Once Burned

by Gerry Boyle

  He looked in the direction of a fortyish couple, nice-looking, like actors on a daytime soap. They were wearing matching blue fleece vests.

  “They buy them, you do the work?”

  “Yeah. They picked some up just before the “Hidden Treasure” article. This one I bought myself. Used to build new houses, but that went to hell.”

  “So you’re fixing this place up?”

  He looked to the barn, where white smoke billowed and the fire crackled but the flames were down.

  “Not this part of it.”

  “Insurance?”

  “Yeah. But not enough to rebuild. Mortise-and-tenon, oak pegs, massive beams.”

  He looked toward Davida Reynolds, talking to Chief Frederick. They both looked my way. Frederick shook his head. I hurried.

  “So how’d you know—that it was burning?”

  “Got up around four. Heard something howling. You all have wolves up here?”

  “Just coyotes,” I said. “But big ones.”

  “Well, it was pretty cool, howling back and forth. I stepped out back and I was listening to ’em. Kinda like the Old West, you know? And then I see this glow.”

  “Was it going pretty good?”

  “Oh, yeah. Back wall was all flames. I ran back up and called 911, but by the time they got out here . . . I mean, they did the best they could.”

  Reynolds had broken away from Frederick and was starting over.

  “Any electricity?” I said.

  “No. It was all rusted and rotted. I disconnected it. Figured it was a fire hazard.”

  “So what could have started it, then?” I said.

  He looked at me.

  “You know what’s going on around here, right?” he said.

  I nodded.

  “So it isn’t a what,” he said. “It’s a who.”

  Reynolds was taking photos of the crowd, snapping as she panned the camera. She slipped it into the pocket of her jumpsuit and approached. Time for one more question.

  “So who do you think?” I said. “Any theories?”

  He shook his head, watched the smoke billowing skyward.

  “You tell me,” Barbier said. “Figured it was one of those nice quiet New England towns. Said so in the magazine, right?”

  Reynolds stepped between me and Barbier, and led him off. I turned around, saw the bystanders behind me. They were mostly women, the menfolk busy fighting the fire.

  I scoped out the closest woman, maybe thirty, pretty in a big-boned, farmer’s wife sort of way. She had a toddler in her arms, an older kid standing next to her, his arm around her thighs. I walked over and stood beside them.

  The little boy, maybe six, looked up at me and said, “Are you a policeman”

  “No,” I said. “I’m a reporter.”

  Nobody ran away.

  “I’m Jack,” I said.

  “I’m Elias,” the boy said. “She’s my mom. My sister, her name is Abigail, but we call her Abbie.”

  I smiled at the woman. “Hello, Mom,” I said.

  “Hi there,” she said. “I’m Eve Johnson.”

  “Everybody’s up early,” I said.

  “Peter, my husband, he’s in the fire department. We only have the one pickup right now, so we said we’d drop him off. Then Elias wanted to stay.”

  “I’m sure,” I said. “To watch his dad.”

  “And the fire,” Elias said. “I like fires.”

  “Good thing your dad is here to put it out,” I said.

  Abbie watched me, her thumb in her mouth, her arm wrapped in a threadbare green blanket.

  “So,” I said, “do you live nearby?”

  “Four miles,” Eve said. “Other side of town, toward the river. Know where Overlook Lane is?”

  “No,” I said.

  “It’s a great spot, looking out over the river. I mean, it’s a great little town. Nice people. We moved here from the Bangor area. Bucksport, really. I grew up there and it’s fine, but this is really beautiful. Nice and quiet. Well, not lately. But a lot of people are coming here for that. Retired folks, people with families, even Don here. He owns this place.”

  “Right.”

  “Mom,” Elias said, “Mrs. Hubble is here. Can I go see her?”

  “Yes. But stay right there.”

  The boy ran toward the parked cars where a gray-haired woman leaned down and gave him a hug.

  “His first-grade teacher,” Eve said.

  “Small-town life,” I said.

  Smoke billowed from the rubble. We stood and watched like villagers who’d just been pillaged.

  “Don,” I said.

  “Right. He came here all the way from California or someplace. At first I thought I knew him from school or something, but then it turned out not to be him. But he heard about the town. Some people are from Washington, all kinds of places. But everybody gets along. I mean, the old-timers, the new folks.”

  She was a chatterer, probably eager to talk after being cooped up with the kids.

  I slipped my notebook out, took a pen from my pocket, gave her some direction. “This fire stuff making you nervous?”

  Eve glanced at my notebook. “Is this for a story?” she said.

  “Yes. It’s what I do.”

  “What paper? Bangor Daily?”

  “I write mostly for the New York Times.”

  “Oh,” Eve said. She seemed relieved.

  “So are you worried?”

  The little girl stared, her big blue eyes fixed on mine.

  “My husband,” Eve said. “He drives a truck. Like, a tractor-trailer?”

  “So he’s often away?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Usually it’s like, three days on, two days off.”

  “So you’re alone.”

  “Yes, but please don’t put that in the paper,” Eve said.

  I hesitated.

  “Okay. Do you think the arsonist might see it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think he reads the New York Times?” I said.

  “What makes you think it’s a he? Do they know who it is?”

  “No,” I said. “But almost all serial arsonists are male.”

  “Serial. That means they do it over and over again, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “This makes four,” Eve said. “Right here in Sanctuary.”

  “I think that would qualify, but I’m not the expert.”

  “Who is?”

  I pointed to Reynolds, talking to Don Barbier and Chief Frederick. “Fire Marshal’s Office,” I said.

  “Well, I hope she catches him soon,” Eve said. “Because . . .” She paused. I waited. Abbie watched. “Because, I mean, it’s terrible seeing this. They’re just barns and stuff, but you never know what might be next. And what if there are animals in the barn? I mean, do you think he checks to see if there are cows or a horse or whatever?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  I scrawled, trying to keep up.

  “Another thing,” she said. “Do you think somebody would come from far away and just pick out our town for this?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I mean, I can’t imagine somebody just picking us off the map. And then you have to be able to find these places. He can’t just drive up and do this. So if he’s walking around the woods—”

  Eve stopped. I waited. Smoke billowed and embers hissed as the firemen trained the hose on a new spot.

  “If he’s walking around,” I prompted.

  “Well, I mean, you’d have to really know your way,” she said. “There’s woods and puckerbrush and swamps. There’s some ATV trails, but it’s not like they go everywhere. And in the dark.”

  She trailed off.

  “So that means?” I said.

  Eve held her blue-eyed daughter closer. She turned and looked at her neighbors, friends, people she saw at the general store.

  “It means,” she said, “that it’s one of us.”

  Eve called to her
son—“Elias, let Mrs. Hubble be”—hiked Abbie up on her hip, and hurried off.

  I finished my notes, underlined that last quote. I was close to having enough material to file it today. SMALL TOWN WORRIES AS ARSONIST PROWLS. I made a note of the photo possibilities for Kerry at the Times, in case she sent a real photographer. Don with the ruins of his barn behind him. Eve and the kids. Chief Frederick outside the firehouse, if he’d go for it.

  Frederick was climbing into a pumper truck, moving it closer to the barn, now a Stonehenge of charred beams. I could see the frame of a tractor, tires melted off. Some people were leaving, the exciting part of the fire over. I wasn’t ready to go, but I fell in with Don’s friends, the couple in matching blue fleece vests.

  I turned and gave them my pitch, read the logo on the vests: SANCTUARY BROKERS, the “S” and the “B” in red. Matching polo shirts, crisp jeans, and new hikers rounded out their outfits. Both in their forties, fit and tanned and ready to do business.

  They smiled, showing luminescent teeth.

  “I’m Rita.”

  “I’m Tory.”

  “Stevens,” they said in unison.

  “We sell real estate here in town,” Rita said.

  “You from around here?” her husband said.

  I felt like their next question would be about my price range. Instead, I stopped and they stopped, too. He had a half-smile set permanently, like it had been Botoxed on. At an early-morning fire scene her hair and makeup were perfect. And their focus on sales wouldn’t allow them to walk away from a conversation.

  “These fires,” I said. “Are they beginning to have an effect on business?”

  Tory was ready. “You mean, is Sanctuary, Maine, ‘the arson town’?” he said, making air quotes with his fingers.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Jack, this will be old news in a couple of weeks.”

  “Some firebug kid will get counseling and do some community service,” Rita said. “End of story. You know, there’s a lot of troubled youth. I blame the Internet and all that.”

  “New York Times, huh,” Tory said.

  “We sell a lot of property to New Yorkers, Jack,” Rita said. “Just last week we closed on a lovely nineteenth-century colonial. Full restoration, modern appliances but hidden behind a pumpkin-pine facade. A very tasteful update.”

  “Water view and an apple orchard,” Tory said. “We showed it when the blossoms were out and didn’t they just have to have it.”

  “They’re both doctors,” Rita said. “Retiring soon. He wants to use the barn for his car collection.”

  “And she wants to get back into horses,” Tory said. “Build a new stable.”

  “Nice,” I said.

  Tory was handing me his card.

  “Oh, yeah. I mean, this is the perfect small-town community. Upscale, but still has those authentic touches. Like Harold at the general store. Have you met him?”

  “Just a wonderful character,” Rita said. “You can go in just a couple of times and he knows your name.”

  “And the authentic old Maine accent,” Tory said.

  He said it like Sanctuary was Plimoth Plantation. See the people in period dress.

  “Listen, Jack,” Tory said. “Any of your friends down in New York want a country place, now’s the time to buy. I mean, interest rates are at rock bottom. Prices are down. And we get all the prime listings in this area.”

  “For the boaters, twenty minutes down the river and you’re out in the bay,” Rita said.

  “Or horse people,” Tory said. “We have a listing right now. Two hundred acres, sixty in pasture. Connecticut, Westchester County, it would be millions. I mean, mega. Riding trails through your own woods. House would probably be a tear-down, but—”

  “The fires,” I said.

  They paused for a breath.

  “Does it bother you that someone in your own community may be doing this? You know the arson people say that these things tend to escalate. First it’s sheds and barns, then vacant homes. For an arsonist, after a while an old barn doesn’t do it. It’s like drugs. You need more and more.”

  Rita and Tory looked at each other, then at me.

  “They won’t continue,” Rita said.

  “You can count on it,” Tory said.

  “How’s that?”

  They started walking down the dirt road. I could see a silver Mercedes SUV parked up ahead, the Sanctuary Brokers logo on the driver’s door.

  “We’re working on it,” Rita said. “That’s all I can say.”

  “We take care of our community, Jack,” Tory said. “It’s a Maine thing.”

  Suddenly a local, he said it like I wouldn’t understand.

  “What sort of Maine thing?” I said.

  Rita had the keys out. She pressed the button and the Mercedes beeped and flashed. She veered slightly, leaving us guys alone.

  “Jack,” Tory said. “Somebody is threatening your property, even your family. What do you do?”

  “Call the police?” I said.

  “Sure, but what if the police are a half-hour away? What if by the time you see the fire, it’s been burning for at least that long? What if the person doing this has free run of the town because at three a.m., everyone is asleep?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “You tell me.”

  “In a situation like this you have to take back the night, Jack,” Tory said.

  I looked at him.

  “What? Some sort neighborhood watch?”

  He pointed his index finger at me.

  “Bingo, my friend,” Tory said.

  Rita started the car. Tory had his hand on the door. I fished in my jeans for a card and handed it to him. He looked at it, stuck it in his vest pocket.

  “One more question,” I said.

  “Shoot,” he said.

  “It’s a big town. In square miles, I mean. How do you know where to patrol? What if you’re on the east side when something’s happening on the west side?”

  Tory tapped his temple as he opened the car door.

  “Intelligence, Jack,” he said. “It’s the same in the real estate business. You want to be successful, you have to do your homework.”

  10

  The spectators left in dribs and drabs, the stragglers driven out when it started to rain, a little before eight.

  I went to the truck and got a rain jacket, came back. As I walked up the dirt road fire trucks approached and I stood at the edge of the brush to let them pass. Casey, riding on the side of a pumper, gave me a little wave. I continued walking up to the house, heard a car approaching, and stepped aside again. A sheriff’s department cruiser passed, blue lights flashing against the green of the woods.

  By the time I reached the clearing, the deputy—a short, stocky guy with a shaved head—was walking around to the rear of the barn. Through the burned beams, I could see Reynolds and the fire chief standing close, staring at the ground. Barbier was standing by the house under the overhang by the side door, talking on a cell phone.

  I skirted the smoldering rubble, rain pattering on the smoking beams. It smelled of burned building, a very different odor from a campfire or woodstove smoke. It was caustic and clingy. Like the odor of decay.

  When I reached the back of the barn, the deputy was standing. Frederick and Reynolds were crouched, staring at the ground. Reynolds had a pen in her hand and she was tracing something in the grass. She turned away from the rubble and scooched along for ten feet, still peering at the ground.

  “Oh, yeah,” she said. She smiled, reached into the pocket of her jumpsuit for a plastic bag. She opened it with the pen, reached down, and flicked something into the bag, flicked some more and zipped the bag shut.

  “Used something for a fuse,” Reynolds said, and she looked up. “Mr. McMorrow, I didn’t know—”

  “This is a goddamn crime scene,” the chief said. “No press.”

  The deputy advanced, hand by the Taser on his belt.

  “Sir, you’re gonna
have to—”

  “What sort of fuse?” I said. “Can you tell by the ashes?”

  “You can’t be snooping around here,” Frederick said.

  “I wasn’t snooping; I was just standing here. I need to talk to Investigator Reynolds.”

  “I’m asking you to leave this vicinity,” the deputy said.

  “You can’t print that,” Frederick said. “It’ll jeopardize the crime investigation.”

  “So this is the fourth arson,” I said.

  “I didn’t say that,” the chief said.

  “Sir, I’ve asked you politely,” the deputy said.

  “I’ll go,” I said. “No problem.”

  I turned away, slipped my notebook from my pocket, pulled out a pen. As I walked, I started to write. After five steps and two words—fuse, arson—Reynolds called.

  “Mr. McMorrow.”

  I stopped and turned.

  “I’ll talk to you,” she said.

  “Great,” I said.

  “If you could wait by my truck.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  Frederick glared at me, said, “You don’t have to tell him—”

  Reynolds held up a hand. “Chief, it’s okay.”

  “But he—”

  The deputy watched me, hands on his hips, like he thought he still might have to subdue me and stuff me in the cruiser. I started for the Suburban, heard Reynolds say, “We can work with the press, Chief.”

  Frederick muttered, the words unintelligible but for one. “Trouble.”

  I watched from the truck. Barbier was still on the phone, reading from a document, probably talking insurance. The deputy strung crime-scene tape from a stake at the front of the barn to a stake all the way to the rear. The scene extended into the back field where it crossed behind the barn and stopped.

  Birds called from the woods—a veery, a redstart, a cardinal—oblivious to the human mayhem. I waited in the rain, a steady and heavy drizzle. After five minutes I called Roxanne but she didn’t answer. I called Clair but he didn’t pick up, either. There wasn’t much reception in Pokey’s stall.

  Reynolds was pointing to the woods, asking Frederick questions. They talked for a few more minutes, then Reynolds took out an iPhone, flicked her fingers across the screen, and held it up for the other two. They squinted at the screen, then looked back across the field.

  “Google Earth,” I said aloud. Reynolds slipped the phone into her breast pocket and they started in my direction. Reynolds kept pausing to look at the charred beams, stepping closer. She lifted a camera and started taking pictures like an archaeologist sifting through the ruins of an ancient civilization.