House on Fire

by Bonnie Kistler

  “Oh?”

  “He just booked a big charter sailing a couple rich dudes around the New England coast. It’s for the whole rest of the summer.”

  “Good for him. I’m glad.”

  “He wants us to crew for him.”

  “Oh.” They were watching her closely. She mustn’t let her shock show. “Well, what about your catering job?”

  “We just quit.”

  “It wasn’t really our thing.”

  “No.” Slowly she nodded. “I can see that.” They must have been like young bulls in a china shop, bumping into partygoers, knocking over wineglasses and fumbling serving trays. They probably would have been fired soon anyway.

  “But listen—Mom—we don’t want to leave you here all alone.”

  “Me?” She gave a little shake and smiled at them. “Don’t be silly. With my schedule these days? I’m hardly ever home. No, you should do it. This could be the last free summer of your lives. You may never get to spend this much time with your dad again.”

  “Yeah, that’s what we were thinking. And after losing Chrissy . . .”

  Zack finished Dylan’s thought. “. . . it just seems like you need to keep family closer than ever, you know?”

  “Absolutely,” she said.

  “So—we thought we’d head out first thing tomorrow. . . .”

  She pushed back from the table. “Then you’ll need to make an early night of it. Why don’t we order in some Chinese and watch a movie?”

  They glanced at each other, and she could see they’d already made other plans for the evening. But in their silent twin language, they canceled them on the spot. “Hey, you think Captain America’s on Netflix?” Zack said, and they jumped up and shoulder-checked each other through the doorway as they ran to the family room to find out.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The Millers selected glazed lava stone for their kitchen countertops, in a color called châtaigne that looked a lot like gray to Pete. The material was incredibly expensive—it was quarried from the crater of an inactive volcano in France—so he was there himself to guide the installation. They’d just finished setting the slab on the ten-foot island when his phone rang. The display read: SHELBY RANDOLPH.

  He stepped outside to take the call.

  “Pete, I’ve been trying to reach Kip.”

  “He’s at work, but he should have his phone with him.”

  “He’s not answering. I was hoping he could come in today. Both of you. I just got off the phone with the prosecutor.”

  “About—?”

  “Let’s discuss it in person. If you could track him down—”

  Any hope he had sizzled out in an instant. She wouldn’t make him wait for good news. “I’ll pick him up. We can be there by”—he glanced at his watch—“eleven?”

  “Great. See you then.”

  He tried Kip’s number, but he couldn’t get through either. He ran upstairs and changed clothes and had a quick huddle with Angelo about the rest of the lava stone and another quick huddle with the sub installing the lap pool in the basement, then he got in the truck and headed out for the Millers’ house in McLean.

  He was expecting a shipment of Macassar ebony flooring planks today, from a mill in Alabama. The flooring crew was slated to start work first thing in the morning, and he was still waiting on an ETA on the ebony. He drove with his phone in his hand and kept cycling through Kip’s number and the mill in Alabama. Kip didn’t answer, but at last a woman at the mill did. The shipment should arrive at the site by six, she told him, seven at the latest. His crew would be gone by then, which meant he’d have to off-load it himself, but one way or another, he’d have it ready to go in the morning.

  He turned into the Millers’ driveway and punched Kip’s number one more time. He studied the house as he waited through the rings. It was nothing like the house he was building for them now. This one was a midcentury modern, all straight lines and jutting angles in glaring white concrete. It had the look of new money. What Midas wanted now was the look of old money. In their first meeting, Pete had asked him about his style preferences—did he like traditional or modern, Greek Revival or Williamsburg Colonial. Miller thought for a while then said, “High-End.” Like that was an architectural genre.

  “Jesus, where have you been?” Pete yelled when Kip finally answered his phone. “If I’m paying your phone bill, the least you could do is pick up when I call.”

  “Um, sorry, I was busy, um, working.’Sup?”

  “Shelby needs to see you. I’m right outside.”

  “Outside—here?” Kip’s voice broke on the word, like he was thirteen again.

  “Make your excuses to Mrs. Miller and get a move on, okay? We’re due there at eleven.”

  It was five minutes before Kip came trotting around the side of the garage and jumped breathless into the cab. His hair was wet and his shoelaces untied. “What’d you do?” Pete said, eyeing him. “Go for a swim?”

  “She lets me jump in the pool to cool off.”

  “First thing in the morning?”

  “It was hot.”

  “You’re not goofing off, I hope. We need to keep these people satisfied.”

  “I am.”

  “Which?”

  “Huh?”

  “Forget it,” Pete said and backed out of the drive.

  Shelby’s assistant showed them to the conference room, and ten minutes later, Shelby came in. She wasn’t wearing one of her wild Parisian outfits today. She wore a gray suit, and except for the sky-high heels, looked as sober as a judge.

  She began without preliminaries. “I spoke with the Commonwealth’s Attorney this morning. They’ve presented us with a plea offer.”

  Pete leaned forward and waited for it.

  “You plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter in exchange for a sentence of two years.”

  Pete waited for her to finish. “Suspended,” he said when she didn’t.

  “No.” Her face was a mask. “I’m afraid not.”

  He rocked back in his chair. For a minute he couldn’t speak. She was talking about real jail time. Kip didn’t speak either. He looked like he’d been clobbered with a two-by-four.

  “Let me remind you,” she said. “If he’s convicted, the judge can impose a sentence of up to ten years.”

  Pete wasn’t sure how much worse that would be. Two years or ten, the boy’s life was ruined. Even if he came out unscathed, Duke would be off the table forever, and so would any elected position or government job. Or doctor, lawyer, banker, newspaperman, any kind of profession. He’d be an ex-con for the rest of his life. He’d have to work for Pete when he got out. The kid who couldn’t hammer a nail in straight.

  “You don’t have to decide now. There’s no expiration date on the offer. We can think about it. Let’s begin now by reviewing all of the witness statements.”

  “What witnesses?” Kip was blinking wildly. “They’re weren’t any.”

  Pete shot him a look. “Except for the priest, you mean.”

  “Right.” The boy flushed. His hair was dry now but loose and unstyled. It made him look about twelve. “Except for him.”

  “Trial witnesses,” Shelby said. “Not eyewitnesses.” She opened a folder on the table in front of her. “All their statements and reports are in now, so we know exactly what the evidence will be. First up is Stanley Fisher.” She looked at Kip. “The gentleman whose tree you hit.”

  “The dude who called nine-one-one?”

  She nodded. “He says he heard the crash shortly after midnight, got up, looked out the window, and dialed nine-one-one. He’s also going to testify there was no other vehicle on the road, and you were the one behind the wheel of the truck. And before you ask—” She held up a hand. “His vision is twenty-twenty.”

  “By then I was behind the wheel,” he said. “And the priest was already gone.”

  She went on. “Next is the arresting officer, Diane Mateo. She responded to the nine-one-one dispatch, found the truc
k in the ditch and you spinning your tires trying to back up. She detected the smell of alcohol on your person and noted that your speech was slurred—”

  “That’s a lie—”

  “—and had you exit the vehicle to administer a standardized field sobriety test.” Shelby looked up from the page. “She reports that you fell.”

  “It was raining! I slipped in the mud!”

  “Then we have a statement from the ER physician that you told him Chrissy banged her head in the accident and one from the neurosurgeon that her injuries were consistent with a trauma of that nature.”

  “Consistent with,” Pete said. “Not caused by.”

  “That’s right. They’ll have the right to call their own expert rebuttal witness after we put on our medical testimony, in which case it turns into a battle of the experts.”

  “So who wins?”

  “Too soon to say. Let’s move on. The next two statements are from Kip’s friends at the party that night. Ryan Atwood, your host, who admits there was beer, vodka, and tequila at the party, and Ava diFlorio, who says you drank at least two beers—”

  “Like I said—”

  “And you also had a shot of tequila and smoked marijuana.”

  A beat of silence passed before Pete spoke. “What?”

  Kip was suddenly fascinated by the whorls of wood grain on the conference table.

  “Hey.” Pete snapped his fingers at him. “Answer me.”

  “I don’t remember drinking any tequila.”

  Bad answer. “And the marijuana?”

  “Somebody brought some,” Kip said, shrugging. “I had a couple hits.”

  Pete closed his eyes with a grimace. He and Leigh liked to congratulate themselves on how they got the boys through high school without any drug trouble. Looks like they jumped the gun with this one. “Jesus, Kip.”

  “Hey, it’s not like I’m a stoner. It’s just a party thing, you know? It’s no big deal.”

  “No big deal? Considering it’s gonna be used against you in a homicide trial, I’d say it’s a pretty big deal. It’s a goddam huge deal!”

  Kip reddened and went back to studying the whorls on the table.

  “The tequila would explain how your BAC came in at point-oh-five-five,” Shelby said. “The marijuana would explain why you failed the field sobriety test.”

  “I didn’t!”

  “And I’m afraid it all paints a certain picture for the jury.”

  Pete knew that picture. The dissolute frat boy wannabe. The privileged white kid wallowing in his privilege. Devil may care and get out of my way. And lie about it when you get caught. That was what hit him next. “You lied.”

  “Nobody ever asked me about marijuana.”

  “God,” he muttered.

  Shelby closed the file and folded her hands on top of it. “There are three witnesses we won’t be hearing from. The accident reconstructionist couldn’t help. Our work with the ergonomics expert was inconclusive. There’s no way based on the location of Chrissy’s injuries to prove she was the one driving. And finally, despite aggressive efforts, we’ve been unable to locate the priest.”

  “You tried again to subpoena the people next door?”

  “We did. No one answers at the gate, and our letters to Resident come back Undeliverable.”

  Pete massaged his beard. He should have grabbed that woman in the Uber car and demanded that she let him in. He could have turned the place upside down until he found the video files. But there was little point if the security footage didn’t show the road. Even less point if there was never any priest on the road to begin with.

  “So,” Shelby said. “As things now stand, our defense consists only of your testimony, Kip, if we decide to put you on the stand, and the testimony of Dr. Rabin on medical causation.”

  “What d’you mean—if you decide to put Kip on?”

  “If he testifies, it opens the door to credibility attacks. The prosecution would have the right to elicit evidence of every other occasion when Kip is known to have lied. So we’ll have to consider that very carefully.”

  Pete put his head in his hands. Two years. Two versus ten.

  “As I said, there’s no time limit on the plea offer. Not yet.” She rose to her feet. “Think about it.”

  “Wait,” Kip said before she reached the door. “Can I take another look at those priest mug shots Frank put together?”

  She frowned. “Didn’t he send you the computer file?”

  “Yeah, but I want to go through it again. Here, on your computer, if it’s okay.”

  “All right,” she said, shrugging. “I’ll get Britta to set you up at a work station.”

  Pete waited in the coffee shop downstairs and tried to think about it. Two years. It seemed barely that long ago that the boy was born. He remembered it like it was last week, and what he remembered most was how scared Karen was. She was scared of labor, and scared she’d embarrass herself by being scared of labor, and even scared to hold the baby when it was all over. He was too tiny, she might break him. Pete pretended to find it all funny, but secretly he worried there was something wrong with her. No one should be that afraid of parenthood. Now he knew she was right to be so scared. It was terrifying, being responsible for the life of another human being. He didn’t know why anyone would ever volunteer for it. He couldn’t remember why he did.

  His coffee was cold in the cup by the time Kip appeared at the door. Pete sent him the question with a look across the crowded shop, and when Kip shook his head, Pete got up and dumped the cup in the trash.

  It was a little after noon. There was enough day left for both of them to get back to work. Kip plugged in his earbuds in the truck and Pete turned on the radio, and they rode out of the city without speaking. Pete thought about the plea offer the whole way. He had no idea what Kip was thinking about.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “I don’t want to think about it,” Kip said.

  Yana shrugged and didn’t ask again. She was already naked on the chaise and racking up lines on a mirror. He peeled off his clothes as he walked to the edge of the pool, and he dove in and swam two lengths underwater without coming up for air. She was waiting poolside when he surfaced. “Hev leetle heet.” She held the mirror out to him. “Mek you feel bitter.”

  He already felt bitter, but he hauled up out of the water and took a quick snort before he flipped over and swam away again. The pool was painted black and it made the water look black, too, and soon he was rocketing through galaxies of shooting stars as the coke raced through light-years of capillaries and veins and arteries and burst into supernovas inside his brain. Here and now. Pure sensation. Live for the moment. Carpe diem. Live. Feel. Just don’t think.

  The water felt like silk against his chest and shoulders as he torpedoed through it. It felt like silk against his dick, too, and it wasn’t long before he was ready. She was ready, too, splayed out on her back in the black-and-white-striped cabana, long and lean and built like no human girl he’d ever known. An alien from some alien world. Her skin so pale it glowed with its own white light against the black canvas of the chaise.

  He fell dripping on top of her. He didn’t have to think about it, because she did all the thinking for him. She always did, from the first day of this make-believe job when she led him back here and stripped off her clothes. He didn’t have to think about how to undress because she reached for his zipper and undressed him herself. He didn’t have to think about being safe, because she had the condom ready to roll on. He didn’t have to think about timing or positions, because she stage-directed the whole thing. All he had to do was fuck, and he did, with his mind as empty and free as it ever was. He didn’t have to worry about what she’d say to her friends afterward or what he’d say to his, or whether this meant they were dating and he’d have to take her to the prom. He didn’t have to think about anything except not blowing his wad too soon, and she managed to control even that and kept him hard until she came. And then it was whiteout t
ime as he rippled into an explosion of pure thoughtless pleasure.

  This was week three of pure thoughtless pleasure. Day after day fucking the hottest girl in the world and swimming in her black-water pool. Doing a bump of coke in the morning and a toke of weed in the afternoon and slurping vodka out of her navel any time in between. Anybody with a pair of balls would jump aboard and enjoy this ride, whether he was headed to prison or not. He wasn’t going to second-guess why she picked him out of everybody in the world or wonder if she was a cokehead or worry that her husband would walk in or his father would find out. He was living for the moment, here and now. He wasn’t going to think about anything but the slapping rhythm of his hips against hers.

  “I can’t do this anymore,” he said as he flopped off her.

  She snickered, just as she did every other time he said it.

  His cargo shorts lay crumpled on the pool deck. He staggered up and stepped into them as Yana yawned and stretched and rolled over to sleep.

  Inside the house was cool, black marble and white upholstery, and so still and quiet all he could hear was the hum of the refrigerator and the clink of newly hatched ice cubes dropping into the dispenser. He lay flat on his back on the zebra-hide rug in the living room and tried to empty his mind until it was as blank as the pure white ceiling above. But it was like holding his fingers in a dike, all ten, and new leaks kept on springing and he didn’t have any fingers left to plug them, and all the thoughts flooded into his brain until he was swamped.

  He flopped over on his belly. Don’t dwell on the past. There was nothing he could do to bring Chrissy back. There was nothing he could do to make Leigh and the twins stop hating him. Live in the present. Yeah, that’s the game plan, but exactly how’s that working out for you, dude? Don’t worry about the future. Fair enough, don’t worry about it, but how about trying to fucking change it?

  He got up and went to the kitchen for a Red Bull and took it to Midas’s office at the far end of the house. The desk was a slab of petrified wood with nothing on it but a double-monitored computer and a framed black-and-white head shot of Yana peeking through the wet strands of her hair. Kip tapped a key and both monitors lit up. He located the program he installed last week and found it still well hidden among the spreadsheets and porn that comprised most of Miller’s downloads. He clicked to the IP address he’d already sussed out with the scanning app, and the program started up, belching out a random barrage of letters and numbers and symbols and combinations of all three at the log-in screen. It ran at hyperspeed, but as always, failure was almost instantaneous. Kip didn’t even have thirty seconds to scroll through Miller’s porn collection before the server timed him out.