Chapter 7

Rawle Powder stayed in bed for a minute, listening to Athan scream and wail in the bedroom next door.
Kelloway was breathing peacefully beside him. Fast asleep and perfectly content. She had her foam earplugs in.

Two days after Athan started sleeping through the night, he started having nightmares. Rawle had not slept through the night in close to two years.
He got up feeling like an 80-year-old man. His knees crackled. He shuffled into the next room wearing his black housecoat which tied up in the dark. He reached out and plucked Athan out of the crib and carried him downstairs over his shoulder, fireman’s carry.
Man, he was getting heavy.
They went to the bathroom and then father and son began their regular early morning ritual of cartoons, repeated bowls of Honey-Nut Cheerios, sippy cups of orange juice, and coffee for dad.
“Dat’s hot. -Da-ad?”
“Yes?”
“Wha loo doin’?”
“Drinking coffee. What are you doing?”
“I no-no.”
The phone rang during the 6 a.m. episode of Barney on PBS out of Boston.
It was Jack Lee, one of the only people in the world who knew Powder got up this early every morning. Jack on the other hand was probably still awake from the night before.
“Rawle. How’s it going?”
“Ugh. I still feel like shit. I don’t know how you do it at your age.”
“My age,” Jack laughed. “Listen, Powder. There was a big house fire last night, somewhere in Ellershouse, down past Windsor. Uhhh, Dawson Road. Ellershouse… You know where that is? Two kids and a woman were injured, I guess. Halifax wants a follow from us for tomorrow. We missed the actual fire. Or should I say you missed it? You were on call last night, were you not?”
“Fuck you. What time did the fire happen?”
“Three a.m. or something.”
“Oh, I see. So I should have been up sitting by the scanner at three a.m. should I?”
“Yeah, you should of, you little twat. That’s why you get paid the big bucks. You should sleep with the scanner on beside your bed.”
“I’ll set it in between me and your ex-wife.”
“Ohhhh-ho-ho! You couldn’t handle her. She’d eat you alive. Anyways, the Fire Marshall is ruling it arson. That’s what I hear. I’ll let you take this, Rawle. I’m going to be taking the week off. I know, I know. I’ve got to get over this- whatever it is. I’m still not feeling a hundred per cent…. You’re not working this weekend are you?”
“No,” Rawle said, dreading another busy week of covering Jack’s duties. “It’s Verryn’s weekend. I have to ask you though, dude. You’re still feeling the same way? I mean, you’ve been sick for weeks it seems like. Plus the nosebleed thing.”
“Yeah. It better not be nothing serious. I think it’s just the flu ‘though... You know? But then I get the nosebleeds and once time there was blood in my piss.”
“Oh, come on! You’ve got to go see the Man,” Rawle scolded. Jack was afraid of doctors and the depressing reality they represented for middle aged men.
“I know. I know. Just call me at noon about the arson thing. Okay?”
He hung up.

Ellershouse, in Hants County, was almost a suburb of Halifax by now the way the city kept expanding outward like a creeping mildew.
It would take 40 minutes to drive there.
Ellershouse was not really in the Annapolis Valley, but like most of Western Hants County it was considered part of Valley Bureau territory.
Kelloway got up at 9:30 to take over Toddler-watch. Rawle grabbed his digital camera, a fresh notepad and a couple spare pens and set out..

Fred Fenerty was out snow-blowing his driveway, crisply carving a wall of snow to form a perfect rectangle.
“Don’t get any snow on my side of the lawn, Fenerty,” Rawle called out to him, puffing his chest out a bit as he walked to the Golf in the gravel driveway.
“Christ,” Fenerty mumbled, his insect face flushing a bit under his fluorescent orange toque. “Why can’t you shovel your sidewalk once in a while, Rawle?” he retorted over the roar of his yellow snow blower. “It’s unsafe.”
“Some people work for a living I guess, Fenerty,” Rawle said, smiling.
He climbed into the Golf before Fenerty could respond, and tore out the driveway in a big cloud of powder.