Fire and Rain

by Diane Chamberlain

  “The roof, yes. I know.” He leaned back with a sigh, eying her skeptically, and she lowered her eyes. He saw through her. He saw her own doubts. When he spoke again, his voice was soft, and she tried to ignore the patronizing tone. “So, go ahead,” he said, “tell me your ideas for Sunrise.”

  She cleared her throat and looked directly at him in an attempt to salvage some of her trumped-up bravado. “I would start off with a show no one would miss. I’d put on the people I’ve been interviewing about Jeff Cabrio. People from his past. People who know all the secrets he’s so intent on keeping to himself.”

  Dennis’s chair squeaked as he shifted his weight. He didn’t look disinterested. “Go on.”

  “Dennis, Cabrio is hiding something. I still don’t know what it is, but I’m not going to stop until I’ve uncovered it.” She was surprised by how strong her voice sounded, as though she had no qualms whatsoever about continuing her intrusion into Jeff’s personal life. This drive to reveal him at all costs sickened her, but if there was another tune she could sing, she didn’t know it. The only certainty in her life right now was that she couldn’t rebuild her career on the slim pickings of North County Report. Once Jeff’s story had been milked dry, once the fires were out, she’d be reduced to covering Little League games and the avocado harvest.

  “You still have tenacity, Carmen, I’ll say that much for you.” Dennis stood up. “Listen. Sunrise is not up for grabs at the moment, but I will definitely think about something bigger for you with News Nine. That’s all I can promise right now, all right? You keep up the good work. You show me your mettle, Carmen. I won’t let it go unrewarded.”

  41

  ONCE AGAIN, CARMEN WAS on a flight to the East Coast, this time to Philadelphia. Dennis Ketchum didn’t balk over giving her a couple of days off. This would be her big interview, she’d told him. This one had to be done in person.

  She changed to a smaller plane in Philadelphia and arrived in Trenton at three. After checking into a hotel, she immediately took a cab to the New Jersey State Prison, a chill-inducing collection of aging brick buildings and barbed wire.

  It took her forty-five minutes to get through the red tape in the main office even though they were expecting her, and finally she was directed to a small brick building at the end of a long walkway.

  There was surprisingly little security in the small building. She was told she could meet with Mr. Watts in the lounge, and she sat down on one of the blue vinyl sofas to wait for him. A few women walked past the open door, all of them in nurses’ uniforms, and she realized this particular building must be the infirmary or whatever it was called in a place like this.

  After a short while, a nurse appeared in the doorway with a man at her side. Carmen stood up. Jefferson Watts wasn’t at all what she’d expected. The image of the strong, robust black man she’d held in her mind all these weeks suddenly faded. Jefferson Watts was old. Old, and very ill. At his side was an oxygen tank on wheels.

  “I’m all right.” He spoke to the nurse in a low, raspy voice. The woman nodded at Carmen and walked off down the hall.

  Carmen approached him, reaching out to shake his hand.

  “Mr. Watts?” she said. His hand was dry and cool, and there was no strength at all in his handshake.

  “That’s me.” He gave a single nod of his graying head. “Take a seat, miss. Don’t need to stand for a old man.” He was dressed in a blue shirt and blue pants, and he walked into the room slowly, pushing the oxygen tank in front of him. A tube ran from the tank to his nose. He wheezed slightly as he sat down on a green vinyl chair. Carmen took her seat once again on the sofa.

  Jefferson Watts pointed to the oxygen. “Emphysema,” he said.

  Carmen hadn’t expected the rush of sympathy she felt. The old man’s silver hair was cut close to his scalp, and he sported a neatly trimmed gray beard. He must have been very handsome at one time. There was still dignity in his presence.

  “So,” he said, “you with the police?”

  “No, I’m not.” She pulled her identification card from her purse and walked over to his chair to show it to him.

  He took the card from her and studied it for a moment before handing it back to her with a nod.

  “I work for a television station out West,” she said. “One of your son Rob’s inventions has been very valuable to a town there, so I’m talking to people who know him in order to put together a news story on him.”

  She looked questioningly at the old man. There was suspicion in his eyes. He wasn’t stupid, not so old and senile that he could be easily taken in.

  “Yes,” he said, “Rob was always inventing somethin’, and just about everything he made worked—or if it didn’t he stuck with it till it did. So I believe you when you say he’s come up with something valuable.” He cocked his head to one side. “But I don’t believe he sent you here to talk to me.”

  “No, he didn’t,” Carmen admitted. “I’ve come on my own.”

  He sighed, a sound like the creaking of an old door. “I never knew if I was hearing the truth or not from Robbie since I been here,” he said, “and that’s a hell of a long time. I don’t mean he’d lie wanting to deceive me, only that he’d want to keep me from worrying, you understand?” He rubbed his bearded chin with one shaky, gnarled hand. “He moved, and I don’t know where to get hold of him—if you know, don’t tell me, though,” he added hurriedly. “He obviously has some reason for wantin’ it that way. Just tell me, does he need help? There somethin’ I can do?”

  She studied this sick, dapper old man, and felt like crying. When she spoke, her voice was thick. “I’m not sure he needs help, but even if he did, I doubt there’s anything you could do from here.”

  “But is his health good? His family—they all right?”

  Carmen hesitated. She simply didn’t know what she could tell him, how much she could tell him, without causing him distress. “I’m sorry, I don’t know them,” she said. “I come from a small town in southern California, and Rob is there alone.”

  “California! Good for him. But Leslie’s not with him?”

  “No.”

  Jefferson shook his head slowly, letting out a wheezing sigh. “Like I thought, somethin’s wrong. I haven’t heard from him since before Christmas. That got me worried. Him and his wife always come up here on Christmas and bring the little girls with them. The cutest things. I still haven’t seen the baby, not in person anyhow. I got a picture, though.”

  He stood up slowly and fumbled in the pocket of his blue pants. He pulled out a small, laminated photograph, and his hand shook so hard as he gave the picture to Carmen that she was tempted to take his hand in hers to still the tremor, to warm his cool fingers.

  The photograph was a studio portrait of a man, a woman, and three children. She wasn’t certain she would have recognized Jeff. His hair was dark blond, his face fuller. He wore a smile she had never seen before. Unguarded. Unworried. Trusting of the world. Leslie Blackwell’s eyes were blue and enormous, almost round, bubbling with laughter and energy. The girls sat one on each of Jeff’s knees, and they had their mother’s eyes. The baby nestling in Leslie’s arms was bald and sleepy-eyed and looked barely old enough to have come home from the hospital.

  “They named him after me, you know,” Jefferson pointed one finger in the direction of the photograph.

  “No,” she said, “I didn’t know that. It’s a very beautiful family.” She handed the picture back to him, and he sat down again.

  “They come at Christmas and bring me one of them dried fruit trays. You know the kind?”

  “I think so.”

  “With the dates and apricots and such? I could go for one of them dates right now.” He shifted a little in his chair, wincing. “Well, anyhow, I got a letter from Rob way back in November and he said he couldn’t visit for a while. He didn’t say why, but I know Robbie, and I know he’s got some good reason. Still, I’m old and not in the best shape I ever been.” He chuckled, and the sou
nd turned into a cough. When he’d recovered, he added, “I don’t like to think about not gettin’ to see him before I checkout.”

  “I hope you get to see him again very soon.” Carmen’s eyes stung and she quickly shifted her attention to the oxygen tank, studying the long tubes connected to the apparatus on the metal top. When she was certain she was past the danger of crying, she looked at him again. “So,” she said, “you haven’t heard from him at all since November?”

  “Well, I think I actually did. I’m ninety-nine percent sure it was him, because it come on my birthday a coupla weeks ago.”

  “What did?”

  “The tape. One of those little cassette things, you know?”

  “What was on it?”

  Jefferson Watts laughed. “Howling.”

  “What?”

  “Animals howling. There was a note with it, but it was done on a typewriter, so I couldn’t tell by the handwriting if it was Robbie or not. It said, ‘Listen, and think of freedom.’”

  Carmen frowned, perplexed. “Just howling? He doesn’t say anything on the tape?”

  “No, and I listened the whole way through to the end, though most of it was dead air. I was hoping to hear some of his voice.” He looked down at the oxygen tank, ran a trembling finger over the top of it. “Haven’t heard his voice in a while.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Watts.” She wanted to complain to someone about the injustice of this man’s continued incarceration. She wanted to pack him up and take him with her, take him back to Jeff.

  “It’s dogs. Or wolves, I guess,” he said.

  “Coyotes, probably. There are coyotes near where he’s living.”

  “Ah! So he’s out in the wilderness. That’s probably why he couldn’t take the little ones with him. Too dangerous, right?”

  She forced a smile. “That’s probably it.”

  “And the job he’s doing is one of them hush-hush ones, I suppose.” Jefferson nodded. He seemed pleased to have developed a theory for his son’s silence and separation from his family. Suddenly, though, his eyes clouded over. “Kent ain’t working with him, is he?”

  “No. I don’t think they’ve worked together for a couple of years.”

  The old man shook his head. “That’s good. Kent and Robbie did a bunch of inventions together, but they didn’t always see eye to eye on things. Kent used to give him no end of grief when Robbie wanted to spend time with his family instead of working. Robbie has more sense than Kent when it comes to knowing when to work and when to play. I think I taught him that.”

  Carmen smiled at the pride in his voice. “Tell me what it was like being his father.”

  The vinyl chair creaked as Jefferson leaned back into it. A pensive look came over his features, and he tilted his head to one side. “It was a joy, for the most part,” he said. “Robbie was a good boy, but he had it rough coming up. I met Beth when she was just twenty-two and Robbie was seven. I was considerably older. Know where I met her?”

  Carmen shook her head.

  “Robbie don’t know this, and I’d appreciate it if you don’t tell him.” He lifted a questioning eyebrow.

  “I won’t.”

  “Well, she was huntin’ through the garbage back of a A & P, looking for food. I was parked a ways away, waiting for a connection—I was into the drug trade in those days—and she didn’t know I was there. She was a beautiful girl, and my heart broke, watching her. My connection come, we did the deal and then I went up to her and gave her the profit I just made. She started to cry and told me she and her boy had no place to stay that night. She got kicked out of her boyfriend’s, and she had a bruise on her leg to prove it. I took her home with me, and that’s where she stayed.”

  He stared off into space for a moment and then suddenly started to cough. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath, and Carmen jumped to her feet. She knelt next to him, her hand on his arm.

  “Are you all right?” she asked. “Shall I call the nurse?”

  He managed to shake his head, and in another moment the coughing stopped. His eyes were watering, though, and she handed him a tissue from her purse, her own hands shaking.

  “Would you like to stop talking for awhile?” she asked.

  “No, missy, this happens all the time. Listen, though. You don’t tell Robbie how bad off I am, understand? Ain’t no need to worry him.” He cleared his throat once again. “Now you sit back down, and I’ll go on.”

  She took her seat.

  “My apartment was more than they were used to,” he continued. “It was clean, for starters. Nice furniture. I gave them each a bedroom. Don’t get me wrong, now”—again, he lifted a grizzled brow in Carmen’s direction—”I wanted the girl, and she expected to have to sleep with me as payment. But I wanted her to sleep with me ‘cause that’s what she wanted. And after a while, that’s what happened.”

  His expression changed, and a faraway look came into his eyes, as though he was remembering their lovemaking. Nothing lecherous—just a tenderness in his smile. He had truly loved Beth Cabrio.

  He brought his attention back to the present. “The boy was so smart he scared me—I had a seven-year-old in my house who was ten times smarter’n me, and that can shake you up a bit.” He laughed, and Carmen steeled herself for a fresh bout of coughing, which didn’t occur. “He was doing shit work in school, though. We changed him over to the school in my neighborhood, and he started doing better right away. He had a glow on him when he come home in the afternoon.”

  Carmen was quiet as Jefferson appeared to lose himself in thought once again. When he next spoke, it was in a quiet, confidential tone.

  “I never did drugs myself,” he said. “I didn’t even drink, and if I did, I woulda stopped ‘cause of the boy. A few months after they moved in, I stopped dealing too, even though I sure coulda used the money with a family to support. I started working on people’s cars, instead. I wanted Robbie to see me make a honest living.” He grunted softly, waving a hand to take in the small, ugly room and what lay beyond. “But my past caught up with me. A coupla innocent people died ‘cause of me, and so here I am.”

  Carmen swallowed. “I think Rob appreciated all you did for him,” she said. “It seems as though the two of you were very close.”

  The old man smiled and looked toward the small window at the far end of the room. “The first time he called me ‘Dad,’ I felt like some sorta hero, you know what I mean? He did it sorta shy-like to see how I’d take it, and when I acted like I expected it, he got this big smile on his face. I’d had other kids, a few of ‘em scattered around, but none of ‘em ever meant as much to me as Robbie. None ever needed me the way that boy did.”

  Jefferson Watts licked his papery lips. He no longer seemed aware of Carmen’s presence. He leaned back in his chair and took a few labored breaths before speaking one more time.

  “Robbie was the one thing I did right in my life.”

  42

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, CARMEN stopped in a gourmet shop near her hotel and had them put together a tray of dried fruit, heavy on the dates and apricots. She wrote a note thanking Jefferson Watts for talking with her and arranged to have it and the fruit delivered to the prison.

  She’d had a dream about the old man the night before. She’d dreamt that she and Chris had somehow freed him, not in any wild escape, but through legal channels, which seemed so plausible in her sleep that she was overwhelmed with disappointment when she woke up to realize they were only the optimistic work of her dreams.

  On the plane from Philadelphia to San Diego, she sat next to an elderly San Diego woman who recognized her and who spent five hours telling her how pleased she was to see her back on the air and “prettier than ever.” Perhaps, she thought with some amusement, Terrell Gates was right. Perhaps she was the darling of the geriatric set. The intrusion, at first flattering, quickly became an annoyance. She wanted time to think. How would she present her new information about Jeff on the news tonight? She had dug too deeply this time. Now
that Jeff had made good on his promise to deliver rain, unearthing his secrets felt like even more of a betrayal. Whatever he was hiding no longer seemed important. Yet she knew she would have to dig even deeper.

  It was late afternoon and the skies were clear when she arrived at the airport in San Diego. She retrieved her car from the long-term parking lot and drove toward Mira Mesa and the News Ninestudio. In the distance, the dark rain clouds hung over Valle Rosa.

  “I want it talky,” she told Dennis before her broadcast that evening. “Folksy.” So, they put her in the armchair, with the backdrop of one of Valle Rosa’s avocado groves on the wall behind her.

  There was an undercurrent of positive energy in the station. She’d felt it the moment she walked in that afternoon. They were whispering about her. Something was in the wind, something good, but no one looked her directly in the eye. No one was about to tell her what they had in store for her. She could wait though. She could be patient.

  Watching the stage manager for her cue, she moved her script to the floor beneath her chair. It wouldn’t be necessary tonight. She wouldn’t be using names, and she would avoid dates and places, anything that might make Jefferson Watts—and his son—identifiable.

  The red light flashed on the camera, and she looked into the lens. “I had the opportunity yesterday to meet with the man who raised Jeff Cabrio from the time he was seven years old until he was sixteen,” she began, “and I found him to be a man of dignity and intelligence. Jeff and his young mother were homeless and penniless at the time this man found them and took them in. He provided not only financial support but love and stability as well, despite the fact that he was heavily involved in illegal activities at the time. He put aside his life of crime to become a father to the boy who had never had a father, and under his parenting, Jeff began to excel in school. But his father’s past eventually caught up with him, and he was arrested on charges stemming from an incident years earlier. He is currently serving two back-to-back fifty-year prison sentences and is in failing health.”