A Stone's Throw, James Ziskin [best books to read for students .TXT] 📗

leaving me and the sheriff to fight over who would exit last. To his credit, Pryor ceded me the right of way, even if his chivalry was accompanied by a sharp shove of my rear end to grease the skids, as it were. Outside again, we raced from the building, me in heels and long evening gown, sparkling, too, I imagined, thanks to my jewelry. From our position thirty yards clear of the house, we watched the flames shoot through the slats of the third-floor shutters. Then, the fire slipped through the frame and crept up the face of the house, licking the eaves beneath the mansard roof. Inevitably, inexorably, they chewed through the rafters and, with a hissing rumble, escaped the attic and leapt into the night. Now with a whooshing supply of air feeding the fire from within—bottom to top, thanks in part to the window we’d left open—the old timbers didn’t stand a chance. The blaze swelled like a dragon’s roar.

“Shouldn’t we call the fire department?” asked Deputy Bell at length.

Pryor threw him a glare that screamed “idiot” loud and clear. A few minutes later, the building crumbled and collapsed upon itself. We retreated another ten yards for protection from the flying sparks and billowing heat. The fight was over. A knockout.

I turned to Sheriff Pryor. “Can I still interview Bruce Robertson in the morning?”

It was nearly 4:00 a.m. by the time the fire trucks left and Pryor took me back to where I’d parked my car. The Montgomery County deputies were still at it, securing the crime scene. A wrecker was emerging from behind the trees with Vivian McLaglen’s car in tow. Frank Olney asked what the big fire was all about. He’d seen the clouds light up as the house burned. I gave him the short version and said good night.

Whoever had torched the caretaker’s house must have slipped away while we were watching the place burn. Pryor ordered a search of the property, but he didn’t have the manpower to cover eight hundred acres. The property was dark, with hills and overgrowth and outbuildings enough for a shadow to melt into the night without anyone the wiser.

This was, of course, arson, most certainly set to prevent the law from finding evidence that someone had been hiding there since the murders a week before. Or perhaps the intention was to kill all of us. Pryor agreed, but he would have to follow procedure and ask the fire department to establish the cause of the blaze. I had no such formalities to observe, so I mapped out my plans for later that morning as I drove home along the lonely stretch of Route 67.

I pulled up to the curb outside my place on Lincoln Avenue and checked my watch—4:22. Lugging my suitcase up the stairs might well wake Mrs. Giannetti, if she weren’t already peering out the window to catch me sneaking in with another in a series of disreputable escorts. I decided to leave the bag in the car and crept up the stairs. The phone was ringing when I let myself in. I hadn’t even had time to remove my heels, which were caked with mud from the firemen’s hoses and dirt of the farm.

“It’s Jimmy Burgh,” came the voice down the line.

“Why are you calling at this hour?”

“I’m across the street in the phone booth. I gotta talk to you.”

I didn’t like the idea at all. In fact, it gave me chills to think of him lurking downstairs waiting for me.

“Jimmy, it’s late. I have to be up early tomorrow. Today, as a matter of fact.”

“Then you won’t need your beauty sleep. Look, I’m no danger to you. I just want to ask you something. I won’t stay long.”

I don’t know what whim or caprice shanghaied my better judgment, but I heard myself saying yes and then letting the ruffian into my home at four thirty in the morning. I cautioned him to keep quiet, lest my landlady catch me with him. Not that my reputation would have suffered much in her eyes at that point, but I thought Jimmy Burgh represented a new low in my own mind, even if his visit was business instead of pleasure.

“Can I offer you something?” I asked, once we were seated at my kitchen table.

“I wouldn’t say no. You got something strong?”

I fetched a fresh bottle of White Label from the hutch in my parlor and poured us each a couple of fingers. After the night I’d had, from my crushing humiliation at the hands of Freddie Whitcomb’s mother to the discovery of Micheline’s body and the fire at Tempesta, I too wanted something strong.

“You look real nice, by the way,” said Jimmy, raising his tumbler to me. “What are you all dressed up for?”

“An evening in high society.” My tone dripped with irony.

“You got soot all over your face, though. Not bad, but I figured it ain’t supposed to be part of your getup.”

I brushed my cheek in a lazy attempt to wipe away the black but gave up just as quickly. I didn’t really care. On the bright side, however, something in Jimmy’s demeanor told me straight off that I had nothing to fear from him that night.

“I heard they found a body out on Route Sixty-Seven,” he began. “A woman in a car.”

“Yes, I was there. I’m afraid it’s Micheline.”

Jimmy frowned, his bushy black eyebrows knitting themselves together in gathering anger. Or was it sorrow? His jaw tightened, lips curled, and his eyes burned. He drained his glass, and I poured him another.

“They’re sure it’s Miche?” he asked.

“The sheriff found identification in her purse.”

“Who the hell would do that?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“I heard they picked up Bruce Robertson.”

“The Saratoga sheriff thinks he’s got his man. He’s going to let me talk to him at ten o’clock this morning. Do you think Bruce Robertson could have killed Johnny Dornan? And Vivian McLaglen and Micheline Charbonneau?”

Jimmy stared at me, his