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May pressed her lips together, then pushed the hair out of her eyes. I hadn’t realized until that she was wearing a pair of striped pajama pants and what looked like a long-sleeved PJ top beneath her jacket. She had slippers on, and was carrying her purse.
“I should get dressed,” she said. “I wasn’t sure how fast the fire was going to travel, and didn’t want to be caught with my pants down, so to speak.”
“Go ahead. We’ll keep watch,” Grams said. “We’ll let you know if you have to hurry.”
As May went inside, I turned to Grams. “This was no accident. I can feel it. Sure, we’ve had a few thunderstorms lately, but if there had been a direct lightning strike, we would have heard it. Something else set that barn on fire—” I stopped as Von returned. Bran wasn’t with him.
“May will be back in a moment. She went to dress,” I said.
Von sat on the front steps. Grams pulled a bag of energy bars out of her purse and handed one to me, then one to Von. We were just finishing when May returned, dressed in jeans, a t-shirt and a warm jacket.
“You have news?” she asked Von.
“Yes,” he said. “Here’s the thing. The firemen should be able to extinguish the fire and keep it localized to the barn. The barn’s gone—or it will be. I think the foundation may stand, though it probably won’t be safe to enter for awhile after they put out the flames. But none of the trees around the barn caught fire, and the ground and grass were so wet that there are only a few charred spots. Your house should be safe enough, at least for now. It’s going to take a little time for them to wrestle the fire out, but you shouldn’t be in any danger here.”
At that moment, a noise made us turn around. Bouncing up the walkway was a huge old ginger tomcat. May knelt down, cooing him in. He wouldn’t let her pick him up, but he flopped on the porch near the swing, staring at her.
“Is that one of the strays?”
May nodded, her eyes misting over. “Thank gods he’s safe. I hope his buddy is, too. This is Chester, our champion mouser. Frank, a black and white cow-cat, is our other barn cat.”
“I saw him in the bushes,” Von said. “At least I think it was him. Big old tomcat, black and white patches all over—he looks like a demented Dalmatian?”
“That’s Frank. You saw him?”
“Yes, we did. Or, I did. He was watching the goings on, and boy, did he look disgusted. I also asked James to do a headcount. There are thirty-five chickens and three roosters that he managed to round up.”
May nodded, letting out a sigh. “Well, we have forty-two chickens, so we’ll see if seven went missing into the woods, or if they didn’t manage to make it out.”
“I hope they’re all found, but if that’s the extent of the casualties, you’re lucky,” Grams said. “It could have been far worse.”
“That it could,” May said. “Let’s go inside. We’ll make some coffee and I’ll find something for you to take down to the firemen.”
We followed her into the house, and for the next quarter-hour, we fixed coffee and hot cocoa and, pairing the drinks with her homemade chocolate chip cookies—May focused on something she could control.
* * *
Von took the treats down to the firemen, and when he returned forty-five minutes later, it was to give us another update. The fire was out, but now they were searching for embers and anything still smoldering. The men had sent their thanks for the coffee and cookies, and it was simply a matter of waiting it out until they thought everything was safe.
Another half hour and Bran returned to the house, along with the fire marshal and Daisy, who had apparently been informed of what had happened. May invited them to sit down and offered them more coffee and cookies. Daisy took her up on it, the fire marshal settled for a bottle of water.
“So…is it too soon to tell what caused it?” May asked.
Bran glanced at the fire marshal, who tugged on his collar.
The man reached out his hand to May. “Fire Marshal Tucker, ma’am. Pleased to meet you, though I’m sorry it’s under these circumstances. As to the cause, we’re pretty sure it’s arson. I found an empty container of gasoline. Whoever set the fire wanted to ensure than the flames took hold. We’re bagging what we can find and taking the evidence in. I doubt if we’ll be able to find fingerprints, but you never know. It’s worth a try.”
“So, it was arson.” May paled.
“I’m afraid so. I don’t think the wiring was faulty. And with an empty gasoline can right there, one that Bran said he doesn’t recognize? You seem to have had an unwanted visitor in the neighborhood.” The fire marshal set his lips, shaking his head gravely. “This is nothing to mess with, May. The fire could have spread. You lucked out. Your house could have burned up. You and Bran could have lost your lives.”
“How bad is it?” May asked.
“The barn’s gone,” Bran said. “We lost seven chickens. But the bees are safe and the goat and horse and the cow. Thank gods we took the pigs to slaughter the other day, or they might have been gone too. We’ll recover. The barn will have to be rebuilt, but overall, the marshal is right—we got off easy, for what could have been.”
Daisy frowned. “What I want to know, is what the connection is. You can’t tell me, especially since Fire Marshal Tucker found evidence of arson, that Elphyra’s shop being vandalized, and your barn being burned down, don’t have any thread in common.” She paused, then asked, “Have any of you been approached by realtors lately? Especially developers? I’ve heard that some developers pull some shady tactics to get owners to agree to sell their land.”
I shook my head. “I can tell you that nobody’s approached me about selling.”
