Chapter 10. Smoke and Smokes

WHITNEY

When Collin arrived, I showed him the cell phone footage I'd recorded the day before, when Peter had gotten in my face, demanding more money for the deeds. Collin took the phone from my hand, forwarded the video to his own phone, then returned my cell to me.

I gestured around at the spray-painted walls. "Do you think Peter did this?"

"He sure seemed angry enough in the video."

Collin photographed the damage at the townhouse. I suspected the fire and vandalism were related, and that the fire wasn't an accident. It would be an awfully big coincidence for both of the new properties Buck and I owned to have suffered damage on the same night if it wasn't the same culprit—or culprits. Collin agreed.

I went along with him as he made a quick sweep of the neighborhood. Samira and D-Jay weren't home, but we spoke with Joanna, Gideon, and Holden. None had seen or heard anything at the townhouse the night before, nor had they spotted any unusual cars parked nearby. Whoever had spray-painted the walls had been quiet and sneaky. We were nearly certain it was a Bottiglieri, but which one? We had six to choose from, seven if Johnny'd had second thoughts about the $25,500 we'd paid him for his share. If the rest thought they'd see another five hundred dollars, they were sorely mistaken. I'd planned to deliver their checks tomorrow, but no way would we pay them any more for their interests now.

When Collin had done what he could here, he said, "I'll share your video and the photos I've taken here with the fire investigator. We'll see what they come back with. In the meantime, I'll go speak with the Bottiglieris."

An hour later, a knock sounded at the front door. Sawdust followed me as I went to answer it. Through the peephole, I could see Samira and D-Jay on the porch, Kavish perched on Samira's hip. The stroller next to her told me they'd just returned from a walk. That explained why they hadn't answered their door when we'd gone by.

When I opened the door, Kavish pointed down at Sawdust. "Kee-kee!" The cat mewed up at him, to the boy's delight.

I groaned inwardly. After battling the Bottiglieris, and dealing with the fire and vandalism, the last thing I wanted to do right now was debate who I should sell the townhouse to. I decided to be frank. "I hope you're not here to try to change my mind about giving Joanna the right of first refusal. I've already made a promise to her, and I won't go back on my word."

"No-no-no," Samira assured me. "We are not here to argue with you."

D-Jay said, "I am here to offer my help. Are there more things that need to be moved?"

I bit my lip, feeling sheepish. "Buck's going to move the fridge, and I've finished removing the smaller appliances, but thanks for the offer. I'm going to start the demolition now."

"May I assist?" D-Jay asked. "I do not expect to be paid, of course. When Samira and I are able to buy our next house, it is likely to be a fixer-upper. It would be good for me to learn how such things are done."

I debated for a moment. I'd be a fool to turn down free labor, wouldn't I? If it got to the point that teaching him the ropes was slowing me down more than his help was speeding things along, I could end the arrangement. "I'd be glad to have your help. But be forewarned. You will be very tired and your back will hurt by the end of the day."

Samira slid him a look. "Do not cry to me." She angled her head to indicate their son. "I hear enough crying each day." The grin playing about her lips said she was teasing her husband.

I opened the door wider to allow D-Jay inside. He'd taken two steps in when he stopped in his tracks, his jaw slack as he stared at the spray-painted wall. "Who did that?"

"I don't know. Someone got in last night. The police are looking into it."

Samira poked her head inside now, too. When she saw the paint, her eyes went wide. She squeezed past her husband to come into the living room. Even Kavish seemed to realize the paint wasn't normal. He stared at the wall, mouth agape, drooling. "Ga-ga-ba-ya!"

D-Jay appeared wary, his face tightening. "Someone broke in?"

"Not as far as we can tell," I said. "No windows or doors were damaged. But if you're concerned, it's okay if you leave. I won't hold you to your offer to help."

He stared at the wall another beat or two, considering, before saying, "I'll stay."

I looked from one of them to the other. "Any chance you saw something last night? A suspicious person walking around? Maybe a car you didn't recognize?"

Both shook their heads. "Sorry," said D-Jay. "We go to bed early."

Samira reached out to put a hand on my forearm. "May I look around?"

I supposed there was no harm in it, though I feared she might get her hopes up of one day owning the place. "Just don't go in the attic. The floor is unstable."

While she carried Kavish about, taking a look at the place, I handed D-Jay a screwdriver. "Let's start with removing the outlet and light switch covers, and the light fixtures. Then we'll move on to the cabinet hardware."

We were still in the living room ten minutes later, when Samira carried Kavish down the stairs. "See you later!" she called sweetly to her husband before heading out the door.

The tasks I'd given D-Jay were mostly busy work, though I did show him how to safely detach the wires from a light fixture by turning off the electricity, then replacing the wire nuts right away to prevent electricity from arcing when it was turned back on. "The final step is removing the mounting plate."

We chatted as we worked. D-Jay told me that he and Samira enjoyed the ethnic diversity of the Germantown neighborhood. "Samira found a nice playgroup here for Kavish. Our favorite coffee shop and Indian restaurant are here, also. And it is only a short commute to our jobs."

It was easy to see why they wanted to stay in the area. Too bad they couldn't get a loan to buy their own place, one where they wouldn't have to lug dogs and a stroller upstairs.

By the time we finished removing the items, it was the middle of the afternoon. We carried the first load of light fixtures to the dumpster at the fire station. Dozens of charred wood flooring planks sat atop the demolition debris Buck and I had removed from the fire station in the days before. We'd intended to leave the old wood flooring in place, but it looked like we'd have to replace it, after all. The installation of new flooring would add several days' time to our estimated completion date. Sigh.

"Miss Whitaker!" The firefighter I'd spoken with earlier waved me over. She held a flooring board in her arms. Next to her stood another woman, this one with thick, flaming red hair. She wore rubber-soled shoes, khaki pants, and a short-sleeved blue golf shirt with the fire department logo emblazoned on the chest. I recognized her right away as Melanie Landreth, the fire investigator who'd looked into the boat explosion. Realizing I'd likely be tied up here for a bit, I thanked D-Jay for helping me out. "I'll move the rest of the stuff to the dumpster later."

As he left to return home to his wife and son, I walked over to Landreth. She remembered me, too. "We meet again."

I gave her a feeble smile. "Let's stop doing this. Shall we?"

She issued a mirthless chuckle and got right down to brass tacks, using her pen to point to the board in the firefighter's hands. A black line zigzagged across it. "See that?" She moved her pen back and forth to indicate the line. "That burn mark tells me someone poured an accelerant on the wood. Given the narrow width of the line, I'm thinking lighter fluid. This board was directly under a sprinkler head in the kitchen and was extinguished quickly. We found some charred bits of crumpled newspaper, too. It was probably used to get the fire going."

In other words, the blaze had been intentionally set. But by who? And how'd they get in?

She went on to answer the latter question. "A second-floor window on the back of the building was broken. That's likely how the arsonist or arsonists gained access. Detective Flynn sent me the video you recorded here yesterday, as well as the photos from your townhouse." She lifted her pen to point to a security camera on the café next door. "I'm hoping that camera caught something. It might tell us whether the folks you bought the townhouse from are involved in what happened here. I'll let you know what I find out. Stay out of the station until we give you the all-clear. Okay?"

"Sure." I thanked her for her efforts and returned to the townhouse to lock it up. Like Buck, I found my enthusiasm for the two projects had waned. What should have been fun flips had turned into futile frustrations.

With the fire station still off-limits Monday morning, Buck and I met at the townhouse. He cursed at the paint on the wall. "Did Collin figure out which of the Butt-uglies did this?"

"Not yet." I repeated what Collin had told me the evening before. "Judith didn't answer her door and Peter's wife claimed he wasn't home. Collin thinks she was lying. He'll go by again soon, set up camp out front if he has to."

Buck tore up the carpet downstairs, while I did the same in the smaller bedrooms upstairs. I was kneeling by a window that faced the front of the house, working the edge of the carpet free from the baseboard, when movement on the street below caught my eye. Gideon was heading diagonally across the street to Joanna's place. He held something in his hand. It was white and green, rectangular. Is that a pack of Newports? It sure looked like it. Joanna must have left them at his place. He disappeared from sight under the porch roof. I figured he'd knock on her door to return them, maybe even go inside for a bit. But a mere three seconds later he emerged from the porch, looked both ways before crossing the street, and returned to his townhouse, going inside. Joanna must have met him at the door.

The carpet was stubborn, and I had to use a blade to loosen it from the wall. Finally, it came free. I rolled the old, stained carpet up. It would be much too heavy for me, but Buck would be able to carry it down the stairs. Around ten o'clock, I went down to the first floor to check the status of his work. He had just a little way to go in the master closet. I decided to take a break on the porch where I could get some fresh air. Carpet removal stirred up all kinds of dust.

I went out to the porch, closing the door behind me. It was a partly cloudy day, not too hot, with a light, refreshing breeze. After pulling down my dust mask, I took a swig from my water bottle. Though the fire had been out for hours, a faint scent of residual smoke still hung in the air. As I went to take a second sip, I glanced over at Joanna's porch. The pack of Newports sat on the small table between her rockers. Looked like Joanna hadn't met Gideon at the door, after all.

My cell phone came to life in my breast pocket, and I pulled it out to see it was Landreth calling. "Got some news for you," she said. "Care to meet me at the firehouse?"

"We'll be right there."

I rounded up Buck and we headed over, relieved to see the cordon tape had been removed.

"Y'all are free to go back inside the station," Landreth said. "The subflooring seems stable enough to support weight and there's no major structural damage."

Buck issued a phew. "That's good news."

"We've got a person of interest, too—at least we will once we can identify them." She pulled her tablet from under her arm and brought up some video footage. The angle told us it had been recorded by the camera on the café next door, and the time stamp said it had been recorded at 2:57 A.M. While the lights in the restaurant's parking lot provided dim illumination, the station was dark. Headlights flashed as a large vehicle pulled slowly into the fire station's lot. My heartrate amped up. Could that be Matthew Bottiglieri's pickup? I was quickly disavowed of the notion when the shadow that formed against the streetlights behind it made it clear what kind of truck it was. A long bar rose up at an angle behind the cab, a hook on the end. A tow truck.

"Ohhh," I said on a breath.

Landreth's brows raised. "This truck mean something to you?"

"Yes," I said. "I mean, maybe. Joanna Hartzell, the woman who owns the townhouse that adjoins ours, has a son who drives a tow truck. I believe his name is Lane, if I'm recalling correctly. Buck and I overheard a conversation between Joanna and her neighbor, Gideon Koppelman, that implied Lane had stolen from Joanna."

Landreth's brows lowered slightly. "Even if that's the case, what reason would he have to start a fire here?"

I racked my brain, but couldn't come up with one. "I don't know."

Buck mused aloud. "If he stole from Joanna, that would make him a thief."

His emphasizing the word got me thinking, too. Could the spray-painted word THEIVES on our wall be somehow related to Lane? Might he have taken something from someone who wanted revenge? Maybe they'd thought he was living with his mother and that she owned the entire house, and they'd mistakenly painted the word in our unit by accident. I supposed it was possible. But there seemed to be a lot of incorrect assumptions that would have had to take place for things to play out that way, and it didn't explain how someone had accessed the townhouse without breaking in. Then again, maybe Buck and I had forgotten to lock the kitchen door, or maybe the intruder had picked the lock. With the weatherstripping missing, someone could have inserted a putty knife between the door and frame, and used it to push the deadbolt aside. Heck, I'd done as much myself when I'd been a property manager and a key had broken off in a lock.

We continued to watch the video. The image was grainy and the breeze caused the trees to cast moving shadows. No light ever came on in the cabin of the tow truck and, as far as I could tell, nobody had exited the vehicle. When I mentioned this to Landreth, she said, "They could have turned off the interior lights. With the truck being parked sideways, there's no way of telling whether a door opened. They might have slid out and snuck around in the shadows."

As we continued to watch, a small dot of light lit up inside the cab for just a second or two. An even smaller dot of light appeared, like a tiny firefly, moving back and forth on a lateral trajectory. "What's that?" I asked. It seemed too small to be the screen of a cell phone. Could it be a penlight?

"Can't say for sure," Landreth said, "but my guess would be a cigarette."

The little light eventually disappeared. The tow truck sat there for just under half an hour before the headlights came on again. The driver circled slowly around and exited the lot. I shifted my focus to the upper windows of the station, waiting to see the light of the fire starting inside, but I saw nothing. Landreth fast-forwarded to daybreak when, in the dim light of dawn, we saw glass burst out of an upstairs window and smoke pour out. I supposed I'd been na?ve to think it would be obvious when the newspaper went up in flames inside. After all, it was a spacious place and, from what Landreth had told me earlier and the flooring she'd shown me, it appeared the fire had been started in the kitchen area, away from a window.

On the security camera feed, we saw a driver pull their car to the curb in front of the firehouse. They must have been the one to summon firefighters to the scene.

"When did the fire start?" I asked. "Is there any way to tell?"

"Not precisely," Landreth said. "There's too many variables."

"So, we don't know how soon it started after the tow truck left?"

"No, but at least you've given me a place to start."

While she set off to Joanna's townhouse to get contact information for Lane, Buck and I ventured carefully into the fire station. The place reeked of smoke, and the walls were dark and sooty. Plywood would have to be placed over the broken window until a new one could be installed, and some of the drywall was scorched and would have to be replaced along with the damaged flooring. But, all in all, it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been.

When we returned to the townhouse to finish removing the carpet, I noticed the cigarettes were no longer on Joanna's porch. She must have rounded up the pack when Landreth went by to see about getting in touch with Lane. I hoped she wasn't too upset that the fire investigator wanted to speak with him. We weren't even sure it had been him in the tow truck.

Colette had sent provisions with Buck, gourmet sandwiches with a protein-packed garlic-lemon chickpea spread and sides of fruit for lunch, much better than the pre-packaged peanut butter crackers I kept in my toolbox to snack on. We enjoyed a late lunch around two in the afternoon, sitting on the top step of the porch to eat. I'd assumed Joanna and Gideon had been inside her place, watching The Young and the Restless as usual, so it surprised me when a blue VW Beetle convertible pulled into Joanna's driveway with Gideon at the wheel. Joanna sat slumped in the passenger seat. Gideon climbed out and scurried around to open the door for Joanna. He helped her out, and she clung to his shoulder as they made their way to the door.

Reflexively, I stood. "Everything okay?"

Gideon looked up, his expression pensive. "We've been at urgent care. When I came over to watch our soaps, Joanna could barely walk. She was dizzy and shaking. Had a headache, too."

"Worst of my life," she said weakly, shuffling along beside him.

"Her vitals were normal," Gideon said. "They gave her some migraine medicine. It's seemed to help some. I'm going to get her inside and put her to bed. I'll stick around awhile, make sure she's okay before heading back home."

In light of the fact that Joanna's daughter was on bed rest and her son-in-law was at work, she was lucky to have such a good friend close by to look out for her.

Gideon scowled. "It didn't help that the fire marshal came by, asking about Lane. That got Joanna upset. Lane's caused her many a headache, too, over the years."

Joanna turned a weak, unfocused glare on her friend. Even if what Gideon said was true, no parent appreciated someone criticizing their child. I felt a twinge of guilt in my gut, but what was I supposed to have done? Keep mum about Joanna's son and his tow truck? If Lane was innocent of setting the fire, it seemed he could easily prove it. All he had to do was account for his whereabouts in the wee hours Sunday morning.

I stepped down from the porch, careful to avoid the broken step. "Can I help you get her inside?"

Gideon stopped me with a raised hand. "No need. I got her."

At that point, all I could offer was well wishes. "I hope you feel better real soon, Joanna."

Gideon helped her up the steps, punched in the code on her door's keypad, and led her inside. The door swung closed behind them, followed by the sound of the deadbolt sliding home.