by Archer Mayor
I felt cold air on my neck in an embrace, we both toppled headlong out the second window.
We rolled out the window, hit a shed roof, fell off its edge, and landed in some bushes, still locked together like two lobsters in mortal combat. Rennie didn’t even get hurt.
But we didn’t go back inside. The hot embers from the stove were reignited by the blast, returning the first floor to its hellish first appearance. For the rest of the night, our firefighting consisted of trying to save what we could from the outside, preserving the walls of the coffin for those people within.
It wasn’t until dawn, after the last water had flowed and I sank exhausted onto the tailgate of Buster’s fire truck, that I realized I hadn’t escaped unscathed. It was Laura, there as a member of the women’s auxiliary, who discovered that I’d burned my ear, and who set about putting it right.
“Ow. What the hell is that stuff?” “It’s Bag Balm. It doesn’t hurt; it’s the burn that stings.” I ducked away from her hand. “You’re not on the receiving end.” Laura gave me an exasperated look. “Good thing, too; it’s all over your hair now. Stay put.” I stayed put, but only because the pain was mitigated by her sitting so close to me. In the cool breeze of early morning, I could smell her cleanliness mixed in with the bitter odor of charred wood. Whether it was the fatigue, my brush with death, or just the fact that Laura stood in such contrast to our surroundings, I found myself swept up by the romantic notion of being tended by a pretty woman in the midst of a virtual battlefield.
She held my chin in her other hand to steady my head. “I can’t believe you got off so lightly.” I looked across to the blackened, punctured, sagging building.
“I’m not sure I believe it, either.” Rennie, in fact, was stuffing his face with doughnuts at a long table the auxiliary had set up in the driveway. That’s what had brought Laura over to me in the first place-a sugarcoated, creme-filled monster that had done wonders for my spirit, if not for my arteries. Laura leaned back and admired her work. “That should keep it from getting infected. It’s going to sting like hell if you shower.” “I’ll work around it.” She handed me the green tin of Bag Balm. “Here, keep this.” I took the tin and smiled my thanks. Her eyes were on the green side of hazel and looked straight back into mine with refreshing directness.
“I’m almost glad I burned my ear. Her cheeks tinged very slightly, and I regretted having tipped my hand, even when she responded, “So am I.” I shifted my position to lean against the closed rear compartment door, suddenly feeling all the aches and pains of the night’s activities. My bunker coat was covered with a thin sheen of ice that crackled and flaked as I moved, but it was tight and warm on the inside, although damp with old sweat, and I didn’t want to take it off. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to sense with my face any warmth from the rising sun.
“What was it like?” Her voice was surprisingly soft. “In there?”
“Yes.” “Oh, I don’t know…. Hot, confusing, scary… noisy. Very colorful, though.” “They told me you didn’t have any air left in that tank.” “Not a whole lot.” I opened my eyes. Good thing I’m not religiously inclined, huh?” For all the chaos I’d witnessed on the inside, the building was still remarkably intact. Its roof was pretty much history-a good chunk of it had been blown away by the explosion-and all the window tops were charred and smeared black, but the walls remained standing for the most part. Still, my guess was the whole thing was unsalvageable. I realized my trying to be lighthearted had bordered on being flippant, which was not my intent. “It’s funny. I know Rennie and I came close to dying in there, but it all seems kind of far away right now.
“You must be tired.” I smiled. “That I am.” Fire trucks from at least five surrounding towns were parked every which way. The ground was littered with a spaghetti-like maze of hard, frozen hose, glistening in ice-rimmed pools of water that were starting to reflect the sun’s washed out daily appearance. Firemen wandered about, collecting equipment, chatting, banging at hose connections with rubber mallets.
And in the midst of all this solemn, dark and brooding quiet, stood the remains of the charcoaled house and five extinguished lives, huddled as we’d found them, wards of the state now of the arson investigators, the police, and the medical examiner.
What had caused that fire? I wondered, and shuddered suddenly.
Mentally replaying what I’d just been through, I recalled the spasm of panic I’d felt when the hose had gone flat, just before the explosion.
There’d been no time for reflection at the time. Indeed, it had happened so fast, I’d almost thought it part and parcel with what had followed. But I knew otherwise now, and the realization scared me. My running out of water had had nothing to do with the explosion. Buster’s large profile stepped between me and the source of my reverie. He handed me a cup of coffee. “How’re you feeling?” “Tired.” “I bet.” He looked at me steadily, his face solemn. “I’m glad you made it, Butch.”
I lifted my cup to him. “Butch,” for him, was the ultimate endearment.
“Feeling’s mutual.” But his expression was steady, almost hard. “How did it happen?” “Damned if I know. Flashover, I guess; it got incredibly hot just before it blew. I suppose whatever ventilation there was wasn’t reaching the landing; maybe the attic had something to do with it. I just don’t know. It was pretty confusing.” I took a sip of coffee, which burned on the way down. My throat was sore from the smoke. “Dick said he told Rennie to get the hell out of there when he asked for the ladder.” My mind began to focus on what was going on here.
Buster was after something seeking to lay blame. Any questions I was about to ask concerning the the flat hose line were pushed aside. “I heard some shouting,” I said vaguely.
“Well, that’s what he said. What did Rennie tell you?” “He said we ought to check out the other bedroom. I agreed with him.” “He didn’t tell you Dick warned him the attic was about to go?” “He may have tried.
You know what communication’s like with those things on.” There was a long, drawn-out silence between us. Then Buster pushed out his lips and turned away. “I gotta go check on the equipment.” We watched him lumber off.
“Is he mad about something?” Laura asked. I leaned back again, watching the women’s auxiliary, chatting and laughing, serving their hot coffee and doughnuts to all corners. “We were just kind of bumping bellies.” “Over what?” “Oh, I don’t know. Different people have different ways of doing things. I think he feels we shouldn’t have gotten so close to getting killed.” She was quiet for a couple of seconds. “And he’s trying to blame Rennie.” “He’s just upset, trying to find answers when there’s no point to.
He’ll let it go in a while.” I didn’t quite believe that he’d let it go, but into a mental filing cabinet with the rest of Rennie’s real nd imagined transgressions. I didn’t want to tell her that. Right now didn’t want to think about it.
Besides, it was history. Buster had always leaned on Rennie, first with high hopes, and then in disappointment. In the early days, I think was because the older man wanted to mold the younger one in his own image, to shape a son he didn’t have. But Rennie had refused to lay along, staying independent and wounding Buster’s pride. Buster ad an admirable track record with most younger people. It was a sad and perhaps fitting irony that the one he’d decided to make his special project had also been the one to consistently stand up to him. Through all these years, they’d stayed locked in harness, linked as much by their differences as by their similarities.
I saw the Wingates approaching, stepping over debris like survivors from a train wreck, carefully wending their way toward us. Windgate had his arm around Ellie’s shoulders, which were bowed as if the arm was heavy enough to grind her into the ground. The last time I’d seen this man, he’d been in almost exactly the same spot, but seething with an anger so intense that he’d vented it on someone who’d been trying to help him. I couldn’t help wondering if it all tied together in som
e way.
He nodded stiffly to me, like we were being introduced at a party and I’d just thrown up all over my shirt front. I was reminded again that I was probably one of the few people in the world to have seen this an in some pretty unbanker-like positions, a point that was probably so important to him as it was immaterial to me.
“Hi there, Bruce.” He frowned slightly at my use of his first name.
On the surface, his was not the man of last night; now, his raw passion was a secret only he was supposed to know about. His chilly demeanor further made me wonder how he’d unloaded his excess steam. “Good morning. I wanted to thank you for your help last night.
“I’m afraid I was a little overwrought.” “No problem.” My response was purely mechanical. I was stunned by his opening concern. The last time this man apparently had seen his daughter alive, she was entering a now almost totally burned building.
Even allowing for the fact that we later hadn’t found her there, the assumption that she was safe belied common sense. He either had ice in his veins, or he knew something I didn’t. “I don’t usually act that way.” “Don’t worry about it.” I was watching Ellie Wingate, who stood stock-still, her eyes glued to the ground. I had the feeling that if she could have turned herself outside in and disappeared like some black hole, she would have done so on the spot. “You didn’t find our daughter in there, did you?” The question wasn’t casual, but it still came too late-like polite but insincere condolences.
“I don’t think so.” He suddenly sharpened, thrown off balance. His eyes locked onto mine. “What do you mean?” “There’s one body that’s pretty badly burned. I don’t know who that is, or even what it is. And one of the victims is a woman. I don’t know what your daughter looks like.” I could have told him I’d recognized the woman from last night, and the three kids, but something about this man told me not to volunteer much, to make him come to me as much as possible. He pulled a picture out from inside his coat and handed it to me. It was a face shot of a woman in her late teens, with shoulder-length light brown hair-not particularly attractive. She had the usual expression of a person who’s wishing the photographer would drink arsenic. I looked at it for a long time, wondering what lay behind the sulky face. I wondered if the hostility I saw in her eyes was actually there, or whether I was injecting some of my own feelings for her father.
I handed the picture back after Laura had glanced at it over my shoulder, a gesture which caused her hair to brush my cheek lightly.
“She’s not the unburned victim.” “Thank God,” Mrs. Wingate whispered.
Her husband pocketed the photograph. “Can we see the other…
victim?” “No. That’s all off-limits until the powers that be arrive to investigate.” “When will that be?” “Several hours, I would guess. They come from far and wide.” He looked concerned. “You make it sound like an army. “Sometimes is, depending on what you got. Usually it’s just the State troopers-there’s one here already that I’ve seen-but in cases like this an arson investigator, the medical examiner; sometimes the State’s Attorney and the State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation get involved if they suspect something.” “Do you think it was arson?” I looked at him for a couple of seconds. He seemed so removed, if his mind was being overworked, concentrating on other things. “I don’t know. I guess time will tell.” The State trooper I’d seen stringing a brightly colored plastic bond labelled “Police Line-Do Not Cross” around the house came walking up to us. He was thin and carried himself stiffly, as if on parade.
This was helped somewhat by his green and gold uniform, which somehow looks more official than most state-trooper getups, especially the green ribbed commando sweater with the matching elbow and shoulder pads.
He nodded quickly at me and Laura, before addressing the couple before us. “Are you Mr. and Mrs. Wingate?” “Yes, we are,” Wingate answered.
“My name is Corporal Wirt. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Of course.” Wirt glanced at us again and gestured down the street, away from the fire trucks. “Let’s step over there.” They all three moved away.
“I wonder what that’s all about,” Laura murmured.
“Cousin Brucie had a fight with one of the unfortunate people in that building.” “He did?” Her eyes were bright with interest. In the midst of all this destruction, the air thick with unanswered questions, only Laura seemed fresh, youthful, and enthusiastic, yet somehow fragile. It was a beguiling combination. Her face had a way of completely altering itself as she shifted from one emotion to another, the way gusts of wind disturb a still body of water.
“He thought his daughter was staying there, so he went in last night and got himself thrown out the window for his pains. small group of us trooped down to cart him away. I would imagine Corporal Wirt finds all that of some interest.” “If anything interests him. He walks around like he’s got all the answers. Rumor has it he was banished up here because he stepped on some toes. We all call him Corporal Jerk.”
“Where’s he work out of?” “Island Pond. He makes no secret about hating this place. I think it’s silly they posted him here. The guy the State Police had here before was wonderful-knew everybody’s name, used to come by when he was off duty and shoot the breeze. He made the State Police look good, you know? Of course, that was before the Island Pond thing.
Wirt was transferred here right after that..
The “Island Pond thing” rang more than one bell for me. Island Pond, a town about twelve miles north of Gannet on i-14, was host to a Christian sect called the Northeast Kingdom Community Church. Some years back, over one hundred State troopers and social workers invaded the town, armed with a warrant, and rounded up some two hundred and twenty members of the church, including one hundred and twelve children.
The charge was child abuse. It was alleged that adult members beat their children to discipline them. But before anything could be made of the case, a judge declared the raid unconstitutional and ordered everyone returned to their homes. That left a lot of egg on a lot of official faces. To this day, if you wanted to see a Vermont State official start looking for the exit door, all you had to say was “Island Pond.” No doubt, all of that was going through Corporal Wirt’s head, too.
Laura tugged at my sleeve and pointed up Atlantic Boulevard at a man walking in our general direction. He was dressed in the quilt uniform of the cult, although the way he walked made it look more like a business suit, and his full beard was trimmed and neat. He carried himself with an air of studied authority and ease.
“Who’s that?” “The Elephant Edward Sarris. The leader of the Natural Order.” Her tone, I was sure, would have jacked his ego up several pegs.
Whether influenced by his notoriety or fame, she was clearly impressed.
It was the kind of reaction that doubtless stood him in good stead.
As he walked down the street, I noticed for the first time some signs of life from the houses around us. Faces appeared in windows, a few doors opened, a couple of bearded men stepped out on porches to watch. They were all clearly members of the Order. It was only then I remembered not having seen a single Natural Order bystander at the fire-just as I hadn’t at the fight between Wingate and Fox. Now, with their leader in evidence, his followers were being drawn out, perhaps as much by curiosity as by allegiance.
He came toward us, his expression neutral, his hand held out in greeting. “Lieutenant Gunther, I’m glad to meet you. I’m Edward Sarris, leader of the Natural Order.” I shook his hand. I noticed that while he spoke, his eyes widened slightly, giving him a slightly startled look. It occurred to me he was probably trying to appear earnest, although his knowledge of my name tilted the scales more toward contrivance. That, however, may well have been my own cynical view. He did cut an impressive figure tall, slender, with large dark eyes that looked straight at his target. He combined an uncanny mixture of intensity and calm in those eyes, which I imagined had done their fair share of persuadi
ng people.
“I wanted to thank you personally for your extraordinary act of valor in trying to save my people. There are many who wouldn’t have risked so much for their own children, much less for total strangers.
I can understand why you -are so widely respected.” It was a perfect little speech, well-modulated, nicely phrased, astoundingly out of place. It wasn’t phony or hyped-up, not like a used car dealer’s pitch. But it didn’t sound like human speech, either; it was too grammatical, as if I’d just been praised by the head of the English Department.
I nodded, momentarily at a loss for words. “Please extend my thanks and compliments to all your colleagues.” “Is Julie Wingate one of the bodies?” I asked him. He was unfazed at my abruptness. “No. She left the building just as her father arrived and created that unfortunate altercation last night.” “How do you know that?” “It is standard practice in our society. This is not the first time parents or other outsiders have attempted to take the law unto themselves.” “Where is she now?” “Safe.” The finality of the word made the speaker’s intention clear. He looked around, apparently without purpose, and saw Rennie standing at the coffee and doughnuts table. “Excuse me,” he said, and began to walk off, presumably to dump as much praise over Rennie’s head as he had mine.
I raised my arm and motioned him back. “If you’re sure Julie Wingate isn’t in that building, I think her parents would like to know.”
I motioned over to where Wirt was just finishing with the Wingates.
Sarris smiled carefully. “Of course-an excellent suggestion.
Thank you, Lieutenant.” He nodded at Buster, who had appeared from around the side of the truck. “Nice job, Chief. We all appreciate your effort.” “No problem,” Buster muttered.
I watched as Sarris strode off, self-confident and almost buoyant.
“Not easily depressed, is he?” Rennie walked up, now cradling three doughnuts and a cup. His mouth was full. “Man’s an asshole.” Buster’s brow furrowed at Rennie’s approach. “I better check on how the cleanup’s going.” He left us and Rennie swallowed before smiling bitterly. “Your uncle thinks I tried to kill you.” “I thought you were trying to commit suicide.” “Guess I fucked up all around, huh?” Laura, still sitting nearby, laughed. Rennie took a sip of coffee and then looked at me more carefully. “Did he ask you what Dick said to me?”