“There’s a gun in the-” I’m in midair. The phone clatters to the floor. My feet are not touching the ground. I’m still talking. There’s stuff they need to know. “A gun in the living room. And there’s someone upstairs. Listen! They could be in trouble. You should-”
He deposits me on the front step.
“Move away from the house, ma’am,” the firefighter instructs me, pointing one gloved finger in my face. “The fire’s already out. I’ll check upstairs.”
More sirens. More red lights. An ambulance screams up in front of 1 Bexter, a Brookline police car right behind it. Doors slam. Radios squawk. The front windows of the cottage fly open. Every motion is hyperspeed. Two EMTs, ninja-tough in black jackets stenciled Brookline EMS across the back, hoist an aluminum stretcher up the front steps, then wheel it through the open door.
“Upstairs,” I call after them. “I could show you-”
But they’re gone.
“Charlie McNally?” Officer Jeff Petrucelly, followed by another blue-uniformed Brookline police officer, trots up the walkway to the front porch. Last time I saw him he was interrogating Bexter faculty about the death of Alethia Espinosa. “What’s going on here?”
“The Head, from Bexter,” I say, grateful that someone already knows who I’m talking about and actually wants to talk to me. I know I sound on the verge of tears. And I guess I am.
“I think the guy in the living room shot him. He’s upstairs. I don’t know. He might be dead. There’s a gun in the living room. I kicked it under the-”
But Petrucelly and his partner, no longer listening, are already sprinting inside.
“Don’t leave,” Petrucelly commands over one shoulder. “Do not leave.”
Suddenly, my knees are weak. I can barely stand up. I may have escaped. But Josh. Penny. Where are they? My purse, cell phone inside, is probably a pile of ashes right now.
Hanging on to the wrought-iron railing with both hands, I lower myself to sit on the bottom step of the front porch. The Head is probably dead. And Ebling is in bad shape. Were they in it together? It’s terrifying, and sad, and so tragic, that a beloved pillar of the Bexter community could be twisted and corrupted by greed and desire and, I don’t know, envy. Byron Forrestal is dead. Killed by a money-hungry loser who had no remorse about tormenting people over secrets from their past. And who finally turned on his own partner in crime.
I lower my head into my hands, staring in dread at the concrete walkway. What if the Head and Ebling got to Josh and Penny? I have to go home. I have to check on them. I start to get up. But I’m trapped. The police ordered me not to leave. My locked car, parked in the driveway, is blocked in by the ambulance.
The tips of my fingers are white with cold, my rear is freezing on the concrete, and I’m grateful for my thick sweater. I pull the turtleneck collar high over my chin, then push my bare hands up under the sleeves. It’s dark. Frigid. And I’ve never felt so alone. Or powerless. Or afraid. When I look up, I’m shocked to see stars, every constellation glittering, arrayed across the winter sky. Like nothing happened.
“Miss McNally? You said someone was upstairs?”
The voice behind me is a firefighter, wet droplets glistening on his uniform, a deputy’s white helmet strapped into place. He smells of fire and smoke and water. A smear of soot crosses one ruddy cheek.
“Yes, yes, upstairs,” I say. Turning, I jump to my feet, straining to the left, then to the right, trying to see what’s going on behind him inside the house. The smoke is almost gone and the way is clear, but the firefighter is blocking my view.
“The Headmaster, Byron Forrestal,” I say, pointing. “He’s upstairs.”
The firefighter is shaking his head. No.
“No what? No, he isn’t there? He has to be. I mean, he might be hurt. Maybe you didn’t look…”
“We checked everywhere, ma’am.” The deputy’s voice is dryly confident, puffing into the cold. “I know Headmaster Forrestal, of course. And he’s not-”
Then I see his face change. With raised eyebrows, he points a gloved hand, one canvas-covered finger directing me to turn around.
The Head. Is trotting up the front walkway.
Framed in hat and coat and scarf, his face is the picture of fear and confusion.
“What on earth? How did this start?” He looks at his house, then the firefighter, then me, then this house. His face goes bleak. Sagging with terror. “My collection?”
“It’s all fine, sir, nothing badly damaged,” the deputy says. “We got here in time. You’ll have to replace a rug, and your living room couch and a chair. It’s smoky, but nothing some ventilation won’t cure. We got the vent fans going now. The EMTs are still working on Mr. Ebling, but he’ll make it.”
“Ebling? Why was-” The Head steps toward the front door, pointing. “I need to go inside.”
“Miss McNally?” The firefighter faces me briefly, holding up a palm to stop the Head. “We saved your purse, but your coat’s a goner. Sir? You can come inside in a minute or so. After the EMTs leave.”
The deputy turns on his heel, saying something into his squawking shoulder radio, and heads back into the house.
I couldn’t be more confused.
“Ebling told me you were upstairs.” I ping-pong my gaze between the Head and the house, reconciling actual reality with Ebling’s concocted version. The third murder-was me. He was going to try to frame the Head for my death. But how?
Suddenly, I get it. When the Head got home, I’d already be shot dead on the rug, killed with the Head’s pistol. Ebling would kill the Head, then pretend to find us both. He’d say I’d uncovered the Head’s scheme and confronted him. He’d killed me, and then himself. It could have worked.
But the Head doesn’t know about that part yet.
“Ebling? Told you?” The Head is answering me, shaking his head. “Preposterous. Of course I wasn’t here. It’s Bexter board meeting night. I was at the school. Your Josh was there, didn’t you know? Ebling knew that. You can’t be two places at once, you know.”
Josh is okay. I begin to breathe again.
“Do you know where Penny is? Don’t those board meetings usually last until midnight or so?” The words tumble out. “Why are you home now?”
“Senior prank,” the Head replies. “We all had to leave the building. Seems the seniors spread mashed-potato flakes across the floor of Main lobby. They hid and waited until Mr. Parker tried to mop them up. Your Penny was there, too. Watching with Annie Vilardi as the lobby turned to potato soup.”
He takes a few steps toward his front door, then turns back to me.
“You and Josh might want to have a little chat with her about it. After they finish helping with the cleanup. It’s pretty unpleasant.”
I’m speechless. And on the verge of laughing. Until I think about the body in front of the fireplace. The one who might have been me.
I hit the snooze button, curling up against my pillow, getting ready to savor the next eight sweetly stolen minutes before today’s chaos begins. Botox purrs and cuddles up closer. I smile and sigh with my eyes closed, going over the whole thing once again, a long, confusing, frightening night ending with Ebling in jail and Penny in the doghouse. I think Josh grounded her for the next twenty-five years. Ebling’s sentence is probably going to be longer.
I flip over, ousting a protesting Botox from her nest behind my knees, and mentally chew over the one journalistically annoying element in all this. I can’t do the Bexter extortion and murder story for Channel 3, since the same person can’t be a witness to a crime and the reporter on the same story. So Liz Whittemore, who showed up at the Head’s house as the emergency crews were all wrapping up, gets a big break. Courtesy of me.