Smoke Page 4

  I make a list of potentially suspicious transactions as I go, and then sit staring at my computer screen, refreshing the Cooper Basin fire page on ForestFires.com every five minutes like a rat in one of those Skinner boxes hoping for her next hit.

  Ben doesn’t answer my e-mail.

  “Late again, Liz?” Rich says, appearing behind my computer screen. He’s wearing his it-didn’t-go-well face, and I’m guessing the robber got bail.

  “Elizabeth.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I’ve told you a million times. I don’t answer to Liz.”

  I should probably just let him call me Beth, but that name’s reserved for people I like.

  “Fine. Elizabeth. Whatever.” He frowns at me, rocking back on his cowboy boot heels. “What’s got your goat this morning?”

  I turn my computer screen so he can see the map. “I’m in the evacuation area.”

  “The what?”

  “Of the fire? The Cooper Basin fire?”

  “Oh, right.”

  “We’re okay for now, but—”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine. These things always get close, but we haven’t had a fire in town since, what, 1954?”

  He says this like it is both vividly clear in his memory and a million years ago.

  “I’m not sure, but—”

  “Speaking of the fire, we got the call from the sheriff. They’re going to need your services.”

  “My services? For what?”

  “You used to be an arson investigator, yes? Or was that just something you put on your CV to impress me?”

  I ignore the insult. “They think it’s arson?”

  “They’ve got to rule it out, you know that. Besides, there have been fire warnings in place all summer. Even if someone was simply careless, we’ll have to prosecute.”

  “Seems harsh.”

  “Tell that to the State. This thing’s already going to cost half a mil, I heard.”

  Given that he’s been at the courthouse all morning, I have no idea where he’s “heard” all this information, unless . . .

  “How did the bail hearing go?” I ask.

  He lets out a humpf. “His parents hired some fancy lawyer. Old judge Otis didn’t know what to do with himself. Gave the kid bail on a five-thousand-dollar bond after listening to him for only five minutes. Can you believe that?”

  “Ridiculous.”

  “Damn right. Anywho, the fire is all anyone’s talking about at Joanie’s. That robbery is yesterday’s news.”

  Joanie’s is his coffee shop. Gossip central.

  “So, you’d better snap to it,” he says. “Deputy Clark’s waiting for you.”

  “I’m not really sure that’s a good—”

  He waves his hand impatiently. “Get to the sheriff’s office. Fire’s a wasting.”

  CHAPTER 5

  You Take Sugar with That?

  Mindy

  After spin class, Mindy followed Kate and Bit to the Nelson Perk, the town’s trendy coffee bar, which, in a move that Mindy can only think of as ironic, recently decided to start selling decaffeinated coffee exclusively. This was, to Mindy, the perfect equivalent of the cupcake shop that opened up a few weeks ago selling only “healthy” cupcakes.

  If you’re going to go cupcake, what’s the point of going healthy?

  Mindy would rather have gone to Joanie’s, where she used to hang out—the homey diner full of old-timers and their gentle gossip (Did you hear, Fred? They’s talking about putting in a new culvert under the river come spring)—but the one time she’d suggested it, Kate looked at her like Mindy had used her lipstick to color in her eyebrows, and then started cackling.

  “You are so funny,” Kate said, her go-to phrase when Mindy did something she couldn’t process. Like if Kate pretended it was on-purpose humor, she could continue to ignore the fact that Mindy didn’t really fit in.

  Mindy wasn’t quite sure how she’d ended up in this position—questioning, uncertain, feeling like she almost hated her friends half the time. She knew she should quit them, but the thought of having no friends, of being back where she was a year ago . . . Well, no, she couldn’t go there. They might be inadequate rebound friends, but at least they were talking to her.

  In the parking lot, Mindy quickly checked the fire’s progress on her phone after a furtive glance over her shoulder. She didn’t know why she was acting like someone who was having an illicit e-mail affair, but something about the fire felt personal.

  The cause of the fire was unknown, she read. It started on the edge of the Cooper Basin, in steep and rocky terrain heavy with downed fuels and low-moisture brush and tinder. While the quick response of local fire crews contained the northern edge of the fire, it was spreading up Nelson Peak and was already five hundred acres in size.

  Was the fact that it was 10 percent contained a good thing? How long did it take to contain a fire? There hadn’t been a fire this close in the whole time she’d lived in Nelson, but Mindy was still distressed by her ignorance. More evidence that her world had become too small, too insular.

  Mindy stowed her phone and hurried to catch up with Kate.

  The rest of the Coffee Boosters were already sitting at the best table, of course, the one with the perfect view of the street so they could watch the passersby without, you know, actually seeming to watch them. Honor Wells and Keffie Bristol and Caramel Homer, women who didn’t attend spin class, but who dressed like they’d just come from there. Mindy wasn’t sure when workout wear became acceptable casual attire for women who put their makeup on before they brushed their teeth, but maybe it was the price of the goods ($150 for a pair of yoga pants!) that made it all right.

  The Perk was half-full. A few other groups of women, stealing envious glances at the Boosters; a couple of college students surfing the Internet; Earnest Writer Guy, as Kate called him, frowning at his laptop. He was always using some writing program that was supposed to make him write a certain number of words each day. Judging by the panicked look on his face, he wasn’t going to be making that day’s quota.

  “Mindy has an idea,” Kate announced when Honor et al. had made a space for her on the faux-leather bench, and she’d placed her order with their usual server for “a tall white café with no whip.” Which was just a latte with a shot of espresso, sans caffeine, but sounded so much more authentic when Kate ordered it with a dash of the remnants of her high school French.

  “Ooh,” Caramel said in a cooing tone that was so like her ten-year-old daughter’s that Mindy had to keep herself from saying, “Oh, grow up” whenever she heard it.

  If Mindy put her finger on the one reason she needed to break free from this group of women, it was that. Her brain, and how catty it became around them. How critical.

  She usually reserved such judgments for herself.

  “Do tell,” Caramel said.

  Kate looked at Mindy expectantly.

  “Well, you know the fire?” Mindy said, feeling like the question was justified this time, since it was entirely possible that none of the Coffee Boosters had heard about it yet.

  “Of course!” Honor and Caramel said in unison.

  “Right, well, um . . .”

  “Go on,” Kate said, darting her tongue at the foam on her just-arrived small white whatever.

  “Well, I was thinking. I mean, we were thinking, that instead of using the Fall Fling money for the hockey team, we’d use it to help out the fire victims.”

  “Are there fire victims?” Keffie asked.

  “There’s at least one. His name is John Phillips.” Mindy stopped, gulping for air and getting a mouthful of faux-coffee fumes for her trouble. “His wife died two years ago, and he’s lost everything.”

  “Ooh,” Caramel said again, like John’s tragedy was something tasty she knew she shouldn’t eat but probably would after everyone had gone to bed. “That’s so sad.”

  “Totally,” Kate agreed. “But we’re going to fix it.”

  “But,” Caramel said
, working it over in her mind, “we only raised, like, a hundred thousand last year, right? That’s not enough for a house. And what if there are other victims? Shouldn’t we—”

  “Not a house like ours,” Kate said. “I’m thinking more of an apartment, or a condo or something. He’s alone. How much space does one person need?”

  Asks the woman whose house is at least ten thousand square feet, Mindy thought, and then felt herself blushing even though she was almost certain no one, not even Kate, could read her mind.

  “But still—” Caramel said, before she caught a glance from Kate and swallowed her words.

  “We’re doing it,” Kate said. “Plus, people will give way more this year if that’s the reason.”

  “But what about the hockey team?” Keffie protested. “They have to rent ice time and buy equipment, and it’s an important cause too.” Keffie had three boys, all in hockey, and her husband’s real estate business wasn’t doing so well despite the average house price in Nelson being three times the national average. “Should we really be putting in all this time to help one person?”

  “Maybe she’s right,” Mindy said, feeling guilty for suggesting it, even though Kate had insisted. “I could always organize something separate? Maybe in a couple of months?”

  “No,” Kate said. “What’s wrong with you guys? This is a chance to do some real charity, not just some bullshit excuse for a party. You want a party? Come to my house on Friday. This. Is. What. We’re. Doing.”

  Bit and Caramel looked down at their coffee cups, like penitents. But, for once, Mindy didn’t have a sarcastic thought in her mind.

  No, at that moment, she was proud that Kate was her maybe, sort of, almost friend.

  CHAPTER 6

  Point of Origin

  Elizabeth

  I glance at the squad car’s clock as I drive with Deputy Clark back to the fire. It’s twelve fifteen. Ben will be on his lunch break at the high school and might be reachable. I pull my phone out of my pocket, telling the deputy I need to make a quick call.

  Ben answers on the second ring. I can hear the din of conversation behind him, a burst of laughter fairly close by. The usual sounds of the staff lunchroom—not that different from the regular lunchroom, if memory serves.

  “Hey,” I say. “How’s your day going?”

  “All right, considering.”

  I search his tone for any trace of the sarcasm I felt in his e-mail this morning, but there’s nothing. Maybe it was all in my head. Or maybe he doesn’t want to let the people around him know what’s going on with us. The fact that I can’t tell anymore is a weight on my shoulders.

  “Kids happy to be back at school?”

  “You know it.”

  “Right. Um, I was thinking . . . maybe we should go check on the house later? Pick up a few more things. Looks like this is probably going to turn serious.”

  “You mean the fire?”

  I glance at the deputy. He’s clearly listening in, but since I’m only a bucket seat away, I can’t blame him.

  “Yes,” I say. “The fire.”

  “Can you meet me after Write Club?”

  “What time does it finish again?”

  “Four forty-five. Like it always has.”

  Another thread of a fight. I should know his schedule by heart a long time by now.

  “I might be tied up.”

  “With what? You’re the one—”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I’m just . . . I’d like to check on the house.”

  “You’re not making any sense, Beth.”

  “Probably not.”

  “Where are you, anyway?”

  I look out the window. Up ahead, two bison have their noses in the stream that runs next to the road.

  “Bison jam,” I say to Deputy Clark. “Careful.”

  He slows down to match the other traffic crawling by the scene like it’s a car accident.

  “What?” Ben says. “You’re where?”

  Something tells me that the fact I’ve been drafted to investigate the fire is the last thing Ben wants to hear right now.

  “I’m out on a case.”

  “Well, then, why don’t you call me when you’re free?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say again.

  God, I’m so sick of apologizing.

  He doesn’t say anything. I listen to the mechanical silence as the deputy and I edge past the cars full of people snapping pictures on their cell phones. I imagine Ben sitting in the staff room, his hand cupped around his phone to create a zone of privacy, the edge of his shirt collar between his teeth to keep him from saying something he’ll regret.

  “I should go,” I say eventually. “Love you.”

  Ben pauses long enough to remind me that this isn’t something we should be saying to each other anymore as a casual good-bye, even if it’s true.

  “Talk soon,” he says, and the line goes dead.

  I put my phone on my lap, hoping he’ll text me in a moment to say the words back, like he used to do when we fought on the phone and calling back seemed too dramatic, but my phone stays mute.

  Deputy Clark picks up his radio and calls in the traffic slowdown. Our eyes meet, and despite the weight tugging at my heart, we share a conspiratorial smile. People, our look says. What can you do?

  “Your house in the line of fire, ma’am?” Deputy Clark asks as he steps on the gas. He speaks deliberately, almost as if there’s punctuation between his words. Commas mostly and an occasional period. He’s twenty-five, and his campaign hat is tipped back far enough to reveal a rash of acne across his forehead.

  “Yes, unfortunately.”

  And don’t call me ma’am, I want to say. Jesus.

  Instead, I tell him where our house is. How the smoke woke me in the night. I leave out the rest of it, though a small part of me wishes I could confide in him. They way you do sometimes with complete strangers on a long plane ride, the thorough knowledge that you’ll never see each other again an erasure of reticence.

  “This must be weird for you, then,” he says. “Investigating this.”

  “All part of the job, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I guess it is.”

  Another version of Write Club is where Ben and I met in our last year of college.

  As a science major headed—I thought—to med school, it had been strongly suggested to me as a way to round out my CV. Not Write Club, necessarily, but something, anything, other than the excessive lab time I’d been putting in alone with my assays. I’m not sure what drew me to that particular club. I wasn’t a writer, never felt the desire to put what was going on in my head down on the page. I read a lot, still do, but I never thought up my own stories. But I had a friend who’d joined the year before, and I was 100 percent certain that my ex, Jason, wouldn’t be there, which would be a welcome change from the 24/7 interaction we were still forced to endure as a result of being in the same program.

  This guy named Morris, who was a teaching assistant in the MFA program, ran it. He had this terrible, affected air about him. Now I’d say he was a hipster before there were hipsters—he wore oversize glasses and sweaters with strategic holes, and seemed to feel that bathing was optional—but back then, my friend Cecily and I just thought he needed to invest in some good deodorant.

  It was the second meeting I’d attended, and I was still on the fence about whether I was going to keep going. Cecily was late, and before I could get my “I’m saving this seat for a friend” out, Ben sat down next to me.

  “Has he pulled out The Story yet?” Ben asked, nodding to Morris.

  Most clubs I knew were more democratic, but Morris ran it like it was just another class he was TA-ing. Morris was talking about the importance of his process while fairly obviously focusing his attention on three freshman girls who were looking at him with wide-eyed adoration.

  Yuck.

  “Um, what?”

  “You haven’t heard about it?” Ben smiled. He had a natural white smile, straight black
hair, and sage-green eyes. Five eleven. Broad shoulders. Pretty much the opposite of Jason, in a good way.

  “No. Should I have?”

  “Uh-uh. But you probably will.”

  “Dude, what the hell? Who are you?”

  “I’m Ben Jansen. And you’re Elizabeth Martin.”

  Before I could ask how he knew my name, he leaned forward conspiratorially. He smelled like sleep even though the class was at four in the afternoon. I’d learn later that Ben was a big fan of the restorative afternoon nap.

  “It’s this piece he wrote—the only thing he’s written as far as I can tell—some semiconfessional thing about his sister’s death that he uses to get whoever catches his fancy each semester into bed.”

  “And women fall for this?”

  “They do.”

  I looked closely at Morris. His hair was wiry and about to turn into natural dreadlocks. His glasses were round and too small for his face. He seemed incapable of talking in anything but a lecture voice.

  How good would a short story have to be to make me remotely interested in sleeping with him? I admit I was slightly tempted to find out.

  “Idiots,” I said to Ben.

  “How so?”

  I motioned to the girls watching Morris, taking notes, eager.

  “Women. Like falling for ugly rock stars because they write about feelings in sappy ballads.”

  “Is that why that happens?”

  “Yup. We pretty much go in for whatever makes us think men understand us.”

  “Ha! That’s what you should write about.”

  “No way.”

  He smiled again and shook his head. “You’d be doing a service to mankind.”

  “I bet I would. Say, why are you telling me about this anyway?”

  “Oh . . . I . . . just have a feeling you might be this semester’s pick.”