Most of the trucks departed, leaving the fire chief and a few men to try to determine what had started the blaze. I tried to watch them, but my eyes kept blurring, and I grew so dizzy, I had to sit down. I hadn't felt this peculiar since the morning of my biopsy when I'd overdone the anti-anxiety medicine. I saw Chief Yoder bend over and pick up an ashtray that must have overturned during the commotion, perhaps as I'd knocked the tea table over trying to get the rug out from under it.
“Looks like you were a lucky young lady,” he said, scooping a few cigarette butts off the floor. “Don't imagine you'll be doing much smoking when you're sleepy from now on.”
“Look, Chief, I don't smoke.”
He cocked his head and looked skeptically at me. “Your voice sounds kind of slurred. Were you drinking?”
“I was not drinking. Except for some tea.” Ethelind's beautiful teapot and teacup lay on the floor, but by some miracle they didn't seem to be broken. “And I wasn't smoking. Why should I lie about it? Everybody who knows me will tell you I detest the smell of cigarettes.” Ethelind nodded her confirmation. “In fact, if that ashtray full of butts had been on the coffee table, I couldn't have sat down in here to read without emptying it and washing it out first.” I blinked, trying to bring the offending container into focus.
“Are you trying to tell me that someone came in here and planted a dirty ashtray in the room while you were sleeping?” He laughed. I couldn't blame him. It did sound ridiculous.
“Hey, Chief.” One of the firemen who'd been outside entered the room. “Take a look at this.” He held out a bag for Chief Yoder to inspect.
“What is it?” I asked, after the chief had looked, smelled, and even tasted the contents of the bag.
“Stuff I found on the rug you dragged outside,” the firefighter said. “Looks like a pile of dirty clothes that near burned up.”
Chief Yoder looked thoughtful and nodded. “Did you leave some of your underwear on the floor?” he asked me.
“Of course not. Wait a minute, do you think someone deliberately set this fire?”
“I'm beginning to think so, miss. Did you hear anything? See anything?”
“No, of course not.” Then I remembered something had happened. “My alarm went off upstairs at about ten o'clock. I thought I'd set it wrong. Now I wonder if it wasn't a trick to get me out of the room.” I looked at the empty teacup on the floor and began to shake. “My God, someone must have put something in my tea while I was upstairs. I got really sleepy a little while after I came back down. No wonder I feel so groggy.”
Chief Yoder and one of the men got down on their knees and inspected the teapot and cup. “There's a little tea left in the pot,” the chief said. The assistant carefully carried the teacup and pot out of the room. “We'll check the contents,” the chief said. “Do you have any idea how somebody might have gotten in?”
I started to say no, then realized I really had not checked to make sure anything was locked before I'd settled down to read. I'd been in Lickin Creek long enough to almost think like the natives that a locked door was “unneighborly.” Certainly locking up wasn't a major concern the way it had been in my Manhattan apartment.
“You need to be more careful,” the chief warned.
“I will.”
“Can you think of anybody who'd want to hurt you?”
“Nobody. I mind my own business and expect everybody to mind theirs. Why are you laughing like that?”
“Because I've heard you're the biggest buttinsky to hit town since the Secret Service organized a fishing trip here for President Carter back in the seventies.”
“But I haven't done anything to warrant this.” I gestured to the ruined parlor. “Oh my God!”
“What?”
“I just thought of something. Did you know that Professor Nakamura, from the college, was shot over in Gettysburg?”
“Yeah. I heard about that. Damn shame. Nice guy like that. Probably some poacher out on the battlefield shooting at deer and hit him by accident.”
“That's what I thought. But what if it wasn't an accident?”
“You think he was shot deliberately?”
“No, but I was standing right next to him when he was hit. Now that this has happened, I wonder if someone was aiming at me.”
CHAPTER 15
CASSIE WAS PREPARED FOR MY MORNING-AFTER headache. “Smoke inhalation,” she said. “It'll be days before you cough it all up. I didn't expect you to come in today.”
I gratefully accepted the two Extra-Strength Tylenol she pressed upon me and washed them down with a glass of tepid tap water. I knew my nauseous condition came partly from the smoke, but I also blamed the unknown drug someone had slipped into my tea. “I needed to get out of the house. The cleaning crew sent by the insurance company is ripping the place apart.”
“Are your cats all right?”
“They feel a lot better than I do. Smoke rises, I guess, so they didn't get as much as I did. Thank God for Fred. He woke me up by scratching my face. If it hadn't been for him, we'd all be dead.”
“He's a real hero,” Cassie said, agreeing with me. “How did Ethelind react when she got home?”
I shuddered at the memory. “You'd think I had personally taken an ax to her floor. It took nearly a half hour and many dozens of apologies before she settled down. She even suggested she might not go to England after all because she was afraid of leaving her house in such incompetent hands.”
“But it was an accident. You couldn't help it.”
“You're right about one thing. I couldn't help it. But, Cassie, I don't believe it was an accident. That fire was deliberately set. I'm sure of that and Chief Yoder thinks so too.”
Cassie gasped. “How could someone start a fire right next to you? Surely you would have woken up.”
“I was drugged, Cassie. Someone slipped something into the teapot while I was upstairs. The chief took what was left to a lab today to determine what was in it.”
Wondering why someone would want to kill me made my headache worse. And the physical discomfort reminded me I still hadn't heard anything about the results of my biopsy, except from the gossipy women at the baby shower who all seemed to know I was okay. “Cassie, can you please call Dr. Washabaugh's office for me?”
“Sure. Do you think someone's going to be there?”
“I don't know. Maybe there's another doctor filling in.”
She dialed and listened to the receiver. “Someone's answering. Oh, shoot, it's an answering machine.” She listened a moment or two longer before hanging up. “Patients can come in any afternoon this week to have their records transferred to other doctors’ offices. No appointment needed.”
“I'll be there. What's happening this morning?”
After returning a few phone calls, I started on my rounds. First, a local farm where a giant pumpkin was on display. Second stop, the Caven County Prison to photograph the new caterer serving lunch. Back in the heart of town, I took pictures of some children from the
Catholic school painting giant pictures of spooks, spirits, and shadowy shapes on windows of deserted stores. I was glad to see that some people could still have fun celebrating Halloween.
The fourth and final photo opportunity was a picture of three ladies from the Lickin Creek Garden Society placing fresh potted chrysanthemums around the base of the fountain in the square.
I glanced at the clock tower on the old Market building, now used for the borough offices, and saw it was getting late. I'd have to hurry if I wanted to get to Dr. Washabaugh's office before it closed. For a minute I even thought I might postpone going, put off getting the bad news for one more day, but I knew I'd have to face it sooner or later. I got in the car and headed out of town.