That Old Flame of Mine (4 page)

She looked at Tory again and two things suddenly registered.

First of all, Tory’s body was too cool. Stella wasn’t a crime scene investigator, but something seemed off about that. And there were unusual marks, discolored bruising, on her wrists and throat.

Was it possible Tory was dead before the fire?

Chapter 4

S
tella didn’t want to talk to Chief Rogers about her theory. He’d made it clear how he felt about her. Instead, she pulled John aside and asked him what he thought.

“They could do a liver temp right away and we’d know,” she said as the EMS workers lifted Tory into the black body bag on the stretcher.

“All this heat.” John glanced around uncomfortably. He looked at his boss, who stood a few yards away. “It could make her feel cooler to the touch. She probably had a stroke or heart attack up there in her closet looking for what she was going to wear to the party. She was diabetic, you know. Not necessarily foul play, Chief.”

“I agree. But did you notice the marks on her wrists? There was also some kind of mark on her throat, John. Will you take a look before they leave with her? It could be ligature marks.”

He was skeptical. “I know the two of you were tight. I think you might be upset. It’s understandable.”

She stood closer to him, not wanting to be overheard. “Will you at least look and see what you think? I’d do it for you if you asked.”

He was nervous but finally agreed. “All right. We go with what I see, right?”

“Yes,” she agreed. “Thanks.”

“Okay.” He followed the EMS workers to the ambulance.

Stella turned away to head over to her volunteers. Tory’s son was staring at the charred remnants of the house he’d grown up in.

“I’m so sorry about your mother,” Stella said as she reached him.

“Thank you. That means a lot.” He smiled, blinked his reddened eyes, and took her hand. “You’re a professional firefighter. You probably know about these things. Do you think the house can be rebuilt? Is it too far gone? Would it have that smoky smell forever—or is there something I could use to get rid of that?”

Stella was surprised by his question, but she’d learned through the years that everyone grieved in their own way. “You’d have to ask a contractor and a professional cleanup person. That’s not part of what we do.”

“I can afford that now.” He looked at her shocked face. “What? I’m a very practical person. Mama is gone. I have to take care of my own. She’d feel the same way.”

Stella walked on without commenting. She hoped he was in shock.

Tory had called him “the boy” when she’d referred to him. Victor was certainly not a boy—he was thirty, if he was a day.

Stella had heard from others in the short time she’d been in Sweet Pepper about all the trouble he’d caused his mother down through the years. Tory had made it clear that she didn’t trust Victor.

“Is Ms. Lambert really dead?” Petey asked in a squeaky voice as soon as she saw Stella. “I can’t believe it. We did everything you told us. Were we too slow? Did we forget something?”

“You did everything you could.” Stella echoed John’s words to her. “None of us will be able to save every person or every house. It has to be enough that we’re here to make the effort.”

“Why?” Petey threw down her helmet, her young face reflecting her terrible anguish. “What’s the point if people die anyway? I don’t think I can do this anymore. I’m sorry, Chief.”

“Take a few days,” Stella said, not wanting to lose the girl. “Give yourself some time to get through it. It’s not easy, but you’re all this town has now. Your friends and family need your help.”

“I’ll think about it,” Petey reluctantly promised. “I just don’t know.”

They packed up the gear, rolled up the hoses, and got everything back on the vehicles. Ricky, John, and Kent seemed in good spirits despite the loss. Allen and Petey took it hard. The ride back to the firehouse was quiet and somber.

Stella had run out of words of wisdom. Her throat was raw from breathing in the hot smoke, and her injured shoulder hurt. She’d promised the department doctor before she left Chicago that she wouldn’t do anything strenuous. At the time, it had seemed like a promise she could easily keep. She’d thought this would mostly be a desk position. No one had told her just how raw her recruits would be.

She didn’t have to say anything about cleaning the gear and the trucks before they were put away. No one was in a hurry to go anywhere. Her volunteers finished their chores, filled out their paperwork, and slowly drifted out into the darkness.

Ricky was the last one to go. “It’s been a tough day, Chief. Things will look better tomorrow. Hey! Did you take a look at the puppy I found?”

“Puppy? You brought it with you? I thought you probably gave it to the Humane Society or something.”

“Petey brought him. He seems fine, Chief. We thought he could spend the night until we decide what to do with him.”

Stella followed Ricky to the kitchen. The oldest member of the fire brigade, Tagger Reamis, was playing with the puppy.

Tagger was the only living member of the previous Sweet Pepper Fire Brigade. He was in his early seventies, not physically able to actually fight fires. He liked to be there with the other volunteers. They liked his stories about Vietnam and about the previous fire brigade. He mostly manned the twenty-four-hour communication station they had to maintain at the firehouse.

“Hey, Chief!” Tagger said as the puppy growled and played with an old T-shirt. “I think he likes it here.”

It was ironic that the puppy was a Dalmatian. Stella knew several stations back home that had Dalmatians as mascots. This one was very young, maybe six or eight weeks, and had a big red bow around his neck.

“He seems fine,” she said.

“That’s what I said,” Ricky reminded her. “There’s no one else to take him tonight. Even the pound won’t open until tomorrow morning.”

“The pound?” Tagger scratched his grizzled gray head. “We can’t let the pound take him.”

“He doesn’t really belong to us,” Stella reminded him.

“Ms. Lambert’s dead,” Ricky said. “She can’t take care of him anymore.”

“Never knew Tory to have a dog or any other animal, especially in the house,” Tagger added. “Wonder what she was doing with him?”

“We can keep him for now,” Stella decided. “We’ll have to think about this tomorrow.”

“I’ll take care of him tonight, Chief.” Tagger smiled. “I’m sure Eric will like him too.”

“Eric?”

“Eric Gamlyn.” Tagger pointed to an old picture of the first fire brigade. “Our chief from back in the 1970s. His ghost haunts the firehouse. He built it, you know.”

Stella hadn’t known that. She looked at the grainy, black-and-white picture of the group of men. The chief was a tall, broad-shouldered man. He had a handsome face and blond hair tied back at the nape of his neck. His deep chest showed off the red Sweet Pepper Fire Brigade T-shirt.

“Does he haunt the cabin up there too?” she asked jokingly. “Because I have a problem with odd things happening there.”

“Oh sure, Chief,” Ricky said from the floor where he was playing with the puppy. “Everyone knows that old cabin is haunted. That’s why my mom comes up there to clean every week. She can’t get anyone else to do it.”

“Okay.” Stella yawned. “Well, if Eric says it’s okay, that’s what counts. We’ll talk about the puppy tomorrow.”

* * * 

The parking lot was empty when Stella went out. One of the lights on the outside of the building was flickering on and off. Fog was rolling down from the mountains around her. She’d learned quickly why they called them the Smokies.

She climbed on her motorcycle and headed up to the cabin on the narrow, dark road. The outside light she never turned on was flickering too, barely providing enough light to see where the parking area ended and the drop-off to the river began.

She went inside, ignoring the opening door. Out on the deck, the night sounds of crickets, frogs, and other creatures she didn’t recognize, made the night come alive. She was a city girl, born and bred. She knew ambulance sirens blaring through the streets and car tires screeching at stoplights. A barking dog was as close as she came to identifying animal sounds. Ricky had told her the other sounds she was hearing were crickets and frogs.

The hot tub steamed and bubbled at the other end of the deck. Her shoulder and the rest of her aching body wanted to drop her clothes and climb in. She sat in a rocking chair instead, and stared at the blackness that surrounded her.

It wasn’t like she hadn’t lost people before. There had been others she, and a company of well-trained firefighters, couldn’t save. Mostly they were like Tory, dead long before the fire even reached them.

But dead was dead. It was never easy no matter how many times it happened.

This wasn’t even the first time she’d lost someone she knew. Mr. Esposito, the butcher from the next street up in her neighborhood, had fallen asleep with a cigarette in his hand. She wouldn’t even have known it was him if she hadn’t known it was his place.

And there had been her third-grade teacher, Mrs. Ann Foley. She liked to light candles for her dead husband. One got tipped over and caught her drapes on fire. She’d climbed in the bathtub to stay safe instead of getting out of her apartment.

Stella wiped away old tears with those memories. It was funny how you thought things didn’t bother you anymore until something happened that brought all the hurt back. She hadn’t planned for that here. There was no one she could talk to. Everyone was back home.

She stumbled into the kitchen and made some hot chocolate. She decided to combine both therapies—chocolate and hot water—and took off her smoky clothes before she got in the hot tub.

“You’re feeling sorry for yourself,” she said aloud to the crickets and the little bat that liked to swoop around the deck at night. “It’s stupid. It won’t help Tory. You need to go home. You’re in good shape now. You can go back to work. You don’t have to see Doug. But you don’t have to be here for this either.”

“Cutting out already?” a deep, male voice asked.

Stella dropped her cup into the hot-tub bubbles. She used her foot to feel around for it. It was the only possible weapon she could think of at that moment.

“Get out now and I’ll forget you’ve been playing all these practical jokes on me.”

“I knew it! You can
hear
me!”

Great!
He wasn’t impressed by her threats. “Leave
now
!”

He laughed. “I wish it were that easy. And I wouldn’t call turning on the light when I know you’ll be home late a practical joke. You can have a bad fall if you don’t get up the stairs safely.”

“Look, I don’t know who you are or why you’ve decided you’re my guardian angel, but you should leave now. I’m expecting a police officer in a few minutes. I don’t think he’d be too happy to find you here.”

Stella finally had the cup in her hand. She was one step short of breaking it and using the jagged edge to make her point. The porch was in darkness, but she could make out the man’s shadowy shape in the rocking chair she’d just left.

How did he get in?

He had to have a key. That’s what gave him access whenever he wanted to move things around or try to scare her.

She didn’t recognize his voice—he definitely wasn’t one of her rejected recruits. She didn’t know what else to do to get rid of him. She could hardly step out naked and threaten him. Even in the shadows, she could see he was a big man.

“A pretty girl like you shouldn’t be out here alone, moping.”

“I’m not moping.” She checked herself. She didn’t plan to have a conversation with him. “I’m not joking either. John Trump is with the Sweet Pepper Police Department, and he’ll be here any minute. I’m sure you don’t want to go to jail. Leave now. Don’t come back. We’ll forget this happened.”

Yeah, right. Why don’t I carry a gun?

Her cell phone was useless up here even if it was close enough for her to reach. She had no service until she was back at the firehouse.

She couldn’t believe it—she’d never needed a gun in the city. Here she was, in the boonies of Tennessee, wishing she could at least
threaten
to shoot someone.

“Is that Ray Trump’s boy?” the shadow asked. “No. It can’t be. Must be his grandson. I think his son’s name was Bobby. That was a while back. I don’t think he’d be courting you.”

That almost brought Stella out of the hot tub. “He’s not
courting
me, if that means what I think it means. He has valuable information about something that happened today.”

“You mean the fire and Tory Lambert’s death. What kind of information?”

This had gone on too far. Stella had to take control of the situation. “Look. I don’t want to hurt you, but if you don’t leave now—”

Before she could complete the threat, there was a loud rapping at the front door. She smiled and turned to her companion.

He was gone.

Is he waiting inside?

She couldn’t sit around wondering. She jumped out of the tub and threw on her clothes, expecting to see him at any second. She clutched the cup in front of her like it was the gun she longed for. If he came at her around the corner, she’d be ready for him.

“Stella!” John began yelling her name. His polite rapping had turned into pounding. “Are you in there? Are you okay?”

She wrenched open the door and the porch light turned off. “Sorry. Someone’s playing a prank on me. I was in the hot tub and he got inside.” She didn’t care what had brought John up there at that late hour, she was happy to see him. It was just luck that he’d come after she’d told the intruder that he would be there.