Tin City Tinder (A Boone Childress Mystery) (19 page)

Lamar shook his head in disbelief. “There’s a stretch if I ever heard one. That’s not a Silver Alert. It’s a statewide APB. Hoyt’s using the system to catch Stumpy for him.”

“Why would he do that?”

“So he can arrest him, of course.”

“Hoyt thinks Stumpy’s involved with with the fires?”

“That’s what I’m guessing. A man reports one fire, so they assume he started the second one. As if Stumpy could stay sober long enough to plan his next meal.”

“I thought Stumpy gave up drinking.”

“Stumpy’s given up drinking more times than I can remember.”

“So what’s next?”

“Next is your Mama’s protest at the County Council.” Lamar hit the accelerator. The speedometer climbed. “We better not be late, if we know what’s good for us.”

9

Lamar and I arrived just in time for the meeting. In the parking lot across from the courthouse, I spotted Cedar and Luigi.

“Catch you later,” I told Lamar and jogged over to met them. “Fancy meeting y’all here.”

Cedar gave me a peck on the cheek. “When I heard about your mom’s protest, and I had to come watch the fireworks.”

“You made poor Luigi come along?”

“I volunteered,” he said. “ I want to see American democracy in action."

“Probably, you won’t see much democracy,” I warned him. “Not much action, either. These County Council meetings are pretty much a sham. All the decisions were made during backdoor deals.”

“Is that not illegal?” Luigi asked.

“To paraphrase the county historian, welcome to North Carolina.”

We followed a group of protestors with homemade signs into the courthouse. The Council’s planning commission met on the second floor in one of the rooms adjacent to the courtroom. When we entered, the room was standing room only.
 

I counted fourteen rows of seats, twenty chairs per row. Every one of them was filled with a person holding a placard. Behind the chairs and alongside the rows, dozens more people stood. They had placards, too, stapled to yardsticks to make protest signs.

We found a place to stand on the back wall.
 

In front of the room, separated from the gallery by velvet rope were two tables. The one facing the audience seated the seven members of the Allegheny County Planning Commission, all of whom shared the same deer-in-the-headlights look.
 

Mom sat at the table facing the Commissioners, with her back to the crowd. Mom’s attorney sat at her right elbow. I recognized him by his rumpled suit.

A third person sat the other end at the table. He had slicked backed hair and wore a pinstriped dark suit with a crimson square tucked into the breast pocket of the jacket.
 

Even from the back, I knew it was Trey Landis.

He leaned over to speak a silver-haired man sleeping in a wheelchair. The man raised his head, nodded twice, and fell back asleep.

“Who’s that?” Cedar whispered.

“George Deems Landis himself,” I said. “I’m surprised they brought him out tonight. His health is pretty fragile.”

The gavel came down, and the meeting came to order. The first and only item on the agenda was the discussion of a planned community in the western area of town, a mixed-use neighborhood that would feature homes, shopping, nature trails, and a championship golf course called Autumn Hills.

Mom’s attorney leaned over to whisper something in her ear.
 

Landis waved at several people in the crowd, and their placards vanished. One look from the man, and the signs went down. It wasn’t even a threatening look. It was a smile, wide, with gleaming teeth that could be only gotten from a dentist’s chair.
 

On the surface, it was a friendly gesture, but the smile was a threat.
 

The chair of the commission was a portly man in a pink dress shirt. “I believe this proposal is
pro forma
. We discussed this in closed session, as you know. The county engineer’s read over the plans and—“

“Point of order,” Mom interrupted. “I believe you skipped a step on the agenda. You’re required to begin the meeting with public input.”

“Sorry, didn’t see you.” The portly man covered his eyes to shield the bright lights. “Is there anybody, ah, here who’d like to comment?”

The crowd burst out in laughter.

“I take that as a yes.”

More laughter.
 

Even Trey Landis smiled.

“I’ll go first,” Mom said, “since I’m already sitting at the table.”

The chair pulled at his collar. “State your name for the record, ma’am.”

“You know my name, Charlie. I treated your dog for mange last week.”

The crowd hooted.

“Let’s stick to the subject, Dr. Rivenbark,” Charlie the chair said. “We don’t need an unruly puppet show here.”

Ouch, I thought. Charlie had obviously read Mom’s comments in the newspaper.

“Have it your way, then. Dr. Mary Harriet Rivenbark, DVM. For the record, I represent the mob behind me. We are here to protest the illegal removal of bodies from graves in Tin City.”

The chair covered the microphone with a meaty paw. He and the other six commissioners whispered for almost a minute.

“After conferring with my colleagues,” the chair said, “we think you should take this up with the sheriff. It’s out of our purview.”

The crowd booed. They raised their placards and chanted. The commissioners looked decidedly more nervous, but I noticed Landis never stopped smiling.

“That’s not true,” Mom said. “The sheriff referred the case to you, since you approved the development plan for Autumn Hills development without asking the Allegheny County Historical Society to research the property. If you were anything other than a rubber stamp for developers, you would’ve known there’s a cemetery on the property.”

“I expected better from a doctor,” Charlie said. “Where do you get off calling us a rubber stamp?”

“Like my granny always said,” Mom said, “if you lie with dogs, you’re going to get fleas.”

The crowd broke into applause. Half of them stood and waved their placards like a football crowd cheering a touchdown.

“Order! Order!” Charlie pounded the gavel. “Get hold of yourselves before I have a deputy throw you all out. And Mary Harriet—“

“Dr. Rivenbark to you.”

“—I think you’ve wasted enough time tonight.”

Mom covered the mic and asked her attorney a question.

“May I have a word, please?” Landis unhooked the microphone from the stand so that he could walk closer to the crowd. “This is all a misunderstanding, and I think I can clear it up to everybody’s satisfaction. I can see why you good people are upset. What Dr. Rivenbark describes is indeed a disturbing scenario. Let me assure that the truth is a different matter. The development of the so-called Tin City property is one hundred percent legal. We have complied with every federal regulation, every state law, every local statute. You see, state law requires that when human remains are moved, the next of kin must be located. If the next of kin cannot be relocated, then the County Commission must approve of a move. However, that is unnecessary, because we purchased the property from the next of kin. Before we acquired it, we agreed to the interment of a small, family cemetery with the owner, Mr. Troy Blevins, whom I believe is a local music teacher. Mr. Blevins is in attendance tonight, along with his sister, Athena.”

The crowd murmured, and Blevins stood up. His hands shook. Mr. Blevins had conducted the band through dozens of concerts, marching shows, and festivals, but this was the first time I had ever seen him nervous.

“It’s, um, true what, um, Mr. Landis told you,” Blevins said. The graveyard is, um, our family cemetery. Our grandparents are buried there, along with our aunts and uncles. Athena and I, we’re the last of the Blevins family and so, well, y’all know how it is these days with the government taxing everything.”

The sister stood up. I got my first clear look at her face.

It was Dr. K.

“They’re brother and sister?” I whispered to Cedar.

“Looks like it.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Dr. K began, “what my brother is trying to say is, as embarrassing as this is, we had no choice but to sell the property. The inheritance taxes on our parents’ home were more than we could afford on our teachers’ salaries. We were facing a tax auction until Mr. Landis heard about our problem. He gave us a fair price. More than a fair price, to be honest.”

“What’s that got to do with moving your kin?” one of the protesters called out. “You two are as bad as Landis.”

“The cemetery would have been moved no matter what!” Mr. Blevins snapped. “Except it would’ve been the government doing it! Our kin would’ve been buried in unmarked paupers’ graves!”

That doesn’t sound right, I thought. There were at least a hundred graves on the property, so it had to be more than the small family cemetery. North Carolina law was funky sometimes, but I didn’t think the government could move graves without the family’s permission.

The crowd deflated.
 

A collective shrug swept over the room, as if they had all simultaneously murmured, huh? Some wondered aloud how Mr. Blevins could allow his own family to be hauled out of the ground just so he could make a buck, but Landis had definitely turned the tide.

At the table, Mom looked flummoxed. She conversed openly with her attorney, but the mic wasn’t picking up their voices.
 

The chair had switched it off.
 

“I reckon that settles it,” Charlie said. “Public comment is now closed. You folks are welcome to stay, but if you do, you’ve got to get quiet. Let’s move on to the first agenda item.”

“Next time your dog gets mange, Charlie!” Mom yelled. “Don’t bring him to me!”

The rest of the crowd quietly left their seats. They filed out of the room and then out of the building.

“That’s so bogus,” Cedar said when we got outside. “There were a zillion graves. Mr. Blevins must have a huge family.”

“I really hate that pompous ass Landis,” I said. “He acts like he owns the whole freaking county.”

“He sort of does.”
 

“Not the people in it,” I said. “So, that’s it for the evening. Want to go someplace private and make out?”

“Very funny.” Cedar punched my arm, then steered us to the parking lot. “And very tempting, but YamFest starts tomorrow, and I have to make sure my project is perfect for the Olympiad.”

“I could help you with it.”

“Distract me from it, you mean.” She draped her arms around my neck and stood on tiptoes. “Remember to meet me on the courthouse green tomorrow. Don’t get occupied with your fires and lose track of time.”

“You’re amazing, you know that?”

“You’re not so bad, either, Mr. Childress.”

Then, before I could stop myself, those three little words popped out of my mouth. “I love you.”

For a long second, then five, then ten, Cedar said nothing. Finally, she slipped out of the hug and gave me a peck on the cheek.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Boone.”

“Yeah. Tomorrow.”
 

I waved as she and drove away.

Holy shit.

I told her I loved her.

“Crap! I can’t believe I said that!”

And I couldn’t believe she had left me hanging.

No
I love you, too.

No
I know.

No
That’s nice.

Just a
see you tomorrow
.

Oh man.

More car doors slammed, and more engines started. I stepped into the shadows of the trees.I looked up into the night sky. The moon that had cast shadows the past two days was nowhere to be seen, and the stars that had burned so brightly over the lake seemed dim and very far away.

1

After Blevins’ revelation at the commission meeting, Mom had left the courthouse a defeated woman. To make matters worse, somebody let it slip that Abner was in the county holding pen, and she rushed over there to bond him out. She was livid that Abner told me and not her. She was even more enraged at me for leaving him in a cell.
 

Since it was almost midnight when we got back to the house, she insisted that Abner spend the night in my room and banished me to the barn.

“Go sleep with the horses!” she yelled. “You can see what it’s like to sleep in inhumane conditions!”

“I spent three years in a ship’s rack,” I said. “A paddock is the Ritz in comparison!”

So I had dragged an old quilt and a too-fluffy pillow outside through the darkness to the guest room beside the tack room. I settled in, cold and frustrated, my head like a hornet’s nest of thoughts and theories. By the time my mind finally gave up, my body was beyond exhaustion, and I slept like the dead.

The stink of kerosene woke me.
 

Disoriented by the lack of sleep, I threw back the covers. The light coming through the gaps in the wall changed the color of my skin to the orange glow of sunset. I covered my eyes, but one look told me all I needed to know.

Fire!

I sat up straight in bed, gasped, and sucked in a lungful of scorching air before my training took over. I dropped back on the bed, then rolled to the floor.
 

On hands and knees I crawled to the door leading outside.

Smoke roiled up through a crack in the wall next to the paddock, where the horses whinnied in panic.

The horses!

I pulled open the door and scrambled outside. A burst of cool air hit my face, and I slammed the door to keep from feeding oxygen to room. In the first light of dawn I saw the paddocks nearby. The doors were still shut, the doors barred with two by fours.
 

I yanked them off and threw open the doors.
 

The appaloosa mare snorted and then broke. She raced away from the barn with her head down and made for pasture. Inside the other paddock, the gelding reared up, hoofs pawing the air in front of me.

“Out!” I yelled.
 

The gelding refused. It turned its wild eyes toward the smoke, which was pouring down from above.