The Hot Pink Farmhouse bam-2

by David Handler

  “Don’t thank me,” Des snapped at her. “Whatever you do, don’t thank me.”

  “You can’t have her,” Hangtown objected. “She’s mine.”

  “It’s no use, Mr. Frye,” Des said, moving in still closer. “Lieutenant Tedone is right outside. And this place will be swarming with cruisers any minute. You’ll just end up getting yourself shot. Don’t do it. Let us have her.”

  “Give me a reason,” Hangtown insisted. “Give me one good reason.”

  Now Takai was starting to edge slowly away from the fireplace. She did have a means of escape, Mitch suddenly realized. The trapdoor. The open trapdoor on the other side of the sofa. True, she was a good ten feet from it. But if she could manage to dive through it without getting shot she might actually get away through the catacombs.

  “Trooper, I’d like to call my lawyer,” she said in a soft, trembly voice, inching her way closer and closer to the trapdoor. “Before we go, if I may.”

  “You just chill out, Miss Frye,” Des said, her eyes riveted on Hangtown as Takai continued to edge closer to that gaping trapdoor. “And for God’s sake, shut your pretty-girl hole, or I’ll shoot you myself… Please put it down, Hangtown,” she begged, her own gun still aimed right at him, clutched tightly in both hands. “I have great respect for you. I like you. But if you don’t put it down, I’ll have to shoot you. Don’t make me do it. Don’t make me shoot you. Please.”

  “Let the law take its course,” Mitch urged him. “Think about Crazy Daisy. Think about how you and Gentle Kate felt.”

  “I am being punished for my sins,” Hangtown muttered under his breath, his finger on the trigger, eyes on Takai.

  “Who the hell’s Crazy Daisy?” Des demanded, her finger on the trigger.

  Mitch didn’t respond. He was standing there thinking: I am not in the living room of a historic home in Dorset, Connecticut, anymore. I am in a hot, dusty saloon with a name like the Silver Dollar or Last Chance, and somebody is about to end up dead on the floor.

  But who?

  Hangtown said it again: “Good-bye, princess.” His finger tightening on the trigger…

  “No, Father…!”

  “Hangtown, don’t-!”

  “Drop it! I’m warning you…!”

  And an animal roar came out of the old man-

  And Takai made her move-a sudden, desperate lunge for that trapdoor-

  And never made it.

  He blew her away. The sheer force of the Barrett’s blast flinging her hard up against the wall, her chest torn wide open. What slid ever so slowly down the wall to the floor was no longer a person, let alone a gorgeous and deeply, deeply troubled one.

  Des still had her Sig-Sauer aimed right at the old man. But she hadn’t fired a shot at him. Couldn’t. She was frozen there, a stricken expression on her face.

  Mitch couldn’t move a muscle either. He could barely breathe.

  As for Hangtown, he calmly laid the Barrett flat on the table, went over to the butler’s tray by the desk and poured himself a brandy from a leaded glass decanter. Then he raised his glass to what had once been his younger daughter and in a deep, solemn voice said, “Good fight, good night.”

  Mitch never got a chance to speak to Wendell Frye again.

  The great artist had told him that when the will to live is gone, a person can go very fast. Hangtown went very fast. A massive heart attack killed him two days later. The page-one obituary in Mitch’s newspaper called him a “colossus of twentieth-century art.” Hangtown never had to stand trial for Takai’s murder. He was never even formally charged. He was already a man of leisure by then, taking his nice long dirt nap.

  He didn’t even have to leave his beloved farm. He was buried there later that week among his forefathers in the family’s cemetery overlooking the river, right alongside his Gentle Kate. Moose and Takai were laid to rest there at the same time. It was a small private ceremony. Some of Moose’s schoolteacher friends were there, as were a few members of the art academy faculty. Greta Patterson was there with Colin. Jim Bolan was there. So was Takai’s ex-husband, Dirk Doughty, whose bags were in his car-he was driving home to Toledo right after the funeral. And Mitch was there. He’d brought Sheila Enman along with him, as promised.

  As Mitch was driving the old lady to the ceremony, he told her about Moose’s quest to discover the secret ingredient in her chocolate chip cookies.

  “If only she’d asked me,” Mrs. Enman lamented sadly. “Gracious, I would have told her.”

  “Of course you would have,” Mitch agreed. “It’s the sour cream, right?”

  Mrs. Enman smiled at him enigmatically, but remained silent. She would not tell him.

  This was Dorset, after all.

  Melanie Zide was buried later that same day in the town cemetery. No one came.

  C HAPTER 14

  The skeletal remains of the young sculptress known as Crazy Daisy were found in a shallow grave under a tree, a stone cairn marking the spot. Mitch had been told about the grave by Hangtown, but chose to keep the news from Des until after the funeral. Des found this both curious and upsetting. She could not believe he had kept silent. But she did not hassle Mitch about it. He had just buried his friend. He had told her when he was ready. And that would have to do for now.

  Soave tried to find out who Crazy Daisy really was. A dental mold was made, a DNA sample taken, the FBI informed. Word was put out through the media. But she matched no missing person report filed in 1972, and no relatives stepped forward now to claim her. Truly, she was a lost soul, gone and forgotten. After a suitable waiting period she was reburied in the Dorset town cemetery in a proper casket set inside a sealed concrete burial vault, according to Connecticut state law. Her headstone read simply DAISY, SUMMER OF ’72.

  Funeral costs were paid for by the Patterson Gallery.

  Des did have to be debriefed up in Meriden about the Takai Frye shooting by a lieutenant from Internal Affairs. She told him what she’d walked in on after she and Soave found Trooper Olsen dead at the front gate: Wendell Frye pointing the loaded Barrett at his daughter, Mitch Berger standing there alongside of her, unarmed. She said that she’d ordered the old man to drop his weapon but that he’d opened fire before she could get a single shot off. She did not raise the question of whether she’d held her fire too long. The lieutenant did not raise it either. He had what he needed, including Soave’s unequivocal backing of her actions. Besides which, Wendell Frye was dead anyway. Case closed.

  After the debriefing, she ran into Soave on his way into the old headmaster’s house, the red brick mansion with the slate mansard roof that was home to the Central District’s Major Crime Squad.

  Soave grinned at the sight of her and said, “How did it go in there?”

  “It went. Thanks for watching my back.”

  “Hey, that’s what teammates do,” he answered emphatically.

  They lingered there in the parking lot for a moment, the barking of German shepherds serving as steady background noise. The state police’s K-9 training center was located there on the secluded hilltop campus, as was the world-renowned Forensic Science lab.

  “Where’s little Tommy?” she asked.

  Soave made a face. “I got him transferred to arson. My brother said I should have spoken up sooner. I put in for somebody smart. Maybe I’ll get lucky this time, huh?”

  “You never know. Maybe you’ll even get a woman.”

  He leaned against his cruiser, smoothing his see-through mustache. “Des, I think maybe I’ve got a better handle on you now than I did before. What do you think?”

  Des considered this for a moment, Soave glancing at her unsurely. He was trying. He really was. She couldn’t slap him down. Understanding was too precious a commodity, no matter the history or the circumstances. So she smiled and said, “Rico, there’s hope for you yet. Get yourself some decent threads, lose that caterpillar on your lip, and lil’ Tawny will have herself quite some catch.”

  “What, you don’t like my mus
tache?” he demanded, flabbergasted.

  “That’s correct.”

  “Why didn’t you say something before?”

  “It’s your face, wow man.”

  “Des, are you honestly happy down there in Dorset?”

  “I am, Rico. That’s where the real job is.”

  Soave stuck out his hand and said, “Let’s stay in touch this time, okay?”

  “Deal,” she said, shaking it firmly.

  “Yo, would you come if I invited you?”

  “Come where, Rico?”

  “To the wedding.”

  “I wouldn’t have to be a bridesmaid, would I?” Des loathed bridesmaid dresses. They were always made out of something pink and shiny, and made her look like one of Count Dracula’s girls.

  “Nah, Tawny’s got like a million sisters and cousins.”

  “In that case,” Des replied, “I’d be proud to come.”

  She got there at ten o’clock.

  She did not want to take a chance on being late. Nor could she bring in another officer. Not if she wanted to keep this off the books. She did consider calling Soave, but decided not to. Even though he’d said all the right things, she was still not sure if she could trust him. She had to be sure on this one.

  So she called Mitch. He brought his truck, as well as a half dozen six-by-eight-inch panes of glass, a tin of glazing compound and a putty knife. They sat there on watch together in his cab. He’d parked about halfway down the block, close enough to keep an eye out. Her own ride was stashed well out of sight.

  “Are you sure we’re not partners?” he asked her.

  “Totally.”

  “Still, you have to admit that this is getting to be a habit.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “At the very least, I should get an honorary badge.”

  “Tell you what-if you’ll stop flapping your gums, there’s a Darren doll in it for you. Now listen up-once this breaks I want you out of sight. You’re not to get involved, understood?”

  Mitch said he understood.

  “Is there anything else we need to go over?”

  “Yeah, we haven’t discussed how pretty you look in the moonlight,” he said, beaming at her. “Aren’t you going to say anything about how I look in the moonlight?”

  “White. You look awfully white.” She glanced at her watch and said, “Okay, let’s split up. Anything goes down from your end, you signal me with your flashlight, deal?”

  “Deal.” He solemnly stuck out his hand so they could shake on it, Des wincing from his grip. “Hey, what’s wrong with your hand?”

  “Nothing,” she growled, flexing it, feeling the soreness. “I ran into something, that’s all.” Which was entirely true. Nose cartilage qualified as something.

  They split up, Mitch taking up a post in the bushes around back, with a thermos of coffee and his leather jacket for warmth against the late-October chill. If the Mod Squad tried to get in from that side, he would spot them. Des had chosen a spot for herself behind a privet hedge in front of an historic mansion on the other side of the street, two doors down. From there she could keep her eyes trained both on the front of the building and on Mitch. She’d also scored herself a spare set of keys. When she needed to go in, she’d be ready.

  She flashed her light at Mitch to let him know she was in position. He flashed his back. Then she settled in for the wait, her hands stuffed deep in the pockets of her heavy wool pea coat. Her thoughts were on him. There had been a bit of strain between them ever since that night Hangtown shot Takai. They had not talked about it. They needed to. But now was not the right time.

  It was Mitch who spotted them first, shortly after one o’clock. When Des saw his signal she immediately took off across the street, sprinting up the path to the front of the building. Swiftly, she unlocked the front door, shutting it softly behind her. Now she stood in the darkness of the front hallway with her ears pricked up, waiting for the sound that she knew would come next. Because a ground-level window was the obvious way in. All they had to do was break a single pane, reach inside and unlock it. There was no security alarm to worry about. She stood there poised on the balls of her feet, waiting, waiting…

  And then she heard it-the sound of glass breaking. It was down the hall to her right. She darted in that direction, pausing in the darkness at each open door she came to… Nothing… nothing

  … still nothing… until she’d reached the room at the end of the hall. And could hear them hoisting themselves in the window, one after another. Des waited there just inside the doorway with her hand on the light switch. Waited until they were all safe and snug inside.

  That was when she flicked on the glaring overhead lights and said, “I understand this is where the Claire Danes Fan Club meets.”

  There were five of them altogether, Ronnie and four other boys. All of them wearing those same dark hooded jackets they’d had on when she spotted them at the market. All of them cradling as many family-sized bags of potato chips in their arms as they could handle.

  Naturally, they totally freaked at the sight of her standing there in that classroom with them. And they did exactly what most frightened fifteen-year-old boys would do under the circumstances-throw the bags of potato chips in the air and run, stampeding down the corridor toward the front door. She let them go.

  With the exception of Ronnie, that is. Ronnie she grabbed and held, her hand clamped around his skinny arm as he struggled to get free, his bags of chips falling to the floor at his feet. Ronnie with his peach-fuzz goatee and his gangsta sneer. Ronnie with his red bandanna and his falling-down jeans.

  It was Ronnie who she wanted.

  The classroom they were standing in was familiar to her, Des realized. It was Moose Frye’s classroom. Ben and Ricky’s classroom, with the same tiny desks and the same uplifting motto stenciled on the wall above the blackboard: A GOOD BOOK IS A GOOD FRIEND.

  Her eyes fell on the bags of potato chips that were heaped on the floor. Thirty bags of them at least. She found it surprising and upsetting that these small-town kids knew the dirty little secret about America’s favorite snack food-it was a highly effective accelerant, pure grease, that left no telltale residue behind. Dogs that were trained to sniff out accelerants got nowhere with chips, and chemical tests turned up zilch. She thought only the pros knew this. Must be out on the Internet, she reflected unhappily. She would have to tell the arson squad.

  Now she turned her cold gaze on Ronnie, who continued to struggle feebly in her grasp. The kid was frailer than a week-old kitten. “You were going to burn down this school,” she said to him accusingly.

  “Ricky told you, didn’t he?” he demanded, his head cocked at her insolently. “I’ll kick his ass.”

  “Ricky didn’t have to tell me, you moron. I’ve been on to you garbageheads for a couple of weeks.”

  He said nothing in response, just stood there trying to strike a gangbanger pose. For such a smart kid he sure was pathetic.

  She took a gentler tone. “Do you want to try to explain this to me, Ronnie?”

  “Why should I?” he said, jabbing himself in the chest with his thumb.

  “Because I have some latitude here, that’s why. I can look upon this as some high-spirited local kids throwing a rock through a school window. Or I can see it as breaking and entering, which is a felony, coupled with attempted arson, which is major-league bad news. We’re talking serious time, Ronnie.” She paused, letting this sink in for a moment. “It’s up to me to decide which way to go, and that depends totally on how you behave over the next few minutes.”

  He reached into his jacket for a cigarette and stuck it between his teeth. “You want me to do you a solid, is that it?” he asked, fumbling for a light.

  She swatted the cigarette from his mouth, sending it flying halfway across the room. “I want you to talk to me.”

  “Well, I’m not giving up the rest of my boys,” he shot back. “You can’t make me do that.”

  “Us
e your head, dope! I just laid my own two eyes on them-I can make them from their school photos.” Des shook her head at him in disgust. “I’m wasting my time here. You’re just a lame-assed punk. I’m running you in.” She started for the door with Ronnie in tow.

  He panicked. “No, wait! W-we can work this out. What… what do you want to know?”

  “I want to know why.”

  “We thought it would be cool,” he answered simply.

  “You thought it would be cool to burn down Center School? Man, what are you on? Because I have got to get me some of that.”

  “Not a thing,” Ronnie insisted. “Never when we go out on a mission. That’s forbidden.”

  “So this is the ‘real’ you talking?”

  “Absolutely. And this is something we gave a lot of thought to, okay? We thought it would serve ’em right, okay? All they keep doing is arguing about this place. Jerking us around. Pretending they care about us when they don’t. We’re sick of being jerked around. We’re sick of them telling us they want what’s best for us. They don’t. So we thought we’d show ’em just how we feel, okay?”

  Des glanced around at the aging classroom. “You hate this place, is that it?”

  He let out a nasty laugh. “I hate everything.”

  “Then I really don’t know how to talk to you, Ronnie,” Des said regretfully. “Because if you truly believe what you’re saying then you’re coming from the same moral place as a terrorist. You’re not fit to live among other people. Come on, let’s go.”

  “Where are we going?” he wondered, wide-eyed.

  “You don’t ask the questions. I do.”

  She ushered him outside through the front door and flashed her light three times at Mitch. Their go-ahead signal. His job now was to repair the window and clean up the broken glass-with luck, the school would know nothing about this in the morning. Her job was to lead Ronnie Welmers to her cruiser, which she’d parked in the lot behind town hall.

  She put him in the front seat and got in next to him behind the wheel. “Okay, it’s time to deal,” she said, looking him right in the eye. “For starters, the Mod Squad is history. I know who you are and where you live. Anything happens again-graffiti, antics, anything-all five of you go directly to jail. And I am so not goofing, understand?”