Chapter 2 - What the Photograph Left Out
Carrie saw the note anyway. She had seen it a dozen times, though she had never trusted it. Firefighters rescued people. Sometimes, when a rescue failed, they found reasons to forgive the people they couldn't save.
"You knew what was on the back," Vincent said, keeping his voice low as guests surrounded them.
"I know what he wrote. I also know what I saw."
"Those aren't the same thing."
The security guard finally stepped away when Father James threatened to call the hotel manager. A photographer was asking whether Vincent's company would release a statement. There were spilled champagne glasses and half-eaten dinners, and people who had paid five thousand dollars for a table were discovering what it felt like to have a real argument interrupt the entertainment.
"Take us somewhere quieter," Father James told the manager.
They went to an empty conference room behind the kitchens. Carrie refused to surrender the original firefighter photograph. Vincent kept its copy, and the priest carried the broken fundraiser sign under one arm.
"Tell me who you are," he said.
"Carrie Bennett. My sister was Rose. She was twelve when the place burned."
Something shifted behind his eyes. "Rose with the yellow barrettes?"
Carrie's anger faltered. She hadn't expected him to remember that. Rose had hated the barrettes and wore them anyway because they'd belonged to their mother.
"Yes."
"She taught the smaller kids a counting game." He stared at the wall. "She called it the river game."
"She made me count the steps while we went down in the dark," Carrie said. "I counted to seven. Then somebody slammed a door."
Father James folded his hands. "Carrie, please. We've discussed what a witness can and can't remember after trauma."
"Don't talk about me like I'm not here."
"I'm not. I'm asking you to be careful."
Vincent leaned forward. "Did you see me set a fire in the building?"
"I saw a flame in your hand and smoke behind you."
"Before that."
"No."
"Then why did you tell a room full of people I started it?"
Carrie drew in a hard breath. "Because Rose went back for another child when everyone was running out, and you were the last older boy anyone saw near that hall. Because nobody told me what happened after she disappeared. Because the file was closed and your name changed and someone paid the director's bills until she retired."
Vincent rose so sharply his chair scraped the floor. "I wasn't paying anybody in 2007. I was seventeen."
"You own the company that bought St. Agnes three years ago."
"I bought a vacant lot."
"A lot with a memorial on it, which your company plans to remove."
He took out his phone, opened an email from his development office, and found the site plan. A landscaped plaza covered the place where the old entrance had stood. In a corner of the drawing, a little gray rectangle was labeled EXISTING STONE FEATURE. It was the memorial.
He hadn't asked what the feature was. He had approved the plan in four minutes between meetings.
"That wasn't my instruction," he said.
"You signed it," Carrie answered.
Father James placed the broken sign between them. "I didn't bring her here to punish you. I brought her because the city is scheduled to approve demolition next Thursday. We need a way to preserve the records before the concrete goes."
Vincent looked at him. "You worked there."
"Yes. I was the evening volunteer coordinator. I was forty-one."
"And after the fire?"
"I gave a statement. I helped bury three children. Then I believed what the investigators told us because I couldn't imagine there were other choices." The priest swallowed. "I've regretted that for nineteen years."
"I didn't write that," she said when Vincent saw it.
"You handed them the sentence."
He was right, and she hated him for being right. She'd wanted Rose's death to matter. Instead she had given strangers a stranger's life to destroy before anyone had established what happened.
Vincent opened the photograph again. "The firefighter was named Thomas Hale?"
"Captain Hale. His daughter gave it to me after his funeral."
"And you trust what he wrote?"
"I trust that he was there."
He turned toward Father James. "Is the original investigation file available?"
"Parts of it. Some materials were damaged. Some were sealed because the witnesses were minors. I can give you the public records request numbers."
"Then we'll get what we're allowed to get." Vincent paused. "And I'll stop the memorial work until we know more."
The lawyer called again. Vincent answered this time, listened for twenty seconds, then went still.
"That isn't possible," he said.
May you like
He turned the phone so Carrie could see an internal demolition order sent from his own account at 6:12 that morning.
It instructed contractors to clear the St. Agnes basement records room before sunrise the next day.
