The Charity (29 page)

Jessica was wracked by coughs and gasped for breath. Her eyes rolled back into her head. “Get him!”

“Tess. It’s me. Michael. You’re safe now. The colt is fine. It looks like all of the horses got out.”

The distant wail of the fire engine’s siren could be heard down in the valley. Father Steeves appeared out of the night. His large frame was illuminated by the fire. He blessed himself as he bent over Jessica’s writhing figure.

“I was visiting down the mountain when I saw the flames and came here as fast as I could. By the hand of God alone, this child has been spared.” He turned and looked at Michael. “She’s been spared to travel more along God’s roads.”

Michael tried to focus on the older man’s words. He wondered just where those roads were leading her.

Jessica sputtered and drew in one long raspy gasp. “Oh, my God.” Her eyes widened in her soot-smeared face. They locked onto Michael’s face. “Michael! What happened?” Her eyes rolled toward the burning barn. “The colt! Did the colt get out?”

“Yes, Tess. He’s out. Don’t get up.”

“I... I can’t breathe!”

Father Steeves bent down. “Let her sit up a bit. It’ll make it easier to breathe.”

Michael sat down beside Jessica and held her tightly against him. He tried to steady her as she shook with fear. “The colt and horses are fine, Tess” he repeated. “Just relax. There’s nothing more you can do.” The fire engine and other vehicles finally pulled into the long drive. Men and women hurried about their jobs. The barn was a total loss, but the house and grounds could still be saved.

Supported by Michael, Jessica tried to control her gasps for air. As much as she hated it, she was relieved when someone put an oxygen mask over her face. The waves of blackness clawing at her consciousness began to retreat. She stared mutely as the structure of the barn imploded.

The last horse trailer pulled out of the driveway followed by a small caravan of cars and trucks of people who had spent the day helping manage the aftermath of the fire.

Chad Bleauvelt emerged from the house and walked with a slight limp toward where Electra and Michael stood. He was wearing gray flannel trousers and a wool jacket. They nodded in welcome.

“Tess knows the horses will get good care on my farm.” Mr. Bleauvelt stopped to listen to the heavy trucks ease slowly down the mountain grade with their nervous passengers. “They can stay as long as she needs to rebuild.” He paused and looked at the still smoking pile that was once a barn. “My family had a barn fire years ago. I was devastated, but we came through it all right. It just takes time.”

Electra and Michael nodded their agreement. Electra spoke first. “I know how much this means to Tess to have her horses taken care of, Chad. Thank you.”

“No need to thank me. I had some extra stalls available. When Tess is fit enough, I’m going to enjoy watching her work with the horses again. She really has a talent there.” He motioned with his head toward the house. “She is taking this pretty badly right now. Quite a bit of bad luck lately. Such a nice girl. I hope she knows we are all behind her.”

“I’m sure she does, Chad.” Electra sounded certain.

“Sheriff Conant,” Mr. Bleauvelt straightened up as he addressed the law officer, “what do you think caused the blaze?”

“It’s still under investigation.” Michael put an official edge to his voice to stop more questions before they started. He knew it was arson, but wanted time before he had to state a reason for the blaze. “Right now, the rubble is too hot for anyone to get in there to determine a cause.”

“Well, if I can be of any further help, please call me.” Mr. Bleauvelt tipped his felt hat in a formal good-bye to Electra and drove off.

“I’d best be going too, Michael. Tess just needs some time to herself. She hardly said three words to me aside from making arrangements for the horses and cleanup. She knows where to reach me.” Electra stopped and added over her shoulder, “You do too.”

Michael walked slowly up to the house. He had been too busy last night and today to really absorb what had happened. The only thing he knew for sure was that Tess White was lucky to be alive, again.

Jessica was sitting at her kitchen table with her head in her hands. She had refused to go to the hospital last night, insisting on staying until the last of her horses were cared for. The isolated burns she received from the falling embers were treated by the paramedic who had accompanied the fire trucks. She still felt the effects of smoke inhalation and would occasionally cough in shallow staccato bursts.

Michael sat down opposite her. He pushed a pile of unopened mail aside. A small box clattered to the floor. Neither looked at it. They were both silent for a long while.

“Are you going to tell me what happened here last night?”

Jessica grabbed her hair in her fists and did not lift her head.

“Tess, I don’t care what it takes, I have got to know the truth about what is happening to you.”

The fists released her hair and moved down to cover her eyes. A short blast of coughs filled the air. They waited.

“Please, Tess. You’ve got to trust me.”

“Huh!” The utterance started another patter of coughs. Without lifting her head, Jessica asked, “Why are you covering up that my house was broken into that night and that I fell trying to escape?”

Michael weighed the question. “I told you. Perc is a small town. I didn’t say anything until I was sure what the facts were. It would have been irresponsible of me to comment. I placed everything in my report of the incident, and I asked a friend at the local paper not to print it until there was more information.”

“
Friend
?”

Michael hesitated. “Electra.”

Jessica remained still. “If you think Rowdy Howe was murdered, why wasn’t there an investigation?”

He shook his head and decided to keep his explanation official. “If it was in my jurisdiction, I would be looking into it. The medical examiner there insists that there was nothing suspicious about his death and, therefore, did not merit any further investigation.” He shook his head again in agitation and drew in his breath. “What is going on with you?”

Jessica raised her head and looked into Michael’s face. “Can we talk about something else for a while? I just need some time to think.” Her voice, hoarse from the smoke, was a soft monotone. Her eyes had a dark, sunken appearance to them, emphasizing the fact that she was emotionally drained.

Michael looked at the worn figure and agreed to a temporary change of subject. He got up and poured two mugs of coffee and grabbed a sandwich off a nearly empty deli tray delivered earlier that day.

There were a lot of pieces he had already put together. As he looked at the tangled mane of hair and the slumped shoulders of the woman at the table, he could only hope that he was wrong. He had seen a lot in his lifetime. Two lifetimes, really.

He made conversation about the new foal and about the progress of the Franklin School in hiring another Occupational Therapist, funded partially by the proceeds from the Cleanup Day. He talked about anything that might interest her. Each moment, he watched Jessica for any sign of acknowledgment. The sun was beginning to set, and shafts of red light pierced into the kitchen. He ran out of small talk. He turned on a few lights, sat down in his chair and waited.

Jessica picked her head up and stared blankly out the window. The sunlight was hitting the last stubborn leaves on the birch tree outside. The tree’s white bark was marked with black slashings and its paper-thin leaves fluttered helplessly in the stiff breeze kicking up. She stared at the scene.

“I’m in trouble, Michael.” Her flat raspy voice sounded like the scratching of the leaves outside.

Michael wanted to lean forward, to touch her, to offer some kind of reassurance. That would be a wrong move. Instead, he said, “You’ve got to talk about it, Tess.”

Jessica’s head lolled to the right over her shoulder. She closed her eyes and focused on forming her words correctly. “No. It’s Jessica.” Her voice was no more than a whisper.

Michael had trouble hearing her. “Excuse me?”

“It’s not Tess. My name is Jessica. Jessica Wyeth.”

Michael sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. He cocked his head over to one side and tried to assimilate every nuance of her movements. He watched as she massaged her temples with her fingers. Progress. “Why did you change your name?”

“Because they thought that I was dead, and I wanted to keep it that way.”

There was another piece of information he suspected, but he had to be sure. “Rowdy Howe recognized you the night of Electra’s party.” He stated this as a fact, to keep the conversation going.

Jessica shifted in the hard wooden chair and stared up at the overhead kitchen light. She nodded. “Yeah.”

Michael took a deep breath and evaluated Jessica. He had seen her in extreme situations, nearly crazed with fright a few nights ago, and now she was emotionally spent. What little he did know of Tess White, or Jessica Wyeth, he knew she was telling the truth. Still, some pieces did not add up. “So, he broke into your house and wanted to kill you.”

Jessica’s hands began to tremble. “I... I’m not really sure. I think it was the other guy who wanted me dead.”

“Then you did see two men that night.”

Jessica nodded and barely whispered. “Yes.”

“Had you ever seen the other man before?”

“I... I’m not sure.”

“So Howe was used to find you and was killed for his efforts.”

“I... I guess so.”

“Why, Tess, er, Jessica?”

“I don’t know.”

Michael looked at Jessica and saw how emotionally fragile she was. The chess match continued with the next move being his. He did not want the conversation to end and turned to another subject. Calculating quickly, he probed. “What else can you tell me about your family?”

Jessica rubbed her open hand along the tabletop. “I really miss them.” One tear glistened and then rolled down her cheek. “I was just a little kid, ya know?”

There could be no mistaking the pain Jessica felt for anything other than grief. Michael stood up and walked over to her. He knelt down in front of her and took her hands. “I am so sorry for you.” The clock on the wall ticked past the seconds. He waited, planning his next questions. “Who was ‘Erin’?”

More silvery streaks slid down Jessica’s cheeks. “She was my sister. Sh-she was specially challenged. Like Karen Percival.”

Michael nodded. He still needed to verify another name. “And ‘Gus’ was a family friend?”

Jessica shrugged and looked away.

“Gus who?” he asked.

“Gus Adams.”

The additional facts were beginning to fill in. Michael decided to ask his questions from point blank range. “Tess, I mean, um, Jessica, why would anyone want you dead?” More leaves chicked against the window.

“Because I killed them. I killed them all.”

“Do you know what you’re saying?”

“No. I mean yes. No!”

“Jessica, tell me that again.”

The strain of the conversation and the events of the past day were taking their toll. Her skin was white and clammy to the touch, showing the shock ripping through her. “I killed Gus Adams. I’m responsible for his death... for... for all of them”

Michael let out a long, slow breath. “So you ran?”

“I just need to sleep. My head is killing me, and I just need to sleep.”

“Okay. I’m worried about you and don’t think you should be alone. I’ll stay with you.” He did not want to leave her alone for many reasons. The least of which being that he did not want to let a confessed murderer go if that was, in fact, what Tess White, or Jessica Wyeth, was.

He helped her lie down on the couch and threw a quilt over her. She was asleep within seconds.

After he had made a fire in the hearth, he sat in the chair next to her and watched her sleep for a long time. She looked so peaceful, sleep erasing some of the hell she had been through. He mulled over all of the information he had about her and decided to run more background checks on her now that he had a name to go by. Howe mentioned something about knowing the Wyeth family in Massachusetts. At least it was a name, real or not. And now he had the name of Gus Adams.

The irrational fear that someone felt when they were running away from something they did not understand was one he knew well. When he first arrived in Perc so many years ago, he was running from a past and a hatred that he thought would follow him forever. He was alone, without family or friends. He could see why Electra thought he and Tess, no
Jessica,
had something in common.

He expelled a single burst of air in recognizing the irony. Electra would never have guessed that killing a family member would be part of their shared experience. There was one big difference, he thought wryly. He knew he was protected from his past ever catching up to him and killing him.

A pit settled in his stomach, and his personal investigation began right there. He mulled over the tools he had available to him. If Jessica murdered her family or Gus, then she would have been posted in a ‘Wanted’ file. He would have recalled seeing pictures of an attractive young woman in such files and was confused to think that she was not posted as wanted or missing.

He stared at the fire for a long time and watched as it slowly consumed all of its fuel and began to burn itself out. The day’s events had taken their toll on him as well, and he eventually dozed off in the lumpy chair.

He woke up the next morning to bright sunlight streaming into the window. It was still early, hardly past dawn, and the air was fresh and new, but badly tainted by the smoking ruins. He stretched his arms and legs out and felt the stiffness from his hours in the chair. He stood up and looked toward the couch. It was empty.

“
Damn it
!” he shouted and quickly searched the house and looked outside. He knew he would not find her, but he hoped that he would find something. Anything. Instead, he found nothing.

He walked back into her house and stood listening to the stillness for a long while. As sheriff, he knew he had to initiate an APB, All Points Bulletin, on her. He was bound by the oath he took as an enforcer of laws to report what he had learned, but something made him pause and consider his actions. In this life he led, he was required to report what he knew. But past experiences taught him that it could mean almost certain death for her if what he was beginning to suspect was true. He knew all too well that it was not just people in law enforcement that reviewed the APB’s for missing persons.