The Hot Pink Farmhouse bam-2

by David Handler

  “None,” Des responded. “Assuming the victim was on her way home, she would have come to a stop at the crossroads, then made a left and gone down that road toward the river. The assistant fire chief heard three explosions. He thought the first two might have been gunshots.”

  “Tommy, better have some uniforms canvass the neighbors,” Soave ordered him. “Find out what they heard.”

  Tommy headed off to take care of it. Up above, the choppers were still circling.

  “Anything else I ought to know?” Soave asked her.

  “The victim’s father is Wendell Frye, probably the greatest living sculptor in America. Also a major-league recluse.”

  Soave considered this, stroking his see-through mustache. “He got deep pockets?”

  “I imagine so, yes.”

  “Any chance this is a money-related thing? A kidnapping gone bad, say?”

  “Nothing should be ruled out at this point.”

  “Gee, thanks, I’ll remember that,” Soave said, bristling. Clearly, he felt she was lecturing him.

  Des let it slide. “I’ve told the family a DNA test may be necessary to confirm Moose’s identity-that’s what they called her, by the way. If there’s any way I can assist you from the local level, just let me know.”

  A photographer was snapping pictures of the remains from as many angles as possible. Until he was done, Moose could not be removed to the medical examiner’s office in Farmington. Des noticed that there was a strange, uncharacteristic hush among the technicians as they worked. It was the smell. It was all of the innocent animals that had died.

  Soave was studying her curiously. “You’re not enjoying this, are you?”

  “I never enjoy a death, Rico.”

  “No, I mean the fact that I’m in charge now.”

  She let that slide, too.

  “You know what I keep saying to myself?”

  “Rico, I honestly can’t imagine.”

  “I keep thinking you’re the smartest woman I ever met. But tell me this: If you’re so smart, how come you ended up back in a Smokey hat?”

  “Priorities change,” she answered.

  He shook his head at her. “I don’t get it.”

  “Not many people do.”

  “Are you telling me you’re happy here?”

  “I am.”

  He started flexing his shoulders again. Something was still on his mind. “Look, maybe we better stake out some ground rules-any information you gather on this case I want funneled through me. Are we clear on that?”

  “Of course we are, Rico,” responded Des, who knew exactly what was going on. He felt threatened by her presence here. He was, after all, a man. “Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do. You want community liaison help, it’s yours. You want a command center at town hall, it’s yours. Otherwise, I’m in my ride and out of here. It’s your case. I’m not looking to climb you.”

  He peered at her doubtfully. “You’re not looking to get back in?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “You’re being incredibly mature about this whole thing, you know that?”

  “Yeah, I’m all grown up.” Des glanced at her watch. She was due at Center School for traffic detail. “I’m going to take off now if you don’t need me.”

  “Did you check out her gas tank?” he asked offhandedly, stopping her.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Want to have a look?”

  She frowned at him. One minute he was creased, the next he was fishing for help. “Do you want me to?”

  “Sure, if you’d like.” Again, very offhanded. “I’m just saying I’ve got no problem with that. Unless you’ve got somewhere else you have to be…”

  “Okay, let’s have a look,” she said, because the truth was that she was very interested in the condition of the Porsche’s gas tank.

  Lab tests would confirm if there had been a bomb-the device would leave nitrate or chlorate residue behind. But Des could tell it with her own two eyes-by the fracture pattern on the gas tank. A bomb explodes outside the tank, setting off a second explosion inside the tank. If, on the other hand, an explosion has been caused by a bullet piercing the gas tank, then it’s the other way around-the tank explodes from the inside out. Entirely different distortion and bending of the metal.

  As Des knelt there, examining the Porsche’s gas tank, she had no doubt about what had happened.

  Neither did Soave. “I got me a shooter, Des,” he declared, as Tommy rejoined them.

  “That you do, Rico,” she agreed, shoving her hornrimmed glasses back up her nose.

  He had Tommy round up a dozen men to undertake a search for the spent bullet by fanning out in five-foot intervals around the wreckage. It was slow, painstaking work, but that was how you did things. And they might find it. Not that they’d be able to match it to a specific weapon-it would be too distorted from the explosion to do them much good in terms of ballistics. But maybe they could determine the class of weapon.

  “Could be somebody was tailing her, Des,” Soave said. “Got off a couple of pops when she came to a stop here at the crossroads, then hightailed it out of here. You think?”

  Des found herself gazing around at the surrounding countryside in search of a shooter’s blind, Soave’s eyes following hers. From the open field where they stood she could make out a spot of high ground in the woods across the road, in the general direction of Wendell Frye’s farm. There was a natural rise there, with an outcropping of bare rock that was partly shielded from the road by trees. “Unless he was waiting up there for her to come home,” she countered. “Less risk that way. If he tailed her, somebody might spot him.”

  “Yo, Tom-meeee!” Rico hollered to his cousin, who was helping the uniforms search for the bullet. “Take a couple of men up to that outcropping across the road! See if you find any fresh shoe prints or anything like that. Be ultra careful, okay? The ground’s damp.”

  “You got it!” Tommy obediently grabbed two troopers and started off with them across the road.

  “What a big doofus,” Soave grumbled sourly. “I have to tell him everything. And then I have to give him a cookie when he does good. He’s not a man, he’s dog. Was I ever that dumb? Wait, don’t answer that… You don’t mind sticking around for a little while, do you?”

  “I don’t mind.” Des radioed the barracks to request an available trooper to handle the school traffic. Then she rejoined Soave, who was watching the medical examiner’s men bag and tag Moose’s remains.

  Pictures. I will definitely need pictures of this.

  “How’s the jungle, Rico?”

  “Same.”

  “And your girl-what’s her name, Tammy?”

  “Close, it’s Tawny.” She was a manicurist in New Britain. Enjoyed an IQ roughly equal to that of a muskmelon. “What about her?”

  “How long have you two been seeing each other now?”

  “Uh, since high school.”

  “Which makes it how many years?”

  “Nine, I guess. So what?”

  “Damn, Rico, you belong on ‘Jerry Springer’ or something.” One thing hadn’t changed-with Soave, Des grabbed her pleasure where she could. “What is wrong with that girl? Is she a doormat or is she just plain comatose?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” he said irritably. “What’s the big deal?”

  “You ought to be marrying her, that’s what. Settle down and have yourself some little Tedones.”

  He made a face. “No offense, Des, but I liked you a whole lot better when you were just trying to stick me with a cat.”

  “No offense taken. But, hey, if you’re really in the market for another kitten-”

  “I’m not,” he snapped. “Believe me, I’m not.”

  “Yo, Swa-vayyyy!” Tommy was calling to him now from the woods across the road, waving both arms excitedly in the air. “Yo! Yo!”

  They started across the road toward him, crashing through the fallen leaves as they hiked over the rugged terrain. Wha
t they found when they reached the rock outcropping was Tommy and the two uniforms crouched in a semicircle around a spent cartridge. It lay on the ground underneath a mountain laurel.

  “Looks like you figured right again, Soave,” Tommy said eagerly. At least Des knew what to get the kid for Christmas now-a nice set of knee pads. “Must be he couldn’t find it in the dark.”

  “Didn’t want to risk hanging around,” Soave concurred.

  “We’ve got shoe prints, too,” Tommy added. “Also a cigarette butt-the old-fashioned kind, without a filter.”

  “Nice going, T-man,” Soave said to him warmly. Cookie time.

  As for Des, she found herself puzzled. Because you did not leave a butt behind. Not if you were the least bit careful. She knelt down for a closer look at the cartridge. It was no ordinary one. It was a good six inches long. “Damn, I haven’t seen one of these puppies since Kuwait,” she said, Tommy’s eyes widening at her in surprise. Evidently Soave had neglected to mention that she had game. “This explains what Tim Keefe said to me.”

  “Which was what?” Soave growled. Now he was irritated by her presence.

  She should just go. So why didn’t she? “That it sounded like the mother of all shotguns,” she replied. “What he heard was a Fifty-Cal Pal.” Formally known as a Barrett. 50-caliber long-range semiautomatic sniper rifle. The Barrett had been designed by the military for taking out enemy tanks and bunkers. It only weighed about thirty pounds, but had staggering power and range-its armor-piercing bullet could go through a manhole cover from a half mile away. “Pretty much weapon of choice among your wackos,” she added, getting up out of her crouch. “Tim McVeigh owned him a pair.”

  And someone in bucolic Dorset had one, too. Not that Soave would have an easy time finding out who. It was easier to buy a Barrett at a gun show than it was a handgun. All you had to prove was that you were eighteen and had no felony convictions. There was no waiting period, and nothing to stop you from passing it on to someone else. The ammunition was a bit harder to come by, but not much. All of which was crazy, in her opinion. But this was Soave’s crime scene, and she was not there to offer her opinions. So she kept them to herself as she stood there, inhaling the crisp morning air. It didn’t smell of grilled meat up here.

  “He was waiting here for her, Tommy,” Soave said, gazing down at the road from their rocky perch. The view from up here was unobstructed. Also panoramic-the shooter could have seen the red Porsche coming from a mile away. “He planned this whole thing out in advance. Man knows how to shoot, too. What are we talking from here, two hundred yards?”

  “Easy,” Tommy said.

  “Des, you’d better set up that command center for me at town hall, okay?”

  “Be happy to.”

  “And I want you with us when we meet the family. Is there any kind of local angle you can give us? Any idea who might have wanted Moose Frye dead?”

  “All I can tell you is how her sister Takai reads it,” Des replied. “That someone was after her and got Moose by mistake-just Moose’s bad luck that she picked last night to borrow her sister’s car. Takai’s afraid for her life, Rico. She thinks somebody still wants her dead.”

  Soave stood there smoothing his see-through mustache. He did that a lot. Tawny must have told him it made him look serious. “Any idea who?”

  “Offhand, I’d have to say just about anyone who’s ever met her.”

  “Okay, now I’m not following you,” he said, scowling.

  Des flashed a mega-wattage smile at him. “Not to worry, wow man. You will.”

  Des thought Soave was going to flex himself right into a coma when he got his first look at Takai Frye.

  The little man huffed and he puffed as he strutted around the Fryes’s living room, his chest stuck out and his muscles bulging. He was positively desperate to show Takai how in command he was. Takai was exactly the sort of tall, cool rich girl he was always trying to impress. She had put on a pale-green silk dress and high-heeled sandals. Her manner was subdued as she stood before the windows, her slender arms folded before her. She appeared to be in control of her emotions now. She also appeared to be oblivious to Soave and his preening.

  The living room remained cold and gloomy, despite the fire roaring in the fireplace. Hangtown, who still wore his nightshirt and long johns, sat slumped in a leather wingback chair, staring with heavy sadness at the flames. The old man seemed to have aged five years in the hour since Des had been there. His eyes were hollow and bloodshot. His vital, madman’s energy seemed to have been snuffed out. Des could not be sure that he even knew they were there.

  Jim Bolan sat in the other leather chair, chain-smoking Lucky Strikes and acting very much like someone who needed to find a drink. Or an AA meeting. His hands shook.

  Soave had left Tommy behind at the crime scene. The uniformed trooper whom he’d brought along stood there in the living room doorway in stolid silence, hands on his hips, as the little man held forth.

  Right now, it was the cartridge that Soave was talking about. “Somebody fired on that Porsche with a Barrett fifty-caliber rifle,” he declared, keeping his voice deep and authoritative. “That’s no Saturday Night Special, folks. Whoever used it knows his way around serious military hardware. If you know of anyone who fits that description-”

  “You can pull over right there, boss.” Jim spoke up in a hoarse, quavering voice. “I do. I was a sniper in ’Nam.”

  Soave stuck his chin out at him. “You own a gun like that, Jim?”

  “I don’t have no use for guns anymore,” Jim replied, tossing his cigarette butt in the fire. “I already did enough killing to last me a lifetime.”

  “I see that you’re a smoker, Jim.”

  Jim shook another Lucky out of his crumpled pack and lit it. “You going to run me in for that?”

  Soave flashed a quick look at Takai to see if she’d reacted to Jim’s crack. She hadn’t. “Smart-mouthing doesn’t go over so good with me, Jim,” he said, moving closer to him. “Somebody comes at me with an attitude, I immediately think he’s hiding something. If I ask you a question, I have a reason for it. Do we understand each other?”

  “You’re the man,” Jim said sullenly. “Whatever you say.”

  “You got that right,” Soave agreed. “And I say we found an unfiltered butt near that cartridge. Sure looked to me like it could have been a Lucky. What do you think, Des?”

  “Could have been,” Des said evenly.

  “That’s your brand, am I right, Jim?”

  Jim ran a hand through his stringy gray hair. “So what?”

  “So things suddenly don’t look so good for you, Jim. We test the saliva on that butt and the DNA matches yours, then I’ve got you at the scene.”

  “You’ve got my cigarette, man. Not me.”

  Soave went over to inspect one of the suits of armor in the middle of the room. Hangtown stirred slightly when he did that, glancing at the floor under Soave’s feet. Des didn’t know why.

  “You’ve been taken down before, am I right, Jim?” Soave demanded gruffly. Des had told him about Jim’s record on the way over.

  “I ain’t no drug trafficker,” Jim responded bitterly. “That was all a lie. But it cost me my family’s land, and I sure do regret that.” Jim was looking right at Takai when he said this, Des noticed. Now he turned his gaze back on Soave. “You want to polygraph me, go ahead. You want to test me for gun residue, go ahead. You’re looking at the wrong man. No way I’d do anything to hurt Moose. She was like a sister to me.”

  “Are you sure that’s all she was to you?”

  Jim started up out of his chair, seething with anger. “You got some nerve, mister, talking like that in front of the old man!”

  “Now just relax, Jim,” Des cautioned, stepping between the two of them. Hangtown just continued to sit there, staring into the fire. “The lieutenant’s only trying to get answers.”

  “You tell him to watch his mouth,” Jim warned her between gritted teeth.

&
nbsp; “I hear she was visiting some guy, Jim,” Soave went on, undeterred. “Maybe you didn’t like her stepping out on you. Maybe you waited at the crossroads for her to come home, shot her and hightailed on foot back here through the woods before anyone was the wiser.”

  “Lieutenant, you could not be more wrong,” Takai spoke up in a measured voice. “There was absolutely, positively nothing between my sister and Jim.”

  “I appreciate your input, Miss Frye,” Soave said to her, all but tugging at his forelock. “But it’s looking real bad for you, Jim. Worse and worse, you want to know the truth.”

  Des knew exactly where her ex-sergeant’s mind was going. He was thinking: I am going to have this buttoned up by lunchtime. She could see him liking Jim for it. There was definitely a circumstantial thread. But if Jim had shot Moose, why was he still hanging around? He’d be halfway across Canada by now, wouldn’t he? Not sitting here in front of the old man’s fire, waiting to get nailed.

  “You’re the man,” Jim said to him once again. “You’ll throw down if you want to, and there ain’t nothing I can say or do will change that.”

  “You’re going to the School House, Jim,” Soave informed him coldly. The Central District Major Crime Squad headquarters in Meriden had previously been a state-run reform school for boys. Everyone on the job called it the School House. “There’ll be more questions, and a blood test. Have him held until I get there,” he ordered the uniformed trooper.

  Hangtown sat up in his chair for the first time since they’d arrived. “Must you take him away, Lieutenant? Must you take my friend?”

  “It’s strictly routine questioning, Hangtown,” Des said to him gently.

  “Yes, but can’t you do that sort of thing mm-rr-here?” Hangtown pleaded. “Jim is my hands. I can’t work without him. And if I can’t work right now, I-I’ll just… I won’t get through this agony, this

  …”

  Soave softened in the face of the great artist’s pain. Plus he was anxious to show Takai his caring side. “Give me a good reason why I should trust you, Jim.”

  “I’ll never leave the property, sir,” Jim vowed. “Not with all of them reporters trying to jump our fence. I got to watch out for the boss. That’s what I do. So you got no cause to worry. Word of honor.”