Tom Cheney, who’s owned the furniture store in downtown Penacook for decades, is playing the waiting game these days.

The investigation to determine if the fire that destroyed his clearance center building was caused by an arsonist remains open. That same building, adjacent to Cheney Apple House at 191 Village Street, remains closed.

That’s not as serious as it sounds, though, since Cheney’s retail store which sells higher-quality, newer stock, is a separate entity from the clearance center where older items were sold.

Still, Cheney hopes the building, which is 10,000 square feet and remains boarded up, will be torn down soon to make room for another facility. He’s waiting for an insurance payout.

“I’m still dealing with the insurance company,” Cheney said this month. “That’s where I am right now. We can start as soon as they settle with me. It could happen in the next month or two.”

Cheney is planted deeply in the village’s landscape. He served in Vietnam and came home in 1970. He bought the store more than 40 years ago, replacing a skating rink.

During the wee hours of July 24, first responders were sent to Penacook Elementary School at 60 Village Street, where firefighters found the gazebo in the school’s playground engulfed by fire. That was under control by 2 a.m.

Next, at about 2:30 a.m., Concord firefighters and police were sent to the clearance center and saw what Concord Fire Chief John Chisholm called at the time a “heavy fire.”

Billows of black smoke moved skyward while flames spread inside. The damage was deemed under control at 4:42 a.m. and left piles of rubble, smashed windows and charred furniture in front of the building on Village Street.

Cheney said that little was salvageable.

It was impossible not to consider the back-to-back fires suspicious. They happened less than one mile apart, right after one another. The clearance center fire was called in at about 2:30 a.m., 30 minutes after the gazebo fire had been extinguished.

The Concord Fire and Police Departments are working with the Concord Fire Marshal’s Office to detect the cause of the fires.

“One might believe that the fires are related,” Concord Deputy Police Chief John Thomas said. “But this is still an active investigation, and arson is always the hardest to solve because the evidence is destroyed.”

Officials declined to say how long the investigation could last, if they had discovered an accelerant at either site that could suggest arson, or if they had any suspects.

Documents from the State Fire Marshal’s Office revealed that Adan Fanjoy and his K-9 partner, Anthem, were dispatched to both fires. The report said that Anthem had detected in soil and debris what might have been benzene, a highly flammable chemical.

“The significance of the presence of (benzene) could not be determined,” the documents read, following Fanjoy’s report, “and further analysis would be necessary to confirm the identification.”

Other substances similar to paint thinner, torch fuel, or charcoal starter were also found, but Concord Fire Marshal Paul Sirois declined to jump to conclusions.

“They’re both still under investigation and we’re waiting on a few interviews and we’re waiting on a few tests,” Sirois said. “Once we finish, we will write a report.”

Meanwhile, Cheney’s waiting.

“I am assuming it was arson,” he said. “There was another fire that night at the school. They checked it all out but I never heard a report.”