Masters of Terror
A Marc LaRose Mystery
R. George Clark
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Prologue – Four Months Earlier
A Georgia-based irrigation components manufacturer received an order for a chemical injection system to be connected to an existing underground irrigation layout. The order was from a new customer, Apex Irrigation located in Aiken, South Carolina. Although this was hardly an unusual order, a few special requirements gave the order some significance.
The diagram for the underground injection system, purportedly to be installed on an exclusive estate, was not unusual. According to the details supplied by Apex, the specs of the desired system included a heavy-duty underground tank with an approximate fifty-gallon holding capacity that needed to be impervious to chemical degradation. The order further stated that the tank should be designed to be readily attached to the existing one-inch irrigation pipe and refillable from above ground as needed. This, the attached letter stated, was so chemicals could be added to the existing system and the city-supplied water as required, given the varied weather conditions during the wet springs and dry summers in the Aiken area.
In addition to the above requirements, the chemical tank would need to be fitted with a wireless unit to be controlled and monitored from a remote location, due to the size of the area to be covered. This would allow the contents of the tank to be injected into the water supply at various levels at a moment’s notice, a system commonly known as fertigation.
The letter, printed on the ‘Apex Irrigation, Inc.’ letterhead, contained an Aiken post office box number and an email address should there be any questions regarding the request. A certified check for four thousand dollars was also enclosed to cover any initial costs for design, parts and associated labor.
Although the company’s accounting department thought it a bit unusual for an established business to pay with a certified check, it guaranteed the initial payment. The request was thus processed and sent on to the company’s design and manufacturing team to be completed. The lawn irrigation business, even in Georgia, is slow during the winter months.
Chapter One
Marc carefully opened the outside hatch and descended the steps to the flooded basement. Except for a few shards of light that seeped past him from the burned-out sections of the floor above, the flooded cellar was mostly pitch black. He flipped the switch on the six-volt floating lantern that he kept in the trunk of his car. If it hadn’t been for a passerby spotting flames coming through the roof and the quick response of the local volunteer fire department, the entire house would have caved in.
As it was, the one-story ranch-house was a total loss. The six-foot-high cinder block walled basement was flooded with over two feet of water the firemen used to douse the flames. Debris from the five rooms above had fallen through the floor and into the water-filled cellar. Marc donned his fly-fishing waders and descended the short flight of steps.
Stopping at the bottom of the stairs, he crouched down to avoid contact with the scorched beams overhead and surveyed the task ahead of him. At first glance, he could see the rabbit ears of an old tube-type TV, the scorched remains of end tables, lamps with their shades burned away, and what looked like the back of an overstuffed chair poking above the surface of the water. He pointed his flashlight toward what he suspected could have been the source of the blaze, an oil-fired furnace reported to be at the back end of the cellar. But getting to it was not going to be easy.
As he waded into the fray, he noticed the soggy remnants of fiberglass insulation, a Formica topped table turned on its side, seat cushions, a single-wide mattress, pillows, blankets, and all manner of household furnishings in various stages of submersion. Then there was the scattered flotsam, such as the armada of empty beer cans and bottles bobbing lazily on the surface of the water.
Carefully, he made his way to the far end of the cellar. As he continued to maneuver toward where he thought the furnace was located, he noticed the heavy odor of fuel oil. As his light scanned over the surface of the water, a sheen of oil formed a muted rainbow. Number 2 fuel oil floats, just like the half dozen dead rats that were on the surface, while others, their eyes reflecting in the rays of Marc’s light, squealed and clung to whatever they could to keep from sharing the fate of their drowned cousins.
Marc didn’t personally know the owner of the house, but he’d heard of him; a local by the name of Cecil Robare. Besides being habitually unemployed, he had a history; numerous arrests for drunken driving, assaults, mostly involving women, and living on the county dole and disability checks. Miraculously, he still appeared capable of taking odd jobs under the table to keep his beer tap flowing.
As Marc carefully continued past the bank of debris, he cast his beam toward the far end of the basement. There, he noticed the top half of a 250-gallon fuel oil tank perched against the cinder-block’s exterior wall. Looking back toward the center of the foul-smelling enclosure, he saw what appeared to be the six-inch tube of a furnace’s vent pipe. It hung precariously from the scorched floor joists running toward the far side of the basement before disappearing through a hole in the top of the outer wall just above ground level. His eyes followed the furnace pipe back to its origin.
Camouflaged by the debris, he spotted the upper portion of a dated, oil-fired furnace. An air duct curved up from its top, partially secured to what remained of the floor joists. The legs of the twisting, damaged ductwork branched off to the area Marc figured had been the living room, kitchen and bedroom of the building above.
Marc went to the fuel tank. He set his lamp on top of the tank, and rolled up the sleeve of his shirt to his shoulder. He bent over and felt below the surface of the oil-slicked water. Locating the copper tubing leading from the tank’s nozzle, he gripped it with his thumb and forefinger. He ran his finger along the length of the piping that had been laid on the floor. The rolled-up portion of his sleeve was now underwater. Another shirt ruined. About half-way to the furnace, he felt it—an almost imperceptible notch in the bottom of the tubing. Someone had nicked the tubing, allowing fuel oil to seep out.
“There’s the cause of the oil slick,” he muttered.
He straightened up, relieved to be removing his exposed arm from the filth of the bilge water. He pulled his handkerchief from his back pocket with his mostly dry hand, wiped the rancid slick from his arm as best he could, retrieved his light and started back the way he had come. As he waded toward the furnace, the beam of his flashlight passed over an innocuous piece of plastic bobbing between a few chunks of charred wood. At first, he thought it was a screw-off cap for a soda bottle. However when he picked it out of the water, being careful not to re-contaminate his fingers in the filthy sludge, he shook as much of the water/oil mixture off it as he could.
With his forefinger inserted into the open end of the cap to preserve any fingerprints on the outside, he examined it. It wasn’t a bottle cap after all. It had no threads. He noticed the word “Orion” embossed on the sides of the two-inch long opaque plastic cap. There was a dark rough surface at the flat end of the cap, which helped it to float with the open end up. From his days as a New York State trooper, Marc remembered seeing hundreds of caps just like this one. It was the cap for a road flare, the kind he had used to warn oncoming motorists of an accident or other road hazard. The dark rough end was the striker, put there to light the flare, much like striking a match. Marc suspected he had found
the accelerant to start the fuel oil burning, thus spreading the fire to whatever else was piled on and around the break in the furnace’s fuel line.
A man’s gruff voice suddenly pulled him out of his deliberations. “Hey, who the hell’s that poking around down there?” The voice came from the open hatch door.
“Hello,” Marc called back. He suspected it was the owner, probably a little antsy about a stranger on his property.
“Come on out of there. Who gave you permission to mess around in my cellar?” the man yelled.
Marc pocketed the cap and waded toward the hatch. “You Mister Robare?”
“My place, so I’ll do the asking here.”
As Marc got closer to the opening, he could see Robare, bent over, peering into the flooded cellar, a sneer exposing a mouthful of stained and rotting teeth.
“My name is Marc LaRose. I work for the insurance company. You filed an accidental fire claim. The company sent me to check out the damage.”
Marc climbed up and out through the hatch and extended his hand.
Robare looked down at Marc’s hand, then back up at his face, ignoring the offer of a handshake. “So, what are you doing snooping around my house? You got my damage estimate. Did you bring the check?”
Marc watched as Robare’s eyes shifted to the opening he had just climbed through, then back to Marc again. “No, sorry, I don’t have a check to give you. They needed confirmation of your claim and a full damage report. That’s why I’m here.”
Robare hesitated. “Look Mr. LaRoad, I telled them insurance people all they need to know. I paid ‘em good money to insure my house and now look at it,” he said, motioning toward the scorched remains with a wide sweep of his arm. “It’s all gone. All on account the furnace repair man fucked up when he tried to fix it. Now, what’re you going to do about it?”
Marc reached under the bib of his waders and pulled a piece of paper from his shirt pocket. “Yeah, I see here that you bought a policy with our company, uh, just three months ago. Even made an initial payment, fifty dollars, but nothing since. Says here you insured your place with contents for, uh, let me see.” Marc made a pretense of running his finger down the paper, stopping at a spot near the bottom of the page, “Oh yeah, here it is, ninety-five thousand dollars.”
“That’s right, ninety-five thousand. So where’s my money?”
“Let me get this straight. You said you recently had your furnace repaired. Did the furnace repairman give you a bill for the work?” Marc asked, although he suspected he already knew the answer.
“Well, uh, I had one, but as you can see, it must have burned up in the fire.”
“No problem. Just give me the name of the company that fixed your furnace and I’ll contact them and get a copy.”
Robare stood quiet for a moment as though he was trying to think, which Marc was pretty sure he did little of. “Look, the guy who fixed it was just a friend I know’ed. He works on his own. He don’t got no regular company. But that don’t make no difference. I paid good money for that insurance and you people owe me ninety-five thousand dollars for the loss of my home and all of my belongings.”
“I see,” Marc said. “I tell you what. I’ve taken a few photos of the damage to the interior and the basement of your home as well as the outside. I just have to report my findings to the company. I’ll even tell them you were asking about the money they owe you.”
“You make sure and do that. And tell them if they want my business, they better get me my money quick. I’ve had to rent a room over at my, uh, sister’s house. She needs me to pay her. So tell them I need my money fast, plus expenses for my sister.”
Marc turned to leave. “Don’t worry, Mr. Robare. I’ll tell them everything. You can count on it.”
Marc walked to his car, popped the trunk and pulled his waders off, then crammed them into a plastic garbage bag. He got in and made a call to his old pal, State Police Investigator, Tim Golden.
“Marc, what’s up? Haven’t heard from you in months. Understand you’ve been busy up in Lake Placid again.”
“Yeah, hopefully that’s been put to bed. Look, I’m in the Village of Peru at this Robare house fire.”
“Yeah. We heard about that. Newspaper said the fire started in the basement; something about a faulty furnace.”
“Tim, the insurance company called me, asked if I’d take a look at it. I think this might interest you.”
“Why, what’d you find?” Tim asked, hesitantly.
“Someone cut a notch in the furnace’s fuel line.”
“That’s not good,” Tim said.
“It gets worse. I found a flare cap floating in the water-filled basement.”
“Is Robare still on the premises?”
“Oh yeah. He’s yammering on about the money he’s owed by the insurance company.”
“Good. Can you hang there for a few minutes? I’ll contact a uniform patrol and have them guard the scene.
“My pleasure. I’ll be waiting,” Marc said and ended the call.
Chapter Two
Arriving back at his condo, Marc’s cats, Brandy and Rye, welcomed him with their usual chorus of meows looking for affection and whatever treats Marc had in the cupboard, which he gladly provided.
Although Marc ran his own private detective business, he was often contracted by insurance companies to confirm claims and complete damage evaluations such as the one he had conducted at the “Robare Estate,” as he liked to call it. He set to work filling out the insurance inspection checklist, then emailed the report along with the photos he had taken of the remnants of the house, as attachments to his investigative summary. This included the results of the interview he had with the Chief of the Peru Fire Department. There was a notation at the end of his report, “Complete summary pending police investigation.”
“Don’t think Mr. Robare’s going to be very happy with my report, but as they say, ‘if you want to fuck with a bull, you gotta watch out for those horns,’” Marc said to the computer as it swallowed his report.
The lilting tune of Dave Brubeck’s ‘Take Five,’ brought Marc out of his reverie. He looked at his cell phone’s screen. It was a call from his office mate, Norm Prendergast. Marc and Norm had worked together when they were state troopers assigned to the Plattsburgh State Police Station. When Marc retired, he opened a private detective office in downtown Plattsburgh located over a former Chinese restaurant. A few months later, Norm also retired and approached Marc with an offer to share the space with him. Norm was opening a process-serving business, delivering subpoenas and court orders for area attorneys. The two businesses did not compete and, in fact, complimented one another. Norm knew where most of the area’s low-lifes lived, and Marc knew how to deal with them.
“Norm, what’s up?”
“You plan on venturing to the office sometime today?”
“Why? Your Drunkin’ Donut supply running low?” Marc asked, the corner of his mouth raised slightly.
“Donuts? Sounds good, but no, no more donuts.”
“What? Lost your taste for powdered sugar gut bombs pumped full of yummy, heart-stopping cream and jelly?”
Norm grumbled, “No, I haven’t lost my taste for them. It was stolen.”
“Stolen? Who stole your taste for… Oh, you got the results of your last physical exam, didn’t you?”
“Fuck you. If you want to repay me for getting you that Libyan consulate license plate data, drop by the health food store and pick up a handful of fig bars or a box of organic graham crackers. On second thought, pick up a box of each.”
Marc was momentarily astonished, but couldn’t say he didn’t see it coming. Norm had been a regular garbage disposal when it came to his eating habits.
“Well, if a couple boxes of health food snacks will satisfy what I owe you, I guess I could make the effort. I just returned from looking at that house fire in Peru.”
“Robare’s place? Read about that in the papers. I trust you enjoyed yourself. Did you stay f
or cocktails and canapés?”
“Naw. He lost his best grape jelly glasses in the fire. Besides, it cost me a good shirt, but it looks like it will cost Robare a lot more, especially while the insurance company is holding off payments pending the results of an arson investigation.”
“Arson investigation? So, Robare torched his own place?”
“It’s looking that way. He didn’t appreciate the yellow ‘Crime Scene’ tape decorating his former abode. It appears the dumb fuck figured any arson evidence would be hidden beneath the water that filled his basement, which probably explained why he was acting so antsy when the troopers called the fire department to pump out the cellar.”
“What do you think they’ll find?”
“I told Golden about a nick in the fuel line and a flare cap I found bobbing amongst the rest of the shit in his cellar.”
“So, you think he did it?”
“Probably, it’s looking that way. It’ll be real interesting if the lab can lift a fingerprint off that fuel cap. In any event, it looks like he can forget about living off the insurance company for the near future.”
Later that afternoon, Marc dropped Norm’s care package of fig bars and graham crackers off at the office, then made the short drive to Shirley’s Flower Shop. The delivery van was parked at the end of the drive which meant she was inside. The bell over the door tinkled as he entered. Both Shirley, his ex, and his daughter, Ann Marie, were busy arranging flowers. The area around the design table appeared to be full of finished arrangements.
“Hey Dad. Just in time. How’d you like to make a flower delivery?” Ann Marie asked.
“Hello to you, too,” Marc answered. “And no, I don’t do flower deliveries.”
“I know, just kidding. These all go to the funeral parlor. There’s a showing in about an hour and a half and we still have a few more to do.”
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