He laughed. “You know what I mean. You think he was trying to get even with you? Break up your relationship?”
“I think we were supposed to get there sooner. I was supposed to run in and grab the bearer bonds. Tronstad would then take them from me.”
“Are you saying the bonds were in that house?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“So who’s got them now?”
“Jesus, Robert. You saw that fire. I was busy dragging people out.”
“Tronstad got them?”
“Nobody got them.”
“You burned up our bonds?”
“Tronstad did.”
“Did you even tell him where they were?”
“I told him.”
“And he didn’t go in and get them out?”
“I lost track of him.”
“Maybe he got them out.”
“About the only thing I can tell you for sure is, that didn’t happen.”
“He sets the fire thinking the bonds are inside and we’ll get there in time for you to go in and grab them? The timing . . . I bet when we stopped halfway down the hill, it threw everything off.”
“The gasoline probably didn’t help.”
“No. But why the hell did you put the bonds in that woman’s house?
That was just plain stupid.”
“That first day, he was following me. I had to ditch them. It was the only place I could think of that wasn’t my house. It only became a problem after Iola broke up with me.”
“I don’t want to hear this,” Johnson said, grabbing his head. “This is too much. Sweet Jesus, Gum, tell me you got them out. Tell me you gave 290
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them to Tronstad and he’s going to meet us in ten minutes. Tell me something that won’t tear my gut in half.” His voice is cracking. He is near tears.
“I can’t say any of those things.”
Johnson wanders across the bunk room in a daze. I’ve never seen him so low. As I finish dressing, he drifts into the shower room and begins flossing his teeth with the energy of an old man petting a dog. When I come in, our eyes meet in the mirror.
“Maybe this is better,” he says. “I’ll take that Caddy back to the dealer, and Paula won’t be yelling at me anymore. Tronstad can come back, and the three of us will work together like old times.”
“It’ll never be like old times, Robert.”
E AC H O F M Y offenses has been birthed in passivity; each arrived through not doing something I should have done. Like everyone else, I have been of the belief that to be a criminal you need to be aggressive, violent, audacious, to pick up a gun and rob somebody, at the very least write a bad check. That you have to do something brassy. But becoming a criminal, I’ve found, is as uncomplicated as letting timidity overwhelm common sense. It’s also not doing something you should do. I am the king of not. Inaction is my throne. Not getting on the rig when we were called to the Arch Place fire. Not confessing to my officer that I’d missed the call. Not betraying Tronstad over the bearer bonds. Not telling the truth the night Chief Abbott died. Or the night Sears drowned.
I am the maestro of inaction, the king of not, my mouth zippered by reticence.
Outside, I throw my personal gear into the backseat of my car, then fire up the engine and let it idle. After a few seconds, I realize Robert Johnson is standing beside my driver’s window. “You know, it’s probably just as well those bonds are gone,” he says.
“Absolutely.”
“If you want the truth, I was getting pretty unhappy.”
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“Not to mention all the dead people.”
“Yeah.” Johnson stares down the street as a couple of schoolchildren carrying colorful knapsacks yell and laugh. “At least we won’t have to tell any more lies. That was the worst. Having to lie to my own wife. No more lying. Thank God.”
“Yeah. At least the lying is over.”
Instead of heading home, I hook a left on California and wend my way through the neighborhood to Bonair Drive, then coast down the hill to Hobart Avenue SW and the scene of our latest fire. Sunlight glints off the water in the Sound, dark clouds to the north, a high overcast beginning to squat on the city. The first inklings of winter are trickling into the region. I slow before reaching the carport where Tronstad’s truck sits untouched. Engine 29 and Ladder 11 are the only crews still on scene at what’s left of the Pederson home. It is easy enough to see by the lassitude and the laughter among the firefighters that they haven’t discovered Tronstad’s corpse yet.
While the structural components of the first floor are largely intact, most of the second floor has collapsed onto itself. Tronstad’s body will be under the collapsed section.
The gritty, acrid smell of smoke lingers everywhere, tendrils from the roof doing a slow dance in the sunlight. All three cars are in the driveway, where they’d been earlier.
I stand at the corner of the house and watch as the fire crews go about their work. There isn’t much to do, and they seem in no rush to do it. The job now is to make sure the fire doesn’t flare up again and to assist the Marshal 5 investigators as they dig through the rubble. When a pair of firefighters from Ladder 11 carry the remains of a sofa out the front door and off the porch, I pull on a pair of goatskin work gloves I’ve brought along for this purpose and lend them a hand. Even though I am in civies, everybody in the department knows who I am by now. After we dump the sofa onto the debris pile in the yard, one of them says, “Gum. I heard you made another rescue. Jesus Christ, you have got to be the luckiest son of a bitch in department history.”
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I shrug. As I know better than anyone, luck is a matter of perspective.
“I think it’s so cool,” says Stanislow, who is working a debit shift on Ladder 11.
I know my answering smile is a sour miracle, a synthetic conglomeration of hypocrisy, deceit, and, as much as I detest myself for it, undeserved pride. When somebody inside throws a handful of charred boards onto the front porch, I rush over and carry them to the debris pile. It is important to get people accustomed to seeing me carrying garbage away from the house.
“Gum. Hey, Gum.” It is a fire investigator, a man named LaSalle, a heavyset man with dark, bushy eyebrows, whose claim to fame is that his father was once mayor of Seattle. Spotting LaSalle pumps ungodly amounts of adrenaline into my system. “I talked to Oleson. I thought you were going up to Harborview, or I would have spoken to you, too.”
“I passed on the hospital.”
“You think that’s smart? You look like shit. At least get it documented on a Form 44.”
“I’m okay.”
LaSalle takes my arm and walks me out of earshot of the others. “We know this started with at least one Molotov cocktail. We got one of the bottles. Oleson said you saw Ted Tronstad throwing a bottle into the house. He said you guys had a tussle with him in the backyard.”
“That’s right.”
“You saw Tronstad throw a Molotov cocktail into the house?”
“I did.”
“You understand you might have to testify to that?”
“I’m ready.”
“I heard you and him had some sort of scrap at a car fire. What was that about?”
“I thought he was disrespecting the dead.”
“You sure that was all there was to it?”
“Ask him. He’ll tell you.”
“You have any idea why Tronstad would throw a Molotov cocktail? I mean, is this his ex-girlfriend’s house or something?”
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“It’s my girlfriend’s house. And my ex’s.”
“She’s your girlfriend or she’s your ex?”
“They’re both here,” I say, even as Iola Pederson strides across the yard from the garage. Her presence depresses me. It is going to be almost impossible to steal back those three garb
age bags. Iola wears a bulky ski coat, which I assume she’s gotten from the garage.
She steps close to me and slaps me across the face like a slugger straining for a home run, hitting me so hard, it hurts her hand. Bernard Pederson has emerged from the garage, also in a ski jacket, in time to see her do it.
“What the hell are you doing here, you little bastard?” Iola says. “Do other people’s misfortunes tickle your funny bone?” On the far side of the yard, Iola’s stepdaughter exits the garage behind her father, sees what is happening, and starts toward us, only to be held back by Bernard, who grasps her ski coat from behind.
“You the girlfriend?” LaSalle asks, displaying his characteristic lack of tact.
“You say that again, I’ll sue,” Iola says.
“Funny way to treat the man who saved your life,” LaSalle says.
“What are you talking about? You saved me?”
“This man here is the guy who brought you out of the house.”
She turns to me. “You put me on that ladder?”
I nod.
“Crap!” Her eyes widen and I realize the startling blue I’d always admired is missing. “You really saved me?”
“Me and a man named Bob Oleson.”
“Gum saved your husband’s life, too. And that other gal over there.”
“Sonja?”
“Right. If I were you, I’d think about an apology.”
“The both of you can go fuck yourselves.” Angrier than ever, she storms away. People who lose everything have a right to be angry. I remember how pissed I was after my place was burgled.
“That’s not much of an apology,” says LaSalle, displaying a silly grin.
“She’s got reasons.”
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“So let’s get back to business. Oleson told me Tronstad was here in full bunkers. Said he even had an MSA backpack and bottle.”
“Robert Johnson told me he got it off the reserve rig last night.”
“When was the last time you saw Tronstad?”
“He was in the backyard wrestling with Oleson.” The lies flow out of my mouth like oil.
“Oleson says he went up the ladder sometime when you were inside. You didn’t see him in the house?”
“No.”
“Oleson says there was a gun.”
“It should be back there in the grass somewhere.”
“We’ll look for it. You don’t have any idea why Tronstad would torch this place?”
“No.”
“That’s all I’ve got for you now. Talk to me before you leave.”
“Sure.”
After a few minutes, Bernard crosses the yard behind Iola, taking special care to avoid the man his wife has just slapped. In the morning light it is easy to see why I’d thought he was her father. Sonja approaches and takes my arm, kissing the same cheek her stepmother just pasted. “They’re a little upset,” she says.
“Are you all right? Why aren’t you at the hospital?”
“Why aren’t you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Good. I’m fine, too. I convinced them to let me leave.”
But she isn’t fine. Her voice sounds painfully hoarse; she has Silvadine cream on both ears, her nose and cheeks, and the back of her neck; her hair has been singed; and there are first degree burns on every visible part of her body, making her look badly sunburned. One hand is wrapped in gauze.
“You should have stayed at the hospital,” I say.
“It’s okay. I’m fine. Really.”
“Hell of a way to wake up, huh?”
“Whew! My heart’s still racing. From now on I’m sleeping in a fullbody canvas suit with a hood and big rubber boots, just in case. Maybe I’ll
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get me a pickax to keep by my bed, too.” She grins and coughs, then gets serious. “I can’t believe you do that all the time. I’m so grateful you were there.”
“I don’t do it all the time, and I’m glad I was there, too.”
“It was your friend, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.” As we speak, Bernard signals Sonja from across the yard.
“We’re going to get breakfast and some real clothes,” she says, looking down at her out-of-season ski parka with a shrug.
“Sonja. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“Drink lots of fluids. Keep it up for a couple of days.”
“I will.” She flashes her dimple. “You take care, too, Gum.”
The three of them drive away in Bernard’s truck. After the chief leaves, there are only the two fire investigators, the two crews, and me. I continue to carry crap from the front porch to the debris pile. The garage door remains open. From the yard I can see the Volvo, where I stashed the garbage bags. In front of the Volvo are six or eight lawn mowers, their handles tilting this way and that like drunken soldiers. I find myself getting jumpier and jumpier as I contemplate what I need to do. Finally there comes a point at which both fire investigators and most of the firefighters are inside the house. Taking advantage of their absence and ignoring the two civilians watching from the street, I stalk over to the garage, step around the lawn mowers, and pop the back door of the Volvo. No wonder Tronstad didn’t spot them. They are nearly invisible in the unlighted garage, the three black plastic garbage bags where I left them on the floor behind the front seats. Hoisting them out by the knots in the necks, I carry all three bags across the yard at an unhurried pace, walking to the street and down the block to my WRX. Without turning back to see whether anybody is watching, I drop them onto the ground behind the car, unlock the rear hatch, hurl them in, and close it. As I lock the car, a large, black SUV with government plates rolls up the street, stops beside me, and reverses toward Hobart Avenue and the house fire. The passenger, a stern-looking man of about fifty, eyeballs me as if trying to match my face to a Wanted poster. I am pretty sure he’s FBI.
48. I MISTAKENLY TELL THEM TO SEARCH MY CAR
W AFTER CONFERRING WITH LaSalle and his partner, the two men from the government car walk purposely past the debris pile to the edge of the yard, where I stand. It feels like forever, but only a few minutes have passed since Sonja and her family left for breakfast. Less time since I placed twelve million dollars in stolen bonds in my car. It seems as if the two government agents are walking in slow motion.
“Your name Gum?” Both agents wear suits. The older man’s temples are salted with gray, a bald spot glowing on top of his head. He’s tall and lugubrious, his mouth has down-turned ridges at each end, and his sad, brown eyes make me think his life has been gloomy, that he’s lived through one tedious tragedy after another. The younger man has plump cheeks that have gone rosy in the crisp morning air.
“I’m Gum.”
“We want to talk to you about a burglary.”
“A what?”
“You know what we’re talking about.”
“I guess . . . I guess I don’t.”
They stare at me. I stare at them. They’ve seen me with the bags. They probably have a confederate getting a warrant to search my car even as we speak.
“Your house get broken into this past week?”
“Sir?”
“The place you’re renting,” the older agent says, irritably. “It got broken into, right?”
When I still don’t answer, they flash their IDs and identify themselves as Smith and Jones. “No jokes, please,” says Jones. “Just tell us what was missing. The police report wasn’t specific. We received some fingerprints from SPD taken from your back door, from a possible perp.”
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They give me penetrating looks. A month ago my life was an open book. Now there are a million things I don’t want people to know—
actually, twelve million.
“Man named Jesse Brown. Died in a car fire. His fingerprints were found on the outside of your back door. H
e ever visit you at home?”
“Not while I was there.”
“Can you think of any reason he’d want to break into your house?”
“He was looking for some money he thought we might know about.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“Me and the rest of the crew. This was at the station.”
“What money would that be?”
“It had something to do with a patient we had.”
“Go on.”
“His name was Charles Scott Ghanet.”
Both men raise their eyebrows. “And what did Brown think was going on between you and this patient?”
“He accused us of some sort of conspiracy to steal money Ghanet had. We had to practically throw Brown out of the station.”
“And you had some of this money at your home?”
“God, no.”
“What do you know about the car fire that killed Brown and his wife?”
“I know it happened after he left our station. And we were the ones who tapped it.”
“What exactly did Brown want to know when he visited the station?”
“If we saw anything at Ghanet’s place the night we found his body.”
“Did you see anything?”
“You could barely walk through the place. He’d been collecting junk for years.”
“How long were you in the house?”
“Long enough to find the body. When the lieutenant called for a C
and C, we went out to the rig. Then the cops got there and we left.”
“That was it?”
“Yeah.”
“This happened in the middle of the night?”
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“Right.”
“What was the lieutenant’s name?”
“Sweeney Sears.”
“Where can we find him?”
“He died at that fire down on Dexter Avenue.”
They stare at me for a long time. I get the feeling they hadn’t believed what we did was as important as what they did until they learned Sears was dead. A newfound esteem blossoms behind their eyes as they digest the news. “Who else was on your crew that night?”
Earl W. Emerson Page 31
