Free Hot Water by Maggie Toussaint Page A

Pirate’s Cove. Are the Foxworths the type to torch the place for the insurance money?”
    “I don’t think so. Besides, it will cost them more to replace the restaurant than the insurance payout. If they replace it. Nothing there now except ghosts.”
    “You think ghosts set the fire?”
    “Ghosts are good for tourism. Arsonists aren’t. We need property buyers. Make that arson investigator fall in love with you so he’ll stick around. Then I’ll make him buy something from me. I’ve got four nice waterfront listings to sell.”
    Laurie Ann fingered the rim of her ginger ale glass. “Wyatt’s a short-timer.”
    “That’s a crying shame. Especially with him being so tall and all.”
    She caught her friend’s eye. “And such a good kisser.”
    “I knew it.”

Chapter 15
    Sunday dawned with an ugly squall, keeping all but the most devout out of St. Luke’s Episcopal, but Laurie Ann was glad of the low attendance. Fewer people to ask her questions about the man who’d accompanied her to the picnic. Fewer people to hail her as a hero for finding little Taylor Sutton. Fewer people to grill her about her new assignment.
    By late afternoon, the sun came out, and Laurie Ann worked in her flower garden. The simple motions of tugging out dollar weed, clover, and Virginia creeper kept her hands occupied. But not her mind.
    James Brown had been murdered.
    She yanked out the withered leaves from last season’s lilies, feeling the dry husks crumble in her hand. When she was a kid, James Brown had worked odd jobs for families. Her father had invited him to dinner several times, and he’d eaten twice as much as either of them. She remembered thinking what a big appetite he had for such a small man. Another memory surfaced. He sang while he raked leaves and painted the house. Gospel music. She hadn’t thought about that for years.
    The last two times she’d rousted Brown, once from the highway convenience store and the other time from the Catholic churchyard, she’d been sharp with him. Her father always had a kind word for the drifter, and he must have had similar run-ins with Brown when he worked the city beat. How did her father rise above what Brown had become and treat him like the man he used to be? She was embarrassed that she’d seen the man only as an obstacle. His noncompliance made her look bad.
    She rocked back on her heels, thoughts whirling. She’d become her job, and she wasn’t the hotshot officer she thought she was. She’d lost sight of helping people. People in Mossy Bog respected her father, even though he’d retired and devoted the last five years of his life to hunting and fishing, he still commanded their respect.
    What would folks say about her in twenty years? Would they remember her callous treatment of James Brown and other homeless people? Or would they remember her for finding little Taylor Sutton? Would she be defined by what she didn’t do or what she did?
    Her pocket chirped.
    The phone.
    Wyatt’s name flashed on the display. Her smile went bone-deep at the sound of his deep, rumbling voice.
    “I’m headed your way,” Wyatt said.
    She pressed the phone closer, hungry for his news. “Was it your arsonist?”
    “Not hardly. An amateur started this fire. The burn was less complete. No structures were involved, and no one died.”
    He sounded disappointed. “Those are good things,” she reminded him.
    “I need to catch this guy.”
    “You will. When one of my cases stalls, I go back to square one. There’s usually another line of inquiry buried somewhere in the information.”
    “I’ve been over the files so many times I can practically recite them. If anything was there, I’d have found it by now.”
    “I’ve been thinking about our case,” she began. “About tangential information.”
    “Yeah?”
    “James Brown wasn’t always the town drunk. He did odd jobs for a long time, and he was a good worker. Daddy occasionally brought him out to the house and gave him