Slow Burn

by Andrew Welsh-Huggins

  “You the source?”

  “No.”

  “Told you those dudes might be bad.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “So they did it,” he said. “Not your guy.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe. He may still have done it.”

  “They did it, need to warn that Chinese girl.”

  “Helen Chen.”

  “‘Run-Run,’” he said. “He’s bad news. Told you that.”

  “She’ll be fine.”

  “Hang on,” he said. I heard him take an order, ask how many Happy Meals they wanted. “Four,” I heard in response. Lot of kids.

  “Falco,” he said a minute later.

  “Still here.”

  “Just thinking that girl’s got problems.”

  “She’s fine.”

  “You ain’t worried about her?”

  I explained that I wasn’t. Anyone brave enough to go back to living in the same neighborhood would be OK.

  “That ain’t brave. That’s stupid. She’s living on Orton?”

  “Woodruff. One down from the corner.”

  “Hang on,” he said again. Took an order for three Big Macs and three large fries. And people wonder why we look the way we do in this country.

  “Falco,” he said.

  “Still here.”

  “Just think I’d warn her. Or tell that marshal you were talking to.”

  “U.S. attorney.”

  “Whatever. Hang on again.”

  “D. B.,” I interrupted.

  “Hang on.”

  A call was coming through on my phone.

  “I’ll talk to you later,” I said.

  I took the other call. Gabby Donatelli. Karen’s fiancée.

  We met at her office around the corner from the courthouse. She had circles under her eyes, and her usually kempt blond hair was looking not kempt.

  “Thanks for doing this,” I said. “I know—”

  “Don’t say it,” she said. “It’s OK. It’ll pass.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  But then she blurted out, “What you told Karen? About grandkids? I’m going to have fucking triplets. That’ll show them.”

  “Good on you,” I said, uncertainly.

  “Anyway, I looked into this business with Frank and Dorothy Custer.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “The royalties from that book.”

  “Dried up. What Dorothy said.”

  “No,” Gabby said. “Not dried up at all.”

  “What?”

  “Frank Custer changed his will. Right after the accident.”

  “Changed how?”

  “New beneficiary.”

  I thought back to Old Hickory and Young America. The dedication.

  “Aaron,” I said.

  “That’s right.”

  “How much?”

  “A lot.”

  “How much a lot?”

  “Tens of thousands of dollars.”

  “That’s how much Aaron’s worth?”

  “Yes. But no.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “He’s not worth anything in prison. Inmates aren’t allowed access to benefits like that.”

  “But if he weren’t in prison?”

  “Fat chance of that. I know about his case.”

  “Humor me. What if?”

  “If he weren’t in prison, Aaron Custer’s a rich young man.”

  I had a voice mail when I left her office. Todd O’Brien, Mike’s business partner in Olen-Tangy-Tots, had returned my call. He was free that day. Like me, he was hungry. I checked my watch, then headed to the car.

  We met at his latest venture, a food truck selling miniburgers and Korean barbecue parked on High a few blocks north of campus. After his lone employee served us, we sat in a couple of scarlet Ohio State folding chairs he’d brought along.

  I said, “You meet Mike through the business? The food truck?”

  He shook his head. “In school. Ohio State.”

  “But first venture together?”

  “First food truck. We’d tried a couple of sandwich joints.”

  “His mother said he had a terrible head for business.”

  “That’s true,” O’Brien said. “More a people person.”

  “The business going under. He blamed himself for that?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “No?”

  “Restaurant business is tough. Lots more fail than make it. We knew that going in.”

  “Must have been a little upset,” I said. “I mean, obviously.”

  “Obviously? Why?”

  “Isn’t that why, you know, he killed himself?”

  “Is that what Dorothy said?”

  I nodded.

  “That he killed himself because the business went under?”

  “That’s right. Also.”

  “Yeah?”

  “She said you were skimming from the till.”

  He stopped in mid-chew and stared at me. “Mike’s mother said that? About me?”

  I nodded.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said.

  “I take it she has her facts wrong?”

  “Not just wrong. She’s got them reversed.”

  “Reversed?”

  “Mike was the one with sticky fingers. I had to confront him about it.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Made excuses. Said things were a little tight. He owed people money.”

  “Like who?”

  “Like people at liquor stores, for starters. He had a big problem. Why Aaron’s issues weren’t a surprise.”

  “That why the business failed? Mike’s stealing?”

  He shook his head. “Contributing factor.”

  “What else?”

  “Propane prices, meat prices, insurance prices. Really cold winter, really rainy spring. You name it, we got hit with it. Like I said, food business is tough.”

  “So if Mike didn’t kill himself because of the business . . .”

  “You’re asking me why he did it.”

  “I guess.”

  “You talk to Molly?”

  “A little. Why?”

  “Mike had a lot of issues. Personal finances, the marriage, his father.”

  “You get this from Molly? Or Mike?”

  “Both.”

  “You’re friends with her?”

  “A little.”

  “She goes by Mary now.”

  He looked surprised at this. “Really?”

  I nodded.

  “OK,” he said. “News to me.”

  “You knew her at OSU?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Where she and Mike met.”

  “We had class together. With Mike’s dad, actually.”

  “What?”

  “Mike’s dad, Frank. We had a history class together.”

  I thought about this. “Molly was in Frank’s class?”

  “What I said.”

  “She didn’t tell me that.”

  “Not sure why she should have. She took a few with him. She was a history major. Always seemed funny she went into sales.”

  “How was he? As a teacher?”

  “Frank? Good. Very entertaining.”

  “Quite the celebrity, in his way,” I said.

  “Guess you could say that. Come to think of it, Frank was the only one who ever called her Mary. I just remembered that.”

  “Formal guy?”

  “A little.”

  “Probably hard for Mike. Father like that.”

  “They had their moments, like I said. Mike didn’t talk about him that much.”

  “Mike was upset by the accident?”

  “Who wouldn’t be?”

  I didn’t say anything. Took a bite of my burger. Wrestled with an idea.

  “Funny thing was,” O’Brien said.

  “Yes?”

  “Mike was actually doing OK. Even after his dad had the accident. W
hy his death was so surprising.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It seemed for a few days like it made them closer or something. But then he got really down one day. I remember it clearly. Like something flipped a switch in his head. It happened right after that.”

  “Know what it was?”

  He shook his head.

  “Molly mention anything?” I said.

  “Haven’t really talked to her much since then. Wish I had. Just always seemed funny.”

  “Know what you mean,” I said.

  But maybe not so funny.

  45

  Back in my car, thinking about our conversation, I called Dorothy Custer and asked her for Molly’s cell number. She seemed curious, but I didn’t offer any details. I told her there might be a development in the case, but left out Samantha Parks. She said to keep her posted. I said I would.

  “It’s Andy Hayes,” I said when Molly answered a minute later.

  “How’d you get this number?”

  I explained.

  “I’m at work,” she said. “It’s not a great time.”

  “I just had lunch with Todd O’Brien,” I said. I told her what he’d said about Mike, about a sudden change in mood after his father’s accident.

  “I don’t know what he’s talking about,” she said.

  “Did you know that Frank changed his will at the end, made Aaron the beneficiary of the book royalties? Old Hickory and Young America.”

  Silence on the other end.

  “Could it have had something to do with that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did you know about the royalties?”

  A pause. “Yes.”

  “Todd said you took a few classes from Frank Custer. When you were in school.”

  “That’s true.”

  “How you met Mike.”

  “What’s this have to do with anything?”

  “Seems funny you didn’t mention you’d had Frank Custer as a professor. When I was at your house the other day.”

  “Maybe it’s none of your business.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And what difference does it make to anything anyway?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. I told her what Todd had said about Mike and the business.

  “Mike was troubled,” she said after a moment.

  “I gather.”

  “I don’t think he would have done anything to purposely hurt Todd.”

  “Seems that way. Possible he was just broke.” A pause. “Thanks to his dad?”

  “That’s not true,” she said. “Mike wasn’t great with money.”

  “Maybe that’s what pushed him over the edge at the end? Money problems?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Upset the royalties were going to Aaron?”

  “I really need to go. I’m sorry.”

  “Todd said Frank Custer was the only person who ever called you Mary in those days.”

  “Todd said that?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know why he would have told you that.”

  “Is it true?”

  “I have to go,” she said.

  Roy had an odd look on his face when I walked back into his church later that afternoon. He was at the desk in his small office just off the kitchen. Samantha was curled up, asleep, on a cot in the hall.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “Cold feet?”

  “Not exactly,” he said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You remember that morning in the camp? You were surprised that guy, Benny, had a phone? He used it to call 911 after the camp was rousted.”

  “I remember.”

  “Guess who else has a phone?”

  I looked at Samantha. Roy nodded.

  “That’s interesting, I guess,” I said.

  “That’s what I thought. Not that she had one. But that I hadn’t seen her with it.”

  “Maybe she never took it out when you were around.”

  “Maybe. But I could tell something wasn’t right when I was asking her about the fire. After you left.”

  “Something not right.”

  “That she wasn’t telling me the whole story.”

  “That would be the situation with this entire case.”

  “Turns out Samantha has a phone, but she hasn’t used it in a while. She’s kept it hidden in camp.”

  “Did she say why?”

  “Said she was scared of it.”

  “Scared of the phone?”

  “That’s right.”

  “This one of those ‘scared by the radio waves coming from the phone and telling her what to do’ kinds of situations?”

  Roy shook his head. “This is more, scared by what’s on the phone.”

  “Still not following.”

  “I told you before, how she muddies up the case, as a witness.”

  “I remember.”

  “You didn’t ask me why.”

  “Thought it was kind of obvious.”

  “You’d think that,” he said. “But you’d be wrong.”

  “So what is it?”

  “It’s not that she’s homeless. It’s why.”

  “OK.”

  “She was a heroin addict. Ten years ago. On and off the stuff.”

  “An addict.”

  “An addict with two little girls. Just her and them.”

  “Father?”

  “Dead. Overdosed. And so her daughters . . .”

  “Her daughters,” I said.

  “One day they were hungry.”

  I said nothing.

  “She started cooking eggs. Then she got high. Then she forgot about the eggs.”

  “Don’t tell me.”

  “Isn’t that always the way? She survived, girls didn’t make it. Smoke got them both. Huddled in a bedroom. Three-year-old and a five-year-old. Samantha sprawled on the porch outside. OD’d but alive.”

  “Jesus.”

  “She pled down to reckless homicide. Served three years. Been on and off the streets ever since. But never the same again.”

  I glanced at Samantha, asleep on the cot.

  “You said she was scared of what’s on the phone.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning like pictures.”

  “Pictures?”

  “Or more precisely, video.”

  “Video.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Samantha’s scared of videos on her phone.”

  “One video in particular.”

  “Which one?”

  “The one she says she took of the Orton Avenue arsonist.”

  46

  After Roy woke her up, the three of us went to the Spring Street camp, where Samantha retrieved the phone she’d hidden in the tent she called home. It was completely dead, its charger long gone, loaned months earlier to someone whose name she couldn’t recall. Not that she seemed that interested in bringing it to life, after what she had seen on Orton Avenue. Back at the Church of the Holy Apostolic Fire we tried all the chargers Roy kept in a drawer in his office, with no luck. A few minutes after that I found myself in my car on I-70 on my way to the commercial district along Hilliard-Rome Road on the far west side. I rushed into every electronics department I could find, Target, Walmart, Meijer, losing track of how many chargers I tested. Finally, at a Radio Shack sitting opposite the new Casino on the old National Road, I found the one I needed. I knew I was close to finishing the case now. I thought about the picture of Run-Run that Henderson had given me. What he would look like in the flesh. In action.

  Fielding called me as I drove back down Broad.

  “Gridley’s lawyered up,” he said.

  “That didn’t take long.”

  “Usually doesn’t.”

  “Is he under arrest?”

  “He’s a person of interest.”

  “How interesting?”

  “Very.”

  “You’re
welcome?” I ventured.

  “I’m going to need that log.”

  “All I’ve got is a copy.”

  “Might work for starters. Need the original if it exists.”

  “I can get it.”

  “We can get a search warrant.”

  “Not necessary. Gimme a few hours.”

  “Not that urgent. But close.”

  It was nearing 5:00 when I called Roy and told him about the charger. He told me Samantha wanted to leave, go back to the camp. I told him I thought that was a bad idea. He told me I had shit for brains, that he had already figured that out.

  I thought about Samantha finding herself in a position to videotape the fire. What Roy had said, that morning in the camp. Rode to Toledo and back once, so she claims. College kids or not, she’d found herself on Orton Avenue at the right time. Or the wrong time, depending on your view of things.

  I parked around the corner from my house and had so much on my mind I didn’t notice the silver Hummer until I was almost at my door. How the hell did Peirce do that, get the primo curbside space every time? If I didn’t hate his guts, I would have hired him as a parking valet.

  “What?” I said, striding onto the street, to the driver’s side.

  “Stunt with the dog crap. Not cute.”

  “Ask me if I care.”

  For the first time in our acquaintance, his implacability showed the slightest signs of strain.

  “Word is cops are questioning Tanner Gridley. About a certain document.”

  “News to me,” I lied. “Why don’t you ask them?”

  “We asked you first. Pretty politely, if I recall.”

  “I declined the offer. If you recall.”

  “Time’s running out, Hayes.”

  “You’re right about that. I’m late as it is.”

  “For what?”

  “For none of your business.”

  “It would behoove you,” he said, “to stop fucking around.”

  “Behoove.”

  “You heard me.”

  I was about to respond when my phone went off.

  I looked down, thinking maybe it was Roy calling me back. My stomach fell when I saw the caller ID. Then I felt bad for feeling bad.

  “Mike?” I said.

  “I really need you to bring my Redwall book,” my oldest son said. “It’s overdue now. And Joe’s shirt.”

  It came back to me in an unwelcome rush. A wall-climbing expedition one of Mike’s friends was having for his birthday party. And Mike, being Mike, had insisted he bring Joe. And we were due there in an hour. I thought back to the disastrous Sunday morning call about the Boy Scout trip a couple of weeks ago. Anne’s smarting comment, “How could you forget?” I glanced at the plastic bag in my hand holding Samantha’s phone and the newly purchased charger. I realized I was dying to see the video, to finally learn the truth. But I also realized the case was months old now. And the sting of my near miss with the outing to Mohican Park two weeks earlier was still raw. There was nothing for it. I’d have to put off the revelation for which I’d been searching a couple more hours.