The Stormchasers: A Novel (44 page)

“Fine!” Charles says. “Let’s go, K! Let it go.”

Karena scans the highway in both directions, then turns around and drives the few miles back into Waterville. She has a terrible feeling, of being a chicken, of having been checkmated. There’s nothing else she can do. It’s all over. The Sinclair sign is a brilliant yellow-white against the black and swirling sky, and Karena pulls in beneath it, then points them north so they can still watch the storm. There’s a small lake next to the gas station and a handful of trailer homes. Rain hits the windshield in fat spats.

“I’m sorry, Charles,” she says.

Charles is picking at his unraveling Ace bandage. “What?” he says.

“I’m sorry!” Karena shouts, just as the siren winds down.

EEEEEEERRRRRRRRrrrrrrooooooowwwwwwwwwrrrrrrrrr.
She doesn’t understand why they’ve shut it off, since the little taffy funnels are still pulling down, some just on the other side of the water. But nothing makes sense anymore.

“Forget it, K,” says Charles. “I didn’t want to chase anyway. It was your idea.”

“I know,” Karena says. “I’m sorry I made you do this. And I’m sorry about everything. I’m sorry about Motorcycle Guy, and I’m sorry I couldn’t stop you that day, and I’m sorry I didn’t protect you. I’m sorry I was so selfish and cowardly and just left you there in Black Wing—”

“You’re not selfish and cowardly, K,” Charles interrupts.

“Okay, but wait, just let me say this, all right? I’m sorry you got it. The disorder, or your condition or visions or whatever you want to call it, I’m so sorry you got it and I didn’t. I’ve been sorry about that our entire life,” Karena says. “More sorry than you know.”

Charles lifts his head and looks out the windshield. “I do know, K,” he says. “That’s all right.”

“No, it’s not, Charles,” says Karena.

Charles smiles a little.

“You’re right,” he says, “it’s not. It’s completely unfair, to be honest. But it’s not your fault, K, and I appreciate your saying all that. I truly do. Thank you.”

Karena sits back.

“Really?” she says.

“Really.”

“Thank you, Charles.”

“You’re welcome, K.”

They watch the carousel of funnels through the windshield. Behind them people have started to emerge from the gas station, to wander around staring upward as if waiting to get picked up by the mothership. Karena can hear them exclaiming, see camera flashes in her wing mirror.

“K,” Charles says.

She looks over at him.

“You need to take me back now,” he says.

Karena locks eyes with him:
Are you sure?

Charles gazes steadily back:
Yes.

They stare at each other: unstoppable force meeting immovable object.

Finally Karena sighs, puts the car in gear, and drives out of the Sinclair lot.

Heading south on 13, they encounter rain bands momentarily blinding, precipitation lifting off the fields. The edge of their storm’s anvil runs into another one, so where there should be blue sky beyond, there is only a ribbon of it, then more solid cloud bumpy with mammatus. “Don’t go back to the Interstate,” Charles says, consulting the atlas. “We’re surrounded. Take 14 East to 52, and don’t go above fifty miles an hour or so. We should be okay that way.”

Karena does as he says. They wend through the small towns, passing spotters on the shoulders, civilians standing on their porches with their faces turned to the sky. Charles waves, and most wave back. The going is slow, since they are boxed in by storms. There are towering Cu in every direction, lighting up like giant brains having bright ideas. Lightning skewers the horizon, pulses in tangles and snarls and flares. But Karena and Charles stay safe because of their steady pace, as if they are traveling in a little bubble, and by the time they intersect Highway 52 and turn south toward New Heidelburg, it is dark, the fireflies coming out. There are masses of them, more than Karena or Charles has ever seen before. Maybe they’re responding to the lightning, Charles guesses, or the humidity of the purple-black night, Karena suggests. Either way they all come out at once, effervescing from the fields on either side of the road. Thousands and thousands of fireflies, wave upon sparkling wave.

W
hen they get back to New Heidelburg they check into the American Inn & Suites on Highway 44. It seems weird and counterintuitive to Karena to stay in a motel in her own town, but what choice do they have? “We could always go to the Widow’s,” Charles suggests, and Karena says, “That’s a good idea, Charles. Call me and let me know how it turns out.” The pretty girl on desk gives them rooms across the hall from each other, Charles in 106 with a front view, Karena in 105 facing the back. They consider and reject the idea of going to dinner, which at this hour, after ten, would mean driving out to the Starlite and having popcorn at the bar. Instead they hug quickly and say good night, and although Karena has the feeling of sundering she always gets when she’s parted from Charles, no matter for how short a time, she is also relieved. He is too, she can tell. It has been a long day.

Her room is big and clean and cheerful, with the usual multicolored bedspread of abstract floral design, green flecked carpet, maroon curtains. As she sets down her bag and laptop and washes her face, Karena is gripped by a loneliness so profound it squeezes her chest. She thinks of Fern and Alicia, of Marla and Scout and Dennis and Dan. She thinks of the Sandhills Inn & Suites, the Stagecoach, Pierre. She thinks, of course, of Kevin. My summer of motels, she thinks, and pinches the coverlet off the bed nearest the window. Even in this new a place, it’s probably still a petri dish of germs.

She opens the drapes and slides the window back. Instantly the room fills with damp air that smells like home to her: clover, sweet-grass, manure. The light over the back door shows Karena a view of a storage shed, a small electrical plant, and a tornado siren. Do all motels have their own sirens these days? This one is small and yellow and square, and Karena recalls Charles’s story about the friendly siren in Kansas. She has to admit it does look like an entity with a throat.

It may well come in handy tonight. The storms are still visible to the northwest, persistent branches of horizontal lightning. Anvil crawlers, Charles would call them. The lightning is racing along the undersides of the anvils. The local news out of Rochester confirms that Foss County is still under a severe thunderstorm warning, the counties to the north—Fillmore, Olmsted, Sibley, Scott—under tornado watch. The segments at the top of the hour are all about the numerous tornado touchdowns in Minnesota today, including just outside Waterville, where a possible EF-3 killed an elderly man in a trailer home. Karena signs onto the Storm Prediction Center and confirms the EF-3 tornado crossed Highway 13. If she had kept going north, she and Charles would have driven straight into it. She wonders how the yahoos fared, whether they are all right.

She is checking Stormtrack, sighing at the irony, to see if K_WIEBKE has posted anything—he has not—when the room phone rings. Karena hooks it up with a hand, not looking away from her screen. So Charles is checking the reports too and wants to discuss them, or he’s changed his mind about driving out to the Starlite—though Karena has not. “What, Charles?” she says. “I’m beat.”

“Vehicular manslaughter,” says Kevin.

Karena sits up straight and mutes the TV.

“Hello to you too,” she says cautiously.

“That’s what the charge might be,” Kevin says. “Involuntary vehicular manslaughter. Not homicide. Because Chuck didn’t mean to hit the guy, did he?”

“No, of course not,” says Karena.

“Hence involuntary. And he was manic, you said, at the time of the incident? As in full blown? The way he was the other night?”

“That’s right,” says Karena.

“Good,” says Kevin. “Or not good, but you know what I mean. If Chuck was manic at the time of the incident, it means he was operating under something called diminished capacity. He didn’t know what he was doing, ergo there was no intent, ergo it wasn’t homicide. Unless—crap, hold on. The mania was, um, organic, right? Not drug induced, like from pot or coke or meth?”

“Charles doesn’t believe in drugs,” Karena reminds him, deadpan.

“Right, right,” says Kevin. “Then he was operating under diminished capacity, and he can’t be charged with the big boys, the felony murders, like Murder One or Two. Not even vehicular homicide. He could get something light, like failure to report, or even leaving the scene.”

“Okayyyyyyyy,” says Karena, typing frantically. “Hold on, I’m taking this all down. . . . How are you, anyway?”

“So, you want to hear about sentencing?” Kevin asks.

Okay, Kevin, Karena thinks, if that’s the way you want to play it.

“No,” she says and laughs a little. “But I suppose I should. Information trumps fear, right?”

“Exactly,” Kevin says briskly. “Stand by.”

Karena waits, staring at her blinking cursor.

“Okay,” says Kevin, “so there’s good news and not-so-good news. The good news is for Chuck: Because he was suffering diminished capacity, his sentencing might be fairly lenient. He could do a couple of years, he could get probation. Depends on the judge. The not-so-good news is that since you, Karena, were not suffering diminished capacity at the time, you
can
be held accountable, even though you weren’t driving. I know, I know,” he adds, “there’s no way you could have stopped him. But the law says you could, and since you knew right from wrong, you should have reported the crime.”

“So what does that mean?” Karena says.

“So . . . the lightest charge for you would be leaving the scene. You could get probation. You could get fifteen years. It’s up to the judge. On the other hand, you might be charged with involuntary vehicular manslaughter, and the sentencing for that . . . Um.”

Karena’s skin prickles. “Go on, please,” she says.

“Well,” says Kevin, “a couple of those cases have gotten life.” Karena has been transcribing everything, but at this last fact she stops. Her armpits are damp, her scalp feels too tight.

“Oh boy,” she says.

“I know,” says Kevin. “It’s not pleasant.”

“I’ll say,” says Karena. She sighs and hooks her hair behind her ears. “But better to know than not, I guess . . . Thank you, Kevin. Where did you get this information, anyway?”

“Lawyer buddy of mine,” says Kevin. “I took him to Matt’s and picked his brain over pitchers, and he was like, Sure, Wiebke, your
friend
hit somebody while he was stormchasing. Right, your
friend
clipped the guy. You sure there’s nothing you want to tell me?”

Karena laughs.

“Well, thank you again,” she says. “It was very kind of you.”

“No problem,” Kevin says. “I thought you’d want to know, just in case you . . . in case you decide to do something about it.”

Karena stays quiet, trying to assess this remark. What does it mean? Does Kevin think she should? In fact, what does this whole conversation mean? Has he forgiven her? Is he starting to? Or is it just a favor for a hurting friend?

“Welp, that’s all, folks,” Kevin says. “SLM over and out.”

“Okay,” says Karena. “Good night—except, Kevin? How’d you find me?”

“A helpful little tool called information, Laredo,” Kevin says. “You should try it some time, it’d probably be useful in your line of work. You said you were going to New Heidelburg, and there’s only one motel there. It’s not exactly a swingin’ place.”

“You’d be surprised,” Karena tells him.

“Getting some weather down that way, are you?”

Karena looks out the window. “Some,” she says. “Guess what I did today.”

When they hang up a short time later, Karena is restless. She starts to look up Iowa criminal law, then shuts the laptop and sets it aside. She makes sure her room key is in her shorts pocket and goes out. Through the American Inn & Suites lobby. Out into the lot. The night is thick with humidity and insects, flitting and batting at the illuminated motel sign. There are haloes around the halogens. TV light flickers behind the curtain in Charles’s room. Karena walks away from the motel, into the service road behind it. She’s facing the same direction as her room, northwest, but without the safety light. A steady wind blows her hair back from her face. Outflow from the storms.

She can see them, or one of them, anyway, probably the last in the line sweeping the eastern part of the state. What the chasers call a tail-end Charlie. It is fist-sized at this distance, a tight ball of Cu, but it is going absolutely crazy with lightning, stuttering with it every other second. And Karena knows it’s because she’s seeing it through haze on the horizon, the same atmospheric trick that makes some sunsets look red, but this storm has colors. Its lightning is yellow and orange and purple and hot pink. Yet on the other side of the sky, the moon is rising above the highway. It is so clear and bright it outshines even the American Inn & Suites sign.

Karena can’t stop looking at this, the storm on one side, moon on the other. She never would have believed such a thing was possible, chaos and calm sharing the same sky. Before this summer, she never would have seen it. She would have been asleep, she would have been working, she would have been on a blind date or out with Tiff. If there had been a storm, she would have viewed it on TV. If it had been a bad one, she would have been in the basement. She never would have known about this wild and violent beauty, would not have experienced it firsthand. She stands in the road, watching, for a long, long time.

All night the storms march past to the northwest, shaking the ground like distant artillery. When dawn comes Karena is awake to watch that too. She sits by the window on the side of the bed as the kaleidoscope of the sky turns from white to gold to blue. Then she showers, makes some coffee, makes herself as presentable as she can with the emergency makeup kit in her bag. Even the weak motel brew tastes good to her, and before she leaves her room she presses her face into her towel, inhaling the bleach, feeling the thin scratchy nap.