The Burning Point

by Mary Jo Putney

  She gestured at the elaborately carved mahogany mantelpiece. "It's not the right period for the building, but that's a great mantel. Where did it come from?"

  "I salvaged it from a hotel job in Boston." He set his coffee mug on his impressively neat desk. "I thought you could take the office across the hall. It's been empty since Nick left."

  Before Kate could respond, a female voice came through the intercom on the desk. "Donovan, Ted's on line two from Rio de Janeiro."

  He reached for the phone. "Because I've been away, it's going to be a crazy day. I'm not going to have much time to work with you. Try to stay out of trouble."

  Her new office was the same size as Donovan's, with an equally nice view. She gazed out into the woods. A single male cardinal provided a scarlet accent against the subtle winter grays and tans. Once she'd dreamed of working here, she and Donovan full partners in life and in business. Such a long time ago.

  For the next hour, she wandered through the building. PDI had always had a very low turnover rate, so she knew more than half the employees. The others she introduced herself to. Everyone welcomed her warmly, partly on general principles, partly, she suspected, because she was Sam's daughter, which supplied a comforting sense of continuity. She was glad to be back.

  It would be hard to leave again.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Donovan was halfway through his mail when the intercom buzzed to life. "You'd better get down here," the receptionist said. "We've got picketers."

  Swearing, he raced downstairs, and found Kate and the receptionist at the front window. Outside, people of all ages from toddler to senior citizen were pouring out of cars, many of them clutching handmade signs saying things like THE SECOND BATTLE OF CONCORD and HELL, NO, WE WON'T GO.

  "You did predict that better weather would bring out demonstrators," Kate said.

  A television transmission truck parked on the lawn. "Luther called from Concord Place a few minutes ago," he said. "There are protesters all around the job site, but I sure as hell didn't think they'd picket us out here."

  Grabbing his parka, he went outside, Kate following two steps behind him. The demonstrators were marching back and forth in ragged lines. He guessed that most were Concord Place residents. Only two of the five project buildings were completely clear of tenants. The others still housed people who hadn't yet found new homes, and were under notice to leave within the month.

  Donovan sympathized with their plight, but having them wear holes in the lawn was a damned nuisance. Not the kind of publicity he liked for PDI.

  A burly man wearing an army fatigue jacket that Donovan guessed had been earned the hard way stormed up. "You bastards are driving my mama from her home!"

  "The decision to demolish Concord Place was made by the city, not us. From what I've heard, current residents will be at the top of the list for the new townhouses that will be built."

  "Hell of a lot of good that does anyone now!"

  A camera zoomed in on the confrontation. Donovan balanced on the balls of his feet, knowing that the head of PDI really shouldn't get into a fight. But if the other guy threw the first punch...

  Kate stepped between the two men. "It's terrible that people are being evicted, but the townhouse community will be safer and more attractive."

  "If it's ever built!" the protester said. "What matters now is that my mama's losing her home and friends after thirty years. Me and my brothers grew up there."

  "That's awful. Housing is one of the most important urban issues we face in America today." Kate launched into an eloquent--and endless--discussion of urban policy. The television crews hadn't come to learn about the intricacies of housing law. With no angry brawls to film, they packed up their cameras and left.

  As the demonstration started to break up, an aging hippie with grizzled beard and ponytail ambled up. Donovan said, "I should have known you'd be behind this, Steve."

  "Made a great photo opportunity, didn't it? The downtown demonstration wouldn't rate much time on the evening news. But this--distraught people losing their homes, driven by desperation to venture into the posh green hills of Baltimore County--this is newsworthy."

  "Spare me," Donovan said.

  "You know this character?" Kate asked.

  "Meet Steve Burke, head of the St. Francis Housing Center. He does some very good things, and some very dumb ones."

  "Donovan helps on our fix-up weekends, when we repair rundown houses for the elderly," Burke explained. "One of my most valuable volunteers."

  "And this is how you repay him."

  "I'll do any damned thing I can to make smug suburbanites like you think about what's going on in the city. Sure, someday there will be townhouses on the Concord Place site, but there will only be about half as many units as there are now, and where the hell do the displaced people live until then?"

  "Those are serious questions, Mr. Burke. But you might as well picket the hammer that drives the nail as come after PDI for a decision that has already been made by the city housing authority."

  The fatigue-clad protester said, "Nazis always say that--'I was just following orders.' But you bastards are doing the dirty work."

  "Joe and I have tried fighting city hall over this with no success," Burke said. "So here we are, scrounging for publicity. With luck, we can shame the city into finding new housing for some of the people being evicted."

  Donovan retorted, "I have no problem with your goals, but I damned well don't like PDI being made your scapegoat."

  Before the discussion could deteriorate further, Kate said, "Good day, gentlemen. I can't say that it's been a pleasure meeting you, but it has been interesting." She took firm hold of Donovan's elbow and marched him back to the mill house.

  "Thanks for driving off the camera crews," he said as they went inside. "Nothing like substance to panic the news media."

  Kate smiled. "This is a great place, Donovan. Never a dull moment."

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  After raiding the stationery closet, Kate returned to her new office and tried to settle down. Though the demonstration had ended peacefully, both Burke and his sidekick, Joe, had struck her as men who could be dangerous opponents. She'd never really thought about the political dimensions of PDI's work. So much to learn.

  She sketched some thumbnail layouts for the proposed employees' lounge, then set down her pencil and reached for the phone. Since she didn't have a lot to do today, it would be a good time to visit with her mother. Julia picked up on the first ring.

  "Hi, Mom," Kate said. "Can I take you to lunch?"

  "That would be lovely. I can't believe I'm seeing you twice in two days, when for years it wasn't even twice a year."

  Kate arranged to meet at a restaurant halfway between the office and Julia's house. As she hung up, she thought how strange it was to be able to see her mother so easily. Strange, and really, really nice.

  Chapter 27

  Kate was already waiting when Julia reached the Valley Inn, a long established local institution. "It's soothing to see how little this place has changed," Kate said. "Not like California, where things often change simply for the sake of change."

  "No one has ever accused Baltimore of that." Julia kissed her daughter's cheek. For years she'd told herself that it was a child's right to fly long and far from the nest, but at heart, she had a secret, reactionary desire to have Kate and Tom living five minutes away. So much was missed when living on opposite coasts. Not the great dramas of life, but the little moments this, the talking and laughing and discussing the weather that were the warp and weft of a relationship.

  They'd finished dessert and were on coffee refills when Julia asked, "When you were in San Francisco, did you see your friend Alec?"

  "He was just back from the Far East, so I was able to say good-bye in person."

  So Kate had ended the relationship. Julia wasn't sure if she was glad or sorry. "He was an intriguing young man, but three thousand miles is too far."

  "That's what I though
t." Kate set down her coffee cup. "I don't know if you've heard, but the state fire marshal's office is still investigating Sam's death. They can't seem to get a handle on the cause of the accident, but they think it might have been tampering by an implosion junkie who sneaked onto the site and messed around with things he didn't understand."

  Julia sucked in her breath. "Lord, I forgot all about the accident investigation."

  "They're doing their best, though they may never have the full answer."

  Julia had intended to tell her children the whole truth, but hadn't felt ready. Perhaps she would never have been ready. "There's something I have to tell you, and the investigators, too. A month before he died, Sam was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer."

  Her daughter paled. "Good God."

  Julia had felt equal shock and horror when the doctor announced that her husband had one of the fastest and most lethal of cancers. How could someone as vital as Sam harbor such a swift, remorseless killer inside his powerful body? But the truth of the diagnosis had been swiftly evident. "They said he had maybe three or four months. The disease was advancing rapidly by the time he died. He couldn't have carried on a normal life much longer."

  "Why didn't you tell me sooner? Knowing that he didn't lose decades of life, only weeks or months, makes his death a little easier to accept."

  "I was still coming to terms with it myself. I've suspected all along that Sam's death wasn't an accident. I...I'm pretty sure that he set off that blast himself."

  "I...see," Kate said after a shaken silence. "I've read that people don't fear death anywhere near as much as they fear dying. Sam must have hated knowing what lay ahead. What better way to go than in the heart of an implosion, at a time and place of his choosing?"

  "The accident was right after he'd finished tying up all the legal and financial loose ends. I can't believe that's a coincidence. I'd made arrangements so that when the time came, he could have hospice care at home instead of dying full of tubes and needles in some ghastly hospital. I was even ready to start hoarding pain pills just...just in case."

  Her fingers tightened around her coffee cup. "But in the end, Sam made sure that I didn't have to do anything difficult. He always insisted on taking care of me, whether I needed it or not. He would have said he didn't want to burden me. But he...he robbed me of the chance to show that I was more than just a fair-weather wife. To care for him. To do what any woman will do for the man she loves."

  "Oh, Mom, how ghastly for you! And how typical of Sam to decide to spare you without considering if it was what you wanted."

  For a long moment, they were simply two women who had loved the same stubborn man. Julia sensed their relationship shifting, becoming not only closer but more equal, one adult to another. "I sound horribly selfish, don't I? As if he should have died in agony just so I could prove my loyalty. Of course I didn't want that. But when he died so suddenly, I felt...cheated."

  "And angry. I'm angry with him, too," Kate said.

  "I'm not angry with your father, dear." Julia halted. "No, that's not true. I am angry. In fact, I'm furious. That pig-headed, know-it-all Italian husband of mine stole what time we had left. I wasn't ready to let him go yet."

  Her suppressed rage erupted, fierce and cleansing. So this was what one of Sam's Italian moments felt like. Maybe on the occasions he'd yelled at her, she should have yelled back.

  Kate took her hand until the anger ebbed. "He didn't give me a chance to say good-bye," Julia said quietly. "To say how much I loved him."

  Her daughter regarded her with eyes that were painfully like Sam's. "If there is one thing I'm absolutely sure of, it's that Sam knew how much you loved him. You were the great wonder and joy of his life. Even more than dynamite."

  "Surely I didn't rate quite that highly."

  "I gather Sam didn't tell anyone else about his illness?"

  "Just me and Charles Hamilton." Julia withdrew her hand from Kate's as she thought uneasily of what she and Charles had done. "Charles had to know to help Sam wind up his affairs properly. Haven't you wondered about the bizarre way his will threw you and Patrick together?"

  "The crazy conditions make a lot more sense now that I know what a short horizon he was looking at. It wasn't the will of a man who expected to live another thirty years. He knew that Donovan and I were still single, so his ham-handed matchmaking had at least a faint chance of working."

  "Does it?"

  Kate flushed. "Of course not. I think Donovan and I can manage to survive a year under the same roof. We're even beginning to make peace with the past. But that doesn't change what separated us."

  "What did separate you? People change a lot in ten years. If Patrick did something foolish back then--well, it doesn't mean that he's incapable of making a good husband. He was very young. People make mistakes."

  Kate bit her lip, clearly teetering on the brink of confession. The moment passed. "Donovan and I both made our share of mistakes."

  As an answer it was probably true, but it certainly didn't explain much.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Donovan was questioned again by Chief Stanski and a state police detective, Lieutenant Miller, a middle-aged black man with a misleadingly bland face and shrewd eyes. By the time they left PDI, everyone else had gone home.

  Everyone except Kate. After Donovan escorted the two investigators to the front door, he made a circuit of the building to check that all the doors were locked, then wearily returned to his office to get his coat and car keys. Kate was perched on the corner of his desk. The sight was energizing.

  "What are you doing here still?" he asked. "The place is so deserted that I presume more snow is predicted."

  "Sleet, actually. Janie asked if people could leave a little early, so I said yes."

  "Generous of you."

  "Hey, I can't help it if she thinks I have authority even though I'm just a humble trainee."

  "You have the natural authority that comes from being a WASP princess. Or at least, a semi-WASP princess."

  "I thought the investigators would never leave. What took so long?"

  "They're leaning toward the implosion junkie theory, with Sam's death an accident. But it's possible that whoever messed with the explosives was crazy enough to actually be trying to kill someone." He hesitated, then decided to tell her the rest. "They asked if I could identify some scraps of smashed electronics they found in the rubble of the building. It wasn't a piece of PDI equipment. I couldn't be sure, but it might have been the remains of a radio controlled detonation device."

  Kate gasped. "You mean that someone planted a remote and set it off from a safe distance?"

  "It's possible. If their lab decides that's what happened, this will turn into a murder investigation."

  "It wasn't murder, Donovan. I had lunch with Julia, and she told me that Sam had pancreatic cancer and only a couple of months to live."

  "Cancer?" His shock was quickly replaced by relief. "You know, I'm not really surprised. Sam had been looking pretty tired, and he'd lost some weight. He let the office work slide, too, and that wasn't like him. I thought he was just overworked and upset that Nick had left, and that he'd get over it soon. Maybe it's a blessing that an implosion junkie chose that time to go nuts."

  Kate's expression tightened. "Julia believes Sam set that blast off himself."

  "Sam didn't kill himself," Donovan said flatly.

  "No? I should think it's pretty clear that he decided to go out with one dramatic, larger-than-life gesture. Just his style. No one but him was hurt, and he made headlines in a grand farewell."

  "You and Julia are Protestants, so you weren't raised with the Catholic doctrine that suicide is a mortal sin. A ticket straight to hell. As a devout Catholic, Sam wouldn't have killed himself. I'm sure of it."

  "Are you saying no Catholic would hasten the end if he was dying miserably?" Kate asked.

  "Maybe when the end is near and the pain unbearable," he admitted. "But Sam wasn't that far gone, not by a long shot. Hell,
Sam was a fighter. He wouldn't throw in the towel when he had weeks, maybe months, of life ahead of him. If the doctors told him everyone with pancreatic cancer died in three months, he'd have been convinced that he'd be the first known exception."

  "I hear what you're saying, but imminent death might change things. It's hard to know what another person will do in extreme circumstances."

  "True, but his death was too sudden. He would have wanted to see you one last time, even if he didn't tell you why. Plus, just before the accident he said that maybe he should call Tom. I'm sure he would have tried for a reconciliation before he died."

  "You think so?"

  "Positive. I told Tom that in San Francisco. Knowing he was terminally ill, Sam must have decided it was time to put his stubborn pride aside."

  "I hope you're right. But I'm still not convinced that Sam didn't blow up that building himself."

  "Then I'll give you a good reason that doesn't call for speculating what was in Sam's mind that night. He would never have done anything to hurt the business. He was proud of the fact that PDI had never caused a fatality. He wouldn't ruin that record by killing himself on a job. He'd have made a mistake blowing up a stump on his own time, or something like that. He sure wouldn't have used a detonator in the Jefferson Arms.

  "That makes sense," Kate said, expression troubled. "But Sam's illness raises a different possibility. Maybe it wasn't an implosion junkie that blew the Jefferson Arms prematurely. Could someone close to him have learned about his illness, and decided to give Sam a mercifully quick death so he wouldn't have to commit the sin of suicide?"

  "Jesus." Donovan thought about it, then shook his head. "I really doubt that. Even if someone at PDI knew he was ill, no one here would have the arrogance to play God with Sam's life. I certainly didn't. I hope you believe that."