Alix Ohlin - Babylon and Other Stories

The phone rings every hour on the hour, and the caller ID says it's Luther Hodges. He leaves these messages that sound offputtingly breathy and excited — less distressed than pornographic. He wants to meet me for a drink and protest his innocence.

“This case will be tried in the court of public opinion,” he says when I finally pick up the phone. “You have a responsibility to garner all the facts.”

“Like what facts?”

“I'm being set up,” he says.

“By whom?”

“I can't tell you over the phone.”

I roll my eyes and agree to meet for a drink that afternoon, letting him pick the place; you can tell a lot about a person from the kind of bar they deem a suitable rendezvous point. He chooses a chain restaurant on 195, a neon-lit catastrophe with a sports-bar theme. When I get there I find him hunkered down in a booth with two hands around a pint of beer. In front of him is an order of fries served in a plastic football helmet.

I sit down opposite him and pull out my notepad. “So, Mr. Hodges. Who do you think set the fire?”

He leans forward over the table, then looks to his left and his right. It's three in the afternoon and the only person around is our waitress, a bored nineteen-year-old in a Patriots jersey. I wonder who he thinks could be listening. Luther Hodges, I decide, watches a lot of thrillers on late-night TV.

“My ex-wife,” he says, “has some very shady acquaintances.”

“I see. And what's your ex-wife's name?”

“Shannon Hodges. She lives in Pawtucket. All her friends are no-good characters.”

I write on the pad, so that he can see, Shannon Hodges. No-good characters. I underline the no-good. People like to feel that their words are being taken seriously. When I was in school, before I had much practice interviewing people, I used to worry about how to get them talking to me. Now that I've been working for a while, I know the real problem is how to shut them up.

“And what would she stand to gain by burning down your store?” I ask. “Is she a beneficiary on the insurance policy?”

“Ha!” Luther Hodges says, his little black eyes sparkling with malice. “The fire's incidental. She doesn't care about the store one way or the other. She never did. All she wants is to set me up. To see me suffering gives her great happiness, and it always has.”

I hear this kind of thing from married couples all the time, and it's another reason I don't like to put all my eggs into a basket labeled Life with Jeff.

“She's very, very clever.” Luther taps on my notepad with his index finger, for emphasis. “You'll have a hard time catching her. She's great at covering her tracks. This case could make your career.”

“There's no need for you to worry about my career, Mr. Hodges.”

“Call me Luther,” he says, “and I'm not worried. I seen you on the news. Lipstick on. Hair blowing. You look like a million bucks even when it's twenty below. I know you're going places.”

“I'll be in touch,” I tell him, and leave enough money to cover my drink.

I check in at the station — nothing pressing there, just another story about plummeting temperatures and rising oil costs — to pick up Mario and then drive out to Pawtucket. The sun's shining and the roads are dry. Shannon Hodges lives in a rundown duplex behind a chain video store. When she comes to the door, though, she doesn't look shady at all. She's wearing office clothes and looks tired but respectable. I can smell something cooking, and the news is on in the background, which always reassures me. She recognizes me right away.

“You're on TV,” she says. “Boy, you're young.”

“Can we come in?”

“Shorter than I thought, too.”

“Can we please come in?”

“Is this about Luther?”

“It's about the fire at his store.”

“I saw it on TV,” she says, and opens the door.

Mario goes into the living room and starts setting up. I ask her if she'll sit on the couch and answer a few questions. The place is dumpy but clean: flowered couch, wicker tables, doilies on everything.

She sits at the corner of the couch and smoothes her skirt. “I only have a few minutes,” she says. “I'm expecting company for dinner.”

“Someone special?” I say.

She narrows her eyes. “Luther and me are divorced.”

“Where were you last night?”

“At work. I'm a manager at a clothes store at the mall. We stay open till ten, it takes till ten-thirty for everybody to cash out, I'm home by eleven. You can check the time cards if you doubt it. Did Luther tell you I set the fire in his stupid store? That son of a bitch.”

I look at her.

“Please don't put me swearing on TV,” she adds.

“Does your ex-husband have a lot of enemies? Who would benefit from this?”

“He doesn't have any enemies I know about,” she says. “But on the other hand, he doesn't have a lot of friends, either.”

“How's his business doing, do you think?”

She raises her eyebrows. “Do you know anybody who sleeps on a water bed?”

“Not personally.”

“My point exactly. For years I told him, Luther, you gotta go high end, and get into ergonomics, those fancy mattresses from Sweden you see advertised in the back of magazines. Did he listen to me? Never.”

After we're done, she walks me and Mario to the door. “I'll definitely be on tonight, right?” she says. “I wanna tell my mom to watch.”

As we leave, a man gets out of a car across the street and starts for Shannon Hodges's door. He's younger than Luther, and taller, so I can figure why Luther would try to pin the fire on his ex-wife. There are simple explanations for most things.

Heading back to the station, I consider calling Jeff to see how he's doing, just to hear his voice. But when I get there, Luther Hodges is waiting for me.

“Mr. Hodges.”

“I told you to call me Luther.”

“What do you want, Mr. Hodges?”

“I got something to show you.”

I check my messages. I thought there might be one from Jeff, but there isn't. Instead there's one from a contact of mine, confirming that Luther Hodges does indeed carry massive amounts of fire insurance. I'm not following any other major story at the moment, and don't have to tape anything for tonight, so I agree to go with him. I'm curious about what he might want to show me. We take my car — I feel trapped if someone else is driving — and he directs me back to the scene of the crime. The water used to fight the fire has frozen into massive, sturdy, ghost-white icicles. Folds of ice droop thickly over the building, and beneath them you can just make out the bones of the charred wreck itself, the contours dark and shadowed. The whole thing is kind of gorgeous, as fragile and decorative and pale as an enormous wedding cake. It could all break apart at any second, is what I'm thinking, looking at it. There's police tape everywhere, but we ignore it. Luther leads me around back, to a cracked window that isn't fully iced over. We peek inside, and I can see the husks of the water beds laid out in the dark like crypts. The icicles creak in the wind, an anxious, spooky sound.

“See that?” Luther says, but I have no idea what he's pointing at. “That's the Queen Elizabeth,” he says, “the cruise ship of water beds. The ultimate deluxe model. I bought two for display purposes. They cost thousands of dollars. If I sold just one I'd be back on track. It was an investment, don't you see? So why would I burn it down?”

Suddenly he's sobbing, this fat little man. Not tearing up, but serious sobs that steal his breath. I take his arm and lead him back to the car. Sitting in the passenger seat, slumped and soft-fleshed, his doughy cheeks aflame with cold, he makes me feel a little teary myself. I pat him awkwardly on the shoulder. Without saying anything, I pull out of the parking lot and drive to the nearest bar I can find. Luther follows me inside, as obedient as a child. We drink one shot and then another. It's a neighborhood place, and the locals eye us in an unfriendly manner. We do our best to ignore them. I can't tell whether I'm being recognized and I don't care. Several drinks later I announce to Luther that I'm driving him home. He starts to cry again, and I sigh.