“Your nephew.”
He looked to the right of my face. “Yeah, for Christmas. He’s four.”
“What did you get him?”
I wasn’t in uniform. He didn’t have to answer my questions. He reached into the bag and pulled up a rectangular box. On the box was a Lego plane and a tiny pilot.
“Come on,” I said.
“Where?”
“To the police station.”
“I don’t want to. I’ve got to go home and feed my fish,” he said.
“Later.” I hoped he wouldn’t run. He was big. It would take work to subdue him, and my utility belt was at home. There were spare cuffs in the back of the station wagon, several hundred yards away.
“The sooner you cooperate, the sooner you can get home and feed the fish.”
The fight went out of him like air out of a balloon. “They have to be fed by two o’clock,” he said.
I glanced at my watch. 12:00 p.m.
I held the toy-store bag in one hand and Mr. Trabucco’s meaty upper arm with my other. “Fight at the toy store?” Klein asked as we marched past.
“No,” I said.
He called, “It’ll happen. Does every year around this time. Wait and see.”
I hustled Trabucco back to the interview room. Settled him into a chair.
“What’s this?” Finnegan asked, when I got to his desk. “I haven’t tracked him down, so you go looking on your day off?” He wasn’t as territorial as Wright, but Trabucco was his lead.
“Saw him coming out of Treasure Chest with this.” I showed him the Lego kit.
He eyed the box as if it might explode. “Didn’t Cody say he had the truck kit?”
“Maybe he’s upgraded to planes. I figured it was enough to bring him in.”
“Yeah.” He stuck a pen in his mouth. Spoke around it. “If he took Cody, he drove him south, then returned home where you saw him, and later got him, drove north, and dumped him at the Canton parking lot.”
“Maybe he left him somewhere? A motel room? Cody was drugged. Maybe he slept while Trabucco came home and played with his pets.” I chewed on the idea. Spat it out. “Scratch that. His car had snow on it. He hadn’t driven it that far.”
“Besides, his car is blue,” Finnegan said. “Maybe he borrowed one? Rented one?”
“Stole one?” I suggested.
“What did he claim the Legos were for?” he asked.
“His nephew, George.”
“He’s got an older sister. She’s got a son. So . . .”
“So he might’ve been buying a goddamn Christmas present.” It had looked so good, when I first saw him with the Legos. Damn it.
“Or not. It’s a good cover,” he said.
Wright showed up with two cups of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. I wondered what bet he’d lost. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Dropping off Andrew Trabucco. I saw him with this.” I pointed to the Lego box.
Finnegan told Wright our worries: the driving, the wrong car, and the nephew.
Wright said, “Doesn’t mean he didn’t do it. Why don’t we show Cody his pic?”
“We’re banned from interviewing him while he’s in the hospital,” Finnegan said.
“Since when do we take orders from the mayor?” Wright asked. “We can call the Forrands. Tell them we think we’ve got the guy, and ask to show Cody some pictures. They won’t object. It’s a chance to put the guy behind bars.”
I wasn’t as confident. “If he lied about the Legos, you can call the Forrands.”
“Who’s gonna talk to our friend?” Wright pointed to the interview room.
“Finnegan,” I said. “It’s his guy.”
Finnegan spat out the pen he’d chewed. “Great. Chatting with a pedophile. My idea of a nice, relaxing Sunday.”
“Better make it quick,” I said. “He’s got to be home by two to feed his fish.”
Forty minutes later, Finnegan walked into my office. “You weren’t kidding about the fish. Every five seconds it’s ‘I need to go home and feed my fish.’ They’re fish, for fuck’s sake.”
“So, is he our guy?” I asked.
“He says he went out twice the day of the storm. Once to work, which we know about, and then to the pet store. Should be easy to check. Can’t have been a lot of shoppers that day. I asked about the Legos. He said it’s what his sister told him to buy.”
“You ask about Cody?”
“No. I was waiting to see if he’d fall into it. So far . . .” he shrugged. “I’ll have Wright check the sister and pet store.”
“Sounds good.”
He whistled a carol as he walked away, hands in his pockets.
After he left, I uncovered the rosters I’d been studying. Yankowitz was off the list. He’d been at dog training the day of the Playgirl incident. Three down. Ten to go. Assuming it was a cop. Maybe whoever trashed Sweet Dreams had gotten the balls to tag a cop car, or maybe one of my pranksters had graduated beyond nuisance calls.
Annoyed, I decided to work on the world’s stupidest assignment, the holiday events work details. Mrs. Dunsmore was out sick. There was the caroling and the lighting of Main Street, and the Winter Festival with its sleigh rides. Some days I felt like I’d stepped into a goddamn Norman Rockwell painting. There was also the interfaith celebration. “Interfaith” in Idyll meant Protestant and Catholic. I checked and rechecked vacation schedules. Crossed out names. “Done!” I said.
“Figured out where they put Hoffa’s body, have you?” Wright asked from my door.
“What have you got?” I asked.
He loosened his already-loose tie. “Trabucco’s sister said she told him to buy the plane kit. He was at the pet store, like he said. Made an impression on the pair working the registers.”
I exhaled a slow hiss of breath. “It was too good to hope the local pedo would be our guy. I’ll get someone to take Mr. Trabucco to his car. Let Finnegan know.”
I left my office and scouted the station. “Hey, Dix. Got an errand for you.”
He squinted. “Yeah?”
“Finnegan’s bringing Mr. Trabucco out of interview. Take him to his car. It’s somewhere near Treasure Chest.”
A middle-aged man came by. “Excuse me? I’m here to talk to Officer Klein.”
Dix pointed. “Second desk.”
“Thank you.” The man nodded.
“Aw, Chief, isn’t that the pedophile? I don’t wanna drive him,” Dix said.
“Don’t worry, Dix. You’re not his type.”
The middle-aged man stood too close. I gave him a look, and he moved to Klein’s desk, where Klein typed a report.
Ten seconds later, Mr. Trabucco hurried past Finnegan. “I need to feed my fish! It’s a half hour past their feeding time!” Finnegan followed, rolling his eyes.
Dix said, “Come on, Mr. Trabucco, I’ll take you to your car.”
Finnegan watched Trabucco hustle away. “I wish he’d been our guy.”
“Delivery for you, Finny,” Billy said. He handed over an envelope.
Finnegan opened it. “Ah, the pictures from the break-in.”
“Can I see?” I asked.
He handed them over. The floor looked as though it was covered in crystals. Broken glass. I wouldn’t have recognized it if not for the candy scattered amongst the shards. Red licorice ropes and flattened chocolate discs. The words “YOU COCKSUCKER!” dripped in two-foot-tall green letters. The word you, as if addressing a specific person. Charles Gallagher? David Evans? “This feels angry. Personal. Not like a hate crime,” I said.
“Looks pretty hateful to me,” Finnegan said.
“Did they mention any recent problems? Grudges? Fights?” I asked.
“Said Mrs. Gerwitz gave him grief about a box of chocolates she complained was stale. I haven’t talked to Mr. Evans. He’s sick.”
“This is more than a stale-candy complaint.” The red spray-paint message, “Leave Before We Kill You.” Hasty and messy and ominous.
> “Before I grabbed Mr. Trabucco, I ran into Mr. Gallagher. He needs your report,” I said.
“Right, right. Been a bit busy,” he said.
“Could you get to it today? Now that Trabucco’s out of the picture?”
“You think the same people who did this tagged your car?”
“Can’t rule it out.”
“Why is Mr. Gallagher bugging you about this? Is it because you’re gay?”
“Pardon?”
“Seems like a raw deal for you. Someone tags your car, and now you’ve got Mr. Gallagher on your jock, wanting help. You sure it’s worth it?”
I let that sit. “Being gay?” I finally asked. Klein was nearby, eavesdropping, his visitor gone. I sighed. “You know, Finnegan, now that you mention it, I’m sold. Sign me up for hetero training. What’s first? Catcalling women on the street?”
He scratched his scalp. “Not bad, not bad. Look, if you follow up with the library witness, I’ll get the report done for Mr. Gallagher.”
“Thanks, Finny.”
He looked at my face, like I was a puzzle. “You know, you could just bust my chops. Tell me to fucking do it.”
“Suppose I could, but then I’d lose my trophy for Most Beloved Police Chief.”
He laughed so hard he coughed up half a lung. It wasn’t that funny. I returned to my office. The phone rang. I picked up. “Chief Lynch.”
“Chief.” Mayor Mike Mitchell said. “I’m calling about Sweet Dreams. How’s the investigation coming? We’ve gotten several calls about it from the press.”
“Really?” Cody’s kidnapping and return had dominated the local news, once everyone stopped losing their damn minds over that Hollywood couple’s breakup. “What’s so newsworthy?”
“Apparently they’ve heard about your car, and they’re drawing conclusions that Idyll isn’t a welcoming community. That’s balderdash, Chief.”
Was it? What about my prank calls?
He continued, “Now, look, your men are investigating both incidents. Taking them seriously, as they should. I don’t see any reason to talk to the press.”
“Right,” I said.
“I knew you’d see reason. I told Mr. Neilly you weren’t the sort to air dirty laundry.” I inhaled hard. He wanted to silence me? He heard it. Tried to backpedal. “Mr. Neilly and I were talking, saying what a fine job you did, getting the Forrand boy home.”
“That wasn’t down to me,” I said. “We haven’t found the guy who grabbed him.”
“You will. I have every confidence in you, Chief.” He was one step away from waving pom-poms and shouting my name through a megaphone. “If any reporters bother you, you can just send them my way.”
“Uh-huh. Bye now.” I hung up.
Keeping your mouth shut was a necessary skill for a small-town cop. You run into the same people you arrest, regularly. Thursday night you’re putting Mr. Lehigh in a cell to sleep it off, and Saturday morning you’re both at the gas station. You pretend nothing is different, that you haven’t smelled his vomit or seen him sob like a child. Now the mayor was warning me not to talk. He didn’t know me. If he had, he’d know the last thing I wanted was a reporter turning my life into a human-interest piece. So why did it burn under my collarbone? Why did I want to punch something? I didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to discuss the graffiti on my patrol car. I also didn’t want to be told not to talk. Life was just fucking hilarious that way.
CHAPTER TEN
I blinked against the dark and the cold. My limbs moved before my brain caught up. Before I thought to wonder, “Who’s calling so late?” I stumbled to the phone. “Lynch.”
“Chief. There’s a fire,” John Miller said, in his dispatch voice. He might’ve been reciting the date and temperature, given his calm.
“Fire? Where?”
“Andrew Trabucco’s house. It’s burning now.”
“He inside?”
“No. They got him out.”
“Too bad,” I said, my voice low.
“What’s that?”
“I said I’ll head over.”
I hung up the phone and rubbed my eyes. 2:42 a.m. I’d be warmer in street clothes. I grabbed my new gloves and old hat. Zipped my jacket up to my neck and stepped outside. The porch creaked. I shivered my way to the station wagon. Inside, I cranked the heat. It coughed cold air. Fuck. When could I get my patrol car back? Today was Sunday. No. Technically, it was Monday. Four more days.
The fire engine’s flashing lights were angry and bright. Two patrol cars were parked nearby. A small crowd, huddled in pajamas and winter gear, watched the firemen aim water at the smoldering house. One of the onlookers sat in a wheelchair, a blanket tucked up to his chin. Soot and water droplets fell from the sky.
The left half of the house was a mess. The front windows had burst. The roof had a hole punched in it. The firefighters aimed their hose at the roof. A smaller group doused bushes and trees near another house. Officer Wilson told a teenager to back up a few more feet. Why were people out? It was freezing.
I approached Wilson. He nodded when he saw me. “Word?” I asked.
“Trabucco got out. Some of his pets didn’t. He was having a goddamn meltdown when I got here.”
“Where is he?”
“The ambo. EMTs were worried he was gonna have a heart attack.”
“He won’t be coming back soon,” I heard someone say.
“Good riddance.”
I turned. Looked at the couple speaking. He wore half-specs and was in a tatty blue bathrobe. She wore a bright ski jacket over reindeer-print pajamas.
“What did you say?” I asked.
They took a sudden interest in their footwear. “Nothing,” she said.
“No. You said, ‘Good riddance.’ You said it about Mr. Trabucco. Why?”
She huffed a cloud of vapor at me. “We know he likes to touch little kids. He lives near us! We have a daughter.”
“She’s away at college,” her husband said.
“She wasn’t always!”
I didn’t point out that their daughter had been too old for Mr. Trabucco when he’d moved in, or that he preferred boys. I asked, “Who told you?”
“Mr. Ellington,” the man said.
“Joel!” His wife elbowed him.
He rubbed his side. “What, Gretchen? You think they won’t find out? He’s been telling everyone on the block since he got back from the station.”
“He was at the police station?”
“This afternoon. His car was broken into. Presents stolen.”
“And?” I said.
“He said a cop called Mr. Trabucco a pedophile.”
Dix. Dix had said it in front of the guy who was there to see Klein. Shit.
“Thanks for your time. You should go inside now.” They side-stepped icy patches and crossed the street to the house directly across from Trabucco’s.
The firemen had stopped spraying. The air was wet; the char smell, terrible. I walked toward the first engine. Chief Hirsch’s posture gave him away. He was forever leaning against things. Maintaining a casual vibe. Even in the midst of a house fire.
“Chief Lynch!” He didn’t straighten. Kept one shoulder glued to the engine.
“Quite a scene,” I said.
His face was sooty, his nose nearly black. “Think we’ve got it extinguished.”
“Any idea what caused it?”
He lifted his chin and used it as a pointer. “Smelled gasoline near where it started. We found an empty can tossed in the backyard. Lucky we got here quick. Wind was strong. Could’ve spread to the neighbors.” I wondered if the burnt smell bothered Hirsch. Or if he was used to it. “Heard the occupant was a pervert.” I nodded. “Aren’t you supposed to notify us when these types move into the neighborhood?” I liked his emphasis on the word “you.” Cute.
“He moved here before alerts were mandatory.”
“Wonderful. Any other men like him we should know about?”
“I assume you’ll be looki
ng the house over soon?” He frowned. Wondered where I was headed. “You find anything inside that’s criminal in nature, let me know.” Porn. Kiddie porn. If we found anything in Trabucco’s house racier than a Sears catalog, we could charge him.
He smiled. “Of course.” We were on the same side, for once.
I walked toward the ambo. Mr. Trabucco sat on a cot, a blanket over his shoulders. His feet were bare. He had a blood pressure cuff on and wore an oxygen mask. One of the EMTs looked me over. I was out of uniform, but she must’ve sensed cop.
“What’s his status?” I asked.
“Blood pressure’s high. He inhaled some smoke before he got out of there. We wanted to bring him in, but he kept refusing, babbling about his animals.” I thought of the cages. The small furry bodies. “He got some out. Firefighters rescued some too. But he,” she jerked a thumb toward Trabucco, “keeps saying he’s got more inside.”
“Is he okay to talk?”
She glanced at him. “Keep it brief.”
I nodded. Put my hands on the side of the ambulance and hoisted myself up. The vehicle rocked. Another EMT, a young man, shifted so I could sit opposite the patient. Trabucco was wide-eyed, his face grimy. His breaths were loud under the mask.
“Mr. Trabucco. Can you tell me what happened tonight?”
He heaved a breath. Removed his mask and said, “Fire. They burnt my . . . They . . .” A tear cut a path through the soot on his face.
“When did it start?”
“Bugs woke me. Thumping in his cage. The clock said 1:49 a.m. I smelled something burning and got out of bed. The living room was on fire. I picked up Mario’s cage and ran outside. Put it by the street. Then I ran back in and got Yoyo. I heard sirens. It was hard to breathe. I could hear Fiona, my cat, meowing. The firemen made me leave. They dragged me out.” He coughed.
The EMT gestured to him. “Mask on,” he said. Trabucco settled the mask back on and breathed.
“Did you see anyone? When you first saw the fire?” I asked. He shook his head. “Did you hear any voices? People talking?” Another shake of his head.
He took the mask off. “Why would someone burn my house? My animals? I didn’t do nothing.” He knew why. Had to know why. But men like him lived in denial.
Idyll Fears Page 8
