Fire and Ashes by Elaine Viets

Author:Elaine Viets [Viets, Elaine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781477848807
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2017-07-25T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER 22

Day eight

Jackie Soran, a small, worn woman, opened her front door at six in the morning and saw Angela and Butch Chetkin on her doorstep. The blood drained from her face before they presented their credentials.

“He’s dead! My baby’s dead,” Zander’s mother shrieked. “I knew it. I knew it!” She rocked back and forth in the doorway, weeping and tearing her short, dry brown hair.

Angela and Butch had yet to a say a word. A chill morning wind whipped across the concrete slab rustling the corpses of the spring flowers.

“Mrs. Soran,” Angela said, “may we come in? Please?”

She put her arm around Jackie Soran’s thin shoulders and guided her inside. She could feel the woman’s nearly fleshless bones and smell her rose perfume. The living room was barely big enough for the bulky brown couch and recliner, a pair of end tables topped with brass lamps, and a boxy old TV. Styleless and scrupulously clean, the room’s only decorations were framed photos of Zander, from a smiling baby to a sullen, sultry teen. The dead boy looked like a doomed movie star.

Angela helped Jackie to the recliner and handed her a fistful of tissues from a box on the nearest end table. Butch sat on the brown corduroy couch.

“May I fix you some coffee?” Angela asked.

“There’s coffee in the thermos,” Jackie said between sobs. “In the shopping bag on the kitchen table. I was on my way to work.” She wore a blue housekeeper’s smock with a logo for the Forest Executive Suites, a well-run motel for business travelers near the highway.

“Do you clean at the Executive Suites?” Butch’s voice was soft. In difficult interviews, he often started with easy, obvious questions. Angela found a clean mug in the spotless kitchen cabinet and filled it with steaming black coffee.

“Yes.” Jackie wiped her eyes. She did not cry prettily. Her face was red and blotchy, and her nose dripped. She dabbed at it with a crumpled tissue and sniffled. “I’m head housekeeper. Zander hates my job. He’s ashamed of me. We used to be best friends when he was little. It was Zander and me against the world. His father took off when he found out I was pregnant.

“Cleaning hotel rooms is hard work and doesn’t pay much. But it’s an honest living and puts food on our table. There are perks, too. We never have to buy soap, shampoo, or conditioner. If a hotel guest leaves behind a partly full bottle, I can have what’s left. When the toilet-paper rolls are near the end, I get to take those home. I can’t make Zander see this. He hates my scrimping and saving. He’s sick of using short rolls with only a few sheets. One day he went out and bought a twelve-pack of bathroom tissue and said, ‘Here. I want a whole roll for once.’ He got Quilted Northern! We can’t afford that, but he said, ‘I’ve got my own money, Mom.’”

“He hates,” “He’s sick of,” Angela thought. She still doesn’t believe her son is dead.

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