With an Extreme Burning

EPILOGUE

Ashes

Dix sat on the terrace alongside the pool, the sun hot on his bare chest and legs, his head and shoulders shaded by the beach umbrella canted next to his chair. It was a warm day, the temperature in the high seventies—the probable final day of a brief Indian summer. Unseasonable weather for early October, and the reason he hadn't kept to his usual schedule of shutting the pool equipment down on the first of the month. Might as well get the last bit of use out of it before fall took a firmer grip. The forecasters had promised fog tonight, cooler temperatures tomorrow, and a slight chance of showers by Monday night.

Cecca had gone into the house to use the bathroom. Amy was in the pool swimming laps. He felt drowsy sitting there alone in the quiet. Almost relaxed for the first time in a long while. Birds cluttering, the faint sounds Amy made as she stroked back and forth, the faraway pulse of Los Alegres—horns, car engines, kids' voices—filtering up from below. There was a sense of peace in his surroundings, at least, if little enough in him.

He watched Amy swimming. She was graceful in the water, long arms and legs making very little splash. Her underwater turns were particularly smooth. He was a good swimmer himself, but that kind of turn was something he'd never been able to master. Maybe he could still learn. A minor project for next summer.

If he was still here next summer.

The sun had gotten under the lip of the umbrella and was toasting his chin. The skin on his belly and legs was hot, too. He moved his chair back beyond the umbrella, into the dappled shade under one of the liquidambar trees. Better. Direct sunlight was supposed to be bad for you anyway: skin cancer from the UV rays. His mouth quirked wryly. A lot of things were supposed to be bad for you these days. Most foods, many activities, the water you drank, the air you breathed, the sun that warmed you. But nothing could be worse for you … nothing … than your fellow man.

Amy had finished her laps and was at the side ladder near where he sat. When she climbed out he asked her, “How many did you do?”

“Fifty.”

“I'm impressed. It took me weeks to get up to fifty.”

“Well,” she said seriously, “I'm younger than you are.”

Physically, anyway, he thought. She'd done a lot of growing up in the past several weeks. Cecca: “Amy used to think she was mature for her age, already an adult. Now she really is.” She'd paid a hell of a price for her maturity, though. Was still paying it. Under the harsh sun, as she stood drying off, he could see the tiny scars on her face where flying glass had cut her. Most would fade in time; one or two might remain as outward reminders of what she'd been through. At least she hadn't had to suffer through the lengthy, wired-up healing process of a fractured jaw. Hers had been bruised and dislocated, not broken, that night four weeks ago today.

A great deal had happened in those four weeks, much of it unpleasant. The suffering hadn't ended on the Mendocino coast; only the cause of it had been neutralized. It wouldn't be over for anybody involved for a long time to come. And for some, it would never be over.

Jerry Gordon Whittington Cotter. Survived his second cliffside smashup in about the same condition as he had the first; was still hospitalized in the prison ward at Santa Rosa Memorial with half a dozen broken bones, a punctured lung, other injuries. As a precaution he'd been put on antipsychotic medication, even though he'd exhibited no outward leanings toward violence. During his lucid periods he continually begged for forgiveness—from his wife, his children, his God. But not from his victims. A small but vocal segment of the media conveniently overlooked this, portraying him as a pathetic figure, a victim even more tragic than those he had hurt and killed.

Eileen. Out of the hospital now, being cared for by her brother in Fairfax. Slowly coming to terms with her loss. But she would never be completely whole again. How could she, with her husband and one of her sons dead, and her other son facing years, perhaps a lifetime, of skin grafts and plastic surgery?

Cecca and himself. Under official siege for the laws they'd broken, charged with willful obstruction of justice and illegal trespass. That much was tolerable, if just barely. You were responsible for your actions, right or wrong, and you had to be willing to accept the consequences. Even when you held on to the conviction that you'd been justified in all you'd done. Even when you knew you'd do most of the same things, if not in precisely the same way, if you had to live through it all again.

What wasn't tolerable was punishment for being victims. Official or otherwise. From strangers like the county district attorney and the media people who made allowances for Cotter. And most galling of all, from those you considered to be your friends …

Cecca was on her way back from the house. He smiled at her as she dragged her chair over beside him and sat down. “You were in there a long time,” he said. “I was beginning to worry.”

“There was a call. I thought I'd better answer it.”

“Let me guess. Drummond.”

“The very same.”

“What now?”

“He wants to go over a few more things with us.”

“Today? Can't it wait until Monday?”

“He insisted. The hearing date is close and he wants our case to be tightly scripted. That was the phrase he used—‘tightly scripted.’ ”

“Christ. What did you tell him?”

“That we'd have dinner with him tonight.”

“In Santa Rosa?”

“Brookside Park. Scannell's. Do you mind?”

“I guess not. Necessary evil.”

Michael Drummond was their lawyer. From Santa Rosa, and a good one—up to a point. He believed in them, and that the charges were an unreasonable—“unconscionable” was the word he liked to use—political backlash, the product of an upstaged Los Alegres Police Department and the county D.A.'s overzealousness in trying to make an example of them as a deterrent to the concept of “vigilante justice.” Drummond hadn't been able to get the charges dropped, but he was confident that there wasn't a jury that would convict under the circumstances. The problem was, he was as big a publicity hound as the D.A., with political axes of his own to grind, and over their protests he insisted on fighting the case in the media. Currying public favor was smart strategy, he claimed. Dix had twice come close to firing him. But where were they going to find a better lawyer at this late date, and at an equally affordable fee?

When the charges were first brought, he'd asked George Flores to represent them. George had hemmed and hawed and finally declined, on the grounds that he was too close to the principals and might not be able to provide adequate counsel. Which was bullshit. The truth was, George felt uncomfortable with the whole sorry business. He wanted to forget it had ever happened, that he'd walked arm in arm for four years with a homicidal lunatic. And to do that he had to disassociate himself from the lunatic's primary victims.

George wasn't alone.

Laura, Tom and Beth, Sid and Helen … all cut from the same cloth, all scrambling to avoid the taint of evil. Solicitous at first, then backing away as more facts came out and the publicity heated up, and now mostly invisible. Using the excuse that they felt betrayed—Dix had made the mistake of admitting that he and Cecca had been suspicious of all their male friends—when in fact they were the betrayers. Owen, at least, was honest enough to have shunned them all along: too hurt by Cecca's relationship with Dix to make even a pretense of caring. Friends for years, these people, some for nearly a lifetime, all of whom he'd forgiven time and again for their sins and shortcomings—and one by one they'd gone away.

It was the same sort of thing elsewhere in the community. When Amy returned to school, she'd found herself a social misfit; even her best friend, Kimberley, had begun to avoid her. At Better Lands, Tom had taken to giving newer agents listings that should have gone to Cecca. She wouldn't be surprised, she said, if he found an excuse to fire her before long. At the university, the president and the dean of faculty affairs had been supportive in the beginning, before the criminal charges were pressed; now Dix sensed that if he were convicted, he might well be asked to resign—or at least to relinquish his tenure—in the best interest of the state university system. He could fight that with Drummond or an ACLU attorney, and he'd probably win, but it would be a hollow victory.

At the university, too, he had been treated like a freak in a sideshow: stares, whispers, avoidances, even a few tactless and infuriating questions. The one time he'd encountered Charles Czernecki, the smug little bastard had laughed in his face. Elliot, embarrassed and self-protective—Cecca had told Dix about the episode at the Andersen farm—would have nothing to do with him, communicating on faculty business through memos. If he were squeezed out, Elliot would be relieved. Might even go so far as to actively lobby for his dismissal. For all of these reasons he'd considered resigning immediately, to make sure he kept his tenure, and then finding a position at another school. But he wouldn't do it any more than he would sell his house and voluntarily leave Los Alegres. It would be running away, and he was all through running—from people, things, phantoms, and himself.

So there you had it. The law punishes the victims; society punishes the victims. Fair? Hey, nobody ever said life was fair. But there were moments when he would have liked to get into the faces of all the self-righteous people, friends and strangers alike, and say to them: “What would you have done if it had been you? Look inside yourself and tell me honestly that you could have handled it any better than we did.”

Cecca stirred in the chair beside him. “Amy,” she called, “you shouldn't lie in the sun like that. You'll burn.”

“It's not that hot out here.”

“At least put some sunblock on your back and shoulders.”

“Oh, all right. Where is it?”

“Stay there, I'll get it.”

He watched her fetch the sun creme, take it to where Amy was stretched out on a towel, begin to apply it to the girl's shoulders. Average middle-class domestic scene: family at poolside on the last day of Indian summer. False illusion. They weren't average, not anymore. They were a cluster of three little islands cut off from the mainstream, alone and vulnerable. And he felt a fierce protectiveness toward each of them, himself included.

Surviving victims. People damaged and set apart by circumstances beyond their control. People no one could truly understand or empathize with except others like themselves.