FURNACE

by Muriel Gray

  She blinked at him.

  “Yes.”

  He waited a few moments until the film of tears that was forming over her eyes was reabsorbed under his professionally dispassionate glare. “Then may we proceed?”

  She looked across at the screen of the scanning machine, still showing the result of its last client, a tiny crescent blob adrift in a black universe.

  Elizabeth stood up and slipped off her coat.

  They tested him for alcohol, taking his blood and breath, gave him scrappy bits of food and a warm can of soda as they wrote down the fragments of his fevered statement. Then, with the comic solemnity of a man who believes himself to be of great importance, a thickset policeman led him into a small, brick-lined cell. He waited until Josh sat down on the narrow bed by the wall, then nodded to him as though his prisoner had performed some act of kindness.

  “Shouldn’t be overlong till the test results get back. This don’t mean nothin’, bein’ in here for now. Just procedure.”

  Josh looked up at him and returned the nod. The policeman closed the door gently and locked it.

  The sleep that immediately overwhelmed Josh was so deep he had no recollection of even lying down on the hard mattress. His next sentient moment after the locking of the door was the unlocking of it, and that, he discovered with a bleary glance at his watch, was at least five hours later. A different policeman was regarding him coolly, waiting for him to come around.

  “It’s this way,” he said, as though answering a question.

  Josh stood up unsteadily and followed him out of the cell, along a corridor and into the room where the sheriff and his colleague had interviewed him hours before. He entered, sat down on one of the unsteady wooden chairs arranged around the metal table and waited with his hands folded in front of him. The deputy pulled out a chair opposite Josh, sat down and cleared his throat.

  Outside the closed door, phones were ringing in the distant office and men were talking in low voices. Not the voices of conspiracy or suppressed anger, but rather the voices of visitors to a desperately sick hospital patient. The deputy scratched at an armpit.

  “Got some more stuff to ask you, if that’s amenable to yourself.”

  Josh blinked and sat back, marginally opening his palms in acquiescence.

  “While you been sleepin’ we got most of the information we need ‘bout what went on back there.”

  Josh sat up. “The woman? You found her?”

  The man looked back at Josh with a mixture of embarrassment and impatience. “I’m goin’ to stick to what we know here right now. You with me?”

  Josh said nothing, and his silence was taken as permission to continue.

  “You ain’t been drinkin’ or poppin’ pills, an’ the marks from your tyres out on the road, along with them witnesses that saw it, say you weren’t speedin’ unduly neither. But I guess you know you’re in violation with your logbook.”

  Josh’s mouth twitched.

  “I told you where I pulled over, and for how long. I was going to fill it in when I stopped here.”

  “Trucker with all them years behind a wheel knows that’s against the law.”

  “Sure. I know it.”

  The man’s demeanour was changing. Beneath his officious politeness, Josh could read a glint of malice.

  “Logbooks ain’t there for your recreation, mister. We got to know where and when you stop. In case you been doin’ somethin’ you shouldn’t.”

  The policeman waited a beat, as if hoping for some display of emotion from his interviewee, then continued. “Like drivin’ illegal hours without sleepin’.”

  Josh stared back at him, his closed mouth failing to conceal a jaw that was clenching, making the tiny muscles beneath his ears protrude.

  “You have a good sleep in the cell?”

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  “Mighty tired, huh?”

  “Yeah. Been working hard lately.”

  The deputy sighed, long and deeply, as though growing weary of this. “Your stopover. It checked out. Highway patrol saw your truck there three times in the time you said you parked.”

  Josh stared at him, watching him closely to see if there was a trap being set.

  “Guess it was lucky you pulled over in a tourist bay instead of a truck stop, huh, Mr. Spiller? Attracted attention.”

  “Never thought about it.”

  The deputy leant forward, his voice menacingly conspiratorial. “Yeah, it’s real lucky. ‘Cos if we thought that you’d been drivin’ for more than the legal ten hours when you killed that little baby, I guess I don’t know what the sheriff might do.”

  Josh stared back, trying to look unmoved. The deputy hissed, “You’re gonna get a fine that’ll make that shaven head of yours curl the goddamn hair it got left. You’re goin’ to think about how poor you are every time you open your logbook.”

  “It was a mistake.”

  The deputy looked back at him with naked contempt. “Sheriff needs a final statement.”

  He got up and left the room. Clearly, the impromptu interview had been nothing more than a device to work out his anger at an obvious injustice. If things had been different, Josh wondered how many teeth he might be missing right now, how many broken ribs he might be nursing after having “fallen” in his cell. There was no doubt. They had been trying their damnedest as he slept to nail him with something, and they had failed.

  Josh screwed shut his eyes and clenched his teeth. Ten hours? Try thirty-six. The lie was more intolerable for being a lie that could never be uncovered. Only Josh Spiller knew he hadn’t slept. Did it really matter? He hadn’t killed the baby. That woman, that nightmare of a creature, had killed it. How would a night’s sleep have altered that?

  Unless…

  The tiny seed of doubt that he might have fallen asleep for a split second, for that crucial, life-changing, life-ending second, wormed its way back into his mind. He slammed it down. No. He knew what he’d seen. A woman, a mad, evil woman, had deliberately murdered a child.

  He composed himself and forced himself to concentrate on waiting. For what, he was unsure, but the process of sitting still and expectantly was surprisingly calming. It was out of his hands. Someone, some unseen witness, would have told the police about the woman in the suit and they would be out there looking for her, if indeed they hadn’t already got her locked up. If they could trace Jezebel’s whereabouts to the parking lot last night, surely they would already have her behind bars. Maybe she was in the next cell. He would just wait and see.

  He didn’t have to wait long.

  The door opened and the square sheriff entered with two deputies, each carrying a cup of coffee. The sheriff carried two, one of which he put down in front of Josh.

  “Coffee. Take cream?”

  Josh nodded his head dumbly and cupped his hands around the warm Styrofoam as the man serviced his coffee with some mini–cream cartons from his pocket.

  The sheriff sat down on the chair opposite and the two other men leant against the wall, but their presence was casual rather than threatening.

  “I introduced myself earlier, Mr. Spiller, but I guess you were pretty spaced out by the whole thing, so let me do it again. I’m Sheriff John Pace.”

  Josh looked at him expectantly, hoping by the tone of his voice that he brought not a further reprimand, but some news.

  John Pace, however, looked back as though the reminder of his name was all that mattered here. When he realized that the man was going to say no more, Josh spoke:

  “Did you get her?”

  Pace looked down at his cup and then glanced quickly out the corner of his eye at one of the deputies. The look, unlike that of his deputy before him, was one of disappointment, of someone letting him down. He sighed before he replied.

  “Who might that be, Mr. Spiller?”

  Josh’s hands, still cupped around the coffee, changed to fists.

  “The woman. The one who pushed the baby under the truck.”

  The sh
eriff cleared his throat. “Mr. Spiller,” he hesitated, then said, “Can I call you…?” He fished Josh’s licence from his top pocket and peered at it. “Josh? That’s it?”

  Josh stared at him as if he were mad.

  “Josh,” the sheriff continued with renewed confidence. “I know how shook up you are, but we need to pull ourselves together here a piece. We already got statements from the witnesses. We just need yours. You know we’ll have to fine you for your logbook violation. There’s an eight-hour shutdown goes with that. Guess you know. But since you’ve been out of action damn near that, I reckon once you’ve paid up you’ll be free to go. We know you stopped where you said.” He hesitated. “But ‘fore I let you leave I need to know you’re goin’ to be okay. Shock makes you tired. Confused. Whole bunch of stuff. You feel better after your sleep?”

  Josh searched the sheriff’s face for irony and oddly found none. He fought back his guilt.

  “What did they say?”

  “Who?”

  “The witnesses.”

  John Pace leant forward and his hand lifted slightly as if he wanted to put it on Josh’s arm. He stopped himself when the look in Josh’s eye warned him that he didn’t want to be touched.

  “No one’s blaming you, son. It was an accident. You weren’t speeding, you weren’t drinking. Just an accident.”

  Josh swallowed. He spoke quickly with panic in his voice.

  “A woman pushed the baby under the truck. Deliberately.”

  The sheriff was shaking his head.

  “The mother left the brakes off the stroller and the wind caught it. She told us so. Saw the whole thing herself. You think she’d lie about a thing like this?”

  It was Josh’s turn to shake his head. Pace looked perplexed.

  “Why you doin’ this to yourself, fella?”

  “I can describe her. In detail. I want it on my statement.”

  “I’m goin’ to say this again. Shock plays tricks on you.”

  “I know what I saw.”

  The sheriff sighed deeply and turned to one of the men leaning against the wall behind him.

  “Archie?”

  The man opened a notepad, pulled out another chair and joined the two men at the table. John Pace ran a hand over his short, sandy hair and sat back in his chair.

  “So?”

  Pace gestured at him like a sultan allowing a feast to commence.

  Josh took a sip of the bitter coffee in front of him, nervously coughed his throat clear and told them it all again.

  He spoke slowly and deliberately, and when once more it came to describing the woman he paused, making sure that the man with the notepad had caught up with his tale. The deputy looked up expectantly, holding his pen like a high school student paying attention to a dull but insistent lecturer. Josh concentrated on his description of the woman, making it more detailed than when he’d first blurted out his hysterical, ragged tale hours ago, and as he spoke he noticed a change come over the men. The one writing glanced across at John Pace, who in turn narrowed his eyes. When Josh had finished Pace sat back in his chair and looked thoughtfully across the table. He nodded to himself for a second or two, then rose slowly to his feet and made for the door. He pointed at Josh as he left the room.

  “Hang on there. Got somethin’ for you.”

  Josh blinked at the man’s back, then looked quizzically at the two men left in the room. They returned his stare with the dull gazes of small-town policemen and Josh looked elsewhere to avoid those vacant eyes. They waited several minutes until Pace reentered the room clutching a piece of paper. It had ragged fragments of Scotch tape adhering to three corners, with the fourth corner missing, and looked like it had just been ripped clumsily from a wall.

  Pace sat at the table, looked down at his prize for a second, moved Josh’s cup to one side, then slid the paper in front of him. Josh looked down and the breath left his body.

  It was her.

  The photo was monochrome, but she was wearing the same suit. She was in a room that looked like a court or schoolroom, with a large flag propped in the corner behind her, and she was smiling up at Josh with even white teeth. She looked good in the picture, younger than Josh had initially guessed, and her makeup was more gentle and sophisticated. But it was her. The murderer. No doubt.

  Below the picture a large caption read, VOTE FOR COUNCILLOR MCFARLANE. YOU TALK. SHE LISTENS.

  Underneath in smaller print the handbill informed Josh that Councillor Nelly McFarlane would be holding a question-and-answer session at Furnace Junior High on May nineteenth.

  When Josh looked back up at the sheriff’s face, John Pace was registering a peculiar mixture of triumph and sympathy. But if the man was feeling smug, he concealed it well.

  “This her?”

  Josh nodded once, almost imperceptibly. Pace did the same.

  “Like I say, shock’s a crazy thing.”

  “Where was this?”

  “All over town.”

  “You think I saw it somewhere.”

  “I know you did. Hard to miss.”

  One of the deputies sniggered and Pace threw him a look.

  Josh slumped forward, the core of determined revenge dissolving in him, leaving his body slack and empty with misery. He let his hot head touch the back of his hand. This time, Pace allowed himself to put a hand on Josh’s arm and found that it was not resisted.

  “But I saw her.”

  Josh’s words were muffled, spoken into his own skin. Pace replied to the top of his head: “You just had the worst day of your life, Josh. But you have to realize it weren’t your fault. The mind makes up all kind of mixed-up shit to help us deal with guilt and grief. Once ran over a neighbour’s dog. Couldn’t sleep for weeks. God alone knows what it must be like to have killed a child. You ain’t goin’ mad, Josh. It happens.”

  Josh raised his head and squinted at the man whose big hand was still resting on his arm. “You’re wrong. I know I saw her.”

  Pace shook his head and tightened his grip. “Then the mother of that poor little baby girl? She gone mad?”

  Josh lowered his eyes, aware of how he must seem to these solid, unimaginative men. “Maybe.”

  Pace withdrew his hand, rubbed his chin roughly and thought for a moment.

  He stood up.

  “I’m goin’ to do somethin’ outside police procedure here, Josh. But I reckon it’s goin’ to help things along. You want some air?”

  Josh unconsciously rubbed at his arm where Pace’s hand had been.

  “I guess.”

  Pace nodded, and opened the door for him. They left the room, reentered the small, neat office that smelled of new carpet and walked outside towards the car. The sheriff waved a dismissive hand above his head to the calls from his staff as he left the building.

  “Shit, they’ll live without me for ten minutes,” he said to no one in particular.

  7

  Thank God it was over. They’d made the delivery and everything was in order. Bernard Epstein didn’t like his job any more than his companion did, but as he got back into the car, Harry gave him a long look.

  He returned the stare and shifted the driver’s seat back so that he could unzip his overalls.

  “She say anythin’?”

  Harry’s tone was accusing.

  “Like what?”

  “I dunno. Like what we do next, I reckon.”

  Bernard wriggled out of the top half of his suit and lifted his buttocks to slip the legs off.

  “You know what we do next. Nothin’. That’s what we do.”

  Harry looked forward out the windshield to the gracious sweep of the street. “You done it before, ain’t you?”

  “Yeah. The once.”

  “So that’s all I’m askin’. Like what next?”

  “It’s different each time. Has to be.”

  Harry looked at his hands. “Delivery’s the same.”

  Bernard pulled the last of the overall from his foot and turned to look at his com
panion with a sigh. “She doin’ well, huh?”

  Harry blinked at him.

  “Huh?”

  “That daughter of yours. The one you got in that fancy twenty-thousand-dollar-a-term college up in New Hampshire.”

  “Yeah. She’s doin’ fine.”

  Bernard waited a beat, his eyes never leaving Harry’s, then nodded. “Mighty glad to hear that. Can we get back to the sawmill now? Them backs ain’t gonna stack themselves.”

  While Harry looked at the floor and cleared his throat. Bernard crumpled up the overall and threw it into the backseat beside the other one. The blood would come out in the wash. It had stained the green cross and half the word PARAMEDIC, but it would be fine with some rub-on detergent before the rinse cycle.

  And anyway, they wouldn’t need them again for a long time. They were woodsmen. They had their own work wear.

  Pace helped Josh into the passenger seat as though he were an elderly female relative visiting for Thanksgiving, then climbed breathily into the driver’s seat and drove off slowly at policeman’s speed. Josh looked across at him, waiting for an explanation. Pace kept his eyes forward.

  “How were you feeling before the accident? Just when you thought you saw the woman.”

  Josh’s temples throbbed. He put a hand to his head. How had he been feeling? He had been feeling guilty, sad, screwed up and crazy without sleep. That’s how. So crazy he even thought he might have invented the woman to chastise himself for driving away from his problems. Remember. Josh? Remember? Oh, he remembered, all right, and he wrestled with the truth of it before answering.

  “I felt fine. Hungry. That’s all. I needed something to eat.”

  What else could he have told this man? That he had fallen asleep at the traffic lights, then woken thinking about how his girlfriend was going to kill his baby? Just seconds before he killed someone else’s?

  Pace nodded as though that was what he wanted to hear, and steered the car carefully into a wide, tree-lined avenue. Josh looked away in shame and turned his attention to their destination. If Furnace’s suburbs had been impressive, then this was even more so. They had arrived in the land of the seriously rich. The houses here were set far back from the road, and the maturity of the gardens, ringed with ancient oaks and high rhododendrons, told the story that they’d been here a long time. The same uncomfortable alienation that had introduced him to this town was returning. He turned back to Pace.