Allie was rarely seen without her eight-month-old baby. “I left him with a sitter. Mark’s still working the fire at the post office.”
“Well, I’m glad you came.” Celia turned back to the phone. “Right now, I’ve got to do one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.”
“You’ve done a lot of hard things,” Allie said. “What could be so bad?”
“I’ve got to track down Mary Hampton’s mother,” she said. “And when I get her on the phone I have to tell her that her daughter has died, and that her grandchild is lying here, unconscious, with a crack in his skull.” She pulled her tissue from her pocket and blew her nose, then picked up the phone and began to dial. Her eyes locked with Allie’s as the phone began to ring. She almost hoped no one was there.
A man answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Uh…yes.” She swallowed hard and cleared her throat. “My name is Celia Shepherd. I live in Newpointe, Louisiana. I’m looking for Thelma Lewis…or Zack Lewis. I’m a friend of Mary’s.”
“Yes,” he said. “This is Zack, her brother.”
She pinched her tear ducts. She could tell from his tone that he didn’t know of his sister’s death. For a moment, she hesitated, wondering if she should ask to speak to his mother or give the news to him directly. She wasn’t sure what was the right thing to do.
“Is there something wrong?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m afraid there is.” Her voice trembled as she spoke. “There was an explosion at the post office here.”
“An explosion?”
“Mary…uh…she was there…inside…”
Silence settled like dust between them.
“I’m so sorry, but your sister was killed in the blast.”
She heard the phone drop, heard him talking to someone else, heard a woman’s wail. She covered her face and pressed it against the phone. Allie touched her back. Suddenly, the man picked the phone back up. “What about Pete?” he asked breathlessly.
“He’s in the hospital,” she said. “That’s where I’m calling from. He was injured badly, but he’s still alive. He’s in critical condition at Slidell Hospital, but they plan to transport him to New Orleans to a head trauma unit as soon as he’s stabilized.”
“Head trauma?”
“Yes. He’s got a fracture in his skull, and they don’t know if there’s any swelling in his brain or not. He’s got a broken arm, and some cuts and bruises, and two collapsed lungs. Fortunately, no burns. They need his next of kin to sign consent forms for treatment…”
Zack was having trouble speaking. “We’re gonna call the airport right now,” he said. “If we can’t get a plane tonight, we’ll just drive. We’ll be there as soon as we can. Meanwhile, maybe we could fax our consent. If someone from the hospital could call us on my cell phone—”
“That would be good,” she said. She took down his cell phone number. “Pete’s gonna need someone here in his corner. I’ll stay until you come. When he wakes up, he’s going to need to be told…”
She heard the man comforting his mother, who was still wailing. Then in a broken voice he asked, “You’ll stay with him?”
“Yes. And here’s my cell phone number, in case you need to get in touch. I’ll keep it with me.” She called it out to him. “I’m so sorry to give you this news.”
He couldn’t answer.
“I understand the shock. I’m kind of in shock myself. Please hurry.”
She hung up the phone and fell into Allie’s arms. The two women wept together for several moments, before Celia could muster the strength to go back to Pete’s room.
Chapter Four
The firefighters at the Midtown Station were exhausted and emotionally spent as they returned from fighting the blaze. It had taken hours to make sure the fire was out, and a pall of death hung over them like the smoke that still hadn’t cleared entirely. They had found partial remains of three unidentifiable bodies, and could only conclude that they were Sue Ellen Hanover, Cliff Bertrand, and Mary Hampton. Five firefighters, two from Newpointe and three from other towns nearby, had been treated for heat exhaustion, and six utility workers who’d come to help with the electrical lines had been treated for smoke inhalation.
The firefighters peeled out of their heavy coats and stepped out of their pants. Drenched with sweat, they grabbed jugs of ice water and went into the TV room to soak up the air conditioning before they showered. None of them had eaten lunch, but few of them had appetites. Some of them coughed and gagged on the smoke caught in their lungs. Though they tried to remain protected at all times, there were times when they didn’t have access to their tanks, and they inevitably breathed what they shouldn’t.
Dan and Nick couldn’t get cool, so they headed for the cold showers. “Man, I thought my bunkers were gonna shrivel right off of me,” Dan said.
Nick, the bivocational preacher who also served as the protective services’ chaplain, had mistakenly taken off his hood and face shield once to cool off, and as a result, had soot streaks and blisters on his face from the smoke. “I thought my skin was gonna shrivel right off of me. Man, I’ll never cool off.”
As they cut through the kitchen, Nick noticed Issie Mattreaux standing at the back door of the fire station, her face and arms stained black from the smoke. She had a vacant, dull look in her eyes as she stared out the door. Tentatively, Nick approached her. “You okay, Issie?”
His question seemed to startle her out of her reverie. “Yeah…uh, sure.” A moment of contemplation followed, then, “No…”
“Need to talk?”
She looked up at him for a moment, as though that concept surprised her. Then without a word, she pushed out the screen door and stepped onto the back lawn. Issie wasn’t as hot as he—she’d been in a cool ambulance for some of the afternoon as she’d transported Pete Hampton and treated the firemen and electrical workers. Despite how badly he wanted to step under that cold spray of water in the shower, Nick followed her, wondering if he was supposed to. It was a sweltering July day in south Louisiana, and the humidity hung in the air like a curtain blocking any breeze. The smell of smoke still hung in the air. He imagined there was no place in the small town where it could be escaped.
He felt drained and dizzy, but he’d been praying for Issie, and didn’t want to lose a chance to talk to her about her spiritual condition. He figured that if he passed out, she’d understand.
Issie went quietly to a bench near the bayou running behind them. It was a beautiful bayou, well-maintained and part of the pride of Newpointe. Ski boats pulled skiers behind them further down, where it was wider, but here, only an occasional fishing boat drifted by without an engine. Patricia Castor, the mayor, had outlawed boat engines in this part of the bayou, mainly because her city hall office was across the street and she wasn’t big on noise pollution. They had all half expected her to outlaw sirens, as well, but she hadn’t found a way to do that yet.
Nick watched Issie sink down on a bench under a tree dripping with Spanish moss. She had her black hair pulled back in a ponytail, as she always did at work, but wisps of it hung around her face in thoughtless disarray. He wondered if she knew her face was stained with smoke, or if she cared. He knew his was, but it was the least of his worries. He sat down next to her, his elbows on his knees. “Talk to me,” he said.
She looked out over the water. “It’s just…the kid. I don’t understand.”
“Understand what?”
“What happened to him.” Her voice was hoarse, raspy from the smoke, and she turned her big, dark eyes to Nick’s and locked into them so tight that it felt like she was clinging to him. But Issie didn’t cling, and they weren’t even touching. “He came to for just a few minutes when we were en route.”
“He did?” Nick asked. “Well, that’s good news, isn’t it?”
Her eyes ripped away and scanned the still water again. “He was crying for his mom.”
“Did he know?”
“No, I couldn’t tell him.” She pul
led her feet up onto the bench with her and set her chin on her knees. “That’s the worst thing a child could ever hear.”
Nick tried to put himself in the child’s place. “I’m sure you’re right.” Again, silence ticked off the seconds. He saw tears well up in Issie’s eyes, the first of her tears he’d ever seen. She wasn’t the kind to cry at the slightest emotional tug, but they were each going to suffer the aftermath of this crisis in their own way. He saw how hard she tried to keep those tears from shattering and rolling down her face. Her throat moved as she swallowed hard.
“I was eight,” she whispered.
He wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. “You were what?”
“Eight,” she said again, a little louder. “Eight years old. And there was this huge commotion downstairs, and my dad was cussing and yelling at somebody, and I got out of bed and started down the stairs…” Her voice trailed off as the memories assaulted her, and he could see in her eyes that the memory was painful. He couldn’t believe she was saying it. She’d never opened up to him, not ever. In fact, she went to great lengths to stay away from him. Something about his preacher status normally made her uncomfortable.
He didn’t prod her on, didn’t ask any questions that would make it easier for her to continue. Instead, he only waited, his eyes on those tears still balancing in the rims of her eyes, unwilling to let go.
“I went into the living room and asked Pop what was wrong, what he was so mad about, and he swung around and yelled out, ‘Your mother’s dead!’”
Nick’s face changed, and he unfolded and sat up straight, gazing at her as the tear finally let go and made its slow path down her face.
“I’m sorry, Issie,” he said. “I never knew.”
She breathed a laugh that had no humor in it. “Well, why would you? She was in a car accident, driving back from my grandmother’s, and no one found her until it was almost morning. My pop had gone on to bed, thinking she’d be home around eleven, but he’d slept through the night and never realized she hadn’t made it in. And then they came and told him, and he was out of his mind with grief. Never got over it until the day he died three years ago.” She stopped and looked at Nick with dull eyes. “Everybody’s forgotten by now. It was a long time ago.”
“But you haven’t.”
She shook her head sadly. After a moment, she brought her eyes back to his. “I know you’re a preacher and everything, Nick. You’ve got this whole thing figured out. But you know, I have a hard time understanding why mothers of little kids have to die.”
“Everybody has a hard time understanding that,” Nick said. “You know, you’ve got me all wrong. I don’t have all the answers. I just know that I couldn’t make it myself without—”
“Don’t do it,” Issie warned. “Don’t preach to me, Nick. It’ll just make me mad, unless you can answer my question and tell me how somebody could walk into a post office and leave a bomb, hoping to blow people to smithereens.”
“The same way some guy could be a serial killer or poison somebody. It’s not like it’s the first terrible thing that’s happened in Newpointe. I’ve heard these questions over and over, Issie. We live in a sinful world, and so there’s unspeakable evil in it. You can’t put the blame on God. He’s—”
She shot him a look, cutting off his words. “Don’t do it, Nick. Don’t you preach to me.”
“I’m not preaching,” he said. “I’m trying to answer your question.”
“You can’t, and you know it.” Another tear ran down her face, making a trail through the smoke smudges.
“No, I can’t. Not the way you want, anyway. Issie, you’re not the only paramedic or EMT who’s ever come to me with that question. As the chaplain of all of the protective services, I hear from firefighters and cops and you guys all the time. It’s an occupational hazard, to hit that wall of despair.” He rubbed his dirty face. “It’s gonna hit each of us hard, this one. It’s tough finding people you know blown to bits and burnt beyond recognition.”
She breathed in a deep sigh and then blew it out. “I gotta get a better line of work.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. I could go to nursing school and treat appendectomies and viruses. Give flu shots.”
“You wouldn’t be happy doing that.”
She shot him a look. “Why would you say that?”
“Because you like living on the edge. That emergency feeling that keeps that adrenaline pumping. That life or death scenario.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I like it, too,” he said.
“In the pulpit, or in the fire truck?”
He chuckled. “Both, actually.”
She kept her gaze on him for a moment, her big eyes considering his words. He looked away. She caused way too many distracting thoughts, and she wasn’t the kind of woman he’d been waiting for. She hung out at Joe’s Place, the bar across the street, and got involved with married men and ex-cons, just for the thrill. Now, getting a peek into her childhood trauma, he thought he knew why.
Aunt Aggie, the eighty-one-year-old dynamo who cooked all of the fire department’s meals, opened the door and shouted for both of them. “Come eat, T-Nick! Issie, you hungry? I got cold fruit and watermelon.”
“I’m already off duty, Aunt Aggie,” Issie said. “If you don’t have enough, I’ll just—”
“Have enough? You insultin’ me, sha? I always got enough.”
“I’ll be there in a minute, Aunt Aggie,” Nick called.
The old woman, dressed in a gold-glittery blouse and black wind-suit pants, looked as if she’d taken special care with her looks today. Her white hair looked freshly done, and she sported a smile that Nick knew was for their benefit. Aunt Aggie always liked to cheer them up when they’d fought a battle like the one today. “Ya’ll need to get outa that heat and get some liquids down, not to mention food. I’m gon’ have folks droppin’ like flies around here, me.”
They watched her go back inside, fussing and mumbling. “I wish I had answers for you,” Nick told Issie softly. “All I know is that God is still in control. He was when you were a kid, and he still is.”
“Why do you religious people always say that? That God’s in control? It’s like the catch-all answer.”
“It’s exactly the catch-all answer. In a world that doesn’t always make sense, we can only trust in him.”
“Trust him for what?” Issie demanded, growing angry now. “What can that little boy trust in him for? His mother trusted. She was one of your church members, wasn’t she?”
“Yep. Sure was.”
“Then how could this happen?”
“We may never know,” Nick said. “But God will be faithful. I know that. Regardless of what happened…regardless of how tragic this was…God has a plan, and he will be faithful to carry it out.”
“Well, excuse me for saying so, but if that’s his plan for Mary Hampton…for Sue Ellen Hanover…for Cliff…for Pete…If it was his plan for me when I was eight years old…I don’t know that I want God’s plan in my life.” She got up and headed back inside.
Nick sat motionless, realizing that he hadn’t helped at all. Once again, he had failed. This woman for whom he had prayed so many times had finally come to him with a spiritual question. And he had not had answers that satisfied her.
The screen door opened and Aunt Aggie came out again. “You awright, Nick?” she asked him.
He looked up at her. “I guess. I just…Issie was asking me some questions about God. I didn’t help her much.”
“You prob’ly helped more than you know, enfant.”
“No, Aunt Aggie.” He got up, took off his glasses, and cleaned them on his shirt. “Everything I say just goes in one ear and out the other. She just thinks I’m a big joke with silly ideas.”
“Ain’t that what I use ta think?” Aunt Aggie asked. “Used to say so, right to your face. I thought you was no better than a con artist, peddlin’ your bill o’ goods to that churc
h full of folks. But look at me.”
Nick couldn’t help smiling. Aunt Aggie had been as close to a lost cause as he’d ever seen in his life. But a few months ago, she had shocked the town by showing up in church, and had almost caused collective coronary arrest when she’d gone down the aisle to tell him that she’d met Christ. “Tell me something, Aunt Aggie. Back then…when you equated me with a con artist…did anything I said ever sink in?”
“Arrything you said sunk in,” she said. “I just didn’t know it. One day, it all came cavin’ in on me, all at once. You keep workin’ on that Issie, sha. She’ll come around.”
Wearily, Nick followed Aunt Aggie back inside. The table was filling up with tired, quiet firemen.
Dan was out of the shower and stood in front of the mirror combing his hair, as if the right style might hide his receding hairline. Mark Branning was on the telephone, and when he got off, he turned to the rest of the guys.
“Do ya’ll have any idea where Pete Hampton’s father is?”
Ray Ford, the fire chief, was just coming in as Mark asked the question. Ray frowned and took his place at the head of the table. “I knew Pete’s daddy, Larry, when he was still here. We went to school together. Even played ball on the same team. He worked as an insurance salesman over on Bonaparte Street. Up and disappeared one day with his secretary. Hasn’t been heard from since.”
“The kid needs somebody. Allie said his uncle and his grandmother are on their way, but if we could locate his father…”
“I’ll make some phone calls,” Ray said, “soon as I get back to the office. Maybe we can come up with some leads and find him. But if I remember his daddy, I think little Pete might be better off with his grammaw.”
Nick met Issie’s eyes across the table. Those tears had sprung back into her eyes.
Chapter Five
Jill Clark didn’t think she had the energy left to make it back across Lake Pontchartrain from Chalmette, where she’d spent ten hours taking depositions today. She didn’t know how the injured Cajun roughneck had found her, but he had begged her to represent him in his lawsuit against the oil company responsible for the loss of his leg. Since most of the work required being away from Newpointe, she had tried to get everything done in one day.
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