According to Their Deeds (38 page)

Charles walked slowly out into the open air and light, gray from ash and dawn. Dorothy ran to him.

“Charles.” She buried her head in his soaked, sooted shoulder. “They have Angelo.”

“He was in the basement.”

He put his arms around her and they fell onto the front steps to sit and weep together. They sat alone together and ignored the ruins behind them.

But not for long. In the street, still blocked by barricades, two paramedics were kneeling and Charles stumbled over beside them. Angelo was propped between them, breathing at least, a living man.

“How is he?” Charles asked.

“Okay, maybe,” one said. “Smoke, but that’s probably all.”

“Could we just take him to my house? It’s very close.”

“He should go to the hospital.”

“I want to take him to my house,” Charles said to the driver. “It’s just three blocks.”

“You what? Wait a minute.”

Now there was a swarm around Angelo, and a stretcher, but Charles pushed in. “Does he need to go to a hospital?”

The paramedics were talking. “Are you related or anything?”

“I’m his probation supervisor. I can sign papers.”

“Let me just check him out.”

Charles stepped back. But then another voice interrupted.

“Mr. Beale?”

“Detective. Yes? I don’t remember your name.”

“Mondelli. That’s somebody you know?”

“My employee. He lives in—lived in the top floor.”

“Anybody else would have been in the house?”

“No one,” Charles said. “No one should have been.”

“So, you have any idea who it was? Um, we don’t have a lot left of him to work with.”

Charles breathed in the clear, cool air. “There is a man named John Borchard.”

“Spell that?”

Charles did. “He works at the Justice Department downtown. He lives out in McLean. Or it might be someone else.”

The detective was staring at the name. “So why would he be in your building?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Mondelli. If it’s him I’ll tell the whole story. But I have to get my wife back home.” He turned away to find a fireman. “Sir. The books in the basement. I have to get them out.”

“We’ll have an inspector look at it. He’ll tell you if you can get anything out.”

“They’re rare books. It’s ten million dollars.”

“Uh, okay, we’ll have the guy here in a couple hours. I’ll get the water pumped out.”

“Thank you.”

Angelo had not been moved. A pillow was under his head and Dorothy was beside him.

A pillow was under Angelo’s head, and Charles and Dorothy were still beside him. Daybreak pierced the lace curtains.

“Look at him,” Dorothy said.

The suspicion and hardness had receded from him and uncovered a tranquility that was natural to his still features. “That’s who I always thought he was.”

A clock chimed six times.

The telephone rang.

“I’m so tired,” Charles said. “And it’s going to be such a long day.” He picked up the telephone. “This is Charles Beale.”

“Detective Mondelli. Okay, tell me your story.”

“Mr. Mondelli. Yes. I don’t remember what I said before.”

“What would this Borchard be doing in your building at three in the morning lighting fires?”

Charles closed his eyes. He set the receiver on the side table for a moment, then picked it up.

“Was it John Borchard?”

“We can’t find him and we’ve got some forensics that match and I have Detective Paisley from Fairfax on the other line who wants to talk to you.”

“You’ve done quite a lot.”

“So why was he in your place? And you were at his place Tuesday when the judge blew himself up.”

Charles spoke slowly and wearily, keeping his words straight. “There are some papers. Important government papers. He didn’t want anyone to see them and he thought I might have them.”

“Okay, wait. Government papers. What kind of papers?”

“I don’t really know.”

“Why would you have them?”

“That’s what we were talking about at his house. He thought a former employee gave them to me.”

“Okay, we’ll get to that. What about the fire? So what you’re saying is, he would have broken in to your place to what, burn it down just to get rid of these papers?”

“I don’t know,” Charles said. “I don’t know what he was doing.”

“You have sprinklers?”

“We have fire sprinklers and an alarm.”

“Did any of it go off?”

“I haven’t heard that it did.”

“Okay. So he went in to burn the place and he cut off the alarm and water somehow. We’ll get a report from the fire chief, but he already says it was gasoline. Maybe he used too much and the fire was too fast and he got caught. Okay, Mr. Beale, I’m going to need to find out about these papers, but this is enough for now. I need to get a statement.”

“I’ll be glad to do that a little later, Mr. Mondelli.”

“That’s okay. I want to talk to your night guy, Acevedo, too.”

“He’s not awake yet.”

“Okay. I’ll call this afternoon. You going anywhere?”

“We’re not going anywhere.”

“Thanks.”

The rising sun was inches lower on the wall, creeping toward the bed. It touched a shelf, and the John Locke and the wrapped package of money on the shelf. Dorothy lowered a blind.

An hour had passed and Charles woke, still sitting beside Angelo. Dorothy was gone.

He found her in the front room, in her chair.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I closed my eyes.”

“You needed to.”

She had been crying. He pulled his chair beside hers and held her hands.

“Here we are.”

“What will we do now?” she asked.

“We’re fine. We have insurance. We can salvage a lot from the basement. We’re fine.”

“It’s all we had.”

“We have each other.”

“It’s all you had,” she said.

“I have you.”

“Why can’t we ever have anything, Charles? It’s just like losing William. I feel like we can never have anything important.”

“We can start back up.”

“There’s nothing I can ever hold on to. You’re everything I have.”

“Hold on to me.”

She did, and he held on to her, until they looked toward the stairs and Angelo was watching them.

“Angelo. Come.” Charles pulled a third chair from the dining room table. “Sit down.”

He was wearing Charles’s clothes that Dorothy had left for him, loose on his thin frame. His face was closed and shrouded in silence, but something inside was shaken. He sat by them quickly, and his eyes were further open than the narrow slits that usually were the windows between him and the world.

“How are you?” Dorothy asked.

“I am okay.”

“You look all right. Are you hungry? What do you need?”

“I am okay.”

“He is,” Charles said. “He’s fine. Angelo. I’m so glad you’re all right.” His hand, which had been holding Dorothy’s before, clamped on to Angelo’s. “I’m so glad.”

Angelo didn’t answer, but it wasn’t a hard silence. The yearning in his eyes said more than he ever had in words.

“I don’t know where we’ll put you now,” Dorothy said. “Your room is gone. You’ll have to stay in the guest room.”

“What room?” Angelo asked.

“Your room at the shop is gone. You’ll have to stay here,” Dorothy said.

“I will not leave?” He was frowning, trying to understand.

“Why would you leave?” Charles said.

“That judge said there is no more probation.”

Charles’s mouth dropped. “No! Angelo! That never meant you had to leave! Of course not.” And then seeing the bewilderment in Angelo’s face, he started to laugh. “Is that what you thought? Angelo, if you want to, you can stay forever.”

“I will stay,” Angelo said, and very firmly.

“Well good, then. That’s taken care of.” Charles let go of his hand. “But we don’t have a shop anymore. It will be a while before you have anything to do.”

“Your books?” Angelo asked. “There was fire.”

“There was fire.” The joy burned away. “Yes. We lost the whole building except the basement. Angelo, tell me what happened.”

“I was in the basement.”

“Why were you in the basement?”

“I went to watch that money.”

“How did you know it was down there?”

“You did not take it away in your car.”

“Why did you go to watch it?”

“That man following, that was bad. He wanted the money.”

“What man?” Dorothy asked.

“We saw someone on the way to New York,” Charles said. “So you were in the basement. Just waiting?”

“I was waiting. And then the door opened.”

“The front door?”

“That door opened and I heard walking up there, then walking on the stairs down.”

“What about the door?”

“He tried to open but I had it locked already. But he unlocked it.”

“He had a key?” Charles asked.

“That lock, it is too easy,” Angelo said.

“What happened when he opened the door?”

“That door didn’t open.”

“The chair,” Charles said. “You had it against the door?”

“That man pushed, but I held it closed and the chair held it.”

Charles stopped. Dorothy was hardly breathing and her face was white.

“It’s all right,” Charles said. “Angelo is sitting right here with us. Whatever he tells us, he made it through.”

“It’s terrible,” she said.

“But it’s over. Go ahead, Angelo. Did he ever get the door open?”

“No, it didn’t open. Then he went back up the stairs. Then the light went off.”

“He turned off the electricity.”

“I locked the door again if he would come back. Then I waited and then I smelled fire.”

“Did you go up to see?” Charles asked.

“I looked up the stairs, but it was all fire.”

“Could you have gotten out?”

“That man, he might be waiting for me to come out.”

“So you went back down.”

“He would get that money if I went out.”

“The money isn’t as important to me as you are, Angelo!” Charles shook his head. “You could have died down there.”

“I think it was a very big fire,” Angelo said. “You say that room doesn’t burn in fires. Then the smoke came.”

“Maybe it was the better thing to do. You probably wouldn’t have gotten through it. John Borchard didn’t.”

“That man did the fire?”

“That’s what the police say. He didn’t get out, Angelo. He died right above you.”

“He was not a good man. I said be careful.”

“Yes, you did. We both had to be careful.”

Angelo’s perils had taken Dorothy’s thoughts from her own. “I think that’s enough,” she said. “Come into the kitchen, both of you. We need to eat. We’ll have a long day. We need to get back over there to get the books out. I’ll call Morgan and Alice.”

“You get something for Angelo,” Charles said. “Tell Morgan to meet me at the store in twenty minutes, and tell Alice to bring boxes. Have her buy a couple hundred somewhere. And lots of packing.”

“Don’t you want anything?” she said. “You must be starving.”

“I need to think what it means. Angelo, are you sure you had the door locked in the basement?”

“It was locked.”

“But he still got it open?”

“That man, he must be good on locks.”

Charles stared out the window. The sun had gone. In just a few minutes, clouds had covered it.

In just a few minutes more a car had arrived, loudly. Its door slammed and the doorbell rang, while a voice called through the window.

“Mr. Beale? Are you in there?”

Charles jumped to the door. “Congresswoman. Come in. Dorothy, Karen Liu is here.”

“I just heard,” Karen Liu said. Charles had barely gotten her seated. “My staff got a call that John Borchard was killed in a fire. Then they said it was in a bookstore in Alexandria. Oh, Mr. Beale! I drove right over. The street was closed. I called and found out where you lived.”

“You found us,” Charles said.

“I have some coffee,” Dorothy said.

“Yes, please. What happened? What was he doing?”

“I don’t know for sure. The police think he was trying to burn down the building and he didn’t get out in time.”

“That’s horrible! Mr. Beale, you know how I felt about him, but I never wanted anything like this! Did he . . . ?” Suddenly her momentum stalled. She started again, much slower. “What was he doing?”

“It had to do with Derek,” Charles said. “He thought I had Derek’s papers.”

“And he burned down a whole building to get them? Oh, Mr. Beale! I can’t believe it. He could have killed people.” She stopped again. “He killed himself.” She lurched forward. “Do you think he did it on purpose?”

“I don’t know,” Charles said. “No, he wouldn’t. Not like that.”

“What about your books?”

“The showroom was destroyed. The basement may be salvageable.”

“Oh my. Oh, Mr. Beale. If there is anything I can do, anything, I will. Anything.”

Dorothy handed her a coffee cup and she took it without noticing.

“We’re only getting started,” Charles said. “I need to go back and look. I need to get the books out as quickly as I can. Congresswoman—”

“Please call me Karen. You already have, once.”

“Karen. Would you stay with Dorothy and Angelo?”

“I’ll go with you,” Dorothy said.

“No, you stay and get some rest. There won’t be a lot to do yet. I’ll take a flashlight.” He went up the stairs to the bedroom and took a flashlight from the nightstand. Then he opened the John Locke and took one paper from the card box.

He looked into the kitchen. “Angelo, I’m leaving. Take care of Dorothy for me.”

“Take care how?”

“If she needs anything.” He turned back to Dorothy. “Goodbye, dear.”

Charles stepped out onto the brick sidewalk that he walked so many times, and so many others had walked before him. He looked for a moment at the old townhouse and the lace curtains in the windows.

Then he chose a quick pace, down two blocks, over one block, past the firemen carrying away barricades and people clotting the way. He squeezed through.

In the full light, the ruin of the building was entire and terrible, but only pitiable, not profound as it had been in the night. Charles stood and pitied it. The face was intact but charred with great black stains leaking upward from the blank holes of the windows. Just from the way it stood, it was obvious that it was hollow and dead inside.