Valley of Ashes (22 page)

“It’s
petite chou
.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Why would you call someone ‘my little cauliflower’?”

“Like
cabbage
is somehow more deeply romantic? At least cauliflower has ‘flower’ in it.”

“Granted,” she said.

“So when is this neighborhood meeting thing supposed to be?”

She told me and I wrote it down.

“I have to wrangle a babysitter,” I said, sighing. “And avoid getting myself further into the spousal shithouse.”

“For what?” she asked.

“For masquerading as a cub reporter when I should be mopping and vacuuming, apparently.”

“In your calico dress and prairie bonnet?”

Happy Parrish waved a spit-shiny apple slice at me, current mouthful giving her cheeks the hemispheric breadth of a nut-hoarding squirrel’s.

You, my darling, are the twin most likely to be Heimliched.

“Hey, I get it,” said Mimi. “I’ve been married.”

“Kids?” I asked, sliding down against the kitchen door frame until I was sitting Indian-style on its threshold, straddling the shag-linoleum border.

I wanted to ask her what her husband had thought about the kind of work she did—whether she’d waited until their kids were grown to get serious about it.

“Terry, Chris, and Stewart from his first marriage,” she said. “Then we had Michael and Laura.”

“
Five
children? Mimi… wow. I am
so
going to stop whining now.”

“
I
never had twins, which is a project of an entirely different order—Everest without oxygen tanks. And whining, by the way, is how we all survive this part: diapers and no sleep and striving husbands who can’t understand why we didn’t pick up the dry cleaning.”

Another exhalation from me, on that point.

“No, I take it back,” she said. “ ‘Whining’ is the wrong word, and it’s not what you’re doing.
Talking
is how we survive.”

“Everyone?”

“Women.”

I closed my eyes, letting my head loll back against the door frame.

“We narrate the truth to one another,” said Mimi. “Only way you can maintain perspective on all the thousand petty little crap details we’re supposed to keep raking into piles day after day, make sense of, weave into goddamn afghans, cook for dinner…”

I sighed.

“Fevers and vomit and we’re-out-of-milk and what-the-hell-did-you-do-with-all-my-clean-socks—”

“Wait a second,
you
got the sock lecture?”

“Constantly,” she said.

“You’re really making me feel better, here, Mimi. Just hang up when I start sobbing uncontrollably over the Moebius hamster wheel of endless, thankless shit that is my life: insurmountable, with laundry pile and juice box for all.”

“That’s why you have to talk about it,” she said.

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

I pinched the phone between my ear and shoulder so I could spring Parrish from booster jail, then swung her up into the air before settling her on my cocked hip.

“Want to switch back to arson now?” asked Mimi.

Parrish patted me on the boob with a sticky little fist, then stuck her thumb in her mouth.

It was getting dark out, and I had no doubt India was going to wake up any minute.

“Come over,” I said. “I have beer. And you can help me convince Intrepid Spouse that my bush-league journalistic endeavors pose no threat of disharmony to our bower of familial bliss.”

“You make the invitation sound so tempting,” she said.

“No hard sell, I promise. Just, you know… you’re interesting and cool with a meaty job that actually
matters
, and you’ve raised kids and it turned out okay.”

“This may require cheese and crackers.”

“Brie,” I said. “Nice and runny, with fig paste and Stoned Wheat Thins.”

“Give me ten minutes,” she said, laughing.

B
y the time Mimi pulled up out front, I had the living room in reasonable shape, both kids in the playpen—pink-cheeked and freshly diapered—the offspring
and
grown-up dinners well under way, and my promised appetizer-bribe attractively arrayed on a sterling Tiffany plate engraved with my great-grandmother’s initials.

Oh, and three pilsner glasses chilling in the freezer, because hey, when you’re trying to smooth troubled marital waters, why fuck around?

I led Mimi into the kitchen and opened us a couple of IPAs.

She thanked me, leaning against the counter with her frosty glass in hand while I strapped the girls in for their steamed broccoli and chicken nuggets.

“So this guy’s used acetone before?” I asked, doling out the meal components once their bibs were secured.

“Yeah. Except for the car fires. Looks like he’s developing a bona-fide MO for himself now.”

“McNally thinks he’s done all this before, somewhere else.”

“Yeah, he talked to Benny about it. They’re on the same page.”

“You agree?”

“I wouldn’t rule it out.”

I turned on the kitchen tap to rinse off my hands. “So do arsonists get ritualistic about method?”

“The pros or the fetishists?”

I cranked off the faucet and reached for a dish towel. “Either, I guess.”

“I suppose they both do, but the reasoning’s a little different.”

“Want to go sit down in the living room?” I asked.

“Love to,” she said as I picked up the cheese plate. “Can I help you carry anything?”

“All set.” I bowed her through the doorway ahead of me.

A car pulled up as I was setting the Brie on the coffee table.

Lamplight had transformed the windowpanes to mirrors now that it was full dark outside, so I couldn’t tell whether it was Dean until I heard his footsteps climbing the front-porch stairs.

“Hail the conquering hero,” said Mimi, smiling at me as she raised her glass toward the sound of the twisting doorknob.

I raised an eyebrow in return, then walked toward the front hall.

“Hi honey, you’re home,” I said, as Dean stepped inside.

“Hey, Bunny,” he said, leaning down to plant a kiss on my forehead. “I’m sorry I was so pissy at lunch…”

Had Cary given him shit, after all?

He pulled me in for a hug, tender.

I felt something in my chest unclench. Loneliness, or whatever sour fist of apprehension had been wrapped around my heart.

“All is forgiven, kind of,” I said. “But we have a guest.”

He shrugged off his coat and hung it on one of the hooks under the staircase. “For dinner? I don’t want to be rude, but I might need to bail. Early flight tomorrow.”

“You’re leaving
tomorrow
? For where?”

“Japan.”

“Japan?”

“I told you about it.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Really?”

“Dean, I think I’d remember that you were planning to leave for, like,
Asia
in the morning, had you mentioned it at any point.”

“Wow,” he said. “I
really
forgot to tell you?”

“Yeah.”

“Dude,” he said, “your husband is
such
an asshole.”

“Apparently.”

“Unfortunately, he is an asshole who has to pack for a trip to Japan in the morning.”

“No worries. We’re just having cheese and crackers. And a couple of beers.”

He rested a hand on my shoulder and followed me back into the light.

“Dean, this is Mimi Neff,” I said. “She’s the arson investigator who’s been kind enough to let me tag along lately. Another ex–New Yorker.”

They exchanged pleasantries and shook hands. I told Dean I’d grab him a beer and check on the girls.

Parrish and India had plowed through round one of dinner, so I dished out a few more mushy broccoli florets and mushier chicken nuggets.

“Applesauce for dessert,” I confided, opening the freezer to retrieve Dean’s glass.

“So Mimi was just going to tell me about the difference between the ritualism of professional versus fetishist arsonists, when you came home,” I said, walking back into the living room.

I gave Dean his beer and knelt down next to the coffee table to pre-load some crackers before passing the plate around. “I’d imagine that the pros just rely on what works, what they’re comfortable with. Less ritual than acquired competency?”

Mimi accepted a cracker, but kept it balanced it in her hand. “Well, of course the pros don’t want anyone to know they had a hand in instigating a fire, for the most part. If they’ve developed a ritual, it’s more to do with enhancing the appearance of accidental combustion. Sometimes that can mean changing it up, method-wise—taking advantage of existing circumstances.”

Dean was enjoying his own Brie-laden Stoned Wheat Thin, but looked intrigued by what she was saying.

As well you should be, Mr. Oh-by-the-way-I’m-off-to-Japan.

I moved up into a chair. “So, for instance, messing with wiring that already looks a little wonky?”

“Or enhancing the look of wonkiness to begin with,” she said, nodding.

“Makes sense,” said Dean, “making it seem ‘natural’ if you’re after insurance money. And why else would you hire someone to set a fire, right?”

“For the most part, it’s for the money,” said Mimi. “Sometimes it’s to cover up another crime. Occasionally it’s a warning, or to take out a rival business, but that’s usually an urban thing. Organized crime.”

“Remember that house on the next street in Syracuse, Bunny?” asked Dean. He looked at Mimi. “The landlord set it on fire two nights in a row—didn’t get enough damage the first time. Idiot.”

Mimi laughed, took a sip of her beer.

“I can understand that kind of stuff,” I said. “I mean, I wouldn’t ever
do
it, I don’t think. But the people who are just in it for kicks—I can’t get my head around the attraction. Just, glorying in destruction, or whatever kind of passion it quenches, for the person? Fire’s too intense. Scares the shit out of me.”

“Is it a power trip?” Dean asked Mimi. “Being in control of something? It’s always struck me as the grown-up version of aiming sunlight at dry leaves with a magnifying glass, when you’re a kid—messing around with something scary to feel powerful.”

Mimi looked thoughtful. “I have to confess I haven’t dealt directly with that many arsonists like the guy we’re investigating now. Besides the pros, it’s usually kids lighting a grass fire, just to see what happens. Stupid crap.”

“Do you guys have to study up on the psychology of it, though?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” she said. “And to get back to what you were asking, Dean, I think that’s more of an impetus for people who get involved with firefighting—wanting to pit themselves against a force of nature.”

“You guys must really have to be rock-solid on the science of it,”
he said. “So many factors to consider: chemicals involved, structural integrity, potential electrical hazards… whether you’re fighting a fire or trying to figure out what caused it.”

“For starters,” said Mimi, flattered.

“I used to do construction with my father,” Dean continued, “so I’ve got a good, hands-on sense of all the factors you have to keep in mind just
building
a house…”

Mimi smiled.

So did I.
Good
Dean was back… for the night at least.

And I wouldn’t exactly have to ask his permission about the community meeting… not if he was off to Japan in the morning.

Dean was shaking his head, thinking about what Mimi had said. “But running into a burning building, staking your life on your own split-second comprehension of the sequence in which it will most likely
deconstruct
around you… That takes an astonishing level of courage.”

“Damn satisfying when you do it right,” said Mimi.

“I bet,” I said.

I still needed a babysitter, of course…

Mimi took another sip of beer. “I miss it. Well, the part of me that’s a little crazy misses it. But even going through the aftermath of a fire, in my line of work—you’re struck by the devastation, the randomness, the magnitude of damage fire’s capable of, reflected in even the smallest detail at a scene.”

“Those melted toothbrushes,” I said.

And what that level of heat would do to flesh.

Mimi looked me in the eye, acknowledging the thought I’d left unspoken.

“It’s awful,” she said, “in the oldest sense: awe-filled. Even after the fact, my heart rate picks up on behalf of our crew—every time.”

She took another cracker.

“I’m really grateful to you for letting me tag along on your job,” I told her. “It was fascinating, and so generous of you to take the time to explain everything.”

“Well,” she said, looking from me to Dean, “I’m sure you both
know how gratifying it is to talk to someone about your work. And Madeline’s article was one of the best I’ve read by someone outside our field.”

Dean reached for his beer.

“Your wife is quite a talent,” Mimi told him. “You’re a lucky man.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Listen,” she continued, looking at him. “We really need Madeline covering this for the paper. There’s a community meeting tomorrow night…”

I tried giving her an
ix-nay on telling him about the eporting-ray
look, now that Dean was leaving the country, but she ignored me.