Chapter 6
Tucker and Addie walked toward the crowd. “I suppose we should be watching Bernie’s reaction?” she murmured to Tucker.
“Absolutely,” he said, his voice equally quiet. “It’s the dog I’ll be focusing on,” he said. “So let’s see what Bernie comes up with.”
As they walked toward the crowd, it opened slightly as Rodney stepped back to include them. He introduced them to various workers and the one insurance adjuster here.
“What kind of dog is that?” one of the guys said.
“A War Dog,” Tucker said easily. And then gave a short explanation of what she’d been doing in the military. For Addie, it was interesting to see the men’s reactions. Everybody was smiling and happy to see the dog. However, one guy wasn’t. He caught her gaze on him and looked at her a little warily. Maybe he was scared of dogs, which was fair, because a lot of people were scared of large dogs.
Nobody questioned who she was, so she presumed they all thought that she was Tucker’s partner. And that was okay with her right now. She looked over at the adjuster, busily taking notes, who seemed to be in a private conversation with Rodney. Finally the two men shook hands, and the adjuster walked away. Addie looked at Rodney, one eyebrow raised. He just smiled and nodded at her. She realized that nobody else understood what was going on either. One of the crew turned to Rodney and asked, “So when can we go back to work?”
“Waiting on the insurance,” he said with a nod toward the adjuster who just left. “He’ll give me a report in the next two days, and we should be back to work then.”
“Right,” the guy said with an eye-roll. “Like that’ll happen.”
“How many weeks does this set you back?” Addie asked Rodney.
“Because of where we were at in the construction process,” he said, “I’ll have to get new rafters brought in and new trusses, but probably,” he frowned and said, “maybe two weeks.”
“That’s not too bad,” she said, “considering that you’re so much more ahead on the other units.”
“Sure but we generally don’t sell or have move-ins until everything’s completed,” he said. “So, in theory, two weeks is quite disastrous.”
“But it’s two weeks, not four weeks or four months,” she said, reminding him.
He chuckled. “Yes, but every day in our world is about money,” he said. “So it doesn’t sound like a whole lot for somebody not in the industry, but it makes a huge difference in my world.”
“I guess,” she said. She didn’t understand, but she saw the other guys were nodding with him. She thought about all the wages that went into keeping a crew on board and ready and able to work, even though they didn’t put in an hour of labor, and thought that she might have a better understanding.
“Maybe we should head back now,” Tucker said. He looked down at Addie. “Are you ready to go home?”
She smiled, nodded, and tucked her hand into his, as they walked around the crowd and headed toward Tucker’s truck. As they passed a couple vehicles in the parking lot where two men stood nearby, the dog stopped, and her tail went down. Bernie looked at Tucker, but he pulled on her leash, trying to move her. He stopped, looked at her, and asked, “What’s the matter, girl?”
Several vehicles were parked here, and the group of people had now reformed in front of them. He looked at the two men who had been standing here. He didn’t know how they were any different from the others. They were just extra crewmen to him. But not to the War Dog. He looked at Bernie and smiled, as he crouched and cuddled her gently. “Can you smell it again?”
Given Bernie’s reaction, Tucker knew he needed to check every one of the vehicles. He said to Addie, “Let’s go for a walk.” Then Tucker turned to Rodney. “I’ll just take Bernie over there, so she can have a look.” And he headed down toward the rougher side of the property, where it wasn’t paved, and then he bent to talk to Bernie. “Do you want to go to work?”
Her ears immediately lifted, and she barked. With that, he uncoupled her leash and led her through the vehicles, up to one side and down the other. She sniffed and sniffed and sniffed, and, when they got to the far end, they reached a vehicle that had been here when they arrived, parked beside two newer arrivals. As Bernie went back and forth, she finally stopped and gave a short bark at a particular vehicle and sat down. Tucker walked over and gave her treats. “Good girl,” he said. “You’re a very good girl.”
Tucker looked over at the group, still talking among themselves, and yelled out, “Rodney, can you come here for a sec?”
Rodney nodded, made his excuses, and headed to where Tucker stood. “What’s up?”
“Whose vehicle is this?” he asked.
He looked around and said, “I’m not sure. It was here this morning.”
“Well, the dog has sensed something, as far as I can tell, about this vehicle.”
Rodney looked at Tucker, then at the dog.
Tucker walked around the vehicle in question. The driver’s side door was unlocked. Tucker pulled it open, popped the trunk, and, sure enough, inside were gas cans, gloves, matches, some other accelerants, containers, and paper. Even small pieces of wood. He looked at Rodney and said, “Well, this is your arsonist’s vehicle.”
He stood there, swearing gently under his breath.
“Do you know whose it is?”
He shook his head. “I don’t.”
As Tucker looked over, Addie opened up the passenger side and got in the glove box and pulled out the paperwork. She walked toward Tucker and Rodney. “Paperwork’s here.” She handed it over.
Rodney snatched it from her hand, looked at it, and said, “I don’t know this name.”
“And it’s possible the owner has nothing to do with the arson either. The vehicle could have been stolen,” Addie said.
“That could be possible too.” At that, Tucker pulled out his phone and called Badger. Addie watched him and then frowned at Rodney. “Shouldn’t we call the police?” she asked in a low voice.
“You mean, call them again,” Rodney said, but he pulled up his phone and made some phone calls himself.
She stepped back, while the men were talking.
Tucker looked at her over his phone. He reached out a hand, she immediately placed hers in it. He whispered to her, while Badger was talking, “Are you okay?”
She nodded slowly. “I am. This is all just so weird,” she murmured.
He squeezed her fingers, let her go, and returned to his call.
Chapter 7
Addie walked around the car, noting no license plate in front or at the back of the vehicle, which gave more credence to the fact that it was likely stolen. But, at the same time, why would it have been left here? As she thought about it, it made more sense to leave it if it were stolen. The arsonist didn’t want to get caught in a stolen vehicle. Plus they didn’t have to take their mess with them and get caught with that either.
She stared at the mass of people still gathered here and realized that all the men were now watching them, but nobody approached. She shivered and walked closer to Tucker. He was off the phone now. As she stepped up, she said, “Are they all just watching this?”