Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down (35 page)

Then the door opening. Quick footsteps. His father in the living room.

Jim, what is it? his mother said. Her book dropping to the couch cushions.

Fire. His father already pulling on his shoes. Another fire. God fucking damn it.

Matt steeled himself against a wave of shouting, his father's anger as terrifying as his hardened quiet, the rage of walking from a room and down the hallway and closing the door behind him, his silence a stone. But his father only grabbed his coat. He opened the front door wide, the wind gusting in. I'll be home when I can, he said. I'll call when I can. The door whipped shut behind him and Matt watched through the front window as his father threw himself into the car and pulled away from the house and disappeared fast down the street. He watched until long after the car was gone, a heat rising in his chest.

That Russ Hendricks was still at the station.

That unless there was another suspected accomplice, Russ wasn't a killer.

That Russ meant nothing.

That he also meant everything: that there were officially no answers.

It's too soon! his mother shouted. This just happened. Are we going to go through this every night? The same thing every goddamn night?

Matt didn't answer her, his mother a rock, always the rock and breaking down into rubble. He knew it as well as his mother did: too soon. A pattern broken. Not the dead of night but just after sunset, a community awake, the streets still screaming with police cars and reporters. Not a juvenile, not someone who shared the walls of his high school, not someone whose parents were home having dinner just like his were. His mother stared out the window. Weight-born sky, thickening clouds. Wind beating against the windowpanes. He closed his eyes. He saw no culprit. He saw no accomplice. The only possibility left, a trail of smoke. He saw nothing but a flame and his father racing toward it.

Lewis and Clark High School Class of 2005

March 3, 1988—October 8, 2003

A junior at Lewis and Clark, Alexis Thurber was loved. We know this now: her boyfriend Russ Hendricks was not a killer.

Alexis was active in theater, serving as a technical assistant for
Godspell
as a freshman and
The Man of La Mancha
as a sophomore. She was slated to work on lighting for the 2004 spring production of
Pippin
. Active in community service, Alexis also worked in horse stables and volunteered with the Equine Therapy Center.

Alexis was a kind soul, one who was loved by her friends, partner, and family. She will be greatly missed by the community at Lewis and Clark High School.

THE AVERAGE HUMAN
speaks 16,000 words a day, approximately one-sixth the word count of a standard novel.

The human body takes between 17,280 and 23,040 breaths, a range dependent upon level of daily activity. The rate of respiration a sine wave, in and out, the rhythm of mathematics so much like a sea.

The human body's blood travels 12,000 miles through more than 60,000 miles of blood vessels every cycle of 24 hours. 60,000 miles: more than twice the distance around the earth. Human blood, a liquid organ. A conduit that flows between lengths of entire continents, from Los Angeles to Moscow and back in the span of one day.

Each cell in the body: six to eight feet of DNA, a coiled helix sprung tight.

The body's electricity: impulses traveling between synapses at a rate of 248 miles per hour. Saliva: one liter produced every day. Human hair: 100 strands lost. The human eye: 23,000 blinks, the retina's cone cells capable of discerning up to 100 million color surfaces, more information taken in than the largest telescope on earth.

The human heart: 2,000 gallons of blood. Approximately 100,000 heartbeats every day, enough energy produced in one hour to raise one ton of weight three feet from the ground. Under stress: rising
heart rate, 120,000 to 140,000 beats per day. Increased blood pressure, liquid pushing against the walls of each vessel. Palpitation. Irregular heartbeat. The strain of fight or flight. Enough energy to slacken cells from routine. Enough to break the body of order, to throw a locomotive from its track.

MATT WAITED UP
for what felt like hours for his father, his mother's shape a fortress beside him on the couch. He closed his eyes and willed his father home. He let the sound of the television fill his ears.
American Idol
. The nine o'clock news. Then the ten o'clock news, the fire breaking at the top of the hour, camera crews at last on the scene and a reporter standing before a swirl of flashing lights. The camera panning behind her once she mentioned the address and the camera tracked toward the fire. The 1400 block of Fox Run Road. Not far from Nick, Matt realized. Only a few streets over. Fire trucks everywhere. Hoses. Water. Flames filling the perimeter of the screen. Matt imagined Nick's neighborhood and its houses and who among them lost a child and zeroed in on Darren Beechwold, a sophomore he remembered sometimes seeing at the school bus stop at the end of Nick's street. Matt hastened downstairs, telling his mother he'd be back up in a minute. He picked up the telephone in his room. Nick answered on the first ring.

NICK SAT PERCHED
in the nook between his bedroom window and computer, the desk chair hard against his back. He kept an eye on the street outside, neighbors emerging from their homes to see what was happening though he knew the fire was streets away. He knew already whose home it was. Darren Beechwold. A sophomore he knew had been lost inside Lewis and Clark, someone he'd often
seen riding his bike through the neighborhood though they'd only nodded hellos and had never spoken to one another. Police cars passed. Nick knew they were blocking off streets. A parade of fire trucks swarmed through, lights flashing. Heavy wind pulsed against the house and pushed the trees against Nick's window. His family was congregated in the living room. Nick had sat with them until he couldn't stand it any longer.

He knew already: a fire in the early evening. A broken pattern.

What he'd known at the lake: there was no juvenile arsonist.

Russ Hendricks easy. So much easier than the complications of the human body.

Nick sat in front of his computer. Every fact he could find on what the body was capable of doing. Every brain wave. Every heartbeat. Every electrical impulse. Everything he wasn't sure he believed but had nothing else, everything he couldn't say out loud for how reckless and stupid the words would sound spilling from his mouth.

When the phone rang late beside his computer, he knew already who it was.

I don't know anything, Nick said. The entire neighborhood's on lockdown.

Can't you go outside? Matt asked. Even just to your yard?

My parents are keeping us inside, Nick said. I would if I could.

So where are you? At your computer?

I can see out my bedroom window, but that's it.

What can you see?

Nick pivoted his desk chair. There are police everywhere, he said. There are a few people in their yards, just like what Christina described from the other night. But this isn't like that. It's so much earlier. People are scared. The police are keeping everyone inside.

There's no curfew.

I know, but it's beyond pattern. People are still out. I'm guessing they don't want to take chances in case someone's out there on the loose.

Darren Beechwold's house, Matt said.

It can't be anyone else, Nick said. He's the only person on the list of names who lives in my neighborhood. Is your dad out there?

He got a phone call a little while ago. He's probably waiting until the fire's extinguished before entering the scene for evidence.

Nick winced at the word:
scene.
This was not a scene. It was someone's house, an entire life he hadn't bothered to know beyond waving hello on the sidewalk.

Did you see any police earlier near your street? Matt asked. My dad said they'd start patrolling the families' homes.

I didn't see anything. But I've been inside. I've been inside all night.

It's probably going to rain any minute.

Nick glanced out the window, every tree pulsing with the first wall of a storm's wind. That won't stop the police, he said. And it won't stop a fire, either. I counted at least six fire trucks. They all raced down the street, one after the other.

I'll wait up for my dad if I can. I don't know when he'll be back.

Nick sighed. We both know what this means.

Russ Hendricks, Matt said. My dad told me earlier that he's still at the station.

Which means he didn't do this. We knew that. Come on, Matt. We both knew.

I didn't, Matt said. I thought my dad finally had an answer.

Nick said nothing. An answer. What he'd begun to trickle into believing but couldn't say. The science of fire: the same principles of the investigation Matt's father led. Nick couldn't speak. Couldn't let the words travel across a line, nothing more than a fledgling theory in the face of another fire upon so many other fires.

Are you okay? Matt asked. You seemed off at the lake.

Nick hesitated. I'm fine. I just don't think this is someone at our high school. The pattern's broken. It doesn't add up to someone we know setting fires.

But you were quiet this afternoon. Long before anything broke a pattern.

I'm just trying to find answers. Same as you. Same as Christina and Zola.

What are you looking at? Your computer. I know you're looking at something.

Nothing that isn't on television. My family has the local news on in the living room. The stations finally picked it up just this hour.

My mom's watching it, too. There was nothing on the nine o'clock hour.

The ten o'clock wasn't much better. I figured I'd have better luck online.

So what did you find?

Nick was careful with his words. I haven't found much.

Come on, man, just tell me.

Well, I'm looking at the chemistry of fire. Gas excitation.

Like chemistry class. I thought you'd been looking at that for a while.

I have. But when you said organic material, I thought of the human body.

What about it?

What it can do. What the body does every day to keep us moving.

Like all the amazing things we learned about in biology in junior high? Like how an unfurled intestine can stretch to the moon and back?

Nick smiled despite himself. I'm just saying that under pressure, the body responds. Just like flashbulb memories. What the brain recalls when pushed to its limits. Look, I know people experience grief all the time. They experience it without a shooting and without houses burning down. But there's been so much, Matt. There's just been too much here to even begin to comprehend.

Nick heard Matt sigh. I know.

Beyond the window, Nick watched the first raindrops begin
to fall and knew he'd said too much. That he'd done nothing but make Matt recall Caroline Black, an image he knew Matt wanted to forget.

It's too much, Matt said. All of this. It's just too much.

I know, Nick said. Believe me, I know.

There's still the chance of a different accomplice, Matt said. Beyond Russ. What my father told me they were looking for.

Nick watched rain slide down the windowpanes, small bubbles that joined other droplets. Russ Hendricks still at the station being questioned. The possibility of someone else out there, another suspect, someone who could be occupying the desk beside him in history class or academic lab. Nick wanted to believe it, wanted to shut his computer down and sit with his family in the living room and forget any need to know. The rain began to cascade in curtains. Nick wished Russ an arsonist. He wished an answer, an end.

WHEN MATT AT
last heard his father's voice inside the house it was late, the rain long gone, the sky thick beyond the pulled-open curtains of the living room window. He'd fallen asleep on the couch, the notepad still sitting on the chair, Alexis's profile short and inadequate but complete. He knew nothing about her life. He would never print the sentence about Russ Hendricks. He heard his parents' voices in the kitchen, the percolating sound of the coffeemaker dripping. He heard his father's voice:
Nothing left
. Words hovering above the sound of the machine. He wanted to listen to the confidence between his parents, what they discussed when they thought he was asleep, but he couldn't make out any other words beyond murmurs. He pulled himself from the couch and entered the kitchen. They sat at the table across from one another, his father still in street clothes, his mother in her bathrobe.

What happened? Matt asked. What did you find?

Have a seat, Matt's mother said.

Want some coffee? Matt's father asked and his mother protested,
said it was too late. At this point, Matt's father said, I don't think anyone's getting any sleep anyway.

What time is it? Matt asked.

Past two, his mother said.

Did you just get home? he asked his father.

Not long ago.

I'm an adult, Matt said. Please, Dad, just tell me what happened. His father glanced at his mother across the table. It was the Beechwold kid's house, he said. Sue and Grant. You know the rest by now. There was nothing left. Surely the same: organic cause. We know it already, without need of lab reports.

Matt said nothing. Everything accelerating. So many houses multiplied like a rapid-spread virus. It had taken his father two days to tell him what they'd found at Jacob Jensen's house and now here, in the kitchen, his father could guess everything only two hours beyond Darren Beechwold's house burning.

Matt's mother reached for his hand across the table. Did you know him?

No, Matt said. We only saw him sometimes in Nick's neighborhood.

Poor Nick, his mother said. He and his family must be so frightened.

Matt looked at his father. What about Russ Hendricks?

They released him. Unless he's part of some wide network of arsonists that snuck through a neighborhood while he was in custody, he's no longer a suspect.

I could've told you that, Matt said, and regretted it. It was late. His father had done what he could.

The police are working, his mother said. They're doing the best they can.

What about an accomplice? Matt asked his father. What you mentioned before.

It's on the table. Frankly, it's the only thing on the table we've got.

But tonight breaks the pattern, Matt said. Everyone was still out in the streets. It couldn't be a juvenile arsonist. Which is what an accomplice would have to be.

Matt's father looked at him. After what happened tonight, the pattern's been broken. It might not be a teenager at all. Still a time when parents would be home, when supervision would be at its height. It could be an adult, but it could still be someone at the school. Time of day is just one of many possible factors.

The coffeemaker dripped. Matt felt exhausted beneath the harsh bulbs of the kitchen's fluorescent light, the sky a black hole beyond the small square of window above the dishwasher and sink. He thought of what Nick had said: the human body. He felt his own breaking beneath the burden of this night.

What's the next step? Matt asked his father. Cancel school? Lockdown? What?

They can't cancel school, his father said. Not any more than they already have. We'll all just keep doing what we're doing. High security. And at this point, maximum security around every house of the remaining families.

I thought the police were already doing that, his mother said. And I thought there was concern over too much scrutiny. A lack of privacy.

Matt's father sipped his coffee. By now, any question of privacy has gone out the window. Those families have as much privacy as the rest of Midvale County. None. What's more police security? They'll need it. We're the eye of the country right now.

WE AWOKE TO
more news. More headlines.

We awoke to the surety that Matt's father was right.

We were the eye of the country, the center of a media storm of television and newspapers and websites. We had been for weeks. And now, a tenor reaching a fever pitch, a fire broken out every single night since we'd returned to school. We awoke to blaring
headlines, to the angry shouts of reporters on television.
What about the children?
Our names invoked.
What about these poor children and their safety?
We awoke to public outrage leveled hard at the Midvale County School District for letting us travel unprotected to Timber Creek's doors.

The administration sent no cancellations, no postponements. No indication that plans for our continued education had changed. We awoke only to another terse email from the school that their thoughts were with the Beechwold family and those who knew them. That counselors were on hand. That sessions remained mandatory. That to maintain routine, classes would resume as scheduled.

The A1 front page that morning: a full-scale photo of the Beechwolds' home surrounded by flames and firefighters, the headline above challenging police officers,
WHAT NOW?
No mention of Russ Hendricks anywhere in the article. Only brief indication that police surveillance would increase and that Parents for Home Protection had gathered in force. That Alexis Thurber's father would be buried in a private ceremony that afternoon. The entire front page a demand that the police do something, that they solve everything, all of this, now.

We took in the pages. We read every word. We lost our will and turned to other pages, the back sections that let in the rest of the world: that Al Qaeda was operating in Iraq and also in Afghanistan, planning attacks on U.S. troops. That leaders of the European Union were working to release twenty-six Europeans detained in Guantanamo Bay, prisoners held indefinitely by the United States without charge or legal representation. That the outgoing prime minister of Malaysia called the United States the terrorists of the world. In sports, other pages we turned to for reprieve: that the Marlins had taken the fourth game of the World Series in twelve innings. The series tied. That the next game would include a brief memorial at the start of the game, a moment of silence for Major League Baseball's friends in St. Louis.