42

I perceive that we partially die ourselves through
sympathy at the death of each of our friends.…

Journal, February 3, 1859

“Homer? This is Julian Snow.” Julian’s voice was quiet but intense.

“Just a sec.” Homer looked at his watch. It was five-fifteen in the morning. Unsnarling the telephone wire, he put his legs over the side of the bed. “Something else has happened, hasn’t it?”

“It’s Porter McAdoo. He was changing a tire, and the jack collapsed, and the car came down on him. I’ve called the police ambulance, but it’s too late.”

“I’ll be right over.”

When Homer drove into Pond View, people were standing around in a gloomy half circle—Honey Mooney in a turquoise wrapper, Pete Harris in an enormous bathrobe, Stuart LaDue in a nightshirt, his old man’s bow legs bare, Eugene Beaver with a winter coat buttoned over his nakedness, Julian Snow fully dressed in shirt and jeans.

Who was missing? Homer ran over the list in his mind. Only Charlotte Harris. He got out of his car and stood with the others, watching a couple of paramedics from Emerson Hospital slam the ambulance doors on Porter McAdoo.

“Who found him?” said Homer.

The residents of Pond View shuffled uneasily and looked at each other. “It was Charlotte Harris,” said Stu LaDue. “She said he was already dead.” Stu rolled his eyes to imply that Charlotte’s word was not to be trusted.

They stood back to let the ambulance turn around and drive away. Julian looked at Stu LaDue angrily. “The ambulance guys, they said he’d been dead for a while. It didn’t just happen this morning.”

Stu shrugged, Pete Harris shook his head sorrowfully, Honey Mooney wiped her eyes, and Eugene Beaver huddled down in his raincoat. Then they all drifted away. The day threatened to be sticky and hot.

Homer and Julian inspected Porter’s shiny Ford Taurus. There was nothing much to look at. It had been hoisted high on the jack again so that Porter’s body could be removed.

“Bumper jack, I see,” said Homer.

“Why didn’t he shore up the wheels with those big stones?” said Julian. “See those white rocks, there in his flower bed? Porter was a careful kind of guy. I don’t understand it.”

“Why didn’t anybody discover him sooner? It must have happened last night.”

“Real late, probably. Porter was a night owl. He used to wash his car at midnight. Sometimes he mowed his lawn by the light of the moon.”

Julian looked at Homer reproachfully, and Homer felt a stab of guilt. Somehow, some way, he should have been on hand when Porter McAdoo was jacking up his car.

“Mr. Kelly, Mr. Kelly!” Homer turned to see Honey Mooney running toward them, waving her arms. Her turquoise wrapper flapped, her slippers flip-flopped on the pavement. She was puffing and out of breath. “My curtains, somebody set fire to my curtains!”

“Jesus,” said Julian. They hurried after Honey and followed her into her big mobile home, one of the largest in the park.

“Somebody must have set fire to them while I was out just now.” Honey gestured at the pair of dripping charred curtains hanging on either side of her bay window. She had drenched the smoldering ruffles with a kettle of water. “I didn’t lock my door. I just ran out. Look at my entertainment center! It’s all wet. I’ll bet my TV won’t work anymore.” Leaning down, she turned on the switch. At once the set flickered into life, and there on the screen were Vanessa and Angelica pulling each other’s hair. “Well, at least the picture’s still nice and sharp.”

Julian recognized the curtains. They were the ones he had given to Honey after Alice’s death. “It’s strange,” he said. “Both sides are burned the same amount.”

“That’s right,” said Homer. “You’d think a fire would catch one side and burn it all the way to the top before the other side started. It looks as if somebody touched a match to one side and then the other.” He looked at Honey. “You didn’t leave a cigarette burning in an ashtray under the curtains?”

Honey looked offended. “I don’t smoke.”

“But who could have done it? All of you were there together beside the ambulance. All of you except—” Homer glanced at Julian, who looked away.

“All of us except Charlotte Harris,” said Honey in triumph.

“Why don’t I go talk to Charlotte?” mumbled Homer, excusing himself. Outside on Honey’s lawn he shook Julian’s hand and said good-bye. He couldn’t think of anything else to say, except “Watch out for yourself, be careful, you’re all in danger,” but Julian knew that perfectly well.

Homer knocked on Charlotte’s door. She opened it at once and seemed glad to see him, but she looked embarrassed as she invited him to come in and sit down. Homer guessed that her style was cramped by the presence of her husband, who sat impassively on the sofa like a toad.

“May I ask how you found Porter this morning, Mrs. Harris?”

“I went out very early to sprinkle the lawn, because there’s been so little rain lately, and I saw him right away, pinned under his car.” Charlotte’s eyes filled with tears. “He was a fine man.” She glanced at Pete, who lifted his shoulders and raised his eyebrows, as if to say “He was okay, I guess.”

“Did you happen to go into Honey Mooney’s while the others were all at the other end of the park just now?”

Charlotte looked at him blankly. “No, I was right here, looking out the window.”

“Did you see anyone else go into Mrs. Mooney’s?”

Charlotte shook her head.

“What’s the matter?” said Pete. “Somebody steal something?”

“No,” said Homer gravely. “Somebody set fire to her curtains.”

“Fire!” said Charlotte. “Not another fire?”

“I’m afraid so. Somebody around here seems to be fond of setting fires. What about last night? Did you notice any strangers around here last night?”

“No. I always step outside before going to bed, just to look at the stars. But I didn’t see anything unusual.”

Homer thanked her and went away to talk to Honey again, and to Eugene Beaver and Stu LaDue. They had all been watching the happy colors of television jiggling on the screen. They had heard nothing else, they had seen nothing.

Homer drove away and headed across Route 2, wondering why the remaining Pond View people didn’t seem more concerned for their own safety. Only Julian Snow had the sense to be afraid. As Homer pulled into the parking lot beside the fire and police station, he saw Julian’s sober face rise up against the background of the shining red fire engines parked in the open air.

“That’s two more things,” he told Police Chief Flower. “Porter McAdoo’s death and Honey Mooney’s fire. You can’t ignore it now. Somebody’s trying to eliminate everybody at Pond View.”

Chief Flower obviously felt a little guilty. He didn’t look Homer in the eye. He rocked back on his chair with his short legs off the floor and stared out the window at the little hollow where the Mill Brook ran trickling toward the center of town. “Like I said, elderly people, they have accidents all the time. Take the old folks in Peter Bulkeley Terrace. Just the other day we had a fire and a burglary there the same day. But the fire was this old woman’s hair dryer blew up, and the burglary was another old lady, she forgot where she put her pocketbook.”

“But Porter wasn’t elderly, and neither is Honey. I tell you, Jimmy, those people need protection. What about posting somebody there at night? One man, just one?”

“Jesus, Homer, where you been? I told you, we haven’t got the manpower for private security. We’ve had to cut our staff twenty percent. There’s no way I could justify taking anybody off regular duty to guard a bunch of elderly folks around the clock, people who are probably dying of accidents and natural causes. No way in this world.”

Roger Bland’s interest in the future of Pond View had blossomed since the death of Alice Snow. The termination of the trailer park was now even more desirable. Roger had been asked to help effect certain changes at whatever time in the remote future the park at last became empty of residents. The legal ramifications would be tricky, and the social uproar horrendous, but Roger was inclined to think the town should keep its options open.

“Only six of them left,” he said, reading the obituary notice for Porter McAdoo in the Concord Journal. He looked at his wife in triumph. “Four of them retired to Florida, so now it’s only six.”

“Six what, dear?”

“Never mind.”

“Oh, Roger, dear, did you remember the tickets?”

“Tickets?”

“The plane tickets. For Nantucket. Our vacation, remember?”

“Oh, the plane tickets. No, I’m sorry, Marjorie, I forgot.”

“Honestly, Roger, it just shows how badly you need a rest. Promise me, dear, you’ll call the travel agency tomorrow morning first thing.”