Sera finishes her second whisky as the Hollins enter the bustling restaurant. I waive to the couple and they weave through the tables and toward our isolated booth in the back of The Blue Plate. Melanie slides in first—she is wearing a freshly pressed Hollins Family Dentistry polo shirt and black slacks. Hollins also looks fresh from the office in his dark gray suit.
Hollins wisping light blonde hair is neat. His light green eyes go from me to Sera. I’d never seen him away from the pack. He always manages to quietly blend in to the background. He was always agreeable never argumentative. He wasn’t weak. He just…understood his place.
I can’t get a read on his wife though. Like her husband she seems to also know her place in the Harrison County pecking order. There was a fire in her though.
“Paris. How are you holding up?” Hollins asks.
“I’m still processing it. I noticed a press release wasn’t sent out announcing my dismissal.”
“…Day is hoping to make the announcement tomorrow. Look, I’m real sorry it had to end this way. It was nice not being the new guy for once.”
I laugh amiably. “I hope we can be friends.”
“Of course. Though you really didn’t owe us dinner.”
“I did. Sera really appreciated the dental work you did for her. Isn’t that right?”
Sera nods in agreement.
“Have you had any swelling or irritation”, Melanie asks.
Sera shakes her head and an awkward silence follows.
“Are you ready to order”, a bubbly waitress asks.
Sera signals she wants another whiskey. I don’t have the heart to cut her off. Dredging up old memories and her time in jail had left her unmoored.
“I’ll have—“, Hollins begins. But I cut him off.
“We need a few minutes.”
The waitress walks away and more silence follows.
“I take it this isn’t really a friendly dinner?” Hollins guesses.
Melanie brings her hands to her face.
“Hollins, Why was my bag in your office? I abandoned the bag when Old Town Hall was set on fire with me in the building.”
“We should go—“, Hollins begins.
“No. You shouldn’t. Look whatever else is going on you don’t want to get caught up in the middle of it.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking us.”
“Tell them”, Melanie says looking at her husband, “Or I will. I’m done with this.”
Sera sits up a little straighter and studies Melanie.
“You put the bag in the office”, Sera realizes, “You wanted me to see it.”
Melanie nods, “I just wanted this to end—“
“Mel”, Hollins warns.
Melanie Hollins lets out a deeply held sigh, “Just tell them Bruce. I can’t do this anymore.”
Hollins sits back down, “The morning after the fire my father called me. He told me I needed to go to Old Town Hall before the fire marshal began inspecting and remove some items. Some burned papers, a bag and a laptop. I should have thrown it out but I didn’t. I don’t know why”
“Why did you just go along with it?”
“I do what my father asks”, Hollins says, “He said it needed to be done to protect the fiscal transactions we made from becoming public.”
“You mean the embezzlement. Call it what it is.” I challenge, “Your father and Armitage Day cooked it up. You siphoned off thousands.”
“I only did it once.” Hollins takes his wife’s hand, “We had a bad month at the practice and I had to make payroll for my employees. Cortland made it seem like it was no big deal. The others did it all the time.”
I need Hollins on my side so I ignore the fact that he is actively minimizing his role in the embezzlement.
“Back up”, I say, “How did your father know I was in the building when it was set on fire?”
“I… I don’t know. I stopped asking questions a long time ago. Growing up when my father or Armitage Day wanted something done. You did it.”
“You are an elected official. Your job is to ask questions not follow orders.”
He scoffs and commanders Sera’s whiskey when the waitress drops it off.
“I was just as elected as you were. My father made a call and the position was mine.”
“Do you know who set the fire?” I ask.
Melanie looks down as her husband answers.
“The board”, Hollins finally answers, “The wives. All of them.”
“What?”
“After you and your wife left the cookout Day cleared the place out. We all knew something was off. The next day Day called an emergency meeting. Skylar insisted he include the wives to. We were all seated around their newly refurbished dining room. Doors closed. Total silence.
‘Paris Prince knows’, Day said and we all knew what he meant. Skylar was upset we’d kept the money a secret from her. Day never wanted her to be involved. It was to dangerous.
‘How did he find out‘, Bruno demanded, ‘We gave him limited access to the files.’
‘He found a way’, was all Day said, ‘I think I have it handled. He used a private computer to access the information. He won’t want that server to become public. He won’t start trouble.’
‘What is a private server’, Mrs. Bruno demanded.
‘A computer with his wife’s client list on it’
Day then had to then explain what that meant.
‘Are we sure he won’t say anything.” Mrs. Bruno asked. She was worried about the internet getting ahold of it and spreading lies about us.
‘I knew this would happen’, Mrs. Lee said, “I knew it.”
‘You knew?’ Lee said to her, ‘You’re the one who liquidated $3500 last year’
Mrs. Lee said, ‘It was an emergency situation. Or did you want your daughter to go bankrupt getting a divorce? Did you need that new car of yours?’
Everyone started yelling and turning on each other. I mean we all knew we were looking at federal offenses. Then we all realized the real enemy was….you.
Speak of the devil…you called Cortland in the middle of our argument. Cortland put it on speaker phone”
As Hollins spoke I began to remember that night in my home office. When I’d called Day I hadn’t realized I was on speaker phone and there was a roomful of anxious people listening.
“Cortland…it’s Paris”
There had been a long pause after I greeted him. I can now imagine everyone watching him as he spoke.
“I’m glad you called Paris. I’ve been giving this situation lots of thought. First I was out of line when I offered you money.”
Then I’d said:
“Let me just say this. I don’t approve of what you’ve been doing but I know a fight I can’t win. I’m going to walk away from this.”
“What do you mean?”
“My wife and I are willing to sign NDAs keeping this quiet. Then we are leaving town. In return you can’t ever let anyone know about me transferring public files to my personal computer. I’ll give you the dossier I compiled and all the evidence I have against you. What you do next is up to you.”
Day had paused Maybe someone had passed him a note reminding him I had evidence on my computer. Day had said
“I want that laptop too. I want to personally destroy the evidence on it.”
“Fine. Look Day, I’m doing this more for my wife than you. If her client list wasn’t at stake I’d be talking to the feds right now.”
“Look Paris. I just inherited this problem from my dad.”
“You and the others forged hundreds of invoices on your own. Your father had nothing to do with that.”
Day had tried to defend himself.
“Paris, you were a kid during the recession. It was bad. We all needed that money. Bruno and Lee had kids in college. The Hollins’ practice was hemorrhaging money. The mortgage on my house skyrocketed.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“I told you the developers are going to make us whole.”
“Come on, Cortland. It doesn’t work that way. If the developers give you a lump sum to cover the stolen money you don’t think those blood hounds you work with are going to want take it. You don’t think the developers are going to want favors in the future? “
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I’ll drop the dossier and my resignation off Monday morning.”
I imagined someone else passed him another note claiming he had to handle me tonight because Day had said:
“…Let’s not prolong this. Can you drop it all off tonight? Leave it in my office?
It was a set up.
“You called us blood hounds”, Hollins recalls, “The other really didn’t like that. We were going to confront you. Scare you. But then…we agreed the safest option was to remove you permanently.”
“You mean murder me?”
He looks ashamed.
“We weighed the options. It wasn’t like you had a lot of friends or family who would ask questions. No children. Day had the feeling your wife wouldn’t miss you much.”
Sera grips my hand under the table.
“They started discussing options”, Hollins explains, “ghastly things. The thing is even we dentist take the Hippocratic oath. I couldn’t bring myself to cause harm. I had to leave.”
“We left”, Melanie jumps in as if she’d been caught doing something wrong, “It was too much. That was not what we signed up for. We put a target on our backs by leaving but we didn’t care.
We went home and tried to forget the whole thing. Then Sheriff Rainer came to our house around midnight. She told us about the arson and that there had been a causality. We figured that was how they took you out. But they got Al instead.”
Hollins jumps back in, “We were scared. We lied to Rainer and told her we were with a patient. It seemed like the safer thing to do. Afterwards Bruno and Lee made it clear to me that I was to stay silent. That if they went down…I would to. Al’s death was a messy mistake. For the past few weeks the plan has been to drive you out of town by having your wife framed for the arson and Al’s death.”
“What?” Sera says, “You let them do that to me.”
“I’m sorry”, Melanie says, “We were scared. We don’t know for sure what happened after we left. One of them could have set the fire or all of them. We just kept our mouths shut because we didn’t want to be next.”
“The spray paint and the glass?” Sera asks.
“The paint was me. The glass was Mrs. Lee’s idea. They just wanted you gone.”
I thought about this.
“We have to go to Rainer”, I say signaling the waitress.
“No”, Hollins says standing up and putting on his jacket.
“You have to tell Rainer. This might be your only chance for immunity.”
“No. Look, you deserved to know the truth. You’re free now. It’s dangerous here. Leave town now while you still can.”
Hollins rushes his wife out as the waitress sets down the bill.
+++
“We’re leaving right”, Sera says as I drive back toward the house a little over the speed limit.
“Maybe. But we can’t leave without telling Rainer.”
“They are never going to talk to her.”, Sera says, “They were terrified.”
“I know.”
I reach into my pocket and produce the small recorder I’d used to use to record college lectures. It now housed The Hollins’ entire confession.
“What are you going to do with this?”
“What I should have done a long time ago. Go to Rainer. Tell her the truth, give her everything and try to get immunity. I’ll have to stop by Emile’s to grab the dossier.”
“Will they all go to jail? That place was terrible.”
“They knew what they were doing.”
“Then where do we go?” Sera asks.
“Home. I think. To St. Lilith’s. Now that I know the truth…I need to make amends. Maybe that’s where I belong. I can be a voice there. We can get our fellow survivors out.”
Sera shakes her head.
“It’s not easy. Aria and I have tried for years to get girls to leave.”
Sera worries her lips. That town probably held more trauma for her than it did for me.
“I’ll make sure we’re safe. Morris County is close by. We could move there. I could run for a seat there.”
I’d never really had a desire to return to rural upstate New York but then again I hadn’t planned for any of this.
+++
The next morning feels like the start of a new era. Sera is still asleep when I wake up. I put on my best suit and head to my home office to fetch the recorder and the transcript I’d typed up last night. I just needed to swing by Emile to pick up the dossier and this would be over.
It felt good to have Hmjeu’s leather bag again. The edges had frayed and darkened a little in the fire but I’d already started researching how to restore those parts. Next to the recorder is a memory key I’d used to transfer the security footage I’d taken from the Mill Street Gas Station showing Sera buying a lighter and a lottery ticket.
That footage was useless. Sera never had revealed why she’d come back to Harrison County that night. At this point I wasn’t even convinced I needed to know. I put the memory key into my computer and looked at the footage one last time before deleting. The multi-view screen shows Sera’s car pull into the gas station. She sat there…probably on her phone.
I watch her get out of the car. She pulled the small black trench coat tight making sure not to reveal the lingerie Hidalgo had put her it. She had left the city so abruptly, but in this video she was taking her time. I again watch the part where she walks in and makes a purchase.
My cell phone rings and I pick it up not even looking at the screen.
“Hello?”
“It’s Emile. I saw the press release about you stepping down.”
“I was actually voted out”
“Hmm. There is a rumor going around that there are about to be sexual harassment allegations bought against you.”
“Fuck me”, I said. Vile rumors like that would fuck up any chance I had of working on sex work reform or in politics.
“You have to watch your back around here.”
“Sera and I are actually moving out as soon as we can sell the house. I need to come by your place to pick up the dossier. I’m going to Rainer with the truth. I got a pretty explosive confession.”
“You did? I really want this book deal.”
”I—“
I look up at the video still playing on the computer. Sera’s car is long gone but instead three very familiar figures enter the gas station and purchase sodas, chips and a lighter. I check the time…this was twenty minutes before the fire started
I flip to the other camera and watch as they get into a familiar car.
“Paris?” Emile had been talking to me the entire time but I wasn’t listening.
“I---hold on.”
I print out a screenshot of the camera.
Kylie
Lydia
Paxton
I watch the three teenagers get into the car with Mrs. Ginger and drive off.
Rainer had questioned everyone at the party who heard Sera’s threat.
Except for the kids.
I drop my phone and slip back into the bedroom. The whiskey had luckily knocked Seraphina out. I open up the police evidence bag that had held the clothes she’d been arrested in. At the bottom of the bag I pull out her red cell phone.
I quietly try different combination until ‘1111” opens it up.
My fingers shake as I scroll back to the day of the fire. There is a single incoming call the day of the fire. The call that had sent Sera back to town. I press it and the phone rings.
“Hello”, a voice says on the other side, “Hello?”
I hang up on Kylie Day and dial Emile back.
“Emile I’m on my way.”
+++
.
Emile runs out of his house when he sees me careening down his driveway.
“What’s going on?” Emile asks holding out the dossier.
“Quick get in.”
“No.” Emile protest.
I push open the door for him.
“Kylie called Seraphina the night of the fire. Don’t you see? Kylie and her friends set the fire. Kylie is a smart girl. I think she knows I’m trying to get her dad in trouble. She must have overheard the adults plotting to kill me. She ran away and tried to kill me herself. She had help.”
“What? My kids are good kids. They wouldn’t do this.”
I toss the printout from the security camera. Emile falters and gets in the car.
“They did it because someone they respected helped them.”
“Wait. You don’t think I did this—“
“Not you. I say hitting over 90 and heading to the main road, “Mrs. Ginger.”
“What—Paris you’ve lost it. She’s close to ninety.”
“This county is Mrs. Ginger’s life and I was threatening it. I bet Kylie told her what was happening and she helped the kids. Kylie must have gotten scared and called Sera. That’s why Sera came back to town but Sky distracted her”
“What do you mean?”
I remember Emile doesn’t know about Sera and Sky.
“Right. Sera sort of …ran Sky off the road and I helped her cover it up.”
“Okay. I need to get out of this car.”
I speed through lights so Emile won’t try to get out.
“Not until we get Mrs. Ginger to tell us the truth. Sera is always saying she separates people between dominant and submissive. Mrs. Ginger has everyone, even me, wrapped around her finger.
“She’s old…”
“That’s ageist Emile.”
I book it to Mrs. Ginger’s side of town.
I slow down as I pull into Mrs. Ginger’s quiet neighborhood. I park outside and get out. Mrs. Ginger hurries out her house. She jumps into her car and backs out so fast she scrapes the front end of my car.
“Fuck”, I get back in the car, make a quick U-turn and chase her Beetle down Route 34
When she notices me she speeds up.
“Paris slow down”, Emile warns gripping his door.
“Hold on.”
The road widens and I speed past Mrs. Ginger then turn so my car is blocking the road. Her car screeches to a halt.
“Call Rainer”, I tell him, “Tell her.”
Mrs. Ginger gets out of her car clutching her bag.
“Paris”, she says, “What are you doing?”
“Mrs. Ginger we need to talk. About the fire…and the kids.
“What?”
I know you were with them on Sunday. You helped them set the fire. I saw them buy the lighters at the gas station.”
“They couldn’t have set the fire. I confiscated those lighters when they got back into my car…That Kylie girl is so wild.”
Mrs. Ginger goes back to her car and hands me three unwrapped lighters.
“Is everything okay?” Emile says having climbed to the Driver’s side to get out.
“Mr. Prince seems to think the kids and I were involved with the fire. I caught those kids outside of the closed down arcade by the supermarket. They were making trouble. I drove them home and promised I would and not tell their parents. I stopped to get gas and the kids went inside to get sodas. But I saw they’d really brought lighters. I confiscated them. I bet Kylie sweet talked that cashier into selling it to them. I dropped them off at home. They couldn’t have set the fire.”
“Are you sure…” I ask.
“Yes, I’m sure.” She says taking an indelicate tone. Not that I blame her, “I know this has been a stressful time but you have gone mad Mr. Prince”
“….well why did you run when you saw us.”
She looks at Emile then back at me.
“I wasn’t running from you. I was running to join the search team. I thought that was where you were going to considering how fast you were driving.”
“The search team?”
“You didn’t hear? Sky woke up from her coma a few hours ago. Now she’s gone missing.”
A/N
Dun dun dun.
Next post is the startling conclusion.
So yes, this chapter was a red herring chapter. Paris gets it wrong before he gets it right.
Also yes, a large part of this chapters word count is a copy and pasted phone call from an earlier chapter.