Smoke

by Catherine McKenzie

  “You’re pregnant.”

  “Yes. You knew?”

  “I suspected.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “It was not my business to.”

  I sigh. “Is that why you called?”

  “No. I need you.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “You haven’t looked at the reports this morning?”

  “I’ve been . . . No. Things are worse?”

  “We will face the crisis today. And my second has taken ill. I need your assistance.”

  I stare at the wall. James McMurtry stares back at me, an old favorite of Ben’s that he’d taken the time to turn from poster to painting.

  “I can’t, Kara.”

  There’s a long silence on the line. “Ah. It’s like that, is it?”

  “I need to make the right choice, for once.”

  “I understand.”

  Guilt tugs at me. “Is there really no one else? Because if there isn’t, I’m sure he’ll understand.”

  “No, that’s fine. Andy will do it.”

  “Of course. But why didn’t you ask him in the first place?”

  “I think you know why.”

  In order to avoid going crazy waiting for Ben to give me his answer or constantly checking on the fire, I decide to follow up on a question that should be front and center: How did that video get out? See also: Why didn’t I think to look for it myself?

  I go to see Detective Donaldson first. He’s sent me several apoplectic messages that he needs to speak to me ASAP.

  When I get to his office, he’s pacing with his cell phone held to his ear.

  “Yup. Yup. I know. That’s a short list, and you’re on it. I’m just stating a fact. Yup. Will do.”

  He hangs up and runs his hand backward and forward over the top of his head.

  “Who were you talking to?” I ask.

  He turns around. “You been standing there long?”

  “Only a couple of yups.”

  “This is not a time to joke. Have you spoken to Rich?”

  “No, have you?”

  He looks briefly at his phone, then puts it facedown on his desk.

  “We have a situation on our hands,” he says. “The leak of that video might cost me my job. So I want to know: How the fuck did that happen?”

  “I have no idea. I didn’t even know there was a video. Did you?”

  He walks over to his computer and wakes it up. The video’s frozen on his screen at the shot of the four boys and the girl in the square.

  “I got it yesterday. I hadn’t worked my way further than this when I interviewed Tucker and Angus.”

  “Was this the evidence you mentioned?”

  “It was.”

  “Why didn’t you show it to them yesterday?”

  “I didn’t have time to sit down with the timeline and examine the whole tape to match it up. Besides, that way I got them to commit to their stories. Angus obviously lied.”

  “So did Tucker.”

  Donaldson shoots me a look. “We don’t know that he’s one of the kids.”

  “I’ll bet he is. Has Angus said anything since he was brought in?”

  “Nope.”

  “What about identifying the others on the tape? They likely had something to do with it.”

  “We’re working on that.”

  “Any leads?”

  He clicked his browser closed. “Not any I’m sharing at the moment.”

  “So, what am I supposed to do?”

  “How about doing your job while you still have it?”

  The Daily’s offices are housed on the second floor of one of the older buildings on the town square. The paper does a truncated edition on Sundays, and the newsroom is only half-full. An eager intern points me to the desk I’m looking for.

  Joshua Wicks’s workspace is not what I expected. Rather than the sheaves of paper and mad conspiracy wall I’d imagined, there are only two large computer screens and clear surfaces that must be wiped down daily. A prominent bottle of hand sanitizer completes the picture. I watch his hands as they fly over the keys. They are chapped and rough, the hands of a man who washes way too frequently.

  He must sense my presence, or perhaps he noticed my reflection in his screen. He turns around. He has a fresh-faced look for a man of thirty-five. In the right clothing, he could easily pass for a high school senior. His dark-brown hair is shaggy, and his matching eyes look tired. He’s been working hard this week.

  “Ms. Martin. A pleasure to see you,” he says in his rumbling bass voice.

  “I’m sure.”

  “You’re here about the video?”

  “I am.”

  “I’m not going to tell you how I got it.”

  “I’d expect nothing less.”

  “A phone call would have sufficed, then.”

  “I disagree,” I say. “May I sit?”

  He motions toward the edge of his desk, and I take a tenuous perch. He winces. I can only imagine the scrub-down it’s going to receive after I leave.

  “So?” he says.

  “The town cameras all stream on the Daily’s website. Is it recorded here?”

  “No. We just host the feed. They’re not actually our cameras.”

  “Whose are they?”

  “The town’s.”

  “So the feed would be recorded on the town’s servers?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Who has access to those?”

  “I’m sure the police can get access. Or your office.”

  “Of course. But who usually has access?”

  “Normally, that’d just be the town’s IT department.”

  “Which is?”

  “One guy. But not the droid you’re looking for.”

  I shake my head. Men and their Star Wars references. Will they never end?

  “Am I supposed to take your word on that?”

  His eyes blink slowly. “Do what you want.”

  “Did you get the footage before it was e-mailed to the town?”

  “Nope.”

  “Any idea what mailing list was used?”

  “Isn’t that something you should know already?”

  I give him a look.

  “Fine. Whatever. From what I can tell, they used part of the emergency services list.”

  “How’d they get that?”

  “I can think of a few ways.”

  “Care to share?”

  “I doubt they’ve got the best security on their servers. And any number of people use that list on a regular basis.”

  “So what’s the motive behind sharing the video? Why not just take it to the police?”

  He raises his shoulders toward his ears.

  I try another tack. “You’ve been getting inside information all week. I know you can’t tell me who it is, but perhaps you can tell me who it isn’t?”

  “That’s asking me to do indirectly what I can’t do directly.”

  I stand to go. “Had to try.”

  “Wouldn’t respect you if you didn’t.”

  “Thanks, I think.”

  He reached for the bottle of Purell. “I will tell you one thing. I heard your boss is mighty pissed about the release of that video.”

  “He hates leaks.”

  “Yes, I’m sure that’s why.”

  CHAPTER 35

  Mirror Ball

  Elizabeth

  The Fall Fling takes place where it does every year, in an enormous tent set up on a lawn maintained by Parks and Recreation at the foot of Nelson Peak. Nelson’s Central Park, it’s the setting for concerts, fireworks, Shakespeare on the Lawn, anything we can pack into an outdoor setting in the short months when things can be reliably planned in the open. Usually, it merely affords a beautiful view of the hill in its summer green splendor. Tonight, though, it might be a front-row seat to the end of, well, everything, really.

  Before we got off the line, I asked Kara if the event should be cancelled. She si
ghed heavily and told me how she’d tried to convince the town to do that to no avail. The show will go on, only this time it will be guarded by fire trucks and the same spaghetti of yellow hoses that surround my house, valuable resources that should be deployed elsewhere but, in classic Nelson fashion, are being diverted from need to want.

  But who am I to judge, here in my heavy ball gown, quickly let out to hide my expanding middle and my larger-than-usual breasts? The car I’m climbing out of cost more than most make in a year, me included. And the tickets for this event are something outside of any reasonable budget, paid for, like my dress, by Ben’s parents.

  “Are you feeling all right?” Ben asks, placing his hand on the small of my back. It’s the same temperature as the smoky night, but my skin reacts through the silky fabric. A shiver. A flush. Ben still makes me feel this way.

  “What are we doing here?”

  Ben looks into the tent as his parents leave us to greet friends. He surveys the round tables covered in snow-white linen, the silver place settings glinting in the votive-infused light. There’s a string quartet playing near the entrance and a DJ set up on the stage. Everyone is dressed in black tie and ball gowns, ignoring the haze that surrounds them. There are enough flowers in the room to nearly kill the smell of smoke. Suspended from the ceiling is something that looks very much like Chihuly’s glass blossom sculpture that hangs in the Bellagio’s lobby in Las Vegas. I know it can’t be real, but it’s a damn good facsimile.

  “Because of the fire?” he says.

  He’s wearing a well-cut black suit and a silky black tie. It makes him look thinner, younger, almost movie-star good-looking, and several women have already thrown him appreciative glances. Ben gave me one himself when I came out of his room an hour ago. He’d tucked a loose strand of hair that was already escaping from my attempt at a chignon and said, “I’m glad we’re doing this.”

  “Among other things,” I say now.

  Last time I checked, the satellite showed a few clouds looming on the horizon, though it’s impossible to see them through the low-level fug that’s hanging over us. I feel claustrophobic and nervous, a feeling that’s not helped by the nearly constant roar of aircraft above us dumping their contents on the just-out-of-sight flames. The plume of smoke behind the Peak is still blazing straight up to the sky, but it’s so much closer now. Based on what Kara told me, it must have reached the firebreak.

  “We fiddle while Rome burns,” I say. “Emperor Nero would approve.”

  “I think he was playing a lyre . . .”

  I smack him in the arm. “Stop showing off.”

  He grins. “Our countrymen await.”

  He leads me into the tent, and we check out the board that contains the seating plan. We’re at table three, in the first row to the right of the stage, in front of the plastic panoramic windows that provide a view of the Peak. They’ve turned on the night-skiing lights, and they glow dimly against the fading sky.

  We stand in front of the window for a moment, looking out, looking up. If I close my eyes, I could be there with the crews. Manning a hose, raking the ground, lost in the smoke. Perhaps Ben senses this, and it’s why he isn’t saying anything. A test of my new resolve. I don’t like to be tested, but if I want a future with him, I have to walk away from my past.

  I turn my back on the fire and spend the next hour with Ben, weaving through the cocktail hour, brief traces of kisses being left on my cheek. There is much talk of what’s happening on the Peak, of course, a few nervous glances toward the windows, but also of other, mundane things. We are invincible, of course, money being the ultimate shield against real harm.

  About ten minutes before we’ll be called to take our seats for dinner, Ben and I find ourselves on the outskirts of the dance floor caught by our own wedding song. “Us” by Regina Spektor. Someone looking for deeper meaning would read all kinds of things into that choice; we just liked the song. Monuments being built to love. Cities named after it. It seemed so big. So permanent. What we were hoping to create on a more modest scale.

  I love this song. But it’s not a song I would expect to hear here.

  I turn to Ben, and he’s standing there, looking shy, holding out his hand.

  “Did you . . . ?”

  He just waits, and I put my hand in his. He steps us into the slightly muddled crowd, his hand returning to the small of my back, the other gripping my left hand tightly, folded between us. We shuffle slowly in a circle.

  “What does this mean?” I ask.

  “Shhh,” he says. “Let’s be happy, tonight. We’re going to have a baby.”

  His face breaks into that smile I’ve been waiting for, and I tuck my chin against his shoulder. We spin to the quick piano beat that’s a bit too fast for a classic slow song. The music soars and crashes around us, and I have one of those movie moments, where scenes of my life flit through my brain like a highlight reel. Our first conversation. That tenuous moment on the Majestic. Our wedding day. The time we spent apart. The times we came back together. Our last good night. How broken Ben looked this morning.

  “Ben?”

  “Yes,” his lips say into an escaped tendril of my hair, wafting it against my neck.

  “I love you.”

  He holds me away from him, silent, still turning slowly.

  I want him to say something. To say it back. To mean it. For it to be enough. And maybe he’s about to, but it will have to wait until another time.

  “Please take your seats, folks,” Kate Bourne’s voice crackles through the sound system as Regina’s voice is cut off midverse.

  Ben and I stand there, still in a dancing pose, looking at each other as the lights begin to flicker above our heads. On/off. On/off.

  “We should probably sit,” Ben says on the third flicker.

  I nod, and we leave any progress on our détente for another time. I can’t help but feel hopeful, though, as I take a seat on a fabric-covered chair that, though a rental, is nicer than anything we have in our own home.

  Kate’s voice booms through the speakers again, welcoming us. She’s standing at the microphone in the middle of the stage. She’s wearing a floor-length black dress made of silk chiffon. The material’s gathered at the shoulders and has a plunging V neckline. Her collarbones stand out in sharp relief, almost like a coat hanger that the dress has been placed on for safekeeping. I guess she rethought her dress choice after seeing me at Caroline’s. Given how my dress already feels like a weight around my neck, I’m wishing I’d done the same.

  The fire rages behind me. Ben is seated to my left, and a business associate of his father’s is on my right. His parents are across from us. I straighten out the silverware next to the bone-china salad plate and shift uncomfortably. I catch Grace watching me fidget. I give her a tentative smile, and she looks away.

  Did she really tell Ben about the pregnancy by mistake? We haven’t spoken today, other than a few polite words in the car. Her public face doesn’t reveal anything, but after all these years of knowing her, I can’t believe she acted maliciously.

  “I need to go to the bathroom,” I tell Ben.

  “Everything okay?”

  “I’m fine. I’ll be back.”

  I rise and weave through the tables as Kate tells the crowd what it’s been complaining about for the last couple of days—this night is in honor of John Phillips, all of the proceeds raised will be given to him so he can find a new home when this is all over, et cetera, et cetera.

  I search the room for Mindy. She called me early this morning while I was sleeping, leaving only a missed call on my phone. I haven’t called her back. In all the chaos, I forgot until now.

  I don’t see her anywhere, certainly not at Kate’s table, where I would’ve expected her. But of course. Angus. There’s no way she’d come to this event with him sitting in a cell. How could I have forgotten? And that’s probably what she was calling me about this morning too. I should have called her back. A long time ago.

  I rea
ch deep into the pocket of my skirt and extract my phone. I can, at least, do one thing right tonight. I walk out of the tent, pull up Mindy’s contact, and tap to dial her number. It rings so long I almost hang up, but then her voice mail clicks in.

  “This is Mindy. Leave a message.”

  My voice catches at the familiarity of hers.

  “It’s Beth. Elizabeth Martin. Of course you know who it is. Sorry. Strange night. Strange week. I just wanted to say I’m so sorry about Angus. And sorry also for not calling you back, earlier. If there’s something you need, anything, please let me know. I’m thinking of you. I’m thinking of all of you.”

  I end the call. There’s nothing more to say.

  I slip the phone back into my pocket and start the semitreacherous walk across the lawn toward the public bathrooms. It’s fully dark now, and although I have no trouble seeing between the lights on the hill and the phosphorescent glow of the tent, someone forgot to lay down a walkway between it and the cement slab five hundred yards away where the bathrooms are. I’m not quite sure how I’ll manage with my dress once I get in there, but at least there are no Porta Pottys to deal with.

  “Can I help you?” asks an older male voice. An arm slips through the crook I’ve created by holding my dress up off the moist lawn. When I turn to look, he has a face I recognize but can’t place.

  “Do I know you?”

  “Graeme Fletcher. You missed an appointment with me earlier this week.”

  Graeme Fletcher? Graeme Fletch—oh, God. The lawyer. The divorce lawyer I was supposed to see earlier this week. I glance over my shoulder.

  “No need to be nervous, young lady. I’m only escorting a woman to the bathrooms.”

  I smile at him. He’s nearing sixty, with steel-gray hair and matching eyes. His tux fits him comfortably.

  “Does that happen a lot?” I ask.

  “People anxious about being seen with me in public? Frequently, I’m sad to say. Nature of the business.”

  “I’ve always wondered why anyone would choose to do what you do, to be honest.”

  “It can be steeped in misery, I’ll admit. But only if you let it get to you.”

  “How do you not let it get to you? All the terrible things people who used to be in love do and say to each other.”