“Where is he? Can you see him?”
Stella’s head turned, as if she were looking behind her for her father. “The fire’s there now. I can’t see him. Too much smoke. I don’t know what to do. My dad’s screaming, but I can’t get to him.”
“Where are the flames?”
“Right behind me,” Stella panted. “I can’t go back. There’s a huge ball of fire leaping out of the door leading to the basement. I can’t hear my dad anymore. I don’t know if he went upstairs or the fire…I can’t think about it. I have to get Mario.”
“Is Mario calling for you?”
“I’m in his room, but he’s asleep. I keep screaming at him but he doesn’t hear me. I’ll have to carry him.”
Stella leaned forward at the waist, then a moment later, she stood and held her arms in front of her as if she were carrying something heavy. Several times, her knees compressed and she fell to the treadmill, then quickly scrambled back to her feet. Her mouth was open and she was gasping.
Brenda moved the microphone away, speaking to the engineer. “You have no idea what you’re seeing.”
“Oh, yeah?” he said.
“This woman was severely burned,” she told him, “but she managed to find the strength to carry her brother out of that house. You’re seeing raw courage, Bill. Take a good look at it, because there’s not much of it around these days.” She pulled the mike back to her mouth, knowing she would have to put a stop to their reenactment any second. “Where are you now, Stella?”
“Kitchen door. I hurt so bad, but I can’t stop. The door handle’s burning my hands.” From the control room, Brenda could see Stella’s body trembling. “There’s this terrible sound. It’s like a wolf howling or a hurricane. Mario’s completely limp. I can’t get him to wake up and help me. Everything seems to be shaking and moving. We’re going to die.” Stella placed her hands together in a praying position, but her words were too soft to be picked up by the microphone.
They watched as Stella reached out with her hand, grimaced and then stumbled forward, collapsing on the treadmill.
“Are you okay?” Brenda said. “Did you trip?” When Stella remained prostrate on the treadmill, she realized something was terribly wrong. “Shit,” she said, hitting the toggle switch for the P.A. system in the lab. “Pete, quick. She must have fainted.” Yanking the headset off, she left the control room and rushed down the stairs to the main level, afraid that Stella might be having a heart attack.
Before Anderson could get to the main floor, Frazer swept Stella up in his arms and carried her to a sofa in a far corner of the room. “Get some wet paper towels,” he said to one of the technicians, bending down to place his head against her chest.
“Is she breathing?” Brenda said, squatting down beside Frazer and Stella with an anguished look on her face. “It was too much for her. I shouldn’t have made her do it.”
“She’s breathing,” he said. “Her heart’s beating pretty fast, but I think she’s okay. That was a scary scene. I think she just got spooked and blacked out.”
Brenda took the towels from the technician and wiped Stella’s face with .them. A few moments later, her eyes opened and she looked around in a daze. “What happened?”
“You fainted,” Brenda said. “How do you feel?”
“Awful,” Stella said, trying to sit up. She peered up at Frazer. “This was definitely not a game. If your friends think it’s fun, they need to have their heads examined.”
“Don’t get up yet,” the investigator told her. “Just rest a few minutes. Do you remember what you saw before you fainted?”
Stella was staring at the ceiling, her chest rising and falling, her arms and legs splayed out around her. For a long time she didn’t answer. “Yes,” she finally said. “I saw hell, Brenda. You took me straight to hell. I’m just glad I found the way back.”
chapter
THIRTEEN
Stella blamed her fainting spell on the fact that she had skipped lunch. Once she had rested, Brenda took her down to the snack bar in the building and bought her a sandwich and a soda. “I probably shouldn’t have done this without a doctor or a psychologist present,” she said, as they seated themselves at a table in the back of the room. “Fm sorry, Stella. I told you it might be traumatic, but I guess I didn’t realize how painful it would be.”
“It’s okay,” Stella said, taking a bite of her sandwich and then washing it down with the soda.
“You haven’t been eating enough,” Brenda said. “You can’t run on pure determination, you know. A little food now and then makes a world of difference.”
“Really, Brenda,” Stella said, “I remembered more than I ever have. It was frightening, but it answered a lot of questions.” She laughed. “I guess I can say all this because it’s over. You’ll never get me to put those goggles on again. I can promise you that.”
“Tell me what you learned,” Brenda said, leaning forward over the table. “I feel like shit right now for putting you through this. My only hope is that we accomplished something.”
“We did,” Stella said, pushing her plate away. “As I told you, I could recall seeing my father’s face, but all these years I thought he was still angry at me. Now I know what happened.” Her eyes glazed over. “When the fire broke out, he must have come to get me but Tom had locked the door from the inside. The object in his hands was an ax. He broke open the door, and then he saw me. You know,” she said, blinking, “he must have seen that I’d been burned. That’s why he had such a horrified expression on his face.”
“I see,” Brenda said, wishing Stella had recalled more about how the fire had started.
“That alone makes it worth it,” Stella continued, her voice heavy with emotion. “For sixteen years I thought my father was trying to kill me, hit me over the head with something. I guess I even wondered if he was the one who set the fire. That’s probably why I suppressed everything.”
“The most important thing is the man on the lawn,” Brenda said. She was pleased that Stella had found a degree of peace over her father’s role in the tragedy, but their primary goal was to solve the crime. “You said you recognized the voice. Was it your uncle? The voice I played for you was Clem’s.”
Stella’s eyes came alive. “It has to be, don’t you see? If I recognized the voice, then it had to be my uncle. Who else could it have been?”
“Randall said it might have been the neighbor,” Brenda said. “You’d recognize the neighbor’s voice, wouldn’t you?”
“It wasn’t the neighbor,” Stella said, shaking her head. “I’m almost positive, Brenda. The guy who was always complaining about our dog had a deep, raspy voice. He was an older man and a heavy smoker. If I remember right, he was from Arkansas originally and he had an accent. Real country, you know.”
Brenda dropped her eyes. “None of this may be valid, Stella. I’m sure you’ve heard of false memory. By putting the men on the lawn and all, we may have caused you to create a scenario to go along with it, but that doesn’t mean it really occurred that way. Your mind could have just responded to the clues we gave it, letting your imagination do the rest.”
“No,” Stella said, “I really remembered, Brenda. It’s all coming back now. The only thing I’m still confused about is the clicking noise. I think I was partially asleep when I heard it.”
“What about Randall?”
“What about him?”
“Once the fire broke out, you couldn’t tell us where he went.”
“He probably dived out the window,” Stella said, squeezing her soda can until it dented. “He certainly didn’t stick around to help me or my family. All he was concerned about was saving his own neck.” She stood and deposited her trash in the can by the door. Brenda stood as well, and they walked together to the elevator.
“What I don’t understand,” Brenda said, once they had exited the building, “is why Randall didn’t tell the police about the man on the lawn when they first contacted him after the fire.”
“This sounds like Mafia stuff, Stella.”
“I told you my uncle wasn’t in the Mafia,” she said, laughing. Then she fell serious again. “He might have used similar techniques, though, to control people. If we’re right about the pension scam, I guess he was running his own little crime game.” Something else occurred to her and Stella’s eyes flashed. “I’d bet my right arm that Victor Pilgrim was involved in this pension thing. I don’t believe for a minute that he actually saw a woman in a white rental car. I think the statement he gave the police was fabricated.”
“You may be right,” the investigator said. “As soon as we get back to Houston, I’m going to try to talk to Pilgrim. I’ve been making inquiries about the pension scam, so he may be on the defensive. Maybe I can get him to crack.”
“Good luck on that,” Stella said. “If my uncle bumped off Randall to keep him from talking, Pilgrim would be a fool to go up against him. Have you located the doctor yet?”
“I’m working on it,” she said. “So far I’ve determined that the same doctor was involved in at least five instances, but I’m not sure that’s unusual. He probably had some kind of contract with the city.”
“Is he still around?” Stella asked. “Can you get in touch with him?”
“I don’t want to do that yet,” Brenda said, following Stella into the parking lot. “Once I go through all the claims, we’ll decide how to proceed.”
Seeing her car, Stella glanced at her watch. It was almost six and she was supposed to be at Sam’s house for dinner at seven. “I have to go,” she said. “I should be home by nine or ten at the latest. If you think of anything else, give me a call at the house.”
“Wait,” Brenda said, having saved the best for last. “Did the clicking noises sound like the ones you heard that night?”
“Yes,” Stella said. “They sounded exactly like the sounds I heard.” A question mark appeared on her face. “How did you do that, by the way? I’ve been trying to match those sounds for years.”
Brenda reached into the pocket of her black slacks and pulled out a silver Zippo lighter, the sun bouncing off the shiny metal. She flicked it several times, moving her hand around so the lid tapped against the bottom section of the lighter, making a metallic sound.
“That’s it,” Stella said excitedly. “I always thought it was a lighter, but I never thought of one like that. I always compared it to the Bic lighters everyone uses today, and they don’t sound the same.”
“Well, I guess one mystery’s been solved,” Brenda said, smiling. “Now do you know what the metal pieces are and why they’re so important?”
“Hot damn,” Stella said. “You’re a genius, Brenda. It was a Zippo lighter, wasn’t it? That’s how the arsonist set the fire.”
“Here’s what I think happened,” she said, leaning back against Stella’s car. “The killer came in through the basement. Randall said the window leading to the basement was standing open. That’s how he got back inside the house, remember? The killer might have been hiding down there when Randall came in, and he simply kept silent. He was probably using the lighter for light so he could see, not wanting to turn the light on and risk getting caught. That’s why you heard the clicking noise so many times. He was walking around down there, flicking the lighter, probably looking for something flammable.” He didn’t have to look far,” Stella told her. We had a gas furnace with an open flame. If he flicked that lighter anywhere near the furnace, it would have blown sky high.”
“See,” Brenda said, “they thought the fire originated in your bedroom, but the furnace was probably right under your bed. When the floors collapsed after you managed to get out of the house, there was no way to tell if the fire started in your room or the basement. If the killer had flicked the lighter near the furnace, he would have been killed as well. He must have ignited something dry in the basement, and it flared up later after he’d left.”
“You think the killer’s initials or name were on the lighter?” she asked. “You know, the writing?”
“Yep,” Brenda said, placing the Zippo back in her pocket. “But I don’t think the inscription says Clementine Cataloni. There’s a C visible on one of the metal chunks, but there’s also a U and several N‘s on the others.”
“Are you certain?”
“Fairly certain,” she said. “We have to see the missing piece, though, before we can figure out what it says.”
“Maybe you’re just not reading the letters right. They were melted, so—”
“I’ve got the crime lab working on it now,” Brenda said. “Keep your fingers crossed that they find the missing piece in Houston, and that your uncle didn’t have someone swipe it from the evidence room. Without it, we may never figure out what the damn thing says.” She paused, thinking. “Just for the record, did your uncle smoke?”
“Absolutely,” Stella answered. “I remember because my mother wouldn’t let him smoke in the house. She always made him go out on the front porch. Wait,” she said, another thought coming to mind, “maybe the lighter was a souvenir from the Knights of Columbus. That might be where the letter U comes in.”
Brenda nodded. “You might be right, Stella.”
A feeling of satisfaction spread throughout Stella’s body. “Revenge,” she said. “I can almost taste it, Brenda, and boy is it sweet.”
The two women embraced, and Brenda headed back to the building. Stella reached up and touched the scar on her face, tracing the uneven abrasion with her fingers. For the first time she didn’t feel a jolt of revulsion. Brushing the hair on the right side of her face back behind her ear, she tilted her head up and closed her eyes, letting the sun’s warm rays wash over her entire face.
Even though the sun was setting, the temperature was still in the eighties and the humidity was oppressive. Janet Hernandez was used to it, though. The house she shared with her husband didn’t have air-conditioning. Sitting on the steps of the Fannin Street complex, she slapped at a mosquito that had landed on her arm, cursing her husband under her breath. Just then a dark blue Camaro pulled up at the curb. The driver honked, and she raced down the steps.
“You’re late,” she said, opening the passenger door and climbing inside with her husband. Tossing her backpack in the seat behind her, she snapped, “I’d rather take the bus than wait for you all night. If you’re going to be late, Ray, all you have to do is call.”
Ray Hernandez was a good-natured man, with wavy dark hair, olive skin, and a perpetual smile. “What’s got you so bent out of shape?” he asked, laughing at her intensity. “Ah,” he said a few moments later, “must be the wicked witch again. What did Holly do today?”
“Nothing,” Janet said, gazing out the window. They rode in silence for several miles. When they came to a stoplight, Ray reached over and tickled her in the ribs, causing her to giggle. “Stop that,” she said;, knocking his hand away. “You don’t understand, Ray. I went to the building inspector’s office today on my lunch hour. They gave me the runaround, claiming it could take months to find the information I need. That is, if they still have it. I don’t know what to do now. I don’t want to go back to Holly empty-handed.”
Ray cranked the powerful engine on the Camaro and took off. “Tell me again what you’re looking for.”
“Well,” she said, “like I told you yesterday, Stella’s father was a building inspector. Holly wants to find out what he was working on at the time of his death. Maybe he knew something or saw something that he shouldn’t have, and someone decided to kill him because of it.”
“Oh
, I see,” Ray said, his inherent curiosity taking hold. After working for the Houston Chronicle for eight years in a variety of low-level jobs, he had recently landed a position as a reporter. He was so taken with his new role in life that he had started consuming gallons of coffee and running on nervous energy, emulating the ragged reporters he had always admired. “You should go through the archives at the paper,” he told her. “If this Cataloni guy stumbled across something big enough to get him killed, it was probably newsworthy enough to make the paper. If you want, we can go to the office and check it out right now.”
“I don’t know what to look for,” Janet replied.
‘That’s why I thought it best to start with the building inspector’s office.”
“Look for some kind of calamity,” Ray told her, steering the Camaro up the ramp for the freeway. “A building that burned due to faulty wiring, a roof that collapsed. Something along those lines.”
Janet leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “I love you,” she said. “You’re the best.”
Once they arrived at the offices of the Chronicle, Ray led Janet into a small, cramped room lined with file cabinets and computer terminals. Four cluttered desks were positioned along the walls next to several microfiche machines covered in a fine coat of dust. “Almost all the files have been transferred to computer now,” he said, flipping the switch on one of the terminals. Sitting down, he tapped a few keys and pulled up a date-retrieval screen. “Just put in the dates you’re interested in,” he said, “and wait for the computer to respond.” He stood, indicating that Janet should take his seat. “There’s a huge data base, so don’t panic if your information doesn’t pop up right away. I’ll go check my voice mail, make a few calls. If you want, I can come back in an hour.”
Janet watched her husband disappear through the doorway. She was tired, and her stomach was growling. All she’d had was an apple for lunch, and it was already past seven. Her husband seemed to be able to survive on thin air since he had been made a reporter, but Janet was different. When she didn’t eat, she became light-headed and irritable.
Trial by Fire Page 23
