House on Fire

by Bonnie Kistler

  “Okay, calm down, Mr. Conley—”

  “Dad—” Kip began.

  “Peter—”

  “He’s a minor, for God’s sake! What kind of operation are you running here?”

  “Dad—”

  “Okay, Mr. Conley, I’m asking you to lower your voice.”

  “Our lawyer’s on the way. Let’s see what she has to say about your tactics.”

  “Dad!”

  “What?!” Peter roared, wheeling on him.

  Kip ducked his head. “I’m not,” he mumbled.

  “Not what?”

  “A minor. It’s tomorrow, Dad. I’m eighteen.”

  Leigh put her hand over her mouth. In all the excitement about Duke, they’d forgotten there was also Kip’s birthday to celebrate. Despite the gift-wrapped set of golf clubs hidden in the attic, despite their Sunday night dinner reservations complete with cake and a kazoo band—despite all that, they’d forgotten that Saturday was his actual birthday. He was officially eighteen now, and the police had every right to question him on his own.

  “Listen, come on,” Softball Coach said. “Mr. Conley, have a seat and we’ll talk this over. Diane, why don’t you take the ladies—?” He pointed to the door, and Ballerina held out one stiff arm to herd Leigh and Chrissy into the corridor.

  Another woman was swinging through the front door of the building. She was an imposing figure, tall and black, wearing stilettos and a thigh-high spangled dress under a chinchilla shrug. She spotted Leigh and headed her way in long-legged strides.

  “Shelby!” Leigh reached up to embrace her. “Thank you so much for coming.”

  The taller woman turned to the ballerina cop. “Shelby Randolph, counsel for Christopher Conley.” Her voice was refined, but her tone was a rough, demanding bark. “Where is my client? In here?” She brushed past the female officer. “Hi there, doll face,” she whispered to Chrissy as she opened the door to the interview room.

  “Hi, Aunt Shelby,” Chrissy whispered back.

  “End of interview,” Shelby announced to the room. “Step outside, Sergeant.” She looked back over her shoulder at Leigh. “I assume you’re acting as counsel for your daughter?”

  “Uh, yes.” The formality of your daughter put Leigh on alert. “Yes, that’s right.”

  “I suggest you advise her not to answer any questions at this time.”

  “Yes, right, of course.”

  Softball Coach came out of the interview room with his eyebrows raised at his colleague, who threw up her hands and walked away.

  Leigh put her arm around her daughter and drew her back to the slatted bench in the corridor. Chrissy sat down beside her with her hands folded. She’d painted each of her nails a different color of polish. It looked like she’d emptied a bag of Skittles in her lap. Feel the rainbow, her fingertips said, but her face said something else.

  “You sure you’re all right, honey? Maybe we should go to the hospital and get you checked out.”

  “We barely hit that tree. Really, I’m fine.”

  She laid her cheek against Leigh’s shoulder, and Leigh gave her a squeeze. She cherished each of her children, and she adored her stepchildren, too, but Chrissy always shined a special light. Her little fairy child, she used to call her. There was something magical about her from the moment she burst into the world with her startling cap of red ringlets. The color had faded a bit since then and she’d probably be a pale strawberry blonde by the time she was grown. But the magic would always be there, in her lively eyes and her quick smile and her heart as big as a house. And a good solid head on her shoulders, too. Even though Kip was nominally in charge this week, it was Chrissy they counted on to be the responsible one. Kip’s lack of responsibility was in full evidence tonight.

  “Aunt Shelby is so awesome,” Chrissy said.

  “She sure is.”

  “Was she like this in law school, too?”

  “Always.”

  “I think she must have been at a party tonight.”

  “Hmm. I think so.” Leigh looked closely at her daughter. “And I think Kip was, too?”

  Chrissy looked up with a flood of tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t want him to get into trouble.”

  “Where was it?”

  “Ryan Atwood’s house.”

  “He drove there, and you—what?—rode your bike over there to warn him?”

  Chrissy nodded.

  “In your pajamas. Five miles in the rain.”

  “I know, I’m sorry! I just thought—”

  “Oh, honey.” Leigh kissed the top of her curls. “You can’t rescue people from their own bad decisions. This is Kip’s problem, not yours.”

  “But, Mom, it really wasn’t his fault! I mean, that dog ran out right in front of us. There was nothing we could do!”

  “Honey.” Leigh put a finger under Chrissy’s chin and tilted up her pale face. “He went to a party we didn’t know about. He drove the truck without permission and on a suspended license. And if all that wasn’t bad enough, he drove after drinking. It is his fault, and Peter has every right to be angry. And you should have stayed out of it.”

  Tears swam in Chrissy’s eyes. She hated there to be any kind of discord in their household. Leigh’s divorce from Ted was louder and messier than it should have been, and ever since, all Chrissy wanted in the world was for everyone to please get along. “But we’re a family, right?” she pleaded. “We look out for each other.”

  Leigh gazed at her fairy child. At home they had a pair of barn cats she’d dubbed Goodness and Mercy for the way they seemed to follow her all the days of her life. The same words came to her now. Goodness and mercy. “Yes, we do,” she said finally. “But this is between Kip and his dad, okay? We have to stay out of it.”

  Working the room, Shelby called it, whether she was trying a jury case or negotiating a plea bargain or holding a press conference on the courthouse steps. Three rooms were in play tonight, and over the next hour, she worked all of them, stalking on her stilettos between the interview room where Peter and Kip remained sequestered, the bullpen where the officers huddled over their Styrofoam coffee cups, and the lobby where she gently shook Chrissy awake to ask her two questions. The first one Chrissy answered without hesitation. The party was at Ryan Atwood’s, and she recited the address, too. Her loyalty was to Kip, not his friends, and if this was the cooperation the police were looking for, she was happy to supply it. But she couldn’t answer Shelby’s second question. She had no idea what time it was when they swerved off the road.

  “If it was before midnight?” Leigh said. “Would that help? If he was still a juvenile?”

  Shelby gave a noncommittal shrug and returned to the interview room. Soon after the third officer rose out of the bullpen, squared his hat on his head, and left the building, stopping only to confirm the Atwoods’ address with Leigh.

  Another thirty minutes passed before Shelby emerged again, but this time she had Peter and Kip in tow. Leigh caught Kip as he passed and pulled him into a hug. He was stiff in her arms, but he dropped his head briefly to her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Leigh,” he mumbled.

  “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “It’ll be all right.”

  “Let’s talk outside, shall we?” Shelby said and strode ahead of them through the door.

  The rain had stopped, and the night air smelled of wet grass and crushed forsythia blossoms. Peter clicked the Volvo open, and Kip dove into the backseat. So did Chrissy. Only one other car remained in Visitor Parking, a red Corvette with a handsome young man lounging behind the wheel. Shelby flashed a hand at him—five more minutes—before she turned to Leigh. “Here’s the deal. They got him on the BAC, so he’s going to plead to baby DUI.”

  Baby DUI was the colloquial term for the zero tolerance law, the same one Kip broke last January. Adult DUI required a blood alcohol content of 0.08 percent, but for drivers under twenty-one, 0.02 percent was enough.

  “But,” she continued, “he won’t be charged wit
h reckless driving or driving impaired with a juvenile passenger or any of the other dozen add-ons they could have charged him with if he were an adult.”

  Leigh let out her breath. “So it did happen before midnight.”

  “Who knows? The neighbor’s nine-one-one call came in at 12:06 a.m. How long did it take him to stumble out of bed and turn on the lights and pick up the phone? Could have been five minutes, could have been ten. But it’s close enough that they’re not going to bother piling on charges only to see them end up in juvenile court. Subject to the prosecutor’s review on Monday.” Shelby smirked at Leigh. “You remember him? Commonwealth’s Attorney Boyd Harrison?”

  “Oh.” Leigh remembered him only too well. He was a little martinet of a man, a stickler for rules and schedules who tried to impose the same military-style discipline on his family as he did on his office staff.

  “Don’t worry,” Shelby said. “He won’t have any clue that defendant Christopher Conley and passenger Christine Porter have any connection to Attorney Leigh Huyett.”

  “What’s this?” Peter’s gaze snapped between them. “Who’s Harrison to you?”

  “Didn’t she ever tell you?” Shelby said. “Leigh represented his wife in their divorce. And really took him to the cleaners.”

  Leigh pursed her lips. “It was a fair and equitable settlement.”

  “And he’s holding a grudge?”

  She shrugged. They always seemed to, no matter how fair the settlement.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Shelby said. “The name Huyett doesn’t appear anywhere in the police report. Unless you think Harrison’s been keeping tabs on you all these years—”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then there’s nothing to worry about. He’ll rubber-stamp the cop’s recommendation, and your boy’ll get another one-year suspension of his driver’s license plus a five-hundred-dollar fine.”

  “As opposed to—?”

  “Same suspension, bigger fine, plus up to a year in jail.”

  “Oh, God,” Leigh said as Peter clenched his jaw and looked away.

  “Try not to worry.” Shelby opened the passenger door of the Corvette. “Even Hardass Harrison isn’t going to throw the book at a nice white boy. But I’ll touch base on Monday and let you know for sure.” She swung her long legs into the car and leaned over to receive the young man’s kiss before she pulled the door shut.

  Peter didn’t speak for a full five minutes. No one did, and the tension was so tight inside the car it was almost a relief when he finally lit into Kip. How could he be so stupid. There goes his summer internship, and what if this gets back to Duke, he could lose his place, his scholarship for sure. And after the last time, he promised, he promised.

  Chrissy sniffled through his tirade from her corner of the backseat, but when Peter yelled that Kip couldn’t ever be trusted again, her sob finally broke out. “Stop! Stop it!” she cried. “Don’t yell at him! It wasn’t his fault!”

  “Shut up! You idiot!” Kip hissed.

  “Hey!” Leigh snapped. Her soft spot for Kip only went so deep. She wouldn’t allow him to take this out on Chrissy.

  “Sorry,” Kip muttered, and that was the last word anyone spoke as they drove on over the dark and empty roads.

  Hampshire County was technically part of the Washington metro area, but there was still a lot of open country in this part of Northern Virginia. Patches of woods lined the narrow roads, and acres of rolling pastures lay behind post-and-board fences. These were the vestiges of old plantations and gentleman farms where rich people used to dress up in nineteenth-century clothes and ride to the hounds and pretend it was a sport instead of a costume party. Some of those old estates still blanketed these hillsides; the rest had been carved up into subdivisions where more ordinary people slept between their long commutes in and out of the District. Leigh grew up in one of the earliest of those subdivisions and later became one of those commuters, willing to endure two hours in the car every day, and sometimes even more, all for the sake of a little taste of country life at either end of it.

  Hollow Road was the five-mile stretch of blacktop where Peter’s truck would still be foundering in the ditch. It wasn’t a through road to anywhere: it cut in off the highway at one end and cut back in again a few miles later, so there was no reason for anyone to drive it unless they lived there, or like Peter and his crew, worked there. Or unless, like Kip, they were hoping to avoid the police patrols out on the highway. It ran along a twisting creek, and all the houses on that side of the road had a little bridge at the end of the driveway, like moat crossings to a castle. On the other side of the road sprawled some old farms and estates, including the site of Peter’s current construction project—a custom home three stories tall perched at the top of a hill. Hollow House, Leigh had dubbed it, and its empty frame loomed darkly as they drove past.

  Peter drove silently through another mile of darkness until Kip mumbled from the backseat, “Up there on the left.”

  As the truck took shape in the shine of the headlights, Leigh felt a rush of relief. It wasn’t overturned or smashed up or wrapped around the proverbial tree. It was upright on all four wheels in the ditch and only nosing up against the tree trunk, like a horse nuzzling for a sugar cube. Fifty feet away was a driveway that ran over one of those little moat bridges. The house was dark now, but it was probably where the neighbor lived who had called 911.

  Peter parked and jabbed a finger at Kip over the seat back. “You. With me.”

  Their doors swung open at the same time, and Leigh got out, too, to circle around to the driver’s side of the car. Peter caught her as they passed in the headlights. “Sorry about this,” he muttered.

  She pressed her cheek against his chest. “It’ll be all right,” she said. “Don’t worry.”

  “You go on home and go to bed. This may take a while.”

  “I should wait here. What if you get stuck?”

  “Hey, if there’s anything a builder knows, it’s how to drive through mud. Go on home. Chrissy needs to get to bed. You, too. You have that meeting tomorrow.”

  She nodded and stretched up to kiss him. His lips were tight against hers, and when she tilted her head back, his eyes were still grim in the glare of the headlights. “Peter. It’ll be okay. This is only a bump in the road, right?”

  He chuffed a laugh and kissed her again, harder, even though the kids were watching, Chrissy from the backseat of the car, and Kip from the cab of the truck. “I love you,” he said.

  She smiled. “Always and everywhere.”

  They headed their separate ways, she to the car and he to the truck, she to her child and he to his.

  Chapter Three

  Pete Conley kept a file open and running in his head, like lines of computer text scrolling through the background screen of his thoughts. All his worries, digitized. A punch list of everything he needed to take care of and everything that would go wrong if he didn’t. Deadlines to meet, bills to pay, permits to get, inspections to pass.

  Early Saturday morning he woke to some new entries lighting up the screen. How much was Leigh’s friend going to charge for her services last night? What if Duke found out about this? Did they do criminal background checks after the acceptance letters went out? For sure the state would, which probably meant Kip would lose his summer internship with the governor’s office.

  Other, deeper worries scrolled on the back screen. Was this just teenaged hijinks, or did his son really have a drinking problem? This was twice now, and those were only the times he got caught. Pete’s father was an alcoholic—at least that was the term they used to explain away the years of unemployment and abuse before he finally took off. Some people thought there was a gene for that, and while Pete was never more than a beer-a-day kind of guy, it could have skipped a generation and landed on Kip.

  But as tempting as it was to blame the old man for this, what if it was more nurture than nature? Because then it would be Pete’s fault.

  Like most divorce
d fathers, he carried a lot of guilt for moving out on his kids. Not that he had much choice—Gary was practically waiting in the driveway with his suitcases to move in—but it was hard on them. Both of them, but especially a boy on the edge of puberty. The bad behavior started immediately—he was acting out at school, talking back at home, and waging enough open warfare against Gary that Karen finally gave up and let Pete have primary custody. For the next year it was only the two of them in a two-room apartment, eating pizza and watching sports and playing video games. Not a bad life for a twelve-year-old, but at the end of the year, Pete moved him again, into Leigh’s house. He had to change schools twice in two years, and this time he even had to change his name. It was too confusing to have both a Chris and a Chrissy under one roof, so his little-boy nickname was resurrected and he was Kip again.

  In the space of only two years the boy went from a basic nuclear family of two parents/two kids, to bachelor life with a single dad, to this current chaotic mash-up of two stepparents and two different sets of stepsiblings, not to mention the step-grandparents and step-aunts and -uncles and -cousins. And somehow he was expected to get along with all of them. Which was kind of unfair, Pete had to admit, considering what started this whole thing was that none of the original parents could get along with each other.

  Another worry glowed on his digital screen, and it was the one lying beside him with her auburn hair fanned out on the pillow. Nothing like this had ever happened to Leigh or anyone in her family. She was an Ivy League–educated lawyer, well brought up by good and loving parents who took her to church and bought her a horse and taught her to write thank-you notes. While Pete worked construction, paid room and board to his mother from the time he was sixteen, and ended six years of night school four credits shy of a degree in architecture. There was no question he was punching above his weight when he married her, even if she refused to acknowledge it. That’s what blended means, she insisted. We’re all the same now. He didn’t believe that for a minute, but at least he hoped she might raise him up. Not that he’d drag her down.