Eileen Dewhurst - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 112, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 684 & 685, September/October 1998

But it was he who should be emotional, if he were given to it. Well, he wasn’t. The house was just a place he had once known, full of things the old man must have valued, not he. That someone had tried to kill him was different. He was quite prepared to get emotional about that — full of controlled cold anger at the right time.

He poured himself a cup of coffee, ignoring the brandy; it might make him sleepy. The paramedics had told him to stay awake for at least a couple of hours.

When Jan came back downstairs, in jeans and boots and a heavy turtle-neck sweater the color of oatmeal, he was finishing his second cup of coffee and going through the contents of the box again.

Dave asked, “How’s the little girl?”

“Oh, fine. She slept through everything.” Jan moved like someone dreaming, and spoke as though nothing mattered much. “Everything stay dry in there?”

“Yes — luckily, since the box was pretty shaky even before I threw it out the window.”

“Ready to admit it’s the mysterious lockbox?”

He shook his head, turned to the window as a car or van started up somewhere outside. He moved the curtain aside, swiped fingers across the moisture-frosted glass.

She said behind him, “I thought you might have changed your mind, since you brought that box out with you...”

“That’s the ambulance just left,” Dave said. “There’s a light on at the Howards’.”

He let the curtain fall back into place. She poured the last of the coffee into her cup.

“I wish I’d seen something useful, when I first saw the fire.” She still didn’t sound really interested. “You know, someone running away, someone recognizable.”

Dave said slowly, “You suppose Virg and Kathy are on their way to see if I got barbequed?”

He stood up. She blinked, shrugged, took a deep slow breath and released it.

“Trying to prove how tough you are? What do you think you can do?”

He admitted he had no idea. She dug a key ring out of her pocket and slid it across the table.

“Lock the front door after yourself. And don’t do anything dumb.”

Night air went up his nose like ice daggers. Light from the fire equipment made the street gleam wetly.

His grandfather’s house was a blackened shell. Smoke and steam crawled out of broken windows and burned-through patches of wall. Firemen in helmets and waterproof gear dealt with hidden sparks and hot spots.

The squad car was parked behind the fire trucks. The two uniformed cops stood on the sidewalk, watching the firemen. There wasn’t much else to watch. It was too early and too cold for a crowd to have gathered.

Dave took a long look at the ruin of the house. Unexpectedly his own voice in his mind said, Sorry, Grandfather. At least I got your lockbox out, and he felt a disorienting lurch as the implications staggered him. He was suddenly sharply nauseated. He clamped his eyes shut. Behind his eyelids parallel lines converged and crossed, parameters and paradigms melted and merged. He was adrift in a swirling current. If the old guy had been just a shy recluse, then his guidelines were only the demarcations of a prison, not principles to live by.

He opened his eyes. The cops were turning to look at him. God damn. He couldn’t throw up. Breathe slow. Relax.

Nausea retreated, though the sense of disorientation still rocked him and his head ached. Okay. Tonight’s challenge: Act natural.

He shoved his hands into his pockets, aimed for an easy tone. “Any sign of arson yet?”

They were older than the cops this morning. Sundahl was big and gray; Crossen was thin, dark, with a face like a hatchet. They had annoyed him before, being calm and meticulously polite. Now they managed to look disinterested and watchful at the same time.

“Mr. North.” Sundahl gave him a nod. “The firemen reported smelling gasoline, same as you.”

Officer Crossen smiled guardedly. “Nothing to justify arresting the Howard kids, though.”

“What kind of evidence survives a fire like this one?”

“Sometimes you’d be surprised,” Sundahl said. “Was there something in particular?”

“Just curious about the house I grew up in, and I have to get my suitcase from the car.”

“What’s in the suitcase, sir?” Sundahl asked too casually, without rising inflection.

“Nothing to justify your thinking I set the fire myself. Just clothes, toilet articles. Want to look?”

Sundahl looked at him stonily. “That won’t be necessary, sir.”

“Do I annoy you, Officer?”

A muscle in Sundahl’s jaw twitched once.

“You couldn’t annoy me if you tried.”

“What, no ‘sir’ this time around?”

A door closed down the street. Dave looked, saw Virg Howard shambling across the porch of the old MacDonald house.

Dave said to Crossen, “Go ask young Virg why he isn’t curled up in bed with his sister.”

“No call to do that, sir.”

Virg was approaching. Dave’s headache throbbed. He started down to meet Virg.

Crossen said quietly, “Stay cool, Mr. North.”

Virg, in his flaps-down lumberjack’s hat and ratty coat and jeans, had his eyes on the ruin of the house. His mouth hung partway open.

Dave said, “Hi, Virg.”

Virg stopped. He refocused on Dave.

“... Uh. Hi. You got out okay, huh?”

“Oh sure. Disappointed?”

“Disa—?” He looked bewildered. “Huh?”

Dave said, “You tried to scare me with that shotgun earlier. Think you could do it better with a match and a can of gasoline?”

“Jesus, man. The shotgun was a gag. Weren’t no shells in it. All day you been trying to pin something on me and my sis and we ain’t done nothin’ —”

“Not me. Maybe your mom’s been trying to pin something on you.” It was the idea he’d wanted to try out on Jan at one o’clock. “Always jumping to your defense, even when no one’s accused you, like maybe she’s trying to make people think she’s protesting too much...”

Virg’s head was shaking violently. “No... no. Why’d she do that?”

“She’s tired of having you around to take care of.” Virg’s head went on shaking. “Or maybe she suspects you, or, even worse, knows you did it.”

“Did what , for Chrissakes?”

“Threw the old man down the stairs. Set fire to my house.”

Virg’s head stopped shaking. He stood bent over, like someone who’s had the wind knocked out of him, a gangling kid out of his depth, shocked beyond imagining.

Officer Crossen said behind Dave, “Any suspicions you have, Mr. North, better take ’em to the police department in the morning.”

“But I ain’t done nothin’,” Virg protested in a little kid’s voice.

The sound down the block was a stuck window being forced open.

A girl’s voice called, “Hey, Virg! Who you talkin’ to? Mom wants you back inside.”

“I ain’t done nothin’,” Virg said again.

“Mom’s calling,” Dave said. “Let’s go talk to her.”

Virg summoned a spark of pale venom.

“What makes you think she’ll talk to you?”

“Tell her I found the lockbox,” Dave said.

When they were halfway down the block a recent-model car came around the corner and went by in the opposite direction. Virg broke into an ungainly run. He reached his home, blundered up onto the porch, and disappeared inside.

Dave blew on his hands, crammed them back into his pockets. Behind him Officer Crossen said, “Playing kinda rough, aren’t you?”

“You’re letting me.”

“That bit about the shotgun needed some follow-up. You really think he’s guilty?”

“Look,” Dave said, “I had a lousy day and then it got worse and I’ve got this headache. Don’t know what I think from minute to minute.” The wiring in his head was still being replugged. Unfamiliar thoughts were trying to find form and coherence.