Fall from Pride (8 page)

She tried to remember how it all went. Nate had it laid out on the ground, and was already into the thick pants and suspenders. She helped him jam his feet into his oversize, steel-toed boots. Then she held his bulky, beige jacket so he could get into it. He yanked on the fire protection hood that had arrived in the package she'd delivered before supper.
It encased his head and neck but not his face. Her fingers weren't used to the oxygen mask he pointed toward, so he ended up pulling it on and tightening the straps himself. She helped him put on the heavy fire gloves and handed him his hat. It looked scorched and smelled of smoke.

Meanwhile, all around her, volunteer firemen were hauling lengths of hose out of their truck. Sarah knew Nate wanted to beat them inside. She wondered if Mike Getz was among them, but surely not with a broken arm. Then she saw him off to the side with Cindee Kramer. Their faces, lit by orange flames, seemed to glow with excitement.

Nate nodded to her and headed toward the barn door. The firemen were still dragging out two hoses, one from their truck and one to draw water from the pond, as Nate walked toward the flaming hell.

 

Talk about VERA being claustrophobic when he slept inside, Nate thought as he lumbered into the burning barn. Until the oxygen started flowing through his mask, he always felt a moment of drowning panic. If he breathed in before the flow was good, his eardrums seemed to suck right into his head, but he was fine now. Somehow, it was always otherworldly. He couldn't hear anything but his own breathing, couldn't talk, could hardly see, plodding under seventy-five pounds of gear.

At least he had hopes no one was trapped inside. He'd seen burned bodies, curled in a fetal position—black, unrecognizable, flesh and fat gone right down to the bone, smelling like charred meat on the grill. Thank God, it seemed no one was home at the farm again. The arsonist was clever and careful. But Nate couldn't afford to be careful right now. He had to look in the guts of this structure to see if he could pin
anything down. Already, even with two internal points of combustion observable from outside, he saw it was a different M.O. But it had to be the same person setting these, didn't it? A copycat arsonist was rare, no doubt especially in a rural area where harmony apparently ruled.

He didn't mind that this blaze brought back his fire training—it was the other memories he tried to fight. That night when he was eight and the roaring inferno of their home engulfed him. His mother screaming his name, coughing, gasping, crawling on the floor through the pall of choking smoke to where he huddled near his bed. The last time he saw her, her nightgown was ablaze. And then his father rushing in—too late….

This barn—again, the horses were in the field—had a large central bay and two side bays, one with stalls, one with stored grain. The flames were so fierce, he figured he could almost hear some of the corn popping, when he actually couldn't hear a thing. Popcorn—that's what Sarah had said while she helped him get suited up. The Schrocks had harvested a huge crop of popcorn last year, sold most of it to the Orville Redenbacher's company.

Just about six feet inside the barn, he was dazzled by a burst of flames and sparks—a small explosion in amazing hues, violet, magenta, chartreuse. Was he hallucinating? Chemicals this time?

When the flare-up spread away from him, licking at the wooden beams that supported the inner bay and stall walls, he shuffled toward the source of the colors, prettier than the sunrise had been that morning as he watched Sarah hitch her horse to her buggy. It almost mesmerized him. And it must be something incendiary, because it was at the tip of one of the V-burn patterns the firemen were trying to douse.

A stream of water from a hose bounced before his eyes, throwing something against his boots. Grunting, he stooped to picked up a remnant. He had a hunch what it was and it wasn't kerosene this time.

 

Sarah and Gabe stood off to the side, beyond the reach of the heat belching from the blazing barn. Once again, observers gathered as they saw the flames or the word spread. Nate was still inside, but then several of the firemen were, too, so they must figure the structure was sound enough right now. The flames were consuming her bright pink, green and brown tumbling blocks on the stark-white background. She imagined she could hear it crackling in protest. The Schrocks had picked the design because it looked like it was moving both up and down, depending on your point of view. She watched the paint curl and blur, making blocks seem to tumble like the barn beams and roof would if they couldn't get the fire out soon.

Sarah tried to stem the tears that prickled her eyelids, but she couldn't keep from crying. Her vision blurred to make the barn fire seem like Armageddon with the entire world aflame. Her quilt squares, now the barns of two families who had trusted her to paint them there, were under attack. Who hated the Home Valley Amish? Did someone blame her for something? Sure, there had been hate crimes against her people from time to time. Some
Englische
blamed the Plain People for being pacifists, for their slow buggies, for just being different. No way it was smooth sailing in this life she'd been born into and then had chosen.

She wiped tears from her cheeks with both hands. And then she saw something glint from the darkness beyond the barn.

She couldn't tell what—who—because it was as if she'd
been looking into the sun, but she was suddenly sure someone was there watching, standing back a ways, not joining the others. Despite drifting smoke, had it been eyeglasses or sunglasses or binoculars that had reflected the flames? Surely not just a distortion from her own tears. A big meadow stretched into the darkness, so why would someone stand in the middle of it?

Sarah hurried back to VERA, climbed inside and took down Nate's night goggles. She got back out and moved into the shadow of the big vehicle. She fumbled to get them on, had to end up holding them over her eyes. But her view was so blurry, just a sea of eerie green flecked by shifting, speckled grays, kind of like swimming underwater.

Yet she glimpsed a figure, someone moving away, apparently from watching the barn burn. Man or woman?
Grossmamm
's man in black? Should she race across the meadow in pursuit, at least to see up closer?

But at that moment Nate emerged from the inferno, stumbling, unsteady, and she ran toward him instead.

SARAH COULDN'T TELL WHAT NATE WAS CRADLING so carefully in his gloved hands. He walked around her and deposited something on VERA's wide, back metal bumper. Embers? The small mass, looking like a smashed piece of wood, was glowing as if it had a life of its own. It suddenly sparked pink and purple.

He pulled off his helmet and mask, sucking in air, out of breath.

“Stay back from that!” he told her.

“What is it?”

“Not positive yet. What are you doing with my goggles?”

“I saw someone in the back meadow but it was blurry. Someone hurrying away.”

He pulled off one of his gloves and wiped his sweaty face with his free hand. “Amish?” he asked.

“I couldn't tell.”

“Male or female?”

“Not sure. I noticed at first because of a glint from the fire, on glasses or binoculars, I think.”

He shrugged out of his jacket and, still wearing his protective pants held up by suspenders, took the goggles from her and put them on. He walked away and peered into the distant darkness for several minutes, then returned and handed her the goggles.

“Is there a road or another farm back that way?” he asked.

“A road and a farm, but way over the hill. Levi Miller's place, the Amish man who had his ribs broken when he and Mike Getz went into the first fire. He's the church deacon who has one of my painted squares on his barn. Other than Bishop Esh's barn and those of the two church elders you've met, Levi Miller's is the only other one I painted—so far, now that I'm going to do one on our family barn.”

He frowned. “I need to run a test on that material,” he told her, nodding toward the remnant on his bumper. “I'm going to smother it so it doesn't burn further.” She watched as he put the glove he'd removed over it, pressing it down.

“But won't that hurt it, if you need to find out what it is?”

“I'll be testing the ashy residue, the chemical contents. I'm betting on oil-treated sawdust from cedar with a copper-based coloring compound. In other words, what's left when you break open and ignite an artificial fireplace log.”

“I've seen those!”

“In town?”

“It must have been in the hardware store. I'm going there tomorrow.”

“Don't you be asking who bought some. I'll take care of that.”

They both jumped as a white light nearly blinded them, but it wasn't from Nate's evidence. Peter Clawson had arrived and was taking pictures of the scene with a strobe. At least Sarah could tell, if he'd shot a picture their way, she had her
back turned to the camera. He probably wanted ones of Nate and VERA.

“Can you stay here with this—not touch it, guard it—until I see how the guys are doing with the fire?” Nate asked, peering closer at his prize.

“
Ya
—yes, sure.”

“Where's Gabe?”

“Over there with some friends,” she said, pointing.

“I'll be right back.”

She watched him talk to the two firemen who were holding the hose that was drawing water from the pond. It actually looked as if they could keep this barn from tumbling down, although her tumbling blocks pattern was a goner. Peter Clawson approached Nate, and they spoke for a minute. Sarah saw Ray-Lynn, who had just driven in, and was standing near the sheriff's cruiser. Ray-Lynn didn't see her standing beside Nate's truck or she would have come over. Nate made a beeline toward Gabe and his friends, bending toward them in earnest conversation. Next, he huddled in private with Sheriff Freeman, who had arrived while Nate was still in the barn and had been keeping the growing crowd back.

To her dismay, Peter Clawson came over to her, but at least he kept his camera at his side.

“Another of your pretty paintings gone, Sarah.”

“The barn is what matters.”

“Of course. It's starting to look as if someone's holding a grudge—a big one—against Amish church leaders, doesn't it?”

“I pray that's not the case.”

“Right. God's will.”

“Do you doubt that, Mr. Clawson?”

“The thing is, the devil's loose on the earth, evidently with God's tolerance or permission. So, I see you're helping Nate MacKenzie.”

“Not exactly. He had dinner with my family, then Gabe and I came along to show him where the Schrock barn was when the call came in.”

“So what's that stuff on the bumper of his truck?”

The man wasn't taking notes as he had when he interviewed her about her quilt squares, but she didn't want him quoting her and she didn't want to give anything away that Nate wanted kept quiet for now. Yet she totally shocked herself when she looked straight into the man's eyes and told a lie. “I've decided to keep a burned piece of each barn where I had a painting, just to remember how kind the families were to let me do it.”

“A quaint idea,” he said. He squinted at her, then rubbed his eyes, probably stinging from the pall of smoke. The breeze wasn't blowing this way, but the entire area—including her clothes and hair—hung heavy with the smell. He started to say something else, then, to her relief, thought better of it and hurried away, taking pictures again.

She stayed right where she was, guarding Nate's evidence as she saw him leave Sheriff Freeman to walk over to Mike Getz and Cindee Kramer. To Sarah's surprise, Nate slapped Mike on the back as if they were old pals. Right then her parents buggied in and got out with Bishop and Mattie Esh.

Nate spoke to the four of them, pointing her out to her parents before he walked back to her and stared at his ashy evidence again.

“Peter Clawson asked what that was, but I told him it was mine,” she blurted.

“I appreciate that or he'd be after me with more questions.
I don't want those or my answers in his paper. And to keep that from being a lie, I'll give you a bit for a dirty souvenir. But guess who phoned this fire in?”

“Not Mike Getz?”

“I knew I should hire you as my assistant. We've got another arson here but between you, VERA and me, one way or the other, we're going to nail someone soon. We have to before this happens again.”

 

The next morning, after delivering her half-moon pies, Sarah had breakfast in a booth at the restaurant, waiting for the hardware store to open at nine so she could buy paint. While she ate, Ray-Lynn came and went to greet or cash folks out, but she sat across the table from Sarah when she could.

“So you're going to go ahead and paint a quilt square on your barn?” Ray-Lynn asked as Sarah finished her blueberry pancakes and sausage patties. “After two of them just went up in flames with their barns?”

“Shh. I discussed that with my parents and Nate last night, and we decided yes.”

“Easy for him to say—and it's Nate now, is it?” she added with a wink. “Well, if he's camped out back of your barn like you said, maybe he wants to set a trap for the arsonist—or for someone else.”

“Now, Ray-Lynn, no teasing. It's not that way and it's impossible.”

“I thought all things were possible with God. But, okay, okay. Still, aren't you scared for your own barn?”

“The point is, we mustn't give in to fear. ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.' Barns and quilts are part of our way of life, and we
have to stand up for that. What's happening here is hardly the valley of death.”

“Not yet, anyway. I'm not a good ole Southern Baptist for nothing, my girl, so I reckon I could quote a thing or two from the Good Book myself. But the thing that keeps coming to mind right now is something my daddy used to say. ‘Are we still ahead of the hounds?' And I'm not sure we are. But never you mind my rambling. You're a strong woman, Sarah—talented, too. Even if this attack on your people has something to do with your paintings, my offer for you to do a big mural here still stands. So I'm standing with you all no matter what.”

“I'm grateful, my friend. Oh, by the way, I saw you at the fire last night, too.”

For a moment Ray-Lynn looked upset. “Oh—yeah, when I heard the sirens, I let the girls take care of the restaurant and drove over, following the light in the sky. I didn't see you there. I didn't stay long. I decided it was time for me to get back here, fire or not, so I could close up.”

“Not to change the subject but guess who just came in?” Sarah whispered. “No, don't even turn around if you're putting up fences between you and him.”

“Good thought to keep giving him the cold shoulder, but unfortunately, I need to run this place,” Ray-Lynn said, and reached over to pat Sarah's hand. “Talk to you later.”

Sarah had to admire how Ray-Lynn handled the sheriff. Nice but cool as a March breeze. Polite but that was all. Sarah bit back a little smile as she slid out of the booth and took her purse with her money in it to buy new paint.
Grossmamm
always used to say that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, but Ray-Lynn's vinegar seemed to
be working wonders right now, because when she did what she called her sashay away from him, Sheriff Jack Freeman was all eyes.

 

Nate fidgeted and stared at his computer screen, waiting for the chemical assay analysis reading to come up. Yes! A copper-based color compound in the ash residue. He'd only heard of one case where the arsonist started a fire by breaking open an artificial log and igniting it to burn the house of his former, remarried wife, but the story had been picked up in the media and he'd just happened to catch it. Now where had that case been? Out in L.A., maybe—but how long ago?

He jumped up and stretched. Such a chemically treated log made for a fast, hot and colorful flame and would eventually burn away completely, leaving no evidence, so his risking going into the blaze was well worth it. This arson was a far cry from the wick-and-accelerant approach of the Esh barn fire, yet it surely must have been started by the same person. Two barn burners using double ignition points and choosing buildings with Sarah's paintings was too similar to be a coincidence. Both incendiary devices used materials that were readily available in Amish country or anywhere. As soon as he talked to Mike Getz and Jacob Yoder—who were neck-and-neck as his top suspects, with Hannah running a close second—he'd stop by the hardware store in Homestead and see if he could get someone there to recall who had bought artificial fireplace logs. The problem was that purchases of those could have been made last winter or even in the fall. He was pretty sure the few Amish homes he'd been in didn't have fireplaces, but then Jacob wasn't technically Amish anymore.

 

The moment the bell over the hardware store door rang and Sarah stepped inside, Cindee Kramer called to her from behind the checkout counter. “Hi, Sarah! Boy, oh, boy, wasn't that fire something last night? Mike was so upset he couldn't help put it out, but at least he spotted it and called it in.”

“Much appreciated, too,” Sarah said, and stopped to talk. “That quick call probably kept it from burning to the ground.”

Sarah knew she was supposed to leave all the questions up to Nate when he came by later, but with that lead-in, she couldn't help but ask, “So what was Mike doing when he noticed it—I mean, was he outside or something?”

“He ran inside from where he was grilling burgers out back and called 9-1-1. Even one-armed, he's great at barbecuing, great one-handed at a lot of things, tell you the truth,” she said with a little snicker. “I'm so proud of him lately, picture in the paper and all, helping with these fires. But our burgers burned to a crisp,” she added with a tight grin. “Could have started our own fire, I guess, one way or t'other.”

Cindee had naturally curly black hair, and lots of it, in a kind of big halo around her head. Her thin face got lost in it, but that was the only skinny part of her because she had a real full figure, chest and hips. She'd been helpful picking out paint in the past, and maybe she was being helpful today, too, and just didn't know it. After all, Nate had only told Sarah not to ask who bought artificial fireplace logs.

“So is your barbecue pit right where you can keep an eye on your broken-armed wonder, in case he needs help juggling all of that?” she asked Cindee.

“Not really. It's out behind the shed, 'cause I don't like the smoke drifting into the kitchen and that keeps sparks away from our big woodpile.”

Their woodpile? Then, did that mean they didn't use artificial logs? On the other hand, Cindee hadn't had Mike in view while he was outside, so he could have slipped away to start a fire practically next door.

“Wow, the entire neighborhood smells of smoke,” Cindee went on. “Now that you mention it, I did go out to help him use the electric fire starter, but he said he could handle that by himself and he did, too. So, you in for more paint? Since some of the Schrock barn's still standing, will you redo your block quilt piece when it gets fixed?”

“I'm going to do a quilt square on my own family's barn— Ocean Waves pattern. Do you remember I showed you that one?”

“Sure do. You said it was your favorite, 'cause you'd love to see the ocean. I remember it kind of seemed to shift and move.”

Sarah could hear Mr. Baughman, who owned the store, talking to another customer down one of the aisles. She and Cindee walked toward the back of the store, where the paint samples always intrigued Sarah. Little paper squares laid out by color and hue, she wanted to arrange them into a painting right on the spot. Although it was not a big store, it seemed to have everything packed in, items for both English and Amish customers. They passed kerosene lanterns and kerosene, then an array of battery-powered kitchen gadgets, since electricity, unless provided by a generator, was
verboten.

“Exterior latex, couple of contrasting blues and a white, right?” Cindee asked.

“Right, but I'll have to decide which blues. I really
appreciate your help. I'll drop you off a couple of half-moon pies when I take some to the Schrocks. My mother and sisters are making and freezing huge batches of them for the auction at the schoolhouse on Saturday.” And that, Sarah figured, would allow her to take a look at their barbecue area. Could the burned barn really be seen from there?