Into the Inferno - Earl Emerson [44]
Aside from a single phone call when we initially discovered the extent of our joint betrayal, Steve Haston and I never sat down and discussed what had happened between our former wives. Though neither of us had said it aloud, Steve thought I was responsible for the mess, while I thought he was.
When Lorie and Gloria decided to leave town together, Gloria stripped Steve of his spare cash, emptied their bank account, cashed out their certificates of deposit, stole the Land Cruiser, and sold their schnauzer. The dog was the only thing he got back.
On our side of town, Lorie swiped Britney’s piggy bank—Britney had been four at the time. I managed to replace it before she figured out what happened. When I accused her on the phone, Lorie claimed Gloria must have taken it. I hated the thought that Gloria Haston had been prowling my house and making love to my wife while I was a mile away at work.
For some reason the two women had filled themselves with enough venom to justify anything. Maybe it was the rain. North Bend was a beautiful town, green as hell, but it rained more than a hundred inches a year, and the clouds and moisture drove people mad. Later, somebody from the FBI called my home trying to get a line on Lorie, told me she was kiting checks all over the Midwest.
“Mind if I come in?” I asked Haston. It wasn’t that I was afraid people would overhear us on the stoop; it was more that my legs needed a rest.
“The place is a mess. Sit down anywhere.” Despite his demurrals, Haston’s housekeeping was impeccable. He told a lot of little lies like that, falsehoods designed to make you doubt your own eyes. I confess I hate people who do that. I took the sofa, while he perched across from me in a leather armchair that looked as if he’d taken furniture polish to it. “Terrible about Stan. Just terrible.”
“Especially in light of how easily it could have been avoided.”
Haston ignored my sarcasm. “Everyone in town’s talking about it. They’re starting to call it the Bad Luck Fire Department.”
“There’s more coming.”
“What do you mean?”
“You heard Joel McCain’s a vegetable?”
“Karrie told me about him.”
“Jackie Feldbaum’s a vegetable, too.”
“Well, yes. We knew that. The accident.”
“Stan thought they all had the same disease. He thought Newcastle died out in the woods as a vegetable. I’ve been with a doctor in Tacoma all day and she thinks they were part of an epidemic.”
“Good God!”
Without telling him about my own symptoms or about Holly, I filled him in on Stan Beebe’s theories, adding facts I’d gleaned on my own. By failing to mention Holly I’d left out a lot, including the truck accident in February. There hadn’t been much up there but snowballs, chickens, and Coca-Cola extract. I didn’t want to have to admit that to Haston.
In presenting my case as a fire department issue, I’d left it in a neat little package, stressing my concern for the families of Stan, Joel, Jackie, and Chief Newcastle. I had another rationale for not talking about my own symptoms. Like a child hiding under the blankets, for some nonsensical reason I felt as if not talking about my involvement would somehow make the symptoms less real. But this wasn’t like a cold, where I could resign myself to riding out the symptoms and knew I would be better in a week.
“You think all these people have arsenic poisoning or something?”
“Nobody’s exhibiting the symptoms of arsenic poisoning. Or cyanide or anything else the doctors are familiar with. This is a whole lot more exotic.”
“How can the accidents be an epidemic?”
“These people had accidents because they were sick.”
“As mayor I’ve never been faced with anything—”
“None of us have.”
“I only took over the job to help out after Gloria left town. The biggest problem I’ve had so far is that squabble with the Army Corps of Engineers over our