Disintegration

into night air, and then the continuing descent into a deeper hell.

'I'd like to ask you a few more questions. May I come in?'

Renee stood aside, and the sliding of the invisible mask over her face was an almost physical sensation. 'Please excuse the mess. And wipe your feet.'

Davidson looked down at her boots, which she had wiped on the outdoor welcome mat. She wiped again, then once more on the carpeted rug inside. Renee led Davidson to the couch and sat across from her in the armchair. The apartment seemed too small.

'First of all,' Davidson said, 'I'm sorry for your loss. If we'd had any chance for a rescue-'

'I know. I'm sure you guys did everything you could. Nobody's blaming you.' Because Renee bore all the blame, except for that one dark sliver she allowed Jacob.

'I understand how difficult this is, but we need some more information to help us determine the cause.'

'You already have my statement.'

'Yes, ma'am. But that was made in what we like to call 'the heat of the moment.'' She smiled, but the expression on Renee's face made it fade fast. Davidson's voice shifted into an official monotone. 'People sometimes remember things later, after they've settled their minds a little bit. Could you please go over the sequence of events one more time?'

Renee closed her eyes and tried to separate the actual events from her nightmares of the past two weeks. The reality and the nightmare had fused into one giant hell storm, a series of flickering images that seared her psyche and hot-wired her nerves. 'I woke up,' she said finally. 'And Jake was sitting on the edge of the bed.'

'Are you sure? You didn't wake up first and then wake him up?'

'No. I'm a heavy sleeper-' Renee rubbed at her swollen eyelids. 'I mean, I used to be a heavy sleeper. Jake always had to poke me in the ribs to get me to stop snoring. Or so he says. I'm still not convinced that I snore, and I challenged him to make a tape recording to prove it. Seems unladylike somehow, breathing through your nose like a lumberjack in a cartoon.'

Davidson nodded, and Renee knew she was babbling, but the act of recollection had pushed her to the dangerous cliff edge, the wind was blowing, the abyss was black and deep, and her balance wasn't what it should be. Renee rushed on, afraid that if she paused, she would go back to that scary place inside that had beckoned her with the promise of isolation and safety.

'I woke up and I looked at the clock because I thought it was morning and time to get Mattie ready for school. I feel it's a wife's duty to have breakfast on the table, get the family off to a good start. That's our deal, Jake works and I take care of the house. I mean, nothing personal, you being a woman in a man's job, that must be hard, especially here in the mountains where everybody's so conservative.'

That almost made Davidson flinch, but her firewall face kept its grim countenance. 'It's tough enough being a woman no matter what,' she said.

'When Jake woke me up, I smelled smoke, and of course I thought of Mattie first thing. I yelled at Jake, but he told me to stay, he'd take care of her. We practiced, of course. We had fire drills and we put those little child ID stickers on the window and we had one of those rope ladders under the bed. Everything you're supposed to do. But the real thing is never like a drill, and I don't think you could ever practice the way it really happens. But I guess you know that better than anybody.

'I followed Jake to the door, even though he told me to stay, because I usually obey him, but I was half- asleep and confused and then the smoke made me dizzy. I was about to go into the hallway when Jacob screamed at me and slammed the door, and I trusted him to save Mattie-'

Renee's throat caught for the first time, breaking the unthinking stream of words. The fire chief waited, making no gesture of sympathy. Chapped, coarse hands, ones comfortable around an axe handle. And a wet blade of grass clung to the toe of her boot. Lying was easier now. Renee sniffed and continued.

'I waited for maybe a minute, then put my hand on the door. It was hot, and I remembered what they say about fire needing air to breathe. The alarm was going crazy-'

'Excuse me. Did your husband wake you up, or did the alarm?'

Renee shook her head. In the nightmare, the alarm was blasting like a freighter's fog horn and Jacob had the blanket over her head, pulling it tight, cutting off her air and muffling her screams. 'I think the alarm was already going. But it had gone off before, like when Jacob stayed up late and burned some toast or something, and the sound didn't wake me up right away. It sort of turned into whatever I was dreaming and became a part of it. I told you I was a heavy sleeper. Jacob says I ought to get tested for sleep apnea, because that can kill you.'

'Okay. You're standing at the door waiting for your husband to tell you when to come out?'

'Yeah. I think he told me to jump out the window, but we had the fire ladder under Mattie's bed. When we practiced, we all met in Mattie's room and then climbed out her window, so I thought maybe the fire wasn't too bad yet, he was going to get everything ready, then take Mattie down and come back for me. I couldn't see any fire, just the smoke, so I didn't know what it was like out there.'

'Did you see flames before your husband closed the door? Out in the hall, I mean?'

'I saw a reflection of light in the dresser mirror, right before I stood up. I was still in bed and barely awake. I couldn't tell if the reflection was the fire or if Jacob had turned on the hall light or something. He yelled at me to call 9-1-1 and I tried to find my glasses and couldn't, so I punched in the numbers from memory. I must have got it wrong the first time because I had to try again.'

'But you looked at the clock?'

'Yeah. It was one something, but I didn't have my glasses on, so I thought the first two numerals were a 'seven,' which is why I thought it might be morning. That's another thing that makes it confusing when I wake up, because my eyesight is really bad without my glasses. I can barely even recognize myself in the mirror without them.'

'How long did you wait at the bedroom door?'

'Maybe two more minutes, then I heard something crackling and I guess something downstairs fell over, because there was a loud bang and that's when I first started getting really worried. I was wide awake by then.'

'We believe the fire started downstairs,' Davidson said. 'The sliding glass door was open, and a couple of the kitchen windows. The fire was able to get a good rolling start with a cross-draft like that. It probably had eaten up half the downstairs before the smoke got thick enough to set off the fire detectors upstairs. Tell me, was it usual for you folks to leave the sliding glass door open?'

'That's Jacob again. He's restless, he sometimes gets up in the middle of the night and works downstairs. He makes a snack and gets on the computer and sometimes he might be gone half the night. I hardly notice, because I'm a heavy sleeper. But he likes fresh air, and this is a safe neighborhood.'

Renee paused, reminded by Davidson's stare that she and Jacob and Mattie no longer lived in the house on Elk Avenue. She looked around at the pale walls of her new lifeless life.

'Are you sure Jacob woke you up? Was he in the bed when you first heard the alarm?'

'Yeah. That's what he told me. And I can see it plain as day, him sitting up with his back to me, the streetlight coming through the curtains just a little, and then he ran and threw on his robe and went out the door, and I was just starting to get out of bed. And I could hear the alarm, I remember that, and then I reached on the bedside table for my glasses but they must have fallen to the floor.'

'So you found them, because I remember you had them on when we arrived.'

'No, that was my extra pair. People with normal vision don't know what it's like, but I could hardly find my way out the door. Then when I finally heard Jacob yell at me, and yell Mattie's name, I opened the door and all I could see was a blur of yellow and red flames and black smoke and the house looked like it was caving in and Jacob told me to run, he'd get Mattie and meet me outside. All I could think of was to get down the stairs, fast, but I should have jumped out the window because the downstairs was one big fire and the smoke was hurting me and I was dizzy, but I was lucky I went when I did because I just made it out the sliding glass door when it sounded like the floor collapsed.'

'Was the sliding glass door open when you went downstairs, or did you have to open it?'

Renee appraised the squat, red-headed woman. What right did she have to act suspicious, play macho, barge in and dance on Mattie's grave? Davidson had probably watched too many forensic crime shows on television, and now an accident could never be just an accident. Somebody always had to have something to hide.

'It was open,' Renee said. 'You already said that.'