Enigma of Fire Read online

  This was her most important task at the moment. Mr. Braunhoff and Doug were seeing to the disaster. She must comfort Emmy and Max even while working to pull herself together. They mustn’t see the vehicle.

  She willed her body to rise. Her legs quivered, shortness of breath made her lungs labor, vertigo swirled her world into a blur, but she managed to get to her feet, bringing Emmy, who still gripped her neck fiercely, with her.

  She staggered to Max, who was now on his knees, eyes wide with bewilderment. Berdie stood behind him. “I know you probably don’t feel so good, but is there anything that hurts terribly?”

  He shook his head.

  She reached down and pulled him up with her free hand, letting him rest momentarily against her legs. “Good lad, Max. Do you think you can walk OK?”

  “I think so. What happened?”

  “A big bang. Now, we’re going to go back to the vicarage.” Berdie continued to keep him in front of her, holding his hand, as she shielded him from the frightful scene behind them. “Let’s go get some nice hot tea.” Slowly, one step at a time, they moved forward.

  “What a brave little soldier you are, Max.”

  Emmy’s grip now made Berdie’s neck ache, her arm strength waned, and she used her hip to help carry the little girl’s weight.

  Someone was running toward her. Berdie blinked.

  “What’s happened?” Tillie’s words were breathless. Her hard grip of the ice-cream container turned her knuckles white. She looked over Berdie’s shoulder at the destruction.

  “Tillie.”

  “Where’s my father?” Her blonde hair swirled as she searched about. “What’s happened?”

  “Cedric.” Berdie barely got the word out.

  “Cedric?” Blood drained from Tillie’s face. “In there?”

  Berdie gave a terse nod.

  “No.” She scrutinized the flaming vehicle. “How did…?” Tillie dropped her container of ice cream and took off running toward the scene.

  “Tillie,” Berdie heard Doug call out.

  “Dad.” Her voice was shrill, filled with disbelief.

  Berdie watched Tillie run to her father, fall down on her knees, and wrap her arms around him.

  “Daddy, it’s the commander?”

  Doug nodded. Tillie laid her head on his shoulder and hugged her father tightly.

  “I tried to warn him.” Doug’s face was dark, eyes wet.

  “Warn him?” Tillie took Doug by the shoulders. “How do you mean, warn him?”

  Doug choked.

  “Dad, I’m sure you did all you possibly could.” She stood and took in the sight. Shaking her head, she turned her gaze away and then released a loud sob. “I can’t believe…” She wiped her hand cross her eyes as if to push weeping, along with the fiery vision of what she had beheld, away. “This can’t be happening. We’ve got to get you away from this horrible mess.”

  “But, Tillie.”

  The young woman set her determined grip on the handles of the wheelchair and began to push Doug toward the back garden. “You know it’s best.”

  Berdie felt her arm wanting to give way beneath Emmy’s weight when she became aware of a hand on her shoulder.

  “Mrs. Elliott, let me help you.”

  Berdie turned to see the imposing figure of Barbara Braunhoff and sighed.

  “I just arrived.” Mrs. Braunhoff grasped whimpering Emmy in her sturdy arms and cradled her close to her shoulder. “There, there,” she purred and rocked Emmy, stroking her head.

  Berdie let out a long, slow release of air. “Bless you, Barbara. Your husband is…”

  “Yes, I see,” Barbara said.

  Berdie still clung to Max’s hand and still shielded him with her body. “Max, Emmy, and I are going to have some hot, sweet tea at the vicarage.” Berdie raised her brows and nodded toward Max.

  “Oh my, doesn’t that sound just the thing.”

  “Aren’t we going to Tea Time Club?” Max’s question sounded so innocent amongst the rubble.

  Berdie swallowed.

  “We’ve a bit of a problem, love.” Mrs. Braunhoff’s deep voice was soft. She began to move forward, grasping Berdie’s elbow with her free hand, towing her with. “The sooner we get to the kitchen and get the kettle on, the better.”

  Berdie moved along with Mrs. Braunhoff in mindless motion. She became aware she was almost squeezing Max’s hand. She eased her grip.

  “Is the doggy coming with us?”

  Max’s words brought an unexpected wetness to Berdie’s eyes.

  “He’s taken up with other things at the moment,” Mrs. Braunhoff said. “Do you like sweet tea, Max?”

  “Nanna sometimes fixes toast and honey to go with.”

  “Now doesn’t that sound tasty.” Mrs. Braunhoff eyed Berdie. “Wouldn’t you agree, Mrs. Elliott?”

  Berdie blinked and found the words. “You know, I believe I’ve got the very thing in my larder.”

  “There, you see, Max? The very thing is in Mrs. Elliott’s larder. Doesn’t that sound grand?”

  By the time they reached the back garden and opened the kitchen door, Berdie heard the we-wa of emergency vehicles.

  Inside, she knew Doug and Tillie were heading upstairs when the sound of the electric stairlift, which Doug took to get there, hummed.

  Despite cracks in the kitchen window above the sink, the children were seated at the small kitchen table away from any danger. Mrs. Braunhoff put the kettle on and chattered on to Max and Emmy, engaging them in as normal a dialogue as she could manage.

  Berdie escaped momentarily to the sitting room where, in the quiet of the space, the hallway station clock’s rhythmic ticks revived a sense of unreal normalcy. She looked out the window to see Doc Honeywell’s old car whisk past. Dave Exton, the editor of the Kirkwood Gazette, dashed madly toward the scene, and she observed what she knew would happen sooner or later. People were gathering in the vicarage front garden, pointing, discussing, with hand-to-mouth astonishment. The moment she turned to go back to the kitchen, the front doorbell rang.

  Dear Lord, give me strength. Instead of going to the door, she found herself sinking into a nearby armchair. In an instant she heard the front door open and someone enter.

  “Berdie?” Lillie’s call sounded anxious.

  “Here,” Berdie squeaked.

  Lillie entered the sitting room, her eyes focused on Berdie. “I heard…”

  Berdie wasn’t entirely sure what her face wore. She knew she was trying to sort what had happened, attempting to regain normal body function, whilst longing for Hugh. She looked at her friend and felt a wet trickle on her cheek.

  “Berdie, my dear Berdie.” Lillie swooped to her and gave a gentle hug, then took the chair next to Berdie and placed her hand on Berdie’s own.

  The warmth of Lillie’s hand was comforting against the shiver that crept across her body. Her shoulders relaxed, as if a favorite blanket had wrapped away the chill.

  “Poor Cedric.” Berdie abruptly felt a dam burst within her. She brought her free hand to her mouth and tears began a trickle down her face.

  The extra squeeze of Lillie’s hand upon hers brought reassurance of her friend’s care and understanding. She didn’t have to be a stoic force—she could be vulnerable at this moment and it would be OK.

  Berdie removed her hand from her face and sniffed. She finally gave space for the thought that agitated the back of her mind to come forward into focus. She could barely speak it. “Lillie, it could have been Hugh.”

  3

  While window repairs filled the kitchen with the sound of hammer and saw, Berdie’s head felt like it took every blow of the heaving tool. Her entire body begged for a quiet respite in a comfortable chair. She had her moment with Lillie but was now back in harness, as some would say, despite her aching body. Her dining-room table had been police commandeered by Constable Albert Goodnight.

  She carried a tray laden with two brimming teapots, sugar bowl, and jug of milk into the hall wher
e she took the few steps necessary to enter the dining room. “Time to tend the masses” barely eked out Berdie’s lips.

  Lillie came behind, holding a tray stacked with a dozen mugs of various designs. “The investigators are hardly masses; it just feels that way at the moment.”

  The large one-hundred-year-old, rectangular dining table had momentarily become Aidan Kirkwood police headquarters, despite the fact that beautiful antique candlesticks, handed down from Hugh’s grandparents, sat gracefully upon it. Ivory candles adorned the holders, and a vintage-fabric table runner lay beneath. Hardly a police command center. Still, Albert Goodnight, who knew the undersized bedroom-cum-office in his police-house home wouldn’t do this time, sat at the head of the table, in charge of this investigation. Well, in theory anyway.

  Berdie and Lillie set the trays down and began serving those present.

  “Now, I want an account of what happened at the crime scene from all of you.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Braunhoff looked at one another.

  He caught their glance. “I mean when Mrs. Elliott and Miss Foxworth finally stop flitting about.” Goodnight’s grandiose, unkempt mustache matched the size of his midsection, where his police-issue shirt peeked through small gaps in his uniform jacket. “Now where’s the wheelchair fellow? Wasn’t he present when all the to-do took place?”

  “Doug’s resting upstairs. Tea, Constable Goodnight?” Berdie asked.

  He gave a terse affirmative nod.

  “You don’t want my account, because I wasn’t here when it happened.” Lillie had mugs placed before each person. “It’s been established, it is a crime scene, not an accident? It wasn’t just a stray spark that got to the petrol tank, damaged wiring, anything like that?”

  Goodnight blew out a puff of air. “No, it’s definitely a crime scene. Now, someone needs to roust the wheelchair fellow out.”

  “His name is Douglas Devlin, and he served our country well. Milk, Constable?” Rather agitated, Berdie poured milk into Albert’s cup.

  Goodnight knit his bushy brows. “Mrs. Elliott, let everyone serve themselves to their bits and pieces so we can get on here.” He pulled his head back, as if trying to find the proper place for his eyes to settle, and put pen to paper. “Douglas Devlin,” Albert repeated as he wrote. He nodded toward his cup. “Three sugars if you please, Mrs. Elliott.”

  Apparently, “everyone serving themselves” didn’t include him. Berdie bit her tongue and simply placed a reasonable teaspoon of sugar in his cup.

  Goodnight cleared his throat and eyed the spoon. “Not much going spare, then?”

  Berdie pasted a half-smile on her face and heaped a mountain of sugar onto the utensil, dumped it into his cup, and another, as requested. When she poured his tea, while the others “served themselves,” Berdie wondered if perhaps she should just fetch a bottle of sweet cough syrup from the medicine chest for Goodnight, and be done with it.

  “I need everyone’s statements before the big boys from the Yard get here.”

  “They’re here.” Mr. Braunhoff eyed Goodnight as if the officer had somehow missed seeing the several vehicles, workers, lights, and miles of yellow police tape that surrounded the scene outside, and had done for over two hours.

  “I said the big boys, Mr. Braunhoff. That lot out there are just the worker bees.”

  “Big boys?” Berdie asked.

  Albert took a sip of his syrup and ran a finger along the bottom of his crowded upper lip. “Specialists.”

  Berdie finally sat down with a sigh and saw to her own cuppa.

  “What kind of specialists?” Lillie clipped.

  Berdie’s mobile phone rang out her current ring tone, “Rule, Britannia!” from the sideboard where she had set it down. When she arose to get it, Goodnight rolled his eyes and ran his tongue over his top teeth. “Like herding cats,” he mumbled.

  “Berdie, love.” Hugh’s voice at the other end of the line was somber. “I’m at hospital.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, but there’s good and bad news. Cedric is alive, though just.”

  Berdie brought her hand to her mouth with a small gasp. “I thought…”

  “As we all did,” Hugh completed her sentence. “But I’m afraid he’s not expected to make it through the night.”

  “We’ve a mustard seed, Hugh. By God’s grace, we’ve a mustard seed of hope.”

  Hugh went on. “Ivy Butz has initiated a telephone call to prayer. She’s mobilizing the congregation to pray on Cedric’s behalf.”

  “My prayers go with them as well.”

  “I need to somehow reach his daughter. Frankly, I don’t even remember her name. I’ve no idea where she is, how to contact her.”

  “Leave that to me, Hugh. I’ll work on it—you just watch over Cedric.”

  “Yes.” Hugh sighed. “Poor fellow.”

  “Constable Goodnight is here doing an incident report. He’s expecting some specialists from the Yard to arrive soon.”

  “I expected as much from the sound of things. Which brings me to say, Berdie, these specialists are highly qualified individuals who know their onions. And clever as you are, they don’t need your investigative aid.”

  “Hugh, this happened at our door.”

  “Indeed. And that’s why our duty is to tend to our hurting community. We must support and comfort.”

  “Yes, I understand what you’re saying. Now, do you want me to come to the hospital?”

  “No, continue to man the ship there. Loren’s on duty here tonight. He’s already been up once to call.”

  Dr. Loren Meredith, a pathologist at Timsley Hospital who worked with the Timsley police, was a dear friend and Lillie’s love interest.

  “Good, I’m glad he’s there.” Berdie took a deep breath. The flash of flame that could have sent Hugh to the hospital with only a seed of hope flashed across Berdie’s mind. “I love you, Hugh,” she whispered.

  “And I, you, love.”

  “Don’t ring off.” Albert Goodnight’s boom cut into the tender moment.

  Berdie jumped.

  “Give me the mobile. I need to speak to the vicar,” Goodnight blasted.

  “Did you hear?” Berdie asked Hugh.

  “Indeed. Hand me over.”

  Goodnight was at Berdie’s heel.

  She gave the constable her mobile and resumed her seat. “Cedric’s alive, though just,” she announced.

  Mr. Braunhoff clasped his hands together, eyes wide, and he shook his large head side to side. “By the grace of God.”

  “That, plus your quick and incredibly brave actions in pulling him out,” Berdie declared.

  “Indeed.” Lillie lifted her teacup to him as in a toast.

  Barbara Braunhoff wore a gentle smile. Her cheeks even went slightly pink as she placed a hand on her husband’s broad shoulder. “My Carl is a good man.”

  Carl Braunhoff scratched the back of his neck, obviously uneasy with the praise. “I should be helping our Carl Jr. get that window fixed in the kitchen.”

  The couple’s eldest son was nearly the size of his father. “Your Carl Jr. will do a fine job, I’m sure, even without your capable hand.” Berdie had a brand-new admiration for the valor of this large man. “More tea, Mr. Braunhoff?”

  He grinned and nodded.

  Berdie poured liquid refreshment into the shy man’s cup.

  “Is that right?” Goodnight’s voice boomed as he continued to speak with Hugh on the mobile, though it appeared all were trying to ignore him.

  “Sparks.” Berdie plunked the teapot down. She just now thought of the poor creature.

  “Doc Honeywell checked the dog after the ambulance took Commander Royce off.” Mr. Braunhoff sighed. “He put the canine in his car.”

  “Sparks is dead?”

  “I should have thought so, but then I thought the commander had breathed his last.”

  There was a vigorous knock at the back kitchen door, so loud everyone at the dining table heard it.
/>   Lillie jumped to her feet. “I’ll go.”

  As Lillie left the room, Goodnight glanced at her and continued his telephone conversation at the sideboard.

  “Max and Emmy are with their grandmother now.” Mrs. Braunhoff sipped her tea. “She was quite shaken that all this had taken place, but she certainly didn’t linger to discuss it.”

  Berdie circled her spoon in her cooling cup. “Thank you for seeing to them, Barbara. I didn’t even have Max and Emmy’s last name, let alone parental contact information.”

  Lillie reentered the dining room. Two men accompanied her. “These two fellows are Scotland Yard investigators come to speak with you.”

  While Lillie took her seat, Berdie stood and set her eyes on a very familiar face. There he was. She would know that brown weathered coat, trilby hat, and slight stoop forward anywhere. “Chief Inspector Kent.” She smiled. “Pleased to have you in my home. Would you and your colleague like a seat?” She waved her hand toward the table.

  “Berdie Elliott.” Chief Inspector Jasper Kent returned the smile and rubbed his chin. “I wondered the moment I heard an incident had taken place at a church in Aidan Kirkwood if it might not be you.” The fellow removed his hat, revealing his short, close-cut hair, and tipped his head her direction.

  “Brice”—he addressed the tall young chap with a notable square jaw—“we are in good company. Mrs. Elliott and I have worked together in the past, unofficially of course.”

  “A vicar’s wife?” Brice balked.

  “She has a real nose for sniffing out the truth. She was formerly an investigative reporter.”

  Goodnight, still on the mobile, frowned as his eyes strayed to observe the men.

  “How kind of you to say.” Berdie delighted in the chief inspector’s good word. “However, at this moment, I’m afraid my detecting antenna has taken a real knock.”

  “Must go, Vicar,” Goodnight bawled. “Yard’s here.” He clapped the mobile on the sideboard.

  No goodbyes then. Berdie was as equally displeased by Goodnight’s coarseness as she was pleased to see Chief Inspector Kent.

  “Albert.” Kent glanced at the constable.