⦠The firm and stable mass of the earth trembled and shook, and the sea withdrew, its waves flowing backward. The sea floor was exposed, revealing fishes and sea creatures stuck fast in the slime. Mountains and valleys that had been hidden in the unplumbed depths since the creation of the world for the first time saw the beams of the sun. Boats were left stranded in these newly created lands, and men wandered fearlessly in the little that remained of the waters, collecting fishes with their bare hands. But then the sea returned with an angry vengeance. As if resentful of its forced retreat, the sea roared and rushed through the seething shallows, dashing through every open space and leveling countless buildings in the cities and wherever else they are to be found, so that amid the mad discord of the elements the altered face of the earth revealed marvelous sights. For the great mass of waters, returning when it was least expected, killed many thousands of men by drowning; and by the swift recoil of the eddying tides a number of ships, after the swelling of the wet element subsided, were found to have been destroyed, and the lifeless bodies of shipwrecked persons lay floating on their backs or on their faces. Other great ships, driven by the mad blasts, landed on the tops of buildings (as happened in Alexandria), and some were driven almost two miles inland.
âAmmianus Marcellinus, Roman historian, describing his experience of the earthquake and tsumamis in
A.D.
365 that leveled the city of Kourion, Cyprus, knocked down the lighthouse in Alexandria, and devastated ancient Meditenanean civilization
AFTER CLOSING THE DOOR FIRMLY BEHIND RAY'S RECEDING back, Faye was kind enough to stay until ten. She ordered Chinese
food delivered, but neither of us ate much. We played double solitaire. We talked about everything but the irresolvable turmoils that had both of us wondering if we would survive the night.
That night, I did not sleep. Or very little, anyway, and what sleep I got, I cannot call rest. Exhausted as I was, I fell asleep quickly, but did not stay asleep. I awoke after an hour, or at most two, then lay awake far into the waxing hours that touch the wrong side of dawn. As it finally began to grow light, I began drifting off again, but what sleep I found then lay in sick, uncontrolled oscillations shot with horrifying dreams, like riding the crest of a freak wave in a cold, dark ocean.
Let me tell you about insomnia.
I know it well. Have had it again and again, in so many of its forms. The can't get to sleep, mind racing form. The awake from two until five, feel like shit when the alarm goes off at seven form. The so buzzed that sleep is something that comes in narcotic blanks between jolts of wakefulness form. The list goes on. But this one was different. This one was a corker. This was the big kahuna of all sleepless nights. This was: Sleep won't save you, Em; your life is crumbling.
I was thirty-five years old, I was living in a bed-sitter on a dwindling bank account, I had no job, no real prospects, not even the guarantee of further education, and I had just shot my prospective mate out of the sky.
I could not sleep because I was scared. Right down to the core. Past it. I felt like the fault that ran underneath Mrs. Pierce's house had let fly the big one, flattening a city of a million souls, except that this fault ran right through me. It had opened up inside me, and there was a gaping hole through which life as I knew had disappeared.
My ankle hurt terribly, and, having been so stoic that I'd refused to see a doctor, I had no painkiller stronger than aspirin.
The pain soon took on a life of its own, not growing huge or insurmountable, but making my foot seem like a separate entity that had come into the room to sit like a ghost at the other end of that limb I used to call my own. And yet it was also me, looking back at me, telling me the terrible truth about myself.
Em, it said, you shouldn't have tried to build your life here. Now it is broken, damaged beyond repair. It's not just your ankle, or your love relationship, or the world you live and move in. This uncontrollable chaos you call life. This place where stadiums have lethal wounds in their roofs. This place where people who try to change that are slaughtered like rabbits. And worse. This is that and everything else, too, all the horror of human existence swirling like a whirlpool into that hole you call a life. This is the big telegram, but it's not from some friendly creature called God; no, it's from the guy who's really running the show, and he's not your friend. He's an engineer with the heart of a bureaucrat, the jig's up, and the unfunny joke's on you. You thought this was all going somewhere nice, that all your sprained ankles and broken legs and concussions and shredded heart strings were teaching you something, taking you somewhere important, some big next step, but life's not really like thatâget it? It's not wine and roses, no big romance, no road to triumph, and you're not special. It's just the gaping death's-head, dear heart. Rot. Degeneration. Give up. You're just a chemical factory waiting to reproduce, like your friend Faye. Swap your genes out quickly into the next generation and get done with it. It's not even laughable. It's not even so organized as to justify your grief.
I'd felt despair before, but this was far beyond that. This was icy, bottomless fear at its corrosive worst. This was: Suicide won't even fix it, and opium won't ease the pain, so just get down on your knees and weep.
Crying is an amazing thing. They say water is the universal solvent, but I say it's tears. They carry messages from the brain to the child who lives beneath it. They teach her that her pain
is real. In rolling over her skin, they give it shape.
It took hours of feeling so freaked that I wanted to puke before those tears came, but when they did come, I began to face a few things, and I entered a small, quiet place deep inside, where things didn't exactly seem better but where my suffering was less.
In that place, I faced the fact that Ray wasn't going to love me the way I needed him to love me.
I faced the fact that I was tearing myself to shreds trying to fit into his world, and everybody else's, for that matter, and that none of it was working for me. And that I had no idea what other world I could try fitting into next.
I faced the fact that life was tenuous, and frightening, and that I was not in control of it, or when it happened, or to whom. Nor was I in control of Faye's womb, or Tom's seed, or old brick houses, or the restless ground on which they stood, or a whole community of people who lived in ignorance and denial of the devastation that was coming with the next big snap of the thin crust of solid Earth on which we were all just trying to live.
And I faced the fact that I was deeply, viscerally angry about all of the above, even though being angry wasn't going to change anything.
With that, my feelings became unstuck and began to move. Call it a nervous breakthrough.
I drew up a list, first inside my head and then, finally sitting up and turning the light on, on a pad of paper. On that paper, I first listed all the things I did not want to know, such as the facts I named above, the big mortality chunk. Then I listed the wishes that had been driving me without my admitting them. My wish for a happy family. My wish for children to love. My wish for magical deliverance from feeling scared and crappy most of the time.
Then I made a list of unfinished business.
That list was much less consistent and more miscellaneous,
being a mixture of things that had to do with me and things that did not, but it went like this:
ACTION ITEMS
(Underlining those words seemed to help.)
1.
Figure out who killed Sidney Smeeth, Pet Mercer. (Same person?)
2.
Clean house emotionally.
a.
Ray
b.
His family
c.
My family
d.
Life, the universe, and everything
3.
Quit getting hurt instead of getting the point (physically, emotionally).
4.
I couldn't think of a good number four, so I put down the pad of paper, picked up Faye's book, and read until dawn, taking special note of everything it said about insomnia.
There were several large aftershocks. During one of them, my husband called down the stairs, “That was a three point four!” A few minutes later, I heard on the radio, “That aftershock measured three point four.” I was very impressed. When Doug came downstairs, I asked him how he had known, and he said, “Madam, I was on the toilet, and when my balls are swinging free, I know these things.”
âMary Madsen Hallock, recalling the 1969 Santa Rosa, California, earthquake
IT WAS SNOWING AGAIN, AND THE HEAVY CLOUDS DELAYED the dawn. I had put down the book and turned out the light to watch it arrive, but it came like gray flannel, barely discernible.
I lay in bed, staring at the thin crack that ran across the ceiling. It was visible even in the darkness, like the cavern into which my life had fallen. It reflected my pain. I held on to the pain, stabbing myself with it to stay alert, to avoid being fooled again by my wishes and needs. Ray had chosen his family over me. I wondered only why I felt so surprised.
I promised myself that I would maintain the mental high ground, and not again lose sight of realityâthat Ray was stuck in his family, that they had no real place for who I wasâno matter how painful. It was over with Ray. I did not belong. That was abundantly obvious, but there was still some emotional
stickum holding me invisibly in place, making me hope he would call and say I was mistaken. It was like cosmic flypaper, and it had in its grip not only my feet but also my self-confidence.
In the past, I had used mental exercises to distract myself, so I could slither back to sleep, but this morning, the only puzzle I could conjure involved the deaths of Sidney Smeeth and Pet Mercer. They were like ladies floating in the lake, their unseeing eyes open to the sky. Submerging that image, I dived in myself and swam into the depths of their mystery.
Tom said I should connect some dots. Dot connecting is a good thing. It raises the unconscious to consciousness. It throws light into shadows.
I began, at last, to piece things together. I had seen Sidney Smeeth being interviewed on the front steps of the new stadium. She already knew that the roof had been damaged. The stadium had just been hit by an earthquake, so she knew that it would soon be inspected. She tried to say something about it, but she was cut off by someone in the control booth at the TV station. Had that been a coincidence? And what had she been about to say?
The broadcast of her interview had been interrupted, and not to switch to something more ⦠earth-shattering. What did that mean? TV stations answer to their owners, and owners have agendas. Might someone have been trying to muzzle Screaming Sidney?
From the stadium, she had gone home and been murdered.
Tom Latimer had sent me to read files. I had found evidence of shoddy or nonexistent geologic hazards reviews for major developments.
Jim Schecter had indeed inspected the stadium roof, had found cracks in the welds, and had been told to keep his mouth shut.
Pet Mercer had figured out that Sidney Smeeth's death had been not an accident, but a murder. She had gotten Jim Schecter's stifled report out of him. She had made a phone call to someone who “would know.” Then she, too, had been killed. Was the
timing of her death coincidental, or a decisive blow meant to keep her quiet?
There was one obvious commonality that might connect almost all those dots: Hayes Associates. They had built the stadium. Theyâor their consultantsâhad prepared the reports Tom had had me read. And Sidney Smeeth had, according to Wendy, set her cap toward kicking developers in the teeth.
From there, things got stickier.
Enos Harkness worked for Hayes. Enos was a structural engineer, the kind of guy who specifies what type of steel goes into a building, and what type of trusses. Ray had been housed, fed, and educated on money that flowed from Hayes Associates. And Enos Harkness was his brother-in-law. Enos was the dreaded Katie's husband. And Enos had not been home much lately.
Could Enos have been sent by Hayes Associates to muzzle Sidney Smeeth? No, that didn't make sense, or not enough sense to spell murder. But it did make sense that Pet Mercer's telephone call would have gone to Enos, and in no time at all, she, too, was dead.
What could Enos have to hide? Had he gotten himself stuck in a web of corrupt building practices? Had Sidney Smeeth threatened to expose him? Could it be that simple, that personal?
No. Tom Latimer was investigating a scheme that went much deeper, and it involved bribes on a scale that Enos Harkness could not possibly have conjured. Besides, he was only an engineer, an employee. The big money would change hands much higher.
But he was an employee of a company owned in part by Ava Raymond, his mother-in-law. Ava, who turned tail and ran away when she heard that I was interested in earthquakes. The rest of Faye's words to Ava floated back to the surface of the lake. She had mentioned Sidney Smeeth!
It was dizzying; every time I connected two dots, Enos was somewhere along the line.
Enos, Katie's husband.
Katie, whom I wanted to see boiled in oil.
I told myself,
Your judgment is clouded, Em. You're seeing things. And while you're at it, you were trying to get disentangled from this family, remember? So think about something else!
So then, what should I do?
Tell the police and let them do their job.
But Ray is the police.
Then tell Tom. Let him deal with it.
But if Ray's brother-in-law is behind the killings, it will be a terrible embarrassment to Ray.
Yes, it will. Why do you care?
Because I do, damn it!
Nonsense. You're just trying to be a hero. You think that if you save Ray by tipping him off, he'll realize that you're right and he was wrong. You think he'll take you backâno, more foolish yet, you think he'll abandon his family, his religion, his way of life, and magically turn into something or someone who could live with you. Good one, darling; what does that look like?
I can't argue any of that.
But still I asked myself,
Should I go to Ray about it?
At length, I decided,
Yes, but leave yourself a back door, Em.
Â
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WHEN THE SUN had risen and the rest of humanity was up and about, I got to work.
First, I phoned Tom Latimer and made an appointment to see him later that morning.
Second, I phoned Ray. I had decided, as a matter of courtesy, that I would inform him of my concern that his brother-in-law was involved somehow in the murders. That way, he could do what he wouldâprobably just laugh in my face, but at least then I would feel that I had done the noble thing, and even false pride was some kind of pride.
I hoped that I would get his answering machine. On his machine,
I could be detached, efficient, smart. When he listened to the message, he would wonder how he could have been so stupid, and, as it was too late for reconciliation, I could bask in the knowledge that he was a fool who was painfully aware of his foolishness.
I felt surprisingly calm as I counted the regulation four rings that preceded his brief message, and barely swerved when I did, indeed, get the infamous beep, and not the actual man. Taking a deep breath, I told his electronic proxy that I was sorry to have spoken to him quite so sharply (“Get out” seemed to fit in that category), that I hoped we would in time become friends, and that I had something important that I needed to talk to him about.
Third, I phoned Faye to tell her that I had survived the night, and to inquire about her own mental health.
“I'll live,” she said gloomily.
“You got a paper in front of you?”
“The
Tribune.
Why?”
“When's Tommy Ottmeier's funeral scheduled?”
I heard Faye suck in her breath. “Em, I don't even want to think about dead children right now, if you don't mind!”
“Good. Sorry. But it's important.”
I heard pages rustle. “Saturday. That's tomorrow. Two P.M. Why?”
“Because I have five aces up my sleeve. Is your airplane fueled up?”
“I told you, I'm not flying.”
“Even if I copilot?”
She didn't answer right away. “What do you have in mind?”
“A quick trip to Reno. They can take care of one's marital status quickly there. Or are you and Tom still being stuck?”
After another pause, she said, “I'll think on it.”
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FOR MY NEXT trick, I had to figure out how to get around on my sprained ankle, in the snow, and without a vehicle. If I'd still had my wandering truck, I might have tried it, but there was no way I was going to risk stacking up Faye's Porsche when I couldn't even take enough weight on that foot to make it down the stairs. Fortunately, being a procrastinator by trade, I had not yet gotten rid of the crutches I used for my broken leg before my original cast was replaced with a walking cast. So I got them out of the closet and hobbled around my apartment a bit, remembering how to use them. I hobbled into the kitchenette and took a photograph off the refrigerator and put it in my pocket. It was my one picture of myself smiling into the camera as part of the Raymond clan. A summer snapshot. A picnic. Lots of uncertain laughter on my part. But every living member of that extended family stood or was being held, babes in arms, within the frame of the photograph.
Next, I called a cab, then went downstairs to the front porch to wait for it.
Â
Â
I HAD THE driver take me to Ava's. Unannounced. And wait. I told him I would tip extra if he would roll down the window and witness the conversation I was about to have. He did so. I walked up the flagstone path and mounted the front porch. I rang the bell, praying that my timing was right. I wanted to talk to Ava while Katie was still out for her morning run.
“Hello, Ava,” I said, when she opened the door.
She pulled back in uncomfortable surprise.
“I won't be staying,” I said. “I won't even come in. I just wanted to ask you a question.”
She thought about this for a moment, her face hanging in a pensive sadness. Then she said, “Certainly, dear,” although she seemed to utter the words more to mollify me than to express anything akin to affection.
I took a deep breath. “Is Katie here?”
“Out jogging. Ask your question.”
“Exactly what form did Sidney Smeeth's threat take?”
Ava's eyes glittered. “I'm not at all certain what you're asking,” she said.
“Was it just that she was going to expose Hayes Associates for the cracked welds in the stadium roof? Or was she going to make it specific to Enos, for having specified the trusses?”
Ava stood a long time looking at me, watching me as if I were part of some action occurring across the street from the houseâa fire in a trash barrel, or some kid writing graffiti on the neighbor's garage. Then she stepped back solemnly and closed the door.
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I HAD THE driver take me next to the University of Utah campus and drop me at the Seismic Station. The building had an elevator, which was great, and Wendy Fortescue was in, which was lucky, because I hadn't phoned ahead. I knew that the tough part was going to be getting her to talk to me, so I had decided to just go up there and shove.
“I understand you live in the basement apartment at Dr. Smeeth's house,” I began.
“I ain't talking.”
“That's fine. I have just a couple more questions.”
“You deaf?”
“Look, I know it was murder. I'm just wondering about a few things, likeâ”
Wendy's eyes got real little, and her lips drew up as tight as a raisin. She said, “Listen, Em. I'm not known for my social skills. So if you want to stay in one piece, I suggest you buzz off while you've still got one good leg to stand on.”
“Just tell me the parts that are public record.”
“Go read them at the cop station.”
“I got my reasons to avoid that location, and I think you know them.”
A wry smile rippled across her little face. “Yeah. I heard Mr. Beautiful got hisself another squeeze.”
I took a long, deep breath and stared at her levelly. It was unpleasant to discover that my geological colleagues had been discussing my relationship to Ray in my absence, but she had in the process told me a lotânamely, that she knew who Ray was. I took an intuitive leap and said, “So. The good officer Raymond has been around to question you.”