Shattered Shell

by Brendan DuBois

  A long, shuddering breath. "One of my uncles was on the Porter police force, and maybe that's why I always wanted to be a cop. Uncle Ray was a good guy, but even he couldn't be around all the time. So one night, at some family get-together, I went to his gun collection and took one of his .38 revolvers. A week later, when the news from the shipyard was bad, ol’ Dad started hitting the sauce, and then he started hitting Mom. And when Mom was in the bathroom and he was in the living room opening up another cold one, his oldest and dearest daughter came in and surprised him. Oldest daughter put the barrel of that .38 into her father's mouth and cocked the hammer and said that if he ever touched Mom or her sisters ever again, she would blow the back of his fucking head out."

  She looked bleak, her eyes pale. "Oldest daughter was sixteen at the time. The beatings stopped right there and never started again, and oldest daughter learned a very important lesson that night: When it comes to protecting loved ones, you can only count on yourself. No one else will do it. No one."

  "Diane ---" I began, and she cut me off quick.

  "Forget it, Lewis," she said, her tone sharp. "That's what I learned and that's what I should have remembered. I shouldn't have asked you to do anything."

  "Diane, look, let me talk to Kara again and ---"

  No!" She turned fully in the seat. "You're not talking to her again, not today, not ever. You just don't get it, do you? God, I hate to sound like a man-hating shrew, another goddamn stereotype, but you just don't get it. You assume the woman's lying or making things up. Damn it, for everything you said, there's another explanation. You ever wonder how well that landlord keeps his spare keys? You ever think that maybe Kara was so terrified of what was going on, she kept her eyes closed through the whole thing? And that instead of acting coolly and logically after being raped, she panicked and washed everything? You ever think that your typical sex offender might not be a burglar at heart? Ever think that maybe the rapist brought someone along, someone to stand outside and keep an eye on things, and that Kara might not have seen or heard him? Jesus H. Christ, I thought you knew something about finding things out, you with the big spook background, but you came up with squat. Not a useful goddamn thing."

  "Look --- " and another interruption.

  "No, you look," she said, her jaw set, her scar still an angry white. "Forget I even asked you to do a thing, all right? Just drop it and go back to your safe house and your books and your telescope and just leave me and Kara alone. You just keep on blaming the victim and playing your idiot games, but don't you dare talk to Kara and don't you dare cross me. Understood?"

  Before I could say a word she was out the door, tears streaming down her face, and she turned and tossed the empty coffee cup at me. Cold wind blew through the interior and she slammed the door. By the time I got out she was in her own car, speeding out of the lot. I stood there for just a moment in the cold and empty lot, and then got back behind the wheel and folded my hands in my lap, for they were shaking so.

  Later I called Felix, and he was to the point: "Are you calling me from jail?"

  "No."

  "The Exonia Hospital?"

  "No, I'm at home, Felix," and I wondered if he could tell how tired I was.

  He said, "Well, it couldn't have been that bad. You're not wounded and you're not in jail."

  I recalled the fury in her face. "No, it was pretty bad. I told her about the discrepancies we learned, and she had an explanation for each problem. She also said that as men we, quote, didn't get it, unquote. She didn't take it well, and she basically told me to stay away from her and Kara."

  "For a while, or forever?"

  "I'm not sure," I said, realizing that Felix had asked an important question. "I really don't know what she meant."

  "And what are you going to do about it?"

  "Short-term, I'm going to take a shower and open a beer. Long-term, I don't know. I'll probably give her a call in a few days or so, give her a chance to calm down some."

  "Do you think she has a point?" Felix asked. "About the discrepancies we learned about Kara's story. Is Diane right?"

  I took a breath. "I want to believe her, I really do, but there's something wrong about this whole mess. I just wish we knew more, but now, damn it, I don't know."

  “What do you mean by that? You intend to give up on this?" "

  “If Diane has her way, I think she'd want that very much."

  "I know what she wants you to do. The question is, is that what you want to do?"

  Outside it was growing darker, the ocean free of any lights, save for the steady glow from the Isles of Shoals. "That's a question for later," I said. "Right now I'm tired and want to take that shower, read the Sunday papers and have a beer."

  "Well, football is on if you're interested," Felix said. "Come on over."

  "Who's playing?"

  "What difference does it make?" he said, laughing, and I thanked him for his offer and declined graciously and hung up the phone.

  An hour later I was back on the couch, tingly and warm after a shower, wearing a terrycloth robe. I made some popcorn and, with a bottle of Molson Golden Ale, I was working my way through the Sunday Globe when the phone rang.

  I almost spilled the beer, reaching across for the phone.

  Might be Diane.

  "Hello?"

  No Diane, but I wasn't disappointed. "Lewis. It's Paula. How's it going?"

  "Oh, it's going. And with you?"

  There was something in her voice. "Well, I think I might have something."

  “Something... oh, something about the hotel arsons?"

  "Yep," and she giggled, an expression that still made me smile. “And so sorry, it didn't come from anything you provided me."

  I sat up, putting down the Molson bottle. "So where did it come from?"

  Another bit of laughter. "From my bottom desk drawer at work. Look, let's get together to go over this, all right? How about dinner at my place tomorrow night?"

  How about that? I thought. "That sounds fine. Six?"

  "Six it is," she said, and then, "Lewis?"

  "Yes?"

  "Thanks anyway for the info you gave me last week. It got me thinking, and that's what counts, and that's what paid off. You'll see."

  "All right." After she hung up I went back to my paper, finally smiling after such a long day.

  Chapter Twelve

  After helping Paula Quinn wash the dinner dishes, coffee cups in hand we went into the living room of her second-floor apartment on High Street in Tyler. She lives near the beach, and within easy walking distance are a half-dozen motels and condos. It was a cold night, and Paula's apartment was chilly. The heating system for the building was creaking and groaning, and Paula confessed to me that her first winter here, she slept with socks, long underwear, and a hat, and I told her to stop talking dirty and she laughed and punched me. The living room had a boarded-up fireplace on the far wall, and the usual bookshelves, used furniture, and piles of newspapers. The eastern windows had a good view of the beach and a few motels. On the wall were some framed poster art and a metal front-page plate from the Tylcr Chronicle, an issue that had been published two years back. It was one of Paula's proudest accomplishments: Due to the breaking news in Tyler and the sickness of another reporter, she had written all of the six stories on the front page.

  "Not a bad record, eh?" she had told me once in an earlier

  "Pretty impressive," I had said, peering at the plate, which wasd used to print the actual newspaper page. "But why do two of the stories have no bylines?"

  Her mouth had become a thin line. "My editor Rollie took my name off. Thought it would make the paper look silly, to have one person responsible for all the day's stories. So much for pride in your staff."

  Tonight we sat on a couch that was covered with a red and black-checked blanket, and she opened up a thick manila folder that was filled with documents, newspaper clippings, and photocopied legal pages. She started going through the piles of paper, balancing them on
her lap. She had on jeans and a shapeless dark green wool sweater, and I tried to stay warm with pleasant thoughts of what she looked like in summer, when she usually wore shorts and a comfortable top.

  "Here we go," she said. "Rocks Road Motel. The Seaview, The Tyler Tower Motel. The Snug Harbor Inn. Four motels burned down the last four weeks. According to everything you and I and Mike Ahern and even Diane Woods have checked out so far, there's no connection, right? They weren't owned by the same company, the owners were all in good financial shape, and the owners had no real enemies. So. Just random arsons. Nothing you could connect. But something bugged me about these buildings."

  "Like what?"

  She shrugged, a triumphant smile on her face. "That's what drove me crazy. I just had the feeling that I had seen those names before. I dug through the clip files and morgue at work, and there was nothing, But I had this funny little memory of seeing at least two of the names on a piece of paper, and I kept on rooting around my desk."

  I looked around the cluttered apartment. "If it's anything like this place, I'm sure it took a while."

  She kicked me, but her pretty smile was still there. "Beast. It took some time, but I found it. Care to guess where?"

  I thought for a moment and looked at the pile of papers and said, "Town board of some kind. Zoning board?"

  Her face fell. "How did you guess?"

  I motioned to the pile of papers. "Looks like some town documents are there, that's why. Photocopies of meeting minutes. You go to so many selectmen's meetings, I didn't think it would be something that would come up there. Your memory is too good. So that doesn't leave too many choices. Which is why I guessed zoning board."

  "You guessed wrong," she said, her voice flat.

  "Oh?"

  She then wiggled her nose. "Bastard. It was the planning board. That's where."

  All of these places were mentioned at planning board meeting."

  Paula nodded, passed over a thick pile of paper. "Here's your copy of the meeting minutes for the past six months. I try to be the best reporter I can, but it's impossible to make every board meeting each week. So Dawn Duncan, she's the recording secretary, she drops off a set of minutes a day or two after each meeting. I ran through them, see if there's anything worth writing a story about. It's a great time-saver."

  I weighed the papers in my hand. "So what's with our destroyed hotels?"

  "They all came before the board at one time or another the past few months, looking to get plans approved for construction work of some kind. An addition. A new restaurant. And the Tyler Tower Motel, the owner wanted to convert to condos."

  A faint little tingling started at the base of my skull, a feeling that was quite familiar to me from my times at the Department of Defense, when you spent months working on a problem, "walking the dog backward" as it was called, and then had something fall in your lap that was a big, beautiful key to the whole mess.

  "You did well."

  Her face blushed, but her smile grew wider. "It was just dumb luck, that's all."

  "No," I said. "You remembered. You had a voice telling you something and you didn't give up, and you dug and found out. Good for you. Your editor underestimates you."

  She shrugged, "All men seem to do that. And don't you forget it."

  "Have you started doing something with this?"

  "That I have," she said. "Look, it's too much of a coincidence to have all four of those places burn down, and then to see that they were mentioned in the planning board. There's got to be a connection. A bank, a mortgage company, an architect firm, a law firm. Hell, even the members of the planning board."

  She added firmly, "And I intend to find it. And I intend to break that story and scoop everybody and everything in Wentworth County."

  Remembering a promise I had made earlier, I asked, "Agree to something first?"

  "Like what?"

  "Like going to Mike Ahern, the fire inspector, the day before you go to press?"

  She looked at me quizzically. "Why in the hell do you want to do that for?"

  "Because I promised him I would, if I found out any good leads on the arsonist."

  Paula's face colored and she said, "Just because you made a promise to the fire inspector, I have to jump through hoops, too? I don't remember signing on to any particular promise, Lewis. I got a problem with that, a real problem."

  "I don't mean that ---"

  "Look," she interrupted, "I don't mean to sound like a First Amendment queen, but I don't get that many good stories here in the wintertime. This place is dead, and if I get a chance to blow this story open, I don't intend to play footsie with the local public safety officials. It's my story, not theirs."

  I was going to jump in and then I looked at her, and the color of her face, and I said, "You have a run-in with Mike Ahern since we last saw him?"

  She opened her mouth as if to argue with me, and then closed it and nodded.

  "Yeah. A couple of days ago. I made the mistake of phoning him at home. Ouch."

  "Was it late?"

  "I didn't think it was late. It was just before nine o'clock, and I was trying to get a jump on the next day's story, see if anything had come back from the state crime lab."

  "And what happened?"

  "Well, I think he was drunk, or maybe just in a pissy mood," she said. “I’ve always thought anyone who gets paid by tax dollars should be open to answering questions at reasonable hours, and I didn't think I was that unreasonable. I said sorry for calling so late, and then I asked my questions, and then he just nailed me with one of his own."

  "Which was what?"

  She smiled, but her face was flushed --- from the memory, I 'suppose. "He asked me again to ID myself. Which I did. Then he asked me what time it was. Which I told him. And then he said something to the effect, that, quote, I was at work until six p.m., and my responsibility to you, the Tyler Chronicle, and every other nosy asshole was finished at six-oh-one p.m., unquote. Then he hung up."

  "Well," I said. "And what did you do next?"

  She shrugged. "I waited until nine the next morning, asked him the same question, he gave me a reasonable answer, and things were fine. But it struck me strange. The man just lost it."

  "I guess he did."

  "Well, he did, but he didn't. It was odd. His voice wasn't raised, his words weren't slurred like he was drunk It was just... it was just like he was being himself."

  "Like when he's at work as a fire inspector, he's not himself?" She rubbed her arms and said, "I know it sounds weird, but that' s exactly it. During the day, I was dealing with the daytime Mike Ahern. After hours, I was dealing with the nighttime Mike Ahern. Like he was a freaking vampire or something."

  I slowly moved my fingers across the pile of papers she had just handed over. "So. Let me rephrase the question. If you manage to find out something about who just might be behind these fires, would you mind going to the fire inspector --- in the daytime --- and our local police detective, and tell them what's going on?"

  Paula moved her legs up under herself. "Oh, just so that it's one minute before the Chronicle goes to press. I don't want to give the Porter or Dover papers any favors."

  "Absolutely. The only favor I'm looking for is putting one very bad person away for a long time, before he burns down half the town."

  “Fine. Any other questions?"

  “Yeah," I said. "You moved the bathroom lately, or is it still in the same place?"

  "Same place," she said, and then an exaggerated wink "And so's the bedroom."

  "Hah," I said, and a warm feeling settled nicely into my chest, and lasted until I went past her bedroom. Just inside by the wall was a bureau, complete with large mirror. A picture was in the side of the mirror, and I stepped into the bedroom for a moment and touched it. The photograph showed Paula. Her smile was wide and even, and her eyes were crinkling in that festive mood I've seen many times. Her ears were sticking through her blond hair-a physical trait that she hates, but that I find adorable-a
nd she was wearing a black cocktail party type of dress. I had never seen that dress before. Around her delicate neck was a string of pearls. Paula looked like a knockout, and I wish I was able to tell her that.

  She wasn't alone in the photo. Standing beside her, an arm flung around the bare skin of her shoulder, was Jerry Croteau, her photographer friend. He wore a suit and tie and his beard was bushy and his eyes were quite bright. I gently traced the outline of her face on the photo and then went to the bathroom. Later I washed my hands and looked at myself in the mirror and grimaced. Choices. For a brief moment, months ago, Paula and I had been together and had shared some wonderful times. Then we made choices. I made a choice to draw back, and so did she, and now she had made another one, with another man. So what is to be done?

  "Time to head out," I murmured aloud, and I went back out to the living room.

  Paula was on the couch and as I went to her, there was something in the air.

  "Is your oil furnace acting up again?" I asked, taking a sniff. "Mmm? she asked, flipping through a copy of that week's Time. "What's up?"

  "Oh, I don't know," I said. "I thought I smelled something. Is the stove still on?"

  "Damn, I think you're right," she said, getting off the couch. “I’Il be right back."

  She went out to the kitchen and just as quickly came back.

  “Everything’s off. You know, I'm smelling something, too. Let me I hock the hallway. Mrs. Wilson from downstairs, sometimes she has the habit of burning her evening meal."

  Something was tingling along my legs. I couldn't stay still. I went to the windows as Paula went out. The smell was stronger. I looked out at the winter landscape, saw the streetlights and the dark stretch of ocean, and the houses, and the motels ---

  Paula came back and I said, "Quick. The name of the motel, next door here."

  "The what?"

  "Paula, damn it, the name of the motel right here. What is it?"

  She clasped her hands in front of her. "The Crescent House. Why?"

  I moved over to her, racing for my coat. "Call the fire department," I said, fiercely proud that my voice was calm and not shaking. "The Crescent House is on fire."