The Rebuilding Year (32 page)

Mark nodded. Slowly, he slid the elastic off his head and lowered the mask to his lap. John grabbed the last chair and sat at his son’s side. The doctor returned to bandaging Ryan, although the tilt of his head said he couldn’t resist listening. Carstairs glanced at him for a moment. “Can that wait?”

“I’m almost done. I do have other patients.”

Carstairs heaved an exaggerated sigh, but asked nothing until the dressing was taped into place. The doctor paused at the doorway. “Someone will be coming to take both of these men down for X-rays,” he said.

“I understand.”

“These walls are fabric. I can’t keep people away from here. This is a hospital, not a police station.”

“I’ll live,” Carstairs said. “Just step outside.”

He left and she drew the curtain across behind him. Then she turned to Mark, notebook in hand. “All right, kid. Let’s hear the story.”

“Um, where do you want me to start?”

“How about your name?”

“Marcus Barrett.”

“John Barrett is your father?”

“Yes.”

“John, I have your permission to speak with your son?”

“Yes,” John said, “if he agrees.”

“I want to,” Mark said. “It’s so weird. I don’t understand what happened. Someone needs to do something.”

“So,” Carstairs said. “Start at the beginning. You’re too young to be a college student. What were you doing on campus?”

“I play in a band,” Mark said. “The other three guys are at Bonaventure, so we practice on campus.”

“So you came for practice?”

“Yeah. Four o’clock, like usual. But there was a note on the board by the practice rooms that Calvin couldn’t make it. He’s our bass and vocals and he kind of leads the band. So when Gordon showed—he’s drums—when he arrived he decided not to stick around. But Patrick was there, and we’re writing a song together. So we decided since we were there anyway, we’d work for a while.”

“You’re referring to Patrick Remington, the boy who was shot?”

“Yeah. He plays flute and stuff, and he writes the song lyrics. We do the music together.”

“So you were in a practice room, writing a song. How did you end up in Smythe Hall? That’s not the music building.”

Mark hesitated and glanced at John.

“Go ahead and tell her,” he said.

“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.”

John shook his head. “Patrick has bigger problems tonight. If it might help figure out this mess and catch Crosby, you need to tell the truth.”

Mark paused a moment longer and then nodded. He looked steadily back at the detective. “Patrick’s been weird lately. Sometimes he’s off the music, or he’ll talk like he’s spaced out. The other guys said it’s just Patrick, he gets a little disconnected, but…it wasn’t right. We worked for a while on the song, but it was one of his spacey days. He kept changing the lyrics, and they made less and less sense. Then he just put down his flute and started wandering around the room.

“I asked if he wanted to pack it in, and he started telling me about his girlfriend. How she dumped him. Then he said it was because he was ugly. Because his acne was coming back. Which, yeah, he had a few zits on his forehead, but I just had to laugh. I said, ‘God, look at me before you complain.’ And he said he knew the fix for that.

“He said the guy he worked for, Crosby, had a medication. It worked great. He said he used to look worse than me, but Crosby let him use this stuff he invented. It’s not even on the market. He said him and this girl, Alice, that worked in the lab, they both got to try the stuff out. And it worked great. But then Crosby wouldn’t give him any more.”

Mark glanced at John. “He was all upset about it. Crosby wouldn’t give him any more blue gel. He called it blue gel. He started saying how he needed it to get his girl back. I was like, ‘Come on, man, she wouldn’t dump you for three zits.’ I mean, there had to be other reasons. But he swore he’d get her back. And then he said I should try it too. That it was like magic. And he could get some for both of us.”

He frowned. “I guess I should have left or something. But he said the stuff was in the lab. And he had the keys. It wasn’t like we were breaking in. He worked there. And he was going to go, no matter what I said. I was worried he might…I don’t know. So we went over to Smythe.”

“Was the building open?” Carstairs asked.

“No. Patrick had a key. He unlocked the door. We went in and then up to the sixth floor, to the lab.”

“Was the power on then?”

“Yes. We took the elevator. It was kind of dark, ‘cause by then it was probably six thirty and not many people were around, being Friday and all. But there were lights in the hallways and stuff. We went up to the lab, and Patrick had a key and we went in.” He looked at Carstairs anxiously. “We didn’t break in. Patrick had the key.”

“I understand,” she said. “Then what?”

“Patrick started looking for this blue-gel stuff. He was opening cabinets and just looking everywhere. It’s a big lab. He was being dumb, looking in the same place four times, all random and shit. After a while, I went and sat by the windows and just watched him. Because he couldn’t even tell me what the stuff looked like. I mean, blue gel, sure, but not if it would be in a bottle or a tub or anything. Then the lights went out.”

“What did you do?”

“I wanted to get out of there,” Mark said. “I was kind of freaked. But Patrick said it was just a power failure. The emergency lighting was on. And Patrick had one of those key-chain lights. So he kept on searching. And then Crosby came in.”

“Did you recognize him?”

“No. Just, Patrick said, ‘Hey, Dr. Crosby.’ Like it was all normal for him to be there fucking around in the lab in the dark. And the man said, ‘Patrick. What are you doing here?’—kind of angry. And Patrick said, ‘I’m looking for my blue gel. I just want a little more. It’s not fair to take it away.’ And Crosby was all mad, and started cussing him out.”

“Did he say why he was mad?”

“Just ‘You shouldn’t be here.’ Stuff like that. And yeah, he said Patrick would wreck everything. And then he shot Patrick.”

“Shot him? You’re sure?”

“I saw the gun,” Mark said. “I heard it. I don’t know if he hit Patrick because Patrick, like, ran out the door. And the man ran after him, and there were more shots.”

“Loud, soft, how many?”

“Shit, I don’t know,” Mark said. “More than four. Close and then further away.”

“And you didn’t call 9-1-1 or try to get away.”

“I was scared, okay?” Mark shook his head. “Yeah, okay, I was stupid. But he had a gun, and there was only the one door, and I was scared. And then he came back. The man.”

“How long after he shot at Patrick?”

“It seemed like just a few seconds, a minute, I’m not sure!”

“You’re doing fine,” Carstairs said soothingly. “You had every right to be scared. Then what happened?”

“I hid in the back of the lab, near the windows, behind the counter. The guy was muttering about his work, it was all ruined, all for nothing. And then he lit a burner thingy and he started using it to set other stuff on fire. Like he lit up these papers and the wall and stuff. Fire everywhere. And then it got noisier and I thought maybe he wouldn’t hear me. So I snuck around into the other room, but there was no way out. And I called my dad.”

John put in, “I was in my office not far away. Ryan was with me. We called 9-1-1. I ran two blocks and got into the building, and found Patrick. And then the alarms went off. When the fire was spreading.”

Carstairs said. “The fire chief told me someone had to have tampered with the alarm system to keep it quiet that long. The water main to the building was shut off and so was the main power breaker, but not the gas.”

“To make it burn better.”

“Presumably. Mark, did you see Crosby clearly when he was setting the fire? Could you identify him if you saw him again?”

“I don’t know. I was hiding, and just kind of peeking now and then, and the light was bad, all dim and flickery. I don’t know.”

“Okay. So Crosby was lighting fires. Then what?”

“Then the alarms went off, and I think he left.”

“You don’t know?”

“I was hunkered down in the other room. I was hiding, until Ryan came.”

“You didn’t leave the lab?”

“I couldn’t. It was all on fire. I couldn’t get across. I was trapped in the back room by the windows.”

“But you did get out.”

“Ryan came. He helped me. We went out the window, and back in the next floor. And then down the stairs.”

“But if you couldn’t get out, how did Ryan get in?”

“I don’t know.” Mark looked over at Ryan. “It was all on fire. There was no way out, and I knew I was going to die. And then he just…walked through it.”

“I ran like a fucking bat out of hell through it,” Ryan said from his bed. “Stayed low and moved fast. I knew what I was doing. The kid didn’t have the resources to get out, but I could get in. And then we were both trapped.”

“So you found a rope and climbed out the window!” Carstairs sounded disbelieving.

“Made a rope out of Crosby’s lab coats,” Ryan said. “Saved by bad fashion sense. If he’d had the short jacket style, we’d have been screwed. There was just enough fabric to do the job.”

John bit his lip hard. In the dark he hadn’t made out what Ryan and Mark had used to climb out on. He’d assumed rope.
Knotted lab coats.
His stomach hurt.

“And you had nothing to do with setting the fires?” Carstairs said to Mark.

“No! God, no.” He shuddered. “Why would I try to burn myself to death?”

“Maybe you miscalculated. Like painting yourself into a corner.”

“Not possible,” Ryan said firmly. “Even if Mark was the type, which he’s not, the progression of the fire moved from the center of the room to the door. Mark was on the other side of the flames. He couldn’t have done it. The arsonist worked toward the door and left that way.”

“And I should accept your analysis because?”

“Eight years on SDFD duty. I know fires.”

“And Mark wouldn’t know where to shut off the building water supply, or the power,” John added.

“You would.” Carstairs sighed. “Okay, I’m just playing the game here. I believe you, kid. For what it’s worth. Although I’ll be happier if Patrick survives and corroborates your story.”

“Do you know…?” John hesitated.

“He’s in surgery,” Carstairs said. “They’d have paged me if he died, but otherwise I don’t know.”

“That’s something,” Ryan said, and then coughed raggedly.

“Put that oxygen back on,” John told him. When Ryan didn’t immediately comply, John stood and bent over him.

Ryan looked up at him. “Did I tell you how good you looked at the bottom of those steps when I came out?”

“Better than you did at the top of them.” John put the mask over his stubborn lover’s face and ran a finger over his cheek. He saw Ryan’s eyes cut to Carstairs. But when he would have pulled back, Ryan reached up and pressed John’s hand against his face with his own palm. His eyes smiled.

“So, Barrett, I need your statement,” Carstairs said.

“Sure,” John said, not looking away from those bloodshot green eyes.
He looks like hell, and he’s still the hottest thing on the planet.
“Ask away. But I didn’t do much.”

“Except carry Patrick Remington out of the building, from what I hear.”

“Yeah, that.”
But Ryan walked through fire to save my kid.
 

Chapter Seventeen

By the next day, Ryan was already getting heartily sick of being on crutches again. The leg didn’t hurt that much. It was tempting to just use it. But he was being good. The doctor had reluctantly released him against medical advice but warned him that abusing the leg might delay healing, and the last thing Ryan needed was to weaken that calf muscle any more. And John would give him hell if he so much as put his foot to the ground. Ryan didn’t plan to give him that kind of leverage.

The rest was just…annoying. A scattering of superficial burns across his shoulders and the back of one hand. It was almost familiar. He’d taken a handful of Tylenol, but mostly to placate John. The cough came and went, but his chest no longer felt tight. And Mark was doing really well. They had been damned lucky…

The doorbell rang, and Ryan got up cautiously to peer out the sidelight. Patrick’s identity had hit the news, and cameras had caught his parents arriving at the hospital, as footage of the fire played over and over on TV. So far, either Mark’s status as a minor, or simple luck, had kept the press from their own door. But Ryan figured it was only a matter of time.

The longer, the better, though. John had sent Cynthia a brief e-mail last night—
There was a fire on campus. Ryan and Mark were in the building but got out by the door with no injuries. Mark was checked by an MD, just to be sure, and he’s fine. He’ll call you in the morning.
Then Mark had made the call, under protest and as monosyllabic as Ryan had ever heard him. Hopefully by the time any other details got out, the story would have become old local news and Cynthia would never hear about it. It was a good thing that spectators with cell phones had missed their rope descent and only had dark and unidentifiable footage of people running out of the building. If Cynthia ever found out the whole truth, she would probably try to drag Mark home to safety by his hair.