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By the time Kat made it home from the grocery store, Matty had already worked most of the gum out of her paw. The tortoiseshell made sure Kat knew what she thought about being left to fend for herself by aiming a dismissive sniff in Kat’s direction when she strolled through the front door. Matty had undoubtedly assumed her human had forgotten about her when what should have been a five-minute errand ballooned into a thirty-minute quest for information.
Kat tossed her groceries on the coffee table and slumped onto the sofa next to Matty, massaging the feline between the ears to make amends. “Sorry I’m so late. Can you forgive me?”
Matty didn’t reply, but her other cat, Tom, came running out of the bedroom. The big brown-and-black feline meowed his standard ‘welcome home’ greeting as he rubbed against Kat’s ankles. His enthusiasm upon seeing her again always warmed Kat’s heart.
“Hey, Tommy boy.” Kat patted her lap, and Tom jumped up to join her. “You missed out on quite an adventure this morning.”
Tom’s eyes slipped shut as she stroked him. He didn’t seem to mind the fact that he’d been cooped up in the apartment while the rest of the household had been out and about. Tom thought the sole purpose of a harness was to torture unsuspecting animals, and he would much rather stay inside than endure such misery.
“I’d never been that close to a major fire before today,” Kat told the animals. “It was rather scary.”
Tom looked up, giving her a long, measured blink. Matty, on the other hand, yawned and deliberately avoided Kat’s gaze. Kat would presume she was still sulking over being abandoned, except Matty never had been one to hold a grudge. In fact, she wasn’t one to dwell on the past much at all. She had probably already forgotten all about the fire.
Kat, however, couldn’t stop mulling over it. Right now her thoughts were stuck on what Lonnie had said about gasoline being used as an accelerant. There were only a limited number of places where a person could buy gas. Did it make sense to assume a service station clerk might have taken note of someone filling up something other than a car tank? It certainly seemed like a lead worth investigating.
She sat up straighter. “You know what? I’m going to go crazy sitting here until five. I need to get out and do some snooping.”
She slid Tom off her lap, depositing him next to Matty. There was a bit of a skirmish as Tom rested his head against Matty’s back and received a slap for his efforts, but the animals had settled down by the time Kat slipped out the door.
The closest gas station was an establishment called Fuel ’Er Up. Considering it was about equidistant from her place and the Jeffersons’, it seemed like as good a place as any to start.
She pulled in, pleased to note only one other car on the property. Without any customers to tend to, the clerk on duty might be more likely to talk.
She turned off her engine and palmed her keys, making a mental note of her pump number before heading inside. On the way, she scanned the canopy that stretched over the pumps in search of security cameras. She didn’t see any. Neither did she spot any around or inside the building. Evidently the owner didn’t expect to have to deal with much criminal activity here in small-town Central Washington.
“What can I do for you?” the clerk said, swiveling on her stool as Kat stepped up to the counter. She was around twenty and wore one of the station’s unflattering blue-and-red-striped shirts. But what the shirt lacked in style, the flower barrette in her cocoa-colored hair made up for. With colorful pink and yellow felt petals, it added pizzazz to what would otherwise be an unremarkable ensemble.
Kat smiled. “I’d like to put five on pump three, please.”
The clerk took the five-dollar bill Kat held out. “Got it.”
Kat leaned against the counter, hoping she appeared sufficiently casual. “So . . .” She peered at the clerk’s name tag. “. . . Gina, did you hear about that fire this morning?”
Gina bobbed her head while punching a couple buttons on the register and slapping Kat’s money inside. She didn’t look very interested in chatting. Still, Kat pushed on.
“Could you see it from here?” Kat asked, glancing out the glass storefront.
“Probably.”
“You didn’t look?”
Gina slammed the register shut and lifted one shoulder. “I wasn’t working when it happened.”
Kat felt a flash of recognition as she took in Gina’s slightly slouched posture and the way she kept fingering the barrette in her hair. “Were you there this morning?”
“Was I where?” Gina asked.
“On the street outside the Jeffersons’ house. You look familiar to me.”
“Oh, yeah. All the neighbors were out there.”
“You live next to them?”
“Two doors down,” Gina replied.
“On the other side of the blue house?”
“Yep.”
Kat perked up. Perhaps this visit would turn out to be even more fruitful than she had hoped. “You didn’t happen to notice any unusual activity before the fire started, did you?”
Gina shook her head. “I didn’t even know about the fire until my mom ran out of the house.”
“You live with your mom?”
Gina offered her a terse nod.
Gina’s mother must have been the woman Kat saw whispering in her ear. “Did your mom mention seeing anything strange this morning?”
“No.”
Deciding she wasn’t going to get any useful information about suspicious neighborhood activity out of Gina, Kat turned to her original reason for stopping by the Fuel ’Er Up. “Did you notice anyone buying gas at one of the pumps recently?”
“Well, yeah.” Gina folded her arms across her chest and gave Kat a funny look. “People buy gas here all the time.”
“I meant if they pumped it into something other than a car.”
“You mean like a gas can?”
“Right.”
Gina tilted her head. “Like when?”
“Maybe sometime in the past week?” Kat proposed.
Gina worked her jaw as she stared at a cooler filled with single-serve beverages. “Yeah, now that you mention it, I remember seeing Mr. J recently. Mr. Jefferson, I mean.”
“Mr. Jefferson.” Kat’s heart rate sped up. “Walker Jefferson?” So perhaps the brother was in town after all.
“Walker?” Gina scrunched up her nose. “I don’t think that’s right.”
“You’re talking about Kevin Jefferson?”
Gina bobbed her head. “Yeah, that’s his name.”
Kat’s spirits deflated. If Kevin Jefferson had been the one to buy that gas, following the accelerant’s purchase history was a dead end. Anyone could have found his gas can in the garage and used it for their own nefarious purposes.
“Did Kevin say why he needed gas?” Kat asked.
Gina blinked. “I didn’t, like, talk to him.” She made it sound as though Kat had accused her of swinging from the rafters while belting out Christmas tunes.
“I thought maybe he said something when he came in to pay,” Kat replied.
“He didn’t come in.” Gina jerked her arm toward the glass storefront. “Most people use the credit card reader at the pump.”
“Right.” Kat should have guessed. She usually used the card reader herself. “You saw him filling up though, right? Did it seem odd to you that Kevin Jefferson needed a container full of gasoline?”
“I didn’t think much about it. I just figured he had to power his lawnmower or something.”
“Oh, that makes sense.” Kat wondered why she hadn’t considered it herself. Probably because as someone who had only lived in apartments for the past fifteen years, she had never needed to worry about maintaining a lawn.
Gina fiddled with her barrette, pulling it out to capture a loose lock of hair before snapping it back in place. It took her several tries before the clasp caught. “So, like, are you done with the twenty questions? I have to do inventory.”
Kat took a step backward. “Yes. Thank you for your time.”
Gina didn’t respond. Instead, she turned her back and started thumbing through the cigarette packs hanging on a display board behind the counter.
Kat sighed, resigning herself to leaving no more knowledgeable than she’d arrived. But then her eyes alighted on the give-a-penny-take-a-penny tray near the register, and next to that another tray filled with matchbooks.
Plain white matchbooks that looked just like the one Lonnie had recovered from the Jeffersons’ house.
Her heart skipped a beat. She glanced at Gina’s back before swiping one of the matchbooks out of the tray. She flipped it over in case something was printed on the back, but pure whiteness shimmered back at her.
“Gina,” she said.
Gina spun around. “Yeah?”
Kat held up the matchbook. “I’d like to buy one of these.”
“They’re free.”
“Oh.” When Gina started to turn away again, Kat hastened to add, “Did you notice anyone taking one of these recently?”
“People take those all the time. That’s why they’re there.”
Gina’s exasperated tone made it clear Kat had overstayed her welcome. She offered Gina a bright smile. “All right. Thanks for your help.”
Gina turned around again, but not before Kat caught the beginning of an eye roll.
Kat exited the store, her mind churning. Since Kevin Jefferson hadn’t come inside when he’d stopped here the other day, he couldn’t have grabbed one of the matchbooks on his way out. Did that mean the arsonist had personally been inside the Fuel ’Er Up at some point? She didn’t know, but she was certainly going to mention the possibility to Andrew.
