“Were you really in the hospital?” Britney said. “Some kids said you almost died from breathing smoke.”
“Smoke kill a trained firefighter?” I said. “Not likely.”
“Maybe smoke can’t.” Cedar’s arms were crossed. She was giving the girls a look hot enough to fry bacon. “But I can think of a few other things that could.”
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey yourself,” Cedar said. “Heather, Britney, don’t y’all have somebody else to do?”
“You mean something else to do,” Heather said.
“I said it right the first time.”
“Huh?” Britney said.
“Come on, Brit.” Heather grabbed her friend. “Looks like this cat’s got her claws out.”
I watched them go for a second, then turned back to Cedar. “Hey. Didn’t know you were here. Lucky for me you came along.”
“Lucky?” She folded her arms. Her mouth was a straight, flat line of fury. “Is that the word for it?”
“You don’t think I’d go for that?” I pointed at the two other girls. “I’m not interested in their kind of lucky.”
Cedar was about to say something else when Dr. K called her over.
“Can you give me a hand, please?” the professor said.
“Don’t think this gets you off the hook, mister. Coming, Dr. K!”
"Off the hook for what?" I turned back to Luigi’s document. Another face appeared in the monitor.
“Yeah, you’re lucky,” Dewayne Loach said. “Lucky my brother pulled your ass out of a burning building. But did you thank him? No, all you do is act like you’re the big hero and treat him like a piece of crap.”
“He didn’t rescue me,” I said. “He was too big of a coward to help with the rescue.”
“What rescue? She’s dead, ain’t she? You call that a rescue?”
“Know what I call it?” I rose from the computer chair. “I call it murder.”
Murder.
The word murmured through the lab.
The sound caught Dr. K’s attention. She lifted her head from the catalog she was showing Cedar. “Back to work, people. Those lab reports aren’t going to write themselves.”
Dewayne wasn’t listening. He bumped his chest into my ribs and grinned when I winced. “Careful what you say. Might come back to bite you in the ass.”
“The thought of your teeth near my ass is very scary.”
“I’m promising you, Childress. You want to risk your life for some old Mexican, go ahead on. But don’t be stupid enough to get on my brother’s bad side.”
The bell rang to end class. Dewayne was one of the first out the door. He gave me the finger as a parting gift.
“What was that all about?” Cedar said.
“Unfinished business.” The pager clipped to my belt went off. “Hang on a sec.”
A message from dispatch: A fire on the other side of the county near Black Oak Shelter, a United States government-owned stretch of swampland and scrub pines that had been used for munitions testing during the second World War, Korea, and Vietnam. If I weren’t on suspension, I would be running out the door. Now, I had to face the music, and the DJ was pissed.
“Don’t blow me off, Boone,” Cedar said. “What the hell was that all about?”
“Dewayne’s full of shit,” I said. “You know he’s just running his mouth.”
“That’s not the that I meant.” She pointed at Brit and Heather walking down the hallway. “That’s the that I meant!”
“Oh,” I said. “That.”
“Yes, them!”
“Is it them or that?”
She stepped toward me, seething. “Them! The hootchies!”
“That them means nothing to me.”
She punched my chest. “Then why were you flirting with them, jerk face?”
“They were flirting with me.”
“Same thing!”
“Not really.”
“Listen, Boone Childress.” She shook a finger under my nose. “When you’re dating me, you’re dating just me, not flirting with a couple of hootchies. Got that?”
“Who says we’re dating?”
“You did,” Cedar said, “when you kissed me on the lake.”
“Technically, I kissed you on the lips.”
“Don’t try to charm me with semantics, mister. And no flashing those cute dimples. I’m immune to it.”
“That’s good. I’d hate to think that I’d coerced you into not being mad at me, since I believe that males and females should be equal in any relationship, and in the future, I’ll make sure to ask your permission before—“
“Just shut up.” She threw her arms around my neck. “And kiss me again.”
I lifted her until she stood on tiptoes, then leaned in, my lips lightly brushing hers.
The kiss was as short as it was sweet. When I opened my eyes, Cedar was staring up at me.
“I’m still mad at you,” she said.
“Let me make it up to you.”
“What have you got in mind?”
“Cedar-san!” Luigi said. “Are you ready to go?”
“Damn,” she whispered. “I forgot.”
“Forgot what?” I asked.
“Cedar has a lunch date with me,” Luigi said. “We are ordering food.”
I cocked an eyebrow at Cedar, as if to say WTF?
“It’s not a date,” she said. “Just helping him with conversational English.”
“You come along, too.” Luigi shook my shoulder. “We will make it a threesome.”
“A what?” Cedar cried.
“That one definitely gained something in translation.” I steered Luigi out of harm’s way. “How about lunch at Red Fox Java? My treat. I—“
I felt myself space out. Cedar was saying something, but my mind was replaying what Dewayne said in lab.
Risk your life for some old Mexican. The identity of the Nagswood fire victim hadn’t been released. “How did he know her race?” I wondered.
“What?” Cedar said. “Who is he?”
“Dewayne Loach. In class he asked me why I would risk my life for some old Mexican. How did he know the victim was Mexican?”
Cedar gasped and covered her mouth. “Oh my god. That means—“
“His brother knew she was in the house.” I took out my cell. “Meet you guys at the coffee house. I’ve got a few calls to make.”
2
“They didn’t believe you?” Cedar spooned Italian dressing onto her hoagie. “None of them?”
The afternoon sun shone down on Red Fox Java’s outdoor patio. The small coffee house was in a red brick building across from the Allegheny County Courthouse. Weekdays, the patio was a favorite gathering place for courthouse employees. Weekends, it was the mecca for band geeks and goth kids drinking the only double espressos to be had in town.
I sat with Luigi and Cedar. We were joined by Cedar’s beagle, Chigger, who lay under the table with his head resting on Cedar’s sneakers.
“Not a single, solitary word.” I summarizing my phone conversations. “Hoyt said his office was too busy to talk, much less go chasing shadows. Lamar said I have Eugene Loach on the brain.”
“What about your grandfather?” Luigi pushed his backup glasses up on his nose. They were thick plastic and rectangular. No wonder he didn’t wear them. “Did he doubt your story?”
“Couldn’t get in touch with him, either. His cell goes straight to voicemail. He’s out of touch. I don’t know if it’s intentional or not. He may be working behind the scenes, or he may be in a hammock on his sleeping porch.”
“Let’s assume he’s working behind the scenes.” Cedar rewarded Chigger with a bite of ham. “What would he be working on?”
“The case.”
“Well, yes, the case,” she said. “What do you know, exactly?”
“I know this,” I said. “We have three suspicious fires. The first was in Duck. Then the Tin City fire, where Stumpy found a finger. The third was Nagswood, where the woman was killed. All three were abandoned farm houses.”