The Burnt Orange Sunrise (38 page)

And maybe the weatherman would even be right this time.

Peck’s Point had been plowed all the way out to the gate, Mitch was happy to see. He had his driver drop him there. Then he stepped his way carefully across the battered, snow-packed wooden causeway to his island home, feeling as if he’d been away for two months.

Big Sister had taken a definite pounding. A weeping cherry had come down on Bitsy Peck’s covered porch. The fine old oak tree out front of Dolly Peck’s had split right down the middle, landing this way and that in her driveway. The private dock where Evan Peck kept his J-24 tied up each summer had been smashed to pieces by the floating chunks of ice that the angry surf had brought crashing in.
But no power lines were down and no houses had taken structural hits. It was all damage that could be dealt with in the weeks ahead, just as the causeway could be dealt with. Standard winter wear and tear when you lived out on an island in the Sound.

Although there was one very important lesson that Mitch had learned from this experience: The next time he saw a burnt orange sunrise in February he would not wonder if it was a good omen. Rather, he would bar the door and hide under the bed.

His carriage house had lost several of its roofing shingles to the wind, exposing the reddish, nearly new-looking cedar underneath. The little apple tree he’d planted in the fall had been uprooted. Otherwise, the place looked okay. And Mitch heard absolutely the most wonderful sound when he went in the door—the steady thrum of his furnace. The power was back on. It was still very, very chilly in the house, but his faucets ran normally. He would have to make his rounds later on just to be certain, but if his own pipes were okay, then the chances were that everyone else’s would be, too. His house had the least amount of insulation on the entire island.

Clemmie and Quirt were cold, hungry, lonely, indignant, pissed off and terribly in need of petting and snuggling and more snuggling. Not a crumb of kibble was left in their bowls. He put down fresh kibble and treated each cat to an entire jar of their Beechnut Stage 1 strained chicken with broth. According to Des, baby food was much better for them than canned cat food. No artificial ingredients, no additives—just chicken. Clemmie and Quirt couldn’t lick their way through enough of it.

He got a big fire going in the fireplace. Cranked up his coffeemaker. Logged on to his computer. Ada Geiger’s death had made its way onto the news wires. Mitch’s editor at the paper, Lacy Nickerson, had already e-mailed him three times about it. He e-mailed her back, promising her a piece about the legendary director by day’s end. A large, comfortably aged pot of American chop suey was waiting for him in his refrigerator. He put it on the stove to warm while he jumped into a scalding-hot shower, a plastic shower cap of Des’s
carefully positioned over his bandaged head. He shaved off his itchy stubble, climbed gratefully into clean, dry clothes and shoveled down three man-sized portions of his favorite sustenance. Then he poured himself a mug of coffee, topped it off with two fingers of chocolate milk and sat back down at his computer, gathering his thoughts on Ada.

That was when Yolie Snipes phoned to say she was on her way over with something near and dear to him. He hoofed his way across the causeway to meet her at the gate when she buzzed. It was his beloved Studebaker pickup that she’d brought him. His truck and a pair of envelopes—a large manila one for Des, an Astrid’s Castle letter-sized envelope for him. Inside his he found a check for $320 made out in his name and signed by Aaron Ackerman. There was a scribbled note enclosed:

I would very much like a chance to win this back the next time you re in D.C.
—
Aaron

Somehow, Mitch doubted he’d be taking Acky up on the offer any time soon.

“I take it you folks managed to dig your way out,” he said as he drove Yolie back toward Astrid’s.

“True, that,” she confirmed. “But if we’d left it up to the power company, we’d still be stuck up there. Captain Polito strong-armed him a dozen young recruits with chain saws to clear the private drive. Lousy duty, but those boys got it done.”

Yolie had a few more questions for Mitch while he steered the truck up Route 156. Also a bit of news—she’d spoken to Martha Burgess, who had told her something very interesting. And then, before he knew it, Mitch was right back at the front gate to Astrid’s Castle. As he started his way up the steep, twisting drive, he was hit by this powerful, awful feeling that someone had just hit the rewind button and the whole movie was going to start all over again from the beginning. This time in slo-mo.

Truly, it was a comfort to see so many state police cars and crime scene vans clustered there by the drawbridge when he pulled up.

“This here’s a crazy one,” Yolie said as she hopped out, her braids glistening in the sunlight. “There’s nobody left to charge with anything. Nobody who did anything is still with us. Everybody’s dead.”

“Except for us,” Mitch said quietly.

“You tell my baby girl to take care, hear?”

“Will do,” Mitch promised, flooring it the hell out of there. He could not get away from Astrid’s Castle fast enough.

He stopped off at Des’s house to pick up a few things for her. Round little Bella Tillis was in the kitchen heating up some of her homemade mushroom-barley soup.

“Good, you can take this to her for me,” she huffed at Mitch when he came in the door. “I’ll go see her later on this afternoon.”

“Sure, that sounds fine.”

“Would you mind telling me why you’re wearing a turban?”

“That’s how they dress head wounds. The nurse said I can take it off tomorrow.”

“Oh, I’ll just bet she did,” Bella snapped, slamming her way around the kitchen like an angry bumper car. “Make sure Desiree eats this while it’s still hot,” she ordered him as she poured the steaming soup into a heavy-duty thermos bottle.

“I’ll sure try. But I can’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to do.”

“No, she’s stubborn, all right. But I don’t have to tell
you
about stubborn, do I?”

“Bella, do we have a problem I don’t know about?”

“You tell me,” she fired back, standing there with her hands parked on her hips. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” he said, fingering his bandage. “Just a little headachy.”

“No, I mean how are
you feeling
—as if you didn’t know.”

“I didn’t. I don’t. I …” Actually, Mitch was starting to feel a bit dizzy again. “What
do
you mean?

“If you break that poor girl’s heart, she won’t be the only one walking around town with a broken arm, that’s what,” Bella answered, stabbing Mitch in the chest with her stubby index finger.
“You’ll still have to deal with me, Mr. Hotshot New York Film Critic. And I will never forgive you.
Now
do we understand each other?”

“No, I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Tie that bull outside, as we used to say on Nostrand Avenue.”

“Bella, I have never understood what that expression means.”

“It means, be afraid,” she growled at him. “Be very afraid.”

“Trust me, I am,” he assured her, backing his way slowly out of the kitchen.

When he arrived at the hospital he found the patient sitting up in bed engrossed by an old rerun of
The Loveboat
on television.

“Okay, this must be all of the painkillers they’re giving you,” he said, kissing her on the cheek.

“Shush!” Des ordered him, her eyes glued to the set. “She’s not really in love with the captain after all. She was just trying to make her ex-husband jealous.”

“Des, you are sitting here watching Bert Convy and Florence Henderson exchange witty repartee,” he pointed out, flicking off the television.

“Hey …!” She protested.

“Why don’t you try this instead?” he said, presenting her with the envelope of crime scene photographs that Yolie had delivered, along with the sketch pad and graphite sticks that he’d brought from her house.

“Um, okay, you may have noticed my right arm isn’t exactly functioning.”

“Your life drawing teacher told you he actually preferred your left-handed stuff. He thought it felt less restrained.”

“Mitch, do you remember every single word I tell you?”

“Elephants and Jewish men never forget. Girlfriend, you’ve been through a lot. This is how you deal. So you may as well start dealing. It’s not like you’ve got anything better to do for the next day or two.”

“Actually, I’ve been lying here thinking about what Ada told me,” she confessed. “How I shouldn’t be taking any more classes. Kind of scary.”

“Why scary?”

“Because taking classes is what I’m about right now. That’s why I’m doing this resident-trooper thing instead of humping to get back on Major Crimes. If I’m not learning to be an artist, then what
am
I doing?”

“Being
an artist.”

Her eyes widened with fear. “Doughboy, you just sent a cold chill right up and down my spine.”

“Nah, that’s just your backless hospital gown—your booty’s waving in the breeze. Des, I agree with Ada. You’re ready to take the next step. You can handle this.”

“Sure about that, are you?” she asked him warily.

“I have no doubts. None.”

“So what’s in the thermos?”

“Mushroom-barley soup, courtesy of your roommate.”

“Yum, let me at it.”

He poured some of it into a Styrofoam cup for her and set it on her tray table, along with a spoon.

She sampled it eagerly, smacking her lips. “That Jewish mother can make soup.”

“Yolie had herself a conversation with Martha Burgess,” Mitch announced, flopping down in the chair next to the bed. “Martha cried her poor eyes out about Les. But here comes the weird part—she told Yolie she’d broken it off with him several weeks ago. Decided to give her marriage another chance.”

“So she wasn’t planning to leave Bob for Les?”

“Apparently not. Which got me to wondering,” Mitch said. “What if Les was actually planning to marry Jory after all?”

“Could be he was,” Des answered wearily. “There’s no telling what he promised Jory, or she promised him. We only have her version, and that girl and the truth were not exactly tight.” She set her spoon aside and slumped back against her pillows. She’d barely touched the soup. Her appetite wasn’t back yet.

“Are you going to finish that?” he asked her, gazing hungrily at the nearly full cup.

“Knock yourself out.”

He was not disappointed. Bella’s soup was hearty and flavorful. “We’ll never know the whole truth, will we?” he asked, slurping up every last drop.

“We never do,” she said. “Not about anyone or anything. The best we can ever do is guess. My guess? Les and Jory were each conning the other. On top of which she was conning Jase.”

“At least Les and Jory ended up paying for it. They got punished for what they did to Norma, not to mention Jase.”

Des looked at him curiously. “Jase was in on it, Mitch. He murdered three people in cold blood—
and
put me in this bed.”

“All true. But I still have to cut him some slack. He was trusting and vulnerable and Jory took full advantage of him. Believe me, I’m genuinely repulsed by the intimate details of their relationship. But Jory’s love was the only anchor Jase had. She threatened to take it away from him. That was more than he could handle, and Jory knew it. I put this all on her. She was greedy. She was ruthless. And, considering how easily Les duped her into killing Norma, she was also incredibly stupid.”

“She believed in the dream. Not that I’m defending the sick bitch. I’m just saying it, is all.”

“Which dream is that?”

“The one where we all live happily ever after. She
deserved
to be happy. That’s what she told me.”

“She
deserved
to die a horrible death,” Mitch argued vehemently. He was still profoundly shaken by Jase’s taking of his own life in that rail barn.
He’d felt
Jase’s anguish in those final few moments before Jase pulled the trigger. Gazed right into his eyes as Jase chose death over life. And Mitch could not stop thinking about it. He kept feeling as if something truly momentous had happened to him in Choo-Choo Cholly’s house.

In the weeks and months ahead, it would finally dawn on him what that something was: He had survived.

“Could you have done it?” Des lay there limply, her eyes searching his face. “Could you have shot Jase?”

“I honestly don’t know. I’m just grateful that I didn’t have to find out.”

“So am I. If you’d killed him, you wouldn’t be the same person anymore. Killing changes you. It changes everything.”

“How?”

“I hope you never find out how,” she said heavily. “What are you doing with yourself? When you’re not fussing over me, I mean.”

“Working on a piece about Ada.”

“How about that book you’ve been trying to write?”

“You mean my major treatise on Hollywood and the unbearable lightness of contemporary being? Actually, I was giving that a lot of thought last night while I was sitting here in this chair. You may have noticed that I’ve been—how shall I say?—having a little trouble getting started on it.”

“I may have.”

“I think I’ve figured out why. See, what I’ve been trying to do is tell people what’s wrong with American culture, when what I should be doing is simply letting the story of Jory Hearn tell itself.”

“Okay, you’d better trot that one by me again.”

“You just said it yourself, Des. All of this happened because she believed in the dream. She was searching for that fairy-tale happy ending, the one that Hollywood keeps telling us will eventually come our way. All we have to do is
believe.
Well, Jory did believe. She thought she was going to marry Prince Charming and live happily ever after.”

“Les was no Prince Charming. Les was the frog. And all of that’s nothing but childish nonsense.”

“Which is exactly the point that Ada was making at dinner before the lights went out and people started dying one by one. Hollywood keeps treating us like little children. That’s how they rake in the big bucks—by encouraging us to choose storybook fantasy over adult reality. And we’re only too happy to comply, because life is just so much easier that way. It’s easier to believe in miracle-diet cures than it is to exercise every day and eat right. It’s easier to believe you’ll win the Powerball Lottery than it is to work hard for a living and pay
your bills on time. It’s easier to dream about some fairy-tale romance than it is to apply yourself to a real relationship based on commitment and support and trust. And so we
believe.
That way, we’re off the hook. We never have to take any responsibility for our own lives. And this is not a healthy thing. This is how we end up with a flesh-eating mutant like Jory Hearn. Don’t misunderstand me, Jory was a genuinely evil, screwed-up person. And I’m not blaming the movies for what she did. Movies are my life. I love them. I need them. We all do. They comfort us when we need comforting. But take a good hard look at her, Des. Look at all of those people who died because she
believed.
And tell me that something isn’t terribly wrong somewhere.” He trailed off now, clearing his throat. “Speaking of which, Bella seems to think there’s something wrong between us.”