by Kate Flora
I went to the sink, used the bottle of detergent that still sat there to clean my hands. The soap stung where they'd been burned. I wet a paper towel and scrubbed at my face as I continued my story. "It was only a few minutes. I looked at the dining room and then went into the kitchen. That's when I heard sounds, like someone in pain. I went into the living room to investigate. And I found her."
I started to rub my face again. And stopped myself again, wondering if he might think all this face rubbing was odd. My hands hurt. They were red and tender and had little rows of blisters. I wanted to plunge them into a bucket of ice. But there probably was no ice, and anyway, he was looking very impatient. I dropped my hands and went on. So far, I was all they had.
"Do you think it would have made any difference if I'd found her sooner? If I'd opened those doors first? Will it make any difference?" Would. Will. Was Ginger going to live? Would she even want to? I'd heard the recovery from burns was terrible.
I had no idea how long it would have taken those heaters to do so much damage. Was it minutes or hours? Had that call to delay me really come from Ginger's office? What if it had come from the killer, to give him—her?—time to waylay Ginger and set this up? Had her attacker meant for her to die or just to suffer horribly? But it had come from Ginger's office, because the realtor's name was what had showed up on my caller ID. But now I couldn't remember whether that also came up when she used her cell phone.
I shivered. What had the killer's plan been? This wasn't some random act. No one drives around with six or eight space heaters in their car, never mind all those extension cords. Would they even fit in a car? Maybe the bad guy needed a truck. And why heaters? It was peculiar way to kill somebody. Was I supposed to arrive and save her or arrive and find her? Either one was horrible.
Scafaro cleared his throat and tapped his pen against his pad. He hadn't answered my question. Probably he had no idea, but cops didn't answer witnesses' questions anyway. That was not how they worked. It was all a one-way street.
"As I stepped into the room, I saw Ginger there, in the chair, surrounded by those portable heaters. They were all on full blast. The room was incredibly hot. She was trying to speak—probably she was screaming—but her mouth was wrapped in duct tape. You might be able to get some prints off..."
I stopped myself again. They knew about getting prints from tape. "I ran over there. I kicked some of the heaters out of the way so I could get to her. Then I grabbed her chair and dragged her away from the circle."
I tried to remember what I'd done next. Scafaro tapped impatiently. I wanted to tell him to stop. I was doing my best and his impatience wasn't helping. "I'm not sure what order I did things in," I told him. "I got the duct tape off her mouth. I tried to undo those knots but they were too tight. Then, because it was so hot, I dragged her into the foyer and called 9-1-1."
"At any point, did she say anything to you?"
"She tried. She seemed desperate to tell me something but I couldn't make it out."
"Did she say anything at all?"
I tried to remember.
"Nothing?" The pen tapped twice. Three times. "Not a single word?"
I held up a finger to silence him. Then I closed my eyes and thought back. I felt the hot paint under my hands. I felt the stickiness of hot duct tape as I tried to tear it off her face. The incredible heat of her skin, oozing and crusty against my hands. The tape slippery. Incredibly strong, resisting my efforts to tear it, when duct tape usually tore so easily. The sucking sound when it came away, taking skin with it. The way her eyes had flared open from the pain. Then the way her hands had curled into tight fists and she'd tried so hard to speak to me.
"Backing up," I said. "When I opened those doors the rush of air fanned the fire. Her clothes burst into flame and her hair started to smolder. The first thing I did after I pulled her away from those heaters was to use my jacket to beat out the flames."
Two taps with the pen. "Did she say anything to you?" Scafaro repeated.
"I could only make out a few words. Three words. No. Four. Five? Airy. Bobby. At least I think it was Bobby, 'so long,' 'safe,' and 'sorry.' 'Airy' might have been part of a longer word. Or a name. I don't know. Then she started to scream and she never stopped. I turned on my phone and called 9-1-1."
"I'm going to need that phone," he said.
My phone, which was still buzzing in my pocket, was my lifeline. Everything I needed to do my job resided in that little rectangle of black plastic. Contacts. Notes. My calendar. Everything. No way was I giving it up.
"No," I said. "You can look at it. You can take pictures or screen shots or whatever you need to do. Obviously you can have access to my phone records. But my whole work life is in this thing. My clients need to stay in close contact, as do my co-workers. It would take hours to program a new one and transfer all the data and contacts and my calendar and my notes and my..."
I shook my head. I'd been about to say 'my pictures of Andre,' but I'd found that cops got all cynical and mean when I went sentimental about my husband and our newlywed status. They had no idea what we'd been through to stay together.
"I don't have hours to spare," I said. "I will cooperate in any way that I can, but I can't give up my phone."
"Right," Scafaro said. "Poor you. You don't really care much about what happened to that woman. Ginger Stevens. You just want to be done here so you can get back to work."
He scribbled another note on his pad. "If I want your phone, I am going to have your phone."
Those lines in his face that I'd taken for weariness? They were just deeply embedded meanness. Not the marks of a hard-worn man but the signs of a judgmental man. And a bully. What about that fundamental cop rule: don't let your assumptions get ahead of the facts? This guy was all about assumptions. It depressed me that justice for Ginger might rest in his hands.
If I were the selfish bitch he thought I was, right now I'd be bemoaning the fact that I could never buy this, my dream house, the first decent place I'd seen, a house Andre and I could have lived in. If I were a selfish bitch, I would have run out of the house before calling for help, leaving Ginger and the house to burn.
What about the reality? My ankles were bruised, maybe burned, and my hands were definitely burned—they really hurt. Even a man as blind as Scafaro could see the little rows of blisters from my desperate attempt to save a crime victim's life. I was supposed to go from here to dealing calmly and professionally with a client whose idiotic refusal to cooperate pushed all my buttons, and then a client with what was potentially a genuine emergency who might need me on campus later today, all while my lungs and hair were saturated with the terrible smell of burning flesh.
Selfish bitch? My clothes were ruined. I'd just seen one of the most horrific things a person could ever see and it was going to stir up a lot of bad stuff I tried to keep locked away. I was looking at a lot of sleepless nights, months of nightmares—possibly years of them triggered every time I smelled someone barbecuing.
If I were truly a selfish bitch, I'd be bemoaning the fact that I was probably going to have to become a vegetarian, instead of hearing Ginger's screams echoing in my head. I'd be thinking about scars and my own discomfort instead of trying to recall what I knew about Ginger, and whether any of it might explain the things she'd said.
I looked over at Scafaro, that smug and certain bully. Was this payback because Andre had yelled at him or a personality defect? Either way, if he stayed on the case, I would have to see him again. I could already see that this was not the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Then our cautious détente fell apart. He decided he wanted my phone, right then and there, and instead of asking, he lunged for my pocket.
My body went into post-shock defense mode. I dove for the corner, cowering in a protective crouch. I folded my hands over my head and started screaming.
And my husband burst through the door like the wrath of God.
Chapter 3
The truth is that I'm no
t big on being rescued. I like to rescue myself. Some people have characterized this as pigheaded or stubborn. Others, including my kindly pediatrician when I was a difficult child, as determined and resolute. Whatever the terms used, the fact is that I'm much more likely to be the one doing the rescuing. But I've learned a lot from Andre about what people do for each other, about sharing the responsibility and letting myself be taken care of.
While this whole business should have been straightforward—I'd tell the cops what I knew and get back to helping my clients with their own crises while these cops went on to do their job—it had been anything but. So right now, the advent of a knight in shining armor with a badge, a gun, and a gleaming gold wedding ring was just fine with me.
After he'd coaxed me out of my corner, I grabbed his shirtfront in two oozing paws and planted my face against his sturdy chest. I listened to his heartbeat while the alpha males exchanged data in crisp sound bites. I wanted to close my eyes, the better to shut them out, but whenever I closed my eyes, I saw Ginger's face and the whole ghastly scene in the living room. Inhaling the comfort of Andre's familiar scent while staring at the edge of his jacket and the blue of his shirt was better.
Eventually, some kind of truce was brokered and Andre nudged me back into telling my story. We'd gotten as far as I'd gotten with Scafaro when Andre's phone rang, and then Scafaro's. Mine, which was set on vibrate, had never stopped ringing. If I'd had it in a different pocket, I could have had a hell of a good time. But that would have counted as being heartless.
The observing cop and I watched them take the calls. Saw them process what was obviously sad news. The worst news. I saw regret pass over Andre's face—we'd both followed Ginger through a bunch of houses. Andre had liked her. Her directness had gotten past his instinctive distrust of realtors. She'd tried hard to find us something that was right and truly understood what that was. The house we were standing in now.
All I saw on Scafaro's face was disappointment that he was losing control of the case. That he was about to become the beta dog in a state where the Maine State Police investigated most of the homicides. But the younger cop, the one who'd been first through the door, looked sad enough for both of them. I thought I remembered that Ginger lived somewhere near here, so maybe he'd known her. Maybe even dated her? He wasn't wearing a wedding ring. I knew Ginger was single, or at least about to be single—she'd mentioned that she and her live-in boyfriend had found themselves increasingly incompatible, and the boyfriend had moved out. She was a little older than the young cop, but these days, the rules seemed to be pretty flexible.
There was something else she'd said about her boyfriend, but I couldn't recall it right now. I'd have to try. In a case like this, who knew what might be important? This was either the act of a psychopath or a deeply angry person.
Ginger was—had been—really cute. While her pearly pale skin and sprinkle of freckles suggested she should have been a redhead, she had glossy russet brown hair that she'd worn in a thick braid down her back, with little curly tendrils that escaped around her face. Thinking about her braid led, inevitably, to seeing it burst into flame, and to the awful smell of singed hair.
That led to all the rest of it.
I turned to Andre, who was between calls in the series he would have to make to summon the necessary personnel to the scene. The MSP crime scene van. Their crime scene technicians. Someone would have to arrange for Ginger to be taken to Augusta, to the ME's office. Stuff I knew more about than I wanted to.
"What kind of a monster does something like this?" I said.
He just shook his head. "The world is full of monsters, Thea. You know that. It's way too soon to speculate about this. We don't know anything yet. Roland's on his way. He'll take your statement, okay?"
He looked across the room to Scafaro. "You'll probably want to sit in, get the whole story, so we can coordinate?"
Scafaro nodded, trying not to look at me.
I had a million questions I wanted to ask Andre, but he had clicked into detective mode and was beginning to run a million questions of his own. For now, my job was to tell Andre's fellow detective Roland Proffit what I knew, then get out of the way so the cops could do their job.
"What do I do 'til Roland gets here?"
Roland Proffit was one of Andre's good friends. I liked Roland a lot. He had a way of making really bad scenes better just by being there, and he had a whole collection of moose stories to leaven the bad times, always a new one to share. It wasn't that he didn't take what they did seriously. They all did. But humor, much of it pretty black and profane, was part of staying sane in the face of so much awfulness. At least the moose stories were light-hearted.
"Ten minutes," Andre said. He looked around at the room we were standing in. The lovely, bright room and beyond it to the family room with its big stone fireplace and sliders out to the yard. "Dammit. Goddammit! Why the hell—"
There were so many why the hells. Why our realtor? Why this house, this house we otherwise could have loved? Why us? Why now? Why? Why? Why? Why could we never get to enjoy normal, some peace and quiet, instead of what seemed like an endless amount of death and violence? Of course it came with the territory of his job. But too often it seemed to come with mine, as well. And now it seemed to be seeping into our private lives, as though together we had our own personal dark cloud that followed us about.
My phone was dancing. I might as well use the ten minutes. "Lt. Scafaro has the number that that call came from, changing the showing time. So you can see if it really came from Ginger's office or her cell. But while I'm waiting for Roland, is it okay if I make some calls? Suzanne had to see the doctor this morning. She's worried about the baby. I'd like to see what's going on."
"Go ahead." He waved toward the family room. "Maybe you want to go out there? We're going to be pretty busy in here."
He paused then, looking at my hands, seeing for the first time that I'd been burned. "They hurt?"
I nodded.
"You want to go to the hospital?"
I shook my head. "Just tell Roland to bring his first aid kit." I hate hospitals and I wasn't going to be a weak sister, taking attention away from the more serious matters here.
I stood at the far end of the lovely, high-ceilinged room, away from the official commotion in the living room and hall, staring into the yard, and at a children's swing set, holding the phone gingerly as I listened to my messages. Checking everyone's schedules in case the school down in Connecticut with the student drug problem needed us to parachute in. Bobby and Lisa were both tied up. Neither of them was free to work with our data-retentive client, though Bobby had some time tomorrow. If they needed someone on campus, Suzanne couldn't go. Lisa was tied up at another school, and Bobby would be better suited to taking over the report. He was a gem, but could be far too nice to stand up to a difficult administration or trustees reluctant to take our advice.
That left me holding the bag, or whatever the proper term was. I wasn't even sure the cops were going to let me go—not when I was their primary witness in an ugly homicide. I almost wished they wouldn't. I didn't want to drive anywhere on crumbling, slushy roads to get someplace where I'd have to put on my white hat and convince recalcitrant adults to act in their own best interests.
I was tired. Tired of winter. Tired of all the crises and emergencies that kept my adrenaline spiking and my suitcase packed. That made house hunting something I had to sandwich in between appointments. That made marriage, reading, movies, leisure and dinners with friends something I hoped to get around to sometime. Andre and I had chosen these lives—or they had chosen us—but we were both tired of feeling like gypsies. Our personal lives felt like they were stolen from our respective callings. It wasn't healthy and it wasn't likely to would get better unless we made an affirmative effort to change. And there would still be the question: change to what?
Today, I had to focus on the here and now. Or heres and nows. What was the term Andre used? Box it up. We had to box up
our work lives and pack them away when we wanted to be together. Otherwise, they would sprawl into every available minute. Right now, I had to box up the horrors I'd just seen so I could be available for the Caldwell School, which wanted to know whether they were doing the right things to attract a strong student body but didn't want to share their applications and acceptance data; and, if things boiled over, for Stafford Academy. A consultant who looks and acts like she's just been flattened by a steamroller and smells singed isn't likely to inspire confidence.
We could tell the school to find themselves someone else to nurse them through their crisis. We weren't the only game in town, only, we liked to think, the best one. Or I could wait for Stafford to decide they needed me. Suzanne had called on the way to the doctor while I was dealing with Ginger, and I'd said I'd call her later. Now I called to discuss our options.
Her gloomy secretary, Magda, said she wasn't back from the doctor. Magda's emotional range is narrow. She goes from grouchy to not so grouchy. But she mothers us. Protects us from demanding clients and me from my mother. And makes our lives go smoothly. I was about to hang up when she said, "I'm worried about Suzanne. You've got to make her not work so much."
Like any of us could do that. But I agreed that I would try, even though we both knew Suzanne working less meant me working more.
As I sorted through my messages, triaged my calls, answered a question for a client I dearly loved, and conferred with Bobby about another report we were working on, the horrific business here fell away. The other side of the dilemma Andre and I both faced in our lives was this: while our work lives were stealing away the personal lives we longed to have, we allowed that theft because we both loved what we did. He was a fantastic instinctive detective. A superb reader of people and analyzer of facts. I loved bringing order out of chaos, of helping well-intentioned institutions realize those intentions. We both, in our own ways, dropped into out-of-control situations and brought them back under control. We righted the worlds that turned to us for help.
