Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 04 Read Online Free PDF

it going, he said, "Not a darn thing. Some kid spotted the fire about an hour ago, but it took him another ten minutes to find a telephone. By the time the boys got here, all they could do was contain the darn thing."
    Wade Elkins, the fire chief, joined us. His face was streaked with soot and his curly dark hair dotted with ashes, but he was still attractive, and he moved quickly for someone who'd roused his troops, driven ten miles, and battled the fire for most of an hour. "How many more bonfires are y'all planning to have this month, Arly? I'd like to see the end of a baseball game just once."
    "Sorry, Wade," I said, not sure why I was apologizing. "I know you and the guys are getting tired of our fires. Maybe we can arrange for the arsonist to set a few over in Emmet so you won't have to drive so, far."
    "But then I wouldn't get to be your hero of the hour." He winked at me. "I'm beginning to look forward to our little romantic, firelit trysts. Just you and me and -- oh, yeah -- everybody this side of the Missouri line."
    Harrumphing under his breath, Plover tapped Harve on the shoulder. "Where's the kid who reported the fire?"
    "You think he might have seen something?" I said.
    Harve shrugged. "Said he didn't, but you're welcome to ask him again. He's the one in the plaid shirt."
    I recognized Billy Dick MacNamara in the huddle of high school boys and pointed him out to Plover. "He's a Maggody boy, lives with his mother out past the high school. I questioned him once about some tools missing from the shop room, but it turned out he wasn't involved."
    "He was kinda stuttery when he called," Wade said. "Took me a while to figure out what he was talking about and where the fire was. There wasn't anything left when we got here, so it didn't make a rat's ass of difference."
    I called to Billy Dick, who came over with a leery expression on his plump, round face. He was a bleachy kid, with hair so light it was invisible, and eyes that were pale to the point of being almost colorless. He moved clumsily, as though the ground were covered with a sheen of ice. "This is Sergeant Plover," I said to him. "He's assisting the sheriff and me."
    Billy Dick blinked at us, one at a time. In a high, uncertain voice he said, "It's s-scary, ain't it? My ma's all worried that someone'll b-burn our house down while we're sleeping." Every now and then he tangled with an initial consonant, but he was not difficult to understand.
    "What time did you see the fire?" Plover asked.
    "I -- uh, I left my house at nine, so it was probably ten minutes after that. I drove real fast to the nearest house to report the fire."
    Wade nodded. "I got the call at nine-twenty. Took us half an hour to organize and get here."
    "This is a pretty lonely road," I said, "and it was late. Think, Billy Dick: Did you pass any cars when you drove out this way?"
     
    "I wasn't paying much attention. I've been keeping company with a girl what lives in Hasty. I was thinking about her all the time I was driving -- right up until I noticed the fire, anyway."
    Plover's dimple appeared as he said, "Nine-thirty's late for a date, isn't it?"
    Billy Dick scuffled his foot in the dirt. "Her p-parents had to go into Farberville on account of her great-aunt taking a fall in the bathtub. She was afraid to stay home alone."
    "Oh," Plover said knowingly.
    I ignored this display of macho bonding. "Try to remember if you saw any cars going in either direction, Billy Dick. Were you momentarily blinded by headlights?"
    He closed his eyes and sucked noisily on his lower lip until his chin glistened in the last of the firelight. I was about to repeat my question when he said, "Yeah, twice. Just past the low-water bridge there was a p-pickup coming toward me. I didn't see what color it was or anything. And right before I spotted the fire, there was a taillight going over the top of a hill. The other one must have been broke."
    "Well, then," Harve said, working the cigar butt from one corner of his