Supervolcano: All Fall Down

by Turtledove, Harry

  And Rob was married, up there in the glacial wilderness of Maine. He hadn’t bothered to let Vanessa know, not firsthand, but he’d sent cards to Dad and Mom, who’d both told her. Vanessa had trouble imagining a woman rash enough to want to tie the knot with her big brother, but there you were.

  Here she was, all right. “Don’t!” she said one more time. She didn’t want Bronislav turning Dad’s car into an IED or anything like that. She wasn’t sure he knew how to do such things, but he was liable to. He was liable to want to show off for her, too. That was how he would think of it, anyhow.

  “All right,” he said now. Did he sound sulky, like a kid deprived of his favorite toy? Damn straight he did.

  So she found something else for him to do. And he did, with the same kind of enthusiasm he’d probably shown for guerrilla warfare while Yugoslavia was falling apart. But bedroom explosions had aftermaths much more enjoyable than those involving plastique.

  Some of the things he did . . . “Where did you learn that?” she asked, her heart still thumping.

  “I am a Serb. It is in my blood,” Bronislav replied with dignity. And maybe that was true, and maybe he’d picked it up from a jowly hooker in Barstow or Phoenix or Las Cruces or one of the other towns on the route that fed Los Angeles. How could you know for sure?

  Simple. You couldn’t. But Vanessa chose to believe him. Choosing to believe was part of what love was all about. So was forgetting you even had a choice. Vanessa tried her best to do that, too.

  * * *

  When the phone rings at 3:25 a.m., it’s never good news. If you’ve won the Nobel Prize or $150,000,000 in the lottery, they’re always considerate enough to let you sleep in before they tell you. When the phone goes off in the wee smalls like a grenade on your nightstand, they’re calling to let you know something is wrecked or somebody’s hurt or somebody’s dead—if you’re really lucky, all of the above.

  Colin knew it was 3:25 because the glowing hands on the windup clock by the phone told him so. When power started erratically going in and out, the San Atanasio PD issued one to every cop on the force. The bean counters hadn’t squawked about that; you didn’t want people (especially people who worked the evening and night shifts) not showing up because their electric clocks crapped out on them.

  The power was out now. Without the glowing hands, it would have been absolutely dark in the bedroom, not just almost absolutely dark. Colin fumbled for the phone. He snagged it in the middle of the third ring—and in the middle of Kelly’s groggy “What the fuck?”

  “Ferguson,” he said, sounding at least something like his ordinary self.

  “Lieutenant, this is Neil Schneider at the station.” All right: it was a police emergency, not a family disaster. That was better. Or maybe it was—the sergeant didn’t sound even remotely ordinary. He might have been trying to get back up on his feet after taking a sucker punch in a bar fight. And what he said next explained why he sounded that way: “Chief Pitcavage is dead, Lieutenant.”

  “Oh, sweet Jesus!” Colin blurted. Ice and fire chased each other along his nerves. He wasn’t sleepy any more. He both was and wasn’t astonished. “What happened?” he managed after a moment.

  He ate his gun was what he expected. Mike Pitcavage had definitely freaked at Darren’s arrest. Colin had known that would be bad. He’d had no idea it would be as bad as it was.

  “Caroline just found him—they’ve got separate bedrooms, you know,” Sergeant Schneider said.

  Like an idiot, Colin found himself nodding there in the dark, as if Schneider—or anyone else—could see him do it. He did know the chief and his wife slept apart. Mike was liable to get called out at odd hours, and he didn’t want to bother Caroline any more than he had to.

  The cop at the station went on, “She went in there with a flashlight. Dunno why. Maybe she thought she heard a noise and wanted to get him. Whatever. She found him on the bed with a bottle of pills next to him and a plastic bag over his head and fastened tight around his neck. He’d been gone for a while—he was getting cold.”

  “Jesus!” Colin said again. So Mike hadn’t shot himself. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to leave a mess behind for Caroline to have to clean up. Well, when you killed yourself you left a mess behind whether you wanted to or not. Colin found the next obvious question: “Was there a note?”

  “If there was, I don’t know anything about it. I don’t think Caroline said anything about one, but I can’t tell you for sure. I didn’t catch the call,” Sergeant Schneider replied.

  “Okay,” Colin said. It wasn’t—nowhere close—but he was starting to see what the picture looked like.

  “Uh, Lieutenant, is there any way you could come in for a while?” Schneider asked hesitantly. “I mean . . .” His voice trailed away.

  “Be there fast as I can.” The plea didn’t surprise Colin, much as he wished it did. With Captain Miyoshi on the shelf after stomach-cancer surgery, he was the most senior man available. And people would know he’d orchestrated Darren Pitcavage’s arrest. Without a note from Mike, they wouldn’t be able to prove that was why he’d done himself in, but it sure looked like the way to bet.

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” Neil Schneider said. “Thanks very much.”

  “Yeah.” Colin hung up. He pulled the nightstand drawer open and groped for the flashlight that lived in there. He imagined Caroline doing the same thing a couple of miles away. No one could see his grimace, but he felt it.

  “What happened?” Kelly asked just as his fingers closed around it. “Somebody committed suicide. Who? Why?”

  “Mike Pitcavage. Don’t know why yet, but it’s gonna be a hell of a mess.” Colin had already flicked on the light and was squinting against the beam when he realized he’d cussed in front of his wife. Well, too goddamn bad. This was already a mess. It called for cussing or praying, one. It probably called for both, but Colin had not even a nodding acquaintance with prayer.

  “My God!” Kelly said. She jumped to the same conclusion people at the cop shop had to be reaching: “Is it because you busted his worthless kid?”

  “Don’t know,” Colin repeated, as stolidly as he could. “If it is . . .” He didn’t take that any further.

  If the chief had killed himself because of Darren’s arrest, Colin was anything but sure he could go on at the San Atanasio Police Department. How many people there would blame him for Mike’s suicide? Enough to make him persona bigtime non grata? He had the bad feeling the answer to that one couldn’t be anything but yes. He was a long way from sure he didn’t blame himself, when you got right down to it.

  “That would be awful, Colin!” Kelly exclaimed, so she could see it, too. Well, it wasn’t anything complicated, worse luck.

  By the flashlight’s white glare, he put on jeans, a sweatshirt, and his beat-up old denim jacket. The middle of the night wasn’t the time to worry about suit and tie. He looked a lot like the way he had when he first met Kelly at the late, ever so lamented Yellowstone. “I’ll be back when I can,” he told her, brushing his lips across hers. “Try and grab some more z’s.”

  “Any other time, I’d tell you you were out of your mind,” she said. “The way Deborah runs me ragged, I may have a chance of doing it.”

  He hurried downstairs. He started to roll his bike out of the foyer and onto the porch, but shook his head, went outside on foot, and got into the Taurus instead. Sometimes speed mattered. To his relief, the car started.

  The streets were eerily empty. He drove past two people showing bike lights and one moron who wasn’t. Crunching the fool would have been just what he needed now, but he swerved and missed. Having the guy appear out of nowhere in his headlights startled him so much he didn’t even honk.

  When he pulled into the lot, he had no trouble finding a space. Most of them went begging most of the time—who drove to work these days? He hurried inside. Th
e lights were on: the station had its own generator, and for the moment the generator had fuel.

  “Here he is!” somebody said as he came through the doors. That wasn’t relief. It sounded more like a heads-up to alert people who hadn’t seen him yet. The looks the cops and clerical staff gave him had that same feeling.

  Neil Schneider came up to him. “Sorry to roust you, Lieutenant, but . . .” The droopy, graying blond mustache the sergeant wore gave him a mournful aspect even when he was happy. When he had something to be unhappy about, as now . . .

  “I’m here, all right,” Colin said. “Has anybody told Darren yet?”

  By the way the rest of the cops looked at one another, he knew nobody had. “We thought you ought to be here,” Schneider said. We thought you ought to do it, he meant.

  Colin sighed. “Okay. Get him out of his cell. Bring him to interrogation room two. I’ll handle it in there.” If he was top dog for the moment, they could damn well follow his lead.

  He didn’t have to wait long in the interrogation room—the jail was right next to the station. Two policemen led in Darren Pitcavage. He wore a bright blue jumpsuit with SAN ATANASIO CITY JAIL stenciled on the chest and back in white; his hands were cuffed behind him.

  “What’s going on?” he demanded when he saw Colin. He was bigger than his father, and looked a lot like him, but with little of the older man’s polished hardness. Scowling, he went on, “My pop’ll eat you without salt when he hears you hauled me outa my cell in the middle of the night for the third degree.”

  “We didn’t bring you out for anything of the kind,” Colin said wearily. He wished he were home in bed, or anywhere else at all but here. “And your father . . . Your father won’t do anything like that, either, I’m afraid.”

  “Huh? The fuck he won’t, man.” Darren spoke with the certainty of someone who’d rarely heard no in his life. “You guys try and screw me over, you think Dad’ll let you get away with that shit?”

  Mike Pitcavage alive wouldn’t have let them do anything to his son, not if he could help it. Colin wondered if he wasn’t alive for no better reason than the humiliation he felt at not being able to help it. He took a deep, miserable breath. “Darren, your father won’t do anything to stop us. Your father can’t do anything to stop us.”

  “What are you talkin’ about?” Darren said. “Of course he can. He’s, y’know, the chief.”

  “No, he can’t. No, he isn’t,” Colin said. “Your father is dead, Darren. He killed himself earlier tonight, or that’s what it looks like. That’s what we took you out of jail to tell you. I’m sorry, if it means anything to you.”

  Darren Pitcavage gaped at him. “No. No fuckin’ way.” He shook his head. “Dad’d never do anything like that. You’re bullshitting me, trying to soften me up or something.”

  “I wish to God I were,” Colin replied, which was the exact and literal truth. “If you don’t believe me, ask some of the other people here. It’s not like you don’t know most of ’em.” He hadn’t known all of them, or he wouldn’t be wearing that jumpsuit now—and his father probably wouldn’t be dead. Colin made himself go on: “I know you know Neil Schneider. Ask Neil. He’s the one who phoned me with the news.”

  “I don’t need to ask anybody. I know you assholes are all in it together.” But Darren didn’t sound so sure any more. He was starting to get that poleaxed look, the look anybody gets on hearing a loved one has unexpectedly died. He blinked a couple of times—blinked back tears, Colin guessed from the way his eyes brightened under the fluorescents. When he spoke again, the bluster had drained from his voice: “What—what happened, man?”

  Briefly and baldly, Colin told him, finishing, “That’s just the way I got it from Sergeant Schneider. Now you know as much as I do. I am sorry. I wish like anything I didn’t have to give you news like this.”

  “Dad. Oh, my God. Dad.” Darren believed him now, all right. Tears ran down his face. “What’s Mom gonna do now? What am I gonna do now?”

  Colin had no idea what Caroline Pitcavage would do. Darren Pitcavage would probably do seven to ten, with time off for good behavior and prison overcrowding. That, he didn’t say. Darren would have to find out for himself.

  XXII

  When Bryce Miller waited at the campus bus stop for the ride back into the town of Wayne, it was twenty-one below zero. It was the late afternoon, to be fair. The day’s high hadn’t been anywhere near so frigid. It had only been eleven below then.

  Not much snow was falling. The air couldn’t hold much moisture when it got this cold. But every flake that touched his cheeks and nose—the only skin he showed—burned as if it were dipped in battery acid.

  “Hope the bus comes,” said a woman standing there with him. “Can’t wait around real long in this. Gotta go inside and warm up.” It wouldn’t be hot inside, either. It would be above freezing, though. No matter how many layers you had on, you’d turn into an icicle pretty damn quick in this. Bryce had known it would be cold here when he left SoCal. He hadn’t dreamt it could get this cold.

  He was thinking hard about retreating to a building when the bus grumbled up. “Extra blankets on the seats,” the driver said. She was using one. Bryce gratefully swaddled himself as the bus pulled away from the curb. It helped—a little. Nothing could help much, not in this, hellfire probably included.

  He didn’t want to unwrap and get out when the bus got to his stop in downtown Wayne, such as downtown Wayne was. Only a couple of blocks to his apartment. He counted himself lucky not to be devoured by a polar bear before he made it.

  It was above freezing in the apartment. Not a lot, but it was. Susan wore almost as many clothes as he had on. “Brr!” he said. “That’s just brutal out there.” She hugged him and kissed him. When they both had on so many layers, the hug seemed hardly more than virtual. The kiss was fine, though.

  Then Susan said, “Colin Ferguson still works for the San Atanasio Police Department, doesn’t he?”

  “Sure,” Bryce said. “How come?” It wasn’t as if Susan brought up Vanessa’s dad very often—or at all, if she could help it.

  “Because the chief of the San Atanasio PD just killed himself. It was on CNN. Michael Pit . . . Pitsomething. Something weird.”

  “Pitcavage,” Bryce said, and Susan nodded. He went on, “That’s awful! Did they say why? Colin didn’t like him a whole bunch, but you wouldn’t wish that on anybody.”

  “They said his son’s in jail on drug-dealing charges, but they don’t know if that’s what made him do it or not. It sounds like they don’t know. He didn’t leave a note, they said.”

  “Holy crap,” Bryce said, and then, “Do you mind if I call Colin?”

  “After this? Of course not. It’s not like you’re calling to dish about Vanessa,” Susan said. Bryce chuckled uneasily. She knew he wasn’t a hundred percent over his ex. She knew he wouldn’t be any time soon, either, too. As long as she also knew he had zero intention of doing anything about it (assuming Vanessa wasn’t over him, which she totally was), that was . . . pretty much okay with her.

  He got out his cell and pulled up Colin’s number. On the second ring, the familiar voice said, “Hey, Bryce” in his ear. After a beat, Colin went on, “So you heard even back there, huh?”

  “’Fraid so,” Bryce answered. “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too. Everybody’s saying that a lot today. Listen, let me call you back in five minutes, okay? I want to walk out into the parking lot.”

  “Sure. ’Bye,” Bryce said. Colin wanted to talk without fifty people listening in on his end, but he didn’t want to say so while they were listening in.

  “What’s going on?” Susan asked when he took the phone away from his ear. He explained. He’d just finished when the opening chords of “Came Along Too Late” came from the phone. Hey, how many Hellenistic ring tones could you find?

 
“I’m here,” he said, raising it again.

  “Yeah, and I’m here, which is more than Mike Pitcavage can tell you right now,” Colin replied. “I always knew he cut his rotten kid too much slack. If Mike hadn’t, Darren never would’ve turned into a dealer, and he damn well did. The evidence we’ve got, not even the dumbest jury in the world’ll acquit him, and that’s saying something. But Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick, Bryce, I never dreamt Mike would go and do anything like that.”

  “I believe you,” Bryce said. Colin sounded plaintive, almost pleading. Those were notes his voice almost never struck. The last time Bryce could remember hearing them was when Louise left him. Colin had never dreamt she would go and do anything like that, either.

  Of course, Bryce wasn’t sure how reliable his own memories of that time were. Vanessa had just traded him in on a new—no, actually on an older—model, so he also hadn’t been at his own dynamic best.

  “I know you do. It means a lot to me.” Colin hesitated, then went on, “Means a lot to me right now that anybody believes me. Some of the people here, it’s like they think I drove Mike to it on purpose when I set it up so we went after Darren and dropped on him.”

  “Oh, Lord!” Bryce hadn’t thought of that. He realized he should have. “Talk about blaming the messenger!”

  “Yeah, well, that’s how it looks to me, too.” Colin sighed. “But it sure doesn’t look that way to everybody. Funeral’ll be in three, four days—after the coroner’s office finishes the autopsy and releases the body. All the crap you have to go through to make sure what looks like a suicide isn’t a homicide. This one looks as cut-and-dried as they ever do, but you still have to connect the dots.”

  “Sure,” Bryce said. The Hellenistic kingdoms had had their bureaucratic rituals, too.

  Colin sighed again. “Not too long before you called, my landline rang, and it was Caroline Pitcavage. She uninvited me—disinvited me? whatever the hell—from the funeral. Said she was sorry and everything, but seeing me there would only remind her of what I’d done to their family.”