It was afternoon and all Julia could see was rubble where a barn once stood. The fire department had come and sprayed it down but couldn’t save anything. After much investigation, they concluded that a timed bomb was set to go off at the right moment. Julia couldn’t believe this had happened.
All the boys had been working together since early that morning until the blast. In other words, they had an alibi. The person who did this would stop at nothing to get this place. But why? If she knew that, then it would be easier to figure out who was behind it all.
She walked alongside the smoldering heap and her heart went out to her brother. When she came to one spot, she thought she heard some music coming from the debris. She leaned forward and listened. It sounded just like a cell phone but that was ridiculous. It couldn’t be. When she heard it once again, she called her husband over.
“John, come here. There’s something curious down here.”
He walked over to her and asked, “What’s up?”
“I heard a phone ring down at the bottom of this pile.”
John shook his head. “Impossible. It would have melted.”
“Just the same, I heard it.”
“Heard what?” asked Kelly as he walked toward them.
“Music.” She pointed to the spot. “Right here.”
“Music?”
“You know, like a cell phone.”
John pushed his fingers through his hair and sighed. “Nothing would have survived this fire, Julia. Not even a cell phone.”
She eyed the spot curiously and asked, “What part of the barn was here?”
Kelly scratched his chin as he thought. “Hmmm. It was my tack room. I had saddles, bridles, and shovels here. In fact the loft was just above it…” He stiffened and stared at Julia.
“What?” she asked.
“You could be right. This loft could have fallen down on the tack room and sheltered whatever was under it. As you can see, right here the beams aren’t burnt through. We got the fire put out before it consumed this area.” He looked at John and said firmly. “I’m willing if you are.”
John nodded and began lifting the half burned beams from the ground. After half an hour of moving rubble aside, they found scoop shovels and saddles lying in a heap on the ground. They pushed them aside but there wasn’t a phone among them.
Kelly frowned. “Well, we tried. It must have been your imagination, Julia.”
She shook her head. “It wasn’t. I tell you, I heard it.”
Once again, the sound of music was heard and Kelly stared at the ground with disbelief. “What the…”
Julia bent down and moved some of the scorched saddles but nothing was there except for a shovel. When she flipped over the shovel, she grinned. A cell phone lay before their eyes.
She picked it up and said, “It wasn’t my imagination, after all.”
“But how did it survive the heat?” asked John.
“This is my theory,” said Kelly. “The loft fell first before the fire got to this area. When the loft fell, so did the shovels, protecting it from the fire. On top of the shovels were piles of saddles. The firemen came just in time before it burned all the way through this heap.”
“Makes sense,” said Julia as she checked the phone for any identification. “We should find the owner. He’s probably searching high and low for his phone.”
Kelly nodded. “I’ll ask around.”
At that moment, a text message beeped on the phone and Julia smiled. Curious, she checked the message.
“What does it say?” asked John.
Julia read, “Where are you? Answer your phone. We need to talk.”
John laughed as he asked, “Do all your men have cell phones?”
“Yup. They sure do. You know the youth. They need to keep on top of things.” Kelly grinned. “Especially when it comes to texting.”
John laughed. “I know exactly what you mean. Our girls would rather text than phone someone. Not me. I like listening to a human voice.”
“Do you text?”
John held back a smile and said, “Well…”
“You do, don’t you!” Kelly said accusingly.
“I have to, sometimes.”
“You have to?”
“Yeah. The girls won’t answer their phone when I call them but they’ll answer a text message.”
Kelly’s brow creased with curiosity. “Why is that?”
“It’s a mystery to me.”
The phone beeped once again and Julia checked the message. Her eyes widened as she exclaimed, “Oh my!”
“What does it say,” asked John.
“Well, let’s say that if we find out who owns this phone, we’ve found an arsonist.”
“Really?” Kelly stiffened. “What’s the message?”
Julia read, “I don’t like what’s happened. Burning the barn down was out of line. I quit. Besides, Mrs. Evans discovered I wasn’t the Great Spirit after all. I’ve paid my debt.”
Kelly’s eyes were full of fury as he asked, “Paid his debt? Was he being blackmailed?”
“Well,” said Julia. “Your Thunder God must have gotten cold feet and didn’t want to be a part of what was going on, I guess.”
Kelly kicked at the rubble with anger.
John held up his hand and said with confidence, “Hey, we’ve got one up on him.”
“What do you mean?”
“We can find out who did this right now. Just call the phone company.”
Kelly shook his head. “That won’t work. It’s a privacy issue. They won’t give out private information.”
“Okay. Then call one of those numbers and tell him that we found a phone…that we’re trying to locate the person who owns it.”
Julia smiled. “You’re so smart.”
John tapped his forehead and said, “I know.”
She looked at the last number dialed and pushed “send” and waited. No one answered. She called the next one, which was a residence in Phoenix. A lady answered but when Julia questioned her, she immediately hung up.
Julia looked puzzled as she stared at the phone.
“What?” asked John.
“She hung up on me.”
“Maybe she didn’t call. It could have been someone else who called from that number,” said John.
She shook her head. “No, that’s not it. When she first answered the phone, she was real friendly. When I told her that I was looking for the owner of the phone, she asked me who I was, so I told her. At that moment, she hung up on me.”
John gave a curt nod and said, “We’re getting close.”
The next five numbers she dialed, no one was home. Then finally she got lucky. The number was long distance in another state.
A man answered with a jovial voice, “Hey, what’s up!”
“Hello,” said Julia. “I’m trying to locate the person who owns this cell phone. He must have dropped it and I noticed that he called you recently.”
“Of course. I’d love to help. According to the number that you’ve called from, my ole buddy must have lost his phone. And a purty woman must have found it. Have I got this right?”
“Well, if you say so,” said Julia with laughter. “So who owns this phone I’m calling from?”
Before he could say another word, the phone beeped three times and died in her hand. With a moan, the three looked at one another. Now what?
When they heard a car rumbling down the road, John grinned and said, “The newlyweds have arrived. Let’s greet them.”
When Julia saw her daughter, she burst into a smile and handed the phone to Kelly. She was excited to see how the honeymoon had gone.