Reed watched the water drowning the flames. “You’re going to have some damage, but nothing you can’t fix.”

The woman sucked in a sob, turned her face into her husband’s shoulder. “It’s our fixer-upper, Rob. We bought a fixer-upper.”

“It’ll be all right, Chloe. We’re going to make it all right.”

“Would you mind telling me what happened? What you know. Sorry.” Reed pulled out his ID. “Not just nosy.”

Chloe swiped at tears. “God. God. Custer, our dog, started barking and woke the baby. I was so mad because we’d barely gotten her down. She’s not sleeping through the night, and I’d just fed her at around two. It was just after three when Custer started barking, and the baby started crying.”

“I got up. My turn,” Rob said. “I got up, and I yelled at the dog. I yelled at him.” Rob bent down now to stroke the Lab, who leaned on him. “But he wouldn’t quit. I glanced out the window. It just didn’t register at first—the light—then I looked, and I saw the house next door. I saw the fire. I could see the fire through the windows of the house next door.”

“Rob yelled at me to get up, get the baby. I grabbed Audra, and Rob grabbed the phone to call nine-one-one while we were running out of the bedroom.”

“Something exploded.” Fire reflected in Rob’s eyes before he pressed his fingers to them. “It was just this boom. Our bedroom windows shattered.”

“The glass. If Custer hadn’t— The glass flew. Audra had been in her bassinet on the window side of our bed. If Custer hadn’t barked, woken us up, the glass…”

“That’s a good dog.”

“We ran out,” Chloe continued. “We didn’t even stop to get anything, just ran out while Rob called nine-one-one.”

“You did just right. You got your family out. That’s what matters. Fire’s out,” he told them.

“Oh God. It didn’t burn down. Rob, it didn’t burn down.”

“You’ll fix it, and I’m betting you’ll make something special out of it. Look, if you need anything—supplies, clothes, hands to help put things back together?” He pulled a card out of his pocket. “My mother’s always organizing something, so she knows a lot of people. I can hook you up.”

“Thank you.” Chloe knuckled another tear away while Rob slipped the card in his pocket. “Do you know when they’ll let us go back in? Go in and see?”

“That’ll be up to the fire department, and they’ll want to make sure it’s safe. Let me see if I can find out anything, maybe get somebody to talk to you.”

He moved off to one of the pumpers, spotted a sweat-and-soot-soaked Michael Foster.

“Michael.”

“Reed. What are you doing out here?”

“JJ Hobart’s mom—that used to be her house.”

Michael’s eyes sharpened in his soot-covered face. “You’re sure about that?”

“That’s my information.”

“Son of a bitch.” Michael sucked in air. “Son of a fucking bitch.” And released it in a hiss. “Hobart,” he murmured, “again.”

“I know, man. Look, have you got a minute?”

“Not now, but I will have in a few.”

“I’ll hang until you do. Meanwhile, that couple over there with the dog and the baby? That’s their house you guys just saved. Is there somebody who can talk to them?”

“Yeah, I’ll send somebody over. Hobart’s mother? Did she live alone?”

“As far as I know.”

“Then there’s not much left of her.”

Reed figured there wasn’t any harm in talking to some of the people still gathered outside, on the street, on their own lawns, on their porches.

The main impression he formed said Marcia Hobart hadn’t just kept to herself, she’d isolated herself. His secondary impression was the neighbors hadn’t known her relationship with the organizer of the DownEast Mall massacre.

“You, there!”

He turned, saw the old woman in a creaky rocker on a creaky porch. “Yes, ma’am.”

“You a reporter or some such?”

“No, ma’am, I’m a police officer.”

“You don’t look much like a police. You come on up here.”

She had a face like a raisin, golden brown and wrinkled beneath a snowball of hair. Glasses rested on the tip of her nose as she eyed him up and down.

“Good-looking boy, I’ll give you that. What kind of police are you?”

“Officer Reed Quartermaine, ma’am.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I’m trying to be good police.”

“Well, some are, some aren’t. Maybe you will be. Sit down here, ’cause I’m getting a crick in my neck looking up at you.”

He sat in the equally creaky chair beside hers.

“You being the police, you’d know who the woman was who died in that house tonight.” She pushed the glasses back up her nose to peer through them at the smoldering rubble across the street. “Maybe you’re not stupid police as you know to keep your mouth shut waiting to see if I know what I know. That poor woman had a son go bad on her, and he killed people. DownEast Mall.”

“Can I ask how you know that?”

“I pay attention, that’s how. I got clippings from back when it happened, and some have her picture. She didn’t age well since, but I saw who she was.”

“Did you talk to her, or anybody else about that?”

“Why would I?” With a sad shake of her head, she looked back at Reed. “She was just trying to live her life, to get by. I had a son go bad on me. He didn’t kill anybody, as far as I know, but he went bad all the same. I’ve got another son and a girl who make me proud every day. I did my best by all of them, but I had a son go bad. She was a sad, troubled woman.”

“Were you friendly with her?”

“She wasn’t friendly with anybody. She just holed up in there, went off to work, came back, and shut herself in.”

“Any visitors?” Reed prodded.

“The only person I ever saw go inside would be her daughter. She’d come by now and again, stay awhile. She’d bring groceries every couple weeks. Saw her bring flowers this past Mother’s Day. Did her duty.”

Patricia Hobart, Reed remembered. JJ’s younger sister. “Did you ever talk to the daughter?”

“Ayuh, a time or two. Polite, but closemouthed all the same. She asked me if there might be a young boy willing to cut the grass, shovel snow, and that sort of thing, so I told her to ask about Jenny Molar, two doors down there. She’s a good girl, helps me out when I need it—and more reliable than most boys. Jenny, she told me the daughter paid her what she asked, and told her not to bother her mother. How she wasn’t real well, and shy with it. So the daughter did her duty by her mother, no more, no less.”

He caught the tone. “No more?”

“That’s how I see it, but I have high standards.” She smiled, then looked back across the street. “Shame about the house. It wasn’t much, but it could’ve been better. The man who owns it isn’t worth a half bucket of spit, so he didn’t mind having it rented out to somebody who wouldn’t dog him about repairs. I guess he’ll collect his insurance and sell off the plot.”

While Reed considered that, she gave him another long study. “My grandson’s a police. Officer Curtis A. Sloop.”

“Seriously? Come on. I know Sloopy.”

She tipped down her glasses again. “Is that so?”

“Yes, ma’am. We went to the Academy together, and were rooks the same year. He’s good police.”

“He’s trying to be. If you talk to him before I do, you tell him you met his granny.” She offered a hand, small and delicate as a doll’s. “Mrs. Leticia Johnson.”

“I sure will, and I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs. Johnson.”

“You go be good police, young, good-looking Reed Quartermaine. And maybe you’ll come by and see me sometime.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He left her rocking, hunted up Michael. Found him talking with Essie.

“Your case?” he asked her.

“It is now.” With her hands on her hips, she studied the wreck and rubble. “The arson investigator’s already in there, so we’ll see. Official ID of the body’s going to take awhile.”

“I hear the landlord isn’t big on repair and maintenance.”

Essie slanted him a look. “Is that what you hear?”

“Mrs. Leticia Johnson—her grandson’s on the job. I know him, he’s solid. She’s sitting on the porch across the street. You’ll want to talk to her. Chloe and Rob, from the house next door, were awakened by their dog barking about three a.m. Rob got up, as the barking woke up the baby in the baby thing beside the bed. He saw the fire, got his wife up, grabbed the phone to call it in while they headed out. The explosion came next, shattered their bedroom windows.”

Essie’s eyebrows lifted. “You’ve been busy, Officer.”

“Well, I was here anyway. She lived alone, didn’t socialize, didn’t have visitors except for the daughter. The daughter came by occasionally, brought groceries every couple weeks, hired a local kid to cut the grass, shovel snow in the winter.”

“You bucking for a gold shield, Officer Quartermaine?”

He smiled. “Next year.” He turned to Michael. “Do you think arson?”