Fire Spirit (6 page)

He tucked his pen into his breast-pocket and said, ‘Any of you people have any wild theories?'

‘Sorry, Ron,' Jack told him. ‘We arson investigators don't deal in wild theories – only forensic evidence. But we'll keep you up to date with how things are progressing.'

Jack walked Ruth back to her car. ‘I'll see you tomorrow,' Ruth told him. ‘Maybe we'll know the victim's identity by then.'

Jack said, ‘Maybe. But I have a strange feeling that's not going to help much. There's something real weird about this fire.'

‘Hey, I thought we arson investigators only dealt in forensic evidence. Where do strange feelings come into it?'

‘I only said that for Ron Magruder's benefit, because I don't have the least notion how this fire was started, or how it reached such a high RHR so rapidly, or why it suddenly extinguished itself before the rest of the house went up in flames. We're missing something here. It's probably going to be downright obvious when we find out what it is, but right now it's making me feel like there's a gaggle of geese walking up and down on my grave.'

‘You still think that it might have been spontaneous human combustion? Bob said that woman in Cassville caught fire because of her nylon clothing. You know, static.'

‘That's what Bob likes to think, because Bob doesn't want to acknowledge that some fires can't be completely explained by scientific facts. Listen, Ruth, I've been investigating fires for half of my life, and if I've learned anything at all, it's that every fire is a hungry beast with a will of its own. This here was no ordinary fire, believe me. This fire had an appetite for this particular victim, for some reason or another. It
ate
this person, like a wild animal, but it didn't eat nothing else, because once it had done that, it was satisfied and it snuffed itself out. Before anything else, we need to find out what this particular fire wanted, and why it wanted it. Until we do, we won't understand what happened here, or if it might happen again.'

FOUR

A
melia was late coming out of school, so Ruth had to wait outside for over ten minutes. As she sat in her car, watching the last few stragglers emerge, she suddenly felt very tired, and isolated, as if she couldn't carry on any longer.

She felt as if everybody depended on her: Ammy, and Jeff, and Craig, and now the anonymous blackened victim who had been burned to death on that mattress.
Why me
? she thought.
Why can't they all take care of themselves, and sort out their own problems
? But she knew the answer to that. They needed her, and they had nobody else.

When Amelia eventually appeared, in her red beret and her red plaid coat, she stopped on the steps outside the school's main entrance to send a text message on her cellphone. Ruth gave her an impatient toot on her horn.

‘Hey, don't worry about me,' she said, as Amelia climbed into the passenger seat. ‘I have all the time in the world.'

Amelia said, ‘I had to text Sandra. I'm going round to her place this evening, so that we can do our homework together.'

‘Oh, yes. Who says?'

‘Me.
I
say. Somebody has to help me, don't they?'

‘
I
always help you.'

‘Well, you don't have to bother any more. Sandra said
she
can do it.'

‘Sandra knows how to deal with William's Syndrome? I don't think so.'

‘At least Sandra doesn't treat me like a retard.'

Ruth pulled away from the curb and drove toward Jefferson Street. ‘Ammy, you're not still mad at me about breakfast, are you?'

‘Of course not. I wish I hadn't bothered, that's all.'

‘It was a lovely thought. You don't know how much I appreciated it.'

‘Don't lie. You hated it.'

They stopped at the next red traffic signal. Ruth turned to Amelia and said, ‘Listen, sometimes you can try to do nice things for people and for one reason or another it doesn't work out. Once I organized a surprise party for Dad's birthday, and I invited some of his old classmates from school, but what I didn't realize was that he couldn't stand the sight of them – any of them. What a disaster
that
was! Ten men with their arms folded, glaring at each other for four hours. They almost came to blows.'

Amelia said nothing, but sat with her arms tightly folded and her lips pouting. Ruth reached across and stroked a stray lock of her hair, winding it around her finger.

‘Ammy, you know you're different. But that's what makes you who you are, and I
love
who you are. I wouldn't want you any other way.'

‘Signal's green,' said Ammy. The car behind them blew its horn and Ruth lifted her hand in apology.

While their meat feast pizzas were heating up in the oven, Ruth took her camera out of its case and looked through the photographs she had taken at the house on South McCann Street. She skipped quickly past the flash-lit images of the victim lying on the mattress, and the victim's black-charred hand with its wedding-band, and the smoke-stained walls, until she reached the series of pictures she had taken of the crowd outside.

The very last photograph should have shown the dark-haired boy in the faded T-shirt and the worn-out red jeans, standing in the middle of the sidewalk. But there was nobody there, only the empty street, lined with trees.

She frowned, and went through the pictures again to see if she had missed one. She was sure that she had caught the boy in her viewfinder, but he simply wasn't there. She switched off her camera and put it away.

Amelia came into the kitchen. ‘
You
look serious,' she said, in a high-pitched voice. ‘Is everything all right?'

‘Yes, of course. Supper's going to be ready in a minute.'

‘That fire you went to today . . .'

‘Yes?'

‘Did somebody die?'

Ruth nodded. ‘Yes. We don't know who yet. It was probably some down-and-out.'

‘I had such a horrible feeling about it.'

‘Yes. I was going to ask you about that. What kind of horrible feeling?'

Ammy thought for a moment, and then she made a pulling gesture with her right hand as if she were opening an invisible door. ‘I don't know. I felt like people were coming in. People who should have stayed where they were.'

‘What people? I don't really understand what you mean.'

‘There's lots of them. Some of them are very faint so you can hardly see them. But others have very white faces.'

‘Was this a
dream
you had?' Ruth asked her. She was used to Amelia describing her feelings in unusual ways. When she had a migraine, she said that somebody had smashed a mirror in her head.

‘No, it wasn't a dream. It was when Uncle Jack called you. I had a feeling that all these people had started to come in. That's why I didn't want you to go.'

Ruth said, ‘Come here,' and gave Amelia a hug. ‘It wasn't very nice. I mean, whoever it was who died, they were very badly burned. But there were no faint people there, or people with white faces.'

But then she thought about the dark-haired boy, who had been so faint that he hadn't even appeared in her photograph.

Craig didn't arrive home until well past eight o'clock. He stood in the kitchen doorway with a frown on his face, as if he wasn't at all sure that he was in the right house.

Ruth was wiping the place mats. ‘You want pizza?' she asked him. ‘Ammy and I, we've had ours. God knows what time Jeff's going to be home.'

‘I, ah – I'm not too hungry at the moment. I'll wait for Jeff.'

He dragged out a chair from under the kitchen table and sat down heavily.

‘You've been drinking,' said Ruth.

‘You think? Oh – I forgot. You're an arson investigator. You have a nose for flammable liquids. Gasoline, methanol, vodka Martinis, you name it.'

‘And what good will drinking do, exactly?'

He raised one finger, as if he were about to impart the greatest gem of wisdom since Moses. ‘Drinking stops you thinking. That's what good it does.'

‘I see. Drinking stops you thinking. Well, I'm not drinking because I still have a full-time job to do and a house to run and two teenage kids and a husband to look after. A
drunken
husband, as it happens.'

‘You're a saint, Ruth. I always said that. That's why I married you. Saint Ruth of the Smoothly Running Household.'

‘So,' she asked him, ‘how did it go with the Kraussmans?'

‘The Kraussmans?' he grimaced. ‘Not exactly great, to tell you the truth.'

‘What does that mean?' asked Ruth.

‘It means that the Kraussman Brothers have been pretty badly hit by the credit crunch, like everybody else. They're drawing in their horns, that's the way they put it.'

‘And what does
that
mean – “drawing in their horns”?'

‘In a nutshell, it means they're putting a temporary hold on any future housing development.'

‘So they won't be giving you any more contracts?'

‘Not for the foreseeable future, no.'

‘But the Kraussmans – they supply you with more than half of your gross income.'

Craig nodded. ‘Correct. They do. But right now it looks like we'll just have to find somebody else to fit kitchens for.'

‘Like who, for instance? If the Kraussmans are drawing in their horns, then everybody else will be drawing in their horns, too.'

‘I don't know yet,' said Craig. ‘I'm working on it.'

There was a long silence between them. Then Craig said, ‘Ammy . . . she was pretty upset about that breakfast she cooked for you.'

‘I know. But we've made up now. Where are you going to find more contracts?'

Craig looked up, and for the first time ever his gray eyes looked hooded and defensive. ‘I don't know, sweetheart,' he told her. ‘I truly and honestly don't know.'

‘But you have about three months' grace, don't you? They're still going to finish the Mayfield Drive development?'

‘I don't think so. In fact I very much doubt it.'

‘
What
?'

Craig took a deep breath. ‘That's what this morning's meeting was all about, honey. The Kraussmans have run out of credit at the bank and they've had to stop all building work at Mayfield Drive and Wildcat Creek West, and lay everybody off. They didn't want to, but they didn't have the choice.'

‘So where does that leave you? Where does that leave
us
?'

‘Struggling for survival, I guess.'

‘But they will pay you for the work you've done already? Come on, Craig, you've laid out thousands of dollars for worktops and sinks and floor tiles and God knows what else.'

Craig shook his head. ‘They're flat-busted. Eugene Kraussman said he was very sorry, he's been doing everything he can to keep the company's head above water, but even if he manages to finish the development, he won't be able to sell any of the houses at a profit, not at today's prices, if at all.'

‘But they
have
to pay you! You have a contract!'

Craig reached across the table and held her hands. ‘If they don't have the money, sweetheart, they don't have the money, contract or not. You can't get blood out of a cinder block.'

Ruth didn't know what to say. She had been conscious for the past few months that Craig was growing increasingly worried about cash flow, and that new orders for fitted kitchens had been few and far between. He had not only been sleeping badly, he had been drinking much more than usual, and his elbows were reddened with eczema.

‘How are you going to pay any wages?' she asked.

‘I can pay Randy and Carlos for this week, and Cora, too. But after that – well, I have five working days to find next week's pay.'

‘And if you can't?'

Craig gripped her hands tight. ‘No such word as “can't”, sweetheart. One way or another, Cutter's Kitchens is going to stay in business. Even if I have to rob a bank.'

Ruth took off her red checkered apron and hung it up. ‘Why don't you go upstairs and take a very cold shower? I can make you some coffee if you like.'

Craig shook his head. ‘Cold showers and coffee, they won't help. Nothing's going to help. It's finally arrived, the end of the world. Armageddon, just like it says in the Bible.'

At that moment, Ruth heard the burble of a car engine outside. It stopped abruptly, and then the front door opened. Jeff came into the kitchen, his black hair all spiked up, wearing his black leather jacket and his black jeans.

‘That crappy car, I swear to God.'

‘Good evening, Jeff,' said Ruth. ‘Nice to see you, too.'

‘Yeah, whatever. I'm driving along West Sycamore, right, and this dork's right in front of me driving real slow, but when I pull out to overtake, he puts his foot down and he's going faster and faster and I can't get past him and he's only driving a frigging
Taurus
, right, but even when I put my foot flat down on the floor I still can't get past him and then I see this semi coming the other way toward me and I have to drop back or else it's going to be a head-on collision, right, and do you know what he does, this dork in the Taurus? He's about a hundred years old, right, but he gives me the finger. Can you believe that?'

Craig looked across at Ruth as if Jeff had been speaking a foreign language. Ruth said, ‘Did you get his license number, this hundred-year-old dork in the Taurus?'