Fire Works in the Hamptons : A Willow Tate Novel (9781101547649) (11 page)

I put as much vehemence as I could into my “Yes, I am sure.”

Piet smiled. “Still, watch out for a guy who doesn't back off when he's challenged. Do you think he'll write his article now?”

“I don't care. It's more important for us to make a plan for dealing with the lightning bugs. Then I can get back to my books and let my work speak for itself. I was never sure about going so public anyway. I like people not knowing whether Willy is a man or a woman.”

He checked out my nightshirt that was now plastered to my chest with Elladaire's spilled bottle. “She's a woman, all right.”

“Ahem. We need a plan.”

“I'm working on one right now.” He was changing Elladaire's diaper. What a man!

“Seriously, what should we do about the fires? You can put them out if we find them, but you can't stop them from happening, and you can't be everywhere. Or stay forever.”

“First, we reconnoiter. No, first, I take a nap. I'll be no good to anyone if I fall asleep on the job. Then we'll look around town, see if we can discover what people know, where the fires are, and why. The why's your job.”

“Mine?”

“You have to find out why the bugs are here, what they want. The troll came to claim his half brother. The night mares might have arrived by accident, but they stayed to rescue a lost colt. It's my understanding that the aberrant travelers can find their way back whenever they want. So the bugs must have a reason for not going home.”

That made sense. Impossible to comprehend, but reasonable. I couldn't imagine what motivated a bug to do anything, other than food and sex. Like a man, and I managed that species equally as badly.

“So is there a cheap motel anywhere close?” Piet asked. “I don't relish sleeping in the camper with no hot water.”

I didn't have to think about my answer. “We're partners, right? I have a spare bedroom. It's my mother's, but she's not due back until she finds homes for a hundred greyhounds. It has its own bath, with plenty of hot water.”

“Sounds like heaven.”

“But only if you watch Elladaire for another couple of minutes while I shower and change. Then I'll take over. We're good at stacking the pots and pans.”

Twenty minutes later I was back on baby duty, back to worrying. I should have asked if the fire-suppression thing worked when Piet slept. I didn't want to find out the hard way.

“How about some goldfish, Edie?”

That lasted about five minutes. Babies had the attention span of a flea, and this one wanted Piet.

“He's resting, sweetie. He'll be back soon. Please don't cry.”

Except his last words before shutting my mother's door were “Trust me.”

“Okay, Elladaire, you can cry.”

I put the TV on for her and called my grandmother. “You know that stuff you have to make burns heal and scars go away?” I asked.

“So you
are
responsible for those fires! I tried to deny the rumors.”

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Gran. “No, I am not responsible. And Mr. Doorn had the burns and the scars before he got here. He's a fire specialist who's just arrived to help.”

“Very well, I'll make up a new batch of salve. Bring him to dinner.”

Oh, hell. I hated eating at Grandmother Eve's. She wasn't above experimenting on the family and you never knew what you were eating. Or what she'd say. An order was an order, though. “Okay. We might have a baby.”

“You just met him!”

“I mean a baby with us. I'm minding a friend's child.”

“Is your friend insane?”

Thanks again, Gran. “Mary Brown is in the hospital. Janie had to go help her.”

“
That
baby? I heard whispers about her. The rain is stopping. We'll eat outside.”

“You don't have to do that. Elladaire is fine. Piet took care of the little problem she had. I don't know if it's permanent yet, but she's not a threat as long as he's here.”

“Thank the goddess. What does he like for dessert?”

 

Janie had left me a baby car seat, in case I had to take Elladaire with me somewhere, like the hospital. As if I knew how to install one of the contraptions.

Piet did. We were off.

Our first stop was the Fire Department, for Piet to offer his assistance. Micky, the kid who maintained the trucks and the building, called over to Town Hall for the captain, who was also the village building inspector. While we waited, Micky proudly showed Piet the shiny equipment. I bet Piet's would make him cry. His firefighting equipment, that is. Micky was gay; Piet wasn't. Micky's ESP told him every time; that flutter in my innards told me.

The fire captain came and gave a hard sniff after Piet volunteered his expertise. Mac didn't ask how Piet could help, or why he'd come. The stranger was with me, which meant everyone was better off not knowing. “You'll do,” he said and tapped his nose. “I can always tell a good firefighter. There's a smoky smell to them years before they join the department and years after they retire. You'll be welcome.” Except Mac's pipe tobacco wouldn't light for some reason. He gave Piet a beeper for direct communication and a police scanner to monitor the fire calls.

We paid a courtesy call at Town Hall next. The mayor remembered to come to work that afternoon, but he forgot about the fires.

Chief of Police Haversmith, whom everyone called Uncle Henry, was glad to have outside help, but he wanted to know a little more of what I was bringing to the town this time. “He's been with the Army and the Forest Service, and knows a lot about scientific firefighting. He's got this new technique, a canister filled with—”

“Bullshit.” Uncle Henry belched, excused himself, and reached for a bottle of antacid tablets. “Damn it, Willy, you know what lies do to my stomach.”

Piet grinned. “You warned me.”

“I wanted to prove it.”

Uncle Henry put his pills away. “Just don't let him stir up more awkward questions no one can answer. In fact, might be better all around if you let folks think you've landed another prospect.”

“Uncle Henry!”

“They're going to suspect that anyway. He's staying at your house, isn't he?”

Grandma Eve had already been on the phone.

Piet said that wasn't such a bad idea. DUE warned him against being too obvious, as always. So I let him hold my hand when we left the police department.

While he fastened Elladaire in her car seat, Big Eddie, the young cop who ran the K9 section, the arson squad, and the missing persons department when he wasn't giving parking tickets, whispered to me: “I think this one is a keeper. He smells of antiseptic and milk and your mother's shampoo. Nice.”

 

Okay, he was a nice guy. He opened my door for me. So what? We were partners, nothing else. We split the lunch bill at the deli, and let the village gossips make what they wanted out of that. I paid for Elladaire's grilled cheese sandwich. He left the tip. And bought me a chocolate bar on the way out.

Very nice.

CHAPTER 11

P
IET WANTED TO GET FAMILIAR with the village, so we went on a tour through Main Street on the cloudy, cool late morning. Elladaire's stroller, diaper bag, bottle, toys, blanket, sunscreen and hat took more time packing than I needed for a weekend.

Downtown was déjà vu, with differences. I'd done the same route with Barry only a few days ago. This visit wasn't as fraught, because Piet knew about the Harbor's quirks. I didn't have to explain how we had a blind postmaster, or how the barber gave a thumbs-up for Piet's strong power aura or how Joanne at the deli knew the way he liked his coffee. By now everyone who mattered knew what baby we pushed, and that Piet made her safe to take out in public. What they thought about us together was easy to tell, without any added perceptions. Smiles, nods, and a “Come see me,” from the jeweler whose engagement rings told him if a match was right said it all.

“Nice friendly town,” Piet noted, the same as Barry had. Sure it was, now that I had a man of talent, a possible problem solver, with me. Suddenly I wasn't esper-sona non grata.

I told Piet not to go into the drugstore when he wanted to get a newspaper and a new toothbrush. And end up with a sack full of mortifying condoms? I volunteered to go while he stayed outside with the baby. I wanted to pick up some videos and books for her, I explained, which was true.

I wanted to get some books about the fireflies, too, so I could compare beetle pictures without having to flip through a hundred computer screens and links. The problem was, I didn't know if Mrs. Terwilliger would let me into the library, even if I left the pint-sized threat of fire outside with Piet. While I stood on the sidewalk, debating whether to confront the dictator of the Dewey Decimal System, the eighty-year-old librarian came outside. To see if the grass was dry enough to hold the reading group on the lawn, she claimed. I didn't believe her, not when she handed me a tote bag filled with books.

“Bring them back on time. They are all checked out properly,” she declared.

I didn't doubt that for an instant. Or that the books would be about beetles, babies, and burns. She'd put in a couple of books for Elladaire too, and a history of Paumanok Harbor for Piet.

“How did she know . . . ? Did you call ahead?”

I smiled. “How do you put out fires?”

“Got it.”

I took him to our new arts and recreation center so he could meet my friend Louisa, who had absolutely no para-skills. Louisa, who was immensely pregnant, was directing a man on a ladder hanging pictures for a new gallery show while she tried to design a brochure for the opening, feed her son a yogurt, admire her daughter's crayon drawings on the floor, and talk to her husband on one phone, a newspaper editor on the other. A harried assistant, a frantic artist, Joe the Plumber, and fifteen kids wandering in for the after-school programs waited for directions. She waved to me and yelled across the room: “You look good with a baby, Willy. Want two more? My babysitter is sick.”

I waved back and left quickly.

“Normal, huh?”

“But not dull.”

Outside again, a cold drizzle turned the town gray and dreary, so we halted the tour and got back in the car. Piet wanted to see the sites of the recent fires, following the list Mac at the firehouse gave him.

We saw scorched trash cans in the center of town, but everything in or around them had been swept up and sanitized days ago. A few of the torched mailboxes on the side streets still waited for repairs. Ignoring the rain, Piet got out and touched and smelled and walked around six of them.

He did the same at the charred old shed behind the bowling alley while Elladaire and I read the new books. The Wheels on the Bus book had wheels that turned! What would they think of next?

Piet came back with a handful of dirt or leaves that he wanted to examine later. I found my mother's stash of pooper-scooper bags under the backseat for him. He stuffed some in his pockets while I drove out to the demolished beach cottage.

You could smell soot, even with the rain and the distance from the house where I had to park the car. A narrow crushed-shell path led down to the ruins on the shore, but you couldn't see much from here.

“Do you have to go? It's awfully far away. And I think it's raining harder.”

“I have my rain poncho.”

“The county arson squad's been here, and the insurance inspectors. None of them found anything. Big Eddie sniffed for accelerants, anything suspicious. I thought the cause of a fire was not your field of expertise.”

He was pulling the plastic raincoat on over his head. “I've seen a lot of fires,” was all he said.

“But you won't see Elladaire from there.” That was my main concern, of course, not that he'd get wet or waste his time. “The building could be out of your range.” He'd said his extinguishing distance varied with weather and terrain.

“You want me to take her out in the storm?”

The baby's lip was quivering already, and her eyes started to fill with tears. Her Pipi was leaving. “Do you want her to cry in a closed car when you're gone?”

“Damn. How far is it to the house?”

“How should I know? I've never been down that path.”

“It can't be too far. People have to carry groceries and get fuel deliveries.”

“It's a beach cottage. Sorry, it
was
a beach cottage. I think they said there was no furnace to malfunction, only a fireplace and an electric heater. Neither used recently. The place didn't rent this summer, with the poor economy.” I gave Elladaire a dog squeaky toy I found under the seat when I looked for the poop bags. She put it into her mouth. Oh, hell. But she stopped crying. “What if you're not looking at her?”