by Hal Bodner
And me, of course. Pity.
I have a dim recollection of hearing sirens, barely discernable over the fire’s roar. I’m told it was one of the worst conflagrations Centerport had ever seen. It raged through the night and well into the next morning before it was extinguished. Close to a dozen firefighters were injured. When a police officer spotted Thanatos’ scooter parked near the building, Gretchen called Travis. The two of them spent several harried days, waiting for the wreckage to cool down enough so they could search for my body.
Poetically, it was Travis who found me. In his protective clothing, he looked like a huge silver version of the Pillsbury Dough Boy. He was crying behind the plastic mask when he lifted me in his burly arms. I remember wondering if he was so upset because I’d damaged the Whirlwind’s suit again. At some point, the heat had been intense enough to defeat even Travis’ ingenuity. The fabric had literally boiled away from my skin. I was stark naked when he carried me from the wreckage. It took some doing on Gretchen’s part to make sure that photos of the Whirlwind’s junk weren’t displayed on the front page of the Courier.
For days, I drifted in and out of consciousness. Though my body was severely damaged, I overheard Travis tell Gretchen that the worst injuries were emotional. Physically, I appeared to heal in a remarkably short period of time, even for me. Nevertheless, there was some residual trauma that wasn’t as obvious as burn scars would have been. For months afterward, I would be doing something mundane like making a cup of coffee and my hands would start to shake. The cup would smash and I’d find myself on my hands and knees, weeping uncontrollably while I struggled to clean up the mess. Travis claimed there was nothing organically wrong with me, but I knew better.
What could be more organic than a ravaged soul?
Chapter Twenty
Bitter is as bitter does, as I always say. Actually, I don’t always say that. In fact, I’ve never said it before. But I’ve been thinking it a lot lately.
Cleaning up after Thanatos went without a hitch. Bradley Harmon had little difficulty synthesizing a cure for the cops who’d been infected at Lacey’s Farm. Completely removing the Three-Two-Three variant from the virus was a different matter altogether. When Doctor Harmon’s “breakthrough” turned out to be a bust, he decided the Feed the World Project, no matter how well-intentioned, was too dangerous to pursue. Greene Genes shelved it indefinitely.
Everyone assumed that Peter had been killed by Thanatos. In a way, that was true. Ironically, when Herman Starcke took the reins of the company, it turned out that he might not have hated Peter as much as we’d thought. Gretchen reported that Herman got very teary while he was delivering the funeral elegy, and he certainly wasn’t the type to fake emotion.
I wouldn’t know. I couldn’t watch while they buried an empty box in front of a stone with my husband’s name chiseled into it. I still haven’t been to the cemetery. Every week, Travis dutifully places a bunch of roses atop the grave and signs my name to the card.
It’s not because I hate Peter; that will never be true. But the wounds are still too fresh. The first time I resolved to visit the cemetery, I couldn’t even make it past the front door.
While the ghost of Peter’s presence still permeates Ale Mary’s, it doesn’t bother me. Together, we banished all of the bad memories the place held from my childhood and made it into our haven. Besides, though there was a lot of deception, nothing bad between us ever happened within these walls.
Business at the Archer Agency is booming. In fact, after Peter vanished, it picked up. Many of my old friends seemed to think that throwing clients my way to keep me busy might help ease the loss. Even Irving Tressman walked on eggshells for a couple of months. They’re all wrong if they think I’m wallowing. I just need some more time to process, as they say, before I feel myself again.
As for the Whirlwind, he seems to be doing okay. The guy’s a hero after all. And heroes don’t cry, do they?
Not even when they want to.
Look for the next Alex Archer adventure:
A STUDY IN SPANDEX
Available Spring 2021