Studfinder (The Busy Bean)

by L. B. Dunbar

  Tears stream down her face, and my heart clenches from the hurt written in her expression. The hurt she thinks I caused her.

  “Rita, I didn’t do it,” I say, pleading with her to believe me. Reaching for her once more, she trudges to the end of the ramp to keep space between us, and I stop halfway down the slanted structure.

  “Then who did?” She turns back to me, her eyes question everything.

  “I don’t know.” Please don’t doubt me. It was difficult enough that I was going through a divorce when the fire happened but the added doubt from my ex-wife, a woman I’d loved, drove nails deeper under my skin. I couldn’t handle that level of distrust when I’d been nothing but loyal my entire life. Loyal to my brother, to the department, to my wife.

  “The arson investigator doesn’t know who started the fire.” Rita scoffs.

  “I just told you I wasn’t allowed to investigate the scene once I was a suspect.” I couldn’t defend myself. The department heads were afraid I’d tamper with what little evidence they had, and I wasn’t allowed to examine the ruined building even though I’d been the best investigator the State ever had.

  “Rita, you have to believe me. I didn’t do it.”

  “Well, I don’t.” The finality in her tone tells me I have no hope of convincing her otherwise. After all we’ve shared, after all we’ve done, she didn’t want to give me the benefit of the doubt. So much for second chances and fresh starts.

  “I sure as shit didn’t know anyone was inside.”

  “Stating that makes you sound guilty. It makes you sound like you set the fire where someone was inside.”

  “I didn’t start that fire. I had been a volunteer fireman. I was the arson investigator. Why would I ever do such a thing? Why the hell would I start a blaze?” It was a question answered by the judge. He’d seen it before where cuts were made, and fire personnel took matters into their own hands. A fire was set to make a statement about the need for the fire department.

  “Why not?”

  “I didn’t do it!” I holler louder. Is she kidding me?

  “The county was trying to take away your job.”

  “So you think I set a fire to save myself?”

  Rita huffs, assessing me for no more than a second. “Why the hell do people do anything?” she mocks. Her eyes roam the length of my body, but it’s not the look of desire she’s given me every time I’ve seen her in the past week. “Good people make bad decisions all the time.”

  “Am I the good person or a bad decision?”

  Rita’s eyes narrow behind her glasses. Unbelievable. I don’t need this shit, and I don’t need her.

  “I didn’t do it,” I repeat through gritted teeth. This was the day of my arrest all over again, where I pleaded with the sheriff and arresting officers. People I’d known for years, who worked side by side with me to investigate crime scenes, only to have them not believe in me. My own anger rises.

  “My brother could have died in that fire.”

  “And my fiancé did,” Rita states again. The man inside was the high school principal, working during his summer vacation for some reason. There was no hint anyone was in the building. No car in the lot. No lights on in the school. For all I knew at first, the principal could have started the fire himself, but there hadn’t been a motive or evidence for such a thing. It was assumed he hadn’t desired his own demise, either.

  In addition, my own brother was hurt in that fire as a first responder to the blaze. He could have died under the weight of a fallen support.

  “I don’t believe this,” I mutter under my breath, swiping a hand into my hair before slipping to the back of my neck. I cannot catch a break in life. I have no idea where I’d gone wrong. My brother. My wife. My department. And now Rita.

  Suddenly, I’m so angry. Angry with everything.

  I don’t need her acceptance. I didn’t need her to believe in me, but I still thought she understood. Rita seemed like someone who would take me as I am. She’d already trusted me with her body. We’d spent time together, learning about each other. For all her talk of second chances, she felt like a second chance.

  Hope is almost as bad as karma.

  “I don’t want to see you again,” Rita states, and I cannot bite my tongue.

  “Gonna be hard to do, sweet, as I work for you.”

  “We’ll find you another placement.”

  Shit. Shit. This is bad. This is really bad. I could return to prison if Rita wants to take this to task. She could tell my parole supervisor what happened between us, or how the placement was a bad decision. She could tell the system she doesn’t trust me. I could be investigated all over again. Insubordination for sleeping with the supervisor or something ridiculous like that would land me behind bars once more.

  “Please, Rita,” I beg, thundering down the remainder of the ramp. “I cannot go back to prison.” Rita glances over my shoulder toward the front door, and her eyes soften for the breath of a second before her arms fall to her sides.

  “Well, too bad.”

  Stopping in my tracks, I stare at her as she stares back.

  “You don’t mean that,” I whisper, swallowing around the lump in my throat. “I’m sorry for your loss. I’m so very sorry, but I didn’t set that fire. Do not send an innocent man back to that hellhole.” My voice chokes around the possibility. It’s been roughly a month. I have five more to serve.

  Rita shakes her head, tears now dry as her eyes are ice cold.

  “I can’t do this,” she says, turning away from me.

  “Rita, wait.” I catch her by the elbow, but she yanks her arm free, glaring at me. “Please.”

  “No, Jake.” She looks up at me. “Your charm will not work on me this time.” With that, I watch her cross my lawn and climb into her SUV, driving off with my heart and my destiny.

  “Boy, that was rough,” Nolan states as I re-enter the house, passing his chair and heading for the stairs. I need to get out of here. I need my keys for my truck and some escape.

  “Fuck off, Nolan,” I holler over my shoulder as I take the stairs two at a time.

  “Yeah, that’s what she said.” Humor fills his voice.

  Spinning on the stairs, I lean forward, gripping the railings as I glare down at my brother from my height on the staircase. “What did you say?”

  “She kind of told you off, but who needs her?” Nolan scoffs, dismissing Rita, whom he’s met for all of two seconds.

  “Nolan, you don’t know what you’re talking about.” I twist for the remainder of the stairs, but Nolan won’t let it go.

  “You don’t need her making you feel guilty for something you didn’t do,” he states. His comment is like a knife to my back because Nolan doesn’t get it. He wasn’t in love with his high school sweetheart, who became the mother of his child. He never had a wife like I did. He’s been reckless and loose his entire life, never giving his heart to another. Turning back for him, I brace my hands on the railing once more.

  “You know what, Nolan? Just shut the fuck up.”

  “Dude,” he mutters, chuckling under his breath.

  “Dude, nothing. I like that woman. And she liked me. When she didn’t know anything, she thought I was the shit. Do you know what that’s like?” I glare at him, driving in my own knife of regret. Nolan isn’t a bad man, but he makes poor choices.

  “That’s a low blow,” Nolan hisses, squinting at me.

  “No, it’s not. All you do is think with your dick. It’s how you ended up with Rory. It’s how you ended up like this.” I wave out at him in his wheelchair.

  “This has nothing to do with my dick,” he snaps, shifting his chair so he can face me head-on, but I’m half a flight above him.

  “All you cared about in life was getting laid and having a good time. You had no concept of responsibility. You had no idea what it was like.”

  “What what is like?” He fights back. “Having my teenage years taken from me?”

  “You did that to yourself, N
olan. You fucked a girl and had a baby. You took away your teenage years and spent the rest of your life still acting like a teen.”

  “Yeah, and you fucked some pretty pussy, and now you’re just pissed because she doesn’t believe in you. That’s on her, Jake. You don’t need that.”

  “No, it’s on me because I went to jail for a fire I can’t prove I didn’t set, and that fire killed a man. A man I never met and loved that woman.” I wave out toward the front door behind him at the base of the stairs. “He was her fiancé, did you know that? She loved him. Love, Nolan,” I emphasize because it’s an emotion I don’t think he comprehends. “And now, she’ll never look at me again.”

  “Love?” Nolan scoffs again. “Now who’s thinking with his dick?”

  I make it down the stairs so fast, I’m not certain I’ve touched them. Gripping my hands on the armrests of his chair, I lean over my brother, getting right in his face.

  “Have you ever been in love, Nolan? Were you the one married? Oh wait, that was me, your brother. Whose wife came onto you and wanted to sleep with you while I was in prison for a crime I didn’t commit. So don’t preach to me about thinking with my dick.”

  “Fuck you, man,” Nolan yells at me. I should feel sorry for him and his condition. I should apologize for my outburst, but I don’t have it in me. I’ve coddled my brother for too long.

  “No, fuck you, little brother.” I turn for the stairs once more, making a show of using my legs to hike up them two at a time. When I return down them, Nolan is no longer in sight, and I don’t care.

  I don’t care about anything but getting out of here.

  16

  Rita

  I couldn’t say I cried myself to sleep because that would imply I actually slept. For over twenty-four hours, I sat and stared, fighting the pull to close my swollen eyes. The nightmares behind my lids threatened to return with a vengeance. The betrayal I felt ran deep within my veins. I hadn’t felt this lethargic in seven years.

  Thoughts of Ian filled every crevice I worked hard to seal over that time. Machlian—Ian—Sanders had been the love of my life. I was a late bloomer in respect to love. I’d had sex, but that deep-rooted desire to be with one man had not settled in my heart until him. I wouldn’t say I was a loose cannon before him; I just enjoyed having a good time. I blew off steam where I could, but I didn’t have one-night stands, and I didn’t date long term until Ian. I worked with my father in his law practice, and I had Building Buddies to fill the gaps.

  We met through the program. As Waterson Community’s principal, Ian ran a summer service retreat for his students. Instantly, I loved his demeanor with the teenagers. He understood them on an elemental level that offered them respect while enforcing his authority over them. In my early thirties, my ovaries were calling, and his interaction with the older kids was endearing.

  Eventually, he asked me out for a drink. One date turned into two years of dating before Ian popped the question. My father died in that time, and perhaps that prompted Ian to finally ask me to be his wife. Prior to that, we’d fallen into a routine as two working adults in no rush for the next step, but still, my ovaries were knocking.

  Our wedding was scheduled to be a late summer affair so it didn’t conflict with the high school calendar. As principal, Ian didn’t have summer hours like his teacher colleagues. He only had a few weeks off in July, but it hardly stopped him from entering his building. He always had something else to work on. As a school with high graduation rates and rising test scores, he prided himself on the accomplishments he’d achieved. He certainly made me feel like he’d done more in his few years as a principal than I’d done in ten years as a lawyer at that time.

  The night of Ian’s death was a week before our wedding. He wanted to check on something before we met for dinner to discuss some final wedding arrangement that no longer seemed relevant to remember. The only memory I have now is a phone call I received informing me of a fire at the high school. An explosion had occurred. My future husband was dead days before our marriage began.

  I never understood why Ian didn’t get out of the building. Standard fire drill procedures teach children starting at the age of four to exit a school building when the alarm rings. The investigation into the explosion found fault with the alarm system. I didn’t know all the particulars. I never wanted to read the report.

  The sudden sound of feet on my front porch turns my head from my perch in my great-grandmother’s rocking chair. I’m sitting in my parents’ old bedroom on the first floor, feeling their loss more than ever. At forty-three, I want my father. I could call my mother, but I don’t really want to talk. After several calls from Scarlett, I turned off my phone, finally sending her a text to say I’d call her later, leaving later open-ended.

  Slowly, I stand from the old wooden chair and walk to the curtain-covered window looking out at the porch. Only a finger’s length presses back the sheer material, but I quickly pull back when I see Jake standing on the porch, a Busy Bean Café to-go cup in his hand, and some other object under his arm. I press myself flat to the wall beside the window and close my eyes as if that will hide him from my mind.

  As much as I’ve been recalling Ian, I’ve been struggling with thoughts of Jake. When I first returned from his house, I showered. I couldn’t get the water hot enough to scrub myself clean of what I’d been doing with him. With trembling hands, I next called my AA sponsor who I hadn’t reached out to in a while. I didn’t need a drink as much as I needed someone to talk to, someone unbiased, unlike Scarlett, who might have been tainted by what she’d learned. As much as I wanted to curse my friend, the rational side of me said she was only looking out for me. The irrational side felt like my heart had been ripped out once again.

  Because, like it or not, I had fallen for Jake, the hunky, swanky charmer. I’d been hooked like the fish we caught only a week ago. Now, I was released. Tossed back into the cool water to flounder with my emotions as I struggled to regroup.

  Eventually, I hear the tender footsteps of his retreat and the gentle hop down the front steps. A truck engine roars to life, and I glance at the digital red numbers on my parents’ old alarm clock. Jake is on his way to Building Buddies, where he’ll continue his parole. A probationary period he has because he went to prison for starting a fire that destroyed a school and took a life.

  Rita, you have to believe me. I didn’t do it.

  Isn’t that what all criminals say? I’d never defended a case for a crime like arson, but I imagine anyone accused would plead innocence.

  My body sags against the wall as innocence before proven guilty is always presumed in my line of work. Jake must have been found guilty despite his confession to me. A collection of his peers or perhaps even a single judge found him responsible for a crime. The proof was in the decision.

  Still, my head taps against the wall at my back because I want to believe him. I want to believe he couldn’t possibly start that fire. The Jake I’d learned more about in the past few weeks wasn’t vicious or vengeful or even unkind. He was funny. He was charming. He loved to dance, and he had glorious sex just like he moved in sync with the music. He kissed me under a covered bridge when I said I wanted romance. He fucked me against a pole when he wanted to be reckless. He made me feel alive, like I haven’t felt in years.

  Most of all, I had to accept that Jake never intended to kill Ian. My former fiancé’s death was ruled involuntary manslaughter. Essentially, he was an unplanned circumstance of the initial crime. An accident. It was difficult to wrap my head around the concept. It also didn’t explain the fire and Jake’s role in a blaze that destroyed half a building.

  My eyes close again, but I’ve had enough of my cycling thoughts. Pressing off the wall, I decide to head to the office in hopes of losing myself in work as I’d done since the day Ian died. I press back the curtain just enough to check again that Jake is gone. Then I make my way to the front door to retrieve the coffee and the object he left behind next to it.

&nbs
p; Sitting at my desk, I vacillate my eyes between the object Jake left for me and my laptop. Once I arrived at the office, I felt like a sick joke had been played on me. I’ve turned so many contracts and cases over to May, I don’t have anything pressing to busy myself. Instead, I went through a stack of mail in hopes of avoiding the object on my desk and found an invitation to Vermont Law’s summer graduation ceremony. Alumni are always invited to support the future bar members. Flipping the card stock in my hands, I stare blankly at the lettering and recall how Jake invited me to attend his nephew’s commencement.

  “My brother and I are so proud of him. We always knew he’d be something more than either of us.”

  I hadn’t liked how Jake put himself down at the time he mentioned the future accomplishment of his nephew. Jake’s life hasn’t been a failure. At least, not from what he’s told me. He’d been a success in his own right, working his way through an apprenticeship to become a master electrician while volunteering as a fireman and raising his brother, and eventually, helping raise his nephew. He’d given up a lot to see that his brother turned out to be more than a teenage dad and his nephew leveled up. The recall puzzles me as it’s a reminder that Jake has been loyal to his family and hardworking at that. However, he could also be an excellent liar, and everything he’s told me could be total bullshit.

  Then I look over at the unique sculpture sitting on my desk. It’s made of industrial pieces—plumber pipes, copper conduit, and electrical wiring—positioned in a manner it looks like an abstract person fishing. I’m assuming it’s a woman with flowing hair in strips of copper material mixed with electric wire wrapped in gray casings. She holds a pole made of another copper pipe with a thin wire dangling off it. A miniature light bulb hangs from the wire, representing a fish. An engraving on the bottom of the lamp reads: Hook, link, and sinker, you’ve captured me. I don’t understand the significance of the lamp other than the fishing metaphor, and the fact Jake and I spent a day doing such a thing.