Disintegration

CHAPTER NINE

Jacob left the building and hurried past the playground, afraid he would see the vision of Mattie again. If the hallucinations started, the carefully constructed wall inside his head might crumble, brick by brick. Already, darkness broke through the chinks. And the things inside the darkness might slither out if the gap widened.

The session was a mistake. Nothing had changed since his teens. You couldn't trust them. You couldn't trust her.

He turned the corner and headed down Buffalo Trace Lane. The county historical society said the street had once been a path where buffalo traveled to the high grazing lands in the summer. The Cherokee and Catawba hunted there, put up temporary meat camps, and moved into the valleys when the frost came. Now all the buffalo were gone, slaughtered in order to build the roads that bore their name. Jacob's throat was raw from the bout of vomiting. The air of the town tasted like old coins. A bank's neon clock said 4:37. Back in his old life, Jacob would probably have an appointment somewhere, with a developer or tenant or maybe a loan officer. In his old life, he would be running late.

Back in Rheinsfeldt's office, Renee was probably crying. Rheinsfeldt would swallow it all in her eagerness to help, and Jacob would be "the problem child" again. Now that he was gone, they could conspire against him. Just like always.

Renee loved that story about the night Mattie was conceived. He'd been drunk. He wouldn't have remembered it at all without her help. But once she'd reminded him, it had been burned into his mind forever. And Mattie was the result, and she was also burned.

Forever.

He needed some cash. The credit card was nearly topped out. He didn't have a postal address so he couldn't apply for another. The way all the financial and credit institutions were tied together, you couldn't slip through the net if you were carrying heavy debt.

He moved like muddy water down the sidewalk as Kingsboro dragged him toward its heart. The town his father had helped nurture now bristled with concrete menace, the old three-story buildings blocking the surrounding mountains. The hardware store where his grandfather bought cut nails and hand tools now sold polyvinyl bird baths and plastic signs that said things like "Forget the dog… beware of the OWNER." A girl sat on a bench by the door, Kingsboro's version of a Goth, tiny swells of adolescence on her chest and black lipstick smeared by the cell phone she was holding. She rolled her eyes at Jacob as if he were of a different, dangerous species.

He was.

Three men stood outside the drugstore, one of them smoking. They laughed at the idle afternoon, fingering their pockets in the shade. Jacob recognized the middle one as a roofer who had held some M amp; W contracts. The man's left arm was in a sling, and Jacob wondered if the injury was accompanied by a workman's compensation claim against one of his fellow developers.

"Howdy, Jacob," the roofer said. Jacob ran through a mental list of names, trying to match one with the face. His father had taught him that showing interest in workers as human beings made them more productive. That meant better profit margins. Warren Wells' philosophy was built on the idea that every person had a role in his empire. "Hi, fellows," Jacob said, deciding to include them all. He used their native tongue, that of the Southern mountain boy. He'd perfected it as a youngster, though it never came as naturally to him as it did to Joshua. "Nice afternoon, ain't it?"

"Yep," the man in the sling said. "We been missing you at church."

The roofer was a member of the choir. Jacob had to mentally remove the stubble, comb his hair, and press him into a suit and tie, but he could picture the roofer praising the Lord, singing about trading this house for a mansion in the sky, a mighty fortress is our God, worthy is the lamb, grace that is greater than all our sin, it is well with my soul, I surrender all. And the blood. Lots of hymns about the revelations of cities charred with fire, oceans boiling with blood, a coming judgment spelled out against the dark, gathering clouds.

"I know," Jacob said. "I've been missing it myself."Father Rose had stopped by several times while Jacob was in the hospital. Jacob had at first refused to talk to him, then asked the preacher the question that had no answer. Why did God let the innocent suffer? When the standard answer came, of the Lord knowing best and that all was in His blessed hands, Jacob had become so angry that he wanted to strangle the old man. He'd shouted and cursed at the priest until the nurse came and gave Jacob a shot. The priest was gone when Jacob came back from the dark grotto. No doubt Father Rose hadn't mentioned the incident to the congregation, merely asked the church members to pray for Jacob's and Renee's acceptance of their loss.

"The Lord's always there to help you heal," the roofer said.

The Lord had too many agents of healing, that was the problem. From Dr. Masutu to Rheinsfeldt to Father Rose, Jacob was bound for glory no matter what. God probably needed a developer to help house all those angels. Real estate followed the universal law of supply and demand. When the value went up, only the richest could buy.

"I'm getting better," Jacob said to the roofer. His chest hurt and he was thirsty.

"Terrible thing, to lose a daughter like that."

"The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away." Jacob wondered if those words were actually in the Bible, or if they were like most religious uttering and simply repeated until they became meaningless, a hollow mantra, an oral admission of helplessness and resignation.

"That He does," the man with the cigarette said. The wind rose and the American flag on the pole in front of town hall snapped to brisk attention. A woman came out of the drugstore carrying an orange-and-white-striped prescription bag. Jacob recognized her as also being a choir member. Her face was twisted as if it had been kicked by a horse. She nodded to Jacob and went to stand beside the man in the sling.

"We're praying for you, Mr. Wells," she said. "You and the missus."

"It can't hurt none," Jacob said.

Nothing could hurt, not anymore. Not when his skin was new and his heart was encased in emotional scar tissue. Prayers and arrows could not penetrate. He looked at his bare wrist as if he had an appointment, then said good-bye and hurried away. He went past town hall, a brick building that bore a portrait of his father in the lobby. Next to town hall was the downtown fire station. He glanced at his reflection in the glass door and saw a hunched, sickly man.

Then the door swung open and the fire chief, Davidson, came out. Her belt was too tight and her stomach strained against the waistband of her pants. Her thick biceps were tight against her short shirt sleeves. Sweat darkened the blue shirt beneath her armpits.

"Mr. Wells, I've been trying to get hold of you," she said.

"I've been trying to get hold of me myself."

"The report came back from the SBI. I did the initial scene, and I didn't see anything that set off alarms. But when there's a fatality, we have to give it a closer look. The spalling and the depth of the charred remains suggested that it started near the sliding glass door by your computer."

"My wife already told you that."

"There was some question about why it spread so fast. The state lab did a gas analysis and didn't find any trace of an accelerant. When a house gets eaten up in less than twenty minutes, you would expect to find some lighter fluid, gasoline, or something as simple as the impression of a matchstick."

"You're talking arson."

Davidson gave a dutiful nod of the head. "That's why we asked about any enemies, problems at work, that kind of thing. And of course there was the autopsy…"

Jacob turned away and looked at the skyline, the tarred tops of buildings, a transmission tower glinting silver on a distant hill. He couldn't think of Mattie lying cold on a stainless steel table, black skin peeling and flaking like that of an overly toasted marshmallow, the sharp blades of strangers probing into her scalded organs. Easier to see her as four pounds of ash, dust, and bone bits resting in a ceramic urn in Renee's apartment. She was part of the sky now, he tried to tell himself, up there in a Catholic heaven singing about mighty fortresses and worthy lambs.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Wells. But we had to look at the lungs for signs of smoke inhalation."

"I told you she was still alive when I reached her. And I couldn't goddamned save her."

"Not that we have any reason to suspect foul play, but the smoke damage confirmed she was still breathing when the fire started. Arson is sometimes used to hide a murder, but it doesn't work very well. Murderers have this idea that their sin will be purified by fire or something."

Jacob wanted to grab the stocky woman by her shoulders and shove her against the brick wall. His left eyelid twitched and his lips were tight against his teeth. He forced himself to breathe through his mouth, swallow deeply as directed by those television self-help gurus. The air was thick as smoke, the air was a hot snake sliding down his throat, the air was broken glass in his lungs.

Child murder was a different, poisonous atmosphere.

Davidson examined him with cool amphibian eyes. "My report's going to say an accident caused by the wiring. Something shorted out in the wall socket, probably an electrical surge caused by the computer, and a fluke spark touched some papers near the desk. The papers apparently smoldered for several minutes before catching on. With the bookcase right there, and so much wood used in the construction, that would account for the rapid spread."

"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.