God in Concord Part 12

*29*

We are children of lighta"our destiny is dark. a"Journal, October 3, 1840 Homer and Mary Kelly watched the television encounter between Hope Fry and Ananda Singh. Mary was shocked to see Oliver Fry's daughter in the role of a defender of Walden Green.

"Her poor father," she said, leaning forward to turn off the set. "How could she do it to Oliver?"

Homer wasn't listening. "Did you hear that, about the fire at the trailer park? One of the mobile homes burned down. You know, it's just one thing after another over there. The place seems to be trying to self-destruct."

"Oliver thinks the world of that girl. I suppose she's got a right to her opinion, but she doesn't have to tell the world about it."

"And three more of them are dead. Three more in two weeks, not counting Alice Snow. I keep reading their obituaries in the paper. Two of them were really old, but Shirley Mills was only fifty-two."

"The trouble is, she was brought up without a mother. You know, a firm maternal guiding hand."

"Who, Shirley Mills?"

"What?"

Bewildered, Homer got up and stared out the window at the fading glimmer of light on the silvery bend of the river. Then he wandered away to the telephone and flipped through the Concord book, looking for Charlotte Harris. What was her husband's name? Pete. Yes, here he was, Harris, Peter, 801 Walden Street.

Homer sat down, gripped the phone, and dialed the zumber.

"h.e.l.lo?" said Charlotte Harris.

"Mrs. Harris? Charlotte? This is Homer Kelly. I came to see you after the death of Mrs. Snow."

There was a pause, then Charlotte Harris said, "Yes, Mr. Kelly, I remember."

"I wonder if you can tell me something about the people whose mobile home burned last night, Mr. and Mrs. Ryan. I gather they're on vacation in Florida?"

"Yes, they left yesterday morning and flew down with the Buonfestos. That's another couple from here, they're retiring to Miami. The Ryans are just staying with friends for a week or two."

"Has anyone reached the Ryans to tell them what's happened?"

"Yes, Honey Mooney told me she called them."

"They must have been terribly shocked."

"Yes, of course." Charlotte gave a wry laugh. "At least it will settle the argument."

"Argument?"

"About whether to move to Florida for good or not. Scottie didn't want to, and Dorothy did. Now I suppose they have no choice. There's nothing here to come back to."

"Did Mrs. Mooney ask them if they might have left the stove on?"

"Yes, she did, and Dot said she was sure she had turned it off, she was positive, but Honey thinks she has a tendency be absentminded."

"Do you think she's absentminded, Mrs. Harris?"

There was another pause. "No," said Charlotte, "I don't."

"I see. Well, thank you, Mrs. Harris."

Charlotte's good-bye was cool and polite.

Homer hung up, then dialed the number of the Concord Fire Department. The fire fighter on phone duty turned out be a friend of his, Melvin Pierce.

"Oh, hi there," said Melvin. "You got a fire to report, Homer?"

"No, sorry, Melvin. I just want to ask about one. Can you tell me anything about the trailer fire at Pond View last night?"

"Not much to tell. It was the middle of the night. n.o.body over there woke up to call us until it was too late to do anything."

"Who finally called you?"

"Man named LaDue. His rig is right next to the one that burned, so he was afraid his would catch fire, too. He was all excited. We hosed his place down. No problem."

"Is it true that the stove was on?"

"Sure is. Of course all the electrical systems were burned out, but one of the k.n.o.bs was turned to the high setting. Pretty careless of those people, if you ask me."

"Did the Ryans leave a key with anybody? Might somebody have come in after they left and turned on the stove?"

"I don't know about anybody else having a key, but the park manager has keys to all those mobile homes. But it doesn't make sense, somebody else burning the place down, unless they were doing it for the Ryans, so they could collect the insurance."

"What's the name of the park manager?"

"Murchison, Guy Murchison. I've got his number right here."

Homer said good-bye and called Murchison at once. As he waited for the park manager to answer the phone, he pictured the two-story suburban house that was the manager's home and office, there beyond the Walden Pond parking lot. In Homer's opinion the house was as painfully out of keeping with Th.o.r.eau's Walden Pond as the landfill and the trailer park. "h.e.l.lo," he said. "Mr. Murchison?"

Guy Murchison was affable and eager to talk about the fire. "Oh, my G.o.d, it was a d.a.m.n good thing those people were away. The thing must have gone up in seconds. All those mobile homes, they've got a fire door in the bedroom, but sometimes it happens so fast, if they'd been there they might not have got out alive."

"Mr. Murchison, I understand you have keys to all the mobile homes. Can you tell me if anyone might have borrowed their key without your knowledge?"

"Wait a sec. All the keys are on a board in the hall. I'll take a look." In a moment he was back. "Yup, it's still there. Of course somebody might have taken it and brought it back again without my knowing it. Not very likely, I'd say."

"Can you tell me who's been in your office lately?"

"Are you kidding? It's summertime. Everybody and his mother's at the beach. We got emergencies, lost kids, stray dogs, drunks, cars won't start, fistfights, people want to park when the lot is full and won't take no for an answer. You name it, we got it."

"I mean somebody from Pond View. Has anyone from the trailer park been in your office recently?"

"Oh, well, let me see. Julian was here, Julian Snow. He had to sign a paper because his old rental agreement was in his wife's name. Mrs. Mooney and Eugene Beaver, they were here to help me get in touch with the relatives of Shirley Mills."

"That's all?"

"It's all I remember. But, h.e.l.l, why would anybody want to burn down the Ryans' place? Oh, I can see the Ryans doing it themselves, to collect the insurance. Especially Mrs. Ryan, because she didn't want to stay up here, she wanted to move south. But they were decent people. They'd never do a thing like that. Mrs. Ryan was a timid soul anyhowa"too timid to start a fire, for sure."

Homer thanked Guy Murchison, hung up, and went out on the front porch with his wife to watch the dainty fluttering silhouette of a bat, gathering up the flying bugs of evening.

There was a roll of thunder. By the time they went to bed it was raining hard.

*30*

How enduring are our bodies,

after all! a"Journal, February 3, 1859

Julian Snow was. having a hard time waking up. He kept telling himself that something was wrong. He tried to pull himself to a sitting position, but then he fell back on the pillow and sank into a stupor. At last he forced himself to open his eyes and crawl out of bed.

There was an overpowering smell of gas.

The windows! He must open the windows. Last night he had closed them against the driving rain. Thunder was still rumbling, and there were flashes of lightning.

The first window was stuck and wouldn't open. Staggering a little, coughing, Julian tried the next one, but the crank was missing.

By this time he was struggling for breath. He couldn't stand up. Crawling on hands and knees, he made his way to the emergency door on the other side of the bedroom. There was something in the way, Alice's dressing table. Alice had insisted on pushing it right up against the door.

By now the stench of fumes was overwhelming. Julian pulled himself up beside the dressing table and leaned on it for a moment, his chest bursting. Then he took hold and tugged at it with all his failing strength, trying to pull it far enough so that he could squeeze behind it and open the door a crack. By the time he had hauled it far enough his breath was gone. Julian fainted and lay still beside the closed door. But then a thunderclap woke him, and he was able to reach up, turn the handle, open the door, and put his head out into the rain.

For a while he knelt with water running down his face, filling his lungs with the moist fragrance of woodland, the fresh mud-smelling air of Goose Pond in the hollow below.

Before long he felt better. His head cleared. He got to his feet and hurried into the corridor. There was no time to lose. Something was leaking, either the gas-fired water heater or the gas stove. If the mixture of gas from the stove and the oxygen in the air got too rich, the pilot light would set off an explosion.

With trembling hands Julian tested all the k.n.o.bs on the stove. Then he went to the water heater and knelt to turn off the valve connecting it to the propane tank outside.

What if he had not waked up? Sooner or later, sometime before morning, there would have been a fiery conflagration and he would have been burned alive.

Alarmed, Julian stood up and went to get a flashlight so that he could look for the leak. Leaning over the stove, he aimed the flashlight behind it. Then he transferred his attention to the water heater. Kneeling on the floor, he poked the flashlight behind the big white tank.

Yes, there it was, a round black hole an eighth of an inch across, right next to the soldered joint.

Funny, you'd think it would be the joint itself where the solder would give way, to let out a pinhole stream of gas.

Getting up off his knees, Julian went to the bedside table for his gla.s.ses. Putting them on, he knelt again and aimed the flashlight at the small round hole.

After staring at it a moment, he rose shakily to his feet.

The hole had been drilled. The edges were silver, bright in the feeble illumination of the flashlight. Under the pipe lay a scattering of metal shavings spun off by the drill.

Someone was trying to kill him.

*31*

I did not think so bright a day

Would issue in so dark a night... a"Journal, November 7, 1840

"Mr. Kelly? This is Julian Snow. I hope you've got time to talk to me."

"Certainly, Mr. Snow. As a matter of fact, I want to talk to you, too. What if I came over this afternoon after lunch: Are you working today?"

"I'm working this morning. I get off about two o'clock."

"Perfect. I'll be at your place at two-thirty."

Julian hung up and sat looking at the phone. He wasn't sure he was doing the right thing, talking to Homer Kelly. Oh, the guy seemed sympathetic enough. But probably he'd listen to Julian's story about last night and then go away and forget all about it, just like the police. Well, what the h.e.l.l, what could anybody do, anyhow? n.o.body could put hired bodyguards all over Pond View. If somebody was determined to kill Julian Snow, they'd do it sooner or later.