St. Albans Fire (27 page)

“That’s because this whole deal is out of left field,” Willy said, having kept his peace for an unusually long time. “The only hard-core information we got out of Newark was from a juicer who thought we were about to kill him, and even that was about only one of the three fires—which one is anyone’s guess. All the rest of it—Vinnie Stazio
maybe
having a student named Gino, Gregory’s brother paying off Lagasso, and then Lagasso ordering up a fire that
looked
like a Stazio burn long after Stazio was dead—is just a bunch of conjecture.” He pointed to Sam’s piled paperwork. “Jonathon’s report says that the motel clerk was given Gino’s mug shot. Couldn’t ID him. Said he had that stupid hat pulled down too far over his face. Same thing for the two farmers who supposedly saw him—too far off to see his face. I mean, Jesus, we’ve been playing fast and loose from the start.”

“Initially,” Joe agreed. “But I don’t think so lately. Regardless of those failed IDs, Gino’s connection to Vermont is solid, and juicer or not, Santo sounded pretty sure of himself to me—and talking to us definitely got him dead.”

“Speaking of getting dead,” Willy said, “shouldn’t we be talking about Gregory?”

Joe held up a finger. “In a minute. I don’t want to lose track. Here are some of the issues I think we need to keep in focus: Was Bobby killed accidentally or on purpose, and if the latter, was it personal or symbolic, as Ross suggests? Is the Cutts fire related to the others in some way other than having been set by the same arsonist? What’s the real motivator behind Billy St. Cyr’s recent change of attitude? And finally, what was the desired end result of the Cutts fire? If we find someone whose fortunes suddenly improved, we may also have our primary actor.”

He now looked at Willy. “Okay. John Samuel Gregory. Who knocked him off and why?”

Braver, not well known to Joe, seemed to like his theories straightforward—and didn’t take no for an answer. “My vote’s on Wolff. It’s a money deal. Gregory did him dirt by going maverick and screwing everything up.”

Jonathon tilted back in his chair and rested one foot against the edge of the conference table. “What I’m wondering is, who did he piss off the most?” he asked, before quickly gesturing to his colleague. “Not that Wolff doesn’t qualify, Ross. I didn’t mean that. But there’re others standing in line. Gregory comes from Newark, basically exiled for misbehavior. His brother doesn’t like him, the Mob thought he was a welcher when Lagasso squeezed the family firm for what he was owed, and who knows who else may hate his guts around here for all the mischief he’s committed? Which reminds me,” he added almost as an afterthought, “we shouldn’t forget that unless we find out otherwise—which is pretty unlikely—it was also Gregory who hired Gino to torch the Cutts barn. Why did he do that?”

Total silence greeted this question.

“Seems like,” he resumed, “we ought to take a closer look at the members of the Cutts clan.”

GINO WAITED PATIENTLY IN THE SHADOWS,
indistinguishable from the tree trunk he was leaning against. During the past couple of hours, several pedestrians had strolled by not ten feet away without even imagining his presence.

He was good at this. He could wait forever.

The target had actually arrived ten minutes ago, driving into the condo garage and closing the door behind her electronically before leaving the locked car. A cautious woman, he’d noticed earlier. The kind of caution born of a bad experience. Bordering on paranoia.

But whatever that experience, it had been a long time ago. He could tell that the edge had left her fear. Already, in the few days he’d been doing this, he’d seen a curtain left open a crack, a window left unlatched for an hour to allow some air in. Finally, yesterday, after her half-hour jog with whistle and pepper spray canister, she’d committed the ultimate mistake, punching in her security code on the front door alarm without blocking the keypad from view. He’d been there, of course, binoculars in hand, ready and waiting. Twenty-three forty. The magic number to the kingdom.

Content that she was in for the night, or at least wasn’t coming right back out, he eased away from his post, checking all around for possible onlookers, and stealthily crossed over to his parked van.

Quietly, he got into the back, pulled the blanket closed to block off the front seats, and switched on the laptop computer. The van’s back windows were tinted, but as an extra precaution, he’d also taped black plastic garbage bags over them. No one passing by would see what he was doing.

The screen’s ethereal glow colored his impassive face a pale blue as he waited for the program to boot up. Gino Famolare was on emotional autopilot—all professional, all the time. Despite what he had planned for this woman—a first in his career, given that the farmer kid had been a mistake—and despite the stakes and extra effort he’d put into this job, it remained just that for him. A job.

Or so he was telling himself.

The screen finally resolved into what he was expecting: a mosaic of eight postage-stamp-size images, each of a different aspect of the interior of Gail’s apartment. As he watched the tiny pictures, she passed from frame to frame, walking around the privacy of her home, going about the business of settling in for the night.

After learning the alarm’s entrance code yesterday, Gino had picked the lock and checked the place out, outfitting it with a series of minute, wireless cameras which he’d hidden behind books, among plants, behind a stack of towels, and elsewhere, until he was sure he had every angle covered, including the bathroom, where he’d made sure to coat the camera lens with antifogging fluid.

He wasn’t always this thorough. But then again, his norm was to make sure no people were around.

Not this time. This time the target wasn’t a building, but its occupant, and he’d convinced himself that he needed to know her habits, her daily rhythm, as if such knowledge might alter his approach or his overall plan. It wouldn’t, of course. He intended to strike in the middle of the night, when she was asleep. There was no point in knowing when she watched TV or brushed her teeth or which side of the bed she used. Simply watching the house for several days and seeing when the lights went off would have been adequate for his purposes.

This all stemmed from some other need.

On the computer, Gail moved into her bedroom and kicked off her shoes. Gino clicked on the image and brought it up to fill the screen. He watched, barely breathing, as she removed her sweater, then her blouse, slipped off her skirt and panty hose, and moved about the room, either putting clothes away or placing them in a laundry hamper. In front of the latter, she also took off her underwear and tossed it into the hamper with the rest, before reaching into a closet, taking hold of a terry-cloth robe, and covering herself once more.

Every movement had been routine to the point of blandness—an attractive woman presuming herself to be without an audience. There had been no shred of sexuality, no enjoyment in doing what might have been seductive in another setting. She had merely been making herself more comfortable.

But it had left Gino sweating in his van, his breath short and his eyes glued to the picture, the complex of emotions gripping him—anger, loss, and lust—all swirling for attention in different and conflicting ways.

He missed Peggy as if a part of him had been amputated. Over the time they’d been together, he’d begun merely blessing his lucky stars that he’d been able to get such a woman into bed. Every time he’d dropped by her tiny apartment to see her, he’d been amazed once again by her beauty, her sensuality, her clear and inviting openness. As he tugged at her buttons and zippers, ran his hands under her clothes, and made love to her in any way he wished, he found himself constantly wondering when she would suddenly bring herself up short, see him as if for the first time, and immediately throw him out.

But it never happened. Time passed, he moved her into the house Down Neck. Her joy in his company never slipped, her expectations that they would forever be a couple never wavered. Her conviction was catching. From simply being unfaithful, which he’d been many times before, he eventually came to feel that sleeping with his wife was cheating on Peggy, and he stopped. He moved downstairs to his den, slept on the couch, and put up with the attending domestic fury. It didn’t matter. He didn’t care. He had Peggy, and everything was going to work out.

By this time, Gail had stepped into the bathroom. Gino, in a daze, slowly closed the first window and expanded the second, making Gail leap in size just as she removed her robe. He stared at her as she used the toilet and then entered the shower.

It was glass-doored, and the minicamera had been set high, so he maintained a full and unimpeded view of her as she stepped under the water stream, tilted her head back, and let a warm cascade wash over her. He sat transfixed as she reached for the soap, lathered herself up, and went through the clearly memorized, almost soothing routine of a breast exam. She raised each arm in turn and hooked it behind her neck as she caressed and kneaded her breast with the other hand, using the soapy film covering her to ease her motions.

Gino hadn’t slept in days. He’d barely eaten and hadn’t changed his clothes. He’d stayed at Peggy’s house, lying in her bed, surrounded by her things, despite Fredo’s constant urging that he beware of the cops. Fredo had kept watch downstairs, his eyes on the street, his panic rising to the point where Gino had finally paid attention.

Still, as he’d formed his plan and put it into motion, Gino had clutched his loss and its metamorphosis into obsessive revenge like a dying man clinging to false hope. Now, his eyes glued to Gail, naked, glistening, self-absorbed, all he could see was Peggy, all he could remember was how she had felt under his hands, and all he could think of was how she had burned alive.

Just as this one was going to. Very soon.

· · ·

At the same time, an hour’s drive away, north by northwest, a light was killed in an upper bedroom of the Cutts farmhouse, and curtains spread apart to better afford a view of the barn’s charred remains, now cradled in the snow-free black soil of the surrounding field like the skeleton of an oversize Viking ship locked in an ancient bog, its ribs gleaming slightly in the moonlight, polished by the scorch of fire.

Marie Cutts, barely visible as a black-on-black silhouette, sat by the window, looking out. She was still—to the point of breathlessness—to where all she could feel was the heartbeat she so casually took for granted. Her unseeing eyes were fixed on the center of the cold pyre, her deaf ears filled with the dying screams of her youngest child.

Marie was wishing she was dead, too, as quiet and calm as Bobby in his grave. She’d had enough of the fury that had fueled her for most of her life, that she’d channeled into pushing her family to avoid the shoals her own father had so callously ignored. From the moment she’d met Calvin and seen in him the soundness she lacked at home, she’d laid out plans for a future of prosperity and safety. She’d driven him to be cautiously innovative, to never spend more than they could afford, to avoid work habits born of simple repetition, and to establish others that would stand them all in good stead.

Cal was compliant at first, a willing student, eager to please, hardworking, and patient. He listened carefully to her ideas and put many of them to use. But only at first. Over time, he created his own visions, often willfully at odds with hers, she thought, simply because he could do so. He became easygoing, too friendly and trusting of others. It hadn’t resulted in any reversals of fortune—yet—but it reminded her of her socially adept father, and it hung over her head like a sword.

When the kids were born, she shifted her attention, planning an education for Linda that would make her a farmer’s best partner, and a training program for Bobby that would ready him to inherit and thrive.

But there again, she’d been thwarted. Calvin’s insidious good nature and independence, so valued by others and so weak at its core, took early genetic hold, making of Linda a rebellious acolyte, more interested in boys than in farming, and downright lazy at home, doing chores only under threat. Bobby, of course, had been perfect, quick and eager and happy to participate in his mother’s dream, and for a brief few years, Marie thought she’d caught her golden ring.

But then Linda, of all people, messed things up, marrying Padgett, becoming pregnant, and getting her weakwilled father to betray his own blood for the sake of an interloper.

Marie shifted in her seat, her anger stirring like the lava from deep inside a volcano—just as it always had.
Linda
, she thought derisively. Didn’t even like farming, despite all her fakery in pretending to be Padgett’s helpmate.

Bobby had once more been the hero, acceding to his father’s decision, saying how relieved he was to play second fiddle to a former juvenile delinquent. As furious as Marie had been by the whole turn of events, she’d still been amazed by her son’s good grace.

Bobby had been all she’d ever hoped for, her dream incarnate, her comfort in the face of old age. His death had broken her heart and made of life something not worth living.

· · ·

Back in Newark, Lil Farber and members of her unit, supported by an armor-wearing tactical team, grouped around a scarred, stained, hollow-core door on the second floor of one of the city’s tenement buildings. Whispering into her radio to the people watching the fire escape, she called off a brief countdown, nodded to the two tactical men carrying a steel battering ram between them, and stepped back to give them room.

With precision born of frequent practice, the two easily smacked the door’s handle on the first swing, sending the door flying back on its hinges with an explosive bang. The men instantly peeled off to both sides, one of them taking the ram with him, while four more with flashlight-equipped shotguns poured through the opening, shouting out who they were and warning everyone not to move.

It was a raid, brought about by a solid tip from a trusted snitch, who said that keeping company with a prostitute at this address and looking forward to a long evening of sex and illegal drugs would be Fredo Loria, Gino Famolare’s right-hand man and chief flunky.