Dead Poor

by M. K. Coker

  While Marek waited beside the Sub, Karen wound her way through the vehicles to talk to the fire marshal. The sounds of bawling cattle being herded into trailers at least meant they’d been saved.

  When Karen returned, she handed Marek a shovel.

  “Nadine?” he asked.

  “Nothing yet. Follow me. We’re going to start a new firebreak.” Karen led him away from the house, toward the fence line. The earth was not easy to turn, but Marek’s weight on the shovel helped make the initial cut, and Karen followed up. They made a decent pair of prairie dogs, leaving mounds of dirt in their wake. Marek only looked up when the building collapsed with a great whoosh. Beside him, Karen put her boot on the lip of the shovel.

  “I said I hoped the place would fall down around her ears,” Karen got out in a low, hoarse voice. “But not like this.”

  Marek turned his back as the wave of smoke and ash hit them, all that was left of his mother’s childhood home. Vaporized. He had no doubt what she would’ve said. Good riddance. “You didn’t say it to Nadine’s face. I did.” At least in so many words. He’d threatened to evict her from her last bolt-hole. With luck, she’d bolted instead.

  Karen pushed sweat-damped bangs away from her face. “Most likely she’s at The Shaft, getting drunk. Maybe she set the fire herself and left.” Karen attacked the stubborn soil again. He fell back to the rhythm.

  He didn’t know how long they worked before a cheer went up. The fire was officially out.

  Karen jiggled her shovel, looked at her blistered hands, then waited as Jordan Fike, their night dispatcher-jailer and a volunteer firefighter, approached on heavy feet.

  “We found the car out back and a body by the stove. Not much doubt it’s Nadine Early.”

  Marek’s last hope collapsed. She probably hadn’t moved since he’d left her to stew in her own juice.

  Jordan removed his helmet. “Preliminary from the fire marshal is that it looks accidental. Sparks from the open stove. She must’ve stoked it, had a good long toot, and passed out. Doubt she knew what hit her. If that helps.”

  Not much. And Marek had been through enough notifications that he recognized the soft landing—the victim didn’t feel it—meant to protect the loved ones from the specter of suffering. As Karen went with Jordan to get more details from the fire marshal, Marek heard shovel hit sod.

  “Well. Looks like a good night. A good fight.”

  Marek turned to find Pat Donahue leaning on a shovel, his grin almost feral. “Surprised to find me here? Don’t be. I have insomnia. Normally, I take something for it, but not since what happened at the park. I want to be able to respond if needed. I saw the plume from the park and figured I could help out. I do miss that.”

  “Fires?”

  “No, helping out, being part of the collective.” He gestured to the people piling into pickups, tractors, and fire trucks. “Everybody unites against fire.”

  Marek’s antenna went up. “Are you aware someone died?”

  His face fell. “Someone lived in that old house? I thought we were saving the farmer’s harvest, the cattle. You know how to ruin a man’s high, Detective. Anyone you know?”

  “Nadine Kubicek Bunting Early. A shirttail relative.”

  Donahue didn’t blink at the name, not even Bunting. “That sucks. Close?”

  Marek shook his head.

  “There’s that, at least.” With a long sigh, Donahue handed the shovel over to its owner. “Well, I’m still going to take the win and see if I can get some shuteye. All those years living, working, on an adrenaline high—it takes its toll.”

  As Donahue headed out, Karen returned. “Was that...?”

  “Yes, it was,” and Marek filled her in.

  Karen watched Donahue pull out in his fancy rig, getting a few puzzled stares but plenty of friendly waves. “A firefighter like him would know how to make it look accidental. Though what he’d have to do with Nadine Early, I have no idea.”

  Nor did he. Marek picked his way through the ruts that had been dug deeper by the trucks. Karen led him toward the remains: the cracked, blackened foundation, the potbelly stove, and the sheet-draped body that awaited a ride in Tish’s hearse.

  What made someone like Nadine turn out like she had? Did she have some fatal genetic flaw? She’d certainly had a better start in life than her female cousins, Janina Marek Okerlund and Nancy Kubicek Bridges. One became a respected teacher, the other a hardworking if low-earning waitress, but her? She’d used others to avoid making herself into anything—except a dead end.

  That didn’t, however, make him feel any better or help shake the feeling that he’d somehow caused her death.

  “Marek? We’re good to go. The fire marshal will let us know if anything changes.”

  He didn’t move. “After you left, I threatened to have Don Kubicek oust her from her last hope for a home.”

  She shrugged. “Knowing you, you paired that threat with an offer for rehab.” At his involuntary flinch, she smiled. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Nadine didn’t want your help, didn’t want to change her life. She just wanted. Now she’s dead, most likely through her own stupidity.” Karen tugged at his arm. “Let’s go home.”

  On the way, Marek was haunted by the sound of shattered glass raining down behind a closed door. Hard tears for a hard life.

  CHAPTER 18

  Once back at home, Marek couldn’t settle. Like Donahue had said, insomnia was a common hazard of first responders, but Marek didn’t think an adrenaline rush was keeping him awake. Usually, Becca kept him grounded in the present, but she was at Arne’s, and he wasn’t going to disturb her sleep a second time. So he sat in the rocker by the empty hearth and thought of Bunting, of Nadine, of his mother, and of Becca.

  The specter of Lenny Marek had haunted Marek’s mother all her life—and her fear had become Marek’s fear. That he might do something—or not do something—that might cause his daughter’s life to turn out badly. Bunting had been terribly abused by the adults in his life. No big surprise that he’d turned out as he had. Becca had also faced abuse, if for different reasons than Bunting had. Nothing that left a physical mark, thankfully, but would it leave some mental scar, causing her to be less than she could’ve been otherwise?

  What about his own brush with abuse? Memories of that night rose along with the winds that caused the sturdy bungalow to creak. That fateful night when his mother had tried to beat the Lenny Marek out of him. After Leif Okerlund had stopped her, by physically pulling her away, the silence had lasted forever.

  When she’d dropped the bloodied belt, the buckle rang like a death knell. Janina Marek Okerlund had collapsed with a keening sound he’d never heard before. His father had been torn over whom to help first. After a moment’s hesitation, he’d taken Janina downstairs then returned to clean up Marek. Then he’d taken him in his arms, even as big as Marek was at age ten, and rocked him by this very hearth, in this very chair, telling him the words that he’d tried to hold on to through all else.

  If you try hard, work hard, that’s good enough for me. You’ll find your place in this world, and it will be the better for it.

  When his mother had come up to his room later, he’d shied away from her touch. She’d taken that with stoic acceptance—that she’d damaged not only his flesh, but their relationship, forever. She’d sunk down in the desk chair by his bed and cradled her arms about herself instead of him. And it had all spilled out. The years of abuse, verbal and physical, that had undercut and underlain life in the old Kubicek homestead that was never a home. Nights of terror, days of vicious drudgery.

  I will never forgive myself for turning into my father, and I don’t expect you to do so. Just don’t make it turn you, either. I couldn’t bear that, that what I did, turned you into him.

  With patience and his father’s quiet encouragement, Marek had eventually forgiven his mother, because the scenes she’d painted for him that night... of going to bed not knowing if she’d even be alive the next morning...
had seared deeper than any physical scar. Her fear for her brother and mother had been even worse, she’d said. To the end of her life, she’d suffered from insomnia.

  When Marek had failed his mother’s expectations, his Uncle Jim Marek, a hardworking man who spoke only when spoken to, had put a hammer in Marek’s hands and guided him over the making of his first project: a bookcase for his mother. That had, Marek realized later, been the moment he’d truly forgiven her, when he’d seen his ever-stoic mother cry—in big, hiccupping gasps.

  If only she’d made one other choice: not to smoke. He’d had enough of smoke and fire to last a lifetime—it only led to death in his world.

  When Marek had left Valeska with what little he’d kept from their rental home—the house in Reunion had been let, and his mother’s cousin Blaise had agreed to take care of that—all he had was a thousand dollars. And he thought he was rich. He’d driven west then south, not knowing, not caring, really, where he would end up.

  In Albuquerque, he’d started out dry walling, switched to adobe, and eventually hooked up with Joseph De Baca to finish out his carpenter’s apprenticeship. It had never really occurred to Marek that life wouldn’t turn up something, roses or otherwise. Times had been easier. Jobs better paid. He still regretted not keeping in touch with Jim or Blaise. They’d been part of the past, along with his mother. With Blaise, he’d mended bridges, but Jim had died on an icy bridge before Marek returned.

  But his uncle had at least known, after hiring a private investigator, that Marek was okay, married and working as a homicide detective in Albuquerque. And Jim Marek had been part of that solid foundation. He could only hope that even if he failed Becca, Karen—and, yes, even Arne—would shore up his fractured attempts at laying one that would hold for her.

  Marek rubbed at his eyes, looked at his watch, and saw it wasn’t even two in the morning yet. He walked into the kitchen, looking for some tonic that would put him back to sleep. He paused as he caught a welcome sight out the back windows. A warm glow of lights spilled out from the old schoolhouse he was renovating in his spare time. Nikki was still up.

  A better tonic.

  Snagging his jacket from the peg by the door, he went outside. An inquiring woof and scrabble of nails reminded him that he was not, after all, alone. His daughter’s field-bred and field-failed spaniel, Gun Shy, snuffled up to him, pulling hard at the end of his tether. We’re going hunting, right, right? For rabbits.

  What was it with dogs? Marek rubbed the long, silky ears. “Sorry, Gunny. People time.”

  The dog shot him a look of sheer betrayal before slinking back into his luxurious doghouse.

  Was “home” to a dog the people, not the place? He’d guess cats were the opposite. Territorial. Take away their home, and they’d rake you to the bone. Maybe people were divided the same way. You either needed the place or the people. Cat or dog. Marek guessed he was dog, as he’d been led back to Reunion by his daughter’s wishes and her needs, not his own. She was home. So he was.

  Nikki Forsgren Solberg, on the other hand, was definitely a cat, with her witchy green eyes under a careless mop of hair. She liked her own space. If he was lucky, she might one day share a bit of it. After he knocked, the door was cracked open, no doubt to give Nikki time to slam it shut if she didn’t like what she saw. Then she flung it open.

  Her hand went to his arm in a fierce grip. “Becca?”

  Only then did he realize he probably looked like an escaped convict from a chain gang. “At Arne’s. She’s fine. We had a callout to a fire—and a death. Probably accidental, but... I just... if it’s a bad time...”

  “No, a good time.” Nikki pulled him inside, where his heart nearly stopped. A bunch of boxes were stacked on the partially renovated plank floor. Was she leaving?

  She patted his arm. “I just finished packaging up a big order that I got from a woman in Brookings who saw my table settings and wanted a whole spread.”

  Marek let out a breath. He knew she’d struggled to get any traction for her pottery, her artwork, in the Dakotas. California had been her natural home—until the economy crashed for those on the lower rungs and rents went through the roof. “Congrats.”

  Nikki gave him a wry smile. “Thanks. It’s like now that I’ve got a full-time job, benefits, my pots are starting to take off. Figures.” She tugged on his arm. “Tell me what’s got you looking sucker punched.”

  She sat down on her potter’s stool, and quietly prodding, she got it out of him, each halting word by halting word.

  While she didn’t shrug like Karen had, she did look resigned. “The Nadine Earlys can’t be helped, Marek. Nothing you can say, or said, makes any difference to the outcome. I met many of them on the streets when I did my chalk art, my portraits, for the tourists. Oh, some few will help themselves, eventually, but most? They’re just too far gone. Mental issues, addiction, what have you. You put out a hand, they’ll bite you.”

  Dogs again. “Were you ever that poor? Homeless, I mean?”

  “No...” Nikki tilted her head. “Well, technically, yes, I guess. I lived in my car on and off over the years, when I needed to or wanted to, or both, but that was by choice. As long as I had somewhere to sleep that I felt safe, I was good. Growing up, I never felt I had a home.” She looked around the single-room schoolhouse that had come close to collapsing around her before he’d started working on it. “Except here. Here on the bluff, alone, where Grandpa Stan made sure I wasn’t disturbed.” She flashed him a smile. “By an overgrown puppy of a boy with humongous feet that he kept tripping over.”

  Marek was four years her junior. And Stan Forsgren, despite being a relative, had been clear on the territorial lines: the bluff was fair game, but the schoolhouse was Nikki’s. And Marek had never intruded. Not that he’d ever felt a desire to enter any schoolhouse.

  Until she’d returned. The long-haired girl, a silent ghost on the bluff of his childhood, had been replaced by a confident, alluring witch who’d stolen his heart—but nothing more. They’d kissed, they’d teased, and he’d even offered to marry her to save her teaching job. She’d turned him down flat. Because she was a cat. Her place. His place. And never the twain to meet.

  Nikki sank down on the futon she’d loaded with blankets. “Your mother was home. To me. Her books, her love of art, her support. Right at the age I needed her. When all the little siblings started to show their true Forsgren colors and mine went wonky, she was there for me. Even after I left, after she died, she was there in my head. Quoting. Always quoting. Emily Dickinson once wrote, when her mother’s deteriorating health required all of her time, that ‘Home is so far from Home.’ That’s what it felt like, growing up as a Forsgren. That’s why I took a new name, one for my own, when I left at eighteen.”

  Nikki was his first cousin, but she’d been adopted, her parents having been told they’d never conceive their own. Though he felt for that girl who’d been displaced, never supported for her artsy ways, he was glad she’d been adopted. “So you’re a dog.”

  Her hand that had been smoothing a plump pillow rose as a fist. “Say again?”

  Hurriedly, he explained his theory. Cats. Dogs.

  “Oh. That’s a weird way to look at it.” She drew up her legs and began untying her shoelaces. “I’d say I’m a cat, always landing on my feet, independent... perhaps to a fault. But people do matter to me. Some, anyway. You. Becca. My students. I have a special one. In middle school right now. He’s not Becca’s equal in sheer artistic talent, but he’s a wizard with computer graphics. Not my thing, but I’ve encouraged him, and he’s really blossomed. But I’m afraid he really is homeless. I recognize the signs. And I fear one day, he just won’t be there, and I’ll never know what happened to him.”

  They shared a long, silent moment. Both of them had disappeared. Few had known what had happened to them, only those like his Uncle Jim or, in her case, her Grandpa Stan, who’d made a point of finding out.

  Kicking off her shoes, Nikki held out a hand. Sh
e smiled her witchy smile. “We’ve danced long enough, Marek.”

  His heart started to pound as he let her draw him down.

  “As long as you continue to fix my roof,” she told him, “it can rain cats and dogs.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Karen hated one thing more than notifications and evictions.

  The final eviction—or evisceration—of the dead. An autopsy.

  The tarp-wrapped body of Robert Leonard Bunting lay under a stained white sheet on a stainless-steel table that she wasn’t entirely sure was up to the job. She wasn’t entirely sure she was up to the job this morning. Maybe she could sleep through it all and Marek could fill her in later. Of the two of them, he not only seemed awake, but he also had a gleam in his eye that told her he’d likely not spent the rest of the night alone. Or, strictly, asleep. Lucky bastard.

  “Late night?” Dr. White asked her as he came in, catching her mid-yawn.

  Karen caught the yawn and stuffed it back. She’d gotten little sleep. “Had a fire in the wee hours. And before that, I had to tag team my night-shift deputy at midnight.”

  Her memory of that encounter was typical of many with her theatrical deputy. Adam Van Eck had entered the Sheriff’s Office wearing a long black cape lined with fur, with his shoulder-length hair unbound—and glinting silver instead of its usual blond—along with a trim beard of the same hue.

  She hated Shakespeare season. King Lear, she thought. Maybe. One of those old mad kings of England. But she didn’t care if he was the King of Siam—she was going to have his head. “What the hell is going on at Grove Park, and why haven’t you reported it?”

  He stuck a finger in his ear and twirled it. “‘Nothing will come of nothing: speak again.’” It always took him a while to come down off a theatrical high.

  Through gritted teeth, she got out, “Homeless. In. Grove. Park.”

  He pursed his lips, stroked his beard, and nodded. “Nothing to report. I found some people living in their cars and in tents down by the creek. But I can’t arrest people who claim they paid the camping fee in the dropbox. I told Biester to get me proof, and I’d do something about it. I suggested he put up some trail monitors. I couldn’t justify staking out a park. Was I wrong?”