Dead Silver

28

I'd decided to install deadbolts on the doors of Renee's house, so I kept the tools I needed for that. We were loading the rest of the gear into my truck when she came hurrying out to us.

"Sheriff Varna just called," she said. "He's on his way over."

Madbird paused. He didn't cotton to authorities, especially of the law enforcement variety.

"I'd like you to be here for this," I said. "But if you want to book, I understand."

"Hell, I'll stick around. He ain't the kind of cop puts a hair acrost my ass."

Gary pulled over to the curb in his sheriff's cruiser a couple of minutes later. Watching him climb out was always a little disconcerting. He just kept on rising.

"Renee, I'm sorry we have to meet under these circumstances," he said, exending his cordial handshake to her.

"Thanks so much for doing this," she murmured.

"I wish I could promise it'll help. All right, let's see what you found."

"I've been keeping the things inside," she said, and went to get them. Madbird and I took Gary to the carriage house. He crouched over the crawl space with his forearms on his knees, studying the jewelry box and pile of gunpowder. I gave him a rundown, ending with Renee's suggestion that the killer had planted this damning evidence against Professor Callister and set up a seemingly accidental fire to expose it, but never followed through because the police hadn't gotten close enough to him to be a threat.

Gary nodded noncommittally, letting me know he'd heard me, and that was all.

Renee came in with the photo fragments of Astrid and the earring, which she'd transferred to a metal cash box. Gary stood up creakily, with the failing knees of a man in his fifties, and opened the box on the Professor's workbench. He scrutinized the items with that same intensity, not touching, just looking.

"I can tell you right now these pix are high-quality-professional or good amateur," he said. "But that kind of print paper's common as dirt, besides trying to trace it back a dozen years."

"But you'll start looking for suspects who were into photography?" she said.

"That did cross my mind." His tone had a touch of irony, but also respect. She appeared to be making another conquest, and not an easy one.

"Did the police know about these things-that Astrid had them and they went missing?" Renee asked. "Did my father ever say anything about them?"

"Like I told Hugh, I wasn't in the loop much. I'll try to find out."

Then Madbird said, "I think maybe I'm seeing something here."

He was still standing beside the open crawl space. The rest of us walked over there to join him.

"If a fire starts, the firemen want to find a reason for it, right?" he said. "It looks like it just come out of nowhere, they're going to get suspicious. So this guy didn't want to just light a match."

I passed my hand over my hair, adding that to the long list of things that had never occurred to me.

"Go on," Gary said, with sharpened interest.

"Old place like this, the obvious thing's the wiring. But he's got to make it happen when he wants." Madbird swung around to me. "We got any Romex? Be easiest if I show you."

"Some scrap in the truck," I said. "How much you need?"

He held out his hands two feet apart. I went to my pickup to rummage in one of the side toolboxes that lined the bed, where I kept a melange of handy odds and ends, fasteners, shims, hardware, and the like. I found a partial roll of sheathed 12/2 cable-commonly called Romex by tradesmen even though that, like Sheetrock, was technically a brand name-clipped off a couple of feet, and took it to Madbird.

First he used it as a pointer to tap a pair of old black knob-and-tube wires, about two inches apart and strung on porcelain insulators every few feet, that ran along the floor joist where the wood shavings were piled.

Knob and tube was considered dangerous stuff these days. Electricians were required by code to cut out and replace any of it they found. Besides being ungrounded, it aged badly, with the insulation cracking, fraying, and leaving bare spots that could create fire hazards.

Which was exactly what could have happened here. An insulator had broken; they were brittle, it could easily have been cracked during construction with no one noticing, and years of settling and vibration from people walking above eventually jarring a chunk loose. That had freed the top wire to sag so it almost touched the bottom one, and the sharp edges of the porcelain had nicked them so glints of bare copper showed through. Any contact between them would cause sparks. Those kinds of fires were common, sometimes smoldering for days or even weeks before they took off.

But this one only would have taken seconds, because the sparks would have hit the gunpowder.

"That takes care of the fire guys-they'll figure it was a accident," Madbird said. "But really, he's the one broke the insulator and nicked them wires. Now all he's got to do is make them touch."

With his pocketknife, he separated and stripped the Romex so he had a few inches of the bare copper ground at one end, and bent that at a right angle. Then he pushed it at the knob and tube strands again, using the prong to connect their frayed spots.

A sharp little pop brought a shower of sparks.

"Only take him a few seconds to crawl in and do that, and a few more to get back out," Madbird said. "By the time anybody spots the fire, he's long gone. Had it all set up ahead of time so it was ready to go if he got spooked."

Gary looked bemused. "Well, I ain't necessarily saying I buy it. But on the other hand, I'm tempted to offer you a job, Madbird."

"Appreciate it, Sheriff. But I already done three years in uniform, and I got a feeling a new one would fit pretty tight."

"Yeah, I admit I get that feeling myself sometimes."

"I better tape them wires up. Okay with you?"

"Give me a minute to get some photos first," Gary said. "I want to take the things you found, too, including that jewelry box. I've got an evidence camera and containers in my car-I could use a hand with them."

As we started out to get them, he paused to look at Renee.

"My dear, I hope like hell there's something to this. I'd love to see your father cleared, and if I can nail whoever's guilty, I'll die a happier man." But while Gary's words were kindly, his face was concerned. "Let's just keep in mind that if we are looking at somebody else, he's not just dangerous. He's really slick."