.

Leesie put the nozzle right up to the crack and pulled the trigger. Water shot out in all directions.

“Go put some clothes on,” Mandy admonished her sister. “You’re soaked. Get something on your feet, too.”

“Since the crisis is over, I think I’ll go get a shower,” Leesie said. “I’m going to church with Jake.” She eyed Mandy in her boots and pajamas and smiled. “You look totally stylish.”

“Thank you. Why are you going so early?”

Leesie had the door open and answered over her shoulder. “The Timberlains are singing, and they want me to sing with them. We’re going early to practice.”

Mandy nodded and then turned to Fran, who was kneeling on the deck, examining the charred wood at the base of the wall.

“What did you put here?” Fran asked.

“Nothing.”

“No oily rags? No ashes?”

“Where would I get ashes? The fireplace is gas.”

“I’m just searching for a reason for this.” Fran stood. “There’s no way it could be an electrical problem.”

“What else could it be?”

“I don’t know, unless it was deliberately set.”

Mandy’s eyes widened. “Who would do that? A box of stinkbugs on my porch is one thing, but to set my house on fire? There’s got to be another explanation.”

Fran picked up the hose and shot another jet of water into the crack between boards. “I need to get this siding off.” She looked at her watch. “I’ve got to get to the store up in Trillium. I was just on my way when I saw the smoke. Here.” She handed the hose to Mandy. “You watch that crack while I go get my tools. If you see smoke coming out of it, shoot it with water again.”

“All right.” Mandy held the nozzle and fingered the trigger. As she stared at the crack, she gritted her teeth to keep them from chattering, but she couldn’t stop the shivering.

It seemed like forever before Fran returned. She drove her pickup around back, jumped out, and took a hammer and pry bar from the pickup bed.

Mandy stood aside as Fran went to work, expertly hammering the wedged end of the pry bar under the siding and levering it out. She pulled the nails and tore off four planks, which she threw on the ground behind the deck.

The sheeting under the siding was charred and creviced like alligator skin in several large, oval areas. Each oval was edged with ashy lace and studded with tiny orange jewels that glowed as the breeze blew by.

“Hit that again with water,” Fran said.

Mandy pulled the trigger and watched the steam rise.

“That’s okay now, I think.” Fran threw her hammer and bar into the pickup bed. “I’ve got to go. You keep an eye on this until I get back.”

“I was going to go to church this morning.”

Fran shook her head. “I’ve got to be in Trillium until eleven. I’ll come right back, but I need you here checking for wisps of smoke. If you see anything, douse it.”

“I’m going to call Doc MacDonald,” Mandy said.

“Why?”

“If it was deliberately set, he needs to know about it. That’s arson.”

“I know what it is,” Fran said grimly. She looked at her watch. “But don’t do anything until I get back, okay? Except check out here every fifteen minutes or so.” She went down the stairs and pitched the four blackened planks into her pickup bed.

“Okay.” Mandy’s teeth were chattering again.

Fran stood with the pickup door in her hand. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. When Leesie gets out of the shower, I’ll get in. I think I’m just cold.”

“I’ll see you a little after eleven.” Fran got in and drove away.

As Mandy watched her round the corner of the house and disappear, a breeze tickled the back of her neck and made her shiver again. She turned up her jacket collar and, still clutching the nozzle, folded her arms for warmth. She stared at the blackened sheathing on the house, but no smoky threads arose from the charred places. She blasted each with water just in case and then, unclenching her hand with difficulty, she laid the nozzle on the deck and went back in the house.

The smell of smoke was still strong, so Mandy left the sliding glass door wide and opened the front door and all the downstairs windows. When she heard the whine of Leesie’s hair dryer, she judged that it was safe to shower without robbing her sister of hot water, so she crept upstairs. Each step was an effort, for her joints felt rusty and on the verge of seizing up. She dropped her clothes in a heap at the bathroom door, turned on the hot water, and leaned into the shower to feel the warmth of the steam as it billowed up. Almost reluctantly, she adjusted the temperature of the water to something less than scalding, stepped inside, and closed the shower door.

There was something comforting about standing in a square, tile-and-glass cocoon, swathed in clouds of warm, ethereal mist, with water washing over her shoulders and sliding down her back. The shivering stopped; her joints became supple again as she lifted her arms to wash her hair, and she felt the warmth creeping back into her core.

Over the sound of splashing water, Mandy heard Leesie calling through the bathroom door. “I’m going. I’ve checked out back. Everything’s fine. The living room has aired out, but it’s colder than a well digger’s shovel down there, so I’ve closed the doors and turned on the fire.”

Mandy didn’t open her eyes because she had water running down her face. “Thank you,” she called.

“See you later. I’m gone.”

Mandy stood under the shower, willing her mind away from the memory of orange flames and cedar smoke and the panic that made her limbs work like rusty hinges. She thought about her mother and what she would think of Leesie’s newfound interest in bluegrass. From there, Mandy’s thoughts turned to Opening Festival just weeks away, and she wondered if she should tough it out or if she should look for another situation.

She didn’t leave the shower until all the hot water was gone. Reluctantly, she turned off the tap, reached for her towel, and stepped out. The mirror was fogged clear to the bottom, and a cloud of steam hung in the air. She toweled off, dressed, and went downstairs to sit by the fire, allowing her dark, springy curls to air dry.

She braved the chilly, gray morning for just a moment to go out on the deck and check the siding. No smoke. She laid her hand on one of the black spots, but it was cool to the touch. Brushing the soot from her hand, she went back in. As she washed at the kitchen sink, she eyed the clock. Two hours until Fran was to show up.

It was a long two hours. Minutes stretched to eighty or ninety seconds at least, and the little hand on the clock seemed frozen in place. Mandy prowled around the house, unable to be still, unable to read, unable to think about anything except a fire deliberately set. She looked up Doc MacDonald’s phone number, and twice she had the handset to her ear and her finger on the first button before deciding to wait until Fran got back. Finally, she sat at the piano and began playing hymns. As her fingers found the chords and melodies that were as familiar to her as her grandmother’s face, she became calmer, and the nervous restlessness that had kept her in constant motion began to leave. When Fran returned, she had to hammer on the door to be heard over Mandy’s rollicking version of “Count Your Blessings.”

She let her neighbor in and assured her that she had checked the burn site frequently. The fire was definitely out.

“Thank heavens!” Fran sank into a chair. “You have no idea how worried I’ve been. I hated to leave, but I’m shorthanded right now. It’s hard to keep good help when Vince won’t pay anything more than minimum wage.”

“I was a little worried, myself,” Mandy said. “But everything’s fine. Now, why didn’t you want me to call Doc MacDonald?”

Fran grimaced. “Insurance. My premiums are sky high as it is. I had a devil of a time finding someone to insure me because of where the house is situated. I have to have insurance because of the mortgage. But if there was a police report about a fire, I might be cancelled. I don’t know who I could get to insure me then.”

“Surely if somebody set the fire it wouldn’t affect your insurance!”

“Well, that’s just the thing. I’ve been thinking about it. I don’t know if you’ve noticed a faint musty smell?”

Mandy nodded. “Just when I moved in. Not lately.”

“It’s left over from the flood,” Fran said. “Maybe there’s a bit of mold somewhere under the house.”

“Mold? What does that have to do with fire?”

“Do you know anything about spontaneous combustion?”

Mandy frowned. “What do you mean?”

Fran laughed, a short, nervous bark. “I forgot. You’re from the Southwest. They never have that problem there. Do you know the expression
Make hay while the sun shines
?”

Mandy’s frown deepened. “Fran, what are you talking about?”

“You need five good, dry, sunny days to put up hay— mow it, dry it, and bale it. That’s hard to come by up here sometimes. If you get pushed by rainy weather coming in and the hay isn’t completely dry, you run the risk of having the hay bales spontaneously combust and burn down your barn.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing. Are you making this up?”

Fran laughed again, less nervously this time. “No, truly. It’s something about the compression of the hay and being stacked densely in the barn. Internal heat from bacterial growth in the wet hay builds up, and it gets so hot that the hay actually ignites. Every year we lose at least one barn in the county that way.”

“So, what does that have to do with anything?”

“I wonder if that may not be what happened here. Maybe there was some bacterial action that started the fire.”

Mandy wrinkled her nose. “It sounds a little far-fetched.

“Any more than hay bales spontaneously combusting?”

“Well, no.”

“Let me do a little investigating, see if that ever has happened. Don’t call Doc until after that, okay?”

Mandy’s brows contracted as she considered.

“I’m going to go down under the house and check around, see if I can feel any areas that are hotter than they should be,” Fran continued.

“That might make me breathe easier,” Mandy drew her hand across her forehead. “I don’t know, Fran. I’m real uneasy about this.”

Her landlady was quiet for a moment, staring at the ceiling. “What I’m uneasy about is, why didn’t the smoke alarm go off? Or wasn’t there any smoke in the house?” She got up and dragged a chair to the passageway beside the kitchen.

“I never thought about that! There was lots of smoke in the house.” Mandy followed her and watched as she stood on the chair and took the cover off the alarm.

“There’s no battery.” Fran looked down at Mandy. “Did you take it out?”

“Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know. I know that when I rented the house to you, there were batteries in all the smoke alarms.”

“This isn’t making me feel any better.” Mandy folded her arms and hunched her shoulders. “Spontaneous combustion I might be able to believe, but spontaneous battery disappearance? I don’t think so.”

Fran replaced the cover. “Well, call Doc if that will make you feel any better.” She jumped down and pushed the chair back up to the table. “But what will he say, besides advising you to get out while the getting is good?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like you said, Mandy, a box of stinkbugs is one thing. Poison and fire are completely different.”

“Poison?”

“I was there when you got sick, remember? Word is going around that it was likely mushroom poisoning.”

“But Grange said it was too early for mushrooms.”

“Mutt Maypole had morels a week ago. Oh, Mandy!” Fran flung herself back in the chair. “I don’t want to sound so selfish and money hungry! Go ahead and call Doc. Tell him everything. I don’t want something to happen to you. It’ll be my fault because I was afraid of losing my house.”

“Losing your house? Surely you wouldn’t lose it!” Mandy sat opposite and looked earnestly at her friend.

“If the insurance rates doubled or tripled, it would really tap me out. I don’t know if I could make the mortgage payments.”

“But you said you’d let me out of the lease. Wouldn’t the same thing apply if I left you holding the bag for the rent?”

“No, because it’ll soon be summer, and I can easily find a renter then. In fact, I can rent it as a vacation cabin and make three times what I get from you.”

Mandy leaned back in her chair and sighed. “Leaving seems so cowardly.”

“It seems practical to me. I mean, what do you owe these people?” Fran seemed to think for a moment. “Not to get all spiritual on you, but do you ever think that God may have a purpose for you somewhere?”

“Yes. Certainly.”

“Well, what if that purpose isn’t here? What if God’s trying to get you somewhere else, only you’re resisting?”

“I’ve thought of that myself. It’s so hard to know.” Mandy ran her fingers through her curls. “Okay, here’s the thing. I won’t call Doc— yet. But the next suspicious thing that happens, I’m on the phone immediately.”

“If you decide to leave, the news will be all over town in a minute. Mission accomplished. There won’t be a next suspicious thing.”

“There is that. But it’s so hard to let
them
win.”

Fran stood. “There you go again,” she said with a laugh, “fighting God.”

Mandy smiled and stood to walk her to the door. “Maybe so. But if I do decide to leave, the trip up here has been worth it to have you as a friend.”

Fran gave her a hug. “I think so too. I’m going to run up and grab some batteries and come down and make sure all your smoke alarms are working. Then I’ll get under the house and have a look.”

“Thanks.”