She heard someone yelling and she said, “Up here!”
In a moment, the fireman, carrying an ax and clad in protective clothing, wearing a mask, had found her. “Anyone else in the house?”
“My little boy. Stevie. I can’t find him.”
“You’ll have to leave. I’ll find him.”
Manfred appeared in the doorway, barking, then wheeled and went to the second-floor door to the attic. Taking the steps two at a time, Jill dashed upstairs, following Manfred. “Stevie!”
They burst into the attic. The fireman was right behind her. “He’s not here.”
“Whens!”
Manfred had Whens by the arm, and dragged him from behind a dresser. “Ow! Stop!” he yelled, hitting Manfred on the head with what looked like a board.
The fireman stepped over and grabbed the boy. “Now run,” he instructed Jill.
Once they were out on the front lawn, Brian’s truck rounded the corner. He jumped out, took one look at the house, ran back to his truck, and dashed inside, gripping a flashlight.
Jill yelled, “Brian!” A fireman held her arm, keeping her from rushing after him.
Flames shot from the sides of the screened-in porch, licking the old lumber of the house, filling the already noisy scene with deep crackling sounds. The firemen aimed their hoses at the base of the fire.
Brian staggered from the house, coughing, and ran around to the side of the house.
Elmore arrived in his Mercedes. Tracy—Lavender Lady—was in the front seat. Elmore slammed the car door and went directly to Jill and grabbed Whens, who still clutched the red board from the attic in both hands. As Whens dangled, Elmore said, “He can’t stay here anymore. It’s dangerous.”
“How in the world did you know there was a fire so quickly?”
“Ambulance-chasing friend.” Elmore turned and started walking toward the car. Whens wailed, kicked, bit, and pummeled his father with the board he still clutched with one hand. “No! No! I have to stay here! No!”
“Ow, you little brat.” Elmore slapped his son’s face. “You will
never
bite me again! You’re going with us.” He wrestled the board from his son’s hands and flung it to one side. As it fell, it opened up to reveal the black and red squares of a checkerboard. Whens’ wails were deafening. Elmore shouted at Jill, “This is all your fault!”
“Don’t we have enough to worry about?” she yelled at Elmore. “I’m calling the police. Where’s a telephone?” She grabbed a neighbor’s phone from her hand and dialed 911. “Yes? My husband is illegally taking my child. Yes. I have custody. Thank you.”
“See,” she said. “You can’t just take him.”
“Watch me.”
Whens sobbed, limp, in his father’s arms.
Brian strode across the lawn and said to Jill, “The chief says it’s—” Then he noticed Elmore and Whens, and stopped.
“The chief says what?” demanded Elmore.
“Ask him yourself,” said Brian, and walked away.
If he hadn’t been so nasty, Jill would have been glad to relinquish Whens to Elmore for the night. But now she dug in her heels. Even Tracy got out of the car and tried to convince Elmore to leave him with Jill, citing various child custody cases while he glared at her.
He set Whens none too gently in the backseat, slammed the door, and stalked to the driver’s side.
“He needs a car seat,” yelled Jill.
Elmore roared off. Jill could see Whens pounding on the rear window, hysterical.
* * *
By three in the morning, the fire was completely out. The living room stank of smoke, and the neighbors had all gone back to bed, with promises of help if needed. Brian and Jill sat on the front porch, talking.
“The chief was pretty sure it was arson,” said Brian. “They’ll start a thorough investigation in the morning.”
“Isn’t that what you do?”
“It’s one of my specialties, and I charge a lot for it, but I can’t step on their evidence. I have an interest in this. I mean, a somewhat negative one.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, in arson, the first suspects are the owners, obviously. And we have sprinklers. The instant I got here, I knew they weren’t on—that fire should not have gotten out of control. Someone must have shut off the sprinklers and disabled the water-flow alarms. First I went inside and checked the breakers; they were fine. Then I went to the pipe—it’s around the side of the house there, and is always on. Period. It had been shut off.”
“But how could someone just do that?”
“It’s outside. You’ve seen it, I’m sure. It’s on the side of the screened-in porch behind the peony bushes. I had it chained in the on position just to keep the kids from playing with it and accidentally turning it off. I never imagined that someone would come and deliberately cut the chain and turn off the valve. I check out the whole system once a month, breakers, battery backup, and so on, because this house is just a tinderbox. Two weeks ago, the chain was fine.”
“Oh.” Jill was silent for a moment. “But why would I start a fire with my little boy in the house? And turn off the sprinklers?”
“People do really strange things. So let’s think about who else it might have been. Elmore? He got here awful fast—like maybe he was just around the corner.”
Jill recoiled from the thought. “Absolutely not.”
“Then it must be one of those people from the party. This is getting serious, Jill. At the very least, we need to track down whoever did this and charge them with arson. Maybe they’re trying to kill you.”
Jill was silent for a moment. “Maybe, but why be so obvious? Why leave such a big loophole—possible rescue? Why not poison, or just a hit-and-run while I’m riding my bike? That would be ridiculously easy. Is the chief sure about arson?”
“Reasonably. They found an empty gas can on the porch. They took it for fingerprints.”
“Why would anyone be so clumsy?”
“Maybe they’re not technologically inclined. A lot of people think that the evidence will burn up in a roaring fire. The porch was a good place to start it, though—good ventilation. And they knew the house had sprinklers, so my vote is for the conspirators. They’ve been inside; they’ve seen the sprinklers.”
“We need to call a cleanup company first thing in the morning,” said Jill. “Aren’t there companies that specialize in cleaning up after fires?”
“Yes—more suspects. Let the insurance company choose one.”
Jill sighed. “I guess Elmore is right. This really isn’t a very safe place for Whens. He needs to stay with Elmore until we know who did this and why.”
“It’s not safe for you. I think you need to at least sleep at our place, and just come here in the day? We need to rethink moving in.”
“Nope. I’ve got Manfred.”
“Right. Are you a complete knucklehead?”
“Probably, but I’m staying. Remember how we were talking Sunday about how the house may have turned into a huge Hadntz Device?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe the person who started the fire knows this and wanted to destroy it. Maybe he hates the Hadntz Device.”
“As good a theory as any, except he may just hate you.”
“Daniel is investigating all the people who were out on the front porch at the party.”
“I wish he’d get a move on. And I hate to be so jumpy, but who is that sinister man walking down the street?”
“That guy? He looks all right to me.”
The man paused in front of the house. “Had a fire?”
“Yes,” said Brian.
“Everybody all right?”
“Everybody’s fine, thanks,” said Jill.
“Good,” he said, and continued down the block.
“Was that the Walking Man?” asked Brian.
“He was definitely walking. But he wasn’t wearing a hat,” said Jill.
Jill
JILL’S RECEPTION
July 19
T
WO EVENINGS LATER
, Jill was at a World Bank reception at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington, D.C., after a long day of dealing with insurance agents, repair people, and an arson investigator. She barely got there on time, but she had to attend.
Jill, in the midst of dignitaries wearing suits, black dresses, or exotic garb, said, “I don’t believe that” to her immediate companion, and was suddenly, instead, in a London pub, surrounded by hard-drinking servicemen and vivacious women coifed and dressed in the style of the 1940s.
An ominous whistle pierced the air briefly. Everyone stopped talking. Benny Goodman, facile and riveting, played out a break.
I’ve been here so often,
she thought.
In the corner of the pub, a dark-haired woman had clearly been arguing with a serviceman whose face Jill could not see. She opened her red-lipsticked mouth to retort but did not break the silence; the spell of waiting for the fall of the bomb could not, apparently, be broken. The pub smelled pungently of dark ale and whiskey.
A dull explosion; a glass fell from the bar and shattered; the Goodman record skipped. The V-1 had fallen elsewhere, not here; the roar of conversation resumed.
Then Jill was back, her familiar world restored. She staggered as if that persistent vision had a gravity that suddenly let go, and she glimpsed slices of the outdoor garden, rich with opulent flowers and well-dressed people in golden sunlight, a potted tree, the bar. The hubbub of many languages rose around her as she crashed against the UN representative from Nigeria, down from New York especially for this reception, especially to talk to her. He staggered sideways. His martini and her glass of wine plummeted to the bricks and smashed.
Then there really was a brief silence as Bill Anderson, conveniently next to her, reached down to help her up. She rose on one knee and tried to shoo him away, but he grabbed both of her hands and pulled her up. Because her eyes were just inches from his chest as she stood up, she noticed his name tag, which said that his name was Wilhelm.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, irritated and embarrassed, brushing Mr. Umbobi’s martini from her black silk dress. “Mr. Umbobi, are you all right?”
“No, no,
I
am sorry,” he said, his voice deep and earnest. “I have ruined your dress.”
“Don’t believe in what?” asked Wilhelm. He would always be Wilhelm now, she realized.
Jill cast her mind back with great difficulty, then realized that Wilhelm had been seriously eavesdropping on her conversation with Mr. Umbobi. “Nothing.”
Wilhelm said, “You’ve been working too hard. Maybe you’ve caught a flu or something.”
Conversation resumed, the incident forgotten, except that Mr. Umbobi patted her on the shoulder as Wilhelm led her away and said they could lunch together tomorrow.
She pulled away from Wilhelm and set up the lunch date with Umbobi, and a Four Seasons employee moved in to clean up the mess.
Wilhelm had called for his car, despite her protestations that first, she was fine and would stay, and then, that she would take a cab, and then she was in his car, feeling uncharacteristically foggy. One of her knees was bleeding, as if she’d fallen while roller skating. What a fiasco. Maybe she
was
sick. But she was mostly angry. She had had a lot of work to do at this reception.
* * *
Wilhelm pulled up in front of the house. Jill opened her door. “Thanks.”
He jumped out of his side. When she turned back from gathering her purse, he was next to her, holding out his hand. “I’ll help you inside. Is there anyone you want me to call?”
She tried to pull her hand back, but his grasp was strong, and he propelled her from the car in one quick yank. She staggered to catch her balance, and he put an arm around her waist.
Manfred clicked down the walk. “Get away!” said Wilhelm, swinging one hand in Manfred’s direction. Manfred looked at the human pest, then sniffed at him. Jill saw her upper lip tremble just a tad, a prelude to baring her teeth. Her growl was a low, long rumble.
“Don’t worry,” said Wilhelm, reaching inside his jacket. “I’ve got a—”
Jill wrenched herself free, knelt, and put her arms around Manfred’s neck. “She’s my dog. What are you doing out, girl?”
Manfred wagged her tail. Jill stood with great determination, rather dizzy, and grasped the fur of Manfred’s back to steady herself.
“Will he hurt me?”
“She. She is very protective.”
Wilhelm stepped toward her.
“I’m fine.” Jill retreated a few steps.
“You’re not fine. I just saw you faint. Gosh, what happened to your house?”
“Just a little fire, the other night.” Jill started down the walk, concentrating on each step.
Wilhelm followed. “That’s terrible. How much damage?”
“Not too much, thankfully.”
“Where’s your house key?”
Jill smelled mint, roses, and cigarette smoke. “I think I have company.” She raised her voice. “Who’s there?”
The man sitting in a wicker chair on the porch stood, a dark shape in shadow. All Jill could see was the end of his glowing cigarette.
“I’ll call the police,” said Wilhelm. He pulled out his phone.
“Hold your horses,” said Jill. “Who is it?” she called again.
“It’s me.” Daniel ambled over to the top of the stairs.
“Hello, is this the police?” said Wilhelm into his phone.
Jill giggled. “This guy is the police.”
“What?” He squinted at Daniel. He looked crestfallen. “What is he doing here? He isn’t in uniform.”
“He’s a friend of mine, Wilhelm.”
Wilhelm swallowed. “Oh. What’s this Wilhelm stuff?”
She pointed to his name tag. He reached up and tore it off. “It’s Bill.”
Jill said, “Thanks for the ride. I can make it from here.” She reached out toward Daniel, who was next to her now. He took her hand firmly.
“Detective Kandell.” He offered his hand to Wilhelm.
“I’m Bill Anderson from the World Bank. Jill just passed out. I’ll help her inside.”
“I don’t think I really passed out,” said Jill.
“She wouldn’t go to the emergency room.”
“I don’t blame her,” said Daniel. “Come on, honey.” He put his arm around her waist.
Jill almost resisted. Then she saw his point. “Thanks, babe.” She turned to Bill/Wilhelm. “Thanks again.”
Wilhelm drove off with what seemed an unnecessary rpm ratio. Jill watched his taillights and started to laugh. “Honey?”