St. Albans Fire (22 page)

Joe returned to Peggy. “I’m sorry. Maybe we should start over again. My name’s Joe Gunther. I’m from Vermont. The cranky guy’s Willy Kunkle, and that’s Lieutenant Lil Farber, from the Essex County prosecutor’s office. You are Peggy DeAngelis, right?”

“Yes. Why are you from Vermont?”

Joe was grateful for Willy’s lack of a response. He gestured to the living room behind her as he spoke. “Mind if we sit down? It’s a bit of a long story.”

“No, no,” she said immediately, which automatic courtesy he’d counted on.

They all settled on a sofa and a couple of armchairs.

“What exactly do you know about Gino?” Joe asked in his best fatherly tone.

She concentrated as if she’d been asked a test question. “He works at the docks as a trucker, drives an eighteen-wheeler, and”—here she shot Willy an angry look—“I know he’s married, which is something he’s trying to end.”

“Does he tell you about the trips he takes?” Joe continued.

She smiled, which suffused an already perfect face with a sunny radiance. “He sends me postcards sometimes.”

“Could I see them?”

She half rose from her chair before shaking her head. “I’m not sure I should do this. I don’t think he’d like it.”

Joe looked up at her, his elbows on his knees, trying to appear relaxed and casual. “Why’s that? You want to help him, don’t you?”

She frowned. “Of course. That’s what I’m saying.”

“We’re here already,” Joe explained pointedly. “You do realize that not cooperating will just turn a small investigation into a big deal—attract a lot of attention and involve lots of people.”

“Aren’t you supposed to have some piece of paper you have to show me?”

Joe and Lil both laughed. He explained, “That’s only when we’re about to search a place or arrest someone. We’re just here trying to make sense of a few things.”

“What things?” she asked, still standing.

“It’s a bit complicated, Peggy, and we’re figuring it out, but my colleague’s tough-guy imitation notwithstanding, we may end up finding Gino’s got nothing to do with any of it. You could help us with that and make this go away twice as fast.”

“Clearing him of suspicion?”

“We just want to know the truth,” Joe equivocated.

She hesitated one last time and then nodded slightly. “All right. I’ll be right back.”

She left the room, and they heard her climbing the stairs two at a time with rapid, light footsteps—still a kid inside that fully adult body.

Lil waited until she was sure Peggy was out of earshot. “So,” she asked, “you two always work this well together? You ought to write a how-to book.”

“Cute,” Willy growled.

Joe rose suddenly, holding his hand up for silence, and moved to the hallway door, listening to something upstairs.

“Stay put,” he said over his shoulder, before following the girl’s example and heading for the second floor.

On the top landing, he could more clearly hear Peggy’s voice speaking in an urgent whisper, down a short hallway and behind a partially closed door. He approached it quietly and pushed it open.

Before him, sitting on the edge of her bed, Peggy was talking into a phone. She raised her eyes to his as he filled the doorway, her expression so much like a child’s in trouble that he had to smile.

“Calling Gino?” he asked.

She paled visibly. For a moment, he thought she might even try to hide the phone behind her back. Instead, she ducked her head slightly, as if for privacy, said, “Never mind. No message,” into the receiver, and reluctantly hung up.

“I couldn’t get him,” she admitted.

Joe leaned against the doorjamb. “You didn’t have to come up here to do that. We wouldn’t have stopped you making a call. For that matter, we can leave, if you want.”

She seemed on the verge of tears. “How much trouble is he in?”

Joe decided to play it straight, within limits. “It’s looking pretty bad.”

“Did he kill someone or something?”

“Why do you ask that? Has he ever been violent around you?”

She shook her head. “No, not ever. He’s always very sweet.”

“But…” Joe suggested.

“No, no. No buts. It’s just that I could see him getting angry at someone if he was pushed.”

“He has,” he reassured her. “I think you already know that in your heart.”

He crossed the room and sat beside her, leaving a couple of feet between them. She was dressed in a skirt and a white button-down blouse, but as utterly sensual as that had made her appear downstairs, it now enhanced her seeming innocence.

Joe reached out and squeezed her hand briefly. “We’re not here to hurt you, Peggy, but I also don’t want to lie to you.”

She wiped a tear from her eye. “I’ve never loved anybody so much.”

“It happens a lot,” he said philosophically. “People are rarely all bad or all good, and they rarely reveal themselves entirely to the ones who love them. I guess maybe sometimes they’re being self-protective, but it can be the other way around, too—they just don’t want to hurt who they care about the most. But whichever way it is with Gino,” he added, looking directly into her eyes, “the fact remains that he’s broken the law and brought some real heartbreak to others. I’m not here to judge him, Peggy, and I’m sure not here to wag my finger at the two of you. But make no mistake about it—I will do everything I can to hold him accountable.”

She was crying openly by now, making him feel at once guilty and hopeful.

“Do you have those postcards?” he asked gently.

Without a word, she reached into her night table drawer and withdrew a small bundle of glossy cards. She was still holding them when the phone rang.

As she leaned over to answer it, he relieved her of the cards.

“Hello?” she asked in a tremulous voice.

Joe could hear a man’s voice on the other end, although not what he was saying. He began nonchalantly leafing through the cards, a collection of unremarkable nature shots, for the most part—mountains, animals, a few with historic buildings. They were from all over the eastern seacoast.

“The police are here,” she said. “They say you’ve done something bad… I don’t know. They haven’t told me… Yes, they’re still here… No, no… Gino, I haven’t told them anything. I don’t have anything
to
tell them. I don’t even know what they’re talking about… I’m sorry, I’m sorry… I’ll do it right now… Can you come over? Please. I’m really upset… Okay, okay.”

She covered the phone with her hand and looked apologetically at Joe. “I’m really sorry, but you all have to leave.”

Joe put the postcards down on the bed and stood up. “Can I ask you one favor?”

She was clearly unhappy with that, but he spoke anyway. “It’s only to be careful. People in love do things they sometimes regret. Please, next time you two are together, ask him what’s going on.”

The voice on the phone squawked again, and now looking confused, she turned toward it and answered, “I did, Gino. They’re leaving now. I told them.”

She looked up at Joe. “He wants me to see you out—make sure you’re gone.”

Joe nodded. “Fine with me.”

She put the phone down on the bed and escorted him back downstairs to the entranceway, where he stuck his head into the living room and announced, “Gino’s on the phone upstairs. We’ve been officially thrown out.”

The other two silently got up and filed out the front door. Joe hesitated on the threshold and looked back at Peggy. “Think about what I said, okay? You’ve got a full life ahead of you.”

She smiled sadly, as if she was already beyond believing such things. “Thank you. You’re a nice man,” she said, and closed the door on them.

Willy leered at him. “Ooh. Got lucky?”

Joe ignored his most obvious meaning. “Yeah. One of Gino’s postcards was mailed from Vermont.”

The cell phone clipped to Lil’s belt went off. She answered it, exchanged a few sentences, and hung up.

“That was Silva. He thought we’d like to know: Santo Massi was just picked up in a Dumpster with a bullet in his head.”

“Gee,” Willy reacted. “That didn’t take ’em long.”

“Gino?” Lil asked Joe.

Joe pushed his lower lip out thoughtfully. “Could be. Santo broke the cardinal rule, talking to us. Could be it was just an example.”

“Still,” she suggested, “we could roust him and play Twenty Questions, just to keep him off balance.”

Joe gazed up the street for a moment. “If you’re talking about getting under his skin, we might as well stick with the plan: Let’s have a chat with his wife next.”

GINO WAS ANGRIER THAN EITHER
Dante Lagasso or Tito had ever seen him. He was pacing back and forth in the now-closed social club from where Tito had taken Santo for the last ride of his life.

“Who the fuck is this Joe Gunther? You told me Vermont was hayseed country—bunch of Deputy Dawgs—in and out with no problem. Now the son of a bitch is fucking up my life.”

Lagasso was stirring a small cup of coffee. “I’m not the one who killed someone.”

Gino stared at him. “How the hell was I supposed to know the kid would get horny for some goddamn cow in the middle of the night?”

Lagasso shrugged. “Shit happens.”

Gino returned to pacing. “Shit happens. That’s the best you can do? Quote a bumper sticker? You’re supposed to check these deals out, Dante.”

“They looked solid,” Lagasso said placidly.

“
Solid?
” Gino exploded. “Is that why you had Santo whacked? You steered me into swampland, Dante.”

“Santo’s different. He was overdue for a correction. I’ll give you that. The Vermont cop figuring him out so fast just means he’s good at his job. Look, you’re not the only one with problems. Santo screwed me up, too, connecting Johnny to me. We’re all just gonna have to weather this out. Shouldn’t be a big deal, now he’s dead. Once they finish buzzing around, they’ll figure out they got nothin’.”

“Right,” Gino said bitterly. “And in the meantime, my life is a fuckin’ nightmare.” He pointed at Lagasso. “And you’re carrying some of the freight for that.”

Lagasso ran out of patience. He glanced at Tito, who slowly rose from the seat he’d been occupying in the room’s far corner.

Gino instantly read the body language. He held up his hand apologetically. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I know I fucked up. I didn’t mean it, all right? I’m just a little upset.”

Lagasso moved his finger ever so slightly, and Tito sat back down, his expression unchanged.

“It’s not the first time the cops have come sniffing around,” Lagasso said.

“It’s the first time they’ve visited my girlfriend and then gone yapping to my wife, for Chrissake. I’ve been shut out of my own house. She changed the fucking lock.”

“The girlfriend didn’t take you in?”

“That’s not the point. It’s my house.”

“You got caught fooling around. Bad luck.”

Gino ran his hands through his hair, staring at the ceiling. “I could kill that cop.”

“Not a great idea. Why not just settle down with the girl? You never liked the wife anyhow. Times are different. People won’t care.”

Gino stabbed himself in the chest several times. “I care. It’s a matter of pride. I do good work—clean work. I’m known for it. I worked hard for that reputation. It means something to me that people know I been thrown out of my house and forced to live someplace else, all because of some screwup.”

“You’re making too much of it,” Lagasso said, sounding bored. “You’re crazy about the girlfriend, the wife is crazy about your money. Everything’ll work out. Enjoy playing house while you can.”

Gino stared at the wall for a while, breathing hard, trying to control his anger. “Goddamn John Fucking Samuel Gregory,” he finally said. “He started all this. It’s always the rich guys that’ll cause you a world of shit. Be nice to repay the favor for once.”

Lagasso was done for the night. He admired Gino for his abilities and didn’t mind the finder’s fees he generated. But the guy could be a pain—thin-skinned and quick to blame everyone else for his problems.

“Go home and get laid, Gino. Things’ll look better in the morning.”

· · ·

“Hey.”

“Hey, yourself,” Gail responded, her voice tinny and distant over the telephone line. “How’re things in Sin City?”

“Close—they actually call this the Brick City.”

She laughed. “Ow. That doesn’t sound like much fun. I thought every city was brick—sounds like it should be a metaphor for something.”

“According to Willy, the whole place is a metaphor for Murphy’s Law.”

“Is that true for what you’re doing down there, too?”

Joe was in his motel room, as he was so often when he called her from the road, with the curtains open and the lamps off, watching an urban kaleidoscope of lights flitting across the walls.

“No, not really,” he answered, not bothering with details. “We’re making headway. It’s hard when you’re dealing with crooks of the Italian persuasion. Pretty close-mouthed bunch. How’re things with you?”

“Actually,” she conceded, “they may be livelier here than they are down there. This battle between the pro-GMOs and the anti’s is really heating up. We’ve had a few arrests on the capitol building steps.”

“You’re kidding. I thought you were locking horns with a bunch of big-business lobbyists.”

“Oh, no. I even got handed a threatening note, and that was before things got exciting.”

His attention sharpened suddenly. “What kind of note?”

“Ah, damn,” she exclaimed. “I knew I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I wasn’t going to, either. It just slipped out. It’s nothing, Joe. A slip of paper. I don’t even know how it ended up in my hand. People give me stuff all the time.”

“What did it say?”

“Something about how I’d better not play with fire. That’s not it, exactly, but close enough.”

Joe felt a chill go through him at the phrasing. “‘Fire’ was the word used?”

“Yes, why?”

“Just a coincidence—the case I’m working on. When did this happen?”

“Joe, before you get all Sherlock Holmes on me, it was no big deal. You should see the chaos around here. The building’s packed every day. All the committee meetings have been moved to the big room, which isn’t big enough. The phone rings all the time, the mail is almost arriving in boxes, and emotions are running very hot. One little message is nothing in comparison. I wish I hadn’t brought it up.”