The Novels of Nora Roberts, Volume 4

by Nora Roberts

  The man with the fireman’s helmet and the flashlight came out carrying a kind of toolbox. He was older than her father; she could tell because there were more lines on his face, and the hair she could see under the helmet was mostly gray.

  He’d given them a quick study before stepping out. The man—Gibson Hale—had the long, lanky build that rarely went stocky. A little worse for wear with the night he’d put in. He had a lot of curling hair, sandy with some bleached-out tips. Got out in the sun when he could, didn’t wear a hat.

  John Minger didn’t just study the fire, but the people involved in it.

  The kid was pretty as a picture, even with the hollow, sleep-starved look in her eyes. Her hair was darker than her father’s but had the curl in it. Looked to John as if she was going to get his height and build along with it.

  He’d seen them last night when he arrived on scene. The whole family, grouped together at first like shipwreck survivors. The wife, now she was a looker. The sort of bombshell you didn’t see often outside the movie screen. The oldest daughter favored her the most, he recalled. With the middle one missing that wow factor by a fraction. The boy had been handsome, with the sturdy look of childhood still on him.

  This kid looked whippy, and there were some bruises and scrapes on the long legs that made him think she probably spent more time running around with her little brother than playing with dolls.

  “Mr. Hale. I’m not going to be able to let you go in yet.”

  “I wanted to see. Did you . . . could you find out where it started?”

  “Actually, I’d like to talk to you about that. Who’s this?” he asked with a smile for Reena.

  “My daughter Catarina. I’m sorry, I know you told me your name, but—”

  “Minger, Inspector John Minger. You mentioned one of your daughters saw the fire, woke you.”

  “I did,” Reena piped up. She knew it was probably a sin to be proud of her status. But maybe it was just a venial sin. “I saw it first.”

  “I’d like to talk about that, too.” He glanced over as a police car pulled up to the curb. “Can you give me a minute?” Without waiting for an answer, he went to the car, spoke quietly to the policemen inside. “Is there someplace you’d be comfortable talking?” he asked when he came back.

  “We live just up the block.”

  “That’s fine. Just another minute.” He went to another car and stripped off what Reena saw now were like coveralls. Beneath he wore regular clothes. He put them, and his helmet, in the trunk, along with the toolbox and, after locking it, nodded to the policemen.

  “What’s in there?” Reena wanted to know. “In the toolbox?”

  “All kinds of things. I’ll show you sometime if you want. Mr. Hale? Can I have a second? Could you wait here, Catarina?”

  Again, he didn’t wait, simply stepped off a short distance.

  “If there’s anything you can tell me,” Gib began.

  “We’ll get to that.” He took out a pack of cigarettes, a lighter. He took the first drag as he pushed the lighter back in his pocket. “I need to talk with your daughter. Now your first instinct might be to fill in details for her, prompt her. It’d be better if you didn’t. If you just let the two of us talk it through.”

  “Okay. Sure. She’s, ah, observant. Reena.”

  “Good.” He stepped back to Reena. Her eyes, he noted, were more amber than brown and, despite the bruises under them, looked sharp. “Did you see the fire from your bedroom window?” Minger asked as they walked.

  “No. From the steps. I was sitting on the steps of my house.”

  “A little past your bedtime, huh?”

  She thought about this, about how to answer it without revealing the embarrassing personal details and avoiding a lie. “It was hot, and I woke up because I didn’t feel very good. I got a drink of ginger ale in the kitchen and came out to sit on the steps and drink it.”

  “Okay. Maybe you can show me where you were sitting when you saw it.”

  She dashed ahead and obediently sat on the white marble steps as close to her original position as she could remember. She stared down the block as the men approached. “It was cooler than upstairs in my room. Heat rises. We learned that in school.”

  “That’s right. So.” Minger sat beside her, looked down the block as she did. “You sat here, with your ginger ale, and you saw the fire.”

  “I saw the lights. I saw lights on the glass, and I didn’t know what they were. I thought maybe Pete forgot to turn the lights off inside, but it didn’t look like that. It moved.”

  “How?”

  She lifted a shoulder, felt a little foolish. “Sort of like dancing. It was pretty. I wondered what it was so I got up and walked a little ways.” She bit her lip, looked over at her father. “I know I’m not supposed to.”

  “We can talk about that later.”

  “I just wanted to see. I’m too nosy for my own good, Grandma Hale says, but I just wanted to know.”

  “How far’d you walk down? Can you show me?”

  “Okay.”

  He got up with her, strolled along beside her, imagined what it would be like to be a kid walking down a dark street on a hot night. Exciting. Forbidden.

  “I took my ginger ale, and I drank some while I walked.” She frowned in concentration, trying to remember every step. “I think maybe I stopped here, close to here, because I saw the door was open.”

  “What door?”

  “The front door of the shop. It was open. I could see it was open, and I thought, first I thought, Holy cow, Pete forgot to lock the door, and Mama’s going to skin him. She does the skinning in our house. But then I saw there was fire, and I saw smoke. I saw it coming out the door. I was scared. And I yelled as loud as I could and ran back home. I ran upstairs and I think I was still yelling because Dad was already up and pulling on pants, and Mama was grabbing her robe. And everybody was shouting. Fran kept saying, What, what is it? Is it the house? And I said, No, no, it’s the shop. That’s what we call Sirico’s mostly. The shop.”

  She’d thought this through, John decided. Gone back over it in her head, layered the details.

  “Bella started crying. She cries a lot because teenage girls do, but Fran didn’t cry so much. Anyway, Dad, he looked out the window, then he told Mama to call Pete—he lives above the shop—and tell him to get out, get his family out. Pete married Theresa and they had a baby in June. He said to tell Pete there was a fire in the shop and to get out right away, then to call the fire department. He was running downstairs when he told her. And he said to call nine-one-one, but she already was.”

  “That’s a good report.”

  “I remember more. We all ran, but Dad ran the fastest. He ran all the way down. There was more fire. I could see it. And the window broke and it jumped out. The fire. Dad didn’t go in the front. I was afraid he would and something would happen to him. He’d get burned up, but he ran to the back steps, up to Pete’s.”

  She paused a moment, pressed her lips together.

  “To help them get out,” John prompted.

  “Because they’re more important than the shop. Pete had the baby, and my dad grabbed Theresa’s arm and they all ran down the stairs. People were starting to come out of their houses. And everybody was shouting and yelling. I think Dad was going to try to run inside, with the fire, but Mama grabbed him hard and said, Don’t, don’t. And he didn’t. He stood with her and he said, Oh Christ, baby. He calls my mother that sometimes. Then I heard the sirens, and the fire trucks came. The firemen jumped out and hooked up hoses. My dad told them everyone was out, that there was nobody inside. But some of them went inside. I don’t know how they could, with the fire and smoke, but they did. They looked like soldiers. Like ghost soldiers.”

  “Don’t miss much, do you?”

  “I’ve got a memory like an elephant.”

  John flicked a glance up at Gib, grinned. “You got a pistol here, Mr. Hale.”

  “Gib. It’s Gib, and, yeah, I do.
”

  “Okay, Reena, can you tell me what else you saw? Just when you were sitting on the stairs, before you saw the fire. Let’s go back and sit and you can try to remember.”

  Gib glanced toward the shop, then back at John. “It was vandalism, wasn’t it?”

  “Why do you say that?” John asked.

  “The door. The open door. I talked to Pete. He closed last night. I took the family to the ball game.”

  “Birds trounced the Rangers.”

  “Yeah.” Gib managed a small smile. “Pete closed, along with one of my other kids—employees. He locked up, he remembers specifically because he and Toni—Antonia Vargas—had a conversation about his key ring when they locked up. He’s never left a door unlocked. So if it was open, somebody broke in.”

  “We’ll talk about that.” He sat with Reena again. “It’s a nice spot. Nice place to have a cold drink on a hot night. Do you know what time it was?”

  “Um, it was about ten after three. Because I saw the clock in the kitchen when I got the ginger ale.”

  “Guess most everybody in the neighborhood’s asleep that time of night.”

  “All the houses were dark. The Castos’ outside light was on, but they mostly forget to turn it off, and I could see a little bit of light in Mindy Young’s bedroom window. She sleeps with a night-light even though she’s ten. I heard a dog bark. I think it was the Pastorellis’ dog, Fabio, because it sounded like him. He sounded excited, then he stopped.”

  “Did any cars go by?”

  “No. Not even one.”

  “That late at night, that quiet, you’d probably hear if a car started up down the block, or a car door closed.”

  “It was quiet. Except for the dog barking a couple times. I could hear the air-conditioning humming from next door. I didn’t hear anything else, that I remember. Not even when I was walking down toward the shop.”

  “Okay, Reena, good job.”

  The door opened, and once again John was struck by beauty.

  Bianca smiled. “Gib, you don’t ask the man in? Offer a cold drink? Please, come inside. I have fresh lemonade.”

  “Thank you.” John had already gotten to his feet. She was the sort of woman men stood for. “I wouldn’t mind something cold, and a little more of your time.”

  The living room was colorful. He thought bold colors would suit a woman like Bianca Hale. It was tidy, the furniture far from new, but polished recently enough that he caught the drift of lemon oil. There were sketches on the walls, pastel chalk portraits of the family, simply framed. Someone had a good eye and a talented hand.

  “Who’s the artist?”

  “That would be me.” Bianca poured lemonade over ice. “My hobby.”

  “They’re great.”

  “Mama had drawings in the shop, too,” Reena added. “I liked the one of Dad best. He had a big chef’s hat on and was tossing a pizza. It’s gone now, isn’t it? Burned up.”

  “I’ll draw another. Even better.”

  “And there was the old dollar. My Poppi framed the first dollar he made when he opened Sirico’s. And the map of Italy, and the cross Nuni had blessed by the Pope and—”

  “Catarina.” Bianca held up a hand to stop the flow. “When something’s gone it’s better to think of what you still have, and what you can make from it.”

  “Somebody started the fire, on purpose. Somebody didn’t care about your drawings or the cross or anything. Or even that Pete and Theresa and the baby were inside.”

  “What?” Bianca braced a hand on the back of a chair. “What’re you saying? Is this true?”

  “We’re jumping a little ahead. An arson inspector will—”

  “Arson.” Now Bianca lowered herself into the chair. “Oh my God. Oh sweet Jesus.”

  “Mrs. Hale, I’ve reported my initial findings to the police department’s arson unit. My job is to inspect the building and determine if the fire should be investigated as incendiary. Someone from the arson unit will inspect the building, conduct an investigation.”

  “Why don’t you?” Reena demanded. “You know.”

  John looked at her, those tired and intelligent amber eyes. Yeah, he thought. He knew. “If the fire was deliberate, then it’s a crime, and the police take over.”

  “But you know.”

  No, the kid didn’t miss a trick. “I contacted the police because when I inspected the building I found what appears to be signs of forced entry. The smoke detectors were disabled. I found what appear to be multiple points of origin.”

  “What’s a point of origin?” Reena asked.

  “That means that the fire started in more than one place, and from the burn patterns, from the way the fire marked certain areas of the floor, the walls, the furnishings, and the residue, it appears that gasoline was used as a starter, along with what we call trailers. Other fuel, like newspaper or waxed paper, books of matches. It looks as though someone broke in, set trailers through the dining areas and back to the kitchen. You had more fuel back there: pressurized cans, wood cabinets. The framing throughout, the tables, chairs. Gasoline, most likely, was poured over the floor, the furnishings, splashed on the walls. The fire was already involved by the time Reena went outside.”

  “Who would do that? Deliberately do that?” Gib shook his head. “I could see a couple of stupid kids breaking in, messing around, having an accident, but you’re talking about deliberately trying to burn us out—with a family upstairs. Who would do that?”

  “That’s what I’m asking you. Is there anyone who has a grudge against you or your family?”

  “No. No, God, we’ve lived in this neighborhood for fifteen years. Bianca grew up here. Sirico’s is an institution.”

  “A competitor?”

  “I know everyone who runs a restaurant in the area. We’re on good terms.”

  “A former employee, maybe. Or someone who works for you who you’ve had to reprimand.”

  “Absolutely not. I can swear to it.”

  “Someone you or one of your family, or one of your employees, argued with? A customer?”

  Gib rubbed his hands over his face, then pushed up to walk to the window. “No one. No one I can think of. We’re a family place. We get some complaints now and then, you can’t run a restaurant without them. But nothing that would send off something like this.”

  “Could be one of your employees had an altercation, even outside the job. I’ll want a list of their names. They’ll need to be interviewed.”

  “Dad.”

  “Not now, Reena. We’ve tried to be good neighbors, and to run the place the way Bianca’s parents did. Modernized the system, some, but it’s the same heart, you know?” There was grief in his voice, but smoking through it was anger.

  “It’s a solid place. You work at it hard enough, you make a good living. I don’t know anybody who’d do this to us, or to it.”

  “We’ve had calls from neighbors all morning,” Bianca put in as the phone rang again. “I have our oldest girl answering the phone for us. People telling us how sorry they are, offering to help. To clean up, to bring food, to help rebuild. I grew up here. I grew up in Sirico’s. People love Gib. Especially Gib. You’d have to hate to do this, wouldn’t you? No one hates us.”

  “Joey Pastorelli hates me.”

  “Catarina.” Bianca passed a weary hand over her face. “Joey doesn’t hate you. He’s just a bully.”

  “Why do you say he hates you?” John wanted to know.

  “He knocked me down and hit me, and tore my shirt. He called me a name, but nobody will tell me what it means. Xander and his friends saw, and they came to help, and Joey ran away.”

  “He’s a rough kid,” Gib put in. “And it was . . .” He looked into John’s eyes, and something passed between them Reena didn’t understand. “It was upsetting. He should have counseling at the least. But he’s twelve. I don’t think a twelve-year-old broke in and did what you said was done.”

  “It’s worth looking into. Reena, you said you th
ought you heard the Pastorellis’ dog when you were sitting outside.”

  “I think it was him. He’s kind of scary, and has a hard bark. Like a cough that hurts your throat.”

  “Gib, I’m thinking if some kid roughed up my daughter, I’d have a few words with him, and his parents.”

  “I did. I was at work when Reena and Xander and some of the kids came in. Reena was crying. She hardly ever cries, so I knew she was hurt. Her shirt was ripped. When she told me what happened . . . I was pretty steamed. I . . .”

  Slowly, he looked over at his wife, a hint of horror in his eyes. “Oh my God, Bianca.”

  “What did you do, Gib?” John brought his attention back.

  “I went straight over to the Pastorellis’. Pete was hanging out, and he went over with me. Joe Pastorelli answered the door. He’s been out of work for most of the summer. I lit in.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut. “I was so pissed off. So upset. She’s just a little girl, and her shirt was torn, her leg was bleeding. I said I was tired of his kid bullying mine, and it was going to stop. That this time Joey had gone too far, and I was thinking of calling the cops. If he couldn’t teach his kid any better, the cops would. We yelled at each other.”

  “He said you were a fucking do-gooder asshole who should mind his own goddamn business.”

  “Catarina!” Bianca’s tone was razor sharp. “Don’t you ever use that kind of language in this house.”

  “I’m just saying what he said. For the report. He said Dad was raising a bunch of snotty, whining brats who couldn’t fight their own battles. But he said more swears. Dad said some, too.”

  “I can’t tell you exactly what I said, or he said.” Gib pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t have a tape recorder in my head like Reena. But it was heated, and it was close to getting physical. Might have, but the kids were standing out in front of the shop. I didn’t want to start a fistfight in front of them, especially since I went over there about violence in the first place.”