Smoke (16 page)

I must say I was quite shocked/perturbed/disturbed/surprised/taken aback by your e-mail. While I applaud/support/encourage/back acts of charity, this is really neither the time nor the place for this type of action. Surely the town/state/federal government/Red Cross will be taking care of the victims. I suggest/strongly encourage/expect/insist you rectify this situation immediately as I understand that everyone is very upset/angry/furious/calling for your resignation at your unilateral action.

Four more versions of this missive came in while she was reading the first one, and another thirty before she went to bed. Not that all of them were negative (positive e-mails were running one to three), but it was clearly a major problem for most. She tried to phone Kate, but as the call went to voice mail, she remembered that Kate and Stuart were out on their monthly “date night,” for which she insisted both of them leave their phones at home. Mindy wrote Kate an e-mail telling her she could call whenever, and then she took her phone with her to bed.

She had to hide the phone from Peter and put it on silent because he’d insisted that she put it away, but after he started snoring, she pulled it out of her dresser drawer and found another twenty messages waiting for her.

So she was awake when the air bombardment started, and it was what finally drove her from bed. Peter slept through it all, as did her teenage children, who seemed to be able to sleep through anything.

She crept downstairs quietly, anyway, and went and sat at the computer, thinking that maybe a casual browsing of the sale section of the J. Crew website might calm her nerves.

And that’s how she found Angus’s messages.

COOPER BASIN FIRE

Witness to Investigators: Local Teen Should Be Interviewed

POSTED: Thursday, September 4, 6:45 AM

By: Joshua Wicks,
Nelson Daily

The
Nelson Daily
has learned that a witness has identified a possible suspect in the Cooper Basin fire. Yesterday, the witness told fire investigators the name of a local teen who may have started a fire in the fire pit behind John Phillips’s house. It is that small fire that has turned into the large one that is now burning out of control on the north side of Nelson Peak.

The fire was started around 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning. Phillips’s house is the only one so far to be lost in the fire, which has now claimed over 3,000 acres of brush and timber. More than 250 fire personnel from around the state have been called in, and that number is expected to double by the end of today.

So far, crews have managed to direct the fire away from the Cooper Basin housing development by pushing it toward the Peak. However, the current hot, dry, and windy weather is predicted to remain in place for the next several days and exacerbate an already precarious situation created by this summer’s lower-than-average rainfall. It is becoming more likely by the day that the Cooper Basin fire will be the worst in Nelson County in a century.

Authorities have said that given the fire warnings that have been in place since June, the person or persons responsible for starting the blaze will be prosecuted and held liable for the costs, which are now estimated at one million dollars, and will likely reach much higher than that.

The
Daily
has learned that the suspect is part of a group of teens known to loiter around Phillips’s property. The suspect is a student at Nelson’s exclusive Voyages high school.

The evacuation advisory has been reinstated and expanded. Maps of the evacuation area are available on www.nelsondaily.com, at all county offices, and through the Nelson Emergency Services website. Residents should collect their important papers and any portable valuables, and be ready to evacuate. They are encouraged to sign up for emergency service alerts via text or e-mail if they have not done so already. More information can be found at www.nelsoncountyemergencyservices.com.

CHAPTER 17

Bombed

Elizabeth

I wake up in the middle
of an air raid as the low buzz of a fixed-wing plane rattles the house.

The windows shake.

An engine revs.

My heart pounds in my chest.

It takes me an instant to connect the dots. The fire’s being water-bombed. Big, heavy planes and helicopters equipped with tanks carrying water and fire retardant are releasing their cargo on Nelson Peak to try to do what the human crews couldn’t.

Mimic God. Make it rain. Stop the fire.

The plane’s engine revs again, followed by that distinct rippling sound a water bomber makes when it releases its cargo. I imagine the clouds of bright pink liquid fanning out from the plane, speeding down toward the dancing red flames. I listen to the plane as it banks away, lighter now, circling back to get another load. The whine of its engine is joined by another, and another behind that.

I listen for a few moments until it occurs to me that it’s fully light out. It feels late, later than it should be. I check the time; it’s just after seven. Both of us have overslept.

“Ben,” I say, shaking him slightly, amazed that he can sleep through this. “Ben.”

He grunts and turns on his side so he’s facing me. A short lock of hair is standing straight up. He’d say he needs a haircut, but I’ve always liked his hair longer.

“What time is it?”

“Seven twelve.”

“Shit,” he says, but he makes no move to get up. His green eyes are caked with sleep like I’m sure they used to be when he was a boy. “Are we under attack?”

I smile. “By water.”

“Ah. That makes more sense.”

“Than?”

“The dream I was having about Robert Duvall. I think we were in
Heart of Darkness
.”

“You mean
Apocalypse Now
,” I say, doing that thing I do again, but smiling anyway, because Ben always does this too. Confuses some piece of basic social knowledge in a way that makes sense but is slightly off. I’ve often thought he did it on purpose, but I could never get him to admit it.

He yawns. “Whatever. You knew what I meant.”

“I did.”

“So?”

“What did you—”

His phone buzzes on the nightstand. Once, then twice, then twice again in rapid succession.

“That can’t be good,” he says.

He rolls over and picks it up. His screen is cluttered with e-mail notifications. He swipes at the first one and sighs deeply as he reads it.

“Is it about the fire?” I ask, my stomach back in its nervous knot.

“Not directly. Oh, hell. Did you know about this?”

“Know about what?”

Ben’s jumped out of bed, his eyes glued to his phone. “Jesus.”

“What’s going on?”

“Read the
Daily
,” he says, pulling a shirt out of the suitcase we brought back to his parents’ house last night. “Goddamn it. This is all wrinkled. I can’t go to work like this.”

This is not how Ben reacts to things. He’s not fussy. He usually couldn’t care less what his shirts look like as long as he meets a certain standard for work. Whatever the
Daily
’s published, it must be pretty bad.

“Just give me a minute,” I say. “I’ll iron it for you.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“It’s fine. I want to.”

I get up, grabbing my phone off the nightstand as I go, and head to the bathroom. I read the newspaper article Ben was referring to while I empty my bladder. Someone’s leaked the fact that Phillips has identified one of his teenage harassers. Rich is going to lose it.

When I got to the office last night after Rich’s almost coitus interruptus call, he was mad, but also gloating. Rich loves knowing things others don’t, and since my wrong direction (in his mind) with John Phillips had cost him only a day of investigator’s time, he wasn’t that stressed about it.

John Phillips had a motive. His house was about to be repossessed and so obviously he’d burned it to the ground. An “open-and-shut case,” Rich called it. One more for the win column to keep his stats headed in the right direction.

The problem was, as I pointed out to Rich probably too smugly, my investigation made it nearly certain that the house hadn’t been burned down on purpose. The fact that a smallish fire had gotten this out of control was pure chance. And, as I’d explained to Detective Donaldson, it made no sense for someone who wanted to burn their house down to start a fire in a pit two hundred yards away and hope it would somehow make it to the house. Especially given how little fuel there had been in the fire pit and the fact that there were no accelerants anywhere. As far as I was concerned, the fact that his house was about to be repossessed and that he’d been served the papers a few days before was just a coincidence.

“There are no coincidences,” Rich said.

I sighed. Next he was probably going to tell me that everything happens for a reason.

“This might make it easier to investigate,” I said. “If everyone thinks we already have our man, it’ll be easier for me to talk to them.”

“Talk to who, exactly?”

“The kids who’ve been harassing John Phillips. He identified one of them at the shelter. I should at least look into it.”

“Why am I just hearing this now?”

“I . . . I was about to come tell you when you called.”

“Who is it?”

“A kid who goes to Voyages. So I should check that out. Follow procedure.”

I skidded over this quickly, hoping Rich wouldn’t ask for the kid’s name. Because even though I knew keeping things from him was a bad idea, telling him this particular kid’s name was almost certainly worse. Especially before I was sure of anything.

He worked his jaw. “Why are you so all-out convinced that it wasn’t John Phillips who started the fire?”

Happy he’d changed the subject, I explained, as patiently as I could, about my conversations with John Phillips. How I saw the effects of the harassment he endured up close. How scared he was when he saw his tormentor at the shelter.

“No one’s that good an actor,” I said. “Certainly not him. And I’m 99 percent certain it was an accident either way. We can wrap this up if that’s what you want.”

“Are you kidding? You know how much this fire’s costing? I’ve already gotten a call from the governor’s office telling me in no uncertain terms that we’ll be pressing charges and taking a civil suit to recoup the costs.”

“Phillips doesn’t have any money. That’s a waste of resources.”

“Don’t be so naive. The governor’s up for reelection, same as me.”

“So, someone’s life is going to be destroyed because it’s an election year?”

“It’s about following the chain of command. Which is a life lesson you don’t seem to have absorbed.”

I grit my teeth. “What would you like me to do, boss?”

“Get Phillips down to the sheriff’s office for questioning tomorrow. And then we’ll see.”

Phillips is going to be questioned today, at nine. I’m going to have to hustle to avoid being late. But I said I’d help Ben, and that feels just as important in this moment.

I open the linen cupboard in the cavernous bathroom next to Ben’s room and pull out the ironing board and iron I remembered seeing stashed there. I carry them awkwardly into the room and set it up. Ben’s on the phone, standing there in bare feet and his pants. His shirt is draped over the end of the bed.

“No,” he says. “That’s a bad idea.”

I hear mumbling from the other end of the line. It sounds like the voice of the school’s vice principal, Janet Kores. She’s been at Voyages for ten years, and she and Ben get along well. They have the same philosophy, part of which involves un-teaching the lessons the kids’ parents have taught them about what’s right and wrong. Not that they’re that direct about it. They would’ve lost their jobs a long time ago if they were.

Given what’s in the
Nelson Daily
, I’m not surprised Ben’s phone is blowing up. I’m surprised my own isn’t as well. Rich and Detective Donaldson must be livid that the
Daily
got wind of John Phillips’s ID of the kid. Especially since they both seem hell-bent on not pursuing any course of investigation that doesn’t involve John Phillips. I wonder how Joshua Wicks found out about it? Maybe someone in the department’s leaking information? But if that’s the case, then how come he doesn’t know about the foreclosure on John Phillips’s house?

I wait for the iron to heat up while Ben finishes his phone call. He’s pacing back and forth like a lion in a cage, giving largely monosyllabic answers. “Yeah.” “You may be right.” “No, I haven’t heard anything.” “She’s right here. I’ll ask her.”

He ends the call as I snap his shirt onto the ironing board. I place the iron on the fabric. It spurts out steam.

“Ask me what?” I say.

“If you’re going to be conducting interviews at the school today.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“Stands to reason if the police think one of our kids did it. Shit. Did John Phillips really ID one of them?”

“He did.”

“Who is it?”

I look at the shirt carefully, making sure I’m doing it right. Ironing’s not usually my department.

“You know I can’t tell you that.”

“That’s what I told Janet.”

He sighs as he sits on the edge of the bed. “Today is going to be such a shit show.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” he says, then gives me a rueful look when he realizes that, in a way, it is.

“Look,” I say, “you didn’t hear it from me, okay, but yes. John Phillips has identified a kid from Voyages as one of the teens who’s been hanging out on his property. But he didn’t see anyone that night, which makes it all speculation at this point. And I don’t know if there’s going to be interviews at the school today. Rich and Detective Donaldson think John Phillips did it.”

“Careful,” Ben says, pointing to the iron. I’ve let it rest in one place too long. Thankfully it hasn’t left a mark. “Well, that’s good, then. Janet will be relieved.”

“Only you can’t tell her.”

“Right, I know.”

“Seriously, Ben, I mean it. I could lose my job.”

“I said I wouldn’t, okay? I won’t.”