The call came at eight in the morning, just after Will entered the house and pulled a chair to the breakfast table.
“Who was that?” Mary said.
“The fire chief wants me to come to Ashley Springs. He wants information.”
“It was that drunk smoking in bed.”
“Chief Pederson’s not so sure. He thinks it might be arson.”
“Who’d do such a thing? Mark my word, Will, it’s that drunken sot we rented to.”
“This isn’t like you, Mary. You know better than to jump to conclusions.”
“You’ll see. You’ll find that I’m right.”
Will drove past the burnt house on the way into Ashley Springs. He was glad that Mary refused to come along. He thought of the smoke that he had seen coming from the kitchen. If he hadn’t rented to him, maybe Swartz and his daughter would still be alive and he’d still have his house. Insurance had never been popular, but he had spent hours trying to convince his neighbors to buy policies on their homes and farms, and now, he was caught without.
After leaving the remains of his once grand home, Will guided Mabel toward his father’s house. Before going to the door, Will stood for a while and looked across the yard to the north side where he thought that he spotted a loose rock in the foundation. When he looked closer he could see that it was as newly tuck pointed and solid as the day they’d moved that house a quarter mile up the slope. Will looked down the hill where he could see the steeple on St. Mary’s Catholic Church.
He smiled when he thought about that day. He’d not seen his father so energized since before he’d lost the farm. Buying that old schoolhouse from the parish, two days moving it up the hill, and six months of restoration work had given Thomas a new lease on life. Before this house, the only thing that fueled his days was the alcohol. A person had to have a reason to get out of bed each day. Will had seen many a man wither away with nothing to do. He wondered how he’d handle the loss of everything he owned.
Thomas stepped out the door before Will made his way back to the sidewalk. “I saw you inspecting my tuck pointing. Not so bad for an old man, now is it? I figured that I’d better git it tight for the winter. I just finished last week.” Thomas fished a plug of tobacco from his pocket and bit off a chew. “It’s surprising how busy a big, old house can keep a man. It beats me how I ever managed a farm.”
Will knew that after he and his brothers left the home farm, his father hadn’t managed very well.
“Losing your house’s a terrible thing.” Thomas placed his hand on Will’s shoulder. “I suppose you’re here to see about that. Have they found how the fire started?”
“I’m on the way now to see the fire chief. Maybe he’ll have some ideas.”
“I almost forgot to tell you,” Thomas mumbled as he spit out the tobacco plug. “Jesse stopped here.”
“The day of the fire?”
“No, it was about a week before.”
“Are you sure?”
“He said that he planned to hop a freight train west. I asked around but no one has seen him since, so I figured he’s long gone.”
“Was he okay? What’d he want?”
“Money. I gave him the little that I had saved, but that won’t take him far. I tried to talk him into staying, but he was adamant.”
“How’d he look?”
Thomas frowned and Will supposed that it was a dumb question. How would anyone look with half of their face blown away? “I mean, was he thin? Did he look like he’s been eating?”
“He’s always been wiry. I don’t think he looked much different. I said that if he’d stay, we’d furnish him three square meals a day, but he wasn’t interested.”
“His life must be terribly hard.”
“He said that he couldn’t stand the pitying looks that he got from those in town who’d known him before the war.”
Will remembered how his youngest brother was always said to be the handsomest lad in the family—and now… he felt nauseous just thinking about it. He supposed that strangers’ reactions were more subdued when they saw his maimed brother. They’d never known him any other way.
“I’ve got to get to the courthouse,” Will said.
As he flicked the reins across Mabel’s back, he waved at his father who stood hunched over on his doorstep. Life hadn’t been easy for Thomas.
Ashley Springs wasn’t the same anymore. Tommy and Bernie Burns were gone, so too his good friends David Tate and George Tyler. And the happiest couple that Will had known, Charlie and Esther Nesbit, destroyed by Esther’s tragic death. All victims of this terrible depression. He was glad that Charlie had found a new love.
He reined Mabel into the courthouse turnabout and tied her to the hitching post. Fords, Oldsmobiles, and Chevrolets lined the drive, but his was the only horse and buggy. Things had changed since his youth, and he’d helped start it all with his Ford dealership. He should be grateful, he supposed. It had given them a running start, but he didn’t miss it. Too many bad things had happened after that terrible day in 1929.
Will had served on the volunteer fire brigade when he lived in town. Mrs. Clark, their telephone operator, would ring the siren when an alarm was phoned in, and every member who heard it came running. Fire chief Connie Pederson moved to town after Will left Ashley Springs, so he never knew the man.
Pederson lowered the telephone receiver and nodded toward Will.
“Mr. Pederson,” Will said. “I’m Will O’Shaughnessy. You wanted to see me?”
“Just a minute, O’Shaughnessy, I’ll be with you as soon as I finish this call. So you can’t get down before next week?… That’s the soonest?… I know, I know, you’re a busy man… . Next week then.”
He slammed the receiver down.
“The state inspector can’t get here until next week.”
“For my house?”
“The evidence is muddled. Can’t make head or tails. It might be a murder case.”
“Murder? What makes you think that?”
“Do you carry insurance? Half the fires I see these days are for the insurance.”
“You think I burned my own house?”
“Well?”
“What?”
“Do you carry insurance?”
“Not anymore.”
“You did?”
“It lapsed years ago.”
“We can check the records, you know.”
“You think I did it?”
“I don’t think you did it. But I’ve gotta check all leads.”
“There must be something that makes you suspicious.”
“It’s a strange one. The fire looks like it started in two spots. Not likely. Not ’less someone set it.”
“I think Swartz smoked. Maybe he fell asleep.”
“Could be. One of the fires started in his bedroom. Why the other one? It doesn’t make sense.”
“You said murder? You think someone killed Swartz?”
“I can’t rule anything out. Those two flare points, and… ”
“There’s more?”
“It smelled like kerosene, and the smoke was black at first. Archie Drake called it in. Wood burns gray or brown.”
“I don’t know him.”
“He’s new to town. But two flare points, kerosene smell, and something else.”
“What’s that?”
“The back entry window was broken. Glass all over the place. That’s where one fire started, inside the entry wall. Beats me how it started on the second story, too.”
“What did Mrs. Swartz say?”
“I haven’t talked to her. She’s still in the hospital. Only a few burns but she’s in shock. The kids were visiting their aunt, all ’cept Margie. Such a sweet girl.”
Will stopped at Bennie’s Bar before turning toward home. He was glad that no one else was there. “Bennie, pour me a Mineral Springs, will ya?”
“Sorry to hear about your house. Does Pederson know what happened?”
“It could be smoking in bed, but he thinks it’s arson. He suspects me. Why’d I burn my own house?”
“Easy money, especially if you’re behind in payments.”
“I paid it off before the crash.”
“I suppose he has to ask.”
“S’pose so.”
“Did you hear? Rich Turner saw Jesse the day before the fire.”
“Are you sure it was Jesse?”
“Can’t mistake a face like that.”
Will didn’t buy a second drink, but hustled Mabel toward home. Jesse was still around when the fire broke out? He remembered his horse barn fire, remembered that Jesse had wished his brothers would burn in Hell. Could it be Jesse? Louise and Mildred, the conjoined sisters, wouldn’t think so.
At dinner Mary said, “Well, what’d you find out? Was it a cigarette?”
“Pederson doesn’t know. He thinks it might be arson.”
“Who’d want to burn our house down?”
“The state fire inspector’ll come next week.”
“Mark my word, it’s that drunken Swartz. Liquor and cigarettes don’t mix.”
“Maybe so, Mary. Maybe so.”
Will didn’t say that Jesse was back in town. And he didn’t tell her the fire chief suspected him.
“We can get by for a while, but those heifers were our future,” Will said. “I always had hope, but now, I’m at the end of my rope.”
“You’re not at the end of any rope, my dear. We’ve got each other, and that’s a tie that will never break. Not until the good Lord decides otherwise.” She pulled him close. “We’ll make it, Will. God has a plan. He’ll never leave us.”
He forced a smile. The feel of her body against him lifted his spirits. “Nothing else really matters, does it?”
Mary removed Will’s plate from the table. She returned, placed her arms around him, then lifted his head and kissed him. “We’ll work our way through this. We always have, and we will now.”