“My uncle,” he said in answer to Ryne’s question.
It took him a while to come up with that, but he said it with so much confidence that I almost believed him. I turned and snapped a photo of him.
“What are ya doin’?” he asked.
“Just taking a photo of that Dresden girl,” I said, pointing to a figurine near his left elbow. “Do you have any Red Sox jerseys? My husband is a big fan.” My voice caught on the word husband. Ryne looked at me, and a line formed between his eyebrows. I shoved aside the pain thinking of CJ brought me. I knew we had a Red Sox jersey at the sale, one that went missing.
“Naw. I’ve got a Celtics jersey signed by Kevin Garnett.”
Ryne started yammering on about provenance and proof of authentication, and the kid’s eyes glazed over.
“My uncle sent me over. If that ain’t good enough, I’ll move on.” He started gathering up the jerseys.
“How much for the Garnett jersey?” I asked him.
“Four hundred.”
“That seems steep to me,” I said.
He shrugged.
“I’ll give you a hundred,” I said.
“Sarah, you shouldn’t,” Ryne said.
“I have cash.” I pulled a wad of ones out of my purse.
“Deal,” the kid said.
He responded so quickly, too quickly. I forked over the hundred. “And I’d like to look through the rest of your stuff.”
He stuffed the money in his pocket and handed over his jerseys. I went through them quickly. None of them seemed to be from my sale. “If you get any Red Sox stuff, especially anything signed, let me know.” I wrote out my phone number on a piece of paper and handed it to him.
“I’ll keep an eye out,” he said.
“Ever try to sell anything online?” I asked him. I wondered if he’d had any dealings with Mike or if he knew of any other sites that might not be on my radar. Sites for moving stolen goods.
“Sometimes.”
“Any site in particular? I really want the Sox jersey.”
“Just do a search, lady.”
“Have you had any dealings with Sportzfan? I’ve had good luck with him.” I added the second bit because I thought I saw the slightest reaction to the name.
He shrugged. “I deal with lots of people.” He turned and walked out.
I hustled out of the store to get away from Ryne’s frown.
* * *
After I finished cleaning, doing the laundry, and having a dinner of DiNapoli’s leftovers, I plopped down on my couch with my laptop. Still no word from Sportzfan, but he had posted more items for sale. Nothing matching the items missing from the auction, though. Because I wanted to contact him, I wrote “Interested” under a couple of items and sent him more private messages. I waited, hoping for a quick response, but nothing happened. I searched some other sites and checked back. I had a private message. I eagerly opened it.
All it said was, I told you to stay out of this. M.
Mike Titone. I shook a fist at the computer, then leaped off the couch to pace my small apartment. I stopped in front of the window and looked out over the dark town common. The church stood watch over the common, a candle in each window of the four stories. Through the wavy glass, they looked a little creepy. Creepy like Mike had become. How the heck was I going to get him to leave me alone? Just a few short weeks ago, I’d sought his help in desperation. Man, had things changed.
Hot puffs of humid air came in through the screen. But I was already steamed without nature’s help. I looked at the time on my phone: nine. I snatched up my car keys, hustled down the stairs, and banged out the screen door. By the time I was in my car and had it running, I knew what my next move would be. The visit to Seth I’d been putting off all day. He and Mike had something going on that I’d never understood. Maybe it was time to. If nothing else, maybe Seth would tell Mike to leave me alone.
* * *
As I walked up the drive to Seth’s Cape Cod–style house in Bedford, I heard loud techno music pounding. It seemed so un-Seth-like. His screen door was closed, but his front door stood open. I looked down his hall but couldn’t see anyone, so I rang the bell and pounded on the door. He didn’t respond.
“Seth,” I yelled. There was no way he could hear me over the music. A screech sounded above the music. What the heck was that? Wisps of smoke drifted along the ceiling toward me. The smoke detector. I dug in my purse for my phone as I upped the pounding on the door. I dialed 911, pulled on the screen door, and yanked it open.
“Seth,” I shouted, even though it was futile over the noise of the music and smoke detector. I told the dispatcher there was a fire and gave him the address as I ran down the hall toward the kitchen. Maybe this was just a cooking disaster. Or maybe he was grilling outside and the smoke had come in the back screen door. But it didn’t smell like meat cooking; it smelled like chemicals.
The smoke thickened, and I dropped to my knees, still yelling. The dispatcher shouted at me to get out. My eyes watered as I stuffed my cell phone in my pocket. I saw flames in a pan in the kitchen. A dishtowel ignited. I spun around to head out. Seth lay on the floor in the dining room. I shouted his name again, but he didn’t move. I grabbed his right arm as flames licked up the wall behind the stove.
I coughed and tugged. He slid a few inches toward me on the wood floor. A streak of blood trailed behind him. I wiped my eyes and spotted a wound on his left shoulder. Blood was flowing out of it. Waiting for help wasn’t possible. I had to get him out.
Chapter 11
I stood and pulled harder. Choking. Gasping. A sharp pain stabbed through my injured hand. I tried to ignore it. Seth moved a few more inches. Sweat beaded on my forehead. The smoke was too much, so I dropped back to my knees and hooked my arm under his uninjured shoulder. I dragged Seth behind me as I crawled. He didn’t make a sound, which scared me even more. This had to be hurting him.
Once I got him off the rug under the dining room table, the rug I’d picked out for him, and on the wooden floor, he slid more easily. I made it to the door, pushed the screen open with my rear end, and managed to get Seth halfway out the door. But without the wood floor to slide him along, I couldn’t get him to budge. I yelled out, “Fire. Help.”
A man ran up from somewhere. Between us, we managed to get Seth out on the front lawn. Blood spurted from the wound on Seth’s shoulder. This was no accident. I collapsed next to him, gasping in the fresh night air. I closed my eyes and listened as sirens screamed toward us. What the hell had just happened?
I turned to look at Seth. He was so pale in the dark, with his white shirt splotched with blood. The man who’d helped me get Seth out of the house knelt beside him. He pressed a T-shirt on Seth’s wound. The one he’d been wearing. His hairy chest shone in the moonlight. He was bald and had a slight paunch but muscular tattooed arms. I tried to choke out a thank-you but alternated between coughing and gasping.
“Can you hold this for a minute?” he asked. He sweated profusely.
I nodded, which was easier than talking, pushed myself up, and took over. Seth’s dark lashes lay on pale skin. His breath was rapid and shallow.
“Come on, Seth. Massachusetts can’t do without its most eligible bachelor.” I remembered his words about wanting to keep things professional. “The county needs you as the district attorney. You’re good at it.” More sirens. They didn’t sound too far from here. My arms felt weak and shaky as I pressed down on the now bloody T-shirt. My hand throbbed. I looked around. Where the heck had the other guy gone? I could use some help. I tried to draw in a few deep breaths but ended up coughing.
* * *
The EMTs and firemen arrived. Minutes later I sat in the back of an ambulance, with an oxygen mask over my face. Another ambulance sped off, with Seth in the back. Bedford fire and police rushed around. I’d refused to go to the hospital. This time no one was around to make me. A police officer from Bedford waited impatiently beside me for the oxygen mask to come off so I could an
swer his questions, until someone called to him and he walked away. The man who’d help me pull Seth out of the house hadn’t reappeared. It made me suspicious.
I sucked in breath after breath of the oxygen. The EMT finally took the oxygen mask off. She looked up my nose. “Not bad.”
“What are you checking for?” I asked.
“The amount of soot in your nose. It indicates how bad the smoke inhalation is. You seem to be breathing okay, and you aren’t hoarse. Color’s good. But you really should go to the hospital or see your doctor.”
I thanked her, but I’d had enough of hospitals the other night. “Do you have any news on the man the other ambulance took?”
“I couldn’t say anything if I did know. A friend of yours?”
I nodded. Was he?
She looked around. No one was close by. “They took him to Lahey. They’ll take good care of him there.”
“Thank you,” I said.
She motioned at the police officer who’d been waiting to talk to me. He hurried over, held out his hand, and helped me step down out of the ambulance. “I need to ask you some questions,” the officer said.
“After I make a phone call.” My tone was firm. I managed to drag my phone out of my pocket. I Googled a family friend of Seth’s, Nichole More. Nichole was a defense attorney, a longtime family friend, and Seth’s mother’s choice for his wife. At one time I’d been in the picture, not that any of them had liked the idea. That was in the past, and I didn’t know what that meant for Nichole’s future. Seth hadn’t been interested, but things could have changed. I wasn’t anxious to call her, but someone needed to let Seth’s family know what was going on. Nichole was the only person I could think of. Her office number popped up. She worked for a law firm, and I hoped she’d answer on a Sunday night.
When she picked up, I quickly explained what had happened. Nichole’s tone went from icy cold to the nearest thing to frantic she’d ever expressed in front of me.
“You’re sure he’s at Lahey?” she asked.
“That’s what the EMT told me.”
“How badly is he injured?” Her voice cracked.
“I’m not sure. He wasn’t conscious.” I didn’t want to scare her more than necessary. My hand trembled as I remembered the image of the blood. The smoke. Who would go after Seth?
“Can you call his parents or give me their number so I can call them?” I asked.
“I’ll do it. It would be better coming from me.”
“I agree.” I looked at the police officer, who frowned at me. “I have to go.”
“Thank you,” Nichole said before I disconnected.
One of the firefighters came over and joined the police officer. Both of them wrote down my name and address in notebooks.
“Can you tell me what happened in there?” the firefighter asked as she flipped to another page of her notebook.
“I’d like to hear, too,” the Bedford officer said. His tone was serious, and it seemed like he wanted to tell the fireman to butt out.
I quickly explained what had happened.
“You’re saying it didn’t look like a cooking accident, then?” the firefighter asked.
“I didn’t smell any food burning. Just a chemical smell.” I thought back. “I didn’t see much, because there was a lot of smoke. Flames in a pan. I was trying to get Seth out of the house.”
The firefighter asked a few more questions before she headed to the house.
“You didn’t see anyone on the street or in the house?” the cop asked.
“Just the man who helped me pull Seth out onto the lawn.”
“What man?”
I described him and again looked around for him. “He took off his T-shirt and held it against Seth’s wound. Then right before the ambulance showed up, he asked me to hold it for a minute. That’s the last I saw of him.” Saying it out loud made it sound stranger and even more suspicious. I’d been grateful to him before, but now I was worried. Why had he left?
“You didn’t see which way he went?”
“I was concentrating on keeping pressure on Seth’s wound. He could have gone anywhere. Maybe he’s a neighbor.”
The officer nodded. “Did you see anyone else?”
“No. It’s a quiet street. I would have noticed if someone was around.” I would have, wouldn’t I? Maybe I hadn’t been paying close attention, with all the things on my mind. “I think I would have noticed,” I said, amending my answer. “In the house, I was focused on getting Seth out.”
“Why’d you go in if the house was on fire?”
“Something just felt wrong to me . . . the loud music, the door being open. I couldn’t not go in.”
“Wait a minute. Aren’t you that woman from Ellington I keep reading about in the paper who keeps saving people?”
“A series of coincidences.”
“And your husband’s the chief of police over there.”
“He was the chief of police.” I wasn’t going to go into the details of my personal life with this guy.
“Seems to me like you could have come over here, stabbed Mr. Anderson, and staged the fire.”
“Are you crazy?” I felt weary. I needed to sit, but there wasn’t anywhere to take a seat, unless it was in the cop’s car. “Then why would I call nine-one-one or bother to get Seth out?”
The cop studied me. “Just wanted to see how you’d react to that. Stranger things have happened.”
I saw a dark SUV drive by. It looked like the kind Mike and his men drove. But lots of people drove dark SUVs, and I didn’t know one from another. The cop turned to see what I was looking at.
“Someone you know?” he asked.
“I don’t think so. Anything else? I’m exhausted, and I smell like I rolled around in ashes.”
“Yeah. Don’t leave town.”
“I’m going to Ellington, and my husband’s been in the cop business a long time. I know you can’t tell me that.”
“Gotta try. Works more often than not.” He turned, walked to his car, and took off.
A couple of firefighters were rolling up hoses. Police, crime-scene techs, and the arson squad all roamed around. A few neighbors stood around, but I didn’t see the man who’d helped me anywhere. I dragged myself to my Suburban and hoisted myself in. As I started the car, a TV station van pulled up. An attack on the DA would be big news. I didn’t want to be part of it, so I drove off.
I thought about going to the hospital to check on Seth, but it really didn’t work with his “Let’s keep things professional” philosophy. Besides, since I wasn’t a relative, they probably wouldn’t give me any information, anyway. I certainly didn’t have the energy to pretend to be his sister or cousin. Hopefully, tomorrow I’d be able to find out something at DiNapoli’s. Even though Seth lived in Bedford, he was well known in Ellington, too.
* * *
I hurried past Stella’s apartment, not wanting to talk. I bounded (okay, walked slowly) up the stairs. Just as I stepped on the landing, Ryne came out of his apartment. He had on jeans and a T-shirt and smelled so clean, it almost cleared the last of the smoke smell out of my nose.
He frowned when he saw me. “Have you been to a cookout?”
“Something like that,” I said. I walked by him and unlocked my door. I glanced over my shoulder when I didn’t hear him go down the steps.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I was so sick of people asking me that. “Just peachy.” I shoved my door open but felt guilty for being so short with Ryne. “Thanks again for the nachos today.”
He nodded and left. I was grateful to be alone.
Chapter 12
I showered, trying to scrub all the smoke smell off of me, then I threw on shorts and a sleeveless shirt. It was eleven by the time I called Lahey, but as suspected, they wouldn’t give me any information about Seth. For a few seconds, I debated calling Nichole. I gave in and dialed her number. All it did was ring. I grabbed a Sam Adams Summer Ale from the refrigerator. It was hot i
n the apartment, so I opened all the windows, hoping for a breeze. I flipped the TV on and settled in to watch the Red Sox play the Toronto Blue Jays.
Their promising spring season had melted into a promising early summer. This had fans nervous that some disaster would soon befall the team and that a shot at the play-offs and the World Series would fade into nothing. But as far as I could tell, Red Sox fans were always nervous about how the season was going to go. The only day they weren’t nervous was the day the team actually won the World Series. But by the next day, they were back to worrying about spring training—it was an endless cycle.
Not too long ago I would have been watching a romantic movie or action show. But now watching love stories made me too sad and I’d had more than enough real action in my own life. That pretty much left me with sports. The Jays’ pitcher threw a wild pitch. It hit the Red Sox player in the head. He tossed off his helmet and started his trot to first base. Seeing the helmet lying there reminded me I still had Brody’s sports equipment in the back of the Suburban. If I didn’t get it out soon, the Suburban would probably smell to high heaven. Just as I forced myself up off the couch, there was a knock on my door. I debated answering it, because I was in no mood to entertain anyone. Another knock sounded so determined, I got up to answer the door.
I peeked through the peephole and was surprised to see Anil Kapoor, one of the school board members, standing out there. He was looking over his shoulder and fidgeting. Then he turned and looked at the peephole so fiercely, I jumped back. What the heck was he doing here?
I opened the door. Anil brushed by me and walked into my apartment.
“Can I help you?” I asked. Anil was already slumped on the couch. His skin, normally the color of sand from the Sahara, had a gray tinge to it.
“Someone’s setting me up,” he said.
I pulled my grandmother’s rocking chair over closer to the couch and settled on it. “What are you talking about?”
“The police have interviewed me three times about my relationship with Melba.”
I Know What You Bid Last Summer Page 7
