The Case of the Suspicious Smoke: A Mayhem Village Cozy Mystery by Kate Jach

Author:Kate Jach [Jach, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-08-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

When we arrived, I took a moment to survey the scene. The building was large, far larger than the cafe or the public library.

I spotted three firefighters actively spraying down the part of the building that hadn’t burned yet. Another two were addressing the fire itself with a large hose.

The chief stood back and watched, calling out instructions intermittently.

“Stay with Archie, will you?” I asked Abby.

She pouted. “You get to have all the fun,” she complained.

“Trust me, none of this is fun,” I told her. But as I climbed out of the car, I realized that was a lie. Even though I didn’t want anyone to get hurt, I kind of enjoyed doing a bit of my own sleuthing rather than just reading about it.

I stuffed my smile away as I approached the chief and tried to draw on my concern for everyone involved. “I can’t believe another fire has broken out,” I finally said after standing beside him for a full minute.

The chief’s arms were crossed, and he shook his head. “There’s something wrong going on here, and I’m hoping Bruce figures it out soon. This amount of destruction is absurd.”

I nodded my head sympathetically. “I’ve been working with Bruce some, and-”

The fire chief gave me a sideways look. “You’ve been deputized?”

“No, but…”

“Ah, doing some amateur detective work then.”

At first, I was annoyed by what he said, but in truth, that was exactly what I was doing. He just used a negative voice to describe what I thought of as a positive contribution.

“Is there anything you can tell me about the fires? Any patterns you’ve noticed?”

The fire chief squinted his eyes and shouted something to the three men who had been wetting down the rest of the building. They moved away from the part that still stood and focused their effort on the burning part as well. I could feel the heat on my skin even from this distance. However, the flames were no longer licking the sky. They slowly shriveled and disappeared beneath the streams of water.

“The arsonist is using different methods. I think it’s either because he isn’t experienced in what he is doing and is trying to learn, or he’s trying to make us think it’s different people.”

“Any reason you say ‘he’?”

The fire chief shrugged. “Better than saying ‘it.’ Anyway, I believe it’s only one person working by himself. If it was a lot of people, they would have set the fires at the same time. That would have been some real destruction, because we don’t have enough firefighters to fight fires at a bunch of different locations. The fires could have gone on and destroyed other buildings too, really spread.”

We stood there in silence for another few moments, my next question already brewing. Then, I heard someone peel into the parking lot. I glanced behind me and rolled my eyes when I saw the mayor’s car. Of course, he had to be here and pretend he cared.

Even if I don’t think he did it, it doesn’t mean that I’m his biggest fan.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.