Mystery Dance: Three Novels (21 page)

“What are you boys doing after school?” Dad asked.

“I thought we’d go down to the workers’ camp,” Joshua said, catching Jacob’s gaze and holding it. “I’m thinking of taking Spanish next semester and figured I could get a few free lessons.”

“You stay away from there. Those beaners are rough. They’re hard workers, but if they didn’t work so cheap, I wouldn’t bother with them. When they’re drunk, they get mean. They’d cut each other’s throat for a nickel.”

“I don’t think our workers drink, Dad,” Joshua said.

Dad actually looked over the newspaper at that. “They all drink. So don’t be hanging around there. If you want to learn Spanish, we can hire a tutor.”

“But I want to learn about the tree industry,” Joshua said, and Jacob was stunned by the glib cunning of his brother. Joshua knew how to trick Jacob, all right, but his recent conquest must have fueled his arrogance, because there he was bullshitting Dad, the king of the bullshitters.

“I can teach you about the trees when the time comes,” Dad said, turning his attention back to the Dow Jones average.

“What if something happened to you? One of us would have to know what to do.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

“It happened to Mom, didn’t it?”

Dad folded the paper, crossed the kitchen, poured his coffee down the sink, and rinsed his glass. He left the room, and a minute later the front door closed, followed by the sound of his truck engine.

Joshua leaned back in his chair and grinned like a dyspeptic weasel. “What’s really cool is one day one of us is going to have to carry on.”

Jacob put his head on the table, head in his hands. He wondered if he could skip school without Dad finding out. “Are you in love with her?”

“What’s that, pukeface?”

“Is she your girlfriend?”

“Love. You really believe that shit, don’t you?”

Jacob wanted to ask what it was like, her hot, slick skin on his, her lips brushing his face, the secret folds opened. He wanted to know how Joshua could enjoy all those wonders and then remain so callous towards them.

He’d always been afraid that the twins were too much alike, that his and Joshua’s shadow would always be merged and neither would escape the other. That morning, he saw for the first time how little alike they actually were, as if they didn’t even belong to the same species.

“Wish me,” Jacob said.

“I can’t wish you sober, Jake. Only time can do that.”

“No, wish me to be you one time.”

“You like Carlita, huh? Want a taste of taco sauce?”

“Wish me.”

“Well, you’re already going to be me this afternoon, remember? My algebra test. The one I missed and you’re going to make up for. Mrs. Runyon will never know the difference. And don’t forget to write with your left hand.”

“How come you can’t take it?”

“You’re smarter. Besides, me and Carlita are going to hang out under the bridge. Do a little fishing.” He smiled. “One day I might teach you how to use a pole, when you’re big enough.”

“What if I don’t want to take your damned test?”

“Come on, now. The cane, remember?”

Jacob burped and the acid sluiced up his throat. He swore to himself he would never try liquor again. And he was going to quit letting Joshua threaten him, because Joshua was as much to blame for Mother’s death as he was. He was done letting Joshua push him around. But, first, he was going to find a way to finish that test early so he could find himself a good hiding place in the weeds beside the bridge.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Dust.

Which of the tiny specks were Mattie, and which were bits of dead skin, moth wings, dandelion fluff, or lost sea sand?

Jacob looked down into his palm, then at the urn on the
faux
mantel of Renee’s living room. The urn was cold in its solitude, cast in black porcelain with dark gold piping around the rim. Overwrought solemnity, the best money could buy.

Jacob let the dust sift through his palm to the floor, knowing Renee would twitch with the urge to get out the vacuum cleaner. “I need the rest of it.”

“I gave it to you already.”

“I can make him go away.”

“By buying your father’s place? I thought you hated that house. You always said it brought back bad memories.”

“I’m not buying the place. I’m giving it to my brother.”

“Joshua? The man whose name you could barely stand to say? The one you kept secret from me because you were so ashamed?”

“I owe him. I took everything my father left. I tricked Joshua out of his birthright because I thought I could put it to better use.”

“You said he refused to take any inheritance. ‘I don’t want nothing the old man ever touched.’”

“I got the money and the real estate, Joshua got the home place. But he can’t sell or rent it because of the covenants Dad put on it. Since he doesn’t want to live there, he basically got nothing. While I got to finish building the Wells empire.”

“Since when did you start feeling guilty about that? If you’re going to feel guilty for something, maybe you should show some emotion over the death of your daughter.”

Renee stood with the sleeves of her tan sweater tucked into her fists. Her eyes held enough fire and light to drive the chill out of Jacob’s heart, but the combustible places inside him had long since been walled off. He felt like a trespasser in her apartment, in this new life she was trying to make. One where the kids were nothing but photographs on the wall, pieces of slick paper in polished picture frames. A life where Jacob was nothing more than temporary clutter.

“I’ve dealt with Mattie’s death in my own way,” he said.

“Great. Thanks a lot for leaving me behind while you did it.”

Jacob looked at her, wondering if he’d ever really known her. Or maybe he had never known himself. “You’ve been talking to that damned Rheinsfeldt again, ain’t you?”

“Yes, and I’m starting to figure out some things. She said you had some traumatic experience–or probably several–that caused your adolescent disorder.”

“‘Disorder.’ As if everything has to be in order.”

“And now this brother thing. Like maybe if you make amends with Joshua, pay him off, you can buy his love and maybe get your father back that way. But maybe you can’t fit all the pieces together again.”

“Money makes a good glue.”

“They won’t release the settlement, Jacob. Not until the investigation’s complete. You know that.”

“I didn’t start the fire. Even if you hate me now, you know I’d never do anything that stupid.”

“I’m not so sure anymore. I don’t know which Jacob you are.”

That’s what they always say
.

Jacob fought the urge to rush across the room and slap her. He forced his fist open and stretched his fingers. Some of the dust from the urn still clung to his moist palm.

Jacob took his gaze from Renee’s tear-streaked face and looked at the urn. How could such a small jar hold those millions of memories, the hopscotch chalk on the sidewalk, Big Bird’s Firehouse, the sticky trip to Disneyland, the juice boxes of midget league soccer? How could his precious little girl be reduced to such a finite space when she had once contained multitudes of possibilities?

“Fine, then.”

“What the hell do you expect?” Renee said. “You’ve gone off the deep end again and you won’t let me help. You run away from the hospital, hide from Donald and me, start drinking, then you stand in the woods and try to freak me out, pretending you’re somebody else. What the hell am I supposed to do? Lock you in the nuthouse again?”

“That was a long time ago and I’m much better now. I’m a grown-up. I know how to deal with my problems.”

“You didn’t handle your mother’s death very well. You go crazy when you lose a child. And we’re both twice as crazy now. Don’t you see that helping each other is the only hope?”

“Rheinsfeldt and her touchy-feely ‘dialoging to wellness.’ That doesn’t sound like much hope to me. Because when it was over, if it was
ever
over, then all we’d have would be each other.”

“Maybe that’s enough.” Renee said.

“Two million would be enough.”

“I told you. The twenty-seven hundred was the last of it.”

“Give it here.”

Renee’s jaw was twisted and tight. “I already gave it to you. At the cemetery.”

“Quit bullshitting me, Renee. If you want to trick me into thinking I’m cracking up, you got to do better than that.”

She shook her head, the tears no longer flowing but lying on her cheeks in thin, bright tracks. Jacob almost felt sorry for her, this woman he had loved for nearly a decade. She had lost as much as he had. Perhaps her suffering was even worse, because she believed in a merciful God, and God had proven the worthlessness of her faith.

“I don’t have it,” she said. “Talk to Donald. He’ll tell you. You’re ruined, Jacob. There’s no money left, the banks are foreclosing on your property, and even if you get your insurance money, it’s going to be too late to bail you out this time.”

“No. I’m a Wells, damn it. This is my town. They can’t take it away from me.”

“Sorry, Jake. You shouldn’t have dropped out of your own life.”

“Give me your keys,” he said.

“No. It’s my car.”

“Our car. Don’t forget whose name’s on the title. Wells.”

“Just like the house, huh? And there’s nothing left of it but ashes. Everything we owned together is ashes now. Everything a Wells ever touched.”

They both looked at the urn. It had the power of a sacred relic, an icon that marked not the abiding mystery of faith and life but the absolute consuming nadir of despair and failure.

“I’ll drive you back to the Wells farm,” she said.

“I can’t stay there.”

“You can’t sleep in the bushes.”

Jacob looked at the couch, then down the hall at the starched covers of her bed. When you turn your back on your life, you leave everything behind, even those things that once seemed valuable. “Take me by the ruins, then. Show me where the person called to you from the woods.”

“That was you, Jake.”

“It wasn’t. I swear.”

But he couldn’t be sure. Maybe visiting the scene of the nightmare would rob it of its power. He had nothing left to lose. Except two million dollars, his wife, and the Wells homestead.

They drove to Buffalo Trace Lane in silence, Renee keeping her purse in her lap, her eyes fixed on the road ahead. The town seemed like a movie set to Jacob, a false-front stage for the Wells illusion. He hadn’t owned Kingsboro. All he had was a name heavier than blocks, girders, and bricks.

As they pulled into the driveway, Jacob was struck by the harsh emptiness of the lot, as if the blank space in the sky required the satisfying geometry of walls and roof in order to be complete. The rectangular bed of ashes lay like a black, sunken grave. The yellow crime scene tape had drooped, and in places it was broken and fluttering in the breeze like the tails of crippled kites. The trees around the ruin were scorched, the branches stunted and bare. New blackberry vines had thrust from the dead embers scattered beyond the block foundation, as if sharp and painful edges were the next natural evolutionary step here.

Renee stopped the engine and sat with her hands in her lap. “We’re home.”

Jacob looked up to where the second floor would have been, to the haunted air of Mattie’s vanished window. “I tried to save her. You believe that, don’t you?”

“I was there, Jake. I remember.”

“But you couldn’t see. All that smoke.”

“Like I told the fire chief.”

“We were cut off from each other. You had to go downstairs. It was the only way out.”

“I thought you and Mattie were already safe, or I never would have left.” Renee adjusted her glasses on her nose, as if using a memory trick to recall her half of the story. “But I had to get my glasses out of the car.”

“And the back door was open.”

“The door that swings both ways.”

“Huh?” Jacob imagined flames licking at the afternoon sky, a daytime Armageddon, a cleansing wave pushed up from the bowels of hell.

“The door that swings both ways. Like you told me the night you were hiding in the woods.”

“I wasn’t hiding in the woods.”

“Something about the door, Jake. And when you smelled the smoke, you told me to wait in the bedroom. Like you were afraid of what I might see.”

“I didn’t want you to see Mattie. I wanted to protect you. Both of you. Like I couldn’t protect Christine.”

That sounded good. He swallowed.

The charred flecks of Christine’s crib lay somewhere in the burned-out basement, along with a menagerie of stuffed animals, hair brushes, Barbie dolls, and an Easy-bake oven. The Weebles and Lego and Strawberry Shortcake and Pooh pajamas. Tweety Bird sleepers and Dr. Seuss videos. Purple plastic bracelets and silver wigs, sneakers that lit up with red LED’s when a girl danced. The solid things were the only believable reminders of Mattie, because memory clung not to her smile in the sunshine but to her face in the fire.

“Jake, I can’t talk to Chief Davidson anymore. She suspects something.”

“It won’t be much longer. The SBI has run about every test they have. They’ll have to close the case soon, and we’ll get our money.”

“It’s not ours, though. You want to give it to Joshua.”

A car came up the road behind them, slowing as it passed the driveway. Jacob glanced in the rearview mirror. The Nelsons from 217, who lived around the corner. Their house had a thousand square feet less of floor space than the one he’d built here. With the insurance money, he could build an even larger one, an envy-inspiring Wells monument that would be three stories and–

He wouldn’t rebuild here. This wasn’t his home anymore. He belonged in Joshua’s house. And Joshua would get the two million, money from the fire and Mattie. Fair was fair. Jacob opened the door and got out of the car.

The air carried a faint charred aroma in its heavy dampness. If he’d believed in spirits, he could imagine Mattie hovering over the bed of dead embers, picking among the ruins for the ghosts of toys. He touched his face, recalled the searing heat that must have been ten times as intense to her. The fire had robbed her of oxygen, suffocating her in its selfish consumption. The greedy fingers of flames had stroked and groped and seized, had pulled all that lay before it into its arms.