Suspicious Origin

by MacDonald, Patricia

  “Without a doubt.” Barbara smiled ruefully and the three of them exchanged knowing glances. “Well, I’d better get back in there,” Barbara said. “God knows what might have happened by now.” She thanked the principal and the guidance counselor again for coming by, and crossed the hall toward her classroom.

  The din from inside the room ceased the moment she reentered. She quickly glanced at Zoe, wondering if the commotion had been at her expense, but Zoe was not crying. A good sign. They aren’t bad kids, she thought.

  “All right,” she said, clapping her hands impatiently. “Let’s see what you did. Martin, up to the board and show me what you got for the first problem. And…” she added in a warning tone, “how you arrived at your answer.”

  Martin Stinson went up to the board and began to laboriously scratch out his conclusions with the nub of a piece of chalk. Barbara nodded her approval and then glanced over at Zoe as Martin explained his answer. Zoe was sitting very straight in her seat, her blue eyes a blank. Her face betrayed no sign of distress, and Barbara wondered what that stoicism was costing her.

  Why was it, she wondered, as she often did, that children were left to pay for the mistakes of their elders? They, who were blameless, had to take the brunt of the cruelty and misery in this world. Barbara sighed, and absentmindedly patted her own stomach. She was four months pregnant with her and Randy’s first baby. She had seen enough in her three years as a teacher to know what she didn’t want her child to endure. Her child wasn’t going to suffer a broken home, or poverty, or the ignominy and woe of having a parent go to prison. Not while there was breath in her body. What people didn’t understand these days was that misery was the norm. These kids knew more about the sleazy side of life than she had ever imagined when she was a child. It wasn’t the good old days anymore. Not even here in picturesque Coleville, Vermont.

  “Is that right?” Martin asked, and Barbara realized that he was talking to her. She gazed at the steps in his solution and nodded.

  “That’s it, Martin. Good work.”

  Martin grinned and resumed his seat, as the boy on his right side mimicked her enviously in a singsong voice. “Good work, Martin.”

  “All right, all right. Who’s got the next one? Ashley?”

  Ashley grimaced.

  “I’ve got it,” said Zoe.

  Barbara looked at her, surprised. How could Zoe concentrate with all this whirling around her, she wondered? Much less get up in front of the class. If it were me, I’d be home in a dark room with the phone off the hook, she thought. “Okay, Zoe,” she said. “Show us what you got. And how you got it.”

  Zoe walked up to the board and searched for a larger piece of chalk in the well below the blackboard. Then, slowly and deliberately, she began to write. The other kids in the class watched her intently, and Barbara wondered if they, too, were marveling at her self-possession. Zoe was wearing a pair of used, boy’s jeans, which looked fine on her slim figure, and a stained sweater that didn’t fit. I’m going to take her shopping, Barbara thought angrily. She needs some proper clothes of her own. All she’d worn, since the fire, were these mismatched hand-me-downs.

  Just then, another knock on the door interrupted her train of thought. “Explain your answer, Zoe,” said Barbara over her shoulder, as she got up and walked over to the door. Zoe began to loudly explicate the steps in her solution. Barbara opened the door, spoke to someone in the hallway, and then turned back to her classroom. Zoe’s guileless blue eyes turned to her teacher expectantly, waiting for her judgment.

  “Zoe,” Barbara said gently. “There’s somebody here for you.”

  Zoe pointed to her narrow chest, and then started to walk toward the door.

  “Get your bookbag, honey,” said Barbara. “You need to take your stuff with you.”

  “Am I leaving?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Barbara.

  “Aren’t I coming back?”

  “Of course, but maybe not today.”

  For once, the room was silent. No one said a word. Zoe walked back to her desk, not looking from side to side. She made a pile of her notebook and papers and tried to shove them into her backpack. A pink, plastic envelope with colorful erasers and iridescent pencils dropped out and fell on the floor.

  Jared Morgan, the most physically mature boy in the class, the one that all the girls swooned over, quickly slid from his seat and picked up the envelope. He handed it back to Zoe without a word.

  “Thanks,” she whispered, avoiding his gaze.

  With every eye glued to her fragile frame, Zoe hoisted her bookbag onto her back, and walked stiffly to the door. Barbara wanted to embrace her, or rub her shoulders as she passed by, but she knew that would only make it more difficult for the girl.

  “You can use a homework pass tonight,” she said. It was her way of trying to tell Zoe not to worry about her schoolwork.

  “I don’t need it,” said Zoe irritably, as if shaking off the suggestion, and Barbara didn’t know if Zoe was referring to the homework pass, or her teacher’s sympathy.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Britt studied the student artwork and hand-printed essays that were taped to the walls of the corridor. The theme of the artwork was obviously masks, for the beige walls were decorated with wildly colored, shield-shaped faces with strings hanging from the spot where ears might normally be. The essays were all entitled, “Things about myself that I hide from the world.” Despite the provocative title, few of the essayists revealed any startling secrets. Britt searched for Zoe’s name and read her offering. Like her classmates, Zoe admitted to minor transgressions, such as buying candy bars with her lunch money, and failing to study for spelling tests. But her last sentence pierced Britt to the heart. “I don’t let people know it if I’m sad,” Zoe wrote. She must have written this before Greta’s death, Britt thought. Before she found out what sadness really is.

  “Miss Andersen?”

  Britt turned and met the worried, sympathetic gaze of Zoe’s teacher, a pretty brunette wearing a shapeless jumper.

  “Here she is.”

  Britt gazed at Zoe who emerged from her classroom dragging the pink parka and wearing her backpack. Mrs. Porter said, “If there’s anything I can do…”

  “Thanks,” said Britt. “We’ll be okay.”

  Barbara Porter nodded and ducked back into the classroom, closing the door behind her.

  Zoe was staring at Britt’s hands, which were wrapped in gauze. “Was that where you got burned?”

  Britt glanced down at her hands and flexed them gingerly. “It’s all right, Zoe. I’m all right.”

  “Does it hurt?” Zoe asked.

  “Not too bad,” Britt lied. She had a sudden, horrible recollection of the searing pain as her hand closed around the doorknob and she realized that the heat of the fire had traveled through the metal. She’d grasped it anyway, felt the skin of her palms adhering to the brass as she pulled on it, needing to free herself.

  Zoe frowned. “I wanted to come and see you in the hospital but Dad said we’d see you when you got out. I can’t believe you were in a fire, too.”

  “Yes, it’s…crazy, isn’t it?” said Britt. Although crazy was not exactly how she remembered it. The thick, acrid smoke choking her. The sound of sirens. Her memory of it was garbled. She remembered seeing the white newsvan, and hearing men shouting as fire engines and emergency vehicles arrived. Britt could recall standing barefoot in the snow in her pajamas, her teeth chattering uncontrollably. Someone draped a blanket around her and someone else rushed into Bayberry House to find something for her feet. The only familiar face looming out of the darkness was Dean Webster’s, who jumped out of the white newsvan and came running up to her and threw his arms around her. She was lucky to be alive. Luckier than her sister had been.

  Zoe looked up at her. “Why are you here? Why do I have to leave school?”

  Britt reached an arm out and tried to slip it around Zoe’s shoulders, but the girl backed away from her.


  Britt sighed. All the way over here, she’d been trying to figure out the words to use. How do I tell her this? Britt thought. How do I break the news that her whole world was destroyed by her own father? One thing she’d decided was just to tell her, and make it quick. It’ll be like pulling off a bandage, she thought. Easier accomplished with one quick tear. An instant of unbearable pain was preferable to long agony. Once Zoe had accepted this about her father, she and Britt could begin the next phase of life. Together.

  But there was no minimizing how hard it was going to be on Zoe to learn this. Britt didn’t know what to expect. She didn’t know whether Zoe would weep or start screaming when she heard about the arrest. She didn’t want Zoe to break down right here in the corridor outside her classroom. The teacher and her classmates might come running out, and that would only add humiliation to her misery.

  “I’ll tell you all about it, when we get in the car,” Britt said firmly. “Put your jacket on.”

  “Tell me now,” said Zoe. Her eyes were wide and her face pale with little pink spots in her cheeks.

  “Zoe, let’s just go outside and get in the car where we can talk in private.”

  “I’m not going until you tell me,” said Zoe.

  “Trust me. I’m saying this for your own good. Look, you’re going to have to do what I tell you,” said Britt.

  “Why?” Zoe asked, her eyes flashing. “I don’t have to listen to you. You’re not my mother.”

  “Zoe,” Britt said sharply.

  “I don’t want to leave school,” Zoe insisted.

  Britt wasn’t used to seeing this side of her niece. Was this how it was going to be between them? What am I supposed to do? Britt thought. Shes not a baby. I cant pick her up and carry her out of the school.

  All of a sudden the door next to Zoe’s classroom opened, and a middle-aged woman with glasses appeared in the hallway. “Excuse me,” she said. “Can you keep it down out here? My class is taking a test and you’re disturbing us.”

  “Sorry,” Britt said. “Come on, Zoe.”

  Sticking out her chin defiantly, Zoe stalked down the corridor ahead of Britt. When she reached the front door, Zoe put on her jacket, allowing Britt to catch up with her. Together they stepped out onto the broad, snow-covered lawn in front of the school. Britt got out her car keys and headed for her car but Zoe stopped short on the icy sidewalk.

  “All right,” she said. “We’re outside. Now tell me.”

  Britt turned and looked from Zoe’s angry face back to the facade of the old brick school building. She felt as if everyone in the building must be pressed up against the windows watching them. At least they were out of earshot.

  “Zoe,” she said, approaching the girl, reaching out for her arm. Zoe stepped away from her again.

  “What?”

  “Chief Stern told me I’d better come over here and get you. It’s your father, Zoe.”

  Zoe’s eyes widened. “Is Daddy okay?”

  “He isn’t hurt or anything,” said Britt.

  “Are you sure?” Zoe demanded.

  “Yes, I’m sure. But…This is very hard to tell you, Zoe. Your dad…he’s been arrested.”

  “Arrested? For what?” Zoe asked.

  Britt took a deep breath. “He’s been arrested for setting the fires.” Britt steeled herself for the child’s cries, readying herself to catch her if she should collapse.

  Zoe stared back at her. “What?” she said, her voice registering utter disbelief.

  “They arrested him about half an hour ago. He’s going to be charged with arson and murder in your mother’s death.”

  Zoe shook her head. “That’s stupid,” she said.

  It wasn’t exactly the response Britt had expected. She’s just shocked, Britt thought. She doesn’t know what to say. “I know this is hard for you to accept. I mean, I’m sure you never dreamed that your father would do anything like that.”

  Zoe reared back and looked at Britt as if she were speaking nonsense. “He wouldn’t. He didn’t.”

  “Well, I know that’s what you think now…” said Britt.

  Zoe glared at her. “That’s not what I think. That’s the truth. He would never do that. How did they get that idea?”

  Britt reddened, thinking of her own role in the investigation. “Believe me, honey, it’s not just an idea. They have certain…evidence…that your dad planned these fires.”

  “What evidence?” Zoe demanded.

  “Honey, they have proof that he’d made certain plans… to start a different life.”

  “What does he say?”

  “Well, he denies it, but he’s refused to answer the questions the police have asked. The few answers he has given them have been…unsatisfactory. He can’t account for where he was that night. He stood to gain… a lot of money. Look, I know it’s hard for you to imagine, but sometimes…people do terrible things.”

  “Stop talking as if he did it,” Zoe insisted.

  “You’re going to have to get used to the idea, Zoe,” said Britt.

  Zoe glowered at the ground. “Where is my dad now?” she asked.

  “I guess he’s at the jail, right now,” said Britt gently. “He’ll probably be arraigned later today.”

  “I want to go there,” she said.

  “That’s not really any place for you, Zoe. I know this comes as a terrible shock to you. It’s going to take some time to sink in. It must seem like your whole world is crumbling. But I want you to know that you’re not alone in this. You can rely on me. I’ll take care of you. I’ll look after you. Nobody expects you to get used to this idea right away. But, in time…”

  The child didn’t say anything. Her backpack had slipped from her shoulders and hung from the crook of one elbow. Her narrow frame was shaking and she was staring fiercely at the sidewalk.

  “Come on,” said Britt, lifting the backpack from Zoe’s arm with one bandaged hand. She slung it over her own shoulder, beside her own leather satchel, which still smelled of smoke. “Let’s get in the car. You don’t want people staring at you. You need a little privacy to digest this news. And Zoe, I know you’re trying to be brave, but sometimes it’s best to just let it out. Go ahead and cry if you want. If anybody has a right to cry, it’s you.”

  Zoe allowed Britt to steer her toward the car. She stood like a statue, eyes blank, as Britt opened the car door, tossed in the backpack, and then prodded Zoe to get in. Zoe slumped down in the seat and stared out the windshield.

  Britt went around to the drivers side and got in. She sighed, and looked over at her niece. “Zoe, this is a terrible blow. Most adults wouldn’t be able to absorb a blow like this, so don’t think I don’t understand. You take all the time you need. I know you’re used to thinking of your dad in a certain way. This is going to require a terrible adjustment in your thinking…”

  Zoe shook her head. “Stop it, Aunt Britt. He didn’t do it. He wouldn’t have hurt us. He loved my mom. Why didn’t they ask me? I could have told them that.”

  Britt sighed again, thinking of her own parents. They had always seemed fine to her, even up until the day her mother left. “Zoe, I’m sure they seemed fine to you…”

  “They were fine,” Zoe shrieked. “He did not kill my mom.”

  “Take it easy,” said Britt.

  “I’m not going to get used to the idea because it’s not true,” said Zoe.

  Britt turned on the engine, and pushed the heat gauge to high. “It’s freezing in here,” she murmured.

  “I want to see my dad right now,” said Zoe.

  “He’s only going to tell you that he didn’t do it,” Britt said wearily.

  “He doesn’t have to tell me. I know he didn’t do it,” said Zoe. “I want to see him. Right now. Take me to see my dad, Aunt Britt. Or I’ll jump out of this car.”

  “All right,” Britt said. “Calm down. I’ll take you.”

  What a tough kid, Britt thought. She had to admire Zoe’s spirit in the face of this latest blow even t
hough it seemed as if Zoe was just refusing to face the facts. The reality was too brutal for her to accept. Sooner or later, it was going to hit her. But for now, she was clinging to an image of her father. He doesn’t deserve to see you, Britt thought. Not after what he did. But she could see that right now there was no use in saying that to Zoe.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The county jail was located about ten miles from Coleville. Britt had to stop twice to ask directions, while Zoe waited, staring straight ahead. They hardly exchanged a word on the drive. Britt didn’t press it. The child needed time to absorb this latest blow Occasionally, Britt would sneak a glance at Zoe, who sat, dry-eyed, staring out the window, her hands resting limply in her lap. There was nothing tense or frantic in Zoe’s demeanor. She seemed withdrawn and somehow…stoic. As if she was readying herself for whatever she had to cope with.

  The jail, when they reached it, was housed in an ocher-colored building surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Behind it, the rugged contours of a pine-forested mountain range were silhouetted against the leaden sky, emphasizing the isolation of the prison. Britt hated bringing Zoe to this grim place, but maybe seeing Alec behind bars would help Zoe come to grips with the reality of it.

  Britt led the way into the building, holding the swinging doors for her niece. When they reached the locked doors, Britt explained their purpose to the guard on duty, who then conferred with someone on the phone.

  “Okay,” he said, pressing a buzzer. “The attorney will meet you in the holding area. Just go in and take a seat.”

  Britt and Zoe went in, and sat down on a wooden bench. There were other women there, some accompanied by children. They did not look up, or make eye contact as Zoe and Britt sat down. Britt and Zoe had been sitting for only a few minutes in the stark room when the locked doors were opened by another guard and Britt looked up to see Kevin Carmichael coming slowly through, wearing a charcoal-gray suit and carrying a briefcase.

  “Kevin,” Britt said.

  Zoe stood up. “Mr. Carmichael. Are you here to help my dad?”