“No.”
“They don’t know about it?”
“No.”
“I’m missing something. What happened when the body was found? The police had to be called in then, didn’t they?”
“The body wasn’t found there,” I explain. “The killer took it away.”
“And no one else saw it, except you?” she whispers.
I nod. “Do you remember when we saw Roach and those other people land their airplanes on Roach’s property?”
“Of course. How could I not remember?”
“Wallace was one of those other people.”
“Oh,” she says, shook up now even more than she already was.
“That wasn’t the first time I saw Wallace fly in there.” I lean back, brace myself against the wall. “Wallace flew the victim to Roach’s farm. He was the pilot.”
“Who was he? The victim.”
“The Russian senior counselor to the United States. The third-ranking member of their embassy.”
“So Roach was involved,” she says breathlessly.
I shake my head. “Roach wasn’t there. He was in Washington.”
I realize that Maureen doesn’t know the counselor was found dead in a Baltimore slum a week later. There’s no reason for her to—if she didn’t see the story on the news over the next few days or read about it in a newspaper, she would have no idea. Most people wouldn’t, it doesn’t affect them—even if they had seen or read something, the information would have passed through, like yesterday’s breakfast. Flushed from the system, gone.
She takes my hand. “No wonder you’ve been so uptight about this. You saw Wallace kill this man?”
I shake my head. “Wallace didn’t kill him. There was a third man. He was the killer.”
“Do you know who he is?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
She stares at me, trying to understand. “I don’t get it. There were three men there. Wallace, this counselor, and someone else. Who wasn’t Roach.”
I nod.
“Well, if you knew one was Wallace . . .”
“I didn’t know it, then. I hadn’t met Wallace yet.”
That throws her. “Then how did you know?”
“I found out later.”
She’s off the track. “Later like when?”
“After I met him. I knew I’d seen him somewhere before. I figured it out.”
She nods. “Okay. So if you knew one of these guys was Wallace, then or later, and you knew the second one was this counselor . . . how did you know who he was?”
“I saw his picture on television, about a week later.”
“Okay.” I can see she’s trying to image this, to figure it out. “So if you could figure out who Wallace was, and you could figure out the counselor, why couldn’t you figure out who the third man was?”
I explain that it was early in the morning, that the direction in which the sun was situated placed the third man’s face in shadow, unrecognizable.
“So you have no idea who he was, this third man?” she asks, wanting to make sure she’s understanding me fully.
“Not a clue.”
“Okay. So this third man—Mr. X—kills this counselor on Roach’s runway.”
Another nod.
“Umm.” She thinks some more. “And the body was taken away, so no one could connect it to Roach.”
“That’s right,” I affirm. “No one would ever know. Except Wallace and the killer.”
“And you,” she reminds me.
“And me. But they don’t know that,” I say. I’m not going to tell her that my pal Buster knows, and that Roach might also. “Aren’t you sorry, now that you know this? You’re in this a lot deeper than you should be. Than anyone should be.”
“Including you, Fritz.”
“I can’t help it. I was there, I saw it.”
“Shouldn’t you have gone to the police?”
“My lawyer told me not to. You don’t have to, legally.”
She nods in agreement. “That was smart on his part. You go to the cops, whoever this killer is would find out about it, and you could be next.”
“That’s it. Stay uninvolved.”
She taps her fingernails on the bedspread, a nervous gesture. “You aren’t responsible for this. You didn’t kill anyone. You don’t have to put your life on—” A fresh thought occurs to her. “You saw this dead counselor’s picture a week after you saw him killed?”
“About a week.”
“So he did turn up somewhere. I mean, his body did.”
“In Baltimore.”
“Baltimore? That’s what, a hundred miles from here?”
“More.”
“Why Baltimore?”
“It was set up to look like a killing during a robbery, or while he was with a hooker.”
“To throw the police off the trail,” she reasons. “This killer’s pretty smart.” She pauses. “Do you still think it’s smart not to go to the police? The more I hear, the worse this gets.”
“I’ve got to try to find out who the killer was,” I tell her. “I’m in too deep to stop now. But as soon as I find out—if I do—I am going to go to the police.”
Her brow furrows. “Assuming you do find out who it is, how are you going to do that? It would just be your word. Is that enough?”
“Normally, it wouldn’t be,” I concur. “But the circumstances weren’t normal.” I get up from the bed and look out the window. Late-night vehicles rumble on the highway in the distance; not many, mostly trucks. I’ve driven this road late at night. There have been times, two, three o’clock, when I’ve been the only driver on the road. That’s when you know you’re very much alone.
“I took pictures of it.”
She freezes in place, then she starts rocking, then she gets up and comes over to me. “You have pictures of this murder?” she asks, as if she can’t believe what she just heard.
I nod. “I was shooting the birds, my usual routine. I saw the plane touch down, I swung the camera around, and I snapped some pictures. It was instinctive. I was just being nosy, really. But I got pictures of the killing.”
She slumps against me. “Oh, Fritz,” she moans. “If those pictures ever got out . . .”
“They aren’t going to,” I say quickly. “They’re in a safe place.”
“Like where?” She buries her face in her hands, then stares at me. “I’m going to slap you silly if you tell me they’re in your house.”
I don’t answer. It’s safer for her if she doesn’t know, precisely.
“Fritz!” she rails at me. “Who are you kidding, besides yourself? Roach has already sent men to your house. It isn’t a question of if he’s going to come back, it’s when. Hijacking you to his place—that was a shot across your bow. If he was suspicious of you before, he’s still going to be suspicious. More, the longer this goes on.” She grabs my arm. “Do you know what the smartest thing would be for you to do? The only sane thing?”
I want her to tell me, but I can’t ask, because I would be admitting the truth of what she’s saying.
She doesn’t need my permission. “Get rid of the pictures, don’t tell another soul what you’ve told me tonight, and then forget about this! Forget everything! You never saw it, it didn’t happen, and you and I can start a life together.” She puts her arms around me, leans her head against my chest. “Don’t you want that, Fritz? To start a life with me, or at least give it a decent try?”
“Yes.” The word almost chokes in my throat, but not for lack of feeling.
“Then give us a chance. Getting killed does not give us a chance.” She’s beginning to cry—not bawling, but tears are forming in the corners of her eyes.
“I’m not dead.”
She looks at me, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. “You will be if you keep messing with James Roach. I don’t know where you’ve hidden those pictures, Fritz, and honestly, I don’t want to. But until you can assure me, honest to God,
that they aren’t in your house, I’m not spending one moment there. It’s too scary.” She grabs my face with both hands. “For you, more than me.”
• • •
It’s one in the morning. I’m sweating like a junkie, rivulets of stink are coming out of my armpits, my crotch. I can’t sleep—I can barely breathe, the tension is so unbearable. So what if I have a gun two feet away, locked and loaded? I’m going to use it if Roach’s storm troopers come after me? They’d shove it up my ass and pull the trigger.
Maureen’s right. I can’t keep the transparencies here.
Gathering up the evidence of the murder—the transparencies and the enhancements Jack the specialist made for me in Anacostia—I throw them into my camera bag with my cameras, my laptop, and my new gun. Then I leave the house and drive toward town, until I find a cheap truckers’ motel that’s still open and has an available room. I pay cash and check in under a phony name. As an extra precaution I park my car in back, where it can’t be seen from the street.
The night goes slowly. I don’t sleep, I don’t even try to. I watch movies until dawn, curtains closed, door locked, chain on, my body so stiff with tension it aches, the loaded gun perched on the end table next to the bed.
At first light I drive to the nearest all-night minimart, get the largest takeout container of coffee they have, and go into Jamestown, where I sit in my car drinking the oily brew. Finally, at the stroke of nine, I walk into the First Bank of Jamestown (the only bank in Jamestown) the moment they unlock the doors, where I rent a safe deposit box and lock the film away.
That helps lift the burden. Now the pictures aren’t in my house anymore, sending out evil rays via cosmic radar. I head for home, feeling greatly relieved.
The past few days have been hot and muggy, but bearable. This morning we’re back to a normal Maryland summer—blistering heat layered on tropical jungle humidity. On days like this I fondly think about my supreme high school fantasy: cruising to Ocean City in a top-down red Cadillac convertible with two beautiful sixteen-year-old blondes jammed in the front seat with me and a cold case of beer in the back to quench our thirst.
It never happened. I never owned a Caddy, convertible or otherwise, and there were never two girls at the same time, unless there was another boy along as well. It’s a nice fantasy, though.
I pass by my mother’s house on the way to mine. I’m still nervous as hell, but I don’t feel as bad as I did last night. Nighttime always brings out the sweats and heart palpitations. In the light of day, the shadowy creatures can be seen for what they are—frightening, but not fatal.
I hear the fire before I see it. It’s loud, like gunfire or artillery shells, pops and explosions and a low rumble. Machines grinding, voices yelling words I can’t distinguish. I round the final bend in the road.
The flames look like they’re shooting out of the tops of the trees. In front of me is a wall of fire, crowned by massive cumulus clouds of black smoke that are billowing up to the sky. There are fire trucks parked haphazardly in my yard, men with hoses. Policemen as well.
The cop at the barricade doesn’t know who I am. He tries to stop me, but I power by his outstretched hand, almost hitting him, braking to a stop at the edge of the fire-fighting equipment. Jumping out of my car, I run toward what remains of my shack. Most of it is already gone—no more roof, hardly any walls, charred timbers fallen on the floor.
“What happened?” I’m screaming. I try to run past the line of firemen into the house, but a burly cop stops me, grabbing my arms and pinning me back. Ralph Lomax, one of the firemen, a decent fellow I’ve known for years, rushes over. His face, like the others, is black with soot. He’s shaking his head.
“It’s a goner, Fritz. Nothing we could do about it, tinderbox like this. Getting water to it was a bitch, we tried to suction out of the creek, but no go. All we had is what we brought with us on the trucks.”
My overwhelming thought is of my pictures of the birds, especially Ollie. Did any of them survive?
I stand there helplessly and watch as my house burns to the ground.
After what seems an interminable amount of time, the embers have cooled enough for me to go into what is now nothing more than a shell. The chief, Pat Summers, a man of poor humor who is a decade older than me, comes over and lays a weighty hand on my shoulder. “Sorry about this, Fritz.”
I’m numb. “How did it happen?”
“Fault in the wiring or gas explosion, had to be.” He pauses, gives me a dubious look. “You rebuilt this yourself, didn’t you?” Without waiting for my answer he adds, “Didn’t pull any permits, did you?”
I turn to him, angry as hell. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“C’mere.” He leads me past the still burning embers to some exposed wiring, fingers the frayed edges. “This wasn’t grounded properly. I’d bet next month’s paycheck we’ll find shoddy wiring like this everywhere.” He glances at me as I survey the ruins. “That’s generally the case with homemade places. That’s why the county requires you pull a permit, so the pros can inspect it for you and tell you where there’s going to be trouble.”
My house has burnt down to the ground and this dickhead’s lecturing me about chickenshit regulations. “I’ll remember that the next time I build a house from scratch,” I fume at him.
He gives me an “I could give a shit less” look and walks away. By this time, a news truck from one of the local television stations has shown up, along with some print reporters. Firemen and cops are walking around, poking at hot shards, treading cautiously on the floorboards, fearing that the weakened wood, what’s left of it, will collapse out from under them.
All my equipment is burnt and twisted, nothing redeemable. The pictures and transparencies are scattered all over the floor. Most are scorched beyond recognition.
At least I still have my cameras. Thank God I had the instinct to take them and my PowerBook with me. I can take more pictures of Ollie—if I can summon the energy to go out there again, after this.
“Hey!” A young cop has wandered into the shell that was my bedroom. His voice is sheer panic. “Hey! Over here!”
The detective in charge, standing in the middle of what was my living room, turns to the voice. “What?” he calls back.
The young cop’s voice cracks. In a broken falsetto: “I think there’s a body in here!”
Everyone rushes into the bedroom; I lag behind. That could have been me. I look over, catch Pat Summers’s eye. His face is set in a hard mask. We’re coming from opposite directions, but we’re thinking the same thing—maybe it wasn’t an accident, after all. Maybe whoever this was torched the place and then got caught in his own fatal machination.
I’ll feel a lot better if that’s the case; although I’ll be a lot more scared, too, because that would mean action has superseded threats. Which has to come from one source—my neighbor across the water. That’s chilling to contemplate, but if it’s so, at least it’s out in the open now.
In the bedroom, men are pulling at a pile of support beams. The body is buried under them.
A foot is revealed. Wearing a woman’s shoe.
I push past the assembled bodies, tearing at the beams, my hands are splintering, they’re bleeding, I don’t feel it, my heart is pounding, I’m trying to wrench the heavy beams away, the burnt wood is soft, it comes apart in my hands, my bloody hands. Others are shoulder to shoulder with me. We push the beams aside, one after another, the body beginning to be revealed, then the back of the head. The gray hair, the string of pearls.
“Oh, my fucking Christ!” This is Pat, crossing himself.
The remaining beams are cleared off the body. I kneel down, rocking mindlessly while I cradle the lifeless form of my mother in my arms.
• • •
The ambulance arrives. The coroner is a young Asian woman I’ve never seen. I watch as she and Pat Summers have a brief conversation. He shows her a section of the frayed wiring. She turns it over in her hands, scribbles s
ome notes, approaches me.
“The cause of death was smoke inhalation, most likely,” she tells me crisply, stripping off her latex gloves. “Since the fire was electrical in origin it would have started in the walls and gone undetected until the whole thing suddenly exploded. Probably a beam fell on her.” She pauses. “If it makes you feel any better, she was almost certainly unconscious the entire time. She wouldn’t have been in any pain.”
That doesn’t make me feel better.
“We won’t know for sure until we do the autopsy.” She nods perfunctorily. “I’m sorry.” She didn’t know my mother from Adam.
The paramedics cover my mother’s body, lift her into the ambulance, drive away. I sit on the ground, grasping a thick notebook in my hands. My mother’s memoirs. It was under her body. She brought it down here to show it to me. The cover is burnt and the edges are charred, but some of the pages survived.
Another car comes tearing down the road and skids to a stop on the other side of the phalanx of police cars and fire trucks. Hearing the squeal of brakes, I look up. Maureen, eyes wide, hair wild, jumps out. She sees me, screams, rushes over to me. “I thought it was you!” she sobs. “I heard it on the radio. Thank God, you’re safe. I was so scared.”
“It wasn’t me,” I state the obvious in a dull monotone. “I didn’t get here till it was almost over.”
She’s almost collapsing, she’s so overcome with the emotion of what she’d feared had happened. “Who was it? Do they know?”
“It was my mother.”
• • •
Everyone is gone now except Maureen and me. I sit hunched over on an edge of the burnt foundation, my head in my hands. Maureen is stroking my back, holding me. “We should leave,” she says gently. “There’s nothing you can do here now.”
I shake my head.
“Where are you going to stay tonight?” she asks. Without waiting for my answer, she offers, “Why don’t you stay at the motel with me?”
“I’ll stay here.”
“There is no here,” she points out.
“At my mother’s house, I mean.”
She looks at me in alarm. “I don’t think you should.”
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