Page 31 of The Aura Answer
Finding people to care about had helped him heal.
Did Nick need that too?
Watching the Brit plot and plan with the others, she didn’t think so. Nick was a confident man of the world, like Dante, sure of himself and his place.
Once Pris set the first two pizzas on the table and had the second set cooking, they all settled down at the table. That’s when Jax dropped the bombshell.
“Patel thinks the fire is arson. He’s been receiving hate threats. He swears he turned off the space heater and unplugged it before he closed up. The place is little more than a cement block shack. There was nothing else flammable.”
“The electric box?” Dante asked. “In these old places—”
Jax shook his head. “New wiring, inside and out. He wanted to expand. Larraine’s staff was helping him fill out permits.”
“Hate crime,” Evie agreed flatly.
Nick looked from one to the other and shook his head. “Hate to talk conspiracy, but a murder, a riot, and arson all in a few days? Are you sure?”
Twelve
Monday morning,Evie handed the keys of the Subaru to Nick so he could drive down to the Antique Barn and haggle with Sammy Walker over the sketches. At her request, he let her out at the top of the hill in front of the smoky remains of Patel’s produce stand.
The Barn and the school were only a short walk downhill, and traffic was slow once school rush hour ended. She didn’t need the car.
The produce stand had once been an old service station between the school and town, an ideal location. Patel had painted it in tropical colors, set his old wooden handcarts out front filled with fruit, stored his carts and inventory in the service bay at night, and done a nice business. Since he was in walking distance of the school, he’d added lighting and shelves in the interior for school supplies and snacks and a few freezers for ice cream—a family friendly destination. It was all gone.
She didn’t even know why she was here except she was procrastinating. She hated to risk the courthouse again to talk to Block’s ghost about Layman. Would it even be open?
“Keep seeing you at crime scenes and I’ll start suspectin’ you one of them crazies who return to the scene of your crimes.”
“Philomena Marquette.” Evie acknowledged the skinny cop and her former schoolmate without turning around. “I’m just looking for ghosts. So it really was arson?”
“Possible arson but ain’t no bones. If whoever did this wanted to off a raghead, then he shoulda done it when the place was open.” Philomena shoved her hands in her back trouser pockets and surveyed the destruction. “Can’t blame the arsonists all that much. These furriners take food from the mouths of our kids.”
Evie snorted. “Good one. For starters, you don’t have kids and Patel does. Main menu—this service station sat empty for as long as either of us can remember and not one single person stepped up to do what he did. If I didn’t know you graduated top of your class, I’d say you were the raghead.”
She shrugged. “I gotambitions. I plan to blend in and get ahead. Patel here’s been harassed by our finest citizenry. I gotta keep my Black ass on the right side of public opinion.”
“A hundred years ago, public opinion supported the Klan. Would you wear a sheet on your head? You’re smarter than that. And if this hick show is your Columbo act, give me some credit too.”
“I mean to make detective someday,” she said ominously. “Think your little Solutions Agency ever gonna solve a crime?”
Ah, the snot was seeing Evie as competition. Given their history, she should have seen that coming. “I doghosts, Philomena. We can’t solve crime without the help of the law. But if the law wants my help, you have to give up the attitude. This isn’t the schoolyard. Trash talk gets us nowhere.”
Talking to Philomena was always entertaining but seldom informative. Evie had been a bad student. Philomena had worked hard for straight A’s and resented Evie’s irresponsibility. That didn’t mean either of them knew more than the other.
She should probably ask Gracie which of the school’s delinquents had harassed Patel. Philomena wouldn’t tell her. But would a school kid set a fire?
The cop shrugged off her suggestion. “I can’t give you ghosts, but you might want to ask yourself why the Shepherd boys are trying to buy old Mrs. Satterwhite’s farm when they can’t afford the land they already own.” She dropped the drawl but might as well have saidthem white trash Shepherd boys.Without further explanation, Philomena walked off, back toward town.
The Shepherd farm was on the west side of Afterthought. The family had been landowners since forever but not very good farmers. They were down to a few acres of barren fields, a little weed, and hogs these days and most likely had mortgaged the lot.
Judge Satterwhite’s ancestors once farmed an entire plantation on this side of town. It had all come down to his father, who’d been dead for a decade. The judge’s mother now owned what had become the Antique Barn, plus all the fallow fields around the school. She rented out the land and whatever else she could. Everyone figured the property would go to the judge when his mother died.
If his mother sold to the Shepherds, capital gains would eat half her profit. Mrs. Satterwhite wasn’t stupid and had no need of the money. If she left the property to the judge, he could sell without taxes after she died and retire early. Lots of people did that. Evie hadn’t worked for a CPA without learning a few things.
The Shepherds might be stupid enough not to understand that, but where would they even find the cash to make an offer? Was their little patch of marijuana selling that well? They needed a better investment plan, if so. That rumor was probably just Philomena blowing smoke.
Time to face the ghosts. Seeing nothing she could salvage for the Patels, Evie turned toward town. Long-legged Philomena was already out of sight.
