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

He was in New Hampshire, or at least his house was, for the time being, and so I did the thing I knew to do, the thing at which I was getting expert: I walked outside and, through the fog, spied on my mother through the building’s front windows, which were, like the rest of the building, massive. There she was, on the second floor. Hers was the only window lit, and my mother was sitting in front of it, at a table, with her chin in her hands, staring into space. The only thing lonelier than being by yourself in a room with nothing to look at or do or hold except your chin is watching someone else be that person. I wanted to run back inside the old Masonic lodge and snatch a copy of that famous book out of one of the faux witches’ or wizards’ hands and throw it up to my mother through her window, which I’d have to get her to open first, the way Juliet opened hers for Romeo, and Rapunzel for the guy who so desperately wanted her to let down her hair. If only my mother had a book to hold, she wouldn’t have looked so lonely. And maybe this was another reason why people read: not so that they would feel less lonely, but so that other people would think they looked less lonely with a book in their hands and therefore not pity them and leave them alone. Did this not occur to the wizards and witches: that their kids read books so that their parents would think them not lonely and leave them alone? Maybe I’d tell them so while I was snatching a copy of their book to give to my mom.

“Sam Pulsifer,” said a voice behind me. I turned and faced the voice and the person it belonged to: Detective Wilson.

He looked more like a detective this time: he still was wearing khaki pants and work boots but had ditched the hooded sweatshirt in favor of a blue button-down shirt and a blue sport coat that had probably been his father’s or maybe an older detective’s. The sport coat would have fit Detective Wilson if he hadn’t tried to button it. But he had tried to button it, inflicting unnecessary punishment on his stomach and the coat and its buttons. Plus, someone had obviously told him that he couldn’t be a detective without drinking way too much coffee. He was holding a large Styrofoam coffee cup, and he was blowing at the smoke drifting out of its vented top.

“What were you doing in there for so long?” he asked. “Visiting your mother?”

“Eavesdropping on the wizards,” I said. “Witches, too.”

“What?”

“I think I took the road less traveled,” I told him.

“Speaking of the road,” he said, trying to get the conversation back to a place where he could understand and control it, “I was behind you on the drive over here. You’re a terrible driver.”

“I was following my mother.”

“You can’t follow worth shit.”

“I know that.”

“I could have given you a ticket,” he said.

“I’m glad you didn’t,” I said, especially since if he’d given me a ticket, then he would have asked to see my driver’s license and I wouldn’t have been able to show it to him. Because I’d never gotten my driver’s license back from Lees Ardor — I had just realized that. I could see her in the classroom holding it and then not giving it back to me, and, like not getting the letter back from Mr. Frazier, this was another mistake I’d regret. But then again, I was pretty certain I’d make more mistakes, so I didn’t dwell on the one I’d just made for too long. This is another thing I’ll put in my arsonist’s guide: if you make a mistake, don’t dwell on it for too long, because you’ll make more of them.

“If you’d tried to give me a ticket,” I said, “I would have asked to see your badge.” I was remembering a few things about Detective Wilson, and one of them was that he hadn’t told my parents what police department he was from, if he was from any department at all. “Do you even have a badge?”

“Here you go,” he said, and then handed me his badge, which was embedded in a slim wallet. The badge was gold and had some sort of raised seal or crest, and on the crest was some writing that was unreadable in the light and fog. Still, I pretended to examine it closely, as if I knew the difference between a real badge and a fake one. On the wallet flap opposite his badge was an ID with his picture, and his name, Robert Wilson, and his title: detective, Arson Unit, State of Massachusetts Fire Division. The ID looked real enough: I held it up to the streetlight and saw official-looking watermarks and holograms.

“You’re a fireman,” I said.

“I’m a cop,” he said with a little too much force, letting me know exactly what nerve was exposed and how much it didn’t like to be hit.

“OK,” I said, and handed him back the badge. Detective Wilson took it and tucked it inside his jacket pocket. When he did so, his jacket popped open and came away from his torso and I could see his shoulder holster and the butt of his gun sticking out of it. So even if he wasn’t a cop, he was a fireman with a gun, which I figured was pretty close to the same thing.

“Did you know that someone tried to burn down the Mark Twain House last night?” he asked.

“It wasn’t me,” I said.

“I didn’t think it was,” he said, although the knowing smile on his face said that he did in fact think I’d set the fire, which made me add, “It wasn’t me who set fire to the Edward Bellamy House, either,” for unnecessary good measure.

“I didn’t think it was,” he said again, this time with even less sincerity. He put his left hand in his sport coat pockets and tapped a happy beat through the lining and on his thigh.

“Sure you didn’t,” I said. “That’s why you were following me here.”

“Maybe I wasn’t following only you,” he said. “Maybe I was following your mother, too.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Maybe I have my reasons,” he said, and then waited for me to ask the obvious question, which I did.

“What are your reasons?” I asked. “Why are you following my mother?”

“The night someone tried to set fire to the Edward Bellamy House,” he said, “you were at your parents’ house, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Were they there, too?” he asked, hooking his thumb in the direction of my mother sitting in her illuminated window. “Was your mother there that night?”

“Of course she was,” I said. But was she? Had my mother been home, after all? “Where else would she have been?” I said this to myself more than to anyone else, but of course I also said it out loud, thereby losing my sole rights to it.

“Maybe she was here,” Detective Wilson said. “Maybe she was somewhere else. Either way, I’ll find out.” He sounded confident, which scared me. There is nothing scarier to those who lack confidence than those who are full of it. And so I said something right then, something that in the end, and once again, I probably shouldn’t have and would end up regretting.

“I know who tried to set fire to the Mark Twain House,” I said.

“You do?” Detective Wilson said. His confidence didn’t disappear entirely right then, but it did seem as though I’d diluted it some.

“Yes,” I said. “His name is Thomas Coleman. He probably set fire to the Edward Bellamy House, too. I don’t know where he lives, but you can probably find him at my house in Camelot.”

“Your house in Camelot,” he repeated.

“One thirteen Hyannisport Way,” I said.

“Why would this guy be at your house?”

“He’s sleeping with my wife,” I said, admitting this to myself and to someone else for the first time. “Or trying to.”

What was Detective Wilson’s response to this news? It was unexpected. He didn’t ask me any questions, didn’t wonder who this Thomas Coleman was or why he would want to burn down these houses or how I knew he had tried to do so. Detective Wilson didn’t ask me any questions at all. He simply turned away from me, walked over to his car, opened the driver’s side door, and climbed in.