Disintegration Part 9

"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 gla.s.s 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 n.o.body 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 s.h.i.+rt. One of the sleeve b.u.t.tons 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 h.e.l.l 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 hards.h.i.+p. 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 flas.h.i.+ng his reflection and allowing him to see into the faces of the storefronts. He pa.s.sed a p.a.w.n 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 d.a.m.ned thing. Just another d.y.k.e wis.h.i.+ng she had a p.e.c.k.e.r, 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 b.u.mper. 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 sh.e.l.l 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 antic.i.p.ation 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 gla.s.s. 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."

Jacob looked into the grinning mirror image and his muscles tensed to bring the bottle down in a smas.h.i.+ng arc. But, as always, his self-hatred faltered when it counted most. The bottle slipped from his fingers and bounced off the packed dirt.

"Why?" Jacob said through clenched teeth.

His twin brother looked down at the liquor bottle. "Since when did upstanding citizens start drinking five-dollar bourbon straight from the bottle? I thought that junk was for white trash like me."

"What are you doing here?" Jacob repeated.

"This is the 'Town That Wells Built,' ain't it? If a man can't return to his ancestral home, where else can he go?" Joshua gunned the engine. "What do you think of my new ride?"

"What's the idea of stalking me?"

"Hey, lighten up, Jake. Still got that little problem with paranoia? I thought you saw somebody about that."

"f.u.c.k you, Josh."

"You're as p.i.s.sed off as a snake in duct tape. But get over it, because we got business. Family business."

Jacob wanted to tear himself away, to run for the safety of the woods, because this threat was bigger and sharper and more dangerous than a homicidal car. But those intense hazel eyes mesmerized him and melted the years away. His lungs hurt, and he realized he'd been holding his breath. "I've got nothing to say to you. Go away."

"This ain't like blowing out the candles on our birthday cake together. Just because you make a wish don't mean it comes true."

Wish me. The night of the fire The night of the fire. "You don't belong here anymore."

"We came up from the same dark hole, Jakie Boy." Joshua's breath was fetid and thick, mingling with the car exhaust. "And I been in the hole a long, long time. Gets lonely down there. But I guess you're figuring that out for yourself."

"I don't owe you anything."

"No, because all of it's already mine. You was just holding it for me."

Now that the initial shock had pa.s.sed, Jacob could see the small differences between him and Joshua that only a few people would notice, the subtle marks of time and gravity. Joshua had a nearly invisible scar above his right eyebrow. Joshua had never tried to control his alcoholism, so the broken blood vessels beneath the skin of his face were more apparent. His teeth were also more yellow and uneven than Jacob's, the result of different eating habits and lack of dental care. But the rest of the features would fool anyone short of a well-trained detective. Joshua even had the same hair length and density of stubble, as if he'd been observing Jacob's slide into self-destruction and had made an intentional effort to copy it.

Not that Joshua had ever needed a role model for this particular type of decline. He'd always been inspired on his own. He'd stripped himself of the Wells taint and moved into a rat-infested mobile home just across the border in east Tennessee. While Jacob had been staging his decadent poet's act in college, Joshua was piloting charter ba.s.s boats on Watauga Lake for thirty bucks a day, a cooler of beer at his feet.

"You got your share," Jacob said. "Now go away."

"I had a piece," Joshua responded with a smirk. "That pie tastes so good, I want the whole thing now."

With an effort of will, Jacob broke Joshua's stare and looked past him to the gloomy interior of the Chevy. The upholstery was torn and the pa.s.senger seat was patched with silver tape. The car smelled of cigarette b.u.t.ts and fast food grease. Two rubber shrunken heads hung from the rearview mirror, their duplicate stretched lips and wizened eye sockets a nightmarish replica of Joshua's grinning face.

"Got company," Joshua said, nodding past him toward the construction crew. One of the workers, a white man in an orange hard hat and blue jumpsuit, was approaching. "I reckon the sign at the entrance that said 'Private Property, Keep Out,' wasn't just a suggestion. People take everything so serious these days. Property rights, deeds, owners.h.i.+p. 'What's mine is mine' and all that happy s.h.i.+t. It's a selfish world, ain't it, Jakie Boy?"

Jacob said nothing, watching the man in the hard hat approach. "I'll have them call the cops."

"Oh, you just go ahead and do that. I'm sure they'd be all ears when I started telling them the truth."

"You don't know the truth."

"The truth is what you make it. There's what really happened, and there's the way you set it in your mind so you can live with yourself."

"You weren't supposed to come back." He'd figured his twin brother was gone for good, the seed split for a final time. But the bond was stronger than flesh and ran deeper than blood.

Or maybe only exactly as deep as blood.

"Get in," Joshua said. Not a command, not an invitation. Just words.

Jacob hesitated as the man in the hard hat took off his gloves and punched at the numbers on a cell phone. The tiny electronic box looked out of place in those thick, scarred hands, as if a Neanderthal had come upon the controls of a time machine. But this machine would summon the police, and Jacob didn't want to be thrust under their gaze any more than he already was. He might be guilty of crimes he couldn't remember.

Jacob crossed to the pa.s.senger side of the decrepit automobile. The handle didn't work, so he waited for Joshua to open the door. Foam chunks dribbled from a split in the vinyl as he settled into the seat. The man in the hard hat held the phone to his ear. Joshua backed up in an arc so that the man could get a good look at the license plate, then punched the accelerator and threw up a cloud of dust and gravel. The Chevy had a four-on-the-floor gear s.h.i.+ft, and as they exited the construction site and hit the street, Joshua grabbed second and tore a long shriek from the rear tires.

"You haven't changed a bit, either," Jacob said.

"I'm as ugly as I ever was."

Lunch hour had just ended, so the traffic wasn't heavy. But Joshua's driving tactics made the street seem crowded and narrow. The speedometer needle bounced at fifty-five as the car wove through the thirty-five-mile per hour zone. They pa.s.sed an old man in a Mercedes SUV who mouthed a curse at them, but Joshua had already cut the SUV off before the driver reached the horn.

"Where are we going?" Jacob asked.

"Where else? There's only one place good enough for the two of us. That place we said we'd never go."

Jacob had the sensation that the car itself was stationary, that instead the world was whirring by in an insane and jumbled blur of color. The business district was brick red and concrete gray, gla.s.s green and power-pole brown. The road was a hard river that flowed backward to a black underground source. This moment had always existed, this now was forever, this vehicle was an embryo in which the two of them were bound. He would never escape the creature that had stolen half of his genetic material.

Joshua slid a ca.s.sette into the tape deck. Vintage Johnny Cash, falling into a ring of fire. Joshua joined in the chorus: "Burns, burns, burns."

"You're a sorry son of a b.i.t.c.h," Jacob said.

"I wish I could have been there when it happened. Remember in the old days, when we used to share everything? I'm jealous, Jake."

"No, you're not. And my life is mine. Even when it turns to h.e.l.l."

"A million dollars. Plus the house, what's that, another three-quarters? You make the old man look like a piker. At least when he played the system, he tried to slip under the radar. You laugh in its f.u.c.king face and dare G.o.d to catch you."

"You don't know anything about it."

"They got newspapers, even where I been living. I've always managed to sc.r.a.pe up enough to subscribe to the old Times-Herald Times-Herald. A man's got to stay up on things if he wants to better himself. But all I read about was how Jacob Wells did this, Jacob Wells did that."

Here Joshua s.h.i.+fted out of his rural accent so easily that he might have been a drama professor. "'Upholding the heritage of community service started by one of Kingsboro's early patriarchs.' I started to wonder if they was really talking about my older brother, or if some imposter had done took his place."

"I'm only older than you by seventeen minutes."

"Still, that was good enough for the old man to make you the Number One Son."

"Lucky f.u.c.king me."

They reached the outskirts, heading west toward soft, rolling farmland. In the pastures, cattle bent their brown necks for the new growth. Barns stood peeling red paint against the breeze. Here and there a tractor bit steel teeth into the earth, demanding a future harvest of the dark soil. Along the highway, shadows filled the inside of an abandoned produce stand, a forlorn stack of wooden board bones and chicken wire skin that had been around since the days of sharecropping.

The Johnny Cash song ended, gave way to "Walls of a Prison."

"You're a clever b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Jake. First, you pulled the wool over the old man's eyes, fed him that line about how you wanted to carry on his life's work. Stepped into M & W like it was a pair of broken-in shoes. Played that 'settling down' role so good you could have put Tom Hanks to shame."

"It wasn't a game, Josh. I was... confused, that's all. I tried to get away, pretend I was somebody I could never be. But you can't escape who you are, can you? When I came back here, I was facing up to it."

"Confused, huh? Is that what Daddy paid all those doctors for? To get you unconfused, fill you full of his brainless bulls.h.i.+t?"

"You'd just as soon p.i.s.s on his grave as cut the gra.s.s. But you bailed out. You never got to know him."

"I took my hand out of his pocket. No matter how many millions, it wasn't worth the price. Even the devil offers a better deal than that. The pointy-tailed son of a b.i.t.c.h with the pitchfork only asks for one soul. Warren Wells wanted two."

"You haven't answered me yet. Why did you come back?"