Free Clouds without Rain by P. L. Gaus Page A

to do what we can for our son,” Lenora said.
    “Things are very preliminary right now,” Branden offered.
    “I want to put them out of business,” Denny insisted. “Lenora and I. We’re not going to bury our son and just let it go at that.”
    “I’m sorry, but I can’t go to Chicago right now,” Branden said.
    “What do we have to do, Professor?” Denny complained, sitting back and shaking his head.
    Lenora took hold of her husband’s hand and said, “It’s all right, Denny. We’ll do it ourselves. We always have, anyway.” She looked reproachfully at Branden.
    “You can do better than me, at any rate,” Branden said. “I don’t know Chicago. And I’m not a licensed investigator.”
    Lenora had her purse open now, and she stuffed her tissues into the bottom of it. There was a look of determination in her eyes, almost bordering on spite. “If you won’t help us, we’ll do it ourselves.”
    “Mrs. Smith,” Branden said. “Please. I really can’t help you. But you don’t have to do it yourselves, either.”
    Lenora was on her feet, now, and she had her husband standing, too.
    Branden stood up and said, “Hire a Chicago detective.”
    Lenora stood in place and thought. Some of the indignation faded from her expression. Somewhat hopefully, she said, “We don’t know any Chicago detectives.”
    “I do,” Branden asserted.
    He excused himself, climbed the carpeted stairs to his study on the second floor, and came down holding a business card.
    The Smiths were standing close together at the front door. He handed over the business card and said, “Get in touch with Bill Keplar. He’s a good PI, and you can trust him.”
    The Smiths studied the card, and Denny slid it into his shirt pocket. As he opened the front door for his wife, Smith said, “Somebody’s going to pay for our Brad. Somebody’s sure gonna pay.”

9
    Thursday, August 10
8:00 A.M.
     
     
    BRANDEN heard the sirens early Thursday morning, while standing at the kitchen sink eating cold cereal. Out of curiosity, when he drove off the college heights in the east end of town, he swung hard right onto Route 62 and drove slowly eastward. Soon he found water spilling onto the highway from one of the country driveways. A hundred yards farther down the road, he took in a startled breath and turned to climb the long, curving blacktop drive to Britta Sommers’s house on a wooded hill.
    The tires of his truck splashed through a steady flow of running water on the drive, and he could see dark smoke and billowing steam ascending beyond the stand of pines that blocked the view of her house from the road. As he came around the pines and made the turn at the switchback to her house, the firemen were coiling their hoses, pulling down hot spots, and extinguishing the last flames at the back of Sommers’s sprawling brick ranch house, where a large kitchen with tall windows had previously offered a peaceful view of the woods on the hill behind the house.
    Branden stopped and backed his truck into the trees beside the drive. He approached the house on foot and saw that the front was nearly untouched by the flames. At the side of the house, the fire had spread along the roof line and burnt to the peak. The back roof had been laid open by the blaze, and the back of the house was a shambles of sooted brick and charred wood, water dripping freely from the remains of the roof, the walls, and the door and window frames. At the back, all of the windows had been shattered either by the fire or by the firemen, and blackened wood, soot, and splinters floated on the water that was still running out of the house at foot level. The grass around the back of the house had been trampled to mud, and the flower beds beside the house were littered with charred boards, roofing shingles, ladders, high pressure hoses, and broken glass and window trim.
    He could see that nearly all of the inside kitchen walls had been destroyed, as had those of an adjoining study at the