Smoke

by Catherine McKenzie

  But for right this minute, all she knew how to do was keep her feet moving.

  And so that is what she did.

  Her phone was ringing from her locker when she got to the dressing room. She fumbled with her key to get to it before it went to voice mail. When she finally found it in the bottom of her purse, she didn’t recognize the number, and she had three missed messages. It stopped ringing, then began again immediately.

  “Hello?”

  “Mrs. Mitchell?” a woman with a flat voice asked. Her age seemed indiscriminate, like Mindy might as well have been talking to a robot.

  “Yes?”

  “This is Nelson Alarm calling. There’s been a breach of your system.”

  One of the women from her class walked by and gave her a disapproving look. Cell phones were strictly forbidden on the premises, as they interfered with the Zenlike atmosphere the health center was striving to achieve. Mindy turned so she was facing her locker. She would’ve climbed in there if she could.

  “What does that mean? Is someone robbing my house?”

  “None of the perimeter alarms have been set off, but it appears that someone has been tampering with the alarm system.”

  “Did you call my husband? Did you send the police?”

  “Yes, ma’am. We couldn’t reach your husband, but we did send the police. They couldn’t find anyone on the property, and everything seemed secure.”

  “Is it possible that this was just some sort of glitch?”

  The woman/robot on the other end of the line gave a polite cough. “No, ma’am. We’re quite confident the trouble is on your end.”

  Mindy sighed. There most definitely was trouble on her end.

  “Can you send a technician to see what the issue is?”

  The woman tapped a few keys. “We have someone in your area now. Will you be home in an hour?”

  “I can be, yes.”

  “We’ll tell him to swing by.”

  Mindy hung up, puzzled. But that feeling wasn’t anything new. She hadn’t had all the clues to her own life for a while now. What was one more missing piece?

  “What was that all about?” Kate asked, startling her.

  Oh, so you’re talking to me now? The thought was so loud in Mindy’s mind she wasn’t sure if she’d said it out loud. But Kate’s face was still curious, so she guessed not.

  “Nothing. Just some trouble with my alarm.”

  Kate was standing topless with her towel over her shoulders, covering each breast. Her hands hung on the ends of the towel like she was a character from a movie set in a football locker room. Bit was hovering behind her, shifting from foot to foot, her hair a wild mess from the class.

  “I’m still getting a ton of e-mails about the Fling,” Kate said. “And about Fire Guy.”

  “I stopped reading them.”

  “That must be why they’re e-mailing me, then.”

  “Or maybe it’s because you’re the organizer?”

  Wow. She had said that one out loud. At least, she was almost certain she had, since there was a blush of anger rushing up the sides of Kate’s face.

  “The police interrogated Angus yesterday?” Kate said.

  Mindy turned back toward her locker and started pulling off her clothes.

  “It wasn’t an interrogation. They kept that for Tucker.”

  Again, out loud. What had gotten into her?

  “I heard all about that from Honor. Only she told me that it was your son that did it.”

  Mindy turned around so fast she surprised herself.

  “Angus didn’t do anything. And if I hear you’ve been telling anyone that, you’ll regret it, Kate, I mean it.”

  Kate laughed. “Oh, Mindy, you should see yourself right now.”

  She walked away. Bit was left standing there, her mouth hanging open slightly.

  “Better run along, Bit,” Mindy said. “You wouldn’t want to leave Kate waiting.”

  And as Bit scurried away after Kate, Mindy smiled.

  Because she thought she could see a path to herself now.

  At last, finally.

  “This is a pretty easy system to bypass,” said the twenty-one-year-old technician the alarm company sent to Mindy’s house. He had four earrings in his left ear and a full sleeve of tattoos of dragons and other fantastical beasts. Mindy felt even more suburban than usual standing next to him.

  He had the alarm panel open and connected to his computer with a collection of flat green cables. His rapid eye movement over his computer screen contained a level of focus that reminded Mindy of herself when she was studying the rats she used in her experiments.

  Her phone rang. It was Peter calling.

  “Where are you?” he said, a note of panic in his voice.

  “I’m at home. Everything’s fine.”

  “Thank God. I came out of a meeting, and I had four voice-mail messages from the alarm company. I thought . . .”

  “I had the same reaction when they caught me at the gym. There’s something wrong with the alarm. The technician’s here now.”

  “So no one broke in?”

  “I checked everything. Nothing seems to be missing.”

  “Do you need me there?”

  “No, it’s fine. I’ll see you tonight.”

  “I thought we’d go to the town meeting.”

  Mindy walked away from the technician. She looked out the window in her living room. Her street was midday quiet, all perfectly normal except for the haze of smoke.

  “How come? We don’t usually.”

  “Have you read the recent fire reports?”

  “No, but I can see smoke out the window.”

  “It’s looking really bad, Min. And I want to hear what’s going on from the horse’s mouth.”

  “How about we all go? I don’t want to leave Carrie and Angus at home alone right now.”

  “Agreed.”

  They said good-bye, and Mindy walked back to the technician. He was typing furiously as code darted by on his screen.

  “Was it a power surge?” she asked.

  “Nope. Someone was definitely tinkering in here.”

  A new litany of worries ran through her mind. Why would anyone be tinkering with her alarm system and then not take anything? Maybe something scared them off? Maybe they’d be back?

  “How did they do it?”

  “There’s lots of ways to bypass these kinds of systems,” he said. The badge on his uniform said his name was Mic. Could that really be his full name? Or was it Mica? Michael? Did his mother actually look at his glistening, squalling form and think, I should name my child after a microphone? “You know how your door and window sensors work?”

  “Not really. Are they not secure?”

  “Depends. For instance, if you put a strong enough magnetic field next to them, they trip.”

  “Trip as is in stop working?”

  “Yup.”

  “Is that hard to do? Create a strong magnetic field?”

  Mindy felt like she should know the answer to this question.

  “There are instructions on how to do it all over the Internet. Pretty basic stuff.”

  Of course there were. Just like you could learn how to build a bomb or buy guns or . . . Wasn’t the government supposed to be reading everyone’s e-mails precisely so they could prevent that sort of thing?

  “What about the motion detectors? They’re a backup, right? If someone gets in, then those would go off, wouldn’t they?”

  He gave her a flat look. Mindy felt terribly naive.

  “They work on infrared signals that detect changes in the room’s temperature. All you have to do is use something to block the signal. Usually a large piece of Styrofoam will do. Or with some systems, you can point certain kinds of lights at the sensors, and that fools them for enough time to get past them.”

  “I’m not sure I really want to know this.”

  “Better to be warned than unarmed.”

  “Are you talking guns?”

/>   Mic shut his laptop. “I’m talking about someone who’s smart enough to get into the panel and erase the in/out information it stores even if the alarm’s disabled.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This keypad sends a signal to the alarm center, right?”

  “I thought that was just if it was tripped.”

  “Nope. Every time someone enables or disables the alarm there’s a record. We don’t keep them for that long, just a month or it’d take up too much room on our servers. But this system’s kind of old, and you can fool it by getting it to send a signal to your own base station—basically a small box attached to a cell tower—so the alarm center never gets the signal.”

  “Is that what triggered the alarm? Someone did that?”

  “No, this person’s cleverer than that. Well, almost, anyway. They hacked directly into our servers to try to erase the call information, and that triggered an internal alarm in our firewall, which is why you got the call.”

  “But I don’t understand. How would that help someone break into the house?”

  “It didn’t. As far as I can tell, they were trying to erase an exit and entrance from another day.”

  “You mean, it was done from inside the house?”

  “Likely.”

  “What day?”

  “Early Tuesday morning. Any idea why anyone would want to do that?”

  CHAPTER 27

  You Can Bank on It

  Elizabeth

  Two hours after I wake up in Kara’s office, I’m at the bank, waiting to talk to Peter Mitchell.

  After I convinced Ben I didn’t need any more medical attention and that he should get back to class, I took a shower at the camp and climbed back into my own clothes. I kept expecting Andy to show up and explain how he knew to disappear once he’d gotten me to safety. Because if Ben learned I’d been up on the ridge with him that would be the end of us, even if I am pregnant. So it’s another secret I’m going to have to keep, and it’s one I need him to keep too.

  But Andy was nowhere to be seen. And if I’ve learned anything at all in this last little while, which is doubtful, it’s to leave well enough alone.

  I found my marching orders from Rich on my phone when I checked it. Stay away from Tucker, get that Mitchell kid. Those aren’t the exact words he used, but they’re close enough. But I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to accept the consequences of what that will mean if by some miracle Tucker’s actually telling the truth. Or be a party to what might occur if everyone decides to believe him even if it isn’t true.

  So now I need to eliminate all the other possibilities. I need to do what I should’ve done all along—investigate John Phillips, make sure the fire wasn’t his doing, instead of just going on instinct like I have been. Because going on instinct, which is pretty much how I’ve lived my life since that first summer at the fire lookout in Oregon, has brought me to this broken place.

  Peter, in his banker’s suit, looks hollow-cheeked and nervous to see me. What can I be here about but Angus?

  “I’m not here about Angus,” I say as soon as he’s closed his office door behind us.

  “You’re not?”

  “No. Don’t worry.”

  He sits heavily in his chair. “How can I not?”

  I glance at the picture of Peter and Angus and Carrie and Mindy that sits on the corner of Peter’s desk. It’s from a couple of years ago, taken out at the lake. We were all there that day, basking in the sun, splashing one another in the water. One of our last good days together.

  “I’m worried too,” I say. “But there might be another explanation.”

  “What do you need from me?”

  “You were the loan officer on John Phillips’s mortgage, right?”

  “I was. Why?”

  “What made you call the police about it?”

  “When a house that’s about to be repossessed burns down, it seems obvious the homeowner might’ve had something to do with it.”

  “But he knew that for a while, didn’t he?”

  “Theoretically, I guess, but he was only served the papers that day.”

  “On Labor Day?”

  “It was supposed to happen the week before, but the process server kept missing him. He had to get an order permitting him to leave the papers at Phillips’s house without him being there. It came through late Friday, but he thought he’d give the guy the weekend, so he says. Probably had plans. Anyway, he went over there midday on Monday, and then, what, like six hours later this guy’s house burns down? Does that make sense to you?”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “Right, so . . .” He shrugs. “That’s why I called. Didn’t that deputy tell you all this?”

  “He left that part out. Clearly.”

  “Seems like kind of an important detail.”

  “He’s new. No detective training.”

  “My son’s freedom is on the line here, Elizabeth. What the hell?”

  “It’s my fault. I should have spoken to you earlier.”

  “But it doesn’t prove anything, does it?”

  “It might.” I stand to go. “Thanks for your time.”

  He sits there, looking miserable.

  “What is it, Peter?”

  “Mindy thinks he did it.”

  “What?”

  “Angus. Mindy thinks Angus did it.”

  “Why?”

  “She won’t tell me, but I know there’s something. You know Mindy, she’s terrible at keeping things to herself.”

  “But you guys always talk about everything.”

  “I thought so,” he says.

  “You must be wrong. If Mindy knows something, she’d tell you.”

  “You don’t know what she’s been like this last year. Or Angus either.”

  “Ouch.”

  “It’s true, though.”

  Is it possible that Mindy’s changed so much in a year that the ten years before that are no longer an indicator of her personality?

  Am I an idiot to be asking that question? Of course it is. It’s more than enough time.

  “You should talk to her,” Peter says.

  “I think I’m the last person she wants to talk to. Or confide in.”

  “You broke her heart, you know.”

  A lump forms in my throat. “I didn’t mean to.”

  “In my experience, intention doesn’t often have much to do with result.”

  I ask Deputy Clark to meet me at Joanie’s for coffee. We sit in what used to be Mindy’s and my booth, me on my usual side where there’s a tear in the Naugahyde I always have to force myself not to make bigger, him on the side that faces the door, though he doesn’t seem to be all that interested in the foot traffic.

  I thought it was better to bring him here than to do some formal dressing-down at the station or to get his boss involved. I also want to get a sense of what Detective Donaldson’s doing with the Tucker-blaming-Angus situation.

  He takes the scolding well, such as it is, and tells me that Donaldson’s bringing Angus and Tucker in for formal questioning in an hour. My heart goes out to Mindy and Peter. I can only imagine the panic Mindy must be in. But then again, maybe not. Maybe I don’t know her anymore, like Peter said, and I should just let go of thinking I do.

  Deputy Clark pushes an envelope across the table.

  “What’s this?”

  “The lab results from the fire pit. You know, the debris we found?”

  I rip it open and scan the report. Beer cans. Paper. Wood. Gas chromatography and mass spectrometry are negative for IRLs.

  “What’s an IRL?” Deputy Clark asks, reading the report upside down.

  “Ignitable liquid residue. If an accelerant was used, it sometimes leaves a chemical trace. Has the house been searched for things like kerosene or Coleman fuel or acetone?”

  “Acetone?”

  “Nail polish remover.”

  “They didn’t find nothing like that, far as I know.”

 
“Look again. And sweep the woods around his property. What about his car?”

  “What about it?”

  “Check the gas tank. Gasoline’s the most commonly used accelerant. He could have siphoned off his tank and used that.”

  “But I thought you said the tests came back negative?”

  “They did, but I didn’t take complete soil samples. And there isn’t always a residue.”

  “Couldn’t we take more soil samples now?”

  “No point. The area’s been exposed to the air for too long.”

  “How come you didn’t take those samples the first time we were out there?”

  “Because I didn’t detect any pour patterns or localized burning that would indicate they were used.”

  “Sorry for asking.”

  I moderate my tone. “It’s fine. Also, Phillips said he didn’t have any insurance on his house. Make sure that’s true.” I slump down in my seat. I’m not sure my brain was built for this. “This is such a mess.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Honestly? I haven’t got a bloody clue.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Interrogation Two

  Elizabeth

  Another day, another interrogation.

  When did this become my life? I should be at my house, peeing on a stick to confirm what I accept by now is true. And then I should go somewhere nice and peaceful with my husband to tell him the wonderful news. Instead, my house is off-limits, I’m basically hiding from Ben, and I’m sitting in a police station watching two boys twitch nervously on wooden benches.

  This is not good.

  Honor is sitting at the far edge of the bench she’s sharing with Tucker like she wishes she could be somewhere else. It doesn’t take a psychology major to figure out that a part of her knows her son could be behind all this and she doesn’t want to have anything to do with him. In contrast, Mindy, Peter, and Angus are shoulder to shoulder to shoulder on their bench. This time it’s Angus who looks like he wishes he could detach from them. And this starts my mind swinging back to him as a possible source of the fire, what-iffing and what-iffing till I want to flee.

  I make eye contact with Mindy and beckon her to me. She’s reluctant, but she comes over anyway.

  “Yes?”