The Clouds Roll Away (9 page)

“Be glad she's not with those nutty Pentecostals.”

After my father died, my mother gravitated toward charismatic services.

“It's not about the church, Helen. It's about why she's going. She's forcing herself to perform duties she doesn't even enjoy or believe in. Maybe it's guilt or fear or some paranoid obligation, but it's like living with a robot.”

“Leave her alone. Vincent said all religions are equal. Buddhist, Christian, Muslim. They're all the same, so it doesn't matter where she goes.”

Queen of the button-pushers, my sister maintained an annoying habit of referring to Vincent van Gogh by his first name, as if they were intimate friends. But nothing sent me over the edge faster than when she moralized about my faith using the words of a guy who sliced off his own ear after an argument with his mistress.

“Helen, what if I said all paintings were the same?”

“What?”

“It's all paint,” I said. “So we shouldn't judge
Sunflowers
as any better than somebody's amateur watercolor.”

She crossed her arms. Her enormous gray sweater hung on her tiny frame like a dress. “You are,” she said, lifting her fine chin, “the most annoying person on the planet.”

“I love you too.”

She rolled her eyes. Beautiful eyes. Almost turquoise. “What do you want me to do?”

“Come see for yourself. She's acting like a wind-up doll. Something's about to snap.”

“As soon as finals are over.”

I sighed. That meant next week.

“Are we done?” she asked.

“Almost,” I said. “Is Milky around?”

She shook her head. “Not this again.”

A 265-pound former crack addict, Milky Lewis had a face that looked like it sped through puberty so fast it missed the exit. Soft and rounded, with bones that didn't seem quite set, his brown face grew a wispy black beard sparse as tumbleweed. His childlike appearance disguised a bitter childhood, a childhood spent guarding the front door while his mother prostituted herself for drugs. Later Milky sold crack to support six younger siblings.

Leaving Helen's office, I ran down to the Lucky Strike building, a former tobacco warehouse on Canal Street. Shuttered by Philip Morris decades ago, the gouged pine floors still reeked of the sweet and bitter scent of curing tobacco leaf. I found Milky in one of the studios, swirling an acetylene blowtorch over frayed steel cables. An artists group had converted the warehouse into studios and a gallery.

“R-r-raleigh?” He pushed up the protective visor.

Milky's stutter was terrible, but it had saved his life. Without it, he'd be in jail.

“How are you doing, Milky?”

“I-I-I thought you moved to Oregon.”

“Washington.”

He shrugged, signaling the truth. Most of the East Coast, particularly the South, saw Pacific Northwest states as one big indistinguishable region.

Twisting off the blowtorch, Milky asked what I thought of his sculpture. It was a mess of soldered steel and I offered him the same response that I gave my mom for her food.

“Wow.”

“Ye-yeah,” he said.

“Helen says you're working down here in the art gallery.”

He nodded, telling me about the art show, and I listened carefully. But he would always be streetwise and finally he stared down at his beefy hands.

“Wh-why are you here?”

We would never be friends. I never pretended otherwise. The FBI had picked up Milky as part of a joint drug task force operation. I was a relatively new agent, assigned to the interrogation room. Milky's stutter improved when I talked to him. To keep himself calm, and get around difficult words, he drew pictures. When the task force ended, successfully, Milky served four months on a plea. His buddies did years. I showed his drawings to Helen, who pulled him a full scholarship to VCU. Probationary.

“Are you related to a girl named Zennie Lewis?”

I watched another layer of betrayal settle into his dark eyes.

“Wh-why?”

“I can't tell you, Milky. Is she family?”

“C-cousin.”

“Close cousin or four marriages and two half-brothers removed?”

“T-tell me wh-what she's done.”

Close cousin, I decided. “I need to talk to her. That should tell you enough.”

He wanted to know what we were offering her.

“We talk first; any deals are later. If there are deals.”

The soft brown flesh buckled across his forehead. “You hear about any other L-Lewises?”

“Just Zennie.”

But the pained expression on his face said he didn't quite believe me.

The cold bristled in my lungs as I jogged from the tobacco warehouse, heading up East Main. Although I didn't like running at night, at times like this, happiness really was a warm gun, and when my cell phone rang, I didn't stop but unclipped the phone from my waistband, glancing at the LCD display.

The sheriff from Charles City County.

“Miss Harmon?” he said in his slow drawl.

“Yes?”

“I thought you'd want to know.”

“About what?” I was passing the Jefferson Hotel, so lit up the white stone glowed.

“In case it's true, y'all might want to get out to Rapland right quick,” he said. “Somebody just called in a bomb threat.”

chapter twelve

F
ifty-four minutes past nine o'clock, I sped the K-Car down Rapland's driveway. Blue-and-white police lights crisscrossed the dark. I counted six cruisers lined up bumper-­to-bumper behind a white EMT van, its back doors open.

When I stepped out of the K-Car, the air smelled of incinerated rubber and scorched metal and a strange peppery scent. The officers stood together beside the EMT van, using it as a shield against the burning mess on the other side.

Outside the eight-bay garage, the gravel had blown away, the garage doors splintered with shrapnel from the torn vehicle steaming and smoldering on the rocks. The windshield and part of the roof were gone and a stick shape leaned out of the vehicle, as if trying to see around a blind curve. One appendage dangled, terminated in red jelly and I glanced at the head, once. Soot-streaked bone. Melted hair. Restraining the gag reflex, I swallowed, tasting the green and peppery air.

Geraniums.

Yanking my turtleneck over my nose and mouth, I ran toward the officers. Safety glass crunched under my feet. The sheriff was speaking to the EMTs. I swallowed again, throat burning. The peppery scent blew in waves, riding a breeze off the river.

“Sheriff.”

He turned, startled by my hidden face.

“Sheriff, get everyone away from this scene now.”

“What?” he said.

“Call Hazmat. Get these men in their vehicles—”

“I already called the bomb squad.” He sounded defensive. “We don't know if the gas tank already blew but we're not stupid; that's why we're standing over here.”

My eyes burned. “Can you smell that?”

“What?”

“The smell, like geraniums? It's a deadly poison. Get your men out of here or you—”

“I don't see—”

I turned to the medics, speaking to the older one. “Do you have gas masks?”

He glanced at the sheriff, almost laughing. “No.”

“This isn't a joke, Sheriff. Please. It's a poison, used as a fire starter.”

He ran his flickering eyes over my face. His expression shifted from suspicion to realization. “Everybody in their cars—now!” he yelled. “Now!”

I looked at the medics. “Start treating everyone for exposure to vesicants.”

“For what?”

“Blister agents.” Still speaking through the fabric of my turtleneck, I squinted to limit the fumes' contact with my eyes. “Get everyone to the nearest hospital. Wash the skin. Check the lungs.”

I glanced back at the main house, thirty yards away. The lights were on. Cujo stood on the front porch, his muscular form looking squat and thick.

“He refuses to talk to me,” the sheriff said.

“Get to the hospital, Sheriff. I'll wait for Hazmat.”

“But you're—”

“I haven't been exposed as long, and the wind is carrying it away. Were you here when the bomb went off?”

“No.”

“Good. Get to the hospital anyway.”

I ran for the house. The security lights blinked on as I moved across the lawn, throwing a long shadow on the ground surrounded by glass fragments that glittered like diamonds. On the porch, Cujo held an assault rifle, the muzzle pointed toward the porch floor.

“Quick, get inside.” I reached around him, opening the door.

“Are any windows open?”

“What's going on?” he said.

“Are they open!” I slammed the door shut.

“No,” he said. “It's cold out, why would—”

“Keep the house sealed tight. Don't open any windows. Where are the chil—”

Hearing a whimper, I turned. The woman in the batik skirt and UVA sweatshirt sat on the stairs, looking down at us. Four little boys in pajamas clung to her skirt, their brown eyes widened with fear. Another two, older, stood behind her with assorted women, all black, all scared.

“Were they outside?” I asked.

Cujo shook his head.

“Don't let them out; the air is poisonous right now. Do you know who was driving that car?”

“Some local kid. Cleveland.”

“That's his real name?”

“I don't know. We just called him Cleveland.”

“What was he doing?”

“Starting all the cars. You know, to keep the batteries running in the winter. RPM's got eight cars out there, and they don't get driven—”

“How often did he do that?”

“Cleveland? Once a week.”

“Was it the same night each week?”

Cujo thought about it. Then nodded.

“When the bomb went off, where were you?”

He pinched his black T-shirt, ringed with sweat. “In the gym. I heard something sounded like the end of the world. I grabbed my gun, ran outside—”

“How long were you outside?”

“Long enough to see the flames.”

“How long?”

“Couple of seconds. Everybody was screaming so I came back in here.”

“RPM's left for Africa?”

“They took off about eight o'clock.”

“When did this thing go off?”

“About nine thirty,” he said. “I had the TV on in the gym, my show was almost over.”

I heard a siren blaring and glanced out the window beside the front door. Two fire trucks barreled down the driveway, red lights spinning. When I looked back at Cujo, his eyes had turned to anthracite.

“Yeah,” he said, as if answering a question.

“Yeah what?”

“Notice how they didn't call the fire truck till now? This is why RPM called the Feds. Whole house blows up, and what, I'm gonna get us all out in time?”

I glanced up the stairs. One boy had buried his face in the woman's skirt. She patted his back. He whimpered. The others just stared.

I turned my back, dropping my voice. “Cujo, put the children somewhere they can't see or hear anything. Please. I'll send a medic in to see if there's been any exposure. But above all, stay inside where it's safe.”

“No kidding,” Cujo said.

I pulled my turtleneck back over my nose and mouth, opened the door, and ran for the K-Car.

Windows up, vents closed, I watched from inside the car as gas-masked firemen sprayed down the blown-up vehicle. It still smoldered in the cold, gray clouds rising from its scorched form. When the state Hazmat team arrived, I flashed my headlights and somebody wearing a yellow protective suit and visor lumbered toward my car. I cracked my window two inches, introducing myself. My throat stung. I hoped it was just the cold air and my run earlier tonight. I introduced myself.

“Tom Brennan,” he said, speaking through the plastic helmet. A black tube connected an air pump to his suit.