House on Fire (ARC)

by Bonnie Kistler

  “’Cause you’re going to protect him?”

  “I am,” he said. “Absolutely.”

  Kip was in the dining room when Pete got back to the site, his fingers clattering at hyperspeed over his fancy new ergonomic keyboard. Pete was still amazed that Karen had sprung for such a high-priced setup and even more amazed that Gary let her.

  “What are you working on?” School was out.

  “My manifesto,” Kip answered with a smirk and kept on typing.

  “Funny man.” Pete headed for the kitchen for a drink of water.

  “Hey, Dad? Can I make a charge on your card?”

  “How much?” he hollered back.

  “Nineteen-ninety-nine.”

  “What for?”

  “There’s this new app I need.”

  “What for?”

  “It increases the functionality of the graphic interface and facilitates incremental updates to improve system stability. Let me show you—”

  Pete was already lost. He tossed his credit card on the table as he passed through the room again. “Talk to your mom?”

  Kip made a face and reached for his phone.

  Chapter Thirty

  Leigh’s meetings with Stephen became a standing appointment. Every Saturday at eleven she drove to his cottage and he met her at the Snuggery door with tea—iced tea, now that hot weather was upon them, topped with a sprig of mint from his garden—and she settled deep into the worn upholstery and they talked. About everything. Current events. Gun violence, of course—the subject was unavoidable with all the shootings in the news and Stephen with such a personal stake in the ­debate—but they also talked about books and movies and whatever was on last week’s Must-See TV. And mostly they talked about Leigh’s grief and how to chart her course through it.

  She could talk to him about it in a way she couldn’t with anyone else. Here was someone who understood her loss, who’d suffered his own and somehow endured it. She told him the worst of her thoughts, the ugly, bitter ones, and he told her all the times he’d thought and felt the same after Andy’s death. There were no platitudes, no Time heals all wounds from Stephen. He never shied away from her pain. He never shied away from speaking her daughter’s name either.

  “Tell me about Chrissy,” he said as he always did.

  As always she felt the swell of grief billow in her chest. “I can’t. I don’t know—”

  He took her hand and gave her fingers an encouraging squeeze. “Not about her death. Tell me about her life.”

  But her life led to her death. They were all of a piece. Leigh had a million beautiful stories to tell about Chrissy, but every story led to the same unbearable ending. What was the point in telling a story, any story, when the ending was all wrong? She didn’t understand how he could talk so cheerfully about his son. Andy was meant to become an advocate for the poor and make his mark on the world. He was meant to be a husband and a father and a grandfather, too, but none of that ever happened. His murder in his parents’ home that awful night deprived him and everyone else of the man he was meant to be.

  Chrissy was meant to be—what? Alive, long enough to figure that out for herself. Long enough to have the ending she deserved. “I’m sorry, Stephen,” she said finally as she always did. “I can’t.”

  He relented and asked about the twins instead, and that was easy. They were such all-American boys, ordinary in the best sense of the word. Being twins made them special enough, so they never felt any need to prove themselves in other ways. Even when they played sports, it was without that bloodthirsty competitive drive that many athletes possessed. They didn’t play to win; they played for fun. They were happy with who they were, and she was happy with who they were, too.

  “It’s the children least like ourselves we’re able to enjoy the most,” Stephen said. “Sarah, my artist, has nothing in common with me, and all I do is glory in her differences.”

  “I suppose that’s true.” She took a thoughtful sip of her tea. She never had anything like Chrissy’s sparkling cheer, yet how richly she enjoyed it.

  “Kip, now, he sounds the most like you.”

  She put the glass down with a clunk. “He isn’t mine.”

  “No, of course. Not by birth. But he sounds most like you in intellect and disposition. And—dare I say it? He has the same irreverent sense of humor.”

  Was that true? No one could make her laugh the way Kip did, and no one laughed at her own jokes more than Kip did either. They always seemed to understand each other. You get it, don’t you, Leigh? he’d say during every disagreement with his father, and even when she couldn’t say so, she always did. But—“No. I was a good kid. Not a hell-raiser like Kip.”

  “Never?” A smile pulled at Stephen’s mouth. “I can’t believe there weren’t a few hijinks in your otherwise well-spent youth. Some elaborate prank?”

  A memory stirred. That time she tucked a note inside the gas tank door on her boyfriend’s car. Please help me! I’m being kidnapped! it read. The gas station attendant had poor Sammy in a headlock and the manager was dialing 911 by the time she clapped her hands and hollered April Fools!

  “Ha! I knew it!” Stephen laughed, and she gave up and laughed along, too.

  It was always past noon by the time they finished their talks, and he always persuaded her to join him for lunch at the Acropolis. He liked to sing as he drove, with the radio or not. One day he felt inspired to sing what seemed like the entire Beach Boys songbook, belting out the tunes in the same rich baritone he used for “Hail Thee, Festival Day.” And because every Beach Boys song begged for harmony, Leigh had no choice but to join in. What a sight they must have presented to the people passing them on the road. Two middle-aged people in an old Saab, pretending they were in a T-Bird as they belted out the lyrics to “Fun, Fun, Fun.”

  John Stoddard called on Monday. He’d come up with some intel he hoped might help his chances on custody. He asked if he could come in and show it to her.

  Leigh had done her own homework since they last met. Research on Maryland custody laws, of course, but also on Stoddard himself. The details were classified—very little information on Delta Force operations was ever released to the public—but between survivor accounts and reporters’ blogs, she’d pieced together some of the story. Last year ISIS captured more than forty reporters, Kurdish fighters, and foreign aid workers and held them hostage in a makeshift prison in the northern Syrian town of Al-Bab. Negotiations for their release were attempted, prisoner swaps were offered, but all efforts failed. The matter was at a standoff until one day last October when eye-in-the-sky surveillance photos showed backhoes at work, digging what appeared to be mass graves around the perimeter of the compound.

  That night a team of Delta Force operators stormed the prison. Seven ISIS soldiers were killed in the firefight that followed, but all of the hostages were rescued. Those who spoke afterward reported that Master Sergeant John Stoddard led the charge and single-handedly took down five of the prison guards. The Pentagon would neither confirm nor deny those statements, but upon his return stateside, Stoddard was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in military action against an enemy of the United States.

  Leigh met him in Reception late that afternoon and brought him to her office. He was dressed as before, in a tight golf shirt and crisply creased slacks, but there was no earpiece today and no electronic dog tags around his neck. Instead he carried a cross-body courier-style briefcase, the kind with a built-in lock and a fire-resistant inner bag. He opened it and extracted a thin folder that he placed carefully on her desk blotter. Then he went to the window and stood with his hands clasped behind his back and waited for her to read it.

  She opened the folder. Inside were two separate incident reports from the Bethesda police involving complaints of domestic abuse against William Gunder, forty-two, by Heather Gunder, thirty-three. Subsequently withdrawn by the co
mplainant. Next was a rap sheet from the Metro Police showing Gunder’s DUI arrest in August and another from the Virginia State Police showing a second DUI arrest in September. Below that was a Maryland State Police report of a single-car traffic accident on the Capital Beltway in December. It included a lab report showing Gunder’s BAC level well above the legal limit, and the coroner’s report of the fatal injuries sustained by Heather. The final document was a nolle pros report: the government declined to prosecute Gunder for vehicular homicide in view of the intrafamily relationship.

  Leigh looked up in amazement. Somehow Stoddard had managed to tap into the records of four different police departments in the space of only two weeks—records that were either exempt from public disclosure or required miles of red tape to dislodge. No one in her usual stable of investigators could have accomplished this.

  “It’s not enough, is it?” he said without turning from the window. “That he used to drink and beat his wife. I have to show that he still drinks and he beats his kid.”

  “Yes.” She was impressed all over again, that he’d figured this out on his own. He was fast becoming her favorite client. “Or something else to show he’s an unfit parent.”

  “Then I’ll keep looking.” He was silent for a moment, staring through the glass over the rooftops of the city. “I saw him yesterday.”

  “Gunder?”

  “Bryce. He was in the park, by himself, kicking around a soccer ball.”

  “No—John—you mustn’t approach him.”

  “I was a hundred yards away. I had a scope.”

  “Okay, but you have to be careful. You don’t want Gunder to suspect you’re investigating him, and you certainly don’t want to invite charges of trespass or harassment. You need to keep your distance. Stay out of sight.”

  He turned from the window with a tight smile. “All due respect, ma’am, but I know how to conduct covert surveillance.”

  She let out an embarrassed laugh. “Yes, of course you do.”

  He gazed past her, to the credenza behind her desk. “He’s a big kid for his age,” he said. “He’s gonna be as tall as me.” He slipped the file in his courier bag, but he was still looking past her. “He seemed so lonely.”

  “Maybe we can change that.” She stood up and held out her hand.

  He nodded as he shook it. “You have a beautiful family.”

  She glanced back at the family photographs on the credenza. “Oh. Thank you.”

  “I’ll be in touch.”

  After he left, she sat down and slowly spun in her chair. There they all were. Dylan and Zack and Kip and Mia, and front and center, Chrissy, captured midair on Romeo’s back as they soared over a jump. She picked up the photo and held it close, so close her breath steamed the glass. She could see every drop of sweat on Romeo’s neck. She could even see the little pink tip of Chrissy’s tongue between her teeth. It was what she always did when she was concentrating hard on a task, whether it was homework or frosting cupcakes, though Leigh warned her again and again not to do it on horseback—one jarring bump and she’d bite right through it.

  The things she worried about then.

  The twins’ Honda was in the driveway when she got home that night. Their catering gig must have been canceled, which meant a whole evening to spend with her sons. They could order takeout and find something to stream on Netflix and she wouldn’t even care if they chose a superhero movie. They were sitting at the kitchen table when she came in, their handsome young faces so pinched and drawn that her heart did a skip. “What happened?” Somebody died, she thought. Don’t let it be somebody died.

  “Everything’s fine. We just wanted to talk.”

  “Sure!” With a relieved smile she pulled up the third chair at the table. They glanced at each other. Dylan gave a nod, and Zack cleared his throat. “Dad called today.”

  “Oh?”

  “He just booked a big charter sailing a couple rich dudes around the New England coast. It’s for the whole rest of the summer.”

  “Good for him. I’m glad.”

  “He wants us to crew for him.”

  “Oh.” They were watching her closely. She mustn’t let her shock show. “Well, what about your catering job?”

  “We just quit.”

  “It wasn’t really our thing.”

  “No.” Slowly she nodded. “I can see that.” They must have been like young bulls in a china shop, bumping into partygoers, knocking over wineglasses and fumbling serving trays. They probably would have been fired soon anyway.

  “But listen—Mom—we don’t want to leave you here all alone.”

  “Me?” She gave a little shake and smiled at them. “Don’t be silly. With my schedule these days? I’m hardly ever home. No, you should do it. This could be the last free summer of your lives. You may never get to spend this much time with your dad again.”

  “Yeah, that’s what we were thinking. And after losing Chrissy . . .”

  Zack finished Dylan’s thought. “. . . it just seems like you need to keep family closer than ever, you know?”

  “Absolutely,” she said.

  “So—we thought we’d head out first thing tomorrow. . . .”

  She pushed back from the table. “Then you’ll need to make an early night of it. Why don’t we order in some Chinese and watch a movie?”

  They glanced at each other, and she could see they’d already made other plans for the evening. But in their silent twin language, they canceled them on the spot. “Hey, you think Captain America’s on Netflix?” Zack said, and they jumped up and shoulder-checked each other through the doorway as they ran to the family room to find out.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The Millers selected glazed lava stone for their kitchen countertops, in a color called châtaigne that looked a lot like gray to Pete. The material was incredibly expensive—it was quarried from the crater of an inactive volcano in France—so he was there himself to guide the installation. They’d just finished setting the slab on the ten-foot island when his phone rang. The display read: SHELBY RANDOLPH.

  He stepped outside to take the call.

  “Pete, I’ve been trying to reach Kip.”

  “He’s at work, but he should have his phone with him.”

  “He’s not answering. I was hoping he could come in today. Both of you. I just got off the phone with the prosecutor.”

  “About—?”

  “Let’s discuss it in person. If you could track him down—”

  Any hope he had sizzled out in an instant. She wouldn’t make him wait for good news. “I’ll pick him up. We can be there by”—he glanced at his watch—“eleven?”

  “Great. See you then.”

  He tried Kip’s number, but he couldn’t get through either. He ran upstairs and changed clothes and had a quick huddle with Angelo about the rest of the lava stone and another quick huddle with the sub installing the lap pool in the basement, then he got in the truck and headed out for the Millers’ house in McLean.

  He was expecting a shipment of Macassar ebony flooring planks today, from a mill in Alabama. The flooring crew was slated to start work first thing in the morning, and he was still waiting on an ETA on the ebony. He drove with his phone in his hand and kept cycling through Kip’s number and the mill in Alabama. Kip didn’t answer, but at last a woman at the mill did. The shipment should arrive at the site by six, she told him, seven at the latest. His crew would be gone by then, which meant he’d have to off-load it himself, but one way or another, he’d have it ready to go in the morning.

  He turned into the Millers’ driveway and punched Kip’s number one more time. He studied the house as he waited through the rings. It was nothing like the house he was building for them now. This one was a midcentury modern, all straight lines and jutting angles in glaring white concrete. It had the look of new money. What Midas wanted now
was the look of old money. In their first meeting, Pete had asked him about his style preferences—did he like traditional or modern, Greek Revival or Williamsburg Colonial. Miller thought for a while then said, “High-End.” Like that was an architectural genre.

  “Jesus, where have you been?” Pete yelled when Kip finally answered his phone. “If I’m paying your phone bill, the least you could do is pick up when I call.”

  “Um, sorry, I was busy, um, working.’S up?”

  “Shelby needs to see you. I’m right outside.”

  “Outside—here?” Kip’s voice broke on the word, like he was thirteen again.

  “Make your excuses to Mrs. Miller and get a move on, okay? We’re due there at eleven.”

  It was five minutes before Kip came trotting around the side of the garage and jumped breathless into the cab. His hair was wet and his shoelaces untied. “What’d you do?” Pete said, eyeing him. “Go for a swim?”

  “She lets me jump in the pool to cool off.”

  “First thing in the morning?”

  “It was hot.”

  “You’re not goofing off, I hope. We need to keep these people satisfied.”

  “I am.”

  “Which?”

  “Huh?”

  “Forget it,” Pete said and backed out of the drive.

  Shelby’s assistant showed them to the conference room, and ten minutes later, Shelby came in. She wasn’t wearing one of her wild Parisian outfits today. She wore a gray suit, and except for the sky-high heels, looked as sober as a judge.

  She began without preliminaries. “I spoke with the Commonwealth’s Attorney this morning. They’ve presented us with a plea offer.”

  Pete leaned forward and waited for it.

  “You plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter in exchange for a sentence of two years.”

  Pete waited for her to finish. “Suspended,” he said when she didn’t.