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Jazz was still soundly sleeping, and she found herself wondering how often she should walk the puppy. Probably every time it awoke, until she learned its schedule.
And she’d have to stop off at the store on the way home to get some puppy food and a leash and collar. The prospect gave her something interesting to look forward to.
In fact, she decided, Dan couldn’t have done a nicer thing for her than dropping that pup into her arms so she couldn’t resist.
She was thinking about doggie dishes and leashes, and wondering if she could take care of the shopping on her lunch hour, when a battered pickup pulled up out front. She watched with a suddenly pounding heart as Hugh Gallagher climbed out and walked up to the door. Her mouth went dry, and try as she might to tell herself she was overreacting, she couldn’t stop it. Had he come to see her?
He stepped through the door and gave her a wide, warm smile. “Miss Anna. How are you today?”
Before she could answer, Jazz, disturbed by the commotion, woke up and gave a squeaky bark. Hugh squatted immediately and looked into the cage. “Who’s this little fella?”
“That’s…um…that’s Jazz. Reverend Fromberg gave her to me.” Anna sounded as breathless as she felt, and hated herself for it. She wondered why Hugh was here, and was afraid to ask.
“Jazz? What a cute pup. Irish setter?”
“Partly.”
“A mutt, huh? Well, that just means she’ll be really smart, won’t you, girl? Can I take her out?”
“I guess.”
She watched as Hugh unlatched the cage and reached in with large, strong hands to lift the little pup gently. Jazz decided she liked him and started licking his chin at once. Anna felt a sharp stab of jealousy, then castigated herself for it.
Hugh rose and faced her, still holding the squirming puppy. “Dan asked me to come take a look at the church roof. Something about ice damming?”
“Oh, yes! He asked me to show you where the worst problems were.”
“Well, get your jacket on and let’s take a stroll. This little gal would probably love to get outside.”
“I don’t have a leash for her yet.”
“Just wait a minute. I can rig something with the rope in my truck that’ll do in a pinch.”
She rose to pull her jacket off the coat tree and found herself fascinated again by the sight of Cowboy walking away from her. He had such a nice…sway was the only word she could think of. Something that riveted her eyes to his flat backside and long legs. She felt a twinge deep inside that she hadn’t felt in a long, long time. Embarrassed color flooded her cheeks.
Uh-uh, she told herself. You know better than that, girl.
She pulled on the jacket and stepped outside, taking care to lock the office door after her.
It took only a minute for Hugh to fashion a slipknot leash for Jazz. The puppy was ecstatic to be outside and began to run this way and that, giving a squeaky bark of joy. Each time the loop around her neck started to tighten, she came to a swift halt.
“Smart little gal,” Hugh said, giving Anna a smile. “She won’t give you any trouble.” He handed her the end of the rope. “Now, where exactly were the worst problems?”
They walked slowly around the church, with Anna pointing out the places where the ice had dammed the snow and caused leaking inside.
“It was terrible last year,” she told him. “Reverend Fromberg went into the church one morning last winter, and he could hear water dripping everywhere. You couldn’t see where it was dripping, but finally we noticed that it was running down the insides of the window frames.”
“So it was coming down inside the walls.”
“Apparently.”
He nodded. “I’ll have to go up on the roof and see if I can find out what’s keeping the snow from sliding off.
You’d think with that steep a pitch it wouldn’t be a problem. I’ll also want to get up under the eaves to try to see where the heat is escaping that’s causing the ice to form. Can you leave the church open for a while?”
“Sure. Just let me know when you’re done so I can lock it up again. I’ll only open the side door, if that’s okay.”
He gave her a smile. “I only need one door.”
Jazz had run off most of her energy and had squatted at four or five different points along the way, so Anna figured the puppy was ready to return to the cage for a nap. She unlocked the church’s side door for Hugh, then hurried back to her office.
She loved this time of year, she found herself thinking as she and the puppy trotted along. The breeze was crisp, carrying a hint of the winter to come, and the light had a buttery color to it, the last golden glow of autumn. Any day now the snow would march down off the white-capped peaks to the west and sprinkle itself all over Conard City like powdered sugar.
Inside the office, she put Jazz in her cage, then hunted up a bowl and put some water in with the dog. The puppy lapped thirstily, then curled up into a little ball of fur and fell right to sleep.
Well, that wasn’t too difficult, Anna thought as she settled back at her desk. She’d managed not to babble like a fool to Hugh Gallagher, she’d walked the dog successfully, remembered to give it a drink…hey, she was getting competent.
Chuckling at her own silliness, she reached for the next letter she needed to type, only to be interrupted by the phone.
“Anna, it’s Dan. I’m going to be at the hospital a while. Candy had a bad reaction to the anesthetic, and we don’t know what’s going to happen. Say a prayer for her, will you? I don’t know at this point if I’ll be back to the office at all.”
“I’ll cancel your appointments.”
“Thanks. Go ahead and take your lunch whenever you want. And close up early if you feel like it. You need some rest, my child.”
Anna hung up the phone, wondering why she always felt like crying when Dan Fromberg got that gentle note in his voice and called her “my child.” He called a lot of people “my child” when they were laid low by life and were calling on him in his ministerial capacity. Still, it affected her.
The phone rang again, just as she was getting ready to call and cancel the first appointment. This time it was Sheriff Nate Tate.
“Hi, sweet pea,” he said in his deep, gravelly voice. For some reason he always called her sweet pea. “Is the boss around?”
“He’s at the hospital and probably won’t be back in again today.”
“Somebody get hurt?”
“A bad reaction to anesthesia.”
“Not good.” But he knew better than to ask who was involved. “Well, I got a leetle bit of a problem here. Maybe you can help.”
“Me?”
He chuckled warmly. “Yes, you, sweet pea. Everyone knows how well you get on with the kids in the youth group, and you’re the closest thing we have around here to a youth counselor.”
Anna felt a pleasant blush fill her cheeks. “Don’t exaggerate, Sheriff.”
“I’m not. Do you think you can come over here to the office? I’ve got me a little gal you know in a cell who shouldn’t be in the cell. I really need somebody to talk to her and figure out what’s going on. I’ll tell you more when you get here.”
“I’ll be right over, but I have to make a couple of phone calls first.”
“It’s not that big a rush,” he assured her. “This little lady is going to be sitting here a while.”
It took Anna ten minutes to make the calls and reschedule the appointments for another day. Then she grabbed her jacket again, hesitating briefly about leaving Jazz alone. After a moment she decided that the puppy was as safe as could be in the cage. Outside, she found Hugh up on the ladder, looking at the church roof. “Mr. Gallagher?”
He looked down at her. “Hugh. Just call me Hugh. Or Cowboy.”
“Hugh.”
She repeated his name, feeling flattered that he’d asked her to use it. “I have to run up to the sheriff’s office. I don’t know how long I’ll be.”
“No problem. I’ll be a while here. Probably most of the afternoon. There’s a lot that needs to be checked out.”
“Well, if you need to leave, just make sure the church door is closed tightly. I’ll lock it when I get back.”
“You got it.”
The wind seemed to have gotten sharper, and some low clouds were moving in, concealing the sun. She hunkered deeper into her jacket and wished she’d worn slacks today.
The sheriff’s office was only a block away, in a corner storefront overlooking the courthouse square. She’d come here often in the past when the youth group took tours of the office and the courthouse, and she knew most of the people who worked here from church, but she still felt uncomfortable walking into a place that was populated mostly by men. She stepped inside and hovered by the door for a few moments until Velma Jansen, the dispatcher, noticed her.
“Anna! Come on in. Sheriff’s down the hall, first door on the left. He’s expecting you.”
Tate waved her in when she reached his office. He was a big man in his early fifties, with a rugged, permanently sunburned face.
“Come in, sweet pea,” he said. “Close the door and grab a seat.”
Closing the door proved difficult for her. Even after all this time, she couldn’t be comfortable in a closed room with a man. But beside Nate’s desk there was a window that overlooked the square, and the sight of people walking by eased her feeling of claustrophobia. She managed to take the chair facing him and folded her hands on her lap.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“That’s what I’m hoping you can find out. Lorna Lacey. You know her?”
Anna nodded. “She’s in the youth group. A dear, sweet girl.”
“Right. That’s what everyone says. In fact, when I checked her school record, I found out she’s never been in any kind of trouble.”
“I’d be surprised if it said anything different. She’s a natural peacemaker. Active, outgoing, popular—I’d say she’s what every girl her age would like to be.”
“Mmm.” Nate rubbed his chin and swiveled his chair so he could look out the window. “Well, something’s wrong. This dear, sweet girl set a fire in an empty classroom this morning.”
“Good heavens!”
He nodded and glanced over at her. “She set the fire and was still in the room. If a teacher hadn’t happened along the hallway just when he did, the school and the girl would both be gone.”
Anna was appalled. She couldn’t imagine anyone doing such a thing, but even less could she imagine Lorna Lacey doing it. That child was as close to an angel as a girl her age could be.
“You look chilled,” Nate said abruptly. “Let me get you some tea or coffee.”
“Tea. Please.” Still stunned, she was hardly aware that he had left the office. Her gaze wandered out to the square, which looked bleak on this graying day. The flowers that usually filled the flower beds were gone, having died in the first frost nearly a month ago. Even the people who usually sat on the benches had vanished, driven away by the bitter wind.
Lorna Lacey. A petite girl of thirteen with soft blue eyes and long blond hair and an irregular face that saved her from being beautiful. But she was attractive, very attractive, because personality bubbled out of her, and she had an infectious smile.
When Anna thought of Lorna, she thought of laughter.
But now she found herself remembering that Lorna hadn’t been laughing as much lately and had missed quite a few youth group meetings in the past year. Anna had ascribed that to the changing interests of adolescence, but now she wondered.
What could be wrong? She hadn’t heard stories of any kind of trouble either from Lorna or the other kids. The girl’s parents, Bridget and Al Lacey, seemed like nice people. Bridget was a little restrained, but that didn’t mean anything. Al greeted the whole world with a big smile, just like his daughter, and was well liked by everyone.
He was active in the church, coaching youth soccer and basketball, and was always ready to lend a hand where it was needed.
Nate returned carrying a couple of mugs. He set the one with the tea bag in it in front of her, along with a couple of packets of sweetener and creamer, and a plastic stirrer. Anna reached for the mug gratefully and cupped her cold hands around it, soaking up the warmth.
“Thank you,” she said.
“No problem.” He sat back in his chair, holding his mug, and resumed his study of the square. “Sleet tonight, I hear. Make sure you get home before it starts.”
“I will.” Neither of them, she guessed, really knew what to say about Lorna Lacey. “Are you sure Lorna started the fire?”
“She said she did. In fact, she seemed real eager to make sure we knew it.”
Anna hardly knew what to say to that. “But why?”
Nate shrugged and looked at her. “That’s why I want you to talk to her, Anna. I know people. You can’t work with all kinds the way I do every day without getting an instinct. Now, most of the kids who get into trouble around here, I could pick ’em out by the time they were eight or nine. Sometimes even earlier. The troublemaking starts young. Some of ’em outgrow it. Those with rotten families are the ones least likely to outgrow it. But what I have never seen is a thoroughly good kid from a good home turn bad without a reason.”
“Bad friends?”
He shook his head. “I’m a great believer in peer pressure, but most kids like Lorna, who are good through and through, withstand that kind of pressure and pick good friends. You know who she hangs out with. Any problems there?”
“I wouldn’t have thought so.”
“Me neither. So we got us a mystery, sweet pea. That child committed an act of arson, and all my warning bells are clanging that this isn’t the act of a pain-in-the-butt kid. It’s a cry for help.”
Anna nodded, agreeing. It had to be. “But help from what?”
“God knows.” Nate sighed and settled deeper into his chair. “I’ve gotta charge her with arson. No way around it. But what scares me more than arson is that I don’t think she intended to leave that room even when the fire got really bad.”
Anna gasped and nearly spilled her tea. She set it quickly on the desk. “Not Lorna!”
“That’s the way it looks to me.”
Even more appalled now, Anna looked blindly out the window. “She hasn’t been coming to youth group meetings as often.”
“No? Then maybe whatever this is wasn’t sudden. Maybe something’s been building for a long time. She could be depressed. That’s not uncommon at her age, but maybe she doesn’t know how to ask for help. Maybe she doesn’t even guess what’s wrong with her. Or maybe she got involved in drugs somehow. Or somebody just slipped her a mickey this morning and she’s on a bad trip. I don’t know.”
He sipped his coffee, then turned to face her fully. “What I know is, I got a kid in one of my cells who shouldn’t be there. It’s not like the handwriting has been on the wall for years. And I’m not gonna be happy until we find the root of this little problem. I don’t want that child to become an ugly statistic because we couldn’t figure out how to help her.”
“Certainly not!”
“So you’ll talk to her?”
