Smoke

by Catherine McKenzie

Her tone surprises me. It’s both more forceful and more wary than it’s ever been before, but what should I expect? I broke her heart—I broke her heart!—and I may have something to do with her family’s ruin. I wouldn’t talk to me if I were her.

  “I’m sorry, Mindy.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Truly.”

  “Is that why you called me over?”

  “No, I . . . Peter thought you may know something. About Angus’s involvement in all this. He thought I should ask you.”

  “Peter thought? You’ve been talking to Peter?”

  You talked to Ben! the six-year-old inside wants to scream.

  “I had to interview him at the bank today for something else. Anyway, that’s not the point. Do you know something?”

  Mindy folds into herself, gathering strength or maybe tucking something away.

  “No.”

  “Are you sure? Even something small might mean more than you think.”

  “Yes, I’m sure. Give me some credit, Elizabeth.”

  I knew this conversation was a mistake, that it wouldn’t lead anywhere. But I need to start repairing the things I’ve torn down, and Mindy seems like a good place to start. The Mindy I knew, anyway. This fierce creature? I don’t even know where to begin with her.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She folds her arms across her chest. “You already said that. Is there anything else?”

  “No, I—”

  “Good. Can we get this over with so I can take my son home?”

  “I’ll talk to Detective Donaldson.”

  She returns to Angus’s side. I watch her wrap her arm around his reluctant shoulders, then I go looking for Donaldson. Before I make it to his office, I’m stopped by the sound of Mindy’s voice.

  “You quit that! You quit that right now.”

  I spin on a dime and hurry toward them.

  “What’s going on?”

  “That boy,” she says, pointing at Tucker, who’s slouched and smirking in the way only a sixteen-year-old kid who’s never wanted for anything can, “was trying to intimidate Angus.”

  “Now, Mindy,” Honor says, “I know we’re all under a lot of pressure, but there’s no reason to start accusing anyone.”

  Honor closes her mouth quickly, realizing a moment too late how out of place her comment is, given the situation.

  “I heard him,” Mindy says. “I heard him tell Angus he better fess up. Or else.”

  “I never said that,” Tucker says.

  “Angus?” I ask. “Has Tucker been saying things to you?”

  He mumbles something I can’t hear.

  “Speak up, Angus. Defend yourself,” Mindy says.

  “He didn’t say anything,” Angus says.

  Mindy’s mouth sets in a line, and she stands up and marches toward Detective Donaldson’s office, beckoning me to follow her this time. Peter and I make eye contact briefly before I tail her into the office.

  “That boy out there,” she says, not even bothering with niceties, “is trying to scare my son into confessing to something he didn’t do. Why are they even near each other? Isn’t that a breach of protocol?”

  Donaldson looks unfazed. “Mrs. Mitchell, we can’t watch them all the time. If Tucker’s doing that, and mind, I’m not saying he is, then I’ll talk to him. But it would be best for all of us if you convinced your son to tell the truth.”

  “Why are you so sure he isn’t?”

  “I can’t get into that with you right now, Mrs. Mitchell. But he knows more than he’s saying, that’s for sure. Tucker too. Things are not going to turn out well if they don’t do the right thing.”

  “What would be the right thing here, according to you? My son confesses to setting the town on fire? What would happen to him if he did that?”

  “Well, now, I don’t rightly know. Those decisions are above my pay grade. But no one wants to see someone go to jail over a mistake, least of all a child. And I can tell you this, if there’s a deal to be made, it’s now. If those boys confess, they’ll likely take it easy on them. Otherwise, I can’t guarantee anything.”

  “Just leave it, Mom, okay?”

  Angus is standing in the doorway looking pale and upset.

  “What are you doing here, Angus? I told you to stay where you were.”

  “I’m so sick of people talking about me like I’m not there.”

  “Oh, honey,” Mindy tries to embrace him, but he shoves her off.

  “You going to ask me questions or what?” he says to Detective Donaldson.

  “You have something you want to tell me?”

  “Maybe,” Angus says, and Mindy’s hand flies to her mouth.

  Before Angus sits down to talk to Detective Donaldson, he asks to go to the bathroom. When he comes back out, something’s clearly changed. Whatever he was going to tell us is now bottled back up inside. His answers are monosyllabic, he gives even less information than he did during his original interview, and Donaldson looks more and more unhappy as the meeting goes on. He finally releases him after an hour with a stern lecture about “behaving like a man should.” Mindy and Peter leave the station with Angus sandwiched between them, and I don’t know what to think anymore.

  The interview with Tucker goes no better. He sticks to his story that Angus did it, but he has no evidence to offer.

  After Tucker leaves, I ask Detective Donaldson about what he said to Mindy earlier, whether he really does know something that he’s been keeping back.

  “I might, yes,” he says.

  “You going to let me in on it?”

  He sucks on his bottom lip. “When the time’s right.”

  “I thought I was leading this investigation?”

  “And how’s that been working out?”

  “Take me off the case, then.”

  “You still have your uses.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He opens a folder on his desk and pretends to start reading the document inside.

  “How’d you know I was questioning those boys today?” he asks casually.

  “Deputy Clark mentioned it. I would’ve thought you’d tell me yourself.”

  “You been talking to Joshua Wicks? The reporter for the Nelson Daily.”

  “I know who he is. Why do you ask?”

  “That story in the paper yesterday. We have a leak in this investigation. So I’m locking this ship up tight.”

  “And what, I’m in the lifeboat?”

  “At least you’re not drowning.”

  The stick turns blue.

  The stick turns blue.

  The stick turns blue.

  I’ve used up my cache of pregnancy tests. They’re all blue, all positive.

  I’m pregnant.

  I’m in my evacuated house, sitting in my evacuated bathroom, in the middle of my evacuated life, and I’m pregnant.

  I. Am. Pregnant.

  I’ve imagined this moment so many times I thought I’d know exactly how I’d feel when it finally came. Joy, happiness, relief. The run, squeal, and jump into Ben’s arms. His delighted smile. The joyous calls to our parents, our friends. How I’d look to ease that information into every conversation for months on end, damn telling people too early. How all the sacrifice and time would be worth it because sometimes you have to give something up to get what you want, and this is what I wanted more than anything.

  This is what I want.

  Isn’t it?

  But now, here, with the smoke wafting past the windows, and the fire just over the ridge, and the yellow hoses surrounding my house like it’s a crime scene, and the lies I had to tell to get past the security gate, and this secret I’ve been keeping from my husband—I never imagined it like this. How could I?

  Ben. Ben. Ben.

  I need to tell him. Come what may.

  I pick up my phone to call him, but it’s already buzzing.

  Where are you? says his text. I’m at the town meeting, and everyone’s asking for you.

  I
arrive at the school with only a few minutes to spare. I should have timed all this better. I should have timed my life better, come to that, but that isn’t something I can fix right now. All I can focus on is whether there’s a way I can slip into the room without anyone noticing my lateness, which I know is a faint hope given the role I’m supposed to play, and the phone call from Ben that dragged me from the bathroom floor to get me here.

  The bathroom floor. I’ve spent way too much time making life decisions on a few square feet of tile. It’s time to get up off the floor and face things.

  I’m not sure where I’m supposed to find the strength to do that, though.

  I circle the building, searching for a side entrance. I find what I’m looking for and something else too: John Phillips, leaning against the door frame, gazing off at the sun setting over the mountains. The view is breathtaking, the way it always seems to be when the fire is at its worst. The way the sky turns the same orange as the flames. The dark mists of smoke being lit from within. It never ceases to take my breath away.

  John Phillips is wearing a new set of ill-fitting clothes that must’ve come from the bottom of a charity barrel. Maybe he’ll be better off after tomorrow night. If the mavens of the Fall Fling are really going to give him the proceeds from the event, he can at least buy pants that come down past his ankles.

  “Are you going to the meeting, Mr. Phillips?”

  “Meeting?”

  “The town meeting? To discuss the fire? It’s in the auditorium tonight. Supposed to start in a few minutes.”

  “You think it’s a good idea for me to go?”

  “No one’s blaming you for the fire, Mr. Phillips,” I say with a flash of guilt.

  “Is that so?” He tries to kick at the dirt, but the floppy canvas shoes he’s wearing don’t produce the desired effect. “You might try telling that to the families they got in here with me now.”

  “Have they been bothering you?”

  “They won’t let me alone. Always whispering, staring. I can never sleep.”

  “Let me talk to—”

  “Don’t matter, anyhow. I expect I’ll be moving on from here soon.”

  “We don’t know how long you’ll have to stay, actually, I’m sorry to say, so if there’s an issue with some of the other . . . residents, you really should speak up.”

  He gives me a smile that makes me feel every second of our age difference.

  “You’re a good person, Ms. Elizabeth.”

  “Oh, I . . .”

  “Didn’t you say that meeting was about to start?”

  “Will you come in with me?”

  His eyes glide away. “I think I’ll watch the sunset for a while.”

  “Don’t stay out here too long by yourself.”

  “My dear girl. I am always by myself.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Pressure Cooker

  Mindy

  Mindy was so exhausted when they left the police station, the last thing she wanted to do was attend the town meeting, but Peter was strangely insistent. So they picked Carrie up from her ballet class and drove to the town’s Mexican restaurant for an early dinner. Carrie and Angus both had their headphones on in the backseat. Carrie was likely listening to some classical piece judging by the graceful arm movements she was making. Angus was listening to something harsher, angrier—music she could never understand or get the appeal of.

  At the restaurant, Jose brought them to their usual table, the one by the window where they’d had countless family celebrations, moments, ordinary dinners. He confirmed that they wanted their favorites (fajitas for Mindy, double beef tacos for Peter and Angus, a Mexican salad for Carrie), and they tried to act like a normal, happy family. That was impossible, of course, something Peter seemed to recognize with his last minute add-on: a double margarita.

  That they had been just that—happy—less than a week ago was something Mindy couldn’t quite wrap her head around even though she’d lived through it, and was living right in the middle of the change in circumstance now. Maybe they hadn’t been happy? Maybe the undertow they’d felt from Angus, or his angst in the first place, was a symptom they ignored, a flaw they hadn’t picked up on like the doctors with Carrie’s heart?

  Mindy looked around the restaurant to distract herself. It seemed like the whole town was there, doing the same thing as they were. Or maybe it was because so many people had been evacuated from their homes, the elementary school couldn’t feed them all. To Mindy, it felt like a roomful of people waiting for bad news.

  Were they really still going to hold the Fall Fling tomorrow night? It all seemed so banal now, so useless. Of course she still wanted Mr. Phillips to end up somewhere better than where he was, but beyond that, she was so far removed from the obsessed woman she’d been two days ago, she couldn’t even understand her. When she thought back, it was like she was watching a home movie of the life of someone she resembled physically. Recognizable, but different enough to be disconcerting, like hearing your voice on an answering machine.

  All that mattered now was Angus. Keeping him safe. Keeping what she’d learned that afternoon out of Detective Donaldson’s hands. To do that, to keep her family intact, she was willing to do anything, come what may, even lie to Peter.

  Not that he asked her anything throughout dinner other than to pass the salsa. He just gave her meaningful looks over the rim of his margarita glass as if they could communicate telepathically. But the only signal she was receiving was that he was pissed off. That one was coming in loud and clear.

  Finally, their food was half-eaten and Peter’s drink was down to the divot in his glass, and it was time to go. Back in the car, headphones in place, they drove.

  The town meeting was being held in the auditorium at the elementary school. It was renovated several years ago to make it multifunctional. A stage was installed with set pieces that could be adapted to almost any plan. The seating was that soft, flipped-chair kind you find in movie theaters.

  It was a familiar place to Mindy and Peter. They’d attended concert after concert there over the years. Angus squeaking away bravely on his clarinet when he was eight. Carrie doing that surprisingly heartbreaking solo contemporary ballet performance in the flowing green dress they could barely afford when she was ten. And before heading off to middle school, first Angus and then Carrie had walked across the stage in little miniature caps and gowns to receive their “diplomas.” They’d forgotten lines in plays and been embarrassed when Mindy had been roped into participating in a group “health” class, and oh, oh, oh . . . Mindy’s life had rolled across that stage. So many pieces of it.

  But at that moment, a strong, small woman, who Mindy figured must be the Kara she’d always heard Elizabeth talking about, was standing on a box before a lectern. Her dark brown hair was tied back in a neat bun that reminded Mindy of the way Carrie wore her hair, only it had a thick, glossy texture to it no child of hers was ever going to achieve. She had that same erect posture too, the slight turn out of her feet, and a burnished balsa-wood complexion. Something about her quiet assurance made it easy to see how she marshaled the respect of the thousands she sometimes had at her command.

  As they found a set of seats together, Mindy realized that the room felt electric. She’d never understood what that saying had meant before, not really, but it actually was as if a current were swirling through the auditorium, like that game she’d played as a child where you all held hands and someone touched a battery. Everyone looked strained, even Kate Bourne, who was sitting with Bit across the room. The room buzzed with nervous chatter, like the din of a funeral reception in its second hour.

  Kara stood there calmly surveying them. Behind her stood four burly men, almost at attention. Sunburned faces, wild sun-stained hair, untrimmed beards. They looked tired and grim, these “area commanders” who Kara introduced to the audience at precisely one minute after eight, identifying first herself, and then the men one by one.

  It was only when Kara said the l
ast man’s name, Andy Thomas, that Mindy thought to look for Elizabeth.

  She found her just off the stage where Ben was standing too, scowling at Andy. Elizabeth had always said that nothing happened between her and Andy, but Mindy wondered, not for the first time since their fight, whether Elizabeth had been entirely truthful.

  Kara asked for silence several times. By the time she’d gotten it, Elizabeth had found her place on the side of the stage.

  Kara gave her a curt nod, then proceeded with her talk.

  “Thank you for coming tonight. I know the last couple of days have been an extremely stressful time for all of you. Many of you have had to leave your homes. Many of you are scared. Many of you have questions. This is why I’ve assembled my team here for you tonight. We’ll give you a brief overview of the situation as it stands now and then open the floor for questions.

  “We’ll be here as long as we need to be. There are no wrong questions, nothing too small, nothing you should keep to yourself. But first let me assure you of this: we are doing everything we can to protect this beautiful town. This is a tough fire. A tenacious fire. The weather is not helping. We’re up against a formidable foe. But we believe we have the measures in place to contain it. Please believe me that there’s nothing that is more important to my crew and me in this moment than achieving that goal. We will give our all to bring it about.”

  Kara stepped back. Andy replaced her to explain where the fire was and what they expected it to do. There was a screen set up next to him, projecting a PowerPoint presentation. He used the statistics they’d been reading all week: the acres consumed, the weather report, the number of crew and equipment on-site. But there was something in the way he explained it all that made it understandable. Not just words on a page, but images too. This is what an acre of land looks like, this is five thousand acres. This is where the line has been drawn, this is why we draw that line, this is what we hope to achieve. This is our greatest enemy: the weather, the weather, the damned unrelenting fire weather. If the weather didn’t turn . . . Well, that was the cold, hard reality he hoped they had no chance of facing. But he’d been looking and looking at the maps with their weather specialist, and he thought he saw a glimmer of hope. Tomorrow, maybe, or the next day, if the stars aligned, there’d be a break in the heat, the wind, even a hint of rain.