Up in Smoke

by Charlene Weir

  In Kansas. On the prairie. Neat farms, empty roads, an endless sky that stretched from horizon to horizon over vast open spaces, days framed by sunrises and sunsets that fired the spirit, awe-inspiring thunderstorms, and rainbows that brought tears of joy. The very wind and soil formed a race of people who were conservative, hardworking, and didn’t trust anyone who didn’t fit snugly into life as they knew it. Arrogantly, they worshipped a God created in their own image.

  She pushed a CD of Mozart concertos into the player. Nothing like Mozart to brighten your mood. An old joke flashed into mind. Cheer up, things could get worse. So she cheered up and sure ’nuff, they got worse.

  When the phone rang, she turned down the music, trotted to the kitchen, and picked up the receiver. “Chief Wren.”

  “We have a problem,” Parkhurst said.

  “What?” she said, more waspishly than she intended.

  “A 911 call from a cell phone. Female said she was in the trunk of a car. Didn’t know what make of car or where it was.”

  “The trunk of a car? Was it a kid trying to be funny?” With Halloween so near, that kind of thing happened.

  “Hazel didn’t think so. Said the woman sounded in pain and groggy.”

  Hazel, the dispatcher to beat all dispatchers, had been with the Hampstead police department longer than Susan and Parkhurst combined and could run the whole thing herself if pushed to the wall. When Hazel said they had a problem, Susan paid attention.

  “You tried a trace?”

  “Cell phone people want a number and a warrant.”

  “I’ll talk to them,” Susan said.

  Of the three companies servicing the area, two gave her no grief and checked into the matter, but told her they had no 911 calls. Since it was coming on toward ten on a Saturday night, the one person she knew well at the third wireless company wasn’t at work. She wrangled several rounds with assistant manager Thelma Paxley and lost all of them. Tracing a call required a number and a warrant, no matter who was in trouble or how she got that way.

  “Right,” Susan said, holding on to her temper. “Will you do one thing for me? Will you zing in on the cell phone call to 911 and ask the caller if she needs assistance? You don’t have to give me any information. Just find out if the person is in trouble.”

  There was silence from Thelma.

  “If you don’t do this and the woman dies, you will have her death on your conscience.”

  After a twenty-second pause, Thelma agreed to do that much. Susan hung up and listened to the rain hitting the window. It sounded like gunfire. The lights dimmed, then brightened. She wondered where she’d put the candles and pulled open a cabinet drawer where she thought they might be. To her surprise, there they were, just where they belonged, and snuggled up against them were the matches. She took out two candles and stuck them in holders, just in case.

  The phone rang and she snatched it. Thelma informed her there was no call currently in to 911. Either the caller had hung up or had gone out of range. There was nothing further Thelma could do.

  Damn.

  She tracked down her trench coat, launched herself out the back door into the storm, and staggered on toward the garage. Despite the short distance, she got soaked. She fired up the pickup and headed for the shop. Zero visibility, flooded streets, power lines down. There’d be a slew of minor traffic accidents tonight.

  “Heard anything more?” she asked Hazel when she got in.

  “Nothing.”

  “Where’s Parkhurst?”

  “Out on patrol.”

  Susan gave a nod, not that he’d get anywhere. With nothing to go on, there was nowhere to look. She gave instructions for patrols to stop all motorists and ask to see inside the trunk. Parked cars—track down the owners and get a look at the trunks. “Anybody who refuses gets cited for DUI and brought in.”

  She paced up and down once in front of Hazel’s desk. “If the woman calls again—”

  Hazel looked at her. “Yes?”

  Susan didn’t go on. Teaching your grandmother to suck eggs, whatever the hell that meant. She went into her office and tackled some of the work on her desk while she waited. Two fender benders on Main Street, streetlights out on Walnut, tree down on Filbert. Collision on Fourth, teenage driver taken to hospital.

  Two and a half hours later when there was still nothing further from the woman in the trunk, Susan got in the pickup and battled her way toward home. She had a bad feeling about this.

  After rolling into the garage, she cut the lights and motor, gathered her trench coat around her and kept her head down as she trotted to the house. When she got inside, she went to the bathroom, hung the wet coat over the shower rod, and blotted her face and hair with a towel, then went to the kitchen to put on some water for tea. Lightning sizzled, lighting up the sky outside the window.

  The lights flickered, came back, flickered again, then went out.

  5

  Sean Donovan jogged through the pouring rain to the press bus rumbling at the curb, clambered aboard, and folded himself into a seat by the window. Pam dashed in, flopped down beside him and gave him a smile. Young, blond, pretty. A new face. The press corps tended toward young, and the turnover was fast—half the faces here were new since he’d last done this stuff. Shaking umbrellas and snatching off hats, they rushed in and stashed tote bags and briefcases under the seats. Rain hammering on the roof flattened the buzz of conversation.

  Through the window, he watched highway-patrol cops hover in a shield around Governor Jackson Garrett and his wife as they went with them to the limo. The doors slammed, the troopers got in a cop car, and the long black car pulled away. Aides and political hacks and campaign workers piled into a second limo that followed.

  The bus was just revving up to get in line when Sean realized something. “Stop!” He muttered an apology to Pam as he brushed past her knees.

  “Where you going?”

  “Need to take care of something.” At the door, he said to the driver, “I have to get off.”

  Irritated grimace from the driver—what could he expect from press people—and the door opened with a hydraulic hiss.

  “You’ll miss the speech,” Pam called.

  “Take notes for me.”

  He’d heard it, or variations thereof, a dozen times, he wouldn’t miss a thing. Just as the governor’s limo had started to pull out, Sean had realized that Wakely Fromm wasn’t in it. Wakely went where the governor went. The story handed out was that they’d been friends since the cradle and the governor had taken care of Wakely since the accident that put him in the wheelchair. Gossip on the bus was that Wakely had a wee problem with alcohol and was often just a little on the wrong side of sober. He owned a house on the edge of town and sometimes the powers of the campaign committee—read Todd Haviland, campaign manager—stashed Wakely there. Since Wakely hadn’t gotten in the limo, he’d be at the governor’s farm or his own house. Sean wanted to know more about the relationship between Garrett and Wakely, why Garrett took Wakely with him everywhere and why he took care of the man. There was a story there, maybe important, maybe soft human-interest fluff, whatever—it made Sean curious.

  He trotted to the hotel garage, up a flight of concrete stairs, and got his rental car. Wakely had a minder who was usually by his side, but even so, with all the politicos gone, Sean might be able to have a little conversation with the man. On the way, he stopped and picked up a bottle of bourbon. Give Wakely a drink or two, maybe interesting words would come forth.

  Sean, highballing down the road, wipers working overtime to keep up with the rain pouring over the windshield, topped a rise and sped down the other side only to plow into a flooded spot. Water fountained up on both sides of the car and, as he slowed to a more appropriate speed, he hoped to hell he didn’t drown out the car.

  Lightning split the black sky in a spectacular forked display of dazzling light. He glimpsed outbuildings and a tractor shelter with huge round hay bales stacked out of the weather. Thunder
rumbled. He wondered what it would be like to be a farmer. Owning land you had a responsibility toward, tilling, planting, tending, watching crops grow. Backbreaking, never-ending work, a high rate of serious or fatal accidents. Watching the weather. Is it changing, will it rain, will it stop raining? Investing your soul in acres of dirt. It was a bad time for farming. Farms were going under, people were leaving rural areas in droves. The number living below poverty level was 30 percent higher in rural areas than urban ones. Just as it happened with the decay of cities, crime was on the rise in rural areas, the heartland of this great nation, where children could grow and God and country were respected. Farmers were barely scraping by, most making less than ten thousand a year. They got second and third jobs and their wives and sometimes their children worked. Government money went to large corporate farms and the small farmer got left out.

  At the barred gate, one guard dressed in rain gear came out of the hut while another stayed dry. Sean showed his credentials and said he had an appointment with Wakely Fromm. Since Sean had been out here several times, they let him through.

  With a sedate speed, he drove the long mile to the house, a large two-story farm house, tan with white trim, a steep roof, lots of multipaned windows across the front, a front porch running the length of the house, a screened-in side porch on one end, large black walnut trees all around, bank of flood lights lighting up the place.

  Coat over his head, Sean dashed to the porch, shook the coat, and pressed a thumb against the doorbell.

  No response.

  Somebody had to be here. There was a housekeeper, a cook, and one or two other people hired to look after the place, plus all the campaign staff. He knocked. Still no answer. Oh hell, Wakely must be at his own house and Sean had no idea where that was. Garrett’s people kept that a secret.

  Sean knocked again. “Wakely?”

  “… the fuck?”

  Ah, the man was in. “Open the door.”

  A crash, glass shattering, and dead silence.

  “Wakely?” Sean banged on the door. “Wakely!”

  “The fuck you want?”

  “Open the door, Wakely.”

  More clatter, some fumbling at the knob and the door opened. “Crow! Go ’way!”

  “It’s Sean Donovan. Talk with you a minute?”

  “The fuck for?”

  Sean squeezed in past the wheelchair and closed the door behind him.

  “Crow,” Wakely mumbled. “Talk to an old drunk? Put my life story inna paper? Fuck it. Where’sa bourbon?” Wakely pulled at the front of a red plaid bathrobe like a bottle might be hidden inside. His hair was mussed, his jaw unshaven, beard stubble mottled with gray. “How come you’re not with the rest of the crows? Carrion crows always picking at his bones.” Wakely glared. “Love him! Like a brother! Death fires! Goddamn hero! Put that in your paper!”

  Sean slipped out of his dripping coat, hung it on the doorknob, and moved from the entryway to the living room. Braided rug on the hardwood floor, enticing fire in the fireplace, television set tuned to a football game, dark gold-colored couch with brown pillows, bronze easy chairs.

  Wakely rolled himself into the kitchen where the wheelchair crunched over shards of a dropped and shattered glass. A bottle lay on its side with the booze spilled around it.

  “Fuckin’ crows. Snooping snooping.” Wakely’s face contorted with some inner pain and he took a swing at Sean that nearly threw him from the wheelchair. Sean stepped aside.

  Wakely reached down to grab at the bottle and flopped on the floor like a sick elephant seal. He howled and pounded his head on the tile, his scrabbling fingers clutched at glass slivers and fumbled them to his mouth.

  “Damn it, Wakely! Stop that!” Sean grabbed his hand and shook out the glass pieces. Small cuts on the man’s palms, fortunately none on his face. “Let’s get you off your nose and back on your ass.”

  Holding him under the armpits, Sean hoisted him back in the chair. He was heavier than Sean expected, his upper body was barrel-shaped and muscular. The robe flapped open and his useless legs were exposed, fish-belly white, all bone and atrophied muscle.

  “Oh hell, oh hell. S’too late.” Tears and snot leaked down Wakely’s face. He smeared it around with a fist.

  “S’never too late.” Sean grunted as he pulled Wakely straighter into the chair and arranged his bare bony feet on the footrest.

  “Get it! ’Fore it spills!” Wakely jabbed a finger at the bottle.

  It was pretty much too late for that, only about a half inch of bourbon hadn’t run out when the bottle hit the floor.

  “Damn crows, always pecking. Peck peck peck. Trying to find shit. Give it to me!” Sean handed him the empty bottle and he tipped the last drops into his mouth. “Make him look bad. Nothing to find.” He gave Sean a crafty look. “I know.”

  “Know what?”

  “Oh Christ, I’ve pissed myself.”

  Not exactly true. Wakely had plastic tubing that drained into a plastic bag, but somehow in all the rolling around something had come loose. “Where is everybody?”

  “Gone. Here all alone.” More tears.

  “Where’s the housekeeper and the guy who takes care of you?”

  “Sent him out. Needed things. Bourbon. Ice. Don’t think I need stuff, like everybody else?” Belligerence edged into Wakely’s voice and Sean realized he might as well give it up. He was too late for conversation, Wakely had already consumed too much bourbon.

  Playing nursemaid wasn’t in his job description but Sean felt he couldn’t leave the man this way. He refastened the plastic tubing as best he could and hoped somebody who knew what he was doing would be here soon. With a damp cloth from the bathroom, he cleaned the blood off Wakely’s hands and examined the palms. Only scratches. He found a clean robe in what he assumed was Wakely’s room because of the apparatus over the bed to assist getting in and out, wrestled Wakely into it, and got him in bed.

  “Sorry,” Wakely muttered. “Sorry.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about.” Sean dropped the soiled robe in the bathroom.

  “Shows what you know. Talk, talk, talk. Tired of it. Thinks she knows.”

  “Who?”

  “Who the fuck you think? Gayle. At me, talk talk talk.”

  “What did she talk about?” With a clean washcloth, Sean wiped Fromm’s face.

  Wakely slapped at his hands. “Horse’s teeth. Fuckin’ horse’s teeth. Death fires.”

  “What?”

  The response was a gargled snore.

  Sean shook him. “Wakely, what about horse’s teeth?”

  Wakely mumbled something Sean couldn’t understand.

  “What?”

  “Bourbon. Other one broke.” Wakely slipped down into steady snoring.

  So much for information. Sean was putting on his coat when the door opened and a muscular young man came in sheltering a bag of groceries under his raincoat. Murray, Wakely’s minder. Sean told him Wakely had cut his hands and it might be a good idea to take a look at them.

  6

  When the doorbell rang, Susan was fumbling for candles, got one lit, and on her way to the living room stumbled over the cat who retaliated by digging claws into her ankle. She opened the door and stared in astonishment at the dark figure dripping water all over her porch. Wind blew the candle flame in a fast zig-zag dance that cast sinister shadows across his face.

  “Sure and it’s a terrible night, not fit for man nor beast. What kind of place is it you have here that throws God’s great thunderbolts down on poor innocent travelers?”

  “Sean?”

  With a whoop, he threw his arms around her, lifted her, and whirled her in circles. He managed to squeeze her breath away, make her dizzy, and get her soaked before he set her down. She staggered as she found her balance.

  “Is it the House of Usher we have then?” Her cousin Sean Patrick Donovan pulled off his wet shoes, dropped them by the door, and padded inside in his stocking feet.

  “You can stop with the
music hall Irishman bit.”

  “Sure and it seems so fit. Jesus, it’s blacker than a coal miner’s lungs out there. And periodically a great sulfurous forked tail of lightning blazes through the night, such that even leprechauns take fright and scuttle back into the shadows.”

  He cupped his cold wet hands around her head and looked deeply into her eyes. “And so, me darlin’, tell me how you really are then.”

  The tender concern threatened to bring tears. She kissed him. “What are you doing here?”

  “Aren’t you glad to see me?”

  “Yes.” He was the cousin, out of all of them, that was closest, a surrogate brother. They’d been inseparable growing up, getting into trouble, exchanging secrets, squabbling and giving each other advice. She was so glad to see him, she could almost believe she’d conjured him up, except for the water he was shedding on her living room carpet.

  “I’m with the Garrett campaign.” He shrugged off his trench coat and handed it to her.

  “Ah.” Sean was a political writer for NewsWorld.

  She draped his coat over the shower door in the bathroom and when she returned, she said, “Without power, I can’t even offer you a cup of coffee or some soup.”

  “That is bad news.” He sat cross-legged, in front of the fireplace. In the semidark with the dancing flames fluttering light across his face, she could see that he looked drawn and tired, older. Ha, she probably looked older to him, too. It had been more than a year since they’d last seen each other.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  He looked at her, a long quiet look. “A couple of things,” he said finally. “I didn’t like the way you sounded the last time we talked.”

  Crossing her legs at the ankles, she lowered herself to the floor so she sat facing him. “What’s the other?”