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Sunday, December 22nd (a peculiar evening)
Charlotte and Donovan could see the flames in front of the laboratory all the way from Progress Street. She drove up and parked close to the house, and saw Hewey Sawyer making his way from the house to the fire with a large bucket of water. Sirens from a fire truck grew louder.
Donovan was as amazed as she was as they exited the Jeep. “Good god, we’ve gone back a hundred years!”
The cross was not the typical Christian one that she expected, but a six- or seven-foot high self-supporting X. The cross was angled taller than wide, like a railroad crossing sign set on its side. It was familiar, but she couldn’t place where, and it worried her.
She called out to the handyman. “Hewey, stop! Don’t throw water on it!”
Hewey stopped and turned, looking at her like she was crazy.
Donovan explained. “There might be some kind of accelerant on it that’ll explode if you throw water on it.”
Hewey thought about it for a minute, then evidently decided Donovan had a point.
The police and a fire truck arrived, with lights, mass, noise, and determined people in reflective gear. Janice and Alexa were standing on the porch, and Charlotte joined them while Donovan stayed on the walkway to watch the activity. A couple of people were taking pictures of the burning cross: reporters. She hoped she didn’t end up appearing in any of their photos.
“Why is this happening?” Alexa’s face was haggard with dismay. “Why are they targeting us, and the laboratory?”
Janice looked in better shape than her daughter and had her arm around Alexa’s shoulders. She nodded toward the parking area. “I think Gani is in the lab.”
Charlotte whirled and spotted his car in the lab’s shadow, cast by the blazing cross. “Oh, no!” She ran down to the nearest policeman to tell him. A hazmat truck had arrived and the crew was suited up, preparing to douse the fire with chemicals instead of water; the policeman went to talk to them, and Charlotte could see one of them directing him to go into the lab first, which he did with three other officers.
She joined Donovan on the walkway and explained what was going on. “So the lab assistant, that’s your old friend from Corton?” he asked.
She nodded as he followed her up the three steps to the porch, holding on to the rail. “Gani Serapio, yes.” She introduced Donovan to Janice and Alexa.
The officers came back out quickly with Gani, who appeared shaken but unharmed. He joined Charlotte and Donovan on the porch. Janice and Alexa went back inside, to watch from the windows of Janice’s studio.
Gani said nothing, but stared at the cross as the Hazmat team put out the fire with no surprises.
“Haven’t seen one of those for a bit,” said a voice just behind Charlotte, startling her. It was Barnes, who had come up on the porch as quietly as a cat. He looked surprised to see Donovan, but shook hands with him.
She took a deep breath to settle her heartbeat. “A cross burning?”
“That particular kind of cross. There was apparently a run of them back in the eighties, along with the regular kind. No one ever claimed responsibility.” He turned to Gani. “Have you received any threats, Professor Serapio?”
Gani shook his head. “No.”
Charlotte was curious about the cross. “So you don’t know what group uses this kind of cross?” she asked Barnes.
“Not for certain. It’s a saltire, a St. Andrew’s cross, like in the flag of Scotland—and in the Confederate flag. There’s some evidence that the original version of the Ku Klux Klan burned this kind of cross in the beginning, right after the Civil War, but that’s not something commonly known.”
Gani turned to them, arms out to his sides. “Do I look black to you?”
Charlotte, Donovan, and Barnes shook their heads. “You look more Asian to me than anything else,” said Barnes. “Doesn’t matter, though; I doubt this is about race. This is about an issue, or a warning—.”
“Or it’s a distraction,” said Donovan, quietly.
Barnes immediately strode off and conferred with the officer in charge of the scene, pointing to the house and outbuildings; several officers went into the house, and Charlotte could see them talking to Janice and Alexa. Another two officers went around to the outbuildings.
She considered Barnes’ remark about “an issue.” A hate crime specifically against Gani would most likely be about his sexual orientation. The puzzle was how that connected with Alonzo’s murder and the theft of the plants.
She moved up closer to Gani, who was staring at the blackened cross. “Gani,” she kept her voice low, “is there something going on you don’t want to tell the police about?”
He continued to stare for a few seconds; he shivered a little, then quickly shook his head.
“Want to come inside the house and get warm?”
“No!” he hissed.
Charlotte pulled back. She realized she had never seen Gani angry before, and the reaction seemed out of character. Then he turned to look at her, his beautiful face dark and cold. “It’s not you, Charlotte. I just don’t want to be around those women right now.” The slight jerk of his head back toward the house made it clear he was fed up with them, for whatever reason.
They continued to stand in silence, watching as the scene was examined, photographs taken, and reports dictated.
Barnes came back up the porch steps. “Professor, if you wish to go home, I will have an officer check your residence first, and then a patrol cover it the rest of the night.”
Gani sighed. “Actually, Detective, I had planned on staying the night in the lab lounge. I’m taking advantage of the university break to get the greenhouse restored and to resume the project. That is what Mrs. Garibaldi wants.”
Barnes’ expression and nodding conveyed agreement with the spirit of Gani’s intent. “Commendable. But just for tonight—?”
Gani conceded, but it was clear it wasn’t what he wanted to do. “Okay, fine. Just for tonight. I need to get some things out of the lab, if that’s alright?” He walked off without another word.
Barnes watched him make his way to the lab. “I hope,” he said to Charlotte, “I haven’t offended him. We looked into his—various affiliations.”
“He is gay, but belonging to a gay rights group does not necessarily mean you are yourself gay, simply that you support LGBT rights.”
“That’s not the affiliation that concerns me.”
“Foreigner? Muslim?” asked Donovan.
Charlotte thought for a moment. “Surely no one is mistaking him for a potential terrorist! He’s lived and worked here for years.” When Barnes said nothing, she added, “And he’s Roman Catholic!”
“All foreign students and those associated with groups of foreign students come under scrutiny these days. It’s unfortunate. We don’t suspect him of terrorism, but—”
“You know he was asked to leave the Foreign Student Coalition, don’t you?” Charlotte interrupted. “Some of the more hard-line members objected to his orientation.”
“—and as I was saying, we don’t suspect him of terrorism, but we have to look at him as a possible target practice for anti-terrorist vigilantes.” Barnes looked straight at her, brows furrowed, dead serious. “I’m treading more than one fine line between treating him as a potential victim, as a victim of the fallout from Dr. Garibaldi’s murder, and as a murder suspect who hasn’t yet been cleared.”
Charlotte sighed at the complexity of the situation. “I understand. To me, he’s just a sweet smart guy and an old friend.”
“You’re very likely right, Charlotte, but the world around him isn’t so sweet.”
They stood in silence. Charlotte noticed that much of the snow that covered the driveway two days before had either melted or turned into dirty slush. There was mud where the fire truck churned up the lawn on the far side of the drive.
“Incidentally, how did you know about this, were you already here?” Barnes nodded toward her Jeep.
“Well, um, no we weren’t. We were driving around looking at Christmas lights, actually,” she smiled at Barnes’ amusement. “Then I got a call from Janice.” Charlotte thought it over. She couldn’t have pulled in once the big law enforcement show commenced.
Donovan nodded to confirm. “We got here before the police and fire department, actually.”
Barnes turned to go into the house; Charlotte and Donovan followed. They found Janice and Alexa in the kitchen with Hewey.
Charlotte was surprised at seeing the three of them in the same room, given Hewey’s accusation of Alexa and Alexa’s contempt of him. Janice was calmly knitting what looked like a shawl or scarf in a complex lace pattern. Alexa sat with her head on her arms on the table, half asleep. Hewey was on the opposite side of the table, reading the obituaries in the newspaper; he was the first to look up at everyone when they came in, then looked back down at the paper.
“Everything okay here?” Barnes looked as if his thoughts ran along the same skeptical lines as Charlotte’s.
Janice looked up, then, with a fragile smile. “We are fine, detective, a little shaken up but fine.” She set her knitting on the table. “How is Gani? He must be terribly upset.”
“We have sent the professor home with police protection and will continue to offer protection to him for the foreseeable future, or at least until we get to the bottom of tonight’s incident.”
Charlotte was surprised by Barnes’ statement that police protection would last beyond this first evening, as that was different than what he told Gani, but she kept it to herself. Perhaps he didn’t entirely trust one or more of the people around the table, and she wondered if, like herself, he suspected Hewey Sawyer. She watched Hewey out of the corner of her eye, to see if he reacted to anything Barnes said, but he never looked up.
“We will also step up patrols here, as well. There doesn’t appear to be any evidence of trespassing or vandalism in and around the house, so the fire was not used as distraction while another crime occurred. At the moment the incident appears to have been either a prank or a warning of some sort in connection to the tragedy at the lab and the robbery, and we will continue to investigate all angles.”
“I’m relieved the house seems to be okay,” said Janice. “I cannot conceive why anyone would want to threaten Gani in this day and age.”
Hewey looked up at Janice when she spoke, like an open and trusting fair-haired child.
Alexa raised herself up off the table. Charlotte thought she looked dreadful. “I think I’m going to try to get some sleep, if that is okay?”
Charlotte moved out of the way and placed her hand on Alexa’s shoulder. “Anything I can do to help?”
Janice rose then, and put her arms around her daughter protectively. “That’s alright, Charlotte. Thanks for coming, but I think I’ll do the same, try to get some sleep. Hewey will stay in the guest room for tonight. You can lock up for us, can’t you?” She looked at him and he nodded and rose.
Charlotte got the impression that they were being dismissed.
Barnes seemed to think so, too, but didn’t protest. “Well, goodnight then.”
The fire engine and hazmat trucks had cleared out, and Gani’s car was gone, as well. Things were winding down, and Charlotte wandered closer to the burned cross, picking her way between slushy puddles. She knew nothing about accelerants, only the general advice not to throw water on a fire of unknown origin if you have any choice. The cross was made of two-by-eight lumber and was well-charred but still intact. She wanted to look at it some more, but not only was it darker without the lights from the fire truck, the police cars were leaving one by one, as well. She rejoined Donovan and they waved to Barnes, who was talking to the remaining investigators, as they got in the Jeep and left.
“Well, that was a bit of excitement,” said Donovan. “Nothing like a good old-fashioned holiday cross-burning.”
“Yeah, should’ve remembered the marshmallows.” Charlotte turned off Progress to Harvey Street, where the holiday lights once again changed the mood. “You look at all this, and think one thing of Elm Grove, but when you see something like what just happened back there, you’re going to think something else.”
“Light and dark. Both sides are there, in everything, all the time.”
She expected that he was thinking of the troubles which led to his injuries, and glanced at him when she came to a red light. But instead of a somber or faraway expression of recollection, he was looking at her. He smiled then looked down and pushed up his glasses, but said nothing.
When she pulled up to his house, he thanked her profusely. “I’m not only glad you came to get me for the little kid part, but that I got to come along on the rest of it. Makes what you’ve been telling me about the Garibaldi’s place so much more real. Like seeing that Hewey fellow, and getting a sense of Janice, Alexa, and Gani. It was even good to see Barnes again, and not be a suspect this time.”
She laughed. “I’m really glad you were there, too. It helps so much to have someone to talk to about this, and you’ve been great. Two heads are better than one, right?”
“Oh, sure. Just as long as Barnes doesn’t mind.”
He began to get out and squeezed her gloved hand with his own. “Thanks again, Charlotte. I’ll see you soon?”
She nodded. “Soon.” She watched him make his way up to his front door without mishap, feeling a friend’s pride at the progress he’d made. He turned to wave and she waved back as she drove off.
At the end of the block her phone beeped.
It was, at long last, Simon.
This was not, of course, where she wanted to have that conversation. She let it go to voice mail, even though her heartbeat sped up and her palms started sweating inside her gloves. Confrontations made her panic, and there was no doubt one was going to occur. At the very least, she was put out because he hadn’t even bothered give anyone some idea of where he’d gotten to. And hooking up with his glamorous old girlfriend was just plain hurtful.
She drove home in a daze—carefully, conscious of her impending anxiety attack. Back at the apartment, she coped by going into automatic gear: feed Shamus, deal with his litter box, wash dishes, change into fresh clothes, brush her hair, apply some lipstick, tidy the work table while a cup of minestrone heated in the microwave, eat the minestrone while reading the early reports of the cross-burning on the local newspaper’s web site, brush her hair again and reapply the lipstick, and straighten the throw pillows on the sofa.
Finally, she poured a substantial glass of wine and after three quick sips, took a deep breath, sat in a corner of the sofa, and called him back.
He answered this time, not the voice mail robot or Philippa.
And he went straight into it.
“Charlotte! I am sorry I haven’t been in touch. I’m in Chicago on a film job, standing in for a guy who got in a car accident on the way to the airport, and trying to finish up the semester work online. These past two or three days have been a blur.”
Charlotte, still a bit nervous, ended up being flip. “I’m sure Philippa Dawson-Jones has done her best to make it so.”
No response. She waited. Finally, he spoke. “It’s her cameraman who had the accident, Charlotte.”
“I see.”
“Looks rotten from where you’re sitting, I can see that now. You have no worries, I assure you.”
It sounded almost as if he was trying not to laugh.
“Perhaps not. But I’m uncomfortable.”
There was no response for what seemed like a long time, but it was only a few seconds. He spoke, his accent more clipped and pronounced than usual. “I can’t help that, Charlotte. Perhaps if you knew your own mind enough, or were more comfortable in your own skin, you would rely less on me to make you comfortable.”
Charlotte felt slapped, and her anger rose. “I don’t know my own mind? You’re the one that gives such mixed signals, Simon, blow hot, blow cold. Ever since you took on the chairmanship you’ve been immersed in your work and I’m lucky to see you once a week. I mean, I can’t tell if we have a relationship or not at the best of times. Now that you’re hanging out with your old girlfriend, though, I suppose I have my answer.”
“Will you look at me with your eyes open?” He paused for a moment, as his words hung in the air. “We have what we have, Charlotte, not some little fairy-tale dance.”
She clicked off.
She downed the rest of the wine in her glass, and poured a second.
This was awful. Even if they weren’t dating, Simon was an integral part of her circle, and now things would be impossibly awkward. She shouldn’t have lost her temper, maybe she should call back and apologize, those and other thoughts rolled through her mind, but as she calmed down she felt less and less need to take action. Why give Philippa the satisfaction of making a bigger ass out of herself than she already no doubt had? The woman was probably there in the room with him during the whole phone call. Ugh.
Shamus came over just then, sat on the floor in front of her as if she was something worth studying. She resisted the temptation to talk to him again, just petted him, and then held him like a baby when he hopped up on the sofa next to her.
I don’t know my own mind? I’m not comfortable in my own skin? Where the hell does he get off saying that about me, I’m not sixteen years old!
He didn’t sound angry when he said it. He didn’t sound loving, either. Her teeth were set on edge by his tone: incredibly detached, bordering on dismissive. Charlotte knew she shouldn’t go down the self-doubting route, but the thought-train wouldn’t derail: what if there is something about me that makes him believe what he says about me to be true? I seem uncomfortable in my own skin. What does it mean, exactly? Giving off mixed signals? Coming across as wishy-washy? Oh, surely not that! Not after a hostile divorce, single motherhood, career achievements, and everything involved in surviving the economy falling through the floor and reinventing her life. Uh-uh.
Yet there it was. She recalled the difference between the way Simon responded to other women, like Lola, with less ambiguity than he did with her, at least in the beginning. Then they dated fairly regularly and enjoyably, and Charlotte was as happy as a clam—until things started changing when he was working nearly twice as much. She had begun to feel increasingly uncertain about things as the weeks went by, and then when she had to upend her original holiday plans in order to spend them in Aspen with Ellis, Simon seemed less disappointed that she was going to be away than she would have been if the situation had been the other way around.
Will you look at me with your eyes open?
Did he think she was idealizing him? Surely not! But the message was loud and clear: he felt that if she understood him, looked at him as he actually was, she would have little or no trouble with what he was doing at the moment.
And that made her more uncomfortable than ever.