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“I would be delighted!” The woman could not have been more accommodating. “What do you need?”
“We’ve been looking through the newspaper archives to see if we can find any information about a fire that may have taken place between 1999 and 2001,” Luna informed the helpful librarian.
“There are always a number of them, especially in the summer.”
“I’m not talking about campfires or forest fires. A house fire perhaps? A business? A church? Something that would involve people.”
“Let me think. Twenty or so years ago, you say?”
“Yes. Someone might have gotten hurt. I don’t think there was a death, but it was some kind of accident.” Luna was going with her gut as far as what she felt had happened.
The librarian shook her head. “I can’t recall anything specific.”
“It was in the summer. Probably August. We think it might have happened when the carnival was in town, or thereabouts.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell. When was the carnival here?”
“Probably August of 1999, 2000, or 2001,” Ellie interjected.
Luna got another flash. “Wait. The diary mentioned graduation. Maybe the tickets were from the summer before, and the fire was in June the following year.”
“Good point.” Ellie nodded.
“Oh well, if you’re asking about a fire around the time of graduation, that I do remember.” The woman ushered Ellie and Luna over to a table and chairs. “It was a very sad situation.”
“Did anyone die?” Luna gripped the edge of the table. She hadn’t felt it, but she could have been wrong.
“No, but a boy was burned.”
Ellie and Luna sat up in surprise. Luna pulled out a pad and pen. “How old was he?”
“I think he might have been twelve or so.”
“Do you remember what happened?” Ellie encouraged the woman’s memory.
“From what I can remember, it happened at a large mobile-home community. Some people called it a trailer park, but it was a little nicer than most. The boy was supposed to be looked after by his sister. But when the fire department and police arrived, it was only the boy who was there. He suffered third-degree burns on the side of his face and neck.”
“What happened to the sister?”
“No one knows for sure.” The librarian leaned in farther. “I don’t like to gossip, but from what I was told, the mother was a terrible drunk and the father was always on the road. Truck driver, I believe.”
“And the sister was nowhere to be found?”
“That sounds very suspicious.”
“That’s what they thought at first. But the boy said it was a candle that set fire to the drapes. He ran from his bedroom to check on his sister and the flames got his shirt and his hair. Poor thing.”
“Then what happened?” Ellie and Luna asked in unison.
“The state took the boy and put him in foster care.” The librarian shook her head.
“So no one knows what became of the boy or the sister?”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you there, and since then all the mobile homes got wiped out in a flood, and the land was cleared. There’s a big-box store there now.”
Luna was feverishly writing everything down. “Do you think it was covered by one of the newspapers?”
“I know it was. It was one of those incidents that left a lot of questions. There are probably a few articles about it, but like most stories, they eventually get boring, and the press moves on to something else.”
