Opera House Ops: A Morelville Cozies Serial Mystery: Episode 5 - Pants on Fire Read online

  Beth realized she was going to have to get back in the water and use two hands to have any hope of freeing the can and the water flow. She moved her left hand back up to the pipe’s rim and then started to move her right hand toward the rock wall. That’s when she saw it; a baby water snake slithering along, toward her boot.

  Without thinking, the teenager jumped backwards, lost her balance and came off the dry rocks onto the slippery ones that made up the creek bed just there and she fell into the water.

  What before had been barely ankle deep, now covered her legs and, as she slipped further backwards after finding no purchase for her hands, lapped nearly over her waist and abdomen as well. She managed to keep her head and shoulders up out of the water but she was quite thoroughly soaked anyway.

  Beth turned over to her knees and levered herself up. Her hand stung as she pulled it from the water and she realized she’d cut it. She hoped it wouldn’t need to be stitched. Her glance fell on her equipment on the bank and she nearly decided to give up, grab it and hope that her grandfather would still be willing to take her but something made her stop.

  She looked around for the snake but she didn’t see it. Figuring it was more scared of her now than she was of it, and being that she was already wet anyway, she decided to give the jug one more go, this time from the creek bed.

  Walking very slowly, testing every step, she approached the drain pipe straight on. When she reached it, she latched onto it with her wounded left hand while digging the toes of her mucking boots as far into the silt just below it as she could manage.

  She leaned down just a bit and reached into the pipe with her right hand, passing it through the handle of the jug as far as she could. Just past her wrist, her arm stopped. Her fingertips didn’t quite bend over the far edge of the jug but she tested it and got it to move a little. She leaned in a bit more, grasped as firmly as she could and then pulled back toward herself, hard.

  The plastic container rotated from mostly up and down in the pipe to sideways with the top facing her. Water gushed through the pipe from the bigger opening now below the can and quickly went over the top of her boots.

  Beth gripped the pipe rim tight to hold on as the backed up water flowed out. There wasn’t that much that had been caught completely behind it so it didn’t take long.

  Relieved, she let go of the lip, grasped the handle of the jug and pulled with both hands. It came free of the pipe easily now, knocking her off balance. Back down into the stream she went with a splash.

  Already wet up past her waist, she couldn’t do anything but laugh as she sat in the stream and marveled at her predicament.

  “So much for fishing!” she said aloud then, as she heard her mother shout from off to her left, she tried to scramble to her feet.

  The combination of the slippery stones so close to the drain pipe and her boots being full of water made standing difficult for her. It took three attempts before she was completely upright, holding the jug. She noticed the initials ‘B. W.’ written large, in heavy black marker, on the side that had faced into the pipe.

  Beth’s mother, who had apparently seen her fall or heard her, had closed half the distance between the station and the stream by the time the teen was finally on her feet.

  “Are you all right?” Kris called out to her, as she quickened her step.

  “I’m fine; just a little wet.” Remembering the cut on her hand then, she transferred the gas can to her right hand and stared at her left. The cut was bleeding again now that it was out of the water and she could tell, but it didn’t look to be as deep a cut as she had first thought.

  “You are hurt!”

  “It’s just a little cut, mom. Nothing some peroxide and a bandage won’t fix. Papa always says, ‘It’s a long way from the heart’.”

  Beth worked her way toward the bank and held the can up to her mother.

  “What are you doing with this, in there?”

  “It was stuck in that pipe, holding back water. I got it out.”

  Kris set the jug down then offered a hand to her daughter and helped her up over the bank. “Good thing I saw your fishing gear over here and heard you yell.”

  “Mom, I told you I’m fine. I was just looking for minnows and saw that is all.” She pointed to the jug.

  Kris looked at it again. “That’s Blake Wagner’s.” She pointed across the street and down a little ways toward his house. “I wonder how it got down here?”

  “How do you know it’s his? I mean, it could belong to someone else with those initials, or…” Her teenage mind ran in several directions.

  “He comes to the station with it all the time to fill it up and to fill up his Gator. He was just here yesterday, right before closing, as a matter of fact. Makes me wonder how it got down there and empty, already. His Gator was full when he left and so was this.” Kris got a faraway look in her eyes.

  Beth didn’t notice her mother’s change of expression. She started to gather her things up. “You got any Band-Aids at the station?”

  Kris shook herself from her thoughts and told her daughter, to get a move on as she noticed another customer pulling in.

  “We’ll still go fishing,” Jesse said to Beth, “as long as you’re hand’s okay.”

  “It’s fine Papa.”

  Jesse nodded. “Let’s go then. Jump in the back of the pickup; I’ll run you to your house for dry clothes and shoes. I’ll do the wading, if need be.”

  “Thanks Papa!” Beth moved to hug him but then remembered she was soaked and, instead, turned and headed out the station door.

  “Dad,” Kris began when her daughter was out of earshot, “the gas jug Beth rescued belongs to Blake.”

  The old man pulled a face. “What the hell was it doing down there? He’s such an odd one, good with the guns but a real strange duck otherwise.”

  “That’s my question. He filled the Gator he runs the woods around here in yesterday evening. This,” she held the jug up by the handle with the tip of a finger, “he also filled. He didn’t run all the fuel out of that Gator overnight and then use all of this too.”

  Jesse shook his head. “Gator will run for hours on a tank. All of that wouldn’t fit.”

  Kris stared at her old man silently.

  “I don’t read minds,” he said. “What are you thinking?”

  She sighed, not wanting to spell it out for him out loud when she knew they were on camera inside the station. Finally, beckoning him closer with the crook of a finger, she told him, “It’s just, with them investigating that fire as a possible arson, I’m suspicious that…”

  Jesse drew back and looked at her then whispered, “I don’t know that he’d ever do something like that or why but, maybe you better call your sister in on this one.”

  Chapter 4 – What’s Cooking?

  Saturday Morning, September 26th

  Hannah’s Bakery

  “Look at you. You’re just the sweetest young thing. How old are you sweetcakes?”

  Hannah gave Blake a tight lipped smile as she loaded half a dozen cookies into a small box for him. “I’m twenty,” she grudgingly told the rude man with bad breath. She really tried to be nice to all of the customers and it usually wasn’t a problem at all but she remembered this man from her days working in her father’s kennels. She hadn’t liked him then, when he was intent on buying hunting dogs from her father for far less than they were worth, and she didn’t care for him any more now. She was just grateful he didn’t seem to recognize her from her Amish days when he’d always ordered her about like she was his servant.

  “Well, you’re legal then, now, aren’t you?” The bearded man grinned, showing off his yellowing teeth.

  “I suppose, yes. Will there be anything else sir?”

  “I’m feeling a little flush here lately, why don’t you give me the biggest cup of coffee you got too?”

  “Cream and sugar?”

  “Just a little sugar, there ‘Sugar’.” He smiled again and leaned across the regis
ter counter toward her.

  Hannah’s stomach turned. She quickly moved over to the stack of cups and poured his coffee. Over her shoulder, she held up the sugar and quizzed him again, “one, or two?”

  “Two and your number, how about that?”

  She glanced toward the swinging door to the kitchen, willing Dana to come up front and rescue her in some way but the other woman was back there frosting cupcakes and oblivious to anything else. Steeling herself, she turned back with Blake’s coffee and handed it across the counter to him then she started to ring him up.

  “That’ll be $4.49, to go, sir.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “You should call me Blake, sweet cheeks – sweet cakes – sweet everything. And you know what I meant.”

  Hannah tilted her head and looked at him quizzically.

  “Your number honey bun. I want to call you up, take you out, and show you a real good time.”

  Hannah found a little courage and told him a little white lie. “I can’t do that. I have a man in my life. His name is Jef.”

  “Jeff? He from around here? I don’t know any Jeff around here.”

  “Oh, he’s from right here. I live with him.”

  Blake backed up then. “I see how it is. Okay then. I won’t go stepping on another man’s toes.”

  “Whose toes?” Mel asked as she strode through the door. A look of relief flooded Hannah’s face.

  “Sheriff; just the person I didn’t want to see today,” Blake said with a snarl.

  “Oh, why’s that? I was actually out looking for you. Didn’t figure on finding you in town but your Gator is a dead giveaway.”

  “I’ve been keeping it off the state route, now; just cross over it from time to time…can’t avoid that. You’ve got no cause to be hassling me.”

  “Nope, not that. You’re wanted for questioning.”

  “About what? You got a warrant? Am I under arrest?”

  “Those last two can be arranged Blake but, if you’ll step outside with me and talk for a few minutes, we might be able to clear this up pretty quick.”

  “Clear what up? I ain’t goin’ nowhere with you that I ain’t got a witness.”

  “I can put you in my SUV then and run you into the station or we can do it right here and you can have your coffee while it’s still hot.”

  “I didn’t do nothin’ so you aren’t taking me to the station.”

  Mel held her hand out toward one of the small tables but, as she did so, a couple of locals came into the little shop. Blake changed his mind about using Hannah as a witness and headed for the door instead. Mel followed close behind him.

  When he headed toward the Gator, she reached out and stopped him. “Not so fast. We’ll do this right over here beside my county truck. And, I know you’re carrying. Let me have your gun to hold.”

  “It’s my right to carry. I got a permit.”

  “I know you do but it’s my right to demand to inspect it and to protect myself while I question you. Now hand it over easy unless you want me to search you out here in the open for everyone passing by to see.”

  Reluctantly, he did as she asked.

  Once Mel had cleared the gun and secured it temporarily in her vehicle, she started in on him. “What have you been up to for the past few days?”

  He shrugged, playing coy. “A little of this and a little of that. Working on guns for folks; the usual.”

  “The Gator’s a little muddy. You been out and about at all?”

  “Fishing, for one. Rained the other day. I ain’t bothered to clean it. It was muddy at my honey hole.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “If I told you that, it wouldn’t be a honey hole, now would it?”

  “When did you go fishing?”

  “You know I live off the land. What do my hunting and fishing habits have to do with anything?”

  “The land, huh?” Mel pointed at the box of cookies he’d set on the hood of her truck and at the coffee he was holding.

  “Whatever, Sheriff. Look, how about you cut to the chase here? I haven’t got all day.”

  “Fine. Outline your day for me Wednesday.”

  “What for? You still ain’t told me what this is all about.”

  She gave in. “I have reason to believe that you may have been involved in the fire to the old shop just up the street here on Wednesday night.”

  He turned his head away and spat hard at the ground then whirled right back to Mel. “Why in the hell would you think that? I ain’t got nothin’ to do with that place.”

  “Okay, if that’s true, then where were you Wednesday night from about 7:00, on?”

  “I was in the woods, hunting ‘seng,” he admitted.

  “Until what time?”

  “Dunno’. Till after 9:00 or later.”

  “Hunting ginseng in the dark?” Mel shook her head in disbelief. “The sun is setting by 7:30.”

  “Best time to do it. Nobody else out there can see where I’m goin’ and find my spots.”

  She was still skeptical. It was awful late in the season to find ginseng that hadn’t already been picked clean buy a half a dozen other avid hunters in the area. Still, she pressed on. “Anybody go with you?”

  “My dog.”

  “Anybody see you headed out? Did you stop anywhere on the way out or back in?”

  “If you’re asking if I got somebody that can alibi me, I don’t, so there’s that. Now you tell me something? What do you have that points to me?”

  “Take me through what you did Wednesday evening before you went out ginseng hunting.”

  He scratched his head and thought a minute then he told her, “I worked on a guy’s target pistol till maybe five, a little bit after. He was coming to get it and I had trouble getting the trigger setting just right. He showed up maybe quarter after and we bullshitted for five or ten minutes then he paid me and left.”

  “You give him a receipt?”

  Blake gave her a look that told her all she needed to know. “You’re jeopardizing the ‘smithing license every time you do that, you know?” He didn’t answer so she prodded him. “Go on.”

  “Nothin’. I made me a sandwich real quick, grabbed my bag and cutting knife and me and the dog went.”

  “Did you take that or your truck?” Mel pointed down several spots to the Gator.

  “That.” He tossed his head that way.

  “And you went straight out hunting, didn’t stop anywhere?”

  “Well no; I needed gas. I filled up the Gator and my spare jug.”

  “Here in town?”

  “Where else would I get gas? Drive the Gator into Duncan Falls or Zanesville?” He gave her an odd look.

  “Just trying to fill in the blanks here. What time would you say that was?”

  “5:30, 5:40, there about.”

  “And then you left town?”

  “Yeah…yes and no.”

  She tilted her head and raised an eyebrow at him.

  “The tank was full and I wasn’t going far. I dropped the spare jug at home rather than have it bouncing around in the bed going out there. It’s a little rough.”

  “Where’s the jug now?”

  “It’s right in front of my garage where I left it, damn it. Are you trying to say I used the gas to torch that place?”

  “The arson investigator said the fire was intentionally set. I’m just trying to get to the bottom of it.”

  “Again, for the hundredth time, what’s that got to do with me? I didn’t burn that damn building. I did exactly what I said I did. Who said I didn’t? Your sister? She say something to you? She had to see me drop that can back at the house and then ride out of town; her nosy ass was outside watching.”

  He had Mel there. Kris had admitted almost as much. Still, he could have easily doubled back, picked up the jug and gone to set the blaze later, after dark, when Kris was inside the station waiting on a customer or doing something else. She couldn’t possibly see everyt
hing.

  “Let’s just go get my gas can and you’ll see.”

  Mel reached into the breast pocket of her uniform shirt and took out a photograph of his gas jug with his initials on the side. “This one?”

  He stared at the photo. “When’d you take that?”

  “It’s in evidence down at the station. It was found not far from your house and also not far from the scene of the crime.”

  “They’re only a damn block apart!”

  “Exactly.”

  “Can’t you see it? I’ve been set up. Somebody framed me.”

  “Who would have it in for you to do that?”

  Blake spun and pointed at the truck pulling in. “Him!”

  Mel and Blake both watched as Kent Gross pulled into the lot and got out of his pickup. He didn’t hesitate to walk right over to them.

  Blake jumped quickly on the developer. “Just what the hell are you trying to pull? I didn’t do a damn thing to your precious building, got the Sheriff out here grilling me about it…”

  Kent raised a hand to silence Blake. “I stopped here, on my way there,” he said, “because I saw her here and I wanted to talk to her. I don’t know what your deal is.”

  “She’s accusing me of burning down your building!”

  “And that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Kent directed at Mel. “That Fire Marshall or Fire Inspector…whoever he was, kept me off my own property for the last few days so they could investigate. I didn’t ask for an investigation and I didn’t want one.”

  “Thank you!” Blake interjected.

  “It’s not quite that simple, Mr. Gross,” Mel said. “A firefighter suspected something and reported his findings. It’s the duty of the Fire Inspector to follow up and, frankly, they usually show up for building fires, regardless. Insurance companies demand it.”

  “I won’t be filing an insurance claim.”

  Mel was taken aback by his statement. “Really? Are you sure about that?”

  “That’s what I said. I planned to tear that building down anyway. It wasn’t like it was used for anything. In fact, I’m meeting one of my demolition contractors down there in a few minutes to go over the site.”