Site Unseen (13 page)

I could only stare at my husband. "Holy snappers. I mean,
congratulations!" I gulped down some fizzy, and it didn't do anything to clear my already buzzing head. "Holy--"

Kam nodded smugly. "I know. It's called selling out while still keeping your legs crossed. Brilliant, isn't it?"

Then he did something that I wouldn't have bet on in a thousand years. Kam took Marty's glass away from her and set it on the table. Then he took her in his arms, dipped her backward, and kissed her passionately.

Imagine Queen Victoria flicking a spitball. Imagine Henry Kissinger break dancing. That was the extent of our disbelief.

Brian stopped dancing to stare at them. I kept right on staring dumbly, poleaxed for a whole other set of reasons, now. "Hey, wait a minute," I said finally. "You guys have been
seeing
each other, haven't you?"

"Well," Marty said as soon as she was able to draw breath again. "Among other things."

"And how long has this been going on?" I continued. "When were you going to tell us?"

"A while," Kam answered, setting Marty back on her feet and smoothing out his tie. "And consider yourself told."

"I was going to tell you at dinner. That was my news," Marty said, picking up her glass again and emptying it as if nothing unusual had happened. "So there you are." She nonchalantly accepted a refill from Kam and turned to me. "So what was your news?"

I shook my head slowly and shrugged. Brian shook out of his stupor and opened the other bottle of champagne and topped me up. "Nothing much. Let's see. I found that body last week, you all know about that, and then the next day there was the gun-toting loony threatening us--"

"Emma!" Marty and Kam gasped in tandem; finally I was able to shock them, but the best still remained.

"--and just yesterday I think I've just discovered conclusive evidence that I've got the goods on one of the earliest English settlements in America, but nothing much besides that."

"Are you okay?" Marty asked.

I was touched by my friend's concern. "Oh, yeah, fine." "Well, good." She paused. "So let's order the pizza, then." "Marty! Don't you even want to hear about the site?" "Well, yes, but I'm hungry," the supremely ahistorical Marty protested. "At least call it in before you tell us everything."

The next morning, when I awoke, groggy from too little sleep and too much celebrating, I found Brian poring over the paper. I watched him for a minute, enjoying the way the sunlight reflected off his dark brown hair, his skin like warm honey. We were such a good match together.

"What's that?" I said, finally. I yawned hugely and fumbled for the coffee, the need for which had driven me from the bedroom.

"Real estate," Brian answered around a piece of toast.

For once something besides caffeine jolted me awake. "What for?" I asked cautiously.

"Houses."

I paused. "Say that again."

"Houses. A house." He grinned briefly as he turned the page over. "We might want to check one of the New Hampshire papers, though, if we're gonna find something equidistant from here and Caldwell."

For the umpteenth time in less than twenty-four hours, I was speechless. Brian rattled the paper down. "You okay?"

"Yeah." I shook my head. "Not New Hampshire. I hate New Hampshire."

"Okay, then we'll see what else we can manage." He continued to scan the listings.

"So. When did this come up?" I asked, still more than a little bewildered.

"When I heard last week. I wanted to make sure it was going to work out before I told you, and so now it is." Brian looked up and took a deep breath.

"I have to go to San Francisco next week, like, tomorrow," he continued apologetically. "That's where United's headquarters are. But when I come back, a couple of weeks or so, I want to move. I want to move someplace where we do not smell our neighbors' dinners cooking, where we do not hear people fighting across the alley, where we can live together every night and not just on weekends. We will talk about this, if you want, but basically, I've decided. Sound okay to you?

Actually it sounded damned good, just nigh on incredible. I took a drink of coffee and it helped a little. The only other time I'd seen Brian this adamant was when he proposed. "Okay."

"Good. You have anything in mind?" For the first time he looked uncertain. "I mean, we're not up to real luxury or anything, the options are just enough for a good down payment, but if you like a style or something, we can look for that."

I thought about it, perhaps for the first time since I was a girl. "Nope. Old is nice. I'd like a room for my own office."

Now Brian looked downright uneasy. "Do you ... do you want to call your father?"

"No." Dad was a real estate agent; we didn't talk a lot. "We can do this ourselves. Besides, he's going to be on Nantucket until Labor Day with Beebee." My father's second wife was just five years older than I.

Brian breathed a sigh of relief and turned back to the papers. "Good."

The weather had cleared up late last night. I looked around the kitchen. It was sunny but small; I wouldn't miss it. "You know what?"

"What?"

"You're sexy when you're decisive," I said.

That got his attention and he set the papers aside. "Oh? Finish your coffee, then, and I'll show you just how decisive I can be."

I experienced the social schizophrenia of fieldwork late Sunday evening. So far from being half of an affectionate pair, I was back on the lonely peak of leadership. My domestic life and its staggering, fantastic upheavals once again receded in favor of my work and the totality of its demands. Alan was nowhere to be found when I came in, so I resolved to speak with him after fieldwork the next day. His increasingly erratic moodiness was the only fly in the ointment right now.

On Monday morning the fickle weather redeemed itself, promising to be as glorious as our last day in the field. The wind playfully sped puffy little clouds across the sky, as if only for the pleasure of watching their shadows skid along the river. Neal was driving, and I was semi-conked out in the passenger's seat. The windows were down so that we could enjoy the last cool of the day before evening, so the noise in the car was nearly deafening.

The smell of wood smoke was just becoming noticeable. Rob all of a sudden piped up. "Smells like someone's cooking breakfast."

"Some damned tourist letting things get out of hand. They always think they need a yule log to make their instant coffee," Meg muttered.

Suddenly I was awake. "That's no campfire," I said. I couldn't have told you why I was so quickly worried, but the smell was very acrid. "Neal, let's move it. I don't like this one bit." As we tore out of the tree-lined downslope, we could see smoke billowing into the sky in front of us.

The truck tore around the last rise, and we didn't need to see the cluster of fire engines in the road and Pauline's driveway to realize the horrible truth. Greycliff was burning.

Chapter 8

BEFORE THE TRUCK HAD EVEN STOPPED, I HAD FUMBLED my way out of my safety belt and was running toward the house. The heat hit me like a brick wall and slowed me down, threatening to steal my breath away. When the wind shifted, driving the smoke away momentarily, I could see the paint bubbling and peeling near the windows, flecks of soot and ash sticking to it. The flames were huge, unaffected by the powerful stream of water that the fireman aimed at it. Even before a fireman intercepted me, I had stopped, fascinated by the horrible conflagration.

"You can't go in there!" he shouted. "Get those vehicles out of here! We need room."

"This is my friend's house," I said. "What's--?"

He asked quickly, "Are they at home?"

"No, she's away, in Boston."

"Anyone else in there?"

I shook my head.

"Good, now get those trucks away, down the road, past that telephone pole."

I ran back and told Neal and Alan, in the other truck, to
pull away, not interfere. I know Neal said something, but I couldn't make myself focus on it. I barely recognized him.

The fireman spoke into his walkie-talkie, then gestured at me again.

"Who are you?"

"Emma Fielding. I'm ... I'm a friend of Pauline's."

"Can you tell me what is going on down on the lawn? Is there anything we need to know about? Pipelines or anything in those holes in the ground?"

I looked where he was pointing, down at the tarps, and realized that the site was just sitting there, waiting for attention while the house burned. A momentary panic seized me, as I tried to imagine whether the fire could affect it in any way. "No, they're ... just holes in the ground. I've been conducting archaeological research here."

"No kidding?" For a moment he was impressed, then the radio crackled again and he began shouting a response into it. I couldn't make anything out over the monstrous noise of the house burning. It was like nothing I'd ever heard before, so huge and destructive, and yet almost fiendishly reminiscent of a campfire.

It was unreal. All of it was unreal.

I watched as the firefighters worked feverishly, a sort of modern dance, where there seemed to be nothing but chaos at first glance, but after a moment of study, deeper logic was revealed. They dragged a hose across the lawn toward the front of the house to attack the fire from another direction.

"Oh! Be careful--" I cried, then caught myself and cursed.

The fireman grabbed my wrist. "What? What's wrong?"

"No, no I'm sorry." I shook my head. "There's nothing. I just wanted them to be careful of the flowers. Pauline's worked so hard--" I began to cry uncontrollably. "I'm sorry, my God, I'm so sorry, this is so stupid, worrying about the stupid goddamned
flowers ..
."

"Don't worry about it. I see it all the time. Just sit down over here, stay out of the way, and when things calm down, we'll figure out how to reach your friend."

So I sat there on the bumper of the chief's truck and watched the house burn down. I knew I was still crying because I could feel how puffy my face was growing. I had to blink every so often, but I couldn't for the life of me feel the tears running down my cheeks. The air was just too hot. I tried not to think about all the memories I had here. I tried not to think about telling Pauline. She was rooted in this place; it was a part of her and I couldn't imagine her anywhere else.

I was so busy trying not to think about so many things that time seemed to evaporate around me, swirled away and scattered over the river with the smoke. After what seemed like a long time, I realized that I no longer saw flames shooting out through the broken windows and out a ragged hole that left the rafters exposed in the remaining roof. The next thing I noticed was the relative quiet: The roaring had died away and all that remained was the sound of running water dripping and hissing as it hit hot surfaces, the shouts of the firefighters, and the noise of equipment being deployed or stowed away.

I looked up and saw Dave Stannard standing next to me, his eyes glued to the wreck of the house. He looked down. "You okay?"

"No." I sniffed loudly and wiped my eyes on my shirtsleeves; my handkerchief had been rendered useless long ago. "But I'm okay." I thought about how stupid that was and almost grinned.

"A hell of a hot fire," he said, shaking his head in wonder. "With all that rain we got? Even with most of the exterior shell still standing, Ms. Westlake's going to have to rebuild."

"She's going to be devastated," I said. "She'll be heartbroken. But she'll rebuild, all right, she's like that." A sudden thought seized me. "Oh damn, the students!" I whipped my head around, trying to see if they were still waiting. "I completely forgot about them!"

I started to head back up the driveway when the sheriff
stopped me. "They're fine, I sent them home a while ago. Told them I'd get you a ride back."

"Thanks." I sniffed again and surveyed the ruin of Greycliff. "Oh hell. What a mess."

Stannard nodded. "I'm going to check with Jimmy in there, see if he can tell what started this all."

Suddenly a shout came from where the firemen were examining the inside of the house. That bred more shouting, which seemed to move from person to person up the drive, until I was finally able to make out the words.

"A stretcher! Get a stretcher in here!"

I looked over to where the action was, confused. Two firemen rushed back and were met by a couple of paramedics who, with unbelievable, practiced ease, moved a heavy-looking gurney down to the house and through the opened back door.

"What's going on?" I asked. "Why do they need a stretcher?"

"Probably one of the firefighters got hurt," Stannard said, frowning. "You stay put and I'll--"

The shouting increased, the buzz of activity increased, and unconsciously, I began to follow the sheriff toward the house. Raincoated firefighters began to stream out of the house, and I saw one of the paramedics leading the foot of the gurney out. I could see black rubber on the stretcher, but it did not resolve itself into the boots that I expected--

As I stared I heard a shout: "Jesus Christ! Somebody get her out of here!"

The black continued to emerge from the house until the other paramedic came out at the head of the stretcher. Or where the head should have been. It was just a formless stretch of black plastic", all the way along the stretcher.