Read Online St. Albans Fire by Archer Mayor - Free Book Online

its proximity to both the town and the lake, though, it’s probably housing. That’s what’s hot right now.”
    Joe pushed the map away and sat back to cross his legs. “Tough question, Jonathon, but without one iota of criticism intended, okay?”
    Michael was already ahead of him. “How sure am I it was accidental?”
    Gunther raised an eyebrow. “Three barn fires, two almost within sight of each other, all in short order. And with the end result that two out of the three unloaded their farms, and the third’s barely hanging on. You gotta wonder.”
    “I
was
sure,” the other responded, emphasizing the past tense. “But there’s no way I’m not rechecking it now.”
    “I know it’s a lot, given what’s on your plate already…”
    Again, Michael headed him off. “No, I can do it, and I don’t need any help. I know the players, who to call. I can do it faster alone.”
    Both men paid him the respect of accepting this small face-saving fiction. Mirroring Joe’s overall courtesy, Tim Shafer even shifted the emphasis somewhat. “If the torch did two barns the same way, without hiding that they were arsons, why would he disguise the third?”
    “Too early to tell,” Joe answered. “We don’t even know it was set. But it wasn’t the third chronologically; it was the first. Could he have entered the barn through the milk room, like everyone does, immediately saw the cob-job wiring running to the tank, and figured what the hell? He took it as a gimme.”
    “It ties to the other two being set from the top down, too,” Jonathon suggested.
    “How’s that?” Shafer asked.
    His colleague backed up slightly. “I didn’t mean directly. I meant that he may be a guy who works with whatever opportunity is staring him in the face.” He tapped the map again. “At my guy’s—Loomis is his name—he sees the bad wiring and uses that; at Noon’s, according to your sketches here, he sees access to a full hayloft right outside the door connecting the milk room to the stable; and at Cutts’s—given his success at Noon’s—he just repeats himself. I mean, think of it, we’ve all been in cow stables before, right?”
    The other men nodded.
    “What’s the reaction going to be from the cows when a stranger walks in, possibly carrying gas and/or glue as accelerants? Tim,” he added suddenly, warming to his hypothesis, “what style stable was Noon’s—tied or free stalls?”
    “Free.”
    Jonathon smiled. “There you have it.” He then answered his own earlier question: “They start moving. The skittish ones first, then the others. If this torch isn’t used to being in a barn, a free-stall stable with a bunch of huge cows moving around is not going to be the place to start setting up squibs and laying out trailers—not if you’re scared of being stepped on or crushed.”
    Joe couldn’t resist smiling. “Nice—for a total piece of fiction.”
    Shafer laughed, finally completely at ease. “Yeah, well, that’s how a lot of cases come together, right? You tell stories until you like one enough to chase it down.”
    Joe conceded the point. “I do like it, I’ll admit that, but it only takes us so far. Assuming the Loomis fire is arson, which is a stretch, then what’s the connection between all three?”
    “The farmers sold out, like you said,” Jonathon said quickly.
    “Two of them did,” Shafer corrected.
    Joe made a face. “Right—as far as we know. But if the point was to make each one sell out, then why? The properties aren’t contiguous, and one is miles away. Also, the two buyers we do have so far couldn’t be more disconnected.”
    “Age?” Jonathon suggested, clearly thinking in overdrive, both stimulated by the challenge and embarrassed by his possible mistake with the Loomis investigation. “All three farmers were long in the tooth.”
    Shafer and Gunther stayed silent for a while, until Joe suggested, “Okay. I don’t know what to do with that yet, but let’s keep it in mind.