Trial by Fire (9 page)

“Sure,” I said. “You know where I live.”

We said goodnight and walked back along the beach to Ashleigh’s house, where we settled
down for the night. I called Aunt Ginny, who promised to drop off my bike the next
morning so I could get back home—she had to work. Ashleigh was snoring softly almost
as soon as her head hit the pillow. I lay awake wondering what would happen when
I went to
the police station to try to press charges against Mike Winters for trashing
Mr. Goran’s stall. I wondered too how it might affect Aunt Ginny, who was doing her
best to get accepted.

EIGHT

Ashleigh’s parents were welcoming and unobtrusive, and her mother was a great cook.
She made waffles for breakfast, with maple syrup and fresh fruit.

Aunt Ginny arrived exactly when she said she would and insisted on meeting the Wainwrights.
They welcomed her as warmly as they had me and offered her breakfast. Aunt Ginny
looked longingly at the waffles and genuine maple syrup and sniffed the freshly brewed
coffee even more longingly. But she glanced at her watch and said, “I have to be
on duty in five minutes.”

“Oh. Are you a nurse?” Mrs. Wainwright asked.

A look of annoyance flickered across Aunt Ginny’s face.

“Police officer,” she said. “Detective.”

“How interesting,” Mrs. Wainwright said. “You and Riley will have to come to supper
sometime, and you can tell us all about it.”

Aunt Ginny looked at the waffles again. Although she was a terrible cook, she had
an eye for expertly prepared food, so I’m sure she relished the prospect of dining
with the Wainwrights. What she would never relish, however, was discussing her job
with a couple of mere civilians. I wondered if it would deter her from accepting
an invitation.

I thanked Ashleigh’s parents and left with Aunt Ginny. She started to unload my bike
from the back of her car, but I stopped her.

“I need to go to the police station first,” I said.

“What for?”

“I want to get someone charged with…” What would be the proper charge? Vandalism?
Destruction of property?

“With what?” Aunt Ginny’s eyes narrowed. “Did something happen at that party last
night?”

“No.”

“Riley?” She wasn’t going anywhere until I answered her, even if it meant she would
be late for work.

I told her about meeting Mike Winters and that he was the ringleader for what had
happened at the market.

Aunt Ginny sighed. “You should talk to Brian Shears. He took your report, didn’t
he? Let him arrest this boy.”

“I don’t think he’ll do it.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s Mike Winters’ uncle.”

Aunt Ginny gave me a sharp look.

“Are you saying you don’t think a police officer will do his job because his nephew
is involved?”

“He didn’t take me seriously when I reported the incident. I bet he knew it was Mike.”

“He’s a cop. He’ll do his job. But you’re not the person to lay charges. It was Aram’s
property. He should do it.”

“Okay. So let’s call him.”

“Riley, I don’t know if you understand what’s going on here, but from what I gather,
the Gorans aren’t exactly in the running for neighbors of the year. There’s a lot
of resentment against them.”

“So?”

She shook her head. “So nothing, I guess.” But the reluctance in her voice made me
wonder. “We’ll call Aram from the station.”

We drove to the police station, and I followed Aunt Ginny inside. I spotted Brian
Shears almost immediately. He wasn’t in uniform. Aunt Ginny called to him.

“
Detective
McFee.” There was something grating about the way he emphasized her rank,
as if he were mocking her. “Who have you got here?” He shifted his eyes to me. “Well,
if it isn’t the girl from the market. Did you have any luck tracking down the alleged
vandal?”

“She did,” Aunt Ginny informed him.

Shears’s gaze flicked back to Aunt Ginny. “Moving up from kittens and puppies, Detective?”

“Riley is my niece,
Constable.
” Aunt Ginny could give as good as she got.

“So I hear.”

“And apparently your nephew is the one who vandalized the Gorans’ market stall. Riley
can positively identify him.”

“I’d love to help, but I’m off duty today, Detective. You’ll have to stick-handle
this yourself. Have a great day, ladies.”

As he left the squad room, Aunt Ginny muttered something under her breath. “Come
on,” she said. She led me to a desk and logged in to her computer. After a glance
at the screen, she picked up the phone and dialed. “Mr. Goran?”

I listened as she explained why she was calling. Then there was silence as she listened
to Aram.

“You’re sure?” she asked finally. More silence. “Okay. It’s your decision.” She hung
up. “That’s that,” she said. “Let’s get your bike unloaded so I can get to work.”

“What happened?”

“He doesn’t want to press charges.”

“Why not?”

“Because, as I said, there’s been enough bad blood around here already without him
pressing charges against Ted Winters’ son.”

“But—”

“I’m just telling you what he said, Riley.”

“So Mike gets away with being a bully and destroying other people’s property?”

“It was Aram’s property. So it’s his decision how to proceed. He doesn’t want to
press charges. There’s nothing I can do.” I followed her out to the parking lot,
where she unloaded my bike. “I don’t know if I want you getting too involved with
the Gorans.”

I couldn’t believe what she was saying. “Why not?”

“There’s been enough trouble. Besides, it doesn’t look like they’re going to be around
for much longer. If Mr. Goran survives and manages to dodge jail, it’s doubtful he’ll
be able to go back to farming. And I’m sure Aram has a life to get back to. You and
I, however, have to live in this town.”

“Are you worried about what people will think?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Aram didn’t commit any crime. Mike did.”

She set my bike onto the pavement. “It’s quite possible Aram’s father did too. A
serious one. And Aram’s not going to be here for much longer. I don’t see any reason
to get involved in a situation that is so heated and so temporary.” She handed me
my lock. “I’ll see you at supper.”

I didn’t go home right away. Instead, I dug out my cell phone and looked up Charlie’s
home phone number. He sounded surprised to hear from me.

“Do you want to meet up for a coffee or something?” I asked.

“How about ice cream? I’ll meet you at Chuck’s. It’s next to the pharmacy on King
Street.” King Street was the main commercial street.

Charlie got there before me. He beamed when he saw me but was disappointed when I
opted for a soda instead of an ice-cream cone or a sundae.

“Ashleigh’s mom made waffles,” I explained. “I think I ate one too many.”

We sat on a bench outside Chuck’s.

“Charlie, what do you know about the Gorans and the Winters?”

Charlie slumped a little. “I thought you wanted to see me.”

“I did. I do. I called you, didn’t I? But if Mike Winters is going to give me a hard
time, I want to know everything about him.”

“Besides the fact that he’s a jerk?”

“Yeah, besides that.”

“Well, Mr. Goran bought the farm nearly two years ago, but Mike and his dad still
haven’t gotten over it. Whenever Ted sees Mr. Goran in town, he makes a
point of
crossing the street to avoid him. Mike does the opposite. He doesn’t avoid Mr. Goran.
He accidentally-on-purpose bumps into him, hard if Mr. Goran is carrying something.
He keyed Mr. Goran’s truck a couple of times—”

“You saw him do that?”

Charlie shook his head. “He boasted about it at school. He makes fun of Mr. Goran’s
accent. He calls him names. He’s knocked over the old man’s mailbox a couple of times.”

“Did he ever get arrested for any of that stuff?”

“Not that I know of.” Charlie bit into his ice-cream cone. “Anyway, Mr. Goran seems
okay. He sure works hard. And he knows what he’s doing.”

“What do you mean?”

“We have a fall fair up here every year. There are a lot of competitions—baking,
needlecrafts, livestock and produce. All the entries are anonymous, you know, so
the judges can’t be influenced by whether they know someone or not. Mr. Goran won
a bunch of prizes last year. I think he got firsts for his beets, his tomatoes and
his squash. And he won first for his oats in the grain category. The tourists who
were there—
we always get a lot of city people—they all clapped. But people in town?
No way.” He paused to pop the last bit of his ice-cream cone into his mouth.

“People up here sure carry a grudge,” I said. “It must have been hard for Mr. Goran.
I’ve seen his place. It seems big for one person to run alone. Did he have anyone
working with him?”

“There was a guy out there for a while. I think he was from the same place as Mr.
Goran. They spoke the same language. But I heard he went back home to get married.
That was during the winter. Mr. Goran put up some notices around town—he wanted to
hire help for the growing season. I think he took out an ad in the paper too.”

“And?”

“He didn’t get anyone.”

“But there must be plenty of people who need work,” I said. The news was filled with
grim statistics on unemployment.

“You’re not kidding. I sure could use some extra money.”

“You should have asked him for a job.”

Charlie’s face flushed red. He crumpled the napkin he had been holding and glanced
at his watch. “I gotta go.”

“Already? But I have more questions.”

He stood up. “What does it matter? He’s not going to farm anymore. That’s what everyone’s
saying.
If
he even lives.” His voice was hard and dismissive. He sounded like a different
person. He sounded like Mike Winters.

“What’s the matter, Charlie?” Something was bothering him, Something had changed.

“Nothing. I gotta go.” A couple of minutes ago, he’d been happy to see me. Now he
couldn’t wait to get away.

“Was it something I said?”

“See you around.” He strode down the street. I stayed put.

He stopped at the first intersection he came to, even though he had a green light,
and hung there for a few moments.

He turned.

He looked at me.

He walked back slowly and dropped down beside me on the bench.

“I like you,” he said.

“It’s kinda hard to tell, the way you walked off.”

“I like the way you stood up to Mike.”

“You stood up to him too.”

“And I like the way you seem to care about Mr. Goran.”

“He’s a nice man,” I said.

“That makes me feel even worse about what I did,” Charlie said. He looked down at
the ground.

“What do you mean?”

“I never told anyone.”

I waited.

“It’s about Mr. Goran,” he finally said.

I had figured that out already.

“We had to do fundraising last year for a school project to buy livestock for families
in developing countries. You know, so much money will buy a goat, and a goat can
provide milk for a whole family. Stuff like that. There was a prize for the team
that raised the most money. A trip to the city, a hotel right downtown, tickets to
the museum.”

“And?”

“I figured that Mr. Goran would be a good person to ask. He’s from a developing country,
and he’s a farmer. He would know how much a goat or some chickens would mean to a
poor family. So I asked him, and he gave me a hundred dollars—cash! That’s
way more
than I got from anyone else. It’s more than anyone else on my team collected.” He
paused and chanced a peek at me. “You’re going to think I’m such a jerk when I tell
you the rest.”

I thought about all the stupid things I had done—and all the times my grandpa Jimmy
had either found out or I had confessed. There were so many things about Jimmy that
I missed. He had a great sense of humor. He was kind to everyone. He loved to perform,
and he did it well. But most of all, he had an attitude to life that made more sense
than anything I’d ever heard from anyone else. It could be summed up in two sentences,
both of which I’d heard Jimmy say on many occasions. The first was
Who are we to
judge?
The second:
We all have things we regret saying or doing, but we can’t unsay
them or undo them
;
the best we can do is resolve not to say them or do them again
when the opportunity presents itself
. It was this outlook that made Jimmy the greatest
person I’d ever known.

“Nobody’s perfect, Charlie.”

He offered me a sad, crooked smile before he started talking.

“When I brought the money back to my team, they wanted to know how I’d managed to
raise so much.
Like an idiot, I told them it was from Mr. Goran. I thought people
would like that. I mean, he already owned the farm, and Clyde Winters was dead. None
of that was going to change. I thought maybe people would get over it if they saw
that Mr. Goran wasn’t a bad guy.”