Chapter 5 - The Wall Had Burned Once Before
The fire investigator found the older damage three days later.
A section of framing behind the west hallway had been scorched sometime before the current fire.
Not destroyed.
Not enough to bring down the house.
But enough that someone had repaired the surface.
Ryan recognized the replacement drywall in photographs.
The paint was approximately a year old.
Linda had told him that hallway was repainted after a plumbing leak.
There had been no plumbing leak.
Ryan searched the household account.
A payment from fourteen months earlier went to Carl Benson, a handyman his parents had used for years.
Carl agreed to speak with Ryan only after learning the fire department already had his name.
His explanation was uncomfortable.
Linda had called him because an outlet had sparked and blackened part of the wall.
He replaced damaged drywall and trim.
“Did you fix the electrical problem?”
“No. I’m not an electrician.”
“Did you tell her that?”
“Absolutely.”
Ryan pressed his thumb against his forehead.
“Did she ask you to hide the damage?”
Carl hesitated.
“She asked me to make the hallway look normal before Thanksgiving.”
The wording mattered.
Normal.
Not safe.
Carl also remembered something else.
The west-wing circuit had been off when he first arrived.
Linda complained the sunroom and guest rooms had no power.
A week later, when he returned to paint, electricity had been restored.
Carl assumed a licensed contractor had done it.
Ryan knew now that no licensed contractor in the household records had.
He drove to the hospital rehabilitation unit where Linda was staying.
She looked frailer than he had ever seen her.
Oxygen tubing rested beneath her nose.
For several seconds, Ryan could not speak.
This was his mother.
The woman who stayed awake beside him when he had pneumonia at eleven.
The woman who helped with Sophie after Claire’s difficult delivery.
The woman who had almost died inside the same house he was now investigating.
“Did you know about the scorch?”
Linda looked toward the window.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It was handled.”
“No. It was covered.”
Linda’s eyes filled.
“You wanted to sell.”
Ryan stared at her.
“I wanted to discuss selling.”
“You had already contacted a realtor.”
Two years earlier.
After property taxes increased dramatically.
Ryan had forgotten.
Linda had not.
“If the electrical estimate came in,” she continued, “you would’ve decided the house was too expensive.”
“So you decided not to tell me the house could burn.”
“I didn’t think it could.”
“The electrician did.”
“He always made everything sound catastrophic.”
Ryan stood.
Sophie’s voice echoed in his memory.
Mommy! I can’t breathe!
Ryan moved toward the door.
Linda whispered:
“I was trying to keep this family’s home.”
May you like
He turned.
“You almost kept it after there was no family left to live in it.”
