Ellery closed the door silently and leaned her shoulders up against it. The tenderness and affection in his voice made her ache in a way she couldn’t name. He had a life far away from here, one she had no place in, and she should be letting him get back to it. Resolved, she waited until she heard him end the call, and then charged into the living room. Reed startled at the sight of her, fumbling his phone, and she stopped short when she realized he was clad only in his T-shirt and boxers. “Sorry!” she said, throwing up her hands in apology. She turned away. “I heard you on the phone and I didn’t think…”
“No, my fault,” he assured her quickly. She heard him rustling frantically for his clothes. “I shouldn’t be hanging around someone else’s living room in my underwear.”
She heard him hopping around on one foot and was glad he couldn’t see her smile. Reed was typically so smooth and put together that it gave her perverse satisfaction to catch him all flustered. His physicality intrigued her—he was built like a swimmer, thin and long but with powerful shoulders, but what she really envied was the way he seemed comfortable with the space he took up in the world. She was accustomed now to viewing men with wary eyes, keeping a careful distance, always on alert. For some reason, though, her inner alarm system went quiet around Reed, through no conscious choice of her own. It was as if her body remembered him.
“There,” he said at length. “I’m decent now.”
She turned around again and saw he had dressed in the same trousers and button-down shirt he’d worn the day before. He was going to have to go home simply because he had no more clothes with him. She also noticed that his laptop was powered up and sitting on her coffee table, along with some paper notes he’d been making. “You’re off to an early start,” she observed. “Rebooking your flight?”
“Not yet. I’ve been looking into additional sexual assaults in the Somerville area that might fit a pattern similar to the Mendoza case—anything that might give the geo-profiling program more data to work with.”
“Did you find anything?” She crossed the room to look for herself.
“I’m up to eleven probable incidents, with an additional six possible cases. We can look at scenarios that include only crimes with the highest degree of match, as well as those broadened out to include more uncertainty.”
“How long will that take?”
“I should be able to have something this afternoon—tomorrow at the latest.”
“Good,” she said, heading for the kitchen. “Then after you’re done you can catch that flight home.”
Reed followed her, frowning, although whether it was because of her words or because she’d just pulled down a box of breakfast cereal with a cartoon animal on the front, she couldn’t say. He watched her pour on the milk and take a few bites. “I don’t like the idea of leaving you here alone,” he said finally, “not after what happened last night.”
She kept her gaze neutral. “The nondate wasn’t that bad, was it?”
“I’m talking about the part where someone set your truck on fire,” he replied with a scowl. He needn’t have reminded her; she’d peeked out at the street already and seen the damage in the light of day. The intense heat of the fire had burned off all the surrounding snow, leaving a bare crater on the side of the road.
She pushed the marshmallows and Os around in her bowl. “The police are investigating,” she said finally. “There really isn’t anything else to be done right now. You have to get back to your job and your family.”
He looked her over searchingly. “You’re the one who accused me of always running home.”
Her face was hot. “It—it wasn’t an accusation. It was a fact, a blessed one, if we’re being completely honest. I don’t blame you, not at all. I would do the same, if I were you.” He said nothing, just stared with those dark eyes that seemed to go right through her. “Besides, how do you think I would feel, if you stayed up here babysitting me and it cost you that promotion? If it meant you didn’t get more time with Tula? I can’t be responsible for that.”
“And how do you think I would feel if I left and something happened to you?” His voice was quiet but determined. “I would never forgive myself.”
“So—what? You just give up your whole life to move in and sleep on my lumpy couch? Follow me wherever I go? I appreciate the sentiment, I do. But let’s be honest here. You have very real obligations, Reed, but I’m not one of them. Not—not anymore. The reason you go home at the end is because that’s where you belong.”
His shoulders slumped, and she knew he saw that she was right. “I could at least stay an extra day or two,” he said, trying to rally the cause.
“It wouldn’t make a difference.” She kept her words gentle, but he stiffened as if struck anyway, because Reed Markham’s whole life was built on the principle that he made a difference. She had a flash of the night before, of showing him her scars, and felt a guilty flush go through her. He was being so kind and she’d just wanted to rub his nose in it: here’s everything you can never fix. “But … thank you.” Her voice caught just a bit. “Thank you for wanting to try.”
He nodded and averted his eyes, diminished by his limitations. “I just worry about you having to deal with all this crap … all those creeps out there who get off on Coben’s story. Probably they’re harmless, sure—but you never know what might happen.”
She smiled sadly. She didn’t worry so much about what else might happen to her, because the worst already had. “I’ll be careful,” she told him. “I promise.”
He gave a grudging sigh and pulled out one of her stools to sit down. “You have another one of those bowls?” he asked as he picked up the cereal box. “Or shall I skip the facade and just eat a half pound of raw sugar?”
“It has antioxidants in it,” she said, pointing at the label. “See?”
“It has a grinning parrot on the front.”
“He’s happy about all the vitamins he’s getting.”
“He’s happy about the fact he doesn’t have any teeth to rot with this stuff,” Reed retorted as he poured himself a large bowlful.
Ellery kept to her own bowl then and didn’t argue any further, but she couldn’t help noticing—he ate the whole damn thing.
* * *
They spent the morning holed up in her apartment, far from the frozen white world below. Reed worked on his analysis from one end of the couch while Ellery paced the living room, arguing on the phone with various people from her insurance company that yes, the truck was going to be a total loss, as it now resembled a bag of charcoal. After three separate conversations, she learned that the insurance claims adjuster would still have to verify the damage for himself, thus delaying the whole process. “Maybe he could just watch the news,” she said, exasperated. “I think channels four and seven both sent a truck.”
She gave up for the moment and took a seat at the other end of the couch. Bump saw this as his invitation, too, and he ambled over from his spot in the sunbeam to climb onto the sofa between Reed and Ellery. Reed was so deep in his work that he barely noticed. “How’s it going?” she asked him, but he just muttered an unintelligible reply and looked at something on his notes. Ellery watched him for a few minutes as he looked up information on his computer, squinted at it, and then jotted down some observation she couldn’t read from her vantage point. TV shows always portrayed FBI profiling as breathlessly exciting and dangerous work, whereas Reed seemed more like he belonged in a commercial for headache medicine. Or perhaps an office supply store. She smothered a yawn just at the sight of him. “I’m going to go down the street to get sandwiches,” she announced as she stood up. “Is turkey okay for you?”
“Fine.” He didn’t even glance her way.
Ellery suited up against the elements, scarf and all, and took the dog with her into the cold sunshine. The city had come to life again, although it moved slowly under the heavy remnants of the storm. Pedestrians had to slow their usual brisk walk as they navigated around icy patches of sidewa
lk and giant snow berms mounded at the intersections. Cars motored past wearing funny snow hats. Everywhere, drops of melting snow trickled from the overhangs and rooftops. Ellery followed along behind Bump as he blazed a trail, ears akimbo, always eager for whatever new scents the day might bring. When her cell phone rang, she had to pull off her glove with her teeth to answer it. “Hello?”
She was expecting Reed, perhaps with a change of order, or maybe a follow-up call from the insurance company, but it was Bertie Jenkins, Esquire, on the other end of the line. “I saw the news,” she said. “Someone set your truck on fire.”
“Yeah, I kind of noticed that,” Ellery replied as she set forth with Bump again.
“Any idea who did it?”
“Not a clue. No suspects, no witnesses. Why?”
Bertie was quiet for a moment. “It’s a hell of a coincidence, don’t you think? You come over asking me about the old arson cases, and then someone torches your truck?”
Ellery halted in the middle of the sidewalk. “You think this has to do with you?”
“No, I think it has to do with you,” Bertie corrected. “I’ve been crusading on this story for months now, and nobody’s come around to set my stuff on fire. So I’m thinking maybe you rattled the right cage. Who else have you been talking to?”
“No one. Just Kevin Powell.”
“Powell,” Bertie repeated, musing. “I know a few people who liked him for the fire, but I wasn’t one of them. He’s a blowhard but he’s not an imbecile. The Gallagher store always made a strange target for a firebug—relatively busy street, a whole row of businesses to choose from, and our guy picks one smack dab in the middle. It reads personal to me.”
“Or like someone too brazen to think he’d get caught,” Ellery couldn’t help pointing out. This was the story the prosecution had put on, suggesting that Luis Carnevale was overconfident and crazed with fire lust. He’d picked the furniture store because it was filled with wood that could ignite quickly.
“Luis didn’t do this,” Bertie said, but it came out automatically, like her mind was already someplace else. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence about your truck,” she told Ellery. “I think you’ve made someone nervous—more nervous than I have—and I’d like to know who.”
“I don’t know the answer to that,” Ellery replied. “If I did, I’d be having the SOB arrested for destroying my truck.”
“Maybe we can get together again. Exchange information.”
Ellery bit her lip. She didn’t have any information to exchange. “The thing is…”
“Wait, I have an even better idea. Are you free this afternoon? I’m going up to see Luis, and you could come, too. Get his side of the story. If you talk to him, you’ll see the truth: he didn’t set this fire.”
Ellery thought of the summer and how many times she’d looked a murderer in the eyes with no hint of what he was hiding. “No offense,” she told Bertie, “but that’s bullshit.” Whether Luis Carnevale was innocent or not, it was a story he’d been telling himself for decades now, and Ellery was sure he had it perfected to an art form. “Liars lie. That’s what they’re good at.”
“Yeah? Well, try this on for size then: Luis sure as hell didn’t set your car on fire. Maybe if we pool our resources, we can figure out who did.”
* * *
So this was how, by midafternoon, Ellery had picked up a rented midsize SUV and was headed out of the city to the Cedar Junction Correctional Facility in Walpole. Reed was frowning from the passenger seat. “You said you were going to be careful,” he reminded her.
“It’s a maximum security prison. How much more careful could I get?”
“Someone sets fire to your vehicle, and your reaction is to set up a playdate with an arsonist.”
“If the fire last night is connected to this case, then it’s in my best interest to figure out how.” But it wasn’t really her truck she was thinking of as she drove toward the prison. It was Myra Gallagher, with her gnarled hands and half-burned face. The news stories on the fire had carried pictures of Myra from before, when she had milk-white skin and auburn hair and clear blue eyes that had yet to see her life go up in flames. If Coben was the man who marked Ellery’s before and after, then Carnevale was the man who marked Myra’s, at least that was how Myra told it. Ellery could only imagine how she might feel if someone started sniffing around Coben for hints of innocence and inviting him to “tell his side.” She’d begun digging around in the arson story with the intent of helping Myra, to reassure her that her monster would remain trapped in his cage, but now here she was going to chat up that monster with an eye toward possibly letting him out. “Have you ever been here?” she asked Reed as she made the turn to the Cedar Junction parking lot.
He shook his head. “Not personally, no. But I’ve heard of it.” She gave him a curious look, and he filled in the grim answer. “This is where they put Albert DeSalvo—the man convicted of the Boston Strangler cases. He himself was murdered inside those walls.”
Ellery got out of the car and regarded the high concrete face of the prison. There were multiple separate buildings on the property, all ostensibly painted white, but against the backdrop of the pure fresh snow, they mostly looked a grubby gray. Ellery and Reed met up with Bertie Jenkins, and together they went through security and were put in a windowless room, this one painted an odd combination of cream and turquoise green, to wait for Luis Carnevale. “I’m still not sure of our purpose here,” Reed said to Bertie.
She gave a half-shrug. “I’ve been shouting to the rooftops for three years now that Luis is innocent. You two are the only ones who’ve ever really seemed to listen. Sure, if it’s a slow news day, the TV stations send their cameras around to let me bang on about the case, but it’s mainly an excuse to run the old fire footage—especially when the city starts talking about closing one of the smaller stations. Something like ninety-five percent of all fire department calls are for paramedic help these days, not fires. Turns out, if there’s a war on fire, we’ve already won it. Better safety codes now. Sprinklers. You just don’t see the kind of fires that happened in the 1980s anymore, not with any regularity. But the BFD budget is just as fat as it’s ever been, and they sure as hell don’t want that money wandering elsewhere. I think half the time, they’re the ones sending those TV cameras to my door, so the news can trot out Luis like some old bogeyman and everyone remembers how scared they were. I’m the best PR team they’ve had in years.”
There was the sound of a lock releasing and then a heavy metal door opened. Luis Carnevale entered the room, ushered by a uniformed guard. Ellery knew him only from his 1988 mug shot and from news clips that were a quarter century old, images that depicted a churlish young man built like a prizefighter. The current version of Carnevale resembled a monk, with his fringe-top hair, the deferential downward tilt of his head, the slow shuffle, and the shapeless, too-large clothes that wore like robes. Whether it was due to standard procedure or just years of earned good behavior, Ellery didn’t know, but the guard released Carnevale’s handcuffs and left him to sit unimpeded in the remaining plain plastic chair. She waited to see if she would feel something, anything to suggest that she was now in the presence of evil. He eyed her intensely, his mouth twitching on one side, his gaze hungry. Twenty-five years was a long time to be on the inside, with only your niece for female company. Ellery crossed her arms over her chest but Carnevale did not stop staring.
“No contact,” the guard reminded them gruffly, and then he left, locking them all together inside the room.
8
Reed kept his gaze carefully neutral as he regarded the prisoner, but Bertie smiled warmly at her uncle. “How are you doing?”
Carnevale’s answering smile did not meet his eyes. “One day in here, it’s just the same as all the rest,” he said with a slight shrug. “Any day I see you is better than before.”
“I brought some friends with me,” Bertie told him, and she introduced Ellery and Reed.
; Carnevale’s thin eyebrows rose when Bertie mentioned Reed’s background. “FBI,” he said, clearly surprised. “FBI is who helped put me in here.”
“I’m just here as an observer,” Reed clarified as he shifted in his seat. “Not in any official capacity.”
Carnevale spread his arms as though he had nothing to hide. “Observe all you want. I ain’t much to look at no more.”
He hadn’t been an attractive man back then, with his acne-scarred face and one droopy eyelid that made him look either disinterested or menacing. The years in between had leeched the color from him so that now he matched his faded prison clothes, old and gray. He looked wizened and ordinary, not like someone who had terrorized a city with fire, but Reed knew by now not to trust appearances.
“You’re up for parole soon,” Reed said after a minute. “How do you think the hearing will go?”
Carnevale scratched the back of his head with one hand. “Those first years, they was hard. I knew I didn’t burn that woman and her little kid, but it don’t make no difference once the jury says you’re guilty. I didn’t kill no one, but the cops said I had to be locked away separate in here, for my own protection. Because of the other guys who are killers. The warden told me, ‘We got guys in here that will kill you soon as look at you on account of you burned a little kid.’” He shook his head, as if resigned. “After a while, my story kinda went away. People got other things to worry about. I kept to myself and made up my mind to do my time clean. Got my GED. I ain’t been in no trouble since I got here.”
“It’s true,” Bertie told them. “You can check his record. It’s exemplary.”
“But it won’t matter,” Carnevale told her with a trace of impatience. “Everyone, they forgot right now, right? They ain’t thinking about some fire that happened twenty-five years ago. But when it comes time for the hearing, they’ll open my file and see those pictures, and they’ll remember again. And it’ll be just like last time. Someone’s got to pay for those pictures, and they decided a long time ago—that someone is me.”
No Mercy--A Mystery Page 14
