Chapter Nine
“Are you saying someone tried to kill me?” Mel was reminded of Florence and the flashing blade of a knife. She hung on to her pendant, trying not to broadcast her fear. Breathe in, breathe out.
“No, ma’am,” the chief replied. “I’m saying that it appears there was a hole in your gas tank or hose or something, and the gas fumes ignited. It was probably set off by the pilot light on your—”
“I didn’t smell gas. Not until the fire started,” Mel said. “Just smoke.”
“I’m simply telling you what the guys saw out there.”
“I don’t see how they could see anything. There wasn’t anything left.” Nothing. Not a scrap of clothes or books. Well, there were pieces, but that was all. Little scorched pieces.
“They found enough to determine that the gas tank exploded, and that it had been leaking prior to the explosion.”
“But holes don’t just appear in gas tanks. Why would it start leaking like that?”
“Well, rocks and debris fly up and—”
“But I haven’t driven the thing anywhere in months. I’ve been overseas and I didn’t smell a thing when I got home.”
“Could just be wear and tear on the hose or connections. Look, Miss Noblett, I’m sure your insurance company will decide if they need to investigate. But right now, it looks like an accident.” The fire chief squinted. “Unless you have a reason to think someone did this on purpose?”
Sure, she’d pissed off a lot of people, but she couldn’t imagine any of them coming after her like this. They would be more inclined to smear her reputation, the way Meyer had with Daniel.
She gave the chief her best plucky smile.
“Not really. Just my reporter instincts going wild, I guess. What else do I need to do? I notified my insurance company. I arranged for someone to remove the wreckage once the adjuster comes out. Do you need anything else from me?” She sent waves of calm and resignation.
“No, ma’am,” he said. “But…do you have a place to stay?”
“I’ll probably visit my parents in Texas until I figure out what to do. For tonight, I have a motel. I’ll head out after my new cell phone shows up at the park tomorrow.”
She stood and extended her hand, then realized it was still covered in soot from picking through the remains of her belongings, not that she had salvaged anything. She wiped it on her slacks and shook his hand firmly. “Thank you so much.”
He stood as well. “I’m really sorry we couldn’t save anything for you, Miss Noblett. You sure you’ll be all right?”
“I’ll manage.”
Leaving the fire station and heading toward the motel, she thought about how she had told Daniel that her home was the road. Now she literally was living on the road. Whatever roots she might have put down here had become so much ash.
Damn. She was crying again. The whole city of Crescent Cove would be weeping with her tonight if she didn’t watch herself.
Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration.
Focus. Focus on the next step. She would get the bare necessities, including a bottle of prosecco, then check in to the motel and call her parents to calm them down, again.
Then she would call Lance. Together, they would hold a nice long wake for her RV and her wardrobe and her books and her photos and her precious cell phone, which had saved her life, bless its tiny, melted heart.
She scrubbed her hand across her face, then looked at the soot streaks on her clothes. Oh well. Walmart saw a lot worse on a daily basis. There was a website dedicated to that very fact.
A couple of hours later, she was propped up on her bed in the motel, freshly scrubbed and wearing her favorite nightshirt.
For once, she was thankful she never managed to unpack between trips and that she had grabbed her backpack on the way out.
The clothes in there had survived, including her favorite patchwork jacket.
She had a bottle of prosecco, a plastic cup, and two bags of salt and vinegar chips to keep her company.
However, any calm she’d felt evaporated once she made contact with Lance, whose voice got strident whenever he was upset.
“So, are you sure you’re all right? I mean, for fuck’s sake, your RV blew up and I couldn’t reach you for hours.”
“My phone went up too, remember? I had to grab the basics: toothbrush, shampoo, underwear.” She spoke very slowly into the motel’s clunky plastic phone handset. “Luckily the contacts list on my laptop is updated, or you still wouldn’t have heard from me.”
“Oh, stop. It freaked me out. You could have been killed,” he squeaked.
“Have you got your champagne poured?” Mel asked.
“I drank half the bottle waiting for you to call.”
“Have some more.”
She heard him glug the stuff like Kool-Aid. “I can’t imagine how scared you must’ve been.”
“I’m fine. It was some kind of gas tank rupture,” she said. She could hear the chief’s voice in her head. Unless you have a reason to think someone did this on purpose.
Mel had that someone-just-walked-over-my-grave feeling.
“Jeez, Mel. A total loss, huh?”
“Pretty much.” She took a long drink. “I saved my laptop and a few things, but the rest is toast. And let me tell you, waiting for the insurance is going to hurt. Plus the darn deductible. I’m going to have to write a long piece just to recoup what I paid for a new cell phone.”
“Shit. I hadn’t even thought of that.” There was another gulp. “You’ve got all your stuff backed up somewhere, right?”
“Oh yeah. The electronic material is safe. All hail the cloud. The hardcopy, not so much.”
The very first article she had published in a magazine was gone. Damn. She had forgotten about all the full copies as well as tear sheets that had fueled the fire. Maybe her parents had kept some copies of things. Parents did that sort of thing.
“I can get you copies of our stuff if you need any of it,” he offered.
“Thanks, Lance,” she said, but her mood was dampened.
“I suppose, with the whole explosion thing, you didn’t get in touch with Dr. Woodruff?” he asked in an apologetic tone.
“Not yet. But I am still planning on getting a rebuttal from him regarding those quotes you sent.”
“If anyone can do it, you can,” Lance said absently.
“You sound guilty. You make me nervous when you sound guilty.”
“Yeah. I spoke to the writer who got those quotes,” Lance said. “Meyer was making some… Well, they were…”
“Spit it out.”
“They hinted around that, because of Dr. Woodruff’s outlier status, they might have to reconsider future grants to any institution where Dr. Woodruff teaches.” He seemed relieved to get it out. “No outright threats, of course. Just insinuations.”
“Of course. And I’m sure they planned for that tidbit to be passed along to me and right on to him.” Mel looked at her empty plastic glass, tossed it on the floor and took a swig straight from the bottle. “Dammit. I feel terrible about this. If I hadn’t—”
“Come on, Mel. Don’t blame yourself. He started down this road when he riled them up with his research results and then turned up his nose at their grant offers. Even if you pull it—”
“I know, but if you knew what I went through to get that interview.” She didn’t regret any of it, but the thought didn’t make her feel any better. “I swear. I am going to find some dirt to throw on Meyer. Something big. Maybe about those nanopesticides.”
“Good luck with that. Not even the regulators have a grip on that stuff, much less the public.”
Mel could tell that Lance was a bit tipsy. His liver still metabolized alcohol like a teen at his first kegger.
“It’s a mess,” he went on. “Between the herbicide-resistant weeds and the new herbicide-resistant-weed herbicides and the insecticide-resistant… Where was I?”
Mel didn’t feel like laughing. “It so frustrating watching them get away with things like this over and over again. It’s bribery and extortion done in a neat and legal way, in the boardroom with research grants instead of in a parking lot with semiautomatics.”
“That was good. You need to write that one down,” Lance sounded a bit more cheerful now.
She knew how Daniel would react to Meyer’s implied threats.
He certainly wouldn’t do an about-face on his conclusions.
No. Daniel would give up his career rather than put his university and his colleagues in jeopardy.
And she couldn’t think of any way to salvage the situation.
Damn. It wasn’t fair. Standard operating procedure for Meyer.
It was funny. She should be mourning the fact that her article might never see the light of day. Instead, she was worried about Daniel.
“I’ve changed my mind. Kill the story for now. I am not going to have any part in this, period. It was on spec, Lance,” she said. “Whoever is licking Meyer’s feet can spin their crap for you all by their lonesome.”
“Hold it. Hold it. At least wait until you’ve talked to him to—”
“No. I don’t want my byline on anything those corporate drones have even breathed on,” she said. “You want an article about Meyer? You already have someone to write it. My stuff either stands on its own or it doesn’t, period.”
“Mel, wait. Shit. You made me drink this stuff on purpose.” She could tell that Lance was trying to work his way out of the fog. “This is a great interview. We don’t want to lose this material, but… We can’t ignore what Meyer is saying.” The last part was nearly a whisper.
Mel took another swig of the prosecco. “Lance, he is a good man. He’s standing up for all the things you and I believe in. I’m don’t want to be a part of ruining him.”
She heard more gulps and there was a long pause. “You get some good, solid rebuttal quotes from him to anything Meyer’s experts came up with and…and I’ll see what I can do.”
Mel knew Lance couldn’t do much. She would be stuck with the Meyer garbage in her article, and that was not going to happen. “We’ll see. I’m just going to make sure Daniel isn’t blindsided by what Meyer is planning.”
“I wish you had talked to me about this first,” said Grace.
Daniel watched as his sister paced back and forth on the porch. Even Pooka’s ears were reacting to her tone of voice.