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pole and drank a cold Pepsi that Doodle had found for me after my public puking performance. The can was icy and I held it against the back of my neck as I gulped in fresh air. It was only ten o’clock and already the July day was hotter than two foxes fucking in a forest fire.
    “Know that woman?” Maynard Pope appeared at my elbow again. I jumped at the sound of his stridently nasal voice.
    “Jesus. You always sneak up on people like that?” I glared at him, irritated.
    “Sorry. It’s my job. Didn’t mean to scare you.” He was old for an active fireman, more than sixty, I’d say, and he rolled the words around in his mouth like Popeye before he spoke. “Know that woman over there?” he repeated.
    I followed his gaze. A slender woman of medium height, with straight brown hair, was standing alone at the edge of td hhe edgehe front lawn, sobbing into a white handkerchief. Her white cotton dress billowed in the breeze, giving her the air of an apparition posed against the backdrop of black, charred ruins.
    “No, but I’ll find out who she is,” I volunteered, thinking of the voice on Nash’s answering machine the night before. I had a pretty good idea of what she was, even if I didn’t know her name.
    She faked me out. With surprising quickness, the woman turned her back on the fire and hurried back to the street, hopping into the passenger side of a late-model Sentra that was parked at the curve just beyond the parameters of the taped crime scene area. The car sped off before I reached it.
    “Quick, ain’t she?” That damn Maynard Pope was like a ghost. I flinched. Maybe what I really needed was a good long nap.
    “So who was that?” he demanded. He’d stuck a toothpick in his mouth and it bobbed up and down while he spoke.
    “The victim had a girlfriend,” I explained. “I think it was her.”
    “What else do you know about this Thomas Nash?” the arson investigator asked. “Who was harassing him?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “You go first. What have you found out so far about the fire?”
    He stared at me, content to hold his ground. I held mine right back.
    “Can’t tell you,” he finally said.
    I shrugged. “Coincidence. My information is confidential, too.”
    His small eyes flickered, but I stared back, determined to wait him out. I couldn’t afford not to. He held the magic keys to the fire. No way I was giving information away for free.
    “I’ll trade you,” I finally volunteered, once it became obvious that we were now in a pissing match rather than a mere staring contest. “You tell me one piece of information and I’ll tell you something I know about the victim in return.”
    His mouth twitched. “Not very trusting, are you?” he said.
    I shook my head. “Nope.”
    It was like pulling teeth from a tiger, but in the end I found out what I needed to know. Judging by where he was found and his position, Thomas Nash had likely beer=“d likeln knocked unconscious before the fire even started. Maynard was willing to bet that Nash had died of smoke inhalation following the blow. Accelerant had been found at various spots throughout the basement and first floor. Maybe even on the upper floors, too. They had to wait until the floors were shored up before they could confirm it.
    “In other words,” I said. “This was no accident.”
    “Definitely not an accident,” the little man agreed. “More like murder.” He gave me a thin smile. “Stick around. The cops are on their way.”
    Funny thing, me and Durham cops. I got the hell out of there.

CHAPTER THREE
     
    “Good thing I deposited his check right away.” This was all the ever-sensitive Bobby D. had to say when I informed him later that afternoon that Thomas Nash was not only dead but Extra-Krispy in the bargain. Bobby had the decency to look guilty at his remark, though it didn’t stop him from assaulting a large garbage pizza. His face was smeared with a sheen of oil and tomato sauce, making him look like a