A Gala Event (28 page)

“Must be nice, having that kind of roots,” Kevin said, taking a large swallow of his beer. “I mean, our house was about the same age, but Dad liked it mostly because it was big and showy and in the right part of town, not because we had any real history with it.”

Minefield alert
, Meg thought, even though it was Kevin who had brought it up. “What's it like where you live now?”

Kevin shrugged. “Nothing special. I don't have a family, so I live in a small apartment. I don't spend much time there anyway. Mind if I have another beer?”

He'd finished the first one fast. Was he nervous? “Help yourself, Kevin,” Meg told him. “Lori, where are you living now?”

“I rent a floor in a house in a small town—well, bigger than Granford, maybe, but hardly a city. Hey, you guys, I've got a futon if either one of you wants to come and visit.” Lori looked at each of her brothers in turn, with mute appeal in her eyes. Both men avoided her glance.
Yes, a warm and connected family
, Meg thought to herself.
Not.
When had it all gone wrong? Or had it ever been right?

Dinner lurched along with conversation in fits and starts. At least Meg hadn't assumed it was a purely social occasion, because in that case it would have to be called a failure. Maybe it was the pending discussion of What Really Happened that had put a damper on the evening. Aaron was mostly silent but watchful. Kevin kept drinking, becoming increasingly morose. Lori tried to fill the silences with cheerful babble, for which Meg was grateful. But she had to admit she was anxious herself. As she had told Seth, she just wanted this to be over so they could all move on.

When the bowls were all empty after the main course,
Meg decided it was time to act. Seth cleared the table, and they exchanged a glance; he nodded, then sat down again. “Aaron, Lori, Kevin, I'm sure you know I, we, wanted to talk to you about what we've learned about the fire that destroyed your home.”

Meg took a moment to survey the siblings' responses. Aaron looked briefly hopeful; Kevin looked upset; Lori looked something like eager. It was Lori who spoke first. “Have you found something new?”

“Possibly, although it doesn't answer all the questions,” Meg said. “And what we've uncovered isn't always pleasant to hear, I'm afraid.”

“Just go ahead and spit it out, will you?” Aaron said, although not rudely.

“All right,” Meg began. “From documents we've seen, the ones that Aaron came looking for, and from people we've talked to, it looks like your father was a con man. I can't speak to his official job, but he created a shell investment fund that was mainly a Ponzi scheme.” When Lori looked blank, Meg explained what that was, until Lori nodded. “He managed to convince a lot of the wealthier people in Granford to invest with him, but the reality was, there actually wasn't much money there. When it looked like the whole thing was about to fall apart, we're guessing that he decided that torching the house to claim the insurance on it was the best or fastest way out of the hole.”

Aaron had been staring at her intently as she spoke. Now he said, “You mean, he set the fire?”

“We have no physical evidence of that, but it looks like a strong possibility,” Meg told him gently.

“Then how did he and Mom end up dead? And Gramma? Did he want to kill me, too?”

Seth spoke up. “Aaron, we don't have all the answers.
There's little evidence to work with. If we accept this motive, I think we have to assume that he planned to get out, with your mother and grandmother, and he would have checked your room, too. Did he know about your little den in the basement?”

“I don't think so. He wasn't the type to prowl around and kick the furnace. He called in other people to do that. So you're saying he didn't know I was down there? Maybe he and our mother died trying to find me?”

That was a thought that Meg hadn't considered. It might temper Aaron's legal guilt, but it would still leave him with a personal wound, that they might have died trying to save him. “Aaron, we don't know that,” Meg said gently. “From what I've read, it looks like they died in their bedroom, which was directly above the furnace room. Seth thinks it might have been due to smoke inhalation, so they never had a chance to get out.”

“Their bedroom was directly above the furnace room, and they found what was little more than my old chemistry set in that room, and that was one reason they looked at me,” Aaron said stubbornly. “They figured I caused the fire and cleared out, which is why I was found outside. So even if it was the smoke or fumes or whatever, it was still my fault.”

Suddenly Kevin spoke. “No, it wasn't.” Everyone turned to look at him. “I know because I was there.”

Aaron looked at his brother with something like wonder. “You were there that night, in the house?”

Kevin nodded. “I was there with you in the basement.”

Lori looked shell-shocked. “What the hell? How come you never told anybody?”

“Because I thought I was the one who started the fire.” That silenced his siblings momentarily.

“Kevin, I think you're going to have to explain yourself,” Seth finally said.

“I kind of have to start from the beginning, okay?” Everyone nodded. “Okay, remember, I was eighteen, a senior at Dad's snobby alma mater. Lori was off messing up at college, so there was a lot of pressure on me to do better. My grades were okay and I was on the right track to get into an Ivy school. But I wasn't happy. I didn't have a lot of friends at school—most people figured I was kind of a nerd. So one night I decided to do something about it, and it was a whole lot easier
to find drugs than to find a girl around there. So I called Aaron. You really don't remember any of this, baby brother?”

Aaron shook his head. “I never have, and believe me, I've tried. In prison I read that the combination of shock and the drugs I was playing with can kind of wipe the slate clean. The memories just aren't there. Sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for?” Kevin said. “That's what let me get away with it all these years.”

“Kevin, you said you were going to explain,” Lori said impatiently. “What the hell happened?”

“Look, I knew what Aaron was doing in the basement. I wasn't totally clueless, and I did a little snooping because he kept disappearing down there, even when I was around, but we never talked about it. I was so squeaky-clean back then! I thought I needed to loosen up a little, experiment, like, and I figured Aaron would know where to get the stuff I'd heard about and how to use it. Even if he was younger, I guess I kind of trusted him to look out for me. I couldn't ask the guys at school.”

“Thanks a lot, Kevin,” Aaron said. Kevin shot him a quick look to see if he was being sarcastic, but it was hard to tell.

“Yeah, well . . . So I called Aaron and I said some kind of vague things about getting some stuff, and somehow he figured out what I meant and he said, sure, no problem. I drove down late one night without telling anybody. I parked before I got too near the house so nobody could see the car from there, and walked over, and Aaron let me in through the basement door. As far as I know, Mom and Dad never knew I was there. And Aaron was really cool about the whole thing. He didn't make fun of me, and he told me that he thought as a first-timer I should stick to weed. He had some good stuff, he said, and he showed me what to do. God, this sounds so stupid now, but I'd never smoked anything, although it was around at school. I couldn't say if
Aaron had taken anything else, but at the beginning he didn't seem too out of it. He just sat there with this kind of half smile on his face and watched me get wasted.”

“Wow,” Aaron said. “I did that?”

“Yeah, you did,” Kevin said with a humorless smile. “I can't tell you how long this went on. What time did the fire department think the fire started?”

“Maybe around one a.m.,” Meg said.

Kevin nodded. “Okay, so I would have arrived around eleven, maybe—I know it was pretty dark. We would have been smoking down there for maybe two hours? And then . . .”

“The fire started?” Meg prompted.

Kevin nodded. “The basement was kind of a pit, because nobody went down there. I was really wasted, you know? And that stuff you gave me, Aaron, it made me kind of paranoid.”

Aaron shrugged. “It happens. You never know until you try. As I remember it, at least. I hear things have changed.”

“Can you get on with it?” Lori demanded. “So the two of you are stoned out of your minds on the floor in the basement. What about the fire?”

Kevin looked down at his feet. “I might have tossed a butt in the wrong place—there was a lot of random trash down there.”

“That would be a roach, brother of mine,” Aaron said.

“Yeah, whatever. And suddenly there was this kind of ‘whoosh' and what looked like a fireball, and the walls kind of shook, and I didn't know if I was hallucinating or what. But it got hot pretty fast. Aaron, you were just sitting there admiring the pretty flames, so I grabbed you and hauled you out the back door and dumped you on the lawn. By the time I turned around, there was fire everywhere, and I couldn't get back in. But what was so weird was that I didn't see anybody moving around inside the building, or hear anybody shouting.
I really didn't think I could do anything, and I guess I panicked because I thought everybody would blame me. Aaron was no help by then: he was more or less passed out.”

Kevin paused, and shut his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them and looked around the table, and when he spoke, his voice was bitter. “So I left. I goddamn went back to my little dorm room at school, and lay there staring at the ceiling until somebody came to my room a few hours later to tell me that my parents were dead and my home had burned to the ground.” By then Kevin had tears running down his face. “And I never told anybody. I'm so sorry, Aaron. I was a chickenshit kid, and I let you take the blame. Oh, and one more thing: you weren't cooking anything that night. I didn't see any equipment or chemical-type stuff. You had a lighter, and that was it.”

Kevin's confession had stunned everyone. Seth was the first to speak, after a long silence, and Meg was happy to let him take the lead. “Let me see if I've got this straight, Kevin. You sneaked away from school, without anyone noticing, and drove to your family's house so you could experiment with drugs with Aaron's help.”

Kevin nodded. “I was a senior, so I didn't have to sign in or out. I didn't tell anyone what I was going to do; I just went. So no witnesses, right? I was going to be back before morning anyway, although maybe I didn't think that part through very well. I thought I'd take a few puffs or whatever, just to see what it was all about, and then leave.”

Seth nodded. “The two of you were smoking Aaron's weed in the basement, and you believed that you inadvertently started a fire there.”

“Right.”

Seth went on, “So you got Aaron out, and by then the fire had spread fast.”

“Yeah. So?”

“Did it ever occur to you that if in fact you did set a fire in the basement with a discarded roach, it couldn't possibly have spread that fast? At least not without some sort of accelerant?”

“You mean, it wasn't me? It was Dad's fire?”

“Maybe. We don't know how he might have planned to start a fire, but we know he was asking about water heaters blowing up before that. We're guessing that whenever or however it started, he didn't rush to get out because he wanted to be sure that the house was destroyed so he could claim the maximum insurance value. So he waited—too long, apparently. Look, Kevin, there's no way to tell now whether you started a fire or not. But if you did, and that was the only one, there should have been time for your parents to get out, and to get your grandmother out, too . . . unless there were other factors involved.”

“Oh, wow,” Kevin said, almost to himself.

“And you let Aaron take the rap for it, you asshole?” Lori burst out. “How could you do that? You let him go to jail for what you did! Or thought you did. Whatever.”

“And I'm sorry about that! You think that hasn't been eating at me all these years?” Kevin protested. “But by the time I got home, everybody had already decided how it happened, and Aaron had been arrested. And he didn't remember!”

Seth looked levelly at Kevin. “It took months to bring the case to trial, Kevin. You could have stepped up at any time. Or since.”

Meg sneaked a glance at Aaron's face, and his expression almost broke her heart. There was something so innocent about it, like he was having trouble believing what he was hearing. There was no anger, no hate, just a deep bewilderment. His brother's selfish choices had shaped his entire adult life, and he was struggling to understand what had
happened. Meg fought down the absurd thought that now would be a good time to offer dessert, but she was pretty sure that cake wasn't going to do much to make up for all the wasted years shared by the Eastmans.

They were all startled when Aaron shoved back his chair and stood up. “I need to think about this. I've got to get out of here.”

Lori stood up, too. “Aaron, walk me back to the other house, will you? I don't want to be in the same car with him right now.” She nodded toward Kevin.

Aaron hesitated, then shrugged. “Okay. Let's go, then.”

Lori looked back briefly at Meg and mouthed,
We'll talk
, then took Aaron's arm and went out the door with him.

That left Kevin sitting like a lump at the table, avoiding everyone's eyes. “What happens now?” he said to no one in particular.

Meg said, almost sharply, “Before you ask, we haven't involved any law enforcement authorities, although Art Preston did give us the original police files on the fire. Seth and I have no idea what legal impact what you've just told us may have on anyone or anything. I think right now you all need to digest what we've just dumped on you. Go back to the house now and try to get used to it. We can talk tomorrow.”

“Sure, that's worked for twenty-five years now,” Kevin muttered. He finally looked up at Meg and Seth. “I'm sorry. Look, I appreciate what the two of you have done, trying to help Aaron, and that you shared it with us. I don't know what we're going to do next, but we'll let you know. We can't just hide our heads in the sand anymore—well, I can't. If that means talking to the cops, I'll do it. It's time I stepped up. Good night.” And Kevin went quickly out the back door, leaving Meg and Seth alone in the kitchen.

“Well,” Meg began, “that wasn't what I expected.”

“I didn't, either,” Seth said. “Now what?”

“I have no idea. Do we need to tell law enforcement? Do we start a drive to exonerate Aaron Eastman, at the expense of his brother? You think Aaron would want that?”

Seth shook his head. “I don't know, Meg. I think the first thing to do is to talk unofficially to Art . . . tomorrow. All we can say now is that Aaron looks somewhat less guilty than he did, and Kevin somewhat more, but there's no way to prove anything. I have no clue what Kevin's confession changes, if anything. But we owe it to them to let them decide what they want to do, because they have to live with the outcome.”

“I agree.” Meg reached out and took his hand. “Seth, why is it our lives are never simple? I mean, really—you're a builder, I grow apples. How do we keep finding ourselves in the middle of these difficult ethical and legal dilemmas? Issues that have a real impact on other people's lives?”

“Just lucky?” Seth smiled at her, then his expression sobered again. “Frankly, I don't know what the best outcome would be here, either legally or ethically. Aaron has paid a heavy price for something he wasn't responsible for. Kevin hasn't paid for something he might or might not have done. None of the three of them has led what we would call a happy life, but that's not our problem to fix. I'm guessing that law enforcement is going to throw up their hands at this one.”

“But that doesn't help Aaron!” Meg protested quickly. “He's still going to have a record, unless somebody acknowledges it was all a mistake.”

“Meg, I don't have a clue how the official exoneration process works, or if it's even possible for Aaron. Why don't we talk to Art? As a friend? Maybe that smacks of passing the buck, but we aren't qualified to deal with this. Maybe he can tell us what the options are.”

“That makes sense, if he's willing. But it all makes me
sad.” She stood up and started clearing dishes from the table. Seth stood as well, turned her around, and wrapped his arms around her. They stood silently for a few moments, leaning against each other. Finally Meg pushed back far enough to see Seth's face, and to say, “Well, at least I still have grouting to look forward to.”

He smiled. “That you do. But let me say this: you did the right thing in trying to help Aaron.”

“You believe that?” Meg looked up at him.

“Yes, I do. You are a good person, and that's why I love you. Well, one of the reasons.”

“Like seeks like, sir,” Meg replied. “Neither of us seems to pick the easy way out of anything. But at least we do it together.”

*   *   *

Seth called Art
as early as it seemed respectable for a Sunday morning. He came back to the kitchen to tell Meg, “He'll be over after breakfast. I told him it wouldn't take long.”

They ate their own breakfast in near silence, waiting.
For what?
Meg wondered.
Closure?
Art arrived quickly, and Seth let him in. “Coffee?” he asked, as they came into the kitchen together.