Once Burned

by Gerry Boyle

  “You may not have a choice.”

  “What?”

  “If other people are talking about you. I can’t ignore that.”

  “What if I say no?”

  “Then your side doesn’t get told.”

  “My side of what? All I want is to be left the hell alone.”

  “Sometimes things don’t work out,” I said.

  A flash of temper in the dark eyes.

  “This is nuts,” Louis said.

  Headlights flashed behind him, leaving the fire scene. He looked back. Shifted uneasily, like a nocturnal animal caught in a spotlight.

  “Can we talk?” I said.

  “No, thanks.”

  I held a card out.

  “You can call me,” I said.

  “I don’t have a phone,” Louis said, and he broke past me, grabbing the card on the way by, like I was passing out strip-club leaflets on 42nd Street.

  “I’ll come to you,” I called as he trotted up the road.

  A pickup was approaching and I moved into the brambles, waited. The truck passed, a firefighter at the wheel talking on a cell phone. He hit the high beams and the lights flooded the road. Louis and the dog were gone.

  I sat in the truck in the dark. It was 12:35. I texted Roxanne again. Waited for a reply. Nothing. I wrote out my conversation with Louis, every word that I could remember. The quotes were underlined. Why would I do that?

  I wrote my impressions, a physical description. And then I sat back in the seat and wondered. Should I call Davida Reynolds, tell her who I’d run into? Was I reporting the story or becoming part of it? God, I needed more on this Louis guy, the rest of them, too.

  The woods were loud, a cacophony of peeps and scritches and hoots. I added the sound of my keyboard clicking. A text to Lasha: YOU UP?

  The phone beeped. No service. I sat for a minute, mulling.

  Started the truck. Drove.

  Lasha’s house was a mile farther up the ridge, the driveway climbing from the road through the woods. A fox trotted through my headlights halfway up the drive, gave me a quick backward glance, and leapt into the trees. The woods here were teeming with life: bugs, birds, animals, arsonists, skulking ex-soldiers.

  There was a light on by the front door, moths swirling around it like electrons. Another light on in the ell of the house, the kitchen. More lights showing in the studio. I pictured Lasha working in a nightlong frenzy, then collapsing for a couple of days, creatively spent.

  I parked beside her Jeep, walked to the side door and knocked. No answer. I peeked in the window, saw the kitchen table, an empty bottle of Geary’s. I turned the knob. The door opened. I took a step in. Thought of Lasha’s shotgun and called.

  “Lasha. It’s Jack.”

  No reply. I took two more steps and stopped. Called again. To my left was the main house, a kitchen showing, a big harvest table. Lonely dinners. To my right was a door that led outside, then 10 feet to the studio. That door was closed. I walked over, paused and tentatively tried the knob. It turned. I pulled the door open and it gave a haunted-house creak. I stepped over the threshold into Lasha’s world.

  The horses were still frozen in mid-panic, eyes bulging and teeth bared. Some sort of Viking-looking guy had his throat thrown back, a spear pressed against it by an invisible assailant. His eyes were defiant: Go ahead. Kill me. There was a half-carved eagle clamped onto the workbench, like it was bursting out of the wood. Chisels on the bench.

  One on the floor.

  Blood on the blade. Blood spatter around it.

  I froze. Listened. Reached into my jeans pocket for my knife. Slipped it out and pared the blade back. I peered into the dimly lit corners of studio, the grimacing figures staring back silently. I turned back toward the house.

  Something hit the floor behind me. I whirled, knife low and ready.

  A ginger-colored cat was crouched on the floor by the bench. I looked up, saw the edge of a loft. Looked back down. The cat was licking its mistress’s blood from the floor. It was a splotch the size of a quarter. Droplets sprayed next to it. Then another splotch, this one bigger. The cat moved to it, began lapping. I could hear purring. There were drops leading away from the chisel, a dozen or more. I followed them six feet. They stopped. So did I.

  I listened, waited. Started for the door to the house. The cat bolted past me, slipping between my legs, trotting into the house. I followed.

  Into the kitchen. Another empty beer bottle on the counter, a half-empty bottle of Irish whiskey. Bushmills Black. There was a light on over the microwave. The refrigerator whirred. The cat went to a bowl of food on the floor and sniffed. I stepped into the dark hallway, the Swiss Army knife in my right hand.

  Stopped. Took two more steps.

  Froze. Listened.

  There was a rattle to my right. I listened.

  A whimper.

  I stepped toward the noise, saw a closed door. The whimper again.

  I moved to the door, reached for the knob. Turned it and pushed.

  “Lasha,” I said.

  She was sitting on the closed toilet seat in the darkness. Her left hand was wrapped in a towel and she was barefoot, her sandals under the sink. She turned and looked at me.

  “Are you alone?” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. “I just got home. Decided to work on the big horse, his hoof.”

  I reached for the light switch, flicked it up. A light glowed dimly on the wall above the sink. I saw a puddle of blood on the floor. Her shirt was speckled red.

  “Blood,” Lasha said. “It’s a bitch to get out.”

  She smiled at me.

  “I heard something.”

  “Where?”

  “Outside. And I got distracted or whatever. And the chisel slipped.”

  “And you cut yourself.”

  “Bad,” Lasha said. “I don’t think I got an artery or anything.”

  “You work when you’ve been drinking?”

  “I do everything when I’ve been drinking,” Lasha said. “And besides, I had an idea.”

  “Let me see the cut,” I said.

  I moved to her and she held out her arm. I held it with one hand, unwrapped the towel with the other. She closed her eyes when I pulled the towel aside.

  It was an L-shaped slash where the chisel had gone into the palm of her hand, then sliced a furrow past her thumb. The skin and muscle flapped loose. Blood oozed from the wound, then started to flow, then drip.

  “You need stitches,” I said. “You okay to move?”

  She reached out and clutched my arm with her good hand.

  “Can I tell you something, Jack?” Lasha said softly.

  I looked at her. There were freckles on her nose and crow’s-feet beside her eyes, brown and steeped in sadness. A drop of blood fell from her hand and landed on her foot. She had one foot on top of the other in a way that reminded me of Sophie. There were gold rings on two of the toes on her right foot and her toenails were painted blood-red.

  She began to cry. Silently, tears spilling one by one.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “They’ll fix you up.”

  “Jack,” Lasha said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I was sitting here. I was thinking I really like this shirt. It’ll never come out.”

  “We’ll soak it,” I said. “Cold water.”

  “And then I had this thought. I thought, I just missed the artery. And I thought . . . I thought maybe I’ll cut it again. Maybe I’ll just let it bleed. Maybe it would be better . . . better to die.”

  “Lasha, stop it.”

  “Because I’m lonely, Jack. I’m so lonely. And that man died and this town is freaking me out.”

  “It’ll be okay,” I said. “You’re just upset.”

  “But what if this is it? What if I’m alone the rest of my life? What if I end up just a lonely old drunk?”

  “Don’t worry about that now,” I said. “Let’s just get you stitched up, back to work. I saw the hawk. It’s beaut
iful.”

  “It’s a falcon,” Lasha said. “You can tell by the wings.”

  “I’m a birder. I should know that.”

  “I’m terribly unhappy, Jack,” Lasha said.

  “It’s just the whiskey,” I said.

  “Oh, the fucking Irish whiskey. Brings you up and then crashes you down.”

  “Right. So you’ll be fine. Let’s get this hand wrapped back up.”

  “Jack.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know what I want?”

  “No,” I said.

  She looked up at me, her cheeks glistening, eyes dark and shining, mane of hair askew. She looked like the queen of some defeated desert tribe.

  “I want you to hold me. No one ever holds me anymore.”

  I smiled, wrapped the towel back around her hand.

  “I’m sure someone will. You’re a very attractive woman—an interesting person, too.”

  “Kip, for the last six months, he didn’t hold me. A peck on the cheek, the rest of him holding back like I was radioactive. And then I figured out about his little honey. Little gold digger. You know they were texting picture of themselves to each other? I mean, you know. Pictures.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “After that I didn’t want him to touch me. Ever.”

  “I’m sure,” I said.

  “I get so tired, Jack.”

  “Right.”

  I finished wrapping the towel. Blood was already beginning to seep through. Lasha held tight to my arm and pulled herself up from the toilet.

  “Please,” Lasha said. “Just for a minute.”

  “I really don’t think—”

  She half fell against me, her arms around my neck, her cheek against my shoulder. I had my arms at my sides and she said, “Hold me, Jack. Really hold me. Just for a minute.”

  I put a hand lightly on her shoulder and she reached up and drew my arm around her. Then the other. Then hugged me tightly. I felt her breasts pressed against my chest, her thighs against mine. She was bigger than Roxanne, wider and thicker, and her weight rested against me. She gave me a long squeeze and turned her head and kissed my neck. Just once, then let her head rest on my shoulder again.

  “Thank you,” Lasha said. “That helps.”

  “No problem,” I said.

  I tried to pry myself away but she held me tightly.

  “You know what, Jack?” she said.

  “I know you need some stitches,” I said.

  “I’m glad I didn’t kill myself.”

  “You and me both,” I said.

  “You know what else?” Lasha said.

  “No,” I said. “What else?”

  “I think there really was somebody outside.”

  19

  “No ambulance,” Lasha said. “I don’t want these nosy bastards knowing my business.”

  We were out in the dooryard, standing by my truck, Lasha saying she needed fresh air. She’d put on clean jeans, a black T-shirt, and gold flip-flops. She was holding her bandaged hand in front of her. Towel number two was splotched with blood.

  I thought about it. A half-hour to the hospital in Augusta, the nearest ER. Time to get her booked in. Forty-five minutes home. Two o’clock.

  “I’ll drive myself,” Lasha said.

  “You can’t. You might pass out or something.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I’ll drive you,” I said.

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I know. Let’s go.”

  She sat beside me with her hand cradled on her lap like a kitten. I drove fast through Sanctuary, west to Route 17, and headed southwest. There was little traffic, a few trucks, no cars. We were passing the Quik-Mart when she finally spoke.

  “You must think I’m such a mess,” Lasha said.

  “No,” I said.

  “I’m sorry. Blubbering on like that.”

  “It’s okay. You were upset.”

  “I’m just really comfortable with you. Like I’ve known you a really long time.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Thanks for doing this,” Lasha said.

  “It’s nothing.”

  Another long pause.

  “Your wife is going to think you’re fooling around.”

  “No, she won’t,” I said.

  “Why not?” Lasha said.

  “Because I wouldn’t.”

  She gave a little snort.

  “Must be nice,” Lasha said. “What’s her name?”

  “Roxanne.”

  “Like the song?”

  She sang it, Sting’s falsetto. Put on your red light. She had a nice voice.

  Another pause.

  “I hope your Roxanne knows she’s very lucky,” Lasha said.

  “I’m the lucky one,” I said. “She saved me.”

  “From what?”

  “From myself,” I said.

  She looked at me, then straight ahead. We rode in silence for a mile or two, the headlights tunneling through the darkness, the truck tires thrumming on the pavement. A beetle smashed the windshield, left a viscous smear.

  Lasha touched her hand, winced.

  “Starting to hurt?” I said.

  “Throbbing,” she said.

  “Shock’s wearing off. They’ll give you something.”

  Another mile and I said, “So what is it? What did you find out?”

  Lasha turned, looked at me closely.

  “That’s why you’re taking me, isn’t it?” Lasha said.

  “No, I’m taking you so you don’t bleed to death. But we might as well do something constructive.”

  “It’s probably nothing.”

  “What’s probably nothing?”

  “Harold at the store,” Lasha said.

  “What about him?”

  “Like I said, it’s probably nothing.”

  “What?”

  “He torched his house. For the insurance.”

  “You’re kidding me. When?”

  “Fourteen years ago,” she said. “I searched the Bangor Daily News archive. It’s all online now.”

  “Searched for what? Harold?”

  “Arson and Sanctuary, Maine.”

  “Is that the only thing that came up?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He was convicted?”

  “Went to jail for three years and had to pay, like, ninety thousand in restitution. To the insurance company.”

  “Huh. Folksy Harold. Knows everybody.”

  “And everybody must know this,” Lasha said.

  “Nobody told me,” I said.

  “That’s because you’re like me. We’re outsiders.”

  I drove, mulling it. We passed a boarded-up ice-cream stand, a farmhouse with an overgrown lawn, for-sale sign staked out front. All of it so much tinder.

  “A fraud arsonist is very different from a thrill arsonist,” I said. “One’s dishonest and the other’s nuts.”

  She went quiet again, stared at her hand.

  “I guess it wasn’t that interesting,” she said.

  I shrugged.

  “Maybe I oversold it,” Lasha said, “hoping you’d come up to the house.”

  “So I could drive you to the hospital after you chiseled your hand open. You are devious.”

  It was a joke. I smiled, glanced at her, but she wasn’t smiling, and then she turned and looked away. For the rest of the trip, Lasha rode in silence, staring out the window at the darkness. I considered her tip about Harold—jokey, small-town Harold—and wondered who else in town was not what they seemed.

  There had been a car accident, high school kids in Chelsea hit a tree, nobody wearing seat belts. The ER was packed with parents, brothers, and sisters. Some were in pajamas. Many of them were crying.

  The woman behind the glass said it would be a while before Lasha could be seen. We stepped away from the counter and I turned to her.

  “You go,” she said. “I’ll wait. I’ll be fine. I’ll get a taxi home.”


  I hesitated.

  “Go home to your honey, Jack McMorrow,” Lasha said.

  So I did.

  In the parking lot I texted Roxanne again. I said I was on my way home, would see her in an hour. She didn’t reply, which meant she was asleep.

  I headed out of the parking lot, crossed the bridge over the black ribbon of the Kennebec River. Prosperity was thirty miles northeast of Augusta, in the wooded hills west of Belfast. Sanctuary was twenty-five miles east. I took the long way home.

  It was a little after one when I came through Sanctuary again. At the fire station, the bay doors were open, lights on, trucks backed in. There were a few pickups in the lot, Chief Frederick’s Ford, Ray-Ray’s Chevy among them. I kept going.

  I drove down to the river, crossed the bridge, and climbed to the ridge on the other side. With the exception of the fire station, the town was dark and quiet, still under the pale blue moonlight. At the top of the ridge, I turned right and drove. On the side of the road, a deer turned and stared. I glanced in the mirror, saw it vault into the woods. I looked back to the road, saw the mailbox, braked, and turned off the road, up Lasha’s driveway through the woods.

  The dooryard was dark; outside lights on a timer? There was a light on in the kitchen, glowing dimly. I killed the truck lights and rolled to a stop. Shut off the motor and sat.

  It was still. I thought of Lasha asleep out here in the dark, the house surrounded by miles of woods. Lasha alone.

  I got out of the truck, reached behind the seat, and took out a spotlight. I pulled the trigger and the ground went white, the million-candlepower beam illuminating the grass and weeds and bugs. I turned it off, and walked slowly along the side of the studio shed. The workbench was on this side of the building, toward the rear. If Lasha had heard someone, where would he have been?

  I walked slowly to the end of the building and stopped. Stood. Listened. Sniffed. Stepped around the corner of the building, flicked the light on.

  And there it was.

  It was on the ground by the wall. I took a step closer. Sticks and bark and grass had been piled against the wall’s cedar shingles like a squirrel’s nest. On the grass beside the pile was a long, white, plastic lighter, the kind used with a barbecue grill. I leaned down close to the pile and sniffed and smelled the gasoline, saw the shingles darkened where it had been splashed.

  Had Lasha scared the arsonist away, screaming when she cut her hand? Why hadn’t he just lit it and run? Would he be back to pick up his stuff? And if he was a thrill arsonist, like Reynolds believed, wouldn’t he still be letting the Talbot fire soak in? Would he walk through the woods and start another one? Or could it be two people, two arsonists, each hiding in the other’s shadow?