The Smoke Room (17 page)

23. HEATHER, ME, HIM, AND HIM

WHEN THEY RELEASED
me from Harborview at four in the morning, the safety chief drove me to Station 29, where I picked up my car and drove home. I slept until almost eleven, then lay in bed for a long time staring at the same ceiling I’d stared at all those times making love with Iola, who preferred to be on top, running the show.

I was in a state of shock that was hard to explain. I’d thought long and hard at the hospital about turning Tronstad in, but each time I tried to make the decision, I thought about that videotape of me shoving Sears underwater. It was clear on the tape he hadn’t come back up after I shoved him. It looked like murder even to me. Me murdering Sears. Or manslaughter. Or whatever you call it. It scared me enough to keep my mouth shut.

At four in the afternoon, I put a Modest Mouse CD in and drove past Iola Pederson’s home. Bernard’s truck was in the drive, so I didn’t stop. The next two days passed in a fog. Trying to cajole me into retrieving the bonds, Tronstad phoned me every two hours. Johnson called, too, more concerned with whether or not I was planning to blab about Sears’s death than about laying his hands on the bonds, though he did mention the money in his third and fourth calls. And then again somewhere around his ninth call.

I scanned the local newspapers. One headline said,
Fire Officer Dies in Freak Mishap.
Another said,
Firefighter Hero Narrowly Escapes Drowning.

Late Thursday afternoon the three of us attended Sears’s funeral at the same Catholic church on Capitol Hill where Abbott got his send-off. Before, during, and after the service I spoke to no one, a large bandage concealing the scratches on my face. Every time I caught someone staring, I was reminded of how much the white bandage stood out in a sea of black hats and black uniforms.

Parts of the two-hour funeral passed in a blur, while others dragged. It was a gut-wrenching affair. There were bagpipers and hundreds of uniformed personnel, the mourners from other departments, Heather’s rugby teammates, and assorted citizens who’d gone to school with the dead man, had been on committees with him, or had skied with him.

People were beginning to call Station 29 the department’s bad luck station. Ted Tronstad encouraged that line of chatter, possibly because it kept speculation centered around luck instead of the actions or inactions of our crew.

When you don’t like a guy and he dies, in some ways it’s a worst-case scenario. Perhaps because of this, Robert Johnson blathered on at length to anybody who would listen about how hard we’d tried to save Sears. I wanted to tell him to shut up, that he might as well have blurted a confession, but once he got rolling he was impossible to derail. According to Johnson, he’d almost gone into the drink himself trying to fish Sears out, and he didn’t swim any better than Sears. He said the whirlpool would have sucked down a Volkswagen.

Tronstad came at it from a different angle, explaining that the stress of handling the funeral arrangements for Abbott and of losing a friend had warped the lieutenant’s judgment and dampened his reflexes, that these were the reasons he’d stumbled into the pool and hadn’t been able to extricate himself.

I didn’t talk to anybody. Any conjecture about my lieutenant’s death brought up images of the videotape. Us struggling. Me grabbing his face and ramming him under the surface. The camera lingering on the spot long enough for the viewer to realize he wasn’t going to bob back up, lingering on me as I put my face in the water to survey the damage I’d done.

On Tuesday morning, instead of waking up in an orange King County Jail jumpsuit, I woke up cloaked in the mantle of celebrity, just as I had after bringing Susan and Fred Rankler’s dead and dying bodies out of their burning home. It was the second time in a month I’d fraudulently sideslipped ignominy to become a hero. If Arch Place was my pedestal to fraud, surviving the water that vacuumed Sears to his death was my monument. Once again I’d become something of the department paladin.

For reasons I couldn’t begin to understand, firefighters looked at me with renewed respect and deference. The group-think seemed to be that if you wanted somebody you could count on, Jason Gum was your man—even though Sears had counted on me, and Sears was dead. The Ranklers had counted on me, and they were dead. How did these events make me a hero in anyone’s eyes? It was tempting to bask in the respect of my peers, but I knew I didn’t deserve their esteem, and the conceit sickened me.

Under police questioning, Johnson wept. I never knew whether it was artifice or genuine, though Tronstad swore it was the former. But then, Ted thought I was faking, too.

The police weren’t happy with any of it, yet I could tell from their questions they didn’t suspect murder. To complicate matters, the first street officer on the scene drove into the pool and high-centered her squad car on the edge of the hole, barely managing to climb out of the vehicle without drowning in the sinkhole herself.

At five the next morning, engineering crews recovered Sears’s mangled body, which had been wedged into a culvert a block east of the pool. Most of the bones in his face had been broken during his ride through the concrete pipes. The condition and location of his corpse, my hospitalization, and the false sincerity Tronstad and Johnson displayed under questioning convinced investigators it was an accident.

I realized Tronstad had let me out of the pool only because I was the one who knew where the bonds were. The bonds, which had been such a burden to me over the past week, had ended up saving my life. From Tronstad’s point of view, it had all come off without a hitch. Sears wasn’t around to put us in jail, I was still alive to tell him where the bonds were, and he had a videotape with which to blackmail me.

AT FOUR-THIRTY Thursday afternoon the three of us were in Station 29’s bunk room changing out of our class-A uniforms. We were the only people in the station. I was morose to the point of paralysis. In fact, while Johnson and Tronstad changed into civilian clothing, I stood like a wooden Indian in front of my clothing locker: numb, speechless, and more convinced than ever I was damned. The worst part was that I couldn’t think of a thing I could do to make things right.

If I started talking to the authorities, there was a remote possibility Johnson’s conscience would kick in and he would back me, but there was a greater chance he wouldn’t, and that I would be charged in Sears’s death. It was one thing to report events to the police, and quite another to turn yourself in for a murder you didn’t commit.

“What’s the problem, Juicy Fruit?” Tronstad asked, smirking. “Don’t look so down in the mouth. Relax. We’re free and clear. You, me, and Robert.”

“That was a better funeral than Abbott’s,” Johnson said. “Don’t you think, Gum?”

“You killed him,” I said, staring pointedly at Tronstad.

“You read the paper. The man drowned. You’d think a guy who knew as much as he did would learn how to swim. Dumb fucker.”

“Don’t talk about Sears like that.”

“Oh, he’s your buddy now? He was going to send you to jail, pal.”

“You moved those warning signs. You turned that hole into a trap.”

“I didn’t touch any signs. Did I, Robert?”

Johnson turned away.

“I know you saw him moving those signs,” I said to Johnson. “You probably helped.”

“I didn’t help.”

“You saw him.”

“It was just a hole full of water. We didn’t even know how deep it was. We didn’t know there was an outlet at the bottom.”

“Shut up, Robert,” Tronstad said.

I pressed Johnson. “There is no neutral ground here. You’re either a murderer or you’re not. Which is it?”

“Gum, can’t we just let this be? You’re getting way too emotional.”

“A man’s dead! Two men! You cocksuckers.”

“You’re turning into a foul bird, Jason boy,” Tronstad said.

I was convinced now that Tronstad had locked Abbott in the smoke room with the intention of leaving him there until he died. Until now I’d been willing to think it was a vicious prank gone haywire, but no longer.

“Come, come, Mr. Gum. You need to step back and look at the big picture. You don’t want to go to jail. Robert and I wouldn’t get our bonds, would we?”

“Hello?” A woman rapped lightly on the bunk-room door. “Hello?”

To my astonishment, Sears’s widow, Heather Wynn, stepped into the bunk room, moving awkwardly in a skirt and heels.

“Hey, Heather,” said Tronstad.

“I didn’t know if it was okay to come in.”

“Oh, for gosh sakes,” said Johnson, closing the space between them and giving her an energetic hug. “We feel so miserable about this.” Robert looked around at me. “We were just talking about it, in fact.”

“You were changing. I’ll leave.”

“No. Tronstad and I are done. Gum can wait.”

“You’ve all been so nice.”

“I thought you would still be at the cemetery,” Johnson said.

“I have a tough enough time around Sweeney’s parents on a good day, but they’re driving me insane today. They think they’re the only ones who ever loved him.”

We were quiet for half a minute. Finally, Heather stepped across the space between us and touched my face above the bandage, her cold hand lingering on my skin. It was oddly personal and not a little erotic. “You’re taking this harder than anyone, Gum. I can tell.”

We stood like that until Tronstad said, “Maybe you want to have some coffee? We can go to the other side and see if they made any.”

“I came here to talk to you three.”

“Us?” Johnson asked.

“There was something going on here at work. Sweeney said it involved the three of you.”

Johnson smiled. “Us? Me, him, and him?”

“The crew, he said. I assume it meant you three.”

Tronstad said, “Did Sweeney talk much about his work to you?”

“All I want to know is what was going on.”

Johnson stammered, “I, uh, don’t know what to say. Do you, Gum?”

“Don’t drag me into this.”

“Why not?” Heather turned to me. “Why shouldn’t he drag you into this?”

“Because I was the last person to speak to your husband. Because I feel like shit.”

My statement startled Heather, who stepped back half a pace. She was one of those people who was always in your face, violating your personal territory, and she’d been too close since she touched my face.

“Jesus, Gum,” Tronstad said. “Go easy on Heather, would you?”

“Maybe we better adjourn to the beanery,” Johnson said. “Let Gum change his uniform. Maybe get him something to drink. I think he might be dehydrated.”

“Fuck you.”

Heather took another step back, while Tronstad moved in and draped his arm across my shoulders. “Maybe we should drag out that old videotape, huh, Gum? Play it for Ms. Wynn.”

“What videotape?” Heather asked.

“Oh, just some snippets I saved over the months we worked with your husband. Shots of us drilling. Some clowning around in the beanery. I wasn’t sure now was the time, but we could do it now.”

“I’d like to see those,” Heather said.

“What do you think, Gum?” Tronstad squeezed my shoulders so hard, it hurt.

“Not just now.”

Tronstad bobbled his eyebrows. “Maybe I’ll let Heather see it later.”

“I’d like that,” Heather said. “Maybe at the same time, you could look at some notes my husband left.”

“Don’t tell me he kept a diary?”

“A journal. It was the mention of money that kind of threw me.”

“Money?” Tronstad looked at me.

If this was a fishing expedition, I couldn’t see it in her eyes, which were puffy from crying. As always, she gave the impression of being a strong woman, both physically and mentally, but she also gave off the aura of a woman who wasn’t quite centered. From our talks with Sears, we knew she’d left him several times over the past couple of years, leapfrogged from one fad diet to another with a devotion bordering on madness, and had sleep problems so severe she’d been to specialists. Tronstad opined that she needed to get rattled by a good man, but he said that about all women. To my mind Heather was easy to talk to and fun to be with. I could understand what Sears saw in her.

“What money are you talking about?” Johnson asked. “Like his paycheck was screwed up or something?”

“He said you guys had come into a lot of money. He said he thought you were going to give some to him.”

My stomach sank through the floor. Had Sears been jobbing us all along? Was it possible he’d had no intention of turning us in, that he’d been toying with us so he could get a share of Ghanet’s loot? Was that why he’d taken us to the fire instead of calling the police from the firehouse? If so, it was ironic he hadn’t revealed his plans sooner, because if he’d asked for a quarter of the bonds, I don’t think it would have occurred to Tronstad to drown him.

“He thought
we
came into some money?” Tronstad asked.
“Us?”

“You got new cars. Two of you did.”

“I’m going to get changed.” I pulled my jeans off the hook in my locker and looked at Heather, who stared back guilelessly, her long face and blue eyes framed in a wash of dirty-blond curls. I unbuckled my trousers, but she made no move to leave.