29

We are children of light—our destiny is dark.

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 number.

“Hello?” 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 to 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 to be a friend of his, Melvia 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. Nobody 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 knobs 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 Thoreau’s Walden Pond as the landfill and the trailer park. “Hello,” he said. “Mr. Murchison?”

Guy Murchison was affable and eager to talk about the fire. “Oh, my God, it was a damn 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 brother’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, hell, 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 anyhow—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.