Brock Clarke - An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England

Because maybe there is no true Aha! moment for a detective, or for anybody else, either. There sure wasn’t one for me that night. I walked into my parents’ house and found them sitting next to each other on the couch, talking to — I discovered in a few seconds — a cop. He was sitting in a chair with his back to me: he was wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt, the hood bunched and folded and looking like the rolls of an elephant’s skin. My parents were drinking coffee, not beer, and so I knew that something was up and they were in a bad way.

“There … he … is,” my father said. His hand shook a little as he spoke, coffee dribbling over the cup’s lip. The cop stood up and turned around. He looked exactly like the guards I remembered from prison, who were overweight and overwhelmed and, if not for their guns, exactly like the junior varsity high school football coaches they might have been. Except this one was even younger looking than the guards. He was in his midtwenties, tops. His cheeks were bright red, as if he were cold or ashamed, and he was exactly my height, too, and all in all he looked as though he might have been my much younger brother if my parents had decided to have one and then dress him in entirely neutral colors: in addition to his gray sweatshirt, he wore khaki pants and tan work boots and a tan barn jacket. “Here I am,” I said, echoing my father, my face flaring up almost automatically to match the cop’s, as though his shame were a challenge to mine.

“I’m Detective Wilson,” he said in a surprisingly high voice for such a big guy. He took my hand and shook it vigorously, making up for not ever having shaken it before. His hands were large and soft, as if made of something once hard that had melted. “I was just asking your folks a few questions.”

“About what?”

“There was a fire last night, Sam,” my mother said. Her voice was calm, perfectly calm, and her coffee-cup-holding hand was steady, but I could see that her other hand, her right one, was gripping the couch arm tight, as though the couch were a seat on an amusement ride. “Someone tried to burn down the Edward Bellamy House.”

“OK,” I said, trying to act as though I were hearing this for the first time. This was difficult, though, in part because I knew all about it, but also because Detective Wilson wouldn’t let go of my hand. He wasn’t shaking it anymore, just holding it gently, as though trying to help me through an especially difficult time. Or maybe it was me helping him; he was young enough that this could have been his first case. Maybe that’s why he’d given us his title— detective —and not his first name, because he couldn’t believe he actually had one. A title, that is.

“Edward Bellamy was a writer,” the detective said. “He wrote books.” He smiled at me broadly, as if this were good news and he was pleased to be the one to spread it.

“Oh,” I said flatly, and then, as if just realizing the import of this news, I said, “Oh!” again. My intent was to make this “Oh!” sound panicked, concerned, and maybe even a little indignant, but not at all guilty. But it didn’t sound quite right, a little weak and insincere to my ears, and so I was going to let out a third “Oh!”—this one with a little more passion, a little more oomph. But my mother shot me a look that told me, more or less, to stop saying “Oh!” So I stopped.

“This happened last night,” my mother said, repeating herself, talking slowly, helping me through this. “We told the detective that you were here all night, with us, in this house.”

“That’s true,” I said, and it was.

“OK,” Detective Wilson said, only now letting go of my hand. I put it in my pocket before he could decide to take it back. He turned to my father. “So why don’t you show me that letter.”

“Letter,” my father said, and nodded. This was clearly something they’d spoken of before I’d arrived: all three seemed at ease with the fact of this letter’s existence and with the prospect of Detective Wilson’s taking a look at it. It was clearly something they’d already agreed upon. My father got up from the couch and lurched in the direction of his bedroom, and Detective Wilson followed him. From inside the bedroom, I could hear Detective Wilson ask my father, “Do you always keep the letters in this box? In this drawer?” I could hear my father mutter something affirmative. My mother remained on the couch and stared glumly into her coffee cup. “I could use a drink,” she said. “A real drink.”

“So,” I said, again attempting to sound casual and unconcerned, but no doubt failing, as I picked up a napkin off the coffee table and began strangling it out of nervousness, “what letter is this Detective Wilson looking for?”

“You remember that box of letters your father has, from all those people wanting you to burn down those houses?” my mother said, still looking in dismay at her coffee cup. “There’s one in there from some man wanting you to burn down the Edward Bellamy House. That’s the letter he’s looking for.”

“So you know about those letters?”

“Oh, yes,” she said.

“And Detective Wilson knows about those letters?”

“Oh, yes,” my mother said again.

“How does he know about them?” I asked.

“Your father told him.”

“He did?” There had been a little too much something in my voice — if I’d known exactly what it was, then maybe I’d have been able to keep it out of there in the first place. But whatever it was, my mother heard it. She raised her eyes from her cup, looked at me first with incredulity, then with pity.

“You thought it was just the two of you, didn’t you?” she asked. “That the letters were your little secret.” Before I could confirm this, my mother shook her head violently, as if to get me out of her head, as if I were one more unwelcome thought she did not want to get lost in.

But then again, I had plenty of new, unwelcome thoughts to get lost in myself. Someone besides me and my father and the letter writers knew about the letters — that was news enough. But what would Detective Wilson say when he found out that Mr. Frazier’s letter was missing? What would my father say, and my mother? Would I tell them the truth about Mr. Frazier and how he’d taken the letter? What if the truth sounded like a lie to them, as it surely would? What lie could I tell that would sound less like a lie than the truth?

“Well,” Detective Wilson said, emerging from my father’s bedroom. My father was right behind him: his eyes darted to me, then to my mother, then to me again, and then back to his bedroom, before he closed them, his eyes exhausted from all that exercise. Detective Wilson paused to let my father resume his place by my mother on the couch; he then looked at each of us in turn — first wide eyed and then squinty, which I think was supposed to convey suspicion but instead made him look as though he were having contact-lens problems. Detective Wilson seemed to be waiting for one of us to say something, just as I was waiting for him to say, The letter is missing. Which after some further eye contortions, he finally did.

My father didn’t say anything: he had been in the room, of course, and so already knew that the letter was missing. His eyes were still closed and I wondered if he’d fallen asleep. My mother and I didn’t say anything, either. We looked straight forward, at the detective, maybe to avoid looking at each other.

“It certainly is,” Detective Wilson said, perhaps responding to something he’d hoped one of us would say. “Do any of you know where the letter is?”

“No,” my father said. His eyes were still closed, but he said this word clearly, although with some agony. He opened his eyes and looked toward his bedroom longingly, then made a clogged whistling noise through his nose. He sounded like a congested train passing in the night.