Page 63 of The Homewreckers
“Not as bad as it could have been. You’ve got some smoke damage to that wooden siding and the back porch, but we knocked it back pretty quick.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much,” Hattie said.
“Looks like it could be a cool old house,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “I ride my bike past here all the time, but I had no idea something this nice was way back in here, what with all the weeds and junk out front.”
“It’s nearly a hundred years old,” Hattie said.
“Somebody said y’all are shooting a movie or something here?”
“It’s a television show. About fixing up an old house. It’s calledThe Homewreckers.”
He laughed, turned his head, coughed, then spat something into the grass.
“Y’all need to talk to your contractor, ma’am. They ought to know better than to throw those oily rags and stuff into an open dumpster like that. If we’d gotten here ten minutes later than we did, you’d be looking at a big old pile of cinders right now.”
“I’m the contractor,” Hattie said. “And I’ll definitely speak to my crew about that.”
She heard the crunch of tires on the drive and turned to see a red SUV rolling toward them. “That’s our chief,” the firefighter said, taking one last gulp of Gatorade. “He’s gonna need to talk to you for his report.”
Hattie was still giving the fire chief her contact information when the Tybee police cruiser came bumping down the drive.
The chief waved and the police car pulled alongside them. The window of the cruiser lowered and she recognized the driver. It was Makarowicz, the detective she’d met the previous week, after they’d discovered Lanier Ragan’s wallet in the wall.
“We meet again,” he said. “Everything okay?”
“Dumpster fire,” the fire chief said. “My guys are about ready to roll out.” He nodded at Hattie. “We’ll be in touch if we need anything else from you. I’ll send an investigator out tomorrow, just as a formality.”
“Want to take a look?” the cop asked.
“I do, but I’m dreading what I’ll find,” Hattie admitted.
“We got company,” Makarowicz said, shielding his eyes from the headlights of an approaching car.
“Trae,” she exclaimed. “I completely forgot he was still here.”
The white Lexus came to a stop a few yards away. She reached the car just as he was getting out.
“How’s the house?” Trae asked. “I was starting to get worried.”
“See for yourself,” Hattie said, pointing toward the house. “Still standing. The firemen said the blaze was mostly contained in the dumpster. Sorry. The fire chief needed my info for his report, and then Detective Makarowicz, from last week, just got here and wants to talk to me.”
Trae shifted uneasily from one foot to the other.
“You should go ahead and head back to town,” Hattie urged. “There’s nothing you can do here tonight.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. Sorry to end the night on such a sour note. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Okay.” He leaned in and his lips grazed her cheek.
The acrid smell of charred wood and chemicals grew stronger as Hattie and Makarowicz approached the rear of the house.
“That your boyfriend?” Mak asked.
“Trae? No. He’s, uh, he’s the designer on the show. We had dinner earlier, and he was bringing me back here to pick up my truck when I smelled the smoke from the fire.”
Makarowicz played the beam of his flashlight over the back of the container, which was now a blackened, hulking chunk of steel. The front hatch had been unlocked and a mound of unrecognizable cinders spilled onto the scorched ground around it.
