“What about the smoke detectors?”
“Weak back-up batteries. The same surge that started the fire must have shut down their main power. I’d guess the batteries came with the original installation. Most people never think to check their detectors because they get so used to seeing the little red test lights always on.”
“So this means you finally believe us?”
“It’s not a case of believing or not believing,” Davidson said. “It’s about removing any shadow of a doubt. For all of us.”
“You think I was afraid somebody burned my house down? That maybe they were trying to kill me and got Mattie instead?”
“It’s a brutal planet, Mr. Wells. And there’s the inescapable coincidence that your house was insured for a million dollars. Your wife and child were insured for a million each in the event of accidental death. And you were insured for five million. It could have been an eight-million-dollar fire.”
Jacob peered into the bottomless grottoes of Davidson’s eyes. “But then nobody would have been around to collect.”
“Somebody would come out pretty flush no matter which way it turned out, don’t you think?”
“And it just happened to be us.” Jacob wiped the dry corners of his mouth. One of the large bay doors of the fire station groaned and revealed a gap of darkness at its bottom. The aluminum panels of the door lurched and lifted with a grating sound. The broadband radio on Davidson’s hip hissed static.
“My wife couldn’t have started the fire,” Jacob said. “She was in bed with me.”
“She was standing outside the house when the first responders arrived.”
“You don’t know Renee.” Neither did Jacob.
“I’m trained to look at the evidence, Mr. Wells. Nothing personal. But people do strange things for money. Anyway, it looks like she’s come out of this better than you have.”
Jacob looked down at his soiled shirt. One of the sleeve buttons was missing. The knees of his pants were scuffed and the toe boxes of his shoes were caked with dried mud. He wore no socks. He’d dressed better than this in his most decadent student days, when he would sometimes wake up on a strange couch with a throbbing head and memories as elusive as an opium dream.
“She didn’t do it,” he said.
“Take it easy. I’m trying to tell you what the lab results were. But from what I’ve seen and heard, her story just doesn’t hold together.”
“You’re going to have the police charge her with something?”
“I don’t have any evidence. But I’m not finished yet.”
The bay door was fully open now. The silver grill of the fire truck caught the late afternoon sunlight. Inside the station, a man in yellow rubber pants began unraveling a canvas-covered hose. The traffic on the street grew thicker as everyone cheated five o’clock in order to beat the evening rush. A car horn sounded, but Jacob kept his gaze on Davidson.
“She lost her child, and all you can think about is walking her through hell again,” Jacob said. “What kind of monster are you?”
“The hungry kind, Mr. Wells. Because I don’t go away ‘til I’m satisfied.”
“We’ll not speak to you anymore without a lawyer.”
“That only applies to police interrogation. I have a public duty to determine the cause of the fire. That goes beyond victims and insurance policies and hardship. It’s all about the cold, gray facts.”
“I hope you choke on them.”
“Of course, the police are the first to get a copy of my report.”
Jacob turned his back and stomped down the sidewalk. His skin was clammy and he was far too sober. Kingsboro’s windows leered at him, alternately flashing his reflection and allowing him to see into the faces of the storefronts. He passed a pawn shop featuring carpenter’s tools and old Nintendo cartridges, a music store with a garish neon sign in the shape of a guitar, a home decorating store that stank of new carpet. Strangers swept past him, heading for sit-down restaurants and television news. Most of these people were not from old local blood. The locals kept away from downtown during rush hour. They rose early and worked late, immune to the cancer of the clock.
Jacob turned the corner and was relieved to no longer feel Davidson’s eyes on his back. Renee would never do anything like that. She couldn’t. She had been in bed, he’d been the first to awaken, the first to smell smoke, the first to try to reach Mattie. Even if Renee wanted him dead, she would never put Mattie at risk. Davidson didn’t know a damned thing. Just another dyke wishing she had a pecker, a gun to notch when she brought down one of Kingsboro’s big boys.
The town thinned, the buildings now broken by vacant lots and blank alleys. A closed furniture factory, one of the casualties of free-trade agreements, slouched behind its chain-link fence like a defeated beast. Behind the factory stretched a parcel of chalky brown dirt that was ribbed with erosion, a real estate deal gone south. Jacob walked faster, the breeze drying his sweat.
He was approaching a vacant Methodist church when he heard the familiar rusty death rattle. The green Chevy with the tinted windows roared into the parking lot behind him. Jacob panicked and looked for an escape route. He could turn and run into the closest store, a jeweler’s specializing in engraved gold, but somehow the rules of this strange psychological showdown required that no outsiders be involved. He ran toward the adjoining lot and hurtled a sagging chain-link fence. The property was the site of a bank under construction, another temple of Kingsboro’s new economy.
The Chevy accelerated and closed the sixty feet in seconds. The brakes squealed and the tires grabbed pavement as the driver realized that Jacob was beyond the bite of his bumper. Jacob ducked between a ditch-digging machine and a stack of cool cinder blocks. The Chevy eased out of the parking lot and turned onto the construction property. A crew of Hispanic workers were pouring a concrete floor at the far end of the building, but they were too busy with wet cement to notice Jacob or the car. Jacob pressed deep into the shadows and waited for the Chevy’s next move. The car crept forward like a cat that had cornered a mouse, patient and confident and playful.
Jacob eyed the distance between his hiding place and the steel-girded shell of the building. He would never make it before the Chevy delivered its killing blow. He couldn’t run back to the parking lot without being cut off. His best chance was to slip down the rear of the property, where a creek bordered a stand of jack pines. The car couldn’t reach him there unless it was the sort of mythical beast that could sprout wings and fly.
He fumbled for the flask and pulled it from his pocket. Evan Williams, eighty-six proof. His blood had chilled at the first sound of the car, and his numb fingers fought with the lid. He closed his eyes and let the liquor settle into a hot ball in his stomach.
The car idled, purring like a giant asthmatic dragon. Jacob knew it would never give up on its prey. Even if he beat it to the creek and made for the safety of the undergrowth, the Chevy would find him again. Jacob took another harsh swallow, the heat inside expanding into frustration and anger. What behavior would the dragon least expect from its chosen victim?
He stood, shouted, and charged the car. He raised the liquor bottle as if it were a battle mace. The sight of Jacob approaching like a suicide bomber must have unnerved the driver, because the car’s engine didn't rev in anticipation of combat. The car neither attacked nor retreated.
Jacob reached the driver’s-side, his fingers tight around the neck of the bottle, its contents dribbling out and running down his sleeve. He pulled the bottle back to smash the window when he saw his reflection in the tinted glass. He hardly recognized himself, so great was his dissipation over the recent weeks. Fear and rage had contorted his face. A crazed stranger looked back at him, a string of drool dangling from bared teeth, hair tangled, dark wedges of flesh ringing his bloodshot eyes. His arm froze in shock and revulsion.
The driver’s side window descended slowly and once again Jacob was face to face with himself.
CHAPTER TEN
“You ain’t changed a bit, brother.”