St. Albans Fire (23 page)

“It’s okay,” he soothed her. “Did you at least mention it to anyone?”

“Like one of your boys in blue? No. It didn’t deserve that much attention. And before you ask, no, I haven’t gotten anything else like it.”

He decided to change the subject, sensing in her voice less an assuaging of concern than a tone of impatience. “How’s the battle going?”

“Frustrating. You’d think in this state, at least, there’d be more support for the organics and traditionalists, especially since a lot of the organics are going that way purely for the money. Some of them are about as crunchy-granola as Adolf Hitler.”

“He was a vegetarian.”

It was the wrong quip at the wrong time.

“Not funny. You get my point,” Gail said tersely. “The bottom line is, the dumb bastards calling the shots at the state level don’t seem to have any idea that Vermont isn’t Kansas or Ohio. And when people like me point out what should be as obvious as shit on their shoes, all we get is corporate-speak and lame one-liners.”

Joe opened his mouth to apologize, when he suddenly reconsidered. His joke hadn’t deserved such anger. She knew he was agreeable to most of her positions, especially this one, since they’d already discussed it. He’d merely been made the whipping boy for her pent-up frustration. Reasonably, the apology, if she cared to make it, was hers.

She didn’t.

After a long and awkward silence, she said, “Well, it’s getting late and I still have work to do. Good night, Joe. Stay safe.”

The line went dead.

He held the phone for a few seconds more, his eyes on the ceiling. “You, too,” he said softly.

· · ·

At the far end of that dead phone line, Gail sat on the sofa in her condominium living room, paying no attention to the nighttime view of Montpelier’s distant lights, fanned out like luminescent spray from the dominant beacon of the gold-topped capitol building.

She’d been rude and preachy and self-centered with him. She’d felt interrupted in midwork when he called, irritated when he predictably focused on the threatening note, and angry when he joked about an issue that was consuming her every waking hour.

She pressed the tips of her fingers against her temples briefly, closing her eyes. What was happening? It wasn’t him. He was as stolid as ever—reliable, supportive, loyal, and kind. Nothing if not predictable. He’d given her no reason to act the way she had.

And why had she lied about not getting any more threats? She opened her eyes and looked over at the second slip of paper she’d received, just two days ago, lying like a curled-up leaf in the center of her coffee table. “Back off or pay the price,” it read.

The way she was feeling now, those words had more meaning than their writer could have ever imagined.

· · ·

Farther north still, in the tiny, somewhat hardscrabble village of St. Albans Bay, just a mile or so west of St. Albans proper, John Samuel Gregory unlocked the door to his upscale condo and tossed his keys onto the table by the lamp.

He paused to admire once more what the lighting revealed—dark-painted walls, expensive carpeting, modern furniture, and recessed spots. He liked this place. The whole area was a dead-end, hayseed, hole-in-the-wall dump. The people were total woodchucks, as dumb as they were gullible. And the women were as easy to impress as kids craving ice cream—and most of them about that experienced in the sack. But this apartment was just right—big, new, well laid out, and with a great view of the bay and the lake beyond—a miracle, given the other buildings in town. Within its distinctly urbanized confines, he could reach back to what he’d enjoyed before his banishment here, and imagine what comforts lay ahead once his plans became reality.

He walked down the hallway and entered the cavernous living room/dining room/kitchen combination, slipping off his designer jacket and draping it over the back of a chair in passing, heading for a side table laden with liquor bottles and crystal glassware. He mixed himself a Scotch on the rocks—the Glenlivet, only, thank you—and wandered over to one of the leather armchairs facing the view. It was dark, of course, past midnight, but there were pinpricks of light always visible, from down both arms of the bay’s embrace—twinklings from other houses and from the occasional passing boat.

He was feeling pretty good, even with the reaming he’d gotten from Clark Wolff earlier that day. He’d told the old man where to get off, of course. He wasn’t going to take any crap from a sorry loser like that. But, in fact, he hadn’t been as pissed as he’d let on. He had the old man dead to rights, after all—he’d bought the damn properties, even if he had done it on the sly. And as for any “improprieties,” as Clark had put it, both he and the cops could shove them where the sun didn’t shine. Suspicions were just that without proof. And as far as Johnny could tell, nobody had anything close to proof.

He took a meditative sip and stared out into the darkness. The lights in this part of the room were dimmed almost to extinction, allowing him a view out the window with minimal reflection.

Not that he could afford to be careless, of course. The cops were working up a lather, talking to everyone they could find. Johnny was confident but not foolish. He didn’t have any direct way to contact the torch—that son of a bitch hadn’t even given him his name—but he would call Dante in the morning, just to make sure that end of things was covered.

Johnny frowned. He really could have done without these complications. It had all started out so well. Like injecting those cows with penicillin—not bad for a city boy—or even better, the old coot and the tractor. That had really been fun, skulking around in the dark, rigging the brake lines like he’d practiced in that garage near the interstate. He’d sort of felt like James Bond. And when the old guy had killed himself good and proper in the crash, nobody had been the wiser.

But the fun was definitely fading.

Johnny took another swallow. Maybe things weren’t so God-damned rosy, after all. Since the cops had talked to Wolff, they sure as hell wouldn’t take long to get to him—or to turn his life inside out. That wouldn’t hold up to too much scrutiny. Then word would leak out, the papers would grab hold, and, all of a sudden, it might not be quite so easy to pull off the scheme they were shooting for.

He squinted slightly, concentrating on the dark void ahead of him, visualizing a string of lights from the fantasy bridge spanning the black water. Christ, what a plan. And, my God, what a pile of money.

There was a movement outside, a ghostly shifting of sorts, floating in the air before him. Gregory sat forward slightly, trying to distinguish between the darkness, the slight reflection in the glass, and his own imagination.

He saw it again and suddenly realized it had nothing to do with the view or the lake or anything outside. It was a shape, a human being, coming up behind him fast and sure, and as he watched, frozen in the split second in which all this occurred, he recognized as in a flash photograph what the figure was carrying in its upraised hand. It was a hook on a handle, used on boxes or hay bales or animal carcasses.

And he watched in helpless disbelief as it came down upon his head.

LIL HUNG UP THE PHONE AND STARED MOODILY
out her window.

“Damn.”

“What?” asked Willy, sitting in her office with Joe by his side.

“Still no Gino,” she said. “We’ve got people on his house, at the docks, at all the social clubs we know about, and at Peggy’s, but nothing so far. He might’ve left town. God knows, he probably has a dozen places to call home, after all the time he’s spent on the road.”

“What did you get on Santo’s murder?” Joe asked. “Maybe there’s something there that could help us.”

Ben Silva was leaning against the doorjamb, listening in. “The Murder Squad’s got it,” he said. “But they’re already smelling a cold case in the making. The guy was dumped in the trash, he owed money to everybody, he was a risk to all his old buddies, and he had filthy enough habits that he still might’ve been killed by a pissed-off stranger who wanted a hit off his needle. I doubt we’re going to get much from that direction.”

“Sounds like we’re wasting time here,” Willy said, confirming Joe’s suspicion that his colleague was ready to head home.

“Maybe not,” Joe said quietly.

“What’re you thinking of?” Lil asked.

“I don’t want to step out of line,” he said. “Willy and I are on foreign ground, after all. Gino’s become a live case for you, and our interest in him has got to play second fiddle. I understand that. Still, when I was talking to Peggy, I felt like we connected.”

“You want to knock on her door?” Silva asked. “Pick up where you left off?”

“In a way,” Joe admitted. “I don’t see where it can hurt, except, of course, for the change of status I just mentioned.”

Silva made a face and looked at Lil. “You have a problem sending him in, assuming she’ll open the door?”

He suddenly asked Joe, “Can she go in with you?”

But Lil answered that. “No. Probably better he fly solo. I don’t have any objections.”

“He’s good at the touchy-feely stuff,” Willy said out of the blue.

Silva shrugged. “A little unorthodox, but it works for me. It’s not like we won’t be right outside. For that matter, we could wire you. You run into trouble, all you have to do is shout.”

“I’m okay with that,” Joe agreed.

Lil stood up. “Let’s do it, then.”

An hour later, Lil, Joe, and Willy pulled up opposite Peggy’s house in the Ironbound. Another suspiciously nondescript car was already parked nearby.

“Cool,” Willy commented. “Undercover. Almost like it’s a secret.”

Lil laughed as she killed the engine. “Yeah. Well, we tried painting ‘Normal Civilian Vehicle’ on the doors, but the bad guys figured it out.”

She turned toward Joe and patted the wireless receiver on the seat between them. “You all set?” She hooked a small headset over her ear.

He fumbled under his shirt and turned on the mike taped to his chest. “Test, test, test.”

“Loud and clear,” she said. “You’re good to go.”

“Have fun,” Willy said from the back.

Joe got out, checked for traffic, and crossed the street. He climbed the now familiar stoop and rang the doorbell. After a minute, the door opened and revealed Peggy DeAngelis, this time dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, and sporting a bruise above her left cheekbone.

Joe’s face fell. “Peggy, I’m so sorry. I know I’m to blame for that.”

“It was an accident,” she said defensively.

“It was, in a way,” he agreed. “You didn’t plan on my coming into your life and causing trouble.”

“Well, you did and you still are,” she answered, her eyes welling up. “What are you
doing
here?”

“Trying to right a wrong. I’d like to find Gino and start sorting this out.”

“You want to arrest him.”

“Only if I have to, Peggy. I’d like to talk to him first. Right now all we have is a bunch of questions, suppositions, whatever you want to call them. But they need confirmation, and only Gino can help us there. For all we know, he might be able to set us on a whole new track, but we won’t know till we can talk.”

She shook her head, her arms crossed over her chest. “I don’t know.”

He faked a shiver, although it wasn’t that cold. “Let me in, Peggy. We can discuss this. You can ask me anything you want.”

“I’m not supposed to do that.”

“And you’re going to let that stop you from doing what’s right?”

She stamped her foot in frustration. “I don’t
know
what’s right. I only know what everybody else wants.”

He tried soothing her. “That’s true. I understand that you’re feeling pushed around. I would be, too, in your shoes. That’s why I think it would help if we sat down and talked about it a little, just to see if we can clear things up.”

But apparently, through some inner process of her own, she’d reached a different conclusion. She stepped back from the open door and prepared to close it. “I’m sorry. I don’t believe you. You just want me to tell you where he is, and then you want to arrest him. You’ll have to leave. I’m sorry.”

She shut the door, although his last glance of her told him she was as unsure of herself as ever.

He returned to the car and settled into the passenger seat, switching off the mike. “No go,” he said simply.

“Yeah,” Willy said. “We heard you, Romeo. Any other bright ideas, or can we throw in the towel and go home?”

Lil cast a glance over her shoulder at him. “Running out of gas?”

“Something like that.”

She looked at Gunther. “What
would
you like to do?”

He pointed out the window. “I’d like to follow her.”

The other two looked in the direction he indicated. A small red Mini Cooper had appeared in the alley beside the house. At the wheel, wearing dark glasses, was a still-unmistakable Peggy DeAngelis.

“Oh, shit,” Lil murmured, switching on the ignition and then fumbling for her radio. “Eight-A-two to eight-A-six. She’s in motion, guys. Heads up.”

The undercover car down the street stayed still and silent.

Lil checked for traffic as the little car zipped out of the alley and sped away toward Market Street.

“What the hell are they doing?” she asked, finally cutting a car off with a screech of tires in order to make a U-turn.

“Eight-A-two to eight-A-six. Get your asses moving. You’re on an empty house,” she yelled into the radio before chucking it aside.

Willy checked out the rear window as they pulled away at high speed, trying to catch up. “They’re waking up,” he reported. “Coming after us.”

But Lil didn’t care any longer. Both hands on the wheel, she was just trying to keep Peggy’s car in sight.

Whatever else could be said about Peggy DeAngelis, she was a fast and sure driver, weaving in and out of traffic as if it were standing still. Surely, inexorably, Lil began losing ground.

“How ’bout calling in extra units?” Joe suggested. “You know she’s going to meet him.”

“Movie stuff,” she said shortly. “Besides, we don’t know any such thing. For all we can tell, she’s pulling us off so he can leave the house and go someplace else.” Lil made an abrupt evasive move, almost hitting a car that was easing out of a parking space. “Damn, she’s fast. Push comes to shove, I’ll get her for speeding.”