Exposé: First of the Sally Harrington Mysteries (The Alexandra Chronicles Book 5)

by Laura Van Wormer

  It suddenly—duh—dawns on me in this moment that of course Doug slept with Jane. That he had talked about Jane to me as I had just talked to him about Spencer, with a bunch of short, distorted facts. And now that I think of it, Doug has never said he didn't sleep with Jane, he had only intimated that he hadn't, a fact that I needed to believe in order to get back with him.

  I am rationalizing, of course, trying to make myself feel less guilty about my betrayal. And Doug is sitting here, asking me to tell him there was no betrayal. But I can't. And he knows it. And so I guess he's planning to betray me tonight with Jane and has decided to tell me about it up front, daring me to tell him something to stop him.

  The point is, I guess, our relationship really has just blown up. And I guess it's better like this, breaking up at once, rather than dragging it out.

  It's curious how little emotion I feel. But it will come later, I know, the regret. I have never acted rashly in a relationship and lived to be glad about it.

  "I think you've made a mistake letting Crazy Pete go," I say, surprising Doug by abandoning the subjects of love, sex and be­trayal altogether.

  "Did you ever pay that ticket?" he asks, swinging the topic even further away.

  "I'm contesting it," I tell him. My cell phone is ringing. "Ex­cuse me." I fumble for it, praying it's not Spencer.

  "Sally? It's Joe." There is horrendous noise on his end. "Lis­ten, dinner's off. If you want to talk, you'll have to come down­town to Gleason's parking lot."

  "Gleason's?" But the line has gone dead.

  22

  Gleason's is a downtown Castleford bar and grill, but the real action is taking place at the old Tranowsky's Auto Body shop that sits on the other side of the parking lot. There are no less than seven fire engines present. Main Street is shut down, am­bulances are waiting and it is no mere fire burning in the old shop—it's an inferno. Half the firefighters are hosing down sur­rounding buildings in an attempt to save Main Street, while the other half are pouring everything they've got into the ball of fire.

  I can't find Joe Bix and it wouldn't be appropriate to talk to him, anyway if I did. Too much is at stake. I yank on my ga­loshes and run over to join the civilian line that is forming to take sandbags off the back of an O'Hearn Construction truck and pass them down, in brigade form, to the men who are at­tempting to make a sandbag fire wall in case the wind shifts and the flames blow toward the Mobil station. Someone hands me a surgical mask to wear against the smoke and fumes and soot. We work and we work and we work. I hear Devon calling my name. He is taking pictures.

  What has frightened us all are the two burning carcasses of cars that were parked near the auto body shop. Tranowsky's has been closed for several years and I can't imagine how a fire of such immense proportions could start in a building that is es­sentially made of cement and steel. It's summer; the power's off in the building; the windows are boarded up to keep kids and vagrants out. But the fire is here and we're all scared because besides the businesses that have survived on Main Street, we've got a whole block of empty industrial buildings just around the corner, and heaven only knows what has really been left in them. If they are anything like the auto body shop, this fire will rage out of control until it's destroyed what's left of our down­town.

  Insurance crosses my mind.

  My shoulders are aching and I am thinking about my father while I continue to work. He would be here. Though Castleford has a truly wonderful fire-fighting force of five companies, there is always the small-town backbone that brings everyone out to help in an emergency. In a way, I think, it's pathetic that we are using these sandbags. They are designed for floods. But it's what we're used to doing here, building walls out of sand­bags, and I'm sure even if we're in the way, the firemen wouldn't dream of stopping us.

  I miss you, Daddy.

  The fire is finally under control. There are only a couple of steel support beams and part of a hydraulic lift left standing in the auto body shop. Even the cars parked around Gleason's have been damaged by heat and fire and chemicals. A few hours ago the bar was made of natural shingle, weathered gray. Now it is black. The tar roof has melted, hanging off the side of the building like lopsided cheese on a burger. Soot and ash are everywhere. The streets are awash with water, chemicals, gar­bage and muck. The crowd watching has grown very large.

  We've quit the sandbag line and I think how ironic it is that several men promptly light up cigarettes.

  I see a friend of mine, Maggie, resting with some other fire­fighters. Her gas mask is pushed up over her sooty face and she looks beat. Her husband is a firefighter, too, and her brother and her uncle and so was her dad. I pull down my surgical mask under my chin and saunter over. "Quite a fire."

  Maggie kicks her head toward the remains of the auto body. "It melted the steel. I can't believe no one was hurt."

  "How did it start?"

  Maggie looks across the scene to the fire marshal's car. "You'll have to talk to Dean."

  “How do you think it started?"

  Maggie looks at her companions. One of them says, "That was no ordinary fire," and there are murmurs of agreement.

  "What do you think happened?"

  "Someone friggin' blew it up," a firefighter suddenly de­clares.

  No one contradicts this statement.

  "You better get a statement from Dean," Maggie says. She is a lieutenant; she knows the rules.

  "Yeah, okay," I say, moving away. "You guys are wonderful, you know."

  "Thanks for working on the wall," somebody says.

  I wave an acknowledgement, looking around for Joe. The fireman didn't say arson; he said he thought someone blew the building up, which is a very different thing. To be honest, rather often in Castleford—during the dreadful, lingering economic depression that persisted in the Connecticut Valley for a good part of the 1980s and 1990s—people were caught torching their troubled businesses or homes or rental properties to get their hands on insurance money.

  We once even had a creature who torched his house in an effort to get rid of his wife and kids so he wouldn't have to pay alimony and child support pay­ments—so he could live the good life with his girlfriend. (I as­sure you, he was not from Castleford.)

  But explosives. In Castleford? To risk this kind of investiga­tion for an old auto body shop? Why on earth would someone do it? What insurance could possibly be outstanding on such a wreck of a nothing?

  Which, of course, makes me wonder if perhaps there was something in the auto body that needed to be burned...

  I finally find Joe sitting on a stool at Clancy's Saloon, drinking beer. This bar, a little farther down the street, near the court­house, caters to a pretty rough crowd and is usually half empty. Given the luck of the draw tonight, however, just about every­body in town is stopping in for a drink. "That was nice of you," Joe says to me as I slide in to stand next to his stool, "to work on the wall."

  I let the comment pass. Some people are brought up a certain way and others simply aren't, and I am frankly too tired to try and explain to Joe—who is obviously not from Castleford orig­inally—why working on the wall is not "nice," but just what you do.

  "Did you file your story yet?" I ask him. He nods, sipping his beer. Then he sighs, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. "What?"

  "I'm waiting for you to tell me something I should have filed in my story."

  I laugh and look at the bartender and order a glass of seltzer and a glass of white wine. "Who owns that building now, any­way?" I draw the basket of burnt popcorn toward me and then think better of it, pushing it away.

  "Something called Tergar Inc."

  "That's Bob Castile. Terry's his daughter, Gary's his son."

  "Damn," Joe says, looking into his glass, "I knew you'd do that."

  I smile. "You've got time to add a detail or two." When he just nods but continues to look at his drink, I say, "So what's wrong?"

  The bartender brings me my drinks. I chug the seltzer down.<
br />
  "The Meyers story's dying," he admits. "I got your notes and everything, but I can't get anything to gel."

  I finish swallowing, put the seltzer glass down and reach for my wine. "It's not you, it's the police." I take a large swig of wine and it tastes good. "They're stuck. They've let Pete Saba­tino go."

  "I thought you didn't know where he was," Joe growls.

  Now I take a polite sip of wine. "I just know he's out."

  "Out from where?"

  "I don't know—out. Anyway, I'm going to see Buddy tomor­row and I'll let you know if I find out anything."

  He squints at me. "How are you going to see D'Amico on a Sunday?"

  "The point is, I am." I know the timetable of the soccer matches tomorrow in Cheshire and I know which team Buddy is coaching.

  Joe looks miserable. "I wish you'd cover this story. Al's driv­ing me crazy."

  "Did you talk to old man Royce? Get any Long Island con­tacts?"

  "Oh, yeah. I got to talk to some old congressman who's got Alzheimer's."

  I resist the urge to biff Joe one. There is something about this conversation that is annoying me. I don't know whether it's Joe's lack of progress on the murder—and his sudden fatigue about it—or my suspicion that if Joe is sitting here drinking, then he has probably not written more than a couple of lines for tomorrow's edition about those firefighters who risked their lives tonight.

  I'm not sure Joe has ever really gotten the local angle of the paper, that "local" means the people we know, and that our readers are hungry for news about them and that is the only edge we have over the Courant, the Register or the New York Times.

  On the other hand, I am supposed to be going national writ­ing for Expectations magazine, so why am I sitting here in a hometown bar, thinking I should be at the paper knocking out a firefighter story? Why do I want to spend time pursuing the solution to a local murder when I should be in New York work­ing on my opportunity of a lifetime?

  I must be tired, I decide. I must have smoke in my head. I must be a local. After my behavior the last couple of days, I know for sure I've lost my mind.

  "So what do the Long Island papers say?"

  "There's a question about how well his business was doing," Joe says, perking up a little. "One of my contacts says he lived way beyond his means."

  "But it was his business. It wasn't a front for someone else?"

  "According to the stuff you gave me—which was correct, by the way, thanks—the business was in his wife's name. Evi­dently he had some sort of bankruptcy a couple of years ago and did it to shelter his assets."

  "Huh." I drain my wineglass. "What about here? As a kid in Castleford—what do people say about him?"

  "Not much. He was quiet. C if not D student—"

  "Really? Any sports?"

  He shakes his head.

  "Did he work?"

  "Yeah. He did some odd jobs."

  "Where?"

  "Um, I don't remember."

  I am getting mad again. "Did anyone see him here in town?"

  "No."

  "Well, stay on it, Joe, and keep me posted."

  "Where are you going?"

  "You've got my cell phone number." I walk away, think of something and come back. "And for God's sake, find out if there was a body in the auto body shop, will you? It's the first thing we should have thought of, that someone might be get­ting rid of Johnny Meyers's body."

  Joe's eyes bug out. "I know there was an explosion, but no one said it was intentional. Someone said it was an old natural gas connection under the building that somehow got sparked."

  "I would say that qualifies as someone blowing up the build­ing," I tell him. I better get out of here before I tell him some­thing else since Joe is the only person I have at the paper to fol­low up on the Meyers murder in my absence. I don't know what's wrong with this Meyers story, but what should be run­-of-the-mill information here locally seems to be strangely hard to gather.

  I drive over to the paper, let myself in through the back and climb the stairs. The city-desk editor and art director are with Devon, reviewing an amazing array of photographs Devon took at the fire. "Need any help?"

  The city editor looks at me gratefully. "We sure do."

  "I've got a list of the companies and commanders that were there tonight," I say, waving my notebook. "Get your best shots and I'll do my best to identify who is who."

  "Write something, too, will you?" my editor asks. "Some­thing descriptive. Joe's got a bad case of Dragnet, if you know what I mean."

  Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts. Dry, bare-bones copy.

  And so for the next three hours we work up an extra half­-page special on the fire and I am very glad I stopped by. This is what working for a newspaper is all about.

  When I finally reach home, Scotty is glad to see me. Since I was too lazy to turn on the circuit breaker to turn the lights on in the ladies' room at the paper, I had used the facilities in the glow of the Exit sign. And so when I go into my bathroom and look into the mirror, I can't help but burst out laughing. I can't believe no one said anything to me. I look like a chimney sweep, a bad chimney sweep, who has destroyed her blouse, slacks and nails, to say nothing of giving her hair a complete filth makeover. I strip down and jump into the shower. Then I get out, put a towel around my head, slip on my terry-cloth robe and go out to my desk.

  I hit the play button on the answering machine and the sound of Spencer's voice surprises me. Frankly, I had forgotten about him. "Hi," he says softly. I become slightly mesmerized by his message, of how he misses me, until he gets to the part about maybe driving here tomorrow on his way back to New York. Part of me is thrilled by the idea and the better part of me dreads having to tell him no. I've got work to do. Besides, it is too soon to completely overrun what had been Doug's exclu­sive territory.

  But I would love to see him.

  The next message is, of course, from Doug, who sounds aw­ful. "Please," he says, "can I see you, Sally? We've got to talk and I did a miserable job of it today."

  I sigh. I don't know what to do. And I'm too tired to figure it out now. I walk through the kitchen to the back door to call Scotty. I need to feed him. He comes across the yard but then stops about three feet away, standing there, half smiling. He growls in play. He is tired of being ignored for days on end. I am your best boy, he is reminding me.

  "I know, baby," I say, sitting down on the step and holding out my arms. Scotty loves to be hugged. I used to put him in my lap and hug him when he was a tremulous little stray. He trots over and I scoop his seventy-two pounds into my lap. I hug him and can still smell the traces of a skunk that got him a couple of weeks ago. "What should I do about Doug?" I ask him.

  He makes a sound of pleasure in his throat.

  "Okay," I say, putting him down and giving him a scratch behind the ears. "You're right. Talk to Mother."

  He tries to lick my face. He may have teeth like a junkyard dog, but his delicate pink tongue seems as thin as paper, a very collie trait.

  We go inside and I give Scotty dinner. I make myself a large bowl of yogurt and grapes and resume transcribing the Coch­ran interviews into my computer. It is peaceful, productive and quiet. Scotty and I both feel tired, but good.

  And then Crazy Pete shows up.

  23

  "Before I offer you something to eat, Pete," I say, pulling the sash of my robe a little tighter and knotting it, "I'm telling you that you are not spending the night here tonight. I am taking you home. Doug says you'll be perfectly safe."

  "How would he know?" Pete says, following me into the kitchen.

  I turn around to frown at him. "Convince me otherwise."

  "I know a lot, Sally," he whispers.

  "Right," I mutter, directing him to a chair at my breakfast ta­ble. I am not in the mood for this.

  "Sally!"

  "Listen to me," I say, swinging around and putting my hand on my hip, "I know you know a lot of things, Pete, but I don't think yo
u know anything about this murder. I think some peo­ple thought you did, but it's not George Bush and the Masons and the aliens!"

  Slightly stunned by the ferocity in my voice, he sighs and sits down in resignation. "All right. I'll go home. If they're going to get me, they're going to get me."

  I walk out to my desk to get my tape recorder, pop in a new tape, check the batteries and come back to the kitchen to thump it down in front of Pete.

  "Once and for all," I say, walking over to open my freezer door to look inside, "you are going to give me the straight dope on what you know. No runaround, no innuendo, no weird­ness."

  "No weirdness," he agrees, eyes widening slightly as I pull a rib-eye steak out of the freezer.

  "Okay, first off," I begin, throwing the steak into the micro­wave to thaw, "did you ever speak to Tony Meyers?"

  "No."

  "You never told him, for example, you knew a reporter who might be interested in something he had to say?”

  “No.”

  I look at him. No runaround, no innuendo, no weirdness ap­parently leaves Crazy Pete with a very limited vocabulary. "Why was Tony Meyers at Kaegle's Pond?”

  "I don't know.”

  "Well don't you think it's strange that you left a message for me to go there, and when I do, I find his dead body?”

  "Yes.”

  "And you don't have any explanation as to how he got there?"

  He hesitates. "No."

  I rub my forehead, trying to be patient. "Surely you must have some thoughts about it, Pete. Or at least about who killed him."

  He looks afraid to answer.

  "Go ahead, it's all right. Say whatever you want," I encour­age him.

  "I think the Masons sent him," he says quietly, as if saying it that way will offend me less. "I think someone told him he should go there, and I think they know I told you to go there, too, but he was dead when you got there."

  He's beginning to tremble.