Page 59 of Playing With Fire

They ignored her as she crept outside, coffee in hand. She sunk into the Adirondack, enjoying the snug softness of her sheepskin boots and the weight of her coat over her pajamas.

It was crisp and clear. A gorgeous day which lifted the heart and calmed the spirits. She sipped the sweet black coffee and looked out at the snow heaped on bare-branched trees and upper stories of houses visible above the brick wall.

Her place. Her own sanctuary. And today was her late-morning start, a regular, quiet space to enjoy her small garden even on a winter morning.

It had taken Jodi a while to reach this point, to be comfortable in her own skin. To find the confidence to be Ms. Jodi Ruskin, Acting Editor of The Temple Mountain Monitor, and not the granddaughter of Rev. Bob Ruskin, the daughter of that flighty Lucy-May who married young Carter Ruskin and virtually dumped those little girls at their grandfather’s rectory when Carter up and died. Not to forget, sister to the wayward Jaylee who had left her husband and come back to town with little Isaac in tow.

The Northern Cardinals flew away and were replaced by a pair of small American Tree Sparrows, close enough to see the small dark spot on their pale chests. They too departed, and the hanging feeder swung empty in the courtyard.

Jodi thought about her avian visitors, now flitting across the roofs and through the woods. North, south, east, west—as long as they were fed, the birds went where they pleased.

She looked down at her empty mug. A cloud blotted out the low, pale sun. The morning darkened.

Suddenly restless, she rose to her feet, wrapping her arms around herself for warmth. Winter was here, and spring would follow as it always did.

The grass would grow again and the flowers would bloom and Gramps would put in a crop of tomatoes and Jodi would pack away her winter clothes. Pick out some new silk blouses, perhaps in the new deep teal and purple and orange shades. Maybe get some bright new mud-proof boots for when she took Isaac to Little League, and she had promised Alma to take her to drama once a week after school, so long as it wasn’t press week.

People would come and go from her life. And the cycle of the town would go on, and she would be carried along in its pleasant and busy flow.

Chilly air crept down the back of her neck in spite of her heavy coat, and Jodi turned to go back inside. An inner voice whispered that her safe, contented life would no longer be enough to keep her warm.

***

Jodi got the first indication that something was very wrong when she finally turned on her phone.

Notifications flooded the screen. Her pulse began to race as she read How dare you? Irresponsible reporting...and worse, I’ll sue. By the time she flipped over to The Monitor’s online news, foreboding had crystalized into disaster.

Dougie Moon, ace reporter and keen seeker of breaking news, had written the story she’d asked. And then, he’d posted it online.

“Shit!” shouted Jodi. She stamped her foot, which was not as effective as it could have been since she was still wearing her sheepskin boots. “Shit, shit, shit. You little shit!”

It didn’t take long to exhaust her list of expletives. She imagined Ricky’s unamused face and used them all again.

First things first. Jodi sank into her chair, picked up her second coffee and began reading the online story. It was a decent piece of writing, she had to admit. She might even tell Dougie that before she yelled at him and then fired him on the spot.

More grim questions for Fire Chief as shocking new arson cases emerge, wrote Dougie, who went on to recap the recent cases before reminding readers that at least three nuisance fires had been lit in and around Temple Mountain since the previous summer.

Was this the detestable work of the same cunning arsonist/s, asked Dougie, pointing out that the initial fires had not been in trash cans in public parks.

One had been at the high school, lit matches tossed in the wastepaper bin of a teacher whom Dougie noted was described by stunned students and concerned teachers who wished to remain anonymous, as an old-fashioned authoritarian.

Jodi snorted. More like the kids had said “freaking head case”. At least Dougie had been tactful, she conceded, if heavy-handed with adjectives. And he had helpfully assembled all the available facts. All in record time too.

She kept reading, racing through the text and wincing at every literary flourish.

No damage to speak of, apparently, save the ruining of a “perfectly good” sports jacket owned by said teacher, which had been unfortunately covered in extinguisher foam by the enthusiastic janitor.

The next fire, also school-related, similarly had been a quick affair. A smoldering cigarette thrown into the head coach’s bag, singeing the polyester lining and melting her lipstick. The incident had occurred the day after graffiti was sprayed on the gym floor, an act which the head coach described to the press as “probably done by those potheads who don’t appreciate that mandated participation in the sports program promotes the health benefits of a healthy mind in a healthy body”.

The last fire of the spate had been the most worrying, wrote Dougie.

Again, cigarettes had been used, and the target was the corner shop where the owner was known to keep a sharp eye on the candy and other small items—and to deliver a politically incorrect clip over the ear to anyone caught pilfering. The lit cigarette had been left in the newspaper rack outside, and only “quick action” by a passing pedestrian had stopped the stacks of newspapers and magazines from tuning into “a blazing inferno”.

Quick action indeed. Jodi snorted at the image of a large strawberry milkshake plucked from a child’s arms and hurled across the newsstand.

Pandemonium ensued, wrote Dougie.

Jodi’s heart rate began to settle. So far, even though Dougie had committed the cardinal sin of publishing without the editor’s go-ahead, it was all pretty reasonable.

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