Free Death is a Bargain (A Kate Kennedy Mystery Book 3) by Noreen Wald

K?” She’d asked Billy to call her that, wishing she could have said, “Call me, Nana.”
    The boy sounded worried. Oh, God, she didn’t want him to think his temporary sitter was a fruit loop.
    “No one, dear, just thinking out loud.”
    Billy gazed up at her through his thick lashes. “No one ever says ‘dear’ to me. I like it, but I’m Billy. William Robert Ford. Mommy says my daddy died.”
    Kate swallowed a gasp. She had to seem as if she were just making conversation and avoid any probing that might upset him. “I’m sorry, Billy. You must miss your father.”
    The boy clutched the fire truck to his chest as if he expected someone to snatch it away.
    “My daddy was a busy man. My mommy said so.”
    “You didn’t spend much time with him?”
    “No.” Billy sneezed, then pointed to the Big Top. “Look, Mrs. K, smoke! It’s good I have my fire fruck.”
    Kate gaped at the billowing smoke, suppressed a scream, and dialed 911.
    “Billy,” she said, trying to sound calm, “we need to get help. Let’s sit down here.” She gestured toward a patch of grass to their right, then turned her back, spoke to the 911 operator, and discovered that she was the fourth person to report the fire.
    The wide-eyed boy sat, then reached up and grabbed her free hand.
    She wanted to run around the Big Top to the corridor entrance and find Marlene and Ballou, but she couldn’t leave Billy alone, and she couldn’t put him in harm’s way. Frustrated, bordering on panic, she sank to her knees, still holding his hand.
    Off in the distance, Kate heard a bell ringing. She pointed to the flea market’s main entrance. “Over there, Billy, here comes a real fire engine.”
    Did she sound as terrified as she felt?
    Billy, enthralled by the clang of the fire engine’s bell, didn’t seem to share her fear. He waved at the firefighters as they sped by. A handsome, dark-haired young man tipped his hat and waved back.
    The Big Top, small for a circus site but still an enormous labyrinth of a tent, with sections for animals, dressing rooms, and food stands, had three ways to get in and out. A main entrance with a large, well-staffed booth where all tickets were sold in advance and long lines of people waited in the hot midday sun. A corridor entrance where prospective audience members, holding tickets, became customers, shopping in air-conditioned comfort while waiting to see the “second-greatest show on earth.”
    The corridor entrance, a wide double door, had a Cunningham clown perched on a stool behind a podium, collecting the pre-sold tickets. Its double door always remained closed during performances. The third entrance/exit on the northwest side of the Big Top featured a heavy, roll-up tent door, not unlike an oversized garage door, where the animals and equipment could be moved in and out as needed. Would that exit turn into bedlam as the animals tried to escape?
    The main entrance was less than a yard away. Kate recalled her tour with Sean yesterday, when he’d gone on and on about the wonderful traffic control. For the sake of the audience, the employees, and the animals, she hoped Sean’s flow plan would work as well as his mouth, but she worried about them all being trampled in a mass stampede.
    She watched in horror as people started running out and the first of the firefighters went running in. Even with their terrified screams and panicked pushing, the crowd, sharing a common purpose, seemed almost orderly. A burly young man scooped up a frail old lady and carried her to a shady spot under a palm tree.
    A second fire truck roared by.
    “Is my mommy in there?” Billy, visibly shaken, spoke through tears.
    Kate strained, trying to recall a five-year-old child’s level of comprehension. “If she is, Billy, the firefighters will get her out.”
    She pulled the boy close, hugged him hard, and prayed.

Fifteen

      
    Strange, with all that black smoke still spiraling from the tent, there wasn’t a flame in