It was a great party. The food stretched for what seemed like miles under a huge tent set on the beach. I could understand why it was such an expensive affair when I saw the amount of food and tasted it. It was truly a feast. Then there was the open bar under a separate tent, with a steady stream of people, mostly men, filling and refilling their glasses.
The party was about two blocks down the beach from us, so the noise was less noticeable in our house. When we decided we’d had enough, we’d be able to sleep. I had the feeling this was going to be an all-night affair for some, or at least until the food and alcohol ran out.
The Jorgensens were there, and members of the fire department, most of them now in casual, hot-weather clothes. Ken Buckley remembered me and stopped to talk for a minute. When he left, I sought out the old man, Chief La Coste, and introduced myself to him.
“Hope you’re enjoying your vacation,” he said. “That’s a nice house you’re staying in. Max built it himself about twenty years ago.”
“It’s wonderful. Where do you live?”
“Over on North Avenue. My house is a little smaller than yours. And a lot older. But it suits me.”
“I heard you live here all year round.”
“This is the only home I’ve got. I like it even better in the winter. Not so many strangers around.” He gave me a quick smile. “I didn’t mean you, ma’am. It’s all these young folks that rent a house and come out for the weekends. They’re not as careful as they could be with the property, if you understand what I mean.”
I did and I said something sympathetic. It was the old tug of war between the generations. They got on each others’ nerves.
“Hard to be tolerant when they don’t respect the rights of others. Bunch of damned noisemakers, if you ask me.”
“But they’ll be gone soon,” I said, to soothe him.
“Not soon enough. How long are you staying?”
“Till the end of the week. My husband’s a police officer in New York and he’s studying law at night. His school starts next week.”
“Well, you come round tomorrow and we’ll have a little talk,” he said with a smile. “Things’ll be calmed down by then. Just ask anyone where Chief La Coste’s house is. They all know.”
“Thank you. I look forward to it.”
Jack and I stuffed ourselves with food, enjoying it and having a good time. Eddie’s dinner and bath schedule would go by the board today but he seemed to be enjoying himself as much as we were, what with people stopping to talk to him.
Suddenly there was a long, high-pitched scream and the voices around us stopped. “Fire!” the screamer shouted. “There’s a fire! Look! Look at the smoke!”
We all looked toward the houses of the town and there, off to the left, was an ugly funnel of dark smoke. The firemen didn’t wait to be told; they ran. As they headed toward the firehouse, a wailing siren sounded.
“I don’t like the look of this,” Chief La Coste said at my side.
“Looks like big trouble,” I agreed. “Can the Blue Harbor company handle it?”
“The companies from the neighboring villages will join them. Hear that? That’s another siren. They’ll be here. They’ll get it under control.”
“I hope so.” I spotted Jack, who was carrying Eddie. Eddie was crying. Sirens scared him, but there was nowhere to go to avoid them.
“I’ll look for you tomorrow,” the old man said, reminding me that we had an invitation.
“Thank you, I’ll be there.” Then I ran across the sand to Jack.
Along with most of the town, we headed for the fire. By the time we got there, the Blue Harbor firemen and two other companies were already pouring water from hoses attached to hydrants onto the burning house.
“It’s the chief’s house,” I heard someone say excitedly behind me, and I looked around for the old man I had been talking to on the beach, but couldn’t find him.
“Chief La Coste?” I asked the man.
“No, Ken Buckley. I hope his family’s outta there.”
I hoped so, too. I looked for him, but all the firemen were now in their heavy jackets and hats and I couldn’t recognize anyone. “Someone says it’s Chief Buckley’s house,” I told Jack.
“They look like they know what they’re doing. There’s probably no one inside. Everyone’s at the beach. Or they were.”
“Everyone” seemed to be at the scene right now. I wondered if the chief’s children were on the island, whether they might have stayed behind in the house while their parents were at the party. The thought gave me an unpleasant sensation in the pit of my stomach.
“Let’s get Eddie out of here,” Jack said. “I don’t want him breathing the smoke.”
“I’ll walk back to the tent. He doesn’t seem very tired. You can stay here if you want. If I’m not on the beach, I’ll be back at the house.”
“I’ll hang around here for a while.” He looked concerned. He leaned over and kissed both of us.
“Come on, Eddie,” I said. “Let’s go back and watch the sun set.”
I eased my way through the crowd, watching the firemen as I went. Each town wore slightly different uniforms, I noticed, and they worked together as though they had trained that way. I hoped they would get inside to see if any of the Buckley children were there.
As I was strolling my way through the crowd, I felt a hand push me aside. It was a girl with what looked like a fireman’s yellow-striped coat pulled over her head. As she turned her head my way, I recognized her.
“Tina,” I said. She was a member of the group renting the house closest to ours. “Are you all right?”
She looked at me almost with horror, her diamond stud earrings picking up the last light of the day, and then dashed away, pushing herself through the crowd with her head down. Instinctively, I followed in her wake, clutching Eddie to my shoulder. She moved very quickly out of and then beyond the crowd, finally darting between two houses in a direction I realized would take her more directly to the house she was sharing.
Something made me go after her. She never looked back and it certainly looked as though she were running away from something. All of a sudden she came up against a chain-link fence, and she uttered the loudest “Shit!” I had ever heard in my life. She repeated it several times, pounding the fence and sounding more hysterical with each rendition.
“Tina, can I help?” I called, standing away out of fear that she might turn her anger on me, and not anxious to walk through grass that might hold ticks.
She looked back then, and I could see that her face was smudged with dirt, her eyes wide. “No!” she screamed, and took off around the other side of the house.
I gave up and walked back to her group’s house, using the more conventional streets. The front door was open, which was not unusual, but no one was around. I stood quietly and listened. The whole area seemed deserted. If Tina had come home, she was keeping still.
I turned toward the beach and walked back to where the happy party had been in full swing less than half an hour before.
The tent was not entirely deserted. A woman had taken the place of the fireman bartender and was filling glasses. Several women were behind the tables of food, whether to help serve or to guard the food I wasn’t sure.
“Is it really Ken Buckley’s house?” one of them called to me.
“That’s what I was told.”
“Anyone inside?” Her face looked tense.
“I don’t know. I was only there a few minutes.”
“There’s a lot of smoke, isn’t there.” It wasn’t a question. “Why don’t you help yourself to some dinner? Before the crowds come back. I’ll hold the baby if you like.” She smiled, but Eddie would have none of it.
“He’s getting tired,” I said. “I’ll fill a plate and take it home. Thanks for the offer.”
By the time Jack got back, I was back down in the living room with my book.
“You guys OK?”
“We’re fine. Is the fire out?”
“Looks like it. They’ll stick around for a while to make sure. Someone died in the fire, Chris.”
“Oh, no. A child?”
“The chief. They brought Ken Buckley’s body out a little while ago.”
“How terrible.” I felt my eyes fill. “Did he die fighting the fire?”
“He wasn’t in uniform. Looked like he was sleeping. They found him on his bed.”
“I saw him at the party, Jack.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely. We said hello.”
“Maybe he was tired. Maybe he didn’t feel so good. He must’ve gone home and gone to bed.”
“I wonder.”
“About what?”
“You know that grouper house just down the street? The one across from the Wagners?”
“Yeah. We’ve said hello a couple of times.”
“I saw Tina from that house. She was at the fire and she was trying to get away from it as fast and inconspicuously as possible.” I described how she had been dressed, with the heavy fireman’s coat pulled over her head, how her face, when I finally saw it at the fence, had been smudged with smoky grime.
“You trying to make this sound ominous or am I just reading big trouble into this?”
“I’m just telling you what I saw. I lost her at the fence. I was carrying Eddie and didn’t want to run a race to follow her. When I got to the house, either no one was there or they were being very quiet.”
“For a change.”
“Yes.”
“You think she could have been inside the house during the fire?”
“How else did she get so dirty and sooty-looking?”
He looked at his watch. “If this was arson—”
It hadn’t occurred to me. “Would an arsonist stay around while the fire’s burning?”
“He might, but it’s too late to stop the ferry if he took off. There was one that left right after we saw the smoke. It’s already landed. So much for keeping everyone on the island.”
“You really think it’s arson?”
“You’d expect a fire chief to obey the safety rules better than anyone else.”
“Maybe he was smoking in bed.”
“I think I’ll find the local cop tomorrow morning and talk to him. Just to make him aware.”
“You know what I think I’ll do? I’ll walk over to the group house and talk to Tina. If she hasn’t gotten on a ferry back to the mainland.”
“Good idea. I’ll baby-sit.”
There were lights on all over the house when I got there. I went up the ramp and knocked on the open door. No one heard me. I leaned inside and called, “Hello.”
A girl in bare feet, shorts, and a big T-shirt came out of the back of the house. “Hi.”
“Hi. I’m Chris.”
“From the big house on the dune.”
“Right. Is Tina here?”
“I think she’s upstairs.”
“Can I talk to her?”
She went to the stairs and called, “Tina? You up there?”
A young man in bathing trunks walked by and gave me a smile.
The girl who had called upstairs came back. “She’s there. It’s the room at the front of the house.”
I went upstairs and knocked on the door.
“Yeah?”
I opened the door and went in. Tina was sitting on an old easy chair painting her nails a shade of brown. “I’m Chris from the house across the street.”
“Yeah. Hi.”
“I wanted to ask you about the fire.”
“What about it?”
“Were you in the house when the fire started?”
She looked confused. “No. Why?”
“When I saw you, it looked as though you were coming out of the house.”
“You saw me? Where?”
“In front of Chief Buckley’s house.”
“You must have me confused with someone else.” She dipped her brush in the small bottle, wiped it carefully on the side, and started another nail, keeping her eyes on her task.
“I saw you, Tina. You were walking away from the burning house. You had a fireman’s coat over you. I asked you if you were all right.”
“Sorry,” she said, looking up from her work. “I just don’t remember. I was walking on the beach this afternoon. I saw the smoke but I didn’t go to the fire. I hate crowds.”
I turned around and left the room.
“She’s a good liar,” I said to Jack, after I told him what had happened.
“So you’re sure it was Tina you saw.”
“Right down to her diamond earrings. I called her by name when she looked at me. She’s cleaned herself up and changed her clothes and made up a story. It doesn’t mean she’s an arsonist but I bet she knows something about that fire.”
“You know her last name?”
“If I heard it, I don’t remember it.”
“We’ll get it in the morning. Let’s turn in.”