An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England_ A Novel - Brock Clarke [59]
Because maybe there is no true Aha! moment for a detective, or for anybody else, either. There sure wasn't one for me that night. I walked into my parents' house and found them sitting next to each other on the couch, talking to ― I discovered in a few seconds ― a cop. He was sitting in a chair with his back to me: he was wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt, the hood bunched and folded and looking like the rolls of an elephant's skin. My parents were drinking coffee, not beer, and so I knew that something was up and they were in a bad way.
"There ... he ... is," my father said. His hand shook a little as he spoke, coffee dribbling over the cup's lip. The cop stood up and turned around. He looked exactly like the guards I remembered from prison, who were overweight and overwhelmed and, if not for their guns, exactly like the junior varsity high school football coaches they might have been. Except this one was even younger looking than the guards. He was in his midtwenties, tops. His cheeks were bright red, as if he were cold or ashamed, and he was exactly my height, too, and all in all he looked as though he might have been my much younger brother if my parents had decided to have one and then dress him in entirely neutral colors: in addition to his gray sweatshirt, he wore khaki pants and tan work boots and a tan barn jacket. "Here I am," I said, echoing my father, my face flaring up almost automatically to match the cop's, as though his shame were a challenge to mine.
"I'm Detective Wilson," he said in a surprisingly high voice for such a big guy. He took my hand and shook it vigorously, making up for not ever having shaken it before. His hands were large and soft, as if made of something once hard that had melted. "I was just asking your folks a few questions."
"About what?"
"There was a fire last night, Sam," my mother said. Her voice was calm, perfectly calm, and her coffee-cup-holding hand was steady, but I could see that her other hand, her right one, was gripping the couch arm tight, as though the couch were a seat on an amusement ride. "Someone tried to burn down the Edward Bellamy House."
"OK," I said, trying to act as though I were hearing this for the first time. This was difficult, though, in part because I knew all about it, but also because Detective Wilson wouldn't let go of my hand. He wasn't shaking it anymore, just holding it gently, as though trying to help me through an especially difficult time. Or maybe it was me helping him; he was young enough that this could have been his first case. Maybe that's why he'd given us his title ― detective ― and not his first name, because he couldn't believe he actually had one. A title, that is.
"Edward Bellamy was a writer," the detective said. "He wrote books." He smiled at me broadly, as if this were good news and he was pleased to be the one to spread it.
"Oh," I said flatly, and then, as if just realizing the import of this news, I said, "Oh!" again. My intent was to make this "Oh!" sound panicked, concerned, and maybe even a little indignant, but not at all guilty. But it didn't sound quite right, a little weak and insincere to my ears, and so I was going to let out a third "Oh!" ― this one with a little more passion, a little more oomph. But my mother shot me a look that told me, more or less, to stop saying "Oh!" So I stopped.
"This happened last night," my mother said, repeating herself, talking slowly, helping me through this. "We