Save Me

Chapter Fifty-three

Back at the cabin, Rose sat over her laptop at the farm table, watching videotapes of the school fire. She’d done it before in her darkest moments, but now she had a new purpose. She was looking for something that could give her a clue about what had happened last Friday at school. She took a sip of fresh coffee, but didn’t need the caffeine to keep going, though it was after midnight. Melly and John were sleeping over at the Vaughns’, which was their babysitting routine when she and Leo were out past ten o’clock.

She hit PLAY on the most recent link, which was the thirty-fourth new viewer video. She was amazed at how many more there were, from cell phones, flip cams, iPods, and videocameras, made in a world where everybody filmed everything that happened around them, even as it happened, becoming observers in their own lives.

She was having a similar sensation as she watched the video, visualizing herself out of her own body, hunched over the laptop. The only light fixture was the lamp over her head, casting a cone of brightness onto her crown, like Dumbledore’s peaked hat. She couldn’t help projecting outward into the dim cabin and through its walls to the dark night, its blackness obliterating the outlines of the cabin roofs and the jagged tops of the tall evergreens, cutting into a blanket of dense clouds like so many hunters’ knives. The full moon lurked behind, leaving the night opaque and inscrutable.

She hit another video, which showed the same terrified children running from the school, only from a different vantage point. She scanned the video titles backwards in time, reversing the chronology until she was a hero mom. Next to that video was a TV report that she hadn’t seen: More on Moms: Tanya Robertson Speaks with Eileen Gigot. She clicked the link, and after a web commercial, the anchorwoman came onto the screen:

“I’m Tanya Robertson, and tonight I begin my ‘More on Moms’ report, which goes behind the scenes in the life of the single mom whose daughter was trapped in the fire at Reesburgh Elementary. Tonight I’d like to answer the question we all have about single moms-how do they do it?”

Rose watched, intrigued.

“By way of background, Eileen Gigot’s life changed seven years ago, on August 11, in the world-famous Homestead factory, which started in 1948 with a 6200-foot plant that made only potato chips. Today, Homestead employs almost four thousand people and has grown to a plant totaling fifty-six thousand square feet. It makes potato chips, popcorn, and tons of other snack foods, shipping all over the world from right here in Reesburgh, Pennsylvania.”

Rose thought Tanya was angling for a new commercial sponsor until the screen turned to a stop-time photo of the Homestead factory, then morphed into the present-day plant, with her voiceover: “Eileen’s husband, William Gigot, loved his job at Homestead, but he was killed in a forklift accident at the plant.”

Rose eyed the photo they showed next, of William Gigot and three other men wearing yellow Homestead shirts, with nameplates that read WIJEWSKI, MODJESKA, and FIGGS. Bill Gigot was a tall, handsome man with bright blue eyes that would find their way onto Amanda’s pretty face. The screen switched to Tanya, sitting with a teary Eileen, near her breakfront.

Tanya asked, “How did you think you would get along, raising three children on your own?” The camera turned to Eileen, her eyes glistening in a face that looked prematurely lined, and she answered, “I believe that the Lord gives all of us the burdens we can carry, and no more. Of course, I wish it turned out differently. I miss Bill, every day.”

Rose felt a pang, but her thoughts kept coming back to the fire, the polyurethane, and Kurt. She navigated back to the home page, found the story about his crash, and clicked the video. Onto the screen popped the aerial footage, and she watched the coverage again, wondering about what he’d told her.

It’s the GC’s fault, the general contractor, Campanile.

She stopped the video, logged onto Google, plugged in Campanile, and found its website. It had a slick home page with a picture of a huge hotel, and the copy read:

The Campanile Group is a cutting-edge construction corporation, a new way of doing things in an age-old business. The Campanile family gave us our beginnings over a century ago, and though we value our Pennsylvania origins, we have expanded and grown nationally…

Rose got the gist. Her gaze fell on the About Us link, and she clicked it. There was a photo of another building, but no listing or bios of corporate officers, only a PR person. She remembered that Kurt had said a “buddy” told him Campanile was at fault, and she wondered if the buddy was somebody working with him at the school. Kurt had worked for Bethany Run Construction, so she plugged their name into Google.

A website popped up, much lower-budget than Campanile. The Bethany Run home page showed three men in brown Carhartt overalls in front of a cinderblock foundation. The caption read, Vince Palumbo, Frank Reed, and Hank Powell, our famous founders. The only pages on the sidebar were Current Jobs, Past Jobs, and Contact Us.

Rose clicked on Current Jobs, which turned out to be blank except for a banner that read, Sorry, Our Current Construction Page Is Under Construction! Reesburgh Elementary wasn’t mentioned, and she clicked to Past Jobs, which showed three small new houses. There was no About Us. She felt stumped, then thought back to the coverage of Kurt’s crash. He’d been killed with a friend, and she had forgotten his name. She clicked back and read the online article until she found the name-Hank Powell. It sounded familiar. She clicked back to the Bethany Run website and double-checked; Hank Powell was one of the “famous founders.”

She felt a twinge of sadness, and wondered if Powell was the buddy. A line under the articles had a link for obituaries, and she clicked the one for Kurt. It was brief and ended with View and Sign the Guest Book. She clicked, and the screen opened to a webpage designed to look like an open book, with entries for Kurt and Hank Powell:

Uncle Hank, We love you and miss you. We wish we could go to the beach with you again. Your niece and nephew, Mike and Sandy

Dear Kurt, A light has gone out of our lives. We pray for you, and say hi to Pop when you see him, for us. Love, Carline and Joani

Rose read each one, feeling her heart getting heavy.

Kurt, You were a great friend and a great carpenter. Signed, Vince

Rose remembered the name, Vince. She clicked back to the Bethany Run site, and Vince Palumbo was another of the founders; maybe he was the buddy. She mulled it over. Vince hadn’t been out drinking with Kurt that night, and Hank Powell had been the one with Kurt, so Hank seemed more likely to be the buddy. It meant that the two men who knew something about how Campanile was at fault were both dead.

She got up, stretched, and walked around the room, ending at the window, looking out into the blackness. She kept thinking about Kurt, Campanile and the car crash, and she started to wonder if they were related. Another series of what-ifs popped into her mind. What if the crash hadn’t been an accident? What if Kurt and Hank had been killed because they knew something about Campanile? What if Kurt was killed because he had been asking about the fire?

Rose didn’t know if she was seeing connections that weren’t there, or making connections that needed to be made. Kurt had been drinking, but maybe his drinking hadn’t been what had caused the accident. He’d said something about new buddies, and she didn’t know what he meant. Maybe someone had driven him off the road, or into a tree, or whatever had happened. She looked into the blackness, and all she could see was her own silhouette reflected in the window, an indistinct outline.

She eyed her dark reflection. If Kurt had been killed because he was asking about the fire, she was responsible for his murder. She owed it to him to find out the truth.

She wouldn’t settle for anything less.

She couldn’t, anymore.