Death in a Funhouse Mirror (29 page)

I gave Cliff a noncommittal smile, reached for my glass, and took a sip. Mandarin orange. An odd flavor to put in water, but good. Cliff was ready to leave the subject of Roddy behind, too. "Rowan says he's been trying to reach you but you won't return his calls."

I tried not to show my irritation, to keep things light. "Dr. Ansel and about forty other people. I'm right out straight this week, Cliff. As soon as I have time..." I trailed off, leaving a half-promise in the air.

He seemed satisfied. "I thought the meeting went well. The board is eager to go ahead with this. A real tribute to you, Thea, since they're normally so inert it takes them forever to decide whether to order tuna or egg salad. Are you really prepared to start on Monday?"

"There are some rather mundane details," I said, producing a consulting contract and handing it to him, "but assuming we can agree on them, I'm prepared to start on Monday. You know that the first part of our assessment involves a lot of interviewing. That's what gives us an overview of current conditions. Won't your people need more time to arrange their schedules to accommodate that?"

He shook his head. "If you can give me an idea of which people you'd like to see and how much time you'll need, I can have an interview schedule set up for you by nine on Monday."

I was impressed. Cliff might sometimes appear rather unworldly, but it was clear that his being head of the children's outpatient service wasn't just the Peter Principle at work. He knew what he was doing. I left half an hour later with a signed contract, a full Monday, and a bleary mind, heading for Suzanne's rehearsal.

The church had a hushed, expectant quality that seemed exactly right. The florist's minions were putting the finishing touches on the altar flowers and fastening the last of the white satin bows onto the ends of the pews. Off to the left, the organist, informal in jeans and a sweatshirt, was softly running through the music, the almost inaudible high notes underscored by the muted thrum of the low notes. I stood for a moment taking it all in. The air was already lightly scented by the flowers. The high stained-glass windows gleamed in the last of the day's light. There was a bustle up on the balcony, and then the bride-to-be leaned over the railing and disturbed the peace.

"Okay, campers, we don't have to wait. My father's stuck at the office as usual. Maybe he'll be on time tomorrow," she said. "Siobhan is going to sing and then we're going to walk through it." The organist began to play, and then a high, clear, beautiful voice filled the room. A Beatles' song, "In My Life." There was a clatter of high heels on the wooden stairs and Suzanne rushed over to me and gave me a hug. "You're wonderful," she said. "I heard what happened about the restaurant. Think they'll give us decent service, after all that?"

"If they don't, I'll have another talk with Mr. Roscoe."

"I'll bet he never knew what hit him." She patted my arm and turned away. "Got to organize the mothers." Paul was by the door, talking to a couple I assumed were his parents. Suzanne slid under his arm, which tightened around her, and said something to the other couple which made them burst out laughing. Then she slid away, and delivered the message to her mother. The minister, sweaty and garbed in the black and white of a soccer referee, slipped in a side door, waved apologetically to Suzanne, and beckoned for Paul to join him. Together they walked to the same door and disappeared. The soloist had finished, and the organist segued into some random prewedding Bach.

Paul's brother-in-law took Mrs. Merritt by the arm and led her down the aisle, her husband trailing behind. Then Suzanne's brother escorted Mrs. Begner to her seat. The organist switched to the march from
Aida.
Paul and the minister emerged from the side door. The two ushers and Paul's son Jeremy went down the aisle to join them. Then Paul's daughter Amy, pretty and solemn in a white sailor dress, began the tedious step, halt, step, halt walk down the aisle. Connie fell in behind her and I fell in behind Connie. Stately, solemn, and feeling self-conscious, I made my way down the aisle to the front, stepped to the left beside Connie, and turned to look back.

The organist switched to the traditional wedding march and Suzanne, looking small and neat and uncertain, started down the aisle. Pretty in a pink suit. Clutching a flowered scarf in place of a bouquet. I glanced over at Paul. The look on his face as he watched her come down the aisle was a delight to see. Beyond question, this man loved her the way she had always hoped to be loved. Partway down the aisle, she faltered. Casting aside any wedding conventions, Paul went down the aisle to meet her, tucked her arm through his, and they walked forward together. It was perfectly, exactly right, and I felt my cynicism drop away like a shed skin.

After that, even the incongruities seemed right, like Suzanne in her suit, Paul in his blazer, and the red-faced minister in his tight black shorts. Or Amy and Jeremy, Paul's children, squabbling on the way out of the church because Jeremy didn't want Amy to take his arm. Or the denim-clad organist ending the recessional with
dum dum da dum dum... dum dum,
and then turning to us and spreading her hands like a vaudeville comedienne.

I left the rehearsal dinner, where the service had been more than adequately attentive and the food delicious, about half a sheet to the wind, but I wasn't worried. My car knew the way, and with the windows down and a cool wind on my face, I'd do just fine. I'm much too practical to drink past my capacity to get myself home. When you live alone, you learn things like that. I buckled myself in, started some music, and roared off into the night. The good feeling lasted until I turned into my parking space, and then the memory of my knife-wielding intruder came back to me like I'd been slugged in the face with a big wet fish. The memory of last night, and the follow-up phone call today.

Suddenly, I was soberer than I wanted to be. I slung my briefcase over my shoulder, grabbed my keys, and sprinted for the door. The night was silent except for my running footsteps and a dog barking in the distance. No one lurched toward me out of the bushes, no one was waiting in the shadows. I fumbled the key into the lock, dashed in, and slammed the door shut behind me.

I went straight to the wall to key in the alarm code and realized that something didn't look right. The alarm was already deactivated. I might have been shaken and sleepy when I left for work in the wee hours of the morning, but I knew I'd set the alarm. I was on my way to the phone when something the size of the Empire State Building landed on my head. The floor came rushing up to meet me. My last conscious thought, as I put my hands out to break my fall, was Suzanne's admonition not to run into anything else before the wedding. I wasn't doing very well, was I?

 

 

 

Chapter 19

 

All my life I've been afraid of fire. I guess my mother did too good a job with her lessons about not playing with matches and her habits of calling our attention to any fire on the news where a child was killed and regularly reviewing with us the family fire escape plans. Sometimes I wake up in the night, convinced I smell smoke, and roam all over the house, turning on the lights and sniffing, until I'm sure it's safe to go back to sleep. Smoke detectors have made me feel a lot safer, but that fear of fire is still firmly implanted. Sort of ironic, since the only time we ever had a fire in the house when I was a kid was the time my mother set the kitchen wall on fire trying to make popcorn in a frying pan.

She called us into the kitchen, showed us the fire climbing the wall, and then stood by the door, mechanically repeating, "Everyone get out of the house. We'll meet at the driveway. Everyone get out of the house. We'll meet at the driveway." While she stood there doing her duty, Dad put the lid on the pan, smothered the flame, and put the pan in the sink. I got some water and flung it at the wall, and Michael turned off the burner and doused the flames on the stovetop with baking soda. Then we opened a bottle of orange soda, got some potato chips, and went back to watching television. Our calm reaction was the product of enlightened self-interest—there was a raging blizzard outside and none of us was eager to leave the house.

This time, when I thought I smelled smoke, I didn't have to turn on the lights and look around to see if I could find any. The lights were already on, the smoke detector was screaming, and I could barely see across the room through the haze. I got carefully to my feet and used the wall to support me on my trek across the room to the phone. Experience has taught me that when something like a large building has landed on your head, it is wise to move slowly. Usually, it is wisest not to move at all, but another form of wisdom, unrelated to damaged heads, says when your house is on fire, you should get the hell out.

I dialed 911—an action that was getting to be a habit—and when the gruff voice answered I gave my name and address and asked for a policeman and the fire department. In response to his inquiry about the nature of the problem, I succinctly explained that someone had hit me over the head and set my house on fire. He had the grace not to pursue it, but only asked if I wanted an ambulance as well. I said I didn't think so and hung up.

Then, perhaps because the blow had jarred loose my common sense, I wet a dishtowel in the sink, wrapped it around my face, and began crawling through the living room, looking for the source of the fire. It was hard to tell through the smoke, but it looked like someone had piled a lot of stuff on the sofa and set the whole mess afire. I'm usually pretty sensible, so what I did next can only be explained as the product of the last twenty-four hours' adventures having a deleterious effect on my judgment. I decided to move the fire outside by opening the slider and shoving the sofa out. I pulled back the curtain, opened the slider, and bent down to give the sofa a shove. The fire, which had been smoldering sullenly, took a gulp of the fresh air pouring in and roared up in my face, sending me staggering backwards.

A lot of the mess looked like clothes, and then, like a warning bell going off, an idea made its way through the maze of my brain and pounded on the door of my consciousness. An absurd, middle-class, abominably female notion—that if it wasn't already burning in the pile, I had to find my bridesmaid dress and save it. I was halfway to the bedroom when I remembered it wasn't in there. I'd hung it in the hall closet where there was more room, and then absentmindedly hung my raincoat over it. I crawled back to the entry, opened the closet and dragged out the dress. I draped it over my arm, got my briefcase and keys, and opened the door. Officer Harris was standing there, his fist poised to knock. "I'll be with you in a minute," I said, "I just need to put this in my car. The fire's in there." I pointed back over my shoulder.

"Why don't we go sit in my car instead," he suggested, putting an arm around my shoulders and steering me toward the cruiser. He must have understood the situation better than I, because halfway to his car my brain started misfiring and the walk messages got distorted. I ended up leaning limply on him, then against the side of the car while he opened the door, and collapsing into the seat like a mechanical toy when the batteries run down. I should have used Energizers.

He took the things I was clutching and put them in the back seat. "What's this?" he asked as he took the dress.

"Bridesmaid dress. I have to be in a wedding tomorrow." He just gave me a curious look and laid it carefully on the back seat.

"Can you tell me what happened?"

"Not yet." I closed my eyes and tried to rest my head against the seat but the back of my head hurt. I said "ow!" and shifted restlessly, trying to find a comfortable position.

"Bend your head down for a minute," he said. I tried to cooperate, but it hurt. His fingers gently probed my head and neck.

"Be careful," I told him, just as he touched a tender spot. I jumped and he pulled his hand back in surprise, staring regretfully down at the blood on his fingers. "Relax, Officer. I don't have any communicable diseases." My mouth tasted like smoke and my lungs and throat burned from inhaling it. I felt weak and listless and cold. Harris was staring at me expectantly, ready, I was sure, to start asking a million questions, while all I wanted to do was take a shower and go to sleep. Not the easiest thing to do when your apartment is filled with firemen. "I'm cold," I said, "do you have a blanket?"

He did. Cops are real handy like that. You wouldn't believe the stuff they keep in their trunks. He got it and wrapped it around me, then started the engine and turned on the heat. It must have seemed silly to him, doing that on a warm May night. But maybe not. Cops spend a lot of their time with people who are in distorted physical states. It may be the normal which seems odd to them. "Please, Ms. Kozak," he said, "can you tell me what happened?"

"Here we are spending our second night together, and I hardly know you," I said inanely.

"Yeah," he agreed, "it's a hell of a way to get to know someone, isn't it? What happened?"

Through the windows I could see the flashing lights on the fire truck and the firemen moving in and out of the house. It had a magical, unreal quality, more like entertainment than reality. "Looks like something from a movie, doesn't it?" He didn't respond. "Sorry, Officer. I'm not avoiding the question. My brain is barely functioning." I tried to recall the sequence of events. "Dom—Detective Florio, that is—said don't linger outside, so when I got home I rushed to the door, let myself in, and slammed it behind me. When I went to turn off the alarm, it was already off. That didn't seem right. I knew I'd left it on. I was turning to look around, trying to figure out what was going on, when something hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks."