Shoofly Pie & Chop Shop: 2 Bugman Novels in 1

by Tim Downs

  “It’s perfect,” Sarah said.

  “I’m not going into hiding,” Nick said. “I’m taking the fight to them. They started this—I’m going to finish it.”

  “I know I’m a newcomer here,” Sarah said, “but it’s my life, too, you know. I think we should get away from here.”

  “Then we split up.”

  “No!” Riley said. “Whatever we do, we do it together. There will be no splitting up!” She glared at both of them until their countenances softened.

  Nick slumped down on the edge of the bed and lay backward. He rubbed his temples in long, slow circles, staring at the ceiling above. “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Maybe we could—” He sat up suddenly. “We’re going to Tarentum.”

  “Tarentum? But you just said—”

  “Listen to me—Santangelo knows everything. He knew about the shredding, and he knew about Leo—and he knows about my entomological report and the blowfly specimens in my greenhouse in Tarentum. Santangelo has to destroy all the physical evidence; how long will it be before he heads to Tarentum?”

  Riley looked at him in horror. “Oh, Nick—your mom.”

  Nick jumped up from the bed and began to gather the containers and canisters. Some clear fluid dripped down the edge of the specimen container; Nick wiped his hand on his trousers and turned to Sarah.

  “Have you got something I can put this in? Something watertight?”

  Sarah searched through her suitcase and found a Ziploc bag. She opened it, dumped out a hairbrush and a comb, and handed it to Nick. He sealed the leaking specimen container inside and set it with the others.

  “You two get packed. I’m taking these specimens to Sanjay—I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Then we’re heading to Tarentum.” He took out his cell phone and pushed an autodial number.

  “Wait,” Riley said. “Use the motel phone. They could be listening—”

  Nick held up one hand. “Mama? Nick. Look, Riley and I are headed up there this afternoon. We need a place to get away for a couple of days. And I need a favor, OK? I need you to pack a bag and stay with a friend; we need the house to ourselves. What? No, it’s not like that. No, really. Look, if it makes you feel any better, we’re bringing a chaperone along with us, OK? What? I don’t know, how about Mrs. Drewencki? Well, then, try Mrs. Teklinski. I don’t know, Mama, you figure it out. You’re the Queen of Poland, just tell them you’re coming and they have to obey. Right. Now don’t forget, I want you out of there by this afternoon. I’ll call you when it’s safe to come back. What? No, I said when it’s time to come back—give your hearing aid a thump. I’ve got to go now. Thanks. Me too.” He folded the phone and dropped it back in his pocket.

  He turned to Sarah. “You’re right, Sarah, we do need to put some distance between us—and we’re going to need a day or two to hide out while these samples are being processed. We’ll go to Tarentum, and then we’ll head for Mencken—but after that, I go after Santangelo.”

  Nick gathered up the containers and turned for the door. Riley stepped in front of him.

  “We go after Santangelo,” she said.

  It was late afternoon before they arrived in Tarentum. Nick and Riley drove together, and Sarah followed in her own car close behind. They made the long drive up Route 28, with the Allegheny River winding beside them on their right like a long, green snake. At some points it came almost up to the roadway, then suddenly curved away and disappeared behind clusters of houses and trees and factories, only to reappear just as suddenly a few miles ahead. The rivers of Pittsburgh are the city’s vascular system, and life surrounds the waterways like clusters of living cells around blood vessels. Opposite the river, narrow roads cut back through the steep, wooded hillsides, lined with gray-shingled houses that huddled close against the cold Pennsylvania winters.

  They led Sarah to a small motel on the outskirts of town, where she checked in alone under an assumed name. Now it was dark, and Nick and Riley stood at a pay phone in the corner of a BP station across from the motel.

  “No answer?”

  “She must have packed up and left,” Nick said. “Good girl.”

  “Now what?”

  Nick thought for a minute. “I wish I could sneak in the greenhouse just long enough to grab those specimens.”

  “We can’t chance that. What if Santangelo shows up and finds you? What if he’s already there and waiting?”

  Nick frowned.

  “Why didn’t you ask your mom to take them with her?”

  “The greenhouse is filled with specimens. What was I supposed to tell her? ‘Grab the Phaenicia sericata and the Calliphora vicina, but forget the coeruleiviridis.’ My mom can’t tell a palmetto bug from a pierogi.”

  Riley shivered. “That’s the last time I eat her pierogies.”

  “Come on—we’ll stick with our original plan.”

  They took a winding road to the very top of the hillside. They parked at the edge of the woods and made their way down on foot, approaching Nick’s house from behind.

  They emerged from the trees behind three sea green water tanks that sat like giant sentinels atop the Tarentum Plateau. The tanks were ancient, built before anyone could remember, holding a million gallons of water in reserve for the citizens of the town below. They were the tallest structures on the steep Tarentum hillside, boilerplated together from long, curving sheets of steel and welded together in rippling seams. From the rims, long brown lines of rust and corrosion dripped down the sides like icing on a cake.

  “That one,” Nick said, pointing to the tower on the right. “My house is on the other side.”

  Riley placed her left foot on the first rung of the metal ladder and looked up. Fifty feet above her, the curving rim of the water tank cut a dark slice from the evening sky. She climbed two rungs. Nick reached around her legs and grasped the sides of the ladder.

  “Keep going,” he said. “I’m right behind you.”

  Riley glanced down. She could already see the roof of Nick’s house, the tiny backyard, and the shimmering glass of the greenhouse beyond. By the time they reached the top of the tank, they would have a perfect view of Nick’s home—and of everything else in Tarentum as well. Riley checked her grip again; though she was no more than twenty feet off the ground, the hillside plummeting away to her left created the illusion of staggering height. She pulled herself tight against the ladder and looked at the rusting rivets that secured it to the side of the tank.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

  “Trust me,” Nick said, stepping up close behind her.

  “The last time I trusted you I ended up in the Allegheny River.”

  “That’s gratitude for you. Didn’t I tell you I’d show you the town?”

  They were only ten feet from the rim when Riley felt an overwhelming sense of exhaustion and a familiar dull ache in her lower back. She wrapped her arms around the ladder and shut her eyes.

  “I have to rest,” she said, panting. “It’s the climbing—that’s the hardest thing for me.”

  Nick climbed to the rung just below her and pressed his body tight against hers. “Take your time,” he said softly. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

  A few minutes later they pulled themselves up and over the curling rim and proceeded on hands and knees to the opposite side of the tank. Nick swung himself upright and casually draped his legs over the side of the tank; Riley approached the edge with considerably more caution.

  Nick looked at her. “I thought you were queen of the bony pile.”

  “You can’t fall off a bony pile,” she said warily, but already she was feeling more accustomed to their lofty perch. She glanced back at the hillside rising up close behind them, which thankfully helped to diminish the sense of height. She sidled up beside Nick and took a seat, still focusing on the metal surface to help hold her fear in check. Now for the first time she raised her eyes and drew in a sharp breath.

  The panorama before them was spectacular. Far below, the Alleghen
y River glistened blue white in the crystalline moonlight. Beyond the river, the dark bluffs of Lower Burrell and New Kensington ascended to heights equal to their own, the crest lined with glimmering dots of blue and gold. On their own side of the river, angular edges of boxcars, warehouses, and scrap-yard conveyors cut sharp silhouettes against the white water. As the hillside rose to meet them, dots of light became individual streetlamps, and vague geometric shadows became houses and fences and yards. The streets around Nick’s house were awash in orange light and visible in every detail, and the house and backyard lay at their feet. No one would be able to approach from any direction without their knowledge.

  “I could get used to this,” Riley said.

  “I spent a lot of time here as a boy. In those days the tanks had no tops; I used to climb up here at night and walk the rim.”

  “Did your mom know?”

  “Did you tell your dad you were climbing on the bony pile?”

  She shook her head. “For some things, it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission.”

  “That’s my life motto.”

  Neither one said anything for a few minutes. Reverential silence seemed to be the most appropriate response to the awesome vista before them.

  “Do you think Sarah will be OK at that motel?”

  “She’ll be safe there—that’s where you should be.”

  “Don’t start,” Riley said.

  They heard the sound of an engine; a car approached from the left and pulled over to the curb just two blocks away. A man got out, locked the door, and entered the adjacent house.

  “Mr. Jankowski,” Nick said. “When his dog died a few years ago, I asked him if I could have the body. He’s never looked at me the same way since.”

  Riley studied his face; the lenses of his glasses glowed like two white shields in the brilliant moonlight. From up here Nick could study the world’s inhabitants like the insects in one of his terraria, but maintain a protective distance from all the pain and risk of personal contact. She wondered if anyone had ever shared this lofty vantage point with him before. She thought about Leo; she felt a hollow ache in her stomach, and tears flooded her eyes again as they had throughout the day.

  “About Leo,” she said. “Nick, I am so sorry—”

  “Leo was not your fault.”

  “He was my responsibility. If it wasn’t for me—”

  “I asked him to help, not you. Leo was my responsibility.”

  Riley stroked his back. “Where did he live? Can you see his house from here?”

  Nick pointed to a house several blocks closer to the river—then he pulled his hand away quickly, as if the contact had produced a painful spark. “It was Santangelo’s fault,” he said, “and I’m going to make sure he picks up the check.”

  “What about the rest of them? What about Lassiter and Zohar and Truett?”

  “We only need one; he’ll give us all the others.”

  Riley wiped the corners of her eyes and looked at the house below. “How do you know he’ll come tonight?”

  “That’s what the phone call was for. I used my cell phone—they’re bound to be listening in. And I left a forwarding address and phone number at the motel desk; I might as well have put up a billboard. Santangelo knows where we were headed, and he thinks we’re planning to be here tonight. He won’t pass up a chance to catch us here—and I don’t think he’ll come until night. He needs the cover of darkness to get in and out of here unseen.”

  For the next two hours they sat in silence, watching every passing car until it disappeared from sight and tracking every wandering pedestrian until a door closed securely behind him. About ten o’clock, a silver sedan approached from the direction of the river and pulled over about three blocks away. The engine stopped, the headlights blinked off, but no one emerged from the car for several minutes. Then the driver’s door quietly opened; a single figure stepped out and glanced around. Nick and Riley both recognized Santangelo instantly.

  Then the passenger door opened, and a young woman emerged with long auburn hair.

  “Who is she?” Riley said.

  Nick nodded slowly. “I was wondering about that. Unless I miss my guess, she’s the lure.”

  “What lure?”

  “Think about it: The murder of each of the ‘donors’ had to be carefully planned—a specific location, very precise timing. Now, how do you make sure your victim is in the right spot at the right time? What makes a man pull over to change a tire at night in the worst part of town? How do you get a man to hold still while someone sneaks up behind him and injects him with a syringe? The answer is: you use a lure. I have a feeling we’re looking at the last thing Leo ever saw.”

  Riley looked at her again, squinting hard. They were too far away for the features of their faces to be visible, but in the still of night sound traveled readily. As they approached, even their footsteps became audible; his were flat and dull-sounding, hers were sharper and higher in pitch. Santangelo cleared his throat once, and even that muffled sound drifted up to Riley’s ears. They moved quickly toward the house, pausing in shadowy areas just long enough to search for prying eyes. With every step they came closer—closer to the street, closer to the house, closer to them. Riley felt terrified, but at the same time strangely exhilarated. It was like being an angel, floating passively in the sky above, looking down from the heavens on the sins of foolish men.

  Suddenly, Santangelo looked directly at them.

  Can they see us?” she whispered to Nick.

  “I doubt it. The moon is on the other side of the river.” He lifted one hand slightly and waved. Riley grabbed his arm and jerked it back down.

  Santangelo and the woman hesitated at the corner opposite the house. They stood for several minutes in the shadow of a tall hedge, watching the house and glancing up and down the street. When they finally moved, they moved quickly—not toward the front door, but around the house to the left and into the darkness of the backyard. They approached the back door silently and stopped, and Santangelo removed something from his coat pocket. While the woman stood watch, he bent over the doorknob and seemed to freeze like a statue.

  Riley was almost directly above them now, looking down at the tops of their heads. Suddenly she began to feel faint. She felt herself being drawn irresistibly toward the edge of the water tower, and she imagined herself falling headlong and landing facedown on the grass just yards from the woman’s feet. Riley propped herself up on wobbly arms, and there was the blank-faced woman staring at her; the woman turned to her companion, who slowly reached beneath his coat again and—

  Riley’s eyes began to droop shut—and then she felt two large hands grab her by the shoulders and pull back.

  “Try breathing,” Nick whispered. “You’ll find it helps.” He held her while she took several long, deep breaths. She looked at him and nodded.

  Below them, the back door opened a crack. A streak of yellow light fell across the yard and disappeared into the trees. Santangelo stepped quietly inside and the woman followed. She pulled the door shut behind them.

  “That’s my cue,” Nick said, rising to his feet.

  Riley turned to him with a look of panicked protest. “Take me with you.”

  Nick shook his head. “What if we have to run? Sudden exertion is not your forte. I’ll be OK; I should have plenty of time. And you’ll be safe here—but stay back from the edge, will you? We can’t catch these guys by falling on them.” She watched him move quickly across the tower, turn, and back down the ladder.

  Riley turned back to the edge of the tower; this time, she lay on her stomach and propped herself up slightly, with only her head protruding past the metal rim. She looked down to her left and saw Nick working his way around the side of the tank. She checked the back door of the house; it was still shut. Nick darted across the yard, around the side of the house, and momentarily disappeared from sight. A moment later he appeared again, standing under a streetlight on the front sidewalk, staring back at the
house.

  “Get out of the light!” Riley whispered. “They can see you!”

  As if in response, Nick turned and hurried down a small alley between two houses.

  Just then, the back door opened wide, and light flooded the backyard. Santangelo stepped out of the brightness and looked around; the woman was right behind him. Riley wriggled back from the edge until only her eyes were visible. Santangelo glanced to his left and spotted the greenhouse. He snapped his fingers and motioned to the woman; they turned together and headed directly for it, stopping briefly in the doorway before disappearing into the darkness inside.

  Riley looked back at the streets and searched for Nick; he was nowhere to be found. Suddenly he emerged from a side alley less than half a block from Santangelo’s car. He glanced both ways, then approached the passenger side. He tried the door, but it didn’t open. He hurried around to the driver’s side and tried again; still nothing.

  From the corner of her eye, Riley glimpsed a flash of yellow light. She turned to the greenhouse and saw a light reflecting off three of the glass panes. She searched from side to side for the source: a flashlight, a passing car, a neighboring house. Suddenly she realized that the light was not reflecting off the glass—it was shining through it. The light appeared in a fourth pane now, then a fifth—and it grew brighter all the time.

  Fire.

  She looked back at Nick. He was on the passenger side again, but now he was facing away from the car. Thirty feet ahead of him was a house; shielding the house from the street was a tall hedge, and in front of the hedge was a short retaining wall. He seemed to be doing something with the retaining wall. He was holding on to it—no, he was tugging on it. He stumbled back away from the wall and looked down at something in his hand. He turned, raised his arm, and brought his hand down against the passenger-side window.

  An instant later a sound like crunching gravel reached her ears, and right behind it came the shrill, piercing scream of a car alarm. Nick reached through the window, opened the door, and slid into the passenger seat.