I picked up a box of sparklers and pretended to read the label. I didn’t know why, but I felt sorry for the guy.
“Something wrong?” Fillmore asked. “Or do you have a question?”
“Is this a sideline or a full-time gig?”
He grinned. “I’m a hobbyist, but it’s my passion.”
“You retired?”
A shadow passed over his face. “Technically, no. But at my age, it’s difficult to find someone willing to give me the opportunity to prove myself, no matter my years of experience.”
“What field are you in?”
He hesitated as if embarrassed.
“I only ask because you must be pretty smart to launch rockets without starting a wildfire or blowing yourself to smithereens.” I shrugged. “Unlike me. I’m challenged by my cell phone.”
He chuckled. “I’ve had at least three careers, most recently in human resources.”
No wonder his manner seemed at odds with his utilitarian coveralls. I swallowed down my pride. “A layoff brought me home from Austin,” I managed a crooked smile. “You know what they say. When God closes a door—”
“Yeah, yeah.” As he had the night before, Frank rubbed his forehead. “It’s just that the windows keep getting smaller and smaller.”
“Hey, I might be able to help out. After the show, I’ll make sure to include the name of your business in my Cinco de Mayo article for the Bugle. Plus, I’ll get the word out on social media that Fillmore’s Fireworks are fantastic.”
One corner of his mouth kicked up. “Maybe I should add fantastic to the name.”
I laughed. “Wouldn’t hurt none.” I dug in the pocket of my jeans, praying I’d find a wad of ones. “I’ll take, uh, four boxes of sparklers. Is it difficult to program your shows?”
“My displays are a bit sophisticated for their size.” He paused in order to take a handful of bottle rockets from a young couple, place them in a brown paper sack, and make change. “Anyone with basic computer knowledge could program most fireworks displays. This one doesn’t challenge me as much as I’d like, but it keeps my creative juices flowing . . . so to speak.”
He’d parked his white cargo van behind his booth. A sudden swish of a cat’s tail in the front window caught my eye. “Who’s that?” She was a fat orange tabby with a sweet face.
“Yip, yip,” Lenny complained.
“That’s Tabitha.”
“Ah.”
He chuckled. “I know what you’re thinking. What a boring, overused name for a cat. Right?”
“No.” I smiled. “If her name is overused, which I have no idea whether or not that’s true, I would have a better chance of calling her by the correct name.”
“Huh. So your dog wants to introduce himself to my Tabitha? Or does he want to test her claws?” Laughter erupted from deep in his belly. I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not. He straightened a tower of sparklers and added more bottle rockets to his red, white, and green display.
His laugh was too contagious for me not to join in. “Oh, he wants to introduce himself and then lay down the law of the land. He’s bossy that way. But he’d never hurt her. Engage her in a game of tag? Most definitely.” I rubbed him behind the ears.
“Yip.”
I laughed at the innocent expression Lenny wore. “I wouldn’t want to place a wager on his ability to resist. Don’t think too harshly of him. I believe he’s jealous of cats and their independent natures.”
“May I?” He reached out a hand toward Lenny.
“Of course.” My long-haired Chi was a good sport as long as strangers refrained from petting him more than twice. Three times on Thursdays.
“I admire your freedom, my little friend. My Tabitha and I live in that van you see. She doesn’t get out as much as you do, I bet.”
“Oh, I like it. It looks very comfortable.” I was trying to make him feel better about his circumstances and failing miserably.
He frowned and shook his head, a disgusted look on his face. “I got it for a steal.”
“That’s great.”
“No, literally, they cheated me out of my money. The power locks and windows don’t always work.”
“That’s not cool.” The poor cat.
“Most of the time, I merely have to replace some fuses, but there’s always an occasion arises when I’m far from home that I have to take it into the shop.” With a twist of his wrist, he snapped open a paper bag and shoved the sparklers inside. “What’s the word on the dead guy?”
His abrupt change of topic threw me for a second. “I don’t know.” I shrugged.
“Sure you do. I saw you hanging around his tent, talking to that detective.”
“You think they’d tell me?” I crossed my fingers. If I wanted more inside information from Lightfoot, I had to prove I could keep facts and theories to myself. “Last I heard, they thought he might have fallen and hit his head.”
Lenny and I exited his canopy, and Frank placed an OUT TO LUNCH sign with a movable second hand on one of the tables. Suddenly he smiled. “Come on. I’ll show you the setup. What’ll it hurt?”
“What if other customers stop by? I wouldn’t want you to miss any sales.”
“Nah,” he said with a shrug. “It’s good for them to wait, builds excitement.”
The smile had transformed his face. I could see how proud he was of his work—how he needed and wanted to share what he’d created.
Lenny whined and I scooped him into my arms.
“Shh. It’s okay.” He licked my face over and over.
I didn’t think this guy Frank was blessed with a family and friends like I was. His was probably living the life of a loner, driving to remote locations, setting up fireworks shows for hours and days on end without any backup.
I followed him, leaving a fair amount of space between us for good measure. “Do you always work alone?”
“No.” He marched through the scrub and rocks like a man with a
