Once Burned

by Gerry Boyle

  “Tragic,” Russell said. “My heart goes out to the family. That’s why we’re out here—to protect the public. But keep in mind, there’s always going to be a risk of collateral damage where there are civilians in the AO.”

  “AO?” I said.

  “Area of operations,” Russell said. “We can’t let this distract us from our mission.”

  I shook my head, took my notebook out, and started writing. It was a scribble in my barely legible handwriting. I wrote down most of what they’d just said. And then I penned: A sixteen-year-old boy is beaten to death. So why does this feel like a game?

  26

  I asked them to take me back to my truck, my heart no longer in it.

  They did, and then drove off to continue the patrol. I sat for a few minutes and gathered my thoughts, scribbled some more notes. Lifting the recorder to the light, I opened the last file, played a little just to make sure it was there. It was; their voices, the truck idling in the background. Collateral damage.

  I wondered what Woodrow’s family was doing. Still at the hospital? Following Woodrow’s body to the funeral home? Writing his obituary, summing up his sixteen years of life? Would they collapse tonight and wake up in the morning and for a millisecond forget that their son and brother was dead?

  I sighed, picked up the phone, and looked up the phone number for the State Police dispatcher in Augusta. Nonemergency. I dialed it, waited. A woman answered, her tone all-business, her words clipped. I asked for Trooper Foley. She said he wasn’t on duty. I asked for whoever it was who was assigned to the Woodrow Harvey homicide. She said, “Who is this again?”

  The dispatcher took my name and number, said she’d have someone call me.

  I scrolled down my list of contacts, tapped in a number, and waited.

  “Mr. McMorrow,” Davida Reynolds said.

  “Did I wake you?” I said.

  “Hope not,” she said. “I’m driving the back roads of Sanctuary, Maine.”

  “You too? I was with the citizens for a while.”

  “Met them twice now,” she said.

  “What do you think?” I said.

  “Where are you?” she said.

  I told her.

  “Be there in fifteen,” Reynolds said.

  The Suburban pulled into the Quik-Mart parking lot just before midnight. I was sipping yet another coffee, eating a granola bar, had just texted Roxanne.

  Davida Reynolds eased the Suburban up next to my truck. We both got out.

  She said, “Can’t stay away, huh?”

  “Nor can you,” I said. “Where’s your partner?”

  “Oh, he’s out there, too.”

  “Give him my best,” I said.

  Reynolds smiled, but only for a second. And then she said, “The kid who got beaten—”

  “I heard. He didn’t make it.”

  “Good sources,” Reynolds said.

  I shrugged. “I have a call in.”

  “CID now.”

  “You know who?”

  “No. Just became a homicide an hour and a half ago.”

  “Sad to think he died because somebody thought he was the arsonist and he wasn’t.”

  “Would be sad even if he was,” Reynolds said.

  We paused. An old pickup pulled up to the pumps and a guy got out. Beard, ponytail, leather biker vest. He took a gas tank from the bed of the truck and set it on the pavement and started filling it, the gushing sound carrying across the lot.

  Reynolds watched him for a moment, then turned back to me. I had my notebook out.

  “So can you confirm his death for me?” I said.

  “I’d rather leave that to CID.”

  “But I won’t get them tonight.”

  She hesitated, weighing the politics of it.

  “Okay, but make sure you get CID in there someplace.”

  “Deal.”

  “When did he die?”

  “I got the call at 9:03. Shortly before that.”

  “Do you think it’s related to the fires?”

  “There was evidence someone had tried to burn the logging equipment at the assault scene. So yes, we believe the death is related to the arson fires.”

  “In what way?”

  “I don’t want to speculate at this stage of the investigation.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I will. He was either the arsonist and was killed by somebody who interrupted him, and then they couldn’t call the cops, or he wasn’t the arsonist, and he was killed when he interrupted the person who is.”

  “Or he was killed for some other reason, and the skidder was torched to throw us off,” Reynolds said.

  “So what is the status of the arson investigation?” I said.

  “Ongoing. It’s very active, as you might imagine. We’ve had one death. We’d like to stop this before there’s another.”

  “You have people patrolling at night now?”

  Yeah, well, sometimes you need to be a little proactive,” Reynolds said. “Can’t always just show up for the aftermath.”

  “What’s your view of the citizen patrol?”

  “For the record?”

  “Yes.”

  “We welcome the assistance of the general public, but we prefer that people go about their business, be alert, and leave the investigation to us.”

  “They’re a little scary,” I said.

  “Off the record? I know.”

  “This Russell fellow says they have a right to stop and interrogate people. Some emergency thing.”

  “May just scare the perp into hiding for a while,” Reynolds said.

  “That good or bad?”

  “Kinda like to catch him now, as long as we’re around.”

  We watched as the guy from the pickup finished pumping and screwed the cap back on the plastic jug, hefting it into the back of his truck.

  “You ever read the New York Times Magazine?” I said.

  “Sure,” Reynolds said. “Bad habit. Sunday paper is a time suck.”

  “This story is going to be in the magazine, not the regular paper.”

  “Whoa. Big publicity.”

  “Is publicity good or bad?”

  “He may back off,” she said. “Or he may get off on it—want to put on more of a show.”

  The truck pulled away and rattled out onto the road. I watched the bugs, bats slicing through the swarm like sharks.

  “Son of Sam got all upset when some nut job started calling the TV stations and horning in on his kills,” I said.

  “That right?” Reynolds said. “Well, you go to all that work to kill somebody and then somebody steals your limelight.”

  The bats kept circling and swooping. We watched and then I said, “Of course, if he’d lived to ID the person, the plan would have backfired.”

  Reynolds turned back to the bugs and bats, lost in thought.

  “What if Woodrow was an accomplice to the fires,” she said. “Maybe wanted out. Maybe Woodrow threatened to rat out his partner, so that person pounded his head in.”

  “And now the fires are a solo job,” I said.

  “Or maybe it’s your artist friend,” Reynolds said.

  “I thought arsonists were almost always male?”

  “Almost.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “Way to strike back at the world, after the husband dumped her,” said Reynolds. “Maybe get back at the town, which she sees as representative of her ex, the bait he used to capture her. And now it’s her gilded cage.”

  Gilded cage, filled with screaming sculptures.

  “She’s too open,” I said. “Not nearly devious enough.”

  “I don’t know. The thing at her house, scaring the guy away?” Reynolds looked skeptical. Or was she just watching my reaction?

  “Nah,” I said.

  “Or maybe she just enjoys your company, Mr. McMorrow,” she said. “Wants you to want to protect her.”

  “Doesn’t need me for that,” I said. “She carries a loaded shotg
un.”

  “I don’t know,” Reynolds said. “I’ve seen her. At the Talbot house fire? This may be too forward to say, but I think she has a mad crush on you.”

  “Nah, she’s just a little lonely,” I said.

  Reynolds’ eyebrows twitched, and she said, “One does not preclude the other.”

  The interview was well over. We stood there, the bug storm swirling like a blizzard against the black sky. Looking more closely, I could see that the white plastic canopy was covered with spiders, bustling along their webs, catching moths and mayflies as fast as they could reel them in. Only from a distance was the Quik-Mart sign bright and clean.

  Just like Sanctuary.

  Roxanne was in bed, Sophie beside her. There was a stuffed dog beside Sophie, a kitty beside the dog. The whole crew was sound asleep. I kissed Roxanne lightly on the cheek and she opened her eyes.

  “Sophie okay?”

  “She wants to give you a fashion show,” Roxanne said.

  I smiled and Roxanne closed her eyes and fell back asleep. I circled the bed, slid my arms under Sophie, and lifted her up. She opened her eyes and saw me and then pointed back at the bed. I leaned and scooped up the kitty and the dog and carried them all out of the room and down the hall to Sophie’s room. I pulled the sheet and blanket back and laid her down, put the cat on one side, the dog on the other, and covered them all up.

  “Good night, honey,” I said, but she was already asleep.

  I slipped out of her room and walked quietly down the stairs. In the kitchen I went to the refrigerator and took out a can of Ballantine, grabbed a glass. I took it to the study, sat at my desk, and started typing, wrote a 250-word brief on Woodrow’s death. I used Reynolds’s confirmation, her brief comment. I added Willa’s comment: “They killed my brother.” And then I looked at the words again. Thought about it for a moment. Deleted the line.

  She was just a kid.

  I thought some more and put the line back.

  I e-mailed the story and my own photos from the scene. Good enough for this story, until the real photographer showed up. Then I texted Kerry, told her they were there. They could put it up online in the morning, and everyone else could pick it up. The New York Times has reported . . .

  I opened the beer. Drank a third of it in a long gulp. Raised the glass.

  “Sorry, Woodrow,” I said. “I’m very, very sorry.”

  And then I wrote out my notes from the night. Officious Russell and doofy Tory, the kid with the Taurus and Willa’s shattered voice. Harold saying Woodrow may have been into drugs, and this becoming fact before the conversation ended. Don ready to rock and roll. This bastard isn’t gonna know what hit him.

  I noted my conversation with Reynolds, too, her saying it was time to be out there, not just covering the aftermath.

  And then I listened. I heard frogs in the woods, something moving in the brush behind the house. I stood and went to the screened sliding door. Reached for the switch and hit the floodlights and saw a raccoon waddle away from the compost toward the woods. I watched until he disappeared, then turned the light off and went back to my desk. I drank some beer. Turned the recorder on and transcribed the conversation after I’d told them of Woodrow’s death.

  Tory: Just what we need.

  First the doc burned, now a troubled teenage boy beaten to death. Will the bad publicity ever end?

  I shook my head, went online, and Googled him. Tory, Sanctuary Brokers Real Estate.

  LIVE THE LIFESTYLE.

  LET TORY AND RITA BE YOUR GUIDES TO THE CHESAPEAKE

  BAY REGION. LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP INTO THE CHESAPEAKE BAY

  AREA. TORY AND RITA WILL MAKE SURE THE INVESTMENT OF

  YOUR LIFETIME IS JUST THAT.

  Their story lined up. The two of them had worked in Maryland for a few years, then made the move to Maine. I kept scanning, found that a real estate handout had featured them as the brokers of the month shortly after their arrival in Maryland from the San Diego area. Rita had the same smile, bigger hair. Tory was heavier, looked bulked up. The story said his hobbies were cooking, weightlifting, and “spending quality time with my awesome wife, on the job and at home.” Asked about his name, Tory had said he’d gotten the nickname when he was a toddler, because his older brother couldn’t say Tommy.

  Huh. I’d figured it was his professional name, like radio DJs and news anchors take on. I Googled Tommy Stevens. Got a motocross racer in Indiana. A locksmith in Alberta. A guy who wrote a book about beekeeping. A wedding notice, Tommy and Sally-Jo, Oxnard, California. It would make sense if Tory had been Tory since he was three. But was that his legal name? And if so, when did he change it?

  I Googled Thomas Stevens. The same locksmith popped up. Some guy who died in 1887, a genealogy thing. A computer science professor at a state college in Georgia. A police helicopter pilot in Los Angeles who got an award for rescuing people from a mudslide: “In driving rain, Sergeant Stevens piloted his Bell 206 Jet Ranger . . .”

  I scrolled down, the Thomas Stevenses rolling by. Stopped.

  A Thomas Stevens on a list of people described as lost. The organizers of the Class of 1988 Bangor High School twentieth reunion. “Seen these classmates? If so, tell them we’d LOVE TO SEE ’EM! Matthew Geberth, Tommy Stevens, Lasandra Lane . . .”

  I clicked on the link. It went to the web page for the reunion. There were pictures of fortyish people holding drinks. Another link to the yearbook, a page for the photos. Girls leaning on birch trees. Guys in their football jerseys, standing by their pickups. And there he was. Tory—except he was Tommy then. A skinnier version, but with the same salesman’s smile. He had done the business track, noted “all the laughs in accounting.” His dream job: millionaire. His motto: Get rich or die trying.

  Tommy Stevens was still working on it.

  So what had he done? Made his way into real estate, given himself a preppy name? Still chasing that first million?

  I bookmarked the page. Looked at my watch. It was 1:58 a.m. My last inch of beer was flat and warm. I looked upward and listened. No sound from my sleeping family.

  Just one more.

  Russell B. Witkin was a little easier. I searched for his name alongside US Department of State. Nothing. I searched for his name and Iraq War. Nothing. I tried Afghanistan. Still nothing. Then I tried US Army. And there he was.

  But he wasn’t in Iraq.

  It was 1999. Russell was stationed in South Korea, a staff sergeant assigned to something called the US Army Materiel Support Center, Busan Storage Facility. A photo showed walls of stuff in a big warehouse, like a camo version of Home Depot. Russell was in a base news story in 2003 about personnel changes. He said he was retiring after twenty years at Busan, and would miss the important work. The story said the depot “received, stored, and issued water, fuel and clothing (packaged), building materials, and personal demand items in support of US Forces, Korea.”

  Night-vision goggles among them?

  I smiled. No special ops. No Iraq or Afghanistan. Just keeping track of a warehouse full of boots and uniforms, bottled water, and army underwear. Clair had him pegged. Tory wasn’t the only one reinventing himself in Sanctuary, Maine.

  So what about Don Barbier, affable and capable, rolling into town like one of the real men in a pickup truck commercial? He said he’d been down south, out west, flipping houses, making money, being his own boss. Like Tory, he followed the real estate markets like surfers follow the waves.

  I started to search for him but then looked at my watch again. It was 2:20 a.m. Sophie might sleep in until 6:30, but then would be raring to show me her new outfits. I closed the laptop and turned off the light. For a minute I stood at the open screen door and watched and listened. Let my senses come alive.

  Night sounds, none of them human. A moonless night and full darkness, nothing moving that I could see. The damp smell of the woods and the grass. A lone firefly glowing in the garden, signaling to no one.

  It hit me as I stood and listened. I’d b
een too distracted by Sanctuary, had dropped my guard. I castigated myself as I walked out onto the deck, down the steps, and across the lawn to the woods. He could still be out there, and Clair or no Clair I had to be ready. I stood in the shadows, motionless.

  Listened.

  Watched.

  Wondered if he had the patience to outwait me, the attention span to avenge his son’s death.

  I stood for twenty minutes and listened to the night, and then I crossed the yard and checked the mudroom door. I went back inside, shutting the sliding door behind me and locking it. I checked the front door, made sure the window locks were on. Walked upstairs and pulled off my clothes and slipped into the bed beside Roxanne.

  It was warm, she was wearing only a T-shirt, and she’d kicked the covers off. I moved close to her, felt myself stirring. Turned away and filed that one away for another night. I fell asleep with my back to hers and dreamed of a smoke alarm beeping and beeping, but I couldn’t move. I tried to shout to Roxanne and Sophie to run, but no sound came out.

  And then it was Roxanne talking, saying, “Who is this? Do you know what time it is?”

  I opened my eyes. Roxanne was up on one elbow, talking on my cell phone, saying, “It’s five o’clock in the morning, for God’s sake.”

  I put my hand on her back and she turned, angry eyes and a scowl. “It’s your lady friend,” she said, tossing the phone onto the bed beside me. “Tell her to learn some manners.”

  I picked the phone up, said, “Who is this?”

  “Jack,” Lasha said. “It’s me. I think I woke your wife.”

  “Yeah, well, what is it?”

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Lasha. It’s—”

  “But that was a good thing, because I turned the scanner on.”

  “And?”

  “And I made a cup of tea. And I was just sitting here and I heard the call go out.”

  “What?”

  “Another one, Jack. A fire.”

  “Right now?”

  “This one’s right in the village,” she said. “The real estate office.”

  “Tory?”

  “And Rita.”

  “Was it set?”

  “I don’t know, Jack. But wouldn’t you think?”

  It was seven-fifteen by the time I walked to the end of the block and around the corner, crossed the back lots of Merrill’s Antiques, the Card and Paper Shoppe, and A Stitch in Time dressmaker shop, to the back lot of Sanctuary Brokers.