Barbara checked into it. She learned that her airport, and in fact the whole area including the desert land she had just invested, in were high insurance risks. Ironically, an insurance agent told her it was because of the danger of fires. She would not have been able to get insurance, or the premiums would have been extremely high. She believed Ken knew this, and so did the investment broker he had recommended to her.
It began to come clear to Barbara. It had all been part of Ken's plan to set her up for his investment scam. Maybe he had really owned the desert land and could not unload it on anyone else. Anyone but a newcomer to the area would know that part of the desert was destined to remain just a desert. Maybe he "sold" it to someone who owned it only on paper, but Ken was still the real owner. Now she wouldn't put it past him to connive such a scheme.
So much, Barbara thought, for "putting love" in Ken Knowland.
Leila confirmed Barbara's suspicions about Knowland when they and Edna talked about it at the ranch the night after the fire.
"He was jealous of your success," Leila said. "George told me he even heard him grumbling about it. When people just heard you were going to put on air shows at your airport, Ken's business began falling off. After all the publicity you got from just your first show, his bleachers were practically empty. And he was afraid you were going to get a US mail run. At first, I thought maybe he set the fire at your airport, to shut you down."
"That crossed my mind," Barbara said. "He's been a rat, but I can't think he would go that far to put me out of business. But the fires had been deliberately set. Investigators have told me now. It was arson. What cinched it, for me and them, was when Moose's lumberyard was destroyed by fire later the same night. That's down as arson, too."
Barbara would not admit it to her friends, but it did hurt, inside her. The man she had been falling in love with, and whom she had given herself to just nights before, seemed to now put himself out of her life.
"And that young man who tried to take you the night before the fire... could he have set them?" Edna asked.
"That handsome rich guy you told us about?" Leila added.
Barbara was certain now. "It was Chet Armstrong. Or he hired someone to set the fires."