Home Fires

“Sure,” I said, putting aside the case files that needed my attention and wondering what was up.

We drove out to a pizza place near the interchange.

“Everything’s cool as far as jail’s concerned, isn’t it?” I asked as we pulled into the parking lot.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “No problem. It’s not how I’d want to spend my life, but I can take one more weekend. What’s going to happen with Charles and Raymond, though? They’re in without bail. Will this count as their jail time?”

I assured him that if they were found guilty, they’d not be worrying about a few weekends in jail. “Assuming they don’t get the death penalty, they’ll be in a federal pen down in Atlanta and that’s no stroll on the beach.”

“Death penalty? You shitting me?”

I quickly briefed him on current laws and A.K. looked shaken as he held the door open for me.

The restaurant interior smelled of olive oil and hot yeasty dough. Even though he’d invited me, I had no illusions as to who’d be paying. We slid into a booth with padded red leather benches. He opted for the buffet; I ordered a salad (no dressing) and a slice with sausage and anchovies.

“The thing is,” he said when he’d returned from the buffet stand loaded down with slices of pepperoni and green pepper pizza, “I don’t think they did it.”

“Charles Starling made threats,” I reminded him, “and they don’t have alibis.”

“Aw, Charles.” He gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “All front, no sides. He and Raymond can both be jerks —”

“So why do you hang with them?” I asked.

“Raymond helped us barn tobacco last summer. He’s okay. After Cathy and I broke up, he and Charles were tight and they weren’t seeing anybody either.”

“And Charles can pass for twenty-one at convenience stores?”

He gave a shamefaced nod. “Least he can at places where they don’t look at your ID too close.”

“Closely,” I said automatically.

“Closely,” he echoed, accustomed to his mother’s corrections.

“Anyhow, the point is, Raymond didn’t burn down any churches and neither did Charles. I got a chance to talk to Raymond today and he swore they didn’t do it. They were at Charles’s trailer when Mount Olive went up. From eight-thirty on.”

“Unfortunately, no one saw them.” I bit into my pizza slice. The crust was just as I liked it, and the anchovies went nicely with the mozzarella and tomato sauce.

“How can you eat them salty things?” A.K. grimaced at my enjoyment. “Anyhow somebody did see them. Somebody came over to borrow a backpack from Charles around nine o’clock.”

“Why didn’t this somebody come forward?”

“ ’Cause he borrowed the backpack to go to some bass fishing tournament up in Massachusetts.”

“Why didn’t they speak up about it? Or tell Reid? He’s Raymond’s attorney.”

“Thing is, Charles knows the guy’s name is Jerry and his girlfriend’s Bobbie Jean and he lives four trailers over, but he doesn’t know either of their last names or where in Massachusetts they was going fishing.” A.K. twirled a string of melted mozzarella. “Were going fishing. And Charles didn’t want to say anything till Jerry got back because Bobbie Jean was going with him.”

“And?”

“And, well, it seems that Bobbie Jean’s husband said he’d kill Jerry if he caught him messing around her again and Bobbie Jean sort of told her husband she was going to see her sister in Massachusetts and he doesn’t know Jerry was going, too.”

He popped the cheese in his mouth and looked around to see if the waiters had set out another pizza on the hot bar. This early in the evening, there weren’t enough customers to merit a steady stream of fresh choices and he made do with two lukewarm slices of sausage and mushrooms.

“So, anyhow, Raymond’s getting a little worried that what if Jerry comes back and Bobbie Jean’s husband gets to him before he can come down to the police station and say they were there. So Raymond and me, we thought maybe you could tell Dwight and he could put out an APB or something and get to Jerry first.”

I shook my head. “That’s not going to happen, honey. In the first place, Dwight doesn’t have jurisdiction here. It’s a federal offense, not state. In the second place, it’s Raymond’s responsibility to tell Reid and then Reid will probably try to contact this Jerry, leave word at the trailer park for when he comes back.”

“They didn’t know whether the tournament was this weekend or next.”

When I shook my head in amusement, A.K. said huffily, “Well, jeez, Deb’rah. It’s not like they knew they were going to need an alibi. Nobody thinks like that. Can you prove where you were between nine-thirty and ten o’clock last Sunday night?”

“As a matter of fact, I can,” I said, remembering the long phone call Kidd and I had shared about then, he in New Bern, me lying across the bed with a report on DNA testing.

A.K. cut his eyes at me. “You gonna marry that game warden guy?”

I smiled. “I’ll talk to Reid tomorrow, okay?”

“Yeah, but you still didn’t answer my question.”

“No comment,” I said and signalled for our check.