St. Albans Fire (33 page)

“Right.”

They stood awkwardly in the open doorway for a few moments.

“Well, anyhow. It’s safe. I wanted you to know it’s all over,” he said.

She gave him a sad smile. “Funny turn of phrase.”

“Oh, Christ,” he said. “No. I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry.”

But she was already shaking her head. “I think I do—mean that.”

He took a shallow breath. “Ah.”

She reached out at last and touched his cheek. He quickly turned his head and kissed her fingertips.

She dropped her hand, her expression soft and mournful. “And I’m the one who’s sorry, Joe. It’s not you. It’s me.”

“But it is what I do, isn’t it? Maybe even who I am.”

She didn’t argue with him. “You couldn’t stop that,” she said flatly.

He opened his mouth to answer, but again, she stopped him. “I wouldn’t want you to, no matter what you might say now.”

“There’re other ways I could do the same things,” he suggested.

“It would be like being the water boy at a football game,” she told him. “And I’d be the one responsible for putting you there.”

He saw that was a dead end. “You’re sure this is necessary?” he asked more generally.

“This isn’t the first time we’ve been here,” she reminded him. “You’ve been stabbed, beaten, almost blown up—God knows what else. You were shot at just a few hours ago. You’re in the middle of all that, taking responsibility, calculating the risks. I’m just the person who loves you, waiting for the bad news.”

“Will that change if we break up?”

She pursed her lips, the bearer of bad news. “Over time? Yes. It will diminish. I won’t know what you’re doing day-to-day. Also, selfishly speaking, chances are greater I won’t become a target because of you.”

He had to credit her honesty, if not her tact. Still, it was the former he’d been wanting for quite a while now, if dreading its content.

“I realize this is hard for you to understand, Joe, even with your abilities. I’ve never known a more sensitive man than you. But what just happened brought me back like a slap in the face. It was the rape all over again. I even felt raped. All over again. One of the ploys I used to get me through the rough spots back then was playing the old lightning-can’t-strike-twice denial game. They don’t recommend it, but it saw me through. Now I see what they meant.”

She paused. He didn’t say anything, at a loss for words.

“I can’t afford to do that again,” she concluded.

His heartbeat was rapid, and he knew his face was flushed, but he stayed silent, conditioned both by upbringing and by training to guard his counsel, to listen before speaking, to accept his losses. It took two to avoid the outcome she was suggesting. Whether she was right or not, she was determined to keep to her course.

And he’d never been a man to argue just for the sake of it.

Slowly, so she wouldn’t misinterpret, he leaned forward at the waist and kissed her gently on the cheek, enjoying the familiar warmth of her skin on his lips.

“I love you,” he said, straightening.

“I love you, too,” she responded as he turned to go. “I always will.”

JOE HADN’T WANTED TO RETURN
to the Cutts farm. As of late, his life was full enough of loss and grief and unanswerable questions to make a gratuitous visit to another emotional black hole impressively unappealing.

Which, of course, didn’t preclude his needing to do it anyway.

Not for Marie. Even considering his treatment of her at their last encounter, he still wasn’t keen on trying to make amends. Given what she’d always thought of him, that bordered too close to pure masochism.

Calvin, however, was another matter. Belittled by his wife and daughter, diminished by his own mixture of stoicism and self-effacement, Cal remained for Joe a potential touchstone—someone who, even now that his family was reduced to ashes, might have something to say that Joe could use in putting all this to rest.

For that remained an important coda for Joe—something he searched for at the conclusion of most cases, especially the ones extracting their weight in sorrow. In his world—the one that had just cost him Gail—such bruising needed redress, or at the very least, a moment of observance.

He had no idea how or if Calvin Cutts could supply him with such spiritual liniment, but for some reason, he’d thought of no one else when the need had become clear.

All that having been said, however, he still didn’t want to see Marie again, so, like a man obliged to attend a formal ceremony he yearned to avoid, he lingered in his car at the top of the hill above the farm, steeling himself against the inevitable—in this case, his arrival in the dooryard and the usual buzz saw greeting.

Which is when, as if from providence itself, a tractor cleared the horizon to his right and began trundling down-field, aimed directly at the fence beside him. Calvin Cutts was at the wheel.

Joe got out of the car and waited by the edge of the road until the tractor drew abreast and Calvin killed its engine.

The accompanying silence surrounded both men like the palpable warmth of the sun overhead.

Cal nodded at Joe before slowly disentangling himself from behind the steering column and climbing down to the freshly plowed earth.

“Agent Gunther,” he said, wiping his hands on his jeans as he approached.

“Mr. Cutts,” Joe said, returning the courtesy.

Cutts reached the fence and stopped. Neither man extended a hand in greeting. “What can we do for you?”

“Nothing I can think of,” Joe answered. “Just dropped by to see how you were all doing.”

It was the kind of statement Marie Cutts would have treated like a grenade pin, but Cal merely shrugged and answered, “Feeling a little caught between a dog and a tree, but I guess we’ll sort it out.”

“The farm?”

“Always. The insurance turned out to be even less than we thought, and Billy dropped his offer to where it didn’t make any sense. Looks like it’s back to life as usual.”

They were standing side by side with the fence between them, both facing the distant mountain Joe had admired on one of his first visits. Calvin’s last comment didn’t seem utterly delusional, as it might have from someone else facing his reversal of fortune. Instead, it came across as a simple statement of fact, and, for all of that, Joe was hard-pressed to doubt it. He and Cal were not entirely unalike, after all, from their parentage and age to their general stoicism.

“Could be worse,” Cal added. “Some foundation—run by that John Gregory’s brother—said they’d help out—pay for Linda’s kids’ education, replace the herd. Marie didn’t want it, of course, but we’ll take it—for all our sakes. Still,” he continued, “it’s not that we couldn’t still sell. Jeff could make more money someplace else, and I could even retire, more or less, given my needs.” He paused to rub his chin with one rough hand.

“But,” he added, “it just wouldn’t feel right.”

“What about Marie?”

He nodded. “Well, that’s part of it, of course. Farming’s what she knows. It would be a bad time to uproot her.”

When he left it at that, Joe asked, “How’s she doing?”

Cal kept his eyes on the horizon. “Not too good. Hasn’t said a word since it turned out the way it did—losing both her kids, one way or the other. It’s pretty clear Linda won’t be getting out anytime soon.”

“I am sorry about that,” Joe said gently.

Cal finally looked at him with a sad smile. “So am I. You have kids?”

“No.”

“It’s interesting,” he said philosophically. “They sure can surprise you.” After a pause, he added, “But they give you something to love all the way to the end.”

That made Joe think of Linda’s family. “Is Jeff going to stay put?” he asked.

“Far as I know. I suppose that’s the funniest part of this whole deal, when you think about it. He only really stayed because of Linda. Now it’s just him and me, basically. A couple of guys doing what they can—like shipwrecked sailors, when you think of it.”

He shook his head slowly, as if countering an argument. “No, best to keep things the same. Linda’ll know where we are that way, wherever she might be, and Marie can use the familiar routine to get better. Won’t hurt those kids, either, knowing we stuck it out.”

He bent down and retrieved a clod of earth, which he held in his hand like a talisman. Joe wondered if the gesture would result in some comment combining both insight and hope.

In the end, he wasn’t sure it didn’t.

“Guess I better get back to work,” Cal said.

If you enjoyed
St. Albans Fire
, look for
The Second Mouse
, seventeenth in the Joe Gunther series.

“WATCH OUT FOR THE CAT.”

Joe Gunther froze by the door, his hand on the knob, as if expecting the creature to materialize from thin air.

The young Vermont state trooper stationed on the porch looked apologetic. “I don’t know if we’re supposed to let it out.”

Gunther pushed the door open a couple of inches, watching in vain for any movement by his feet.

Encouraged, he crossed the threshold quickly and shut himself in, immediately encircled by the room’s strong odor of cat feces, wafting in the summer warmth.

“I vote for letting it out,” he murmured softly.

He was standing in one corner of a large, cavernous, multi-windowed room—almost the entire ground floor of a converted nineteenth century schoolhouse, some five miles south of Wilmington. Contesting the smell, sunlight poured in through a bank of open windows, nurturing a solid ranking of potted and hanging plants. Old but well-loved furniture, none of it expensive and most of it bulky, did a convincing job of filling the expanse with a selection of oasis-like islands—a grouping around the wood stove, another in a far corner flanked by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a third before a blank TV set. The most distant wall was dominated by an awkwardly linear kitchen—an orderly parade of refrigerator, range, dishwasher, sink, and counter space. Gunther imagined any truly inspired cook here needing running shoes and patience, or a gift for organization. Giving the place a hint of old Africa—or what he knew of it from the movies—were several still ceiling fans with brass housings and long, dark wooden blades.

The pine floor was covered with a hodge-podge of worn, non-descript rugs, which in turn bore several small gifts from the missing feline. That detail aside, the entire space looked homey, rambling, a little threadbare, and quietly welcoming.

The house was also imbued with the silence that only death can visit upon a place—a sense of suspended animation, striking and odd, as when a stadium full of people simultaneously holds its breath.

This absence was why Joe was there.

At the far end of the row of windows, a shadow appeared in a narrow doorway.

“Joe?”

Gunther nodded. “Hey, Doug. Good to see you.” Watching where he placed his feet, he approached his state police counterpart, Doug Matthews, the detective assigned to this region. Younger by several years, but a veteran like Joe, Matthews was experienced, low-key, and easygoing. Unlike many cops, he kept his opinions to himself, did the job, and maintained a low profile. To Joe, in a state with only a thousand full-time officers—an oversized family compared with some places—such self-effacement was to be valued.

He stuck his hand out as he drew near. “How’ve you been?”

“Pretty good,” Doug replied, accepting the handshake with a smile, his eyes remaining watchful. “Better than some. Come on in. I’ll introduce you.”

They entered a much smaller room, tacked onto the building later in life, and on the cheap. It didn’t have the bearing of its mother ship—the windows were cramped and few, the plywood floor covered with thin wall-to-wall carpeting. Low ceilinged and dim, it was paneled in fake oak, chipped and cracked.

But the furniture, also battered and old, was the same ilk as its brethren, supplying a foundation of comforting familiarity. The dresser, the heavy desk, the solid four-poster bed were of dark hardwood, and the dents and scars appearing on them spoke not of neglect, but of simple domestic history, the passage of generations.

This feeling of simmering life was echoed by the postcards and photographs adorning the walls and horizontal surfaces. Some inexpensively framed, others merely attached by tape or thumbtack, these pictures displayed vacation spots or loved ones, sun-drenched or laughing, and gave to the room, along with its furnishings, a warmth and intimacy it lacked utterly in its bare bones.

Lying across the broad bed, as if she’d been sitting on its edge in a moment of contemplation before falling back in repose, was an attractive dead woman.

Matthews kept to his word about the promised formalities. “Joe Gunther,” he said, “Michelle Fisher.”

Joe nodded silently in her direction, and Matthews, knowing the older man’s habits, kept quiet, letting him get his bearings.

Dead bodies don’t usually present themselves as they’re portrayed in the movies or on TV. In the older shows, they look like live actors with their eyes shut; in the modern, forensically-sensitive dramas, it’s just the reverse—corpses are covered with enough wounds or artificial pallor to make Frankenstein swoon.

The truth is more elusive. And more poignant. In his decades as a police officer, Joe had gazed upon hundreds of bodies—the young, the old, the frail and the strong. What he’d discovered, blandly enough, was that the only common trait they shared was stillness. They displayed all the variety that they had in life, but in none of the same ways. In silent pantomime of their former selves, instead of quiet or talkative, gloomy or upbeat, they were now mottled or ghostly white, bloated or emaciated, transfixed into grimace or peaceful as if sleeping. Nevertheless, for those willing to watch and study, the dead, as if trying to slip free of their muted condition, still seemed capable of a kind of frozen, extraordinarily subtle form of sign language.

That limited communication worked both ways. Everyone Joe knew, including himself, began their interviews with the deceased by simply staring at them searchingly, awaiting a signal. He asked himself sometimes how many of the dead might have struggled fruitlessly to be heard in life, only to be scrutinized too late by total strangers anxious to see or hear even the slightest twitch or murmur.