Free Guilty Until Proven Innocent by Sarah Billington

The night the Gabarski house caught fire was a real event. The whole town turned out – it’s not like you could have ignored that it was happening. Black smoke puffed straight up into the sky and the flames roared and crackled, licking at the timbers, support beams unsettling and crashing straight down into the living room. The night was lit with orange and shadows, shadows dancing all down Bridge Street as slowly we all came outside, wandering over from next door, a couple of blocks away, we watched in shock as the California bungalow family home burned down.
    The sounds of fire was soon drowned out as every fire truck in Carringwood roared down the usually sleepy streets, sirens deafening us all, horn blaring as Kenny Buchanan slammed his palm into the steering wheel again and again, the horn blaring as he swore at us sticky-beaks to get off the road or get caught in the hubcaps.
    They flooded the building with water and the Gabarski’s, Shana and the two kids under ten, Rita and Renee huddled together, shadows flickering over their bleary-eyed, soot-smeared faces as they watched their lives change forever. Craning my neck, searching through the crowd, peering at the faces of concerned friends and neighbors that huddled near their shell-shocked loved ones, I couldn’t spot Peter, Mr. Gabarski anywhere. I guess he wasn’t home. I felt sorry for whoever was going to make that phone call.
    The Sheriff waved Paddy O’Mara through the crowd and he pulled the ambulance in beside the fire trucks. Paddy took the Gabarski’s to hospital for smoke inhalation, the fire was soon drowned and the excitement over. Slowly the crowd shuffled in their slippers back to their homes, wrapping their dressing gowns tightly around themselves as they relived the excitement and horror of what they saw with anyone and everyone around them.
    I walked home by myself, glad for the Gabarski’s, that Shana, Rita and Renee were alright. But I couldn’t help but wonder where Peter was. And what exactly had started that fire.
    The next morning, the early birds were already seated and faces turned toward me as the sensor above the café door chimed cheerily as I entered, unraveling my scarf from around my neck.
    Without even glancing at the register, I knew it must have been Noah who opened this morning, and it was confirmed by a “Wassup, D” from behind the coffeemaker. Bodecker’s Café felt as if the oven had been left on, and open all night, flooding the whole building with heat. As I made my way around the counter and nodded at my friend, I took in the short sleeved linen shirt and shorts, flip-flops on his feet.
    “You do know you’re not in Tahiti anymore, right?” I said as I cranked the central heating knob down. “You’re fogging up the windows.”
    “So?”
    “People are sweating,” I added, pushing my sweater sleeves up my arms. “No one around here expected they’d be having breakfast in the tropics.”
    “It’s cool, man,” Noah said, shaking chocolate powder onto the top of a takeaway latte.
    “Everyone likes a vacation now and then.”
    I slapped him over the back of the head with an order pad and scooted back away from the counter before he could retaliate. It wasn’t actually wise to roughhouse with Noah. A light tap to the head might encourage him to tackle me through the plate glass window. All in fun, of course. Misguided fun, but fun all the same.
    “So how about the bonfire last night, huh?” Noah said. “Pretty righteous. I was thinking of getting marshmallows.”
    “You were there?”
    Noah narrowed his eyebrows at me, like I was stupid. “Dude, everyone was there.”
    “Yeah,” I said. I probably hadn’t spotted him in the crowd.
    “You know who wasn’t there?” I turned around to see old Mrs. Pomphrey and Garry Saunders sitting at their regular table, the one with the worn red formica, Sunday morning fry ups and mugaccinos set in front of them.
    “Who wasn’t there, Mrs. P?” I said. The