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community.
    He pumped Chuck’s hand. “You’re amazing for being here. You sure you’re okay?”
    “I’m fine. I should get to class.”
    “I have Miss Hayes running interference.” Ray Hunt was old school. Women were Miss or Mrs . And the kids were never to use a teacher’s first name. “How did your house—”
    A thumping like Godzilla’s foot hit Chuck’s ears. He turned and saw a tricked-out pickup with fully amped gangsta blaring into the lot.
    One of the high schoolers. Chuck knew about him. Tommy Stone was his name. He’d almost been suspended a couple of times. He had an older brother who’d gone here, Jimmy Stone. A very bad seed, Jimmy was, so they said.
    Tommy drove by giving Ray and Chuck a look. A look.
    Chuck turned and was about to speak when he saw something he never expected to see on the headmaster’s face. But there it was, for a split second, before getting wiped off like a sheen of sweat.
    It was a look of fear.

Chapter 11

    An hour before lunch Chuck was introducing the class to the battles of Lexington and Concord when Rene Hayes, the office assistant, stuck her head in the door.
    Chuck said, “Can it wait? I’m about to fire the shot heard round the world.”
    Miss Hayes didn’t smile. “I don’t think it can.”
    Chuck went to the door.
    “Mr. Hunt needs you at the office,” she said, low so the kids couldn’t hear. “It’s the police.”
    “What?”
    “I’ll take class till lunch.”
    “Um, yeah, okay. Have them do the worksheet on page whatever it is.”
    To the class he said, “Miss Hayes is taking over for a bit. If you’re good, we’ll do the harpoon song this afternoon, with the props.”
    The kids cheered.
    Ray was waiting with the cops in the teachers’ lounge. He introduced an African American woman, maybe mid–forties and on the hefty side, as Detective Epperson. The other one, younger, white, was named Mooney.
    Then Ray excused himself, saying they wouldn’t be disturbed.
    “Thanks for your time,” Epperson said. She had friendly brown eyes. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”
    It sounded like she could have meant Julia. “What’s going on?”
    “We’d just like to ask you a few questions.”
    “About my house?”
    “The fire department handles that,” Epperson said. “We’re homicide detectives.”
    “Homicide?”
    “Let’s go to square one.” Epperson seemed calm, understanding. Mooney kept his lips pursed as he jotted notes. If this had been an interrogation, it would have been a no brainer to see the good cop-bad cop routine playing out.
    Epperson said, “Let’s start with how you first learned your house was on fire.”
    “I thought this wasn’t about the fire.”
    “This is about timing.”
    “Why is this important?”
    “If you’ll just bear with us for a few minutes,” Epperson said, “we’ll let you get back to teaching.”
    Fine. “I was driving home and I saw smoke, and that’s when I saw the fire.”
    “Were you driving home from here?”
    “No, I picked up my brother from work. He works at Ralphs.”
    Mooney said, “He was there from when to when?”
    “What does my brother have to do with this?” Chuck said. “You don’t think he had anything to do with a fire.”
    Epperson spoke through Mooney’s glare. “It’s just background for us, Mr. Samson.”
    “He was at work all day, he always is. Check it. I pick him up after I’m done at school. Around four-thirty or so, usually. I did that, we were driving home, I saw the smoke, I thought it was close to our house. It was our house. That’s how I found out.”
    Nodding, Epperson said, “Do you have any idea how it may have started?”
    Chuck wondered how much to tell them. The voice on the phone had warned him not to talk to the police. But he knew he wasn’t going to get very far on his own. He had to have help.
    “All right,” Chuck said. “Something weird happened to me yesterday. I was getting an early start, taking Stan in to the store, then I