Sweet After Death

by Valentina Giambanco

  “I can’t,” the man on the chair said.

  “Because of what they’ll do to you if you tell me?”

  He nodded.

  “What about what I’m gonna do to you now? Isn’t there kind of some urgency to your situation right here and now?”

  “I’m afraid of you too,” he said, and to hear the other man laugh was a good thing. It pleased him, as if they were talking man-to-man. Then he felt the point of the knife in the soft spot between the collarbones and he stiffened.

  “I appreciate your dilemma,” the man continued. “But I really think you should look at it from my point of view. I’ve invested a certain amount of time in this business and I need information that you can provide. If you don’t, if you decide that their threat to you is more of a problem than you being alone at sea with a man with a knife against your throat, well, that kind of makes me feel bad. Do you want me to feel bad?”

  “I have a family,” the man said.

  Somewhere behind him someone scratched a match, and a second later the man smelled the cigarette smoke.

  “We all have families. We all have jobs to do,” the man in front of him said. He didn’t sound amused anymore. There was something tinny in his voice that scared the man on the chair more than anything else.

  It wasn’t a question of loyalty—he was only a paid employee. However, he had a brother who sparred in a gym and did well in the ring. And the man knew that if he talked there would be people who would meet his brother in the alley behind the gym and break all the bones in his hands. And his children, what would they do to his wife and his children?

  It happened more quickly than he could ever have imagined: the man’s hand pinning his on the arm of the chair, and the metal blade against his skin. He left after that and, sure, his body was still on the boat—and would be for many hours—but he traveled through place and time, and even spoke to his father on the pier that day when he was eight. He spoke to the man who was asking him questions too—he couldn’t help it, he couldn’t help anything—and in the end he commended his soul and his family to God.

  By the time they got back into the harbor the boat had been washed clean and they had put his body in a bag.

  It would be left in the trunk of a car and found two days later.

  Chapter 44

  Madison had been reading the same page of notes for ten minutes. Her thoughts kept getting tangled in this or that detail and every possible permutation of the case led to more questions and impossible solutions.

  If Edwards had been the primary target all along—whatever the motive—then the killer might very well be a professional engaged for the simple job of putting four bullets into the man’s heart. The target would have been identified and the rate between parties agreed—a straightforward transaction for all involved.

  Then again, if the killer had been in town for a while, assessing the situation and learning about the locals, it meant a much deeper engagement with the project: it was extremely rare for a hit to come into being over a number of months, and those kinds of circumstances usually had to do with organized crime and drug cartels. This was Ludlow, a town that didn’t need more than two police cruisers at the height of the summer season.

  Ty Edwards was the wrong kind of victim for that kind of crime: the farthest he’d ever traveled was Seattle, and all he had ever done was work hard in his store and look after his family. He was definitely the wrong kind of victim; and yet, at this point in the investigation, to consider the killing the random act of a lunatic was out of the question.

  Madison went over her notes from the previous day and her conversation with Dr. Lynch.

  What had Sorensen said to the chief? How many people in Ludlow have only one kidney? It’s a pretty good identifying characteristic, and not one that’s immediately visible.

  “Sarge,” she said.

  Brown looked up from his own troubled speculations.

  “Let’s forget about Edwards for a minute,” she said.

  “He’s the victim,” Brown said.

  “I know, just . . . let’s forget about him for a minute. Let’s just look at the killings without looking at the victims.”

  “Okay.”

  “We have one man killed to obtain information and all evidence destroyed by arson, and another man killed from a distance, in public and to make a point. Four in the chest. Quick and clean.”

  “I’d love to know where this is heading.”

  “Here it is . . . if we weren’t in Colville County—if we were, say, in New York or Chicago or LA—what would you say we were looking at?”

  Brown took off his glasses. He had shaved that morning but he looked drawn and, without glasses, oddly exposed. “Looks like an execution,” he said.

  Madison held his eyes. “Yes, it does, doesn’t it? But sometimes killers get it wrong,” she said, and she reached for her cell.

  “What . . . ?”

  Madison dialed a number. “Dr. Lynch,” she said into the cell, “I know you’re at home, but I need to ask you a question about your patients and, if you can’t answer, I’ll need you to go into the clinic and check on your server.”

  Dr. Lynch was clearly objecting, but Madison interrupted him.

  “I know, sir, I do. But unless you want to keep calling the Sherman Falls ME to come pick up more dead bodies, I need you to be a little flexible. You can judge the question and make up your mind about it. Okay? Okay.” Madison reached for the burglaries file. “I’m going to read you a list of names and I’d like you to tell me whether any of these men have only one kidney. Yes, sir, that’s right. Just like Mr. Edwards.”

  The list was short, and Madison wasn’t sure whether she should hope that she was right or hope that she was wrong.

  “Chris DeVetta, John Griffin, Howard Wilson, Andrew Howell—”

  The doctor gave her his answer.

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  Madison hung up and turned to Brown.

  “Who the heck is Andrew Howell?” she said.

  Polly had just entered the room with a plate of home-baked cookies. “He’s my husband,” she said.

  Madison looked at the list. “The residence of Andrew and Polly Howell was broken into last summer. That was your home?”

  “Polly,” Brown said, “have a seat for a moment.”

  “Is it about the break-in? Because they caught the men who did it—”

  “No, it’s about something else,” he said.

  Through the glass partition in his office Chief Sangster saw Polly being led to a chair. He finished his call and joined them.

  “Polly,” Madison said when the woman was settled at the table with them, “is Andrew from Ludlow?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  Madison wanted to go slow because she didn’t want to upset the kindly soul who had taken such good care of them. And yet she needed to press on. “Bear with me,” she said, “and we’ll explain in a minute. Was Andrew born here?”

  “No, he’s from Gloucester, Massachusetts.”

  “When did he move to Ludlow?”

  “He was a young man. Maybe thirty years old or so.”

  “Why did he move from Massachusetts to Washington State?”

  “He wanted a change, he liked the mountains.”

  “Does he work in town?”

  “No, he’s retired. He’s worked ever since he got here at the county hall in Sherman Falls.”

  Madison’s mind was collating information, and a job in a county hall did not look good for Mr. Howell.

  “Have you met his family back home?” Brown said.

  “No,” the woman replied. “He lost his parents when he was a boy and had no brothers or sisters.”

  “No family at all?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever been back to visit? To see the places where he grew up?”

  “No, he wasn’t happy there, has never wanted to go back, and it’s a shame because—”

  “Any friends from back hom
e—phone calls or letters, maybe?”

  “No,” Polly replied. “But if you want to know more about all that, you should talk to him—or even to Lee. Andrew and Lee arrived in Ludlow together, they’re both from Gloucester. They split up after a couple of years, and then Andrew and I started dating.”

  “Lee? As in Lee Edwards? Your husband Andrew moved to Ludlow thirty years ago with Lee Edwards?”

  “Well, she wasn’t Lee Edwards then.”

  You bet she wasn’t, Madison thought to herself. She met Brown’s eyes and read the same conclusion she had reached.

  “We need to talk to Andrew,” Brown said. “Right now.”

  “But why? Is he in danger?” Polly turned from one to the other.

  “He might be,” Madison said. “Please call him now. Where is he?”

  “He should be at home . . .” The woman was getting flustered. She stood to go to the phone and almost bumped into the chief.

  “What’s going on?” he said when she was out of earshot.

  “Andrew lost his kidney because of a childhood illness. It would have been in his file.”

  “So what?”

  “There is a very reasonable possibility that Andrew Howell has been in WITSEC for the last thirty years,” Madison said.

  “WITSEC?”

  “The Federal Witness Protection Program,” Brown said. “And it looks like someone found out he’s here.”

  “Polly’s Andrew?” he said. “Polly’s Andrew is in the Witness Protection Program?”

  “No family or friends back home, not even a postcard,” Madison said. “Didn’t keep in touch and has never been back. Has worked a job in a government office all his life. What do you want to bet that no one in Gloucester, Massachusetts, has ever heard of Andrew Howell?”

  “We need to talk to Lee Edwards,” Brown said.

  “The shooter could have hit both,” Madison said. “Lee was right there. And if she arrived here with Andrew, she must be in the program too.”

  “I guess he wasn’t paid to shoot her,” Brown said.

  “He’s not picking up.” Polly’s cheeks were flushed and her voice shook. “I’ve tried the home number and I’ve tried his cell, and he’s not picking up.”

  “Where’s your house?” Madison said.

  Polly and Andrew Howell’s home was only a few minutes away by car, beyond the stone bridge over the Bow River. The snowplows had done what they could, but the chief’s cruiser had to creep forward part of the way, negotiating snowdrift and black ice.

  Madison called Sorensen from the car and briefed her quickly.

  “Do you need me with you?” Sorensen said.

  “No, you’d better stay where you are. And make sure the door’s locked and the blinds are drawn. Are you wearing your vest?”

  Sorensen looked at the ballistic vest hanging on the peg next to her coat. “Yes,” she said.

  They smelled it before they saw it: acrid and pungent foulness. When the cruiser rounded a bend in the road they saw the house on fire, and Polly shrieked.

  The home the Howells had lived in all their married life was a pretty wood-and-brick three-story building with a sloping roof and a small front yard. Their mailbox was the same slate blue as the house—and sometimes, on sunny days, the same blue as the sky. That day the sun was not shining, and flames were consuming the ground floor. They licked at the windows and moved through the house, they rushed up the stairs and were just beginning their eager work on the second floor. The warm glow from inside was like a candle inside a toy lantern.

  For a moment everyone was too stunned to react. Then the ground floor windows blew out, and everything happened at the same time: Sangster swearing and calling the fire department, the neighbors pouring out into the street, Brown and Madison hurrying forward, and Polly screaming her husband’s name, running and almost losing her balance.

  Madison eyed the front door, but fire was already eating it up by the time she ran up the path. Brown grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her back. The heat was fierce; it was a solid wall around the house and it was beating them back, step by step.

  Was Andrew inside?

  Of course Andrew’s inside, Madison thought, we know the killer loves fire, he’s used it before.

  “We have to find another way in,” Brown said.

  The fire engine was already on its way. One of the neighbors had called just before the chief, and—one small blessing—the fire station was on their side of town.

  “Back door,” Madison said.

  The fire had its own voice, and it hollered and screamed over their voices. There were crashes coming from inside and every window on the ground floor was lit with it.

  Brown and Madison reached the back of the house where the flames were worse than in the front. However the man had started the fire—and not for a second did Madison believe that this was not arson—he had done a heck of a good job.

  They circled the building, but there was no possible way in that Madison could see. She was so intent on finding a potential entry point that only when she turned to the street did she notice the people who had already gathered there and hear the siren of the fire department in the distance. Some locals she recognized from the vigil, others from the diner. Two women were looking after Polly, who could barely stand.

  Fire is the ultimate killer: it takes everything, it eats everything. A thick, black plume of smoke reached upward into the white sky, while on the ground near the building the snow was already melting.

  “Can we go in through the cellar?” Madison said to the chief.

  The Howells’ basement had long, narrow, horizontal windows. Were they too narrow for an adult to crawl through? There was no fire there yet; the beast was moving upward and the panes were still intact.

  Madison did not look at the street. She was vaguely aware of the crowd, and of voices and people moving behind her, until a single thought skewered her where she was. She turned to Brown and said, “He could be here. He could be in the crowd.”

  The fire engine had arrived, honking and braking almost into a skid as close as possible to the hydrant: two men in full gear were in the truck and others—the volunteers, Madison guessed—were running forward to grab their equipment and suit up.

  That would be just perfect. That would be peachy. Light a fire and then put it out.

  He could have been one of the volunteers.

  “Watch your back,” Brown said.

  Someone yelled at their side, and Madison saw that it was Hockley.

  “I see him!” The deputy was pointing at a basement window. “I see him!”

  They rushed and bent low—to avoid the heat from the ground-floor windows—and peered through the glass: a body lay facedown on the concrete floor. The room was dim but it was clearly a body.

  “Is it Andrew?” Madison asked Hockley.

  “Looks like him.”

  “Break the glass! We break the glass and drag him out.” Was it Hockley or Kupitz? Madison couldn’t be sure.

  But one thing she did know: no one was going to be able to get in through those windows. They were set into the brick foundation of the building, which was solid and still cool to the touch in spite of the flames a few feet above it. Madison studied the room: the fire had not broken in yet, but there would be smoke—and smoke kills just as well as fire does.

  The fire chief pushed through the crush while his men hooked up the hose and hollered to the crowd to stand back.

  “We don’t have much time,” he yelled. “The floor could give up any moment and collapse into the cellar. You should stand back.”

  “Andrew Howell’s in there,” Sangster said. “We need to get him out.”

  “We’ve got clubs and brick hammers,” he replied. “But anything that’s going to take more than a few minutes is going to take too long.”

  Hockley stepped forward. “We could use my truck,” he said.

  “It will take too long to pull—” Sangster started, but Hockley cut in.

/>   “Not to pull. To crash in. I could crash into the window,” he said. “Like the Davis boys last summer, remember?”

  It took a moment for Sangster to react. “Hock, this is not—”

  “I can do it, Chief. Andrew is far enough away, but I need to do it now.”

  Sangster hesitated. If they’d sat down and examined the situation and listed exactly all of the problems that that particular course of action would present, everybody would have agreed that it was nuts and they were idiots to even think about it.

  “Boss?” Hockley said, and Sangster nodded.

  “I can’t guarantee . . . ,” the fire chief started to say.

  But Hockley was already sprinting to the pavement and digging for his keys in his pocket. He passed under the arc of water that was shooting up into the air and climbed into the truck.

  Sorensen had heard the fire department siren and yet she had not allowed herself to be sidetracked from the work at hand. After Madison’s call she had made sure that the door of the senior center was locked and the blinds were drawn. She had slipped on her ballistic vest and tightened the straps so that it would sit snug around her shoulders and chest, and then she had returned to her instruments. Because that was how she fought the fight.

  The fiber came from the carpet of a car, and Sorensen was going to identify precisely what car—even if, compared with her resources in Seattle, she was working with one arm tied behind her back.

  The heavy knock on the door startled her, and she looked up from her laptop.

  Chapter 45

  Hockley buckled his seat belt and pulled it hard. All around him he could see scared, disbelieving faces. Darn it, he was scared and disbelieving, but there wasn’t much else that they could do.

  Keep it slow and measured and straight on, he told himself, and aim for the window farthest away from Andrew.

  Hockley revved the engine and mounted the pavement, turning into the blazing house. His knuckles were white and his mouth set as he drove over the patchy winter lawn and the ornamental aisle—aware and sorry that he was driving over Polly’s flowers.

  Keep it slow, measured, and straight on. Fifteen miles per hour should give it just about enough of a knock.