Miracle Creek(49)
MARY
SHE WALKED TO HER FAVORITE SPOT in the woods. A secluded hideaway where Miracle Creek meandered through a dense grove of weeping willows. This was where she came to think whenever she was upset, where she’d come last year after that horrifying birthday night with Matt and again right before the explosion, after Janine threw cigarettes at her. Sitting here on the flat, smooth rock, the gurgling water nearby and green curtain of willows separating her from the world—she felt safe and serene, at one with the woods, as if her skin were molting into the air and the air burrowing into her skin, the cell-by-cell exchange of skin and air making her blurry at the edges like an impressionist painting, her insides seeping out through her pores and dissipating into the sky, leaving her lighter, less substantial.
Mary crouched and put her hands in the water. The current was strong here, the rushing water swirling pebbles, tickling her fingers. She scooped up a handful and scrubbed her arm where Matt touched her. Her stomach calmed, but her brain was still stuck in that bizarre state of hyperspeed paralysis, the thoughts coming so fast, she couldn’t think. She stood and breathed, matching the sway of the willow branches nearby, the veil of green undulating side to side in the wind like the grass skirt of a hula dancer. She needed to untangle her thoughts, think things through rationally, one strand at a time.
The cigarette and matches that started the fire were the same ones Janine threw at her. That seemed certain. The only question was the matter of who: Who took them from the woods to the barn, built a mound of sticks, lit the cigarette, placed it on top, and walked away? Janine or Elizabeth? Maybe even the protesters?
Janine had been Mary’s original suspect. After waking from the coma, lying in the hospital while doctors prodded and jabbed her, she’d remembered Janine’s fury and guessed that she’d done it in an uncontrollable burst of anger, to destroy anything having to do with Mary.
But as she’d been agonizing about what to tell the police—did she have enough courage to tell them everything? Would she have to reveal the humiliating details of her birthday night with Matt?—her mother had told her about Elizabeth, about her smoking, child abuse, computer searches, and on and on, and Mary had been convinced. Everything fit: Elizabeth must have found the cigarettes where Janine threw them, and used them to set up the fire in the way most likely to kill her son and incriminate the protesters. The horrifying efficiency of it all. That, plus Abe’s “beyond one hundred percent” certainty of Elizabeth’s guilt—those were what Mary clung to when her conscience struck, when she longed to break her silence about that night.
But today had changed all that. Not only the cross-examinations (Abe’s case against Elizabeth was far from the slam dunk he’d promised), but also the revelations from Matt just now. According to Matt, he’d never talked to Janine about Mary or asked her to confront Mary for him. But what did that mean? Had Janine’s lies and secrets been part of some arson-murder plot? Had she been even more furious than Mary had guessed—had she somehow found out about the birthday night?—and had she placed the cigarette by the barn, knowing her husband was inside, to try to kill him?
No. That wasn’t possible. Only a monster would put a lit cigarette by flowing oxygen, knowing that helpless children and their mothers were inside. And Janine—a doctor, who was dedicated to saving people’s lives, who’d worked hard to help build Miracle Submarine—was not a monster. Was she?
On top of all that, something strange had come out today about the protesters. Detective Pierson said he’d ruled them out because they’d gone straight to D.C. after leaving the police station that night. But that wasn’t true; her father had seen them driving around their property only ten minutes before the explosion. So why were the protesters lying? What had they done that needed covering up?
Mary walked to the nearest willow tree and touched the branches that draped almost to the ground. She ran her fingers through, separating them, the way her mother combed her fingers through her hair. She stepped into the veil of willows, feeling the feathery strands gently stroke her face, making the area around her scar feel tingly and tickly.
Her scar. Her father’s useless legs, in a wheelchair. Death of a woman and a boy. The boy’s mother on trial for murder, which, if she had nothing to do with the fire, was putting her unjustly through hell. And now, Mary’s father being accused of murder. So much pain and destruction, her silence enabling it all. Given everything she now knew, given her suspicions about Janine and the protesters, her rising doubts about Elizabeth’s role in the fire, didn’t Mary have a duty to come forward, no matter what the consequences?
Abe said she might testify soon. Maybe that was exactly what she needed. A chance—no, a mandate—to tell the truth. She’d wait one more day. Abe said he’d be presenting the most shocking, incontrovertible proof of Elizabeth’s guilt tomorrow. She’d wait to see what that was. And if any doubt remained, if there was the slightest chance that Elizabeth wasn’t to blame, she’d stand up in court and tell everything that happened last summer.
JANINE CHO
SHE WENT STRAIGHT TO THE KITCHEN CABINET where she kept the wok. It had been a bridal-shower present from one of Matt’s cousins, who’d said, “I know this isn’t on your registry, but it seemed so appropriate…” She hadn’t explained how it seemed “appropriate,” but Janine knew it was because she was Asian. Woks are a Chinese thing, not a Korean thing, she’d wanted to say, but she’d bitten that back and thanked her for such a thoughtful gift. She’d meant to donate or regift it, but she’d kept it, stored away behind all the other junk they never used.