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Now he was ass-deep in hellhounds, bat-men, the list went on. At what point was he going to run screaming into the woods to join the crazies? That thought made me shudder, but Dean didn’t seem to notice, too preoccupied with unraveling the mystery in front of us.
“Let’s start with the facts we know,” Dean said. “Whose houses burned down?”
“Hank Baker’s trailer, Charlie Boyle’s house, Bubba Brown’s double-wide, an’ that dingy little place Frankie Gallagher calls a home,” Ol’ Ned repeated, holding up a scaly finger with each name.
Dean drummed his fingers on the table thoughtfully. We all knew the names. Families settled in one place and rarely moved around in these parts. We’d both gone to high school with those boys.
“I’ve been gone for years, so you probably know more about town gossip than I do,” Dean started as he looked at me. “But is there anything those men have in common?”
We were all quiet as we thought about it. Mason looked puzzled and twiddled his thumbs as if he didn’t know what to do with his hands. I caught Sicily offering him her hand under the table, and I gritted my teeth. I didn’t know what kind of man Mason was yet and that bothered me. For all I knew, he could be a two-timing bastard who’d break her heart.
And, just like that, the truth hit me like a two-by-four, and I sucked in a breath.
“Something the m-m-matter Miss Twila?” Boone asked.
“Every one of the men Ol’ Ned just mentioned is a bachelor,” I answered, a sense of excitement in my tone because I felt like I’d just found one of the puzzle pieces we were looking for. “But more than that, they all haveonething in common. They got around with a lot of loose women before the Fog turned everything to hell, and even more after it.”
“Any women in particular they all have in common?” Dean asked me, eyeing me with interest as he nodded, knowing we were onto something.
“Ew, that sounds so gross when you put it like that,” Sicily said.
Dean just looked at her and shrugged while I searched my memory bank for an answer to his question. “Actually, there is one woman they all had in common. And one man who convenientlydidn’thave his house burned down… well, so far as we know.”
Ol’ Ned snapped his fingers, eyes brightening when he understood my meaning. “Sweet molasses! I think you got it!”
“Got what?” Sicily asked.
“Over the years, I’ve heard tell about each of those boys talking about a ‘Jeanie’ this and ‘Jeanie’ that.”
“Could that be a Jeanie…Thatcher?” Dean asked.
I looked at him and cocked my head to the side. “Could be. I never met the woman but it wouldn’t surprise me if she’s the missing link in this chain.”
“Jeanie Thatcher,” Bud repeated her name like he was trying it out on his tongue. Then he turned to face the boys. “Don’t that name sound right familiar?”
Boone was already nodding. “It sure d-d-does, Brother Bud.”
“It’s Jeanie Thatcher alright,” Ol’ Ned said. “I’d bet my ass cushion on it.”
Everyone in the room laughed at that except for me because my mind was still racing as it tried to put the pieces together. “If I remember correctly, one o’ Jeanie’s flames was a real nasty piece of work.”
“Nasty as in,” Dean started.
“As in Arnold feckin’ Gray,” Slim Jim concluded grimly.
***
Assuming the hellhound was Arnold Gray was the simple part.
Findinghim was a hell of a lot harder.
Arnie was the sort of man that people crossed the street to avoid. He’d had a temper before he’d started tweaking years back, and it had only gotten worse. I couldn’t imagine that turning into a hellhound had improved his mood much. And, truthfully, his monster alter-ego seemed to fit.
If Dean was right and the culprit wasn’t a crazy, that had to mean that someone had planned to hurt or kill Ethan Thatcher and the four other men whose houses had burned. And Arnie fit the ticket.
The problem? No one had kept track of him after he left Windy Ridge. Instead, we’d all breathed a collective sigh of relief and moved on with our lives. But, apparently, such wasn’t the case.
There was only one person I could think of who might know what had become of Arnie, and I had a devil of a time tracking her schedule, even though she was technically my boss. Dorcas had been taking long breaks, going days at a time before she’d bustle back to the diner, shouting and complaining as if she hadn’t disappeared for a week or more at a time. I hadn’t bothered to ask questions about her comings and goings, sure I’d get the brush off or a lecture about minding my own business. But now I needed her to talk to me, and I needed to get her outside of the kitchen to do it.
