“Get away from it!” Rachel shouted at us. “Let the fire department take care of it!”
“Cody!” I said. “Cody was sleeping inside!”
Jack’s extinguisher was empty; he was pulling Travis back. Soon mine was empty as well. I tried to reach for the hose, but Rachel grabbed my arms from behind. Horrifying images of Cody burning alive in that camper drove me into a frenzied struggle against her. She quickly maneuvered me down to the lawn and pinned me there. My face in the grass, my breath coming hard, I heard sirens howling their way closer. The sound somehow got through to me in a way all my discomfort did not; I realized that if Cody was in that camper, there wasn’t a chance in hell that he was alive. I heard myself groan as the fight drained out of me and an agonizing ache replaced it. Rachel let up a little. I wasn’t going anywhere.
“I’m sorry about Cody,” I heard her say as she moved off of me, “but keep in mind that it could have been Travis.”
“Small consolation,” I heard Travis say as he sat down next to me.
I found myself wishing that they would both go away. Or shut up. Just shut up.
Or better, maybe I could just disappear, be somewhere where I didn’t have to smell smoke and didn’t have to think about what was burning in that camper. Where I could get sick or scream or sob or smash something to pieces, or follow any of the other impulses warring within me. Perhaps, I thought, it would be nice to faint. Unfortunately, I have some idea of what it takes to make me do that, and-damn it all to hell-I knew I wasn’t even close.
Cody. Poor Cody. I should have never-but I stopped myself from taking that road.
I started wishing that Frank were home, because I knew he would know what not to say, but then I was glad that he didn’t have this addition to the list of things he was trying to cope with.
“I left a window open,” Travis reminded me. “Maybe Cody got out before the camper caught fire.”
I pushed myself up.
Travis had already started looking in the bushes near the house, calling, “Co-dy… kit-kit-kit…” I checked under the Karmann Ghia and the Volvo. Jack started investigating hiding places in his yard.
The fire truck pulled up, its occupants perhaps a little baffled to find three adults ignoring a vehicle fire, stooped down and talking in coaxing voices to plants and bushes. Rachel was cautiously using the hose to keep the lawn wet, trying to prevent the fire from spreading. She was the reason some of my other neighbors were at a distance; she had warned one of them off in an authoritative voice when he ventured too near- when he approached again, she squirted him in the crotch with the hose. He swore at her, but retreated. The others were now murmuring to one another in a rubbernecking huddle.
The firefighters made quick work of putting out the blaze, and began talking to Rachel.
I looked over at Travis, and saw that he was cradling his right hand, wincing. I moved closer to him and saw that his palm and fingers were red and swollen, covered with blisters-in a peculiar pattern. “You burned it on the door handle…”
“Yeah, pretty stupid, huh?”
I shook my head. “It must hurt like hell. Let’s ask one of the paramedics to take a look at it.”
We both turned then to take our first real look at the camper. It was a charred hulk. I heard Travis moan softly. That small sound made me realize how wrapped up in my own concerns I had been.
“Pretty lousy day for you, isn’t it?” I said.
He choked out a laugh.
“Sorry,” I said. “Irene Kelly, master of understatement.”
The police arrived while a paramedic was placing Travis’s hand in a saline soak. More law enforcement soon showed up; investigators interested in everything from bombs to arson to attempted murder.
They left a long time later, towing the remains of the camper off with them, saying they needed it for further study. The fire had left little for Travis to salvage from it. The detectives were frustrated. The only names Travis could supply for potential enemies were those of the DeMonts.
“But they had no way of knowing I’d be here in Las Piernas,” he said. “I didn’t know I’d be here myself.”
They asked for information on them all the same. He told them the DeMonts lived in Huntington Beach, then said, with a glance at the place where the camper had been parked, “I’d give you their addresses, but-”
Rachel gave me a warning look, then said, “Don’t worry about it, Travis, these guys will be able to find them.”
The detectives reassured him on that point, and left soon after. Two uniformed officers in a cruiser were left behind, to keep an eye on the house. Things began to settle down.
The paramedics had wrapped the hand lightly in a gauze bandage, but said that as soon as Travis was done talking to the police, we should take him to an emergency room, to have the hand treated.
I went into the house to get my keys and to quickly change my blouse, which, after my time facedown on a wet lawn, made me look like the loser in an outdoor mud-wrestling competition. On my way back out, I passed by the kitchen, glanced in and saw a sight that stopped me in my tracks.
“Cody!”
Peering up from the kitchen counter, where he had evidently been having a grand old time demolishing the leftover lasagna, Cody mistook my shout of relief and figured he was in trouble. He streaked out past me into the front yard.
Apparently the others saw him, for by the time I got out to the front yard, Jack, Rachel and Travis were all surrounding the Karmann Ghia, bent low and talking sweetly to him. I joined them, and saw that he was twitching his tail, watching me warily.
“Come here, you big oaf,” I said, but I was crying.
Cody, all orneriness aside, is usually attuned to my moods. Demonstrating this, he came closer and peered up at me-his gray face covered with lasagna sauce-and then ventured out from under the car.
I picked him up carefully, still worried that he might be hurt. He was impatient with my attempts to fuss over him, twisting and clawing, but when Travis began petting him, he sniffed delicately at Travis’s lightly bandaged hand, and settled down. Soon I realized that other than a messy face, the cat was fine.
“Sorry for the delay,” I said to Travis. “I’ll take you to the hospital now.”
“Which one?” he asked.
“Las Piernas General. It’s closest.”
He seemed relieved. Seeing that I had noticed, he said, “St. Anne’s is a good hospital, but since my dad-well, I don’t think I can go over there yet.” He quickly changed the subject. “Will eating lasagna make Cody sick?”
“It’s not good for him, but God knows he’s eaten worse things.”
The cat, who was sauntering back into the house, flipped his tail at me in a manner reminiscent of an obscene gesture.
“I see Cody speaks Italian, too,” Travis said.
By the time the emergency department doctor finished working on his hand, Travis’s ability to hide the pain of his injury was failing. The doctor offered to give him an injection of morphine, but Travis said the prescriptions he’d been given would be enough and he’d wait until he got home.
It was about two in the morning when we got to the pharmacy, but it was a busy night. Throughout the time we waited for the prescriptions, Travis was silent. He sat with his head resting against the wall, his eyes closed, his brows drawn together in pain or concentration, I wasn’t sure which. His face was pale.
I tried to imagine what it would be like to be told both of your parents were dead, then on the same day, see all your possessions-everything but a trunkful of costumes-destroyed by someone trying to kill you with a bomb. This on the same day you had been involved in a car accident, infuriated because a cousin-from a branch of the family that had disowned yours-showed up unexpectedly and hounded you. The same day you had suffered a second-degree burn on your hand because you thought a cat was being burned alive in your camper.