Trial by Fire (3 page)

Aunt Ginny appeared with hamburger patties on a plate. She stopped short when she
saw the barbecue, on its side on the burned grass and drenched in water, and turned
to me for an explanation.

“Accident,” I said. “Sorry. I’ll have it ready to go again in a jiffy.”

Mr. Goran stood well back, watching me nervously as I cleaned the barbecue and lit
a new batch of briquettes. He didn’t come anywhere near the patio for the rest of
the time he was there. I had to take his lunch across the yard to him.

“Sorry,” he said. “So sorry.”

“It’s my fault. I should have been more careful,” I said.

I helped him finish the planting after lunch. While we worked, he told me it had
been his dream ever since he’d arrived in Canada to rebuild what his father had prized
the most—a family farm. It had taken a long time to make that dream come true.

“I worked two, three jobs at a time,” he told me. “Every year, all the time, work,
work, work. And now this.” He swept a hand proudly toward the farm next door. “My
own place.” His only regret, he said, was that his wife had died before his dream
came true.

We talked into the afternoon, working together and telling each other things about
ourselves. When I asked if he had children, he looked troubled.

“A son,” he said. “I am very worried about him.”

Aunt Ginny appeared in a crisp lightweight suit. “Wish me luck. I’m off to meet my
captain,” she announced.

“Captain?” Mr. Goran looked confused. “You are in the army?”

“Police,” Aunt Ginny said. “I’m a police officer.”

Mr. Goran frowned. He finished up what he was doing and left soon after Aunt Ginny
did.

And now someone had burned down his barn and, somehow, Mr. Goran had been trapped
inside. It must have been terrifying for him.

Aunt Ginny didn’t pick me up at the hospital the next morning. A stout, steely-haired
woman who introduced herself as Stella Carter did. She bundled me into a wheelchair,
telling me when I protested that it was hospital policy, and buckled me into the
passenger seat of a hot-pink pickup truck with the words
Stella’s Jams and Jellies
emblazoned on both sides.

“I brought you a couple of jars,” she said.

She drove me home and made me lie down in the living room where the
TV
was in case
I got bored.

I’m not sure when I fell asleep, but I did. Stella shook me awake.

“Just making sure you’re okay,” she said softly when I opened my eyes. “Feel free
to drift off again.”

The next time I woke up, the house was filled with the aroma of cooking, the table
was set for supper, and Aunt Ginny was home again.

I waited until Stella left before I asked Aunt Ginny if she’d heard any news about
Mr. Goran or the fire. I braced myself for her standard “I can’t talk about an ongoing
investigation” response.

But she didn’t say that. Instead she said, “Mr. Goran’s condition hasn’t changed.
But, Riley, I think you should know there’s a suspect in the arson investigation.
It’s Mr. Goran.”

“What do you mean? You think Mr. Goran burned down his own barn?” It wasn’t possible.
It just wasn’t. “He would never do such a thing, Aunt Ginny. He couldn’t.”

“First of all, it really doesn’t matter what I think, because it’s not my case.”
She sounded angry about that. “Second, it has nothing to do with you. Your job right
now is to get better. And third, who says he couldn’t have set that fire himself?”

“Mr. Goran is afraid of fire.”

Aunt Ginny snorted. “After what happened, he should be.”

“No, Aunt Ginny, you don’t understand. He’s
really
afraid of fire. He wouldn’t even
let his wife have a gas stove.”

“According to him, no doubt.”

I told her what had happened when the barbecue tipped over. She wasn’t impressed.

“Did it ever occur to you that Mr. Goran might have been using you to try to establish
an alibi?”

That’s the main trouble with cops—they’re suspicious of everyone and everything.

“Do me a favor and stay out of it, Riley. I don’t want to be looking for lost dogs
for the rest of my career in this town.”

“Lost dogs?”

“Well, technically, lost
dog
, singular. The mayor’s wife’s prizewinning shih tzu.
It’s missing, and the mayor’s wife thinks it’s been kidnapped. And since she’s the
mayor’s wife…” She shook her head in disgust. “How did you and Stella get along?”

“Great. But seriously, Aunt Ginny, you don’t really think Mr. Goran set his own barn
on fire, do you?”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned on the job, Riley, it’s that people aren’t always
what they seem.”

“He told me he saved up for a long time to buy that farm. Why would he burn down
the barn?”

“People generally commit arson for one of two reasons: insurance fraud or to cover
up some other
crime. In Mr. Goran’s case, I’m guessing he needed the money.”

“Couldn’t he just have got a loan from the bank?”

“I don’t know. It’s not my case.”

“And why would he set the barn on fire and then be
in
it while it was burning?”

“Fires can easily get out of control. Which is a very good reason not to commit arson.”
She sniffed the air. “Spaghetti sauce?”

“Lasagna. Stella made it.”

“Are you hungry?”

I wasn’t.

“You get some rest,” Aunt Ginny said. “I’m starving.”

Going up to my room was depressing. The one yellow wall, the abandoned cans of paint
and the roller in the paint tray all reminded me that things might have turned out
differently if I’d done what I was told to do. It took me forever to get to sleep,
and once I did, Aunt Ginny shook me awake every few hours to make sure I was okay.
I lay in the dark for a long time, thinking about Mr. Goran—nice, friendly Mr. Goran—trapped
in his burning barn, reliving the nightmare that had plagued him for years.

THREE

One thing quickly became clear: having to rest all day, every day, was going to drive
me crazy. I offered to help Stella. She politely but firmly refused the offer. I
decided to finish painting my room to pass the time. She confiscated my roller and
paint tray. I thought maybe I could ride my bike into town. It turned out I couldn’t
because Aunt Ginny had taken the precaution (her word, not mine) of slipping my bike-lock
key off my key chain and sliding it onto hers. There was nothing to do but count
the hours until my next doctor’s appointment.

Four days after I was released from the hospital, Stella drove me back for my checkup.
I passed every test with flying colors.

“So I can do everything I was doing before?” I asked the doctor.

“You can
start
doing
some
things. But no strenuous activity—no contact sports, no
running, no gymnastics. You may find that you’re more tired than usual and that you
have trouble concentrating. If you get any of the symptoms on this information sheet”—he
handed it to me—“tell someone immediately. Otherwise, I’ll see you in a couple of
weeks. Okay?”

It was more than okay! As soon as Aunt Ginny came home that night, I made her hand
over my bike key. She insisted that Stella stay for another two days, but overall
she was pleased with my progress.

“Have you heard anything about Mr. Goran?” I asked. “Is he going to be okay?”

“He hasn’t regained consciousness. He may not make it, Riley. And if he does…” She
looked grim. “As badly burned as he is, he’ll be in for a lot of operations
before
he’s back on his feet again—if he’s ever back on his feet.”

I was lying on the couch the next night, watching
TV
, when something hit the floor
with a thud—Aunt Ginny’s briefcase.

I had to crane my neck to see her in the front hall. “Tough day?”

Her jacket flew onto the arm of the nearest chair, hung for a moment and then slid
to the floor.

Thunk
. That was her gun in its holster. She was supposed to lock it up.

Jingle, jingle, clank
. She dropped her car keys into a metal bowl on the small table
near the foot of the stairs.

Another
thunk
, but sharper this time. Cell phone, hitting the surface of the table.

I sat up. Aunt Ginny’s expression was a mixture of disgust and impatience.

“I’m guessing you didn’t find the mayor’s wife’s dog,” I said.

“She came home of her own accord.” For some reason, Aunt Ginny did not seem pleased.

“So everyone is happy?” I ventured.

“Everybody except the mayor, the mayor’s wife, the chief and my boss.” She kicked
off her shoes. They arced across the room one after another and landed,
thud, thud
.

“Shouldn’t the mayor’s wife be glad to have her dog back?”

“The mayor’s wife took the dog in for a checkup. It’s pregnant.”

“The dog wasn’t spayed?”

“The dog is a champion. The mayor’s wife hoped she’d be the mother of champions.
Not mutts.”

“I thought it was usually the males—”

Aunt Ginny held up a hand. I took the hint and stopped talking.

“The mayor’s wife gave the mayor grief, so he complained to the chief, who told my
boss that a smart detective should have been able to find the dog because—and I quote—
a
champion shih tzu is hardly a needle in a haystack
.”

“That dog could have been anywhere,” I said. “And shih tzus are really small.”

“You know that, and I know that, but apparently the rest of the world is insane.
And then there are the guys.”

“Guys?”

“My co-workers. They’re like children. One left a whoopee cushion on my chair. Only
ten-year-olds think whoopee cushions are funny. A couple of others have been making
prank phone calls—at a police station!” She kicked her shoes from the middle of the
floor, where they had landed, and flopped down into an armchair. “I thought when
I got hired here that things would be different. Instead, I’m chasing dogs and surrounded
by grown men acting like adolescents. I might as well have stayed where I was.”

“It’s been less than two weeks, Aunt Ginny. You have to be patient.”

Aunt Ginny shot me a look of irritation. “What about the arson? Do you know how much
I would have loved to work an arson investigation? Do you know how much I could have
learned? But no. Mr. Whoopee Cushion got the case, along with Mr. Prank Phone Calls.”

“I guess this isn’t a good time to tell you that there’s something wrong with the
washing machine,” I said. It wasn’t. She scowled at me. The only surefire way to
calm Aunt Ginny down was to give her something to eat. “There’s some of Stella’s
meatloaf left over,” I said.
“I can make potatoes and carrots. You have time for
a shower.”

Like a bone to a dog, it worked.

“I’ll be down in ten minutes.”

And she was, on the dot. She tucked into her supper with gusto and was smiling by
the time she pushed her empty plate aside. “That was great. Thanks.”

“Can I get you anything else?”

She shook her head and, with a sigh, rose from her chair to take her dishes to the
sink. As she rinsed them, her face settled into a frown.