by Laura Alden
When she paused to roll her eyes, Yvonne said, “Beth’s right. Sara needed to quit. She’s been working too hard.”
Lois glared at Yvonne, then at me; then the huff went out of her in a rush. She sighed. “So that means what? That I haven’t noticed what everyone else around here has?”
“You said it, not me.” I smiled at her. “And I told Sara to come back to work at Christmas, when the semester is over.”
“Do you think she will?” Lois asked.
I thought about it, then sighed. “Not really.”
Yvonne rubbed her arms, as if she were cold. “She’ll come back to visit.”
“Well.” Lois sagged back against the counter. “So much for my theory.”
“Which one was that?” I asked.
“That she’s been upset because she was Dennis Halpern’s illegitimate daughter.”
“Oh, please.”
“Hey, why not? There’s good—”
The back door closed and a young man walked in. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Kennedy, Mrs. Nielson, Miss Ganassi.” He stood a respectful distance away and smiled at us, his white teeth brilliant against his brown skin, black hair, and dark eyes.
Lois eyed him. “What are you doing here? I thought you were doing some sort of writing semester thing and couldn’t be bothered to come back here to work until the end of the month.”
“Yes, that is correct.” Paoze made a nod that gave the impression of a bow. He’d been born in Laos and his family had immigrated to Wisconsin too late for him to learn English without hard work. Maybe because of this, he’d evolved into a literature major at the university and was sketching an outline for a novel based on his family’s struggles. Recently, I’d found out that those struggles began about six hundred years ago. It was going to be a long book.
Lois put her hand to her forehead. “I always thought correct meant being, you know, right. Accurate. But now I’m wondering . . .”
I exchanged glances with Yvonne. Though Paoze’s English grammar was better than most native-born Americans, there were language quirks that escaped him. And, in spite of working with Lois for almost four years, he remained slightly gullible. Lois lived to exploit this crack in his armor. Once, just once, he’d turned the tables on her, and it was clear that the episode still rankled.
“You need wonder no longer,” Paoze said. “Mrs. Kennedy called me to say that Sara is unable to continue here. I am willing to help in any way I can until a replacement can be found.”
Lois’s hand came down with a snap. “Exactly. It is your job to find a new Sara.”
I stirred. “Now, Lois—”
“Come, come,” she said heartily, winking at me with the eye Paoze couldn’t see. “You know it’s the responsibility of the newest hire to find a new employee. Okay, technically Yvonne is the newest hire, but she’s only lived in this state a year, so the responsibility transfers to you.” She pointed at Paoze. “You’ve heard of the low man on the totem pole, right?”
“I have heard of totem poles.” He eyed her warily.
“Actually,” I said, “the lowest figure on the totem pole is—”
Lois ran over what was going to be a statement of fact. “Low man on the totem pole means everyone else is above you. You lack any real status, see, so you’re the one who gets stuck making the new totem pole. Employee totem poles are a tradition in this part of Wisconsin. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed them.”
“An employee totem pole.” His eyelashes came so close together that the brown irises couldn’t be seen.
“Well, duh.” Lois tossed her hair back in a middle-school move that didn’t quite work for her. “How are we going to find a new Sara without a totem pole? Tell you what. Start with a small carving. Leave the very bottom blank and—”
Paoze turned to me. “You said Sara was working on the early readers. Shall I continue?”
“Hey,” Lois said.
He gave her a blinding smile. “I do not believe in employee totem poles. Better luck next time, Mrs. Nielson.”
Yvonne giggled. “He’s onto you, Lois. Bet you never get him again.”
“I’ll get him,” she said firmly. “Sooner or later, I’ll get him. Count on it.”
I wasn’t so sure, but decided not to say so. No point in fanning the flames of her one-upmanship desires. Besides, I had something else I wanted to discuss with her, something serious, and I didn’t want her distracted with planning her next attack.
“Yvonne?” I asked. “I know we have a troop of Girl Scouts coming in soon”—which was why I’d called Paoze in a mild panic and begged him to come in; thank heavens he’d been able to borrow a roommate’s car instead of having to ride his bicycle—“but do you mind if Lois and I step out a minute?”
• • •
Knowing that the upcoming Girl Scout visit would be action-packed and loud, we chose to sit outside. I eschewed the sidewalk benches in favor of the quiet and sunny courtyard next to the town’s new restaurant, Ian’s Place. After years of scrimping and saving and begging for investors, Ian Byars, former cook at the Green Tractor, had finally raised enough money to open the bistro of his dreams.
Full of exposed brick, hardwood floors, frosted glass dividers, and pendant light fixtures that dangled from a high ceiling, the styling wouldn’t have looked out of place in downtown Madison or even Chicago. How it would go over in little Rynwood remained to be seen. But Ian had Ruthie’s full support—“I wish the kid luck. He’s a great chef, and it’s not like he’s going to be competing with my cinnamon rolls and pea soup”—and though the food was expensive, area food critics were swooning over his Boursin-topped salmon, mushroom-stuffed chicken roulade, and his mustard spaetzle. I wasn’t exactly sure what roulade was, and I kept forgetting to look it up, but if Ian was making it, it was bound to be good.
I went inside to buy two iced teas and came out to find Lois slouched into a wire chair and looking at the world with a sour expression.
“This sucks.”
I looked around us. At the blue sky. At the tubs of small trees that twinkled with white lights in the evenings and would bloom white flowers in the spring. At the restaurant wall painted with a mural depicting farmers and artisan food-making. At the brushed-metal tables and chairs. At the tiny vases on each table crowded with local flowers. “Doesn’t seem so bad to me,” I said.
“You know what I mean.”
And, of course, I did. “She would have left in the spring, anyway.”
“Maybe not.” Lois pushed her tea around the table, leaving a wide track of condensation. Though fall was almost upon us, today the temperature was in the seventies and the humidity was high. “Maybe she would have changed her mind about medical school and come to work at the store full-time.”
“That is one of your worst maybes ever.”
She sighed. “Yeah. I just don’t want her gone.”
“Me, either.”
We sat a moment, wishing that things could be different, wishing that things could stay the same for a little longer, please. Not forever, that would be asking too much and would probably be boring anyway, but just a little longer, pretty please?
I picked up my tea. “Paoze is going to post flyers at the university, and I’ll put an ad in the paper. Do you know anyone who’s looking?”
“Not anyone I’d want to hire.”
I slid her a glance but didn’t say anything. Lois’s extended family was large and varied and their exploits were just as likely to include overnight stays as guests of local law enforcement as vacations to Door County.
“We’ll find someone,” I said.
Lois grunted noncommittally.
“So.” I put down my tea with a slight thump. “How serious were you about Sara being Dennis Halpern’s illegitimate daughter?”
“Hey, it could have happened that way. Sara’s smart with math and chemistry and all that stuff that doesn’t make sense to normal people. Dennis was smart with math and financial stuff, and most of that stuff d
oesn’t make sense, either. Like father, like daughter, right?”
I studied her, but she looked perfectly serious. “Do you have any real basis for thinking this? Or are you just pulling a theory out of thin air, much like someone else we know?” Honestly, sometimes I wondered if Lois and Marina were twins, with Marina being cryogenically frozen for thirteen years until their parents were ready for another daughter.
“Mostly out of the air. Like this.” She reached out and plucked a dust mote that had been wafting slowly over the table.
I shouldn’t have been disappointed that Dennis hadn’t been running around fathering children out of wedlock, but I was, just a little. “So Dennis didn’t have a long-running reputation for . . . for . . . ?”
“For being a horn dog?” She laughed at my wince. “I didn’t know him hardly at all, but one of his sisters ended up moving back to Rynwood and living down the street from me. Long time ago.” She shook her head at the questions that were starting to tumble out of me. “She and her husband left for South Carolina years back, so everything I know is out of date. But.”
She pursed her lips. “But I remember her saying that her little brother was quite the Romeo. That he always had a girlfriend hanging on him. Sometimes more than one.” She shrugged. “Does that mean he did the same thing when he was older? Your guess is as good as mine. Better, probably. You’re good at noticing things.”
I nodded vaguely. Maybe Marina’s notion of Dennis having a mistress wasn’t as over the top as I’d thought. Still unlikely, but maybe not completely out of the realm of possibility. But . . . Summer? No. It couldn’t be.
“Do you smell something?” Lois sniffed, looking around. “It almost smells like—”
The earsplitting noise of an air horn made us jump. A second blast was followed by a siren’s up-and-down wail. A fire truck rushed past. On its heels was a fire engine, an EMT vehicle close behind.
We sat, tense, waiting for the sirens to wail off into the distance, waiting for the anxious sound to be gone, waiting for the afternoon calm to return.
But that didn’t happen.
What happened was the sirens stopped midshriek. They couldn’t be more than a block away.
Lois and I shared a quick, wild glance. Our mutual thought was so big and dreadful that it could almost be seen, writhing in the air between us.
The store!
We leapt to our feet and bolted from the table.
• • •
My fear for the store paled away to a wisp in comparison to my fear for Yvonne and Paoze. We pushed tables aside and tumbled chairs over in our race toward the sidewalk. If anything happened to either one of them, I’d never forgive myself. How could I have gone off with Lois when my employees were in danger? How could I have left them alone while I went gallivanting off to do more poking around into a death that the county sheriff’s office was far more qualified to investigate?
We hit the sidewalk. The mass of fire trucks and revolving lights and emergency personnel was a block ahead. With Lois panting at my side, I ran hard as I could toward a sight I’d never imagined seeing in downtown Rynwood.
A fire chief with a bullhorn cracking out orders.
Firefighters pulling out hoses.
The metallic rattle of equipment.
The awful, acrid stench of fire.
Adrenaline kicked me along fast, and I started to pull ahead of Lois. Time slowed. Everything I saw was a brighter color than I’d ever seen. Everything I heard was crisp. Everything was sharper and more vivid than life.
And it was all terribly, horribly, frightening.
Business owners and staff were coming to their doorways and spilling out onto the sidewalk. Alice and Alan were in front of their antique mall, Alan holding a broom, Alice with her baking apron gathered up in her hands and pressed against her mouth.
Denise and her current crop of stylists stood at the window of the hair salon, scissors and combs in hand. Three women, plastic cutting capes tight around their necks, crowded next to them.
All had their eyes trained on the sight up the road; all had wide eyes and slack mouths.
Evan stood tall and straight in front of his hardware store. A curly lock of graying blond hair dipped down over his forehead, making me think to tell him he needed a haircut, but no, that wasn’t any of my business, not anymore.
His head turned, and I saw the jolt of recognition when he saw me. “Beth, don’t—” But whatever he’d wanted to say was lost in the blare of another fire truck and the pounding of my shoes on the sidewalk’s dark red bricks.
Ruthie, order pad in hand, was side by side with her latest cook, a young woman with effervescent energy. Their worried faces made my feet move even faster. Ruthie didn’t worry about much, and when she did, it was worth worrying about.
On and on I ran, every step an eternity, every step taking me closer to what I was dreading. What was I going to say to Paoze’s parents if he’d been hurt? How was I going to tell Yvonne’s family? She was from California, how would I even find them?
I ran, pain stabbing a sword in my side, searing my lungs. But I had to know. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t slow down. I had to find out.
On past Flossie, her arms wrapped tight around her body. Patrick had his arm around his great-aunt’s shoulders, but it didn’t seem as if she was finding much comfort.
But that didn’t make sense. Flossie was the strongest person I knew. She would live forever. What I’d seen must have been a trick of the light. Yes. No need to worry.
On I went past Glenn Kettunen, hands in his pockets. He looked strange without a smile on his face. His staff grouped around him, small satellites to planet Kettunen. The tops of Melody Kreutzer’s and Nicole Reilly’s heads came up almost to his shoulder, and though the newest agent wasn’t short by any means, he looked small standing next to Glenn. They stood, watching, spectators at the worst show in town.
I saw them ranged across the front of Glenn’s building, I saw the fading flowers in their window boxes. I heard their murmuring comments. So many things I was seeing and hearing and so many of them I didn’t want to see or hear or feel at all.
The raw fear for Paoze and Yvonne.
How could this have happened?
The shouts of the firefighters.
Why hadn’t I been there to help?
The sound of spraying water and the sight of gawkers and spectators being held back to safety by police.
Please . . .
All my fears and hopes and prayers concentrated into one short word, repeated over and over again. Please . . . please . . . please . . .
And then I was there.
I slowed. Stopped. Gaped at the flames shooting to the sky. Blinked away the smoke. Coughed some out of my lungs.
Yvonne looked around. “There you are. We were about to send a search party after you two.”
“Paoze . . . ?” I tried to finish the sentence, but couldn’t find the breath.
“He’s over there.” Yvonne nodded at a cluster containing the waitstaff from the Grill, then, frowning, peered at me closely. “Are you all right?”
Lois arrived, panting. “Whoo-ee. I haven’t run that fast since the day I was running after my youngest for eating the last piece of chocolate cake. I take it everyone’s okay?”
“Well, yes, of course we are, why—” Her lips formed a small O. “You weren’t here. You thought it was the store that was on fire. Oh, you poor things.” She gathered us into an unusual hug. Yvonne wasn’t given to displays of affection, public or otherwise. She smothered us with a hard squeeze, then let us go. “Paoze smelled it first. He went outside and looked around. When he figured out where the fire was, we called 911.”
“You did the right thing,” I said distractedly.
“Before we left, I made sure the store was locked,” she said. “Should I go back and open up?”
But I didn’t answer. Couldn’t really. Because anything I might have said would have been drowned out by the crashing down of t
he flaming roof.
Of Dennis Halpern’s office.
• • •
Yvonne, Paoze, and I watched the fire consume what had been an attractive office an hour ago. We watched the flames reach high and listened to the crackle and roar of orange tongues reaching out for more.
I hugged myself. “I hope . . .” But I didn’t want to say the words out loud.
Yvonne touched my arm. “No one was inside. That’s the first thing they did—go in and clear the scene.”
“Hi there, ho there!” Marina joined our small group. “Hokey-malowkey, would you look at that?” Her long, low whistle was full of awe. “I mean, when was the last time we had something like this in town? This is just, like . . . wow.”
I flicked a glance at her, then looked around. “What are you doing here? Where are—”
“Hi, Mom.” Jenna materialized out of nowhere. “Did you know Mrs. Neff got a scanner for her birthday? You can hear all sorts of cool stuff.”
Oliver bumped up against me. I put my arm around his skinny shoulders and hugged him. Not too tight, because there were other people around, but enough to let him know that I was there and always would be.
I eyed Marina. “Your birthday is in February. And you didn’t have a scanner last time I looked.”
She grinned. “A late present. Noah, here”—she patted the head of a young boy—“wants to be a firefighter when he grows up. What could I do but get a scanner? And when there’s a five-alarm fire, how could I not pack up the kids and bring them to see things up close and personal?”
“This isn’t entertainment,” I said. “This is probably a very sad day for . . . for . . .”
“For who, exactly?” Marina asked. “Dennis is gone, the office was empty, and they’re containing the fire so it doesn’t spread any farther. Where’s the tragedy?”
She had a point, but it didn’t feel right to turn a building fire into a pursuit of amusement, even if it was done under the guise of career education.
“Okay,” she said, “there might have been some files in there that were crucial to someone, but if Dennis Halpern was the financial wizard everybody said he was, I’m betting everything really important was duplicated and stored off-site in a location more secure than that secret room in the Pentagon.”