Hell Bent

by William G. Tapply

  I straightened, blinked, turned around, and made a visor with my hand. “Who’s that?” I said.

  “The question is,” said Herb Croyden’s voice, “what the hell are you doing in my garage?”

  “I’m not here to steal your vehicles,” I said, “though they are gorgeous. Get your light out of my eyes, will you please?”

  I turned off my flashlight and put it in my pocket. Then he lowered the beam of his light, and I saw Herb standing there beside his Ghia. Behind him, a side door to the garage was hanging ajar. He’d opened it silently. He must have kept the hinges well oiled. I hadn’t heard a thing.

  He held his flashlight in his left hand and an ugly square automatic pistol in his other hand. The weapon looked just like the one I’d seen beside Gus Shaw’s dead body. Herb was aiming it at my midsection. The bore looked about as big around as a basketball.

  “You don’t need that gun,” I said.

  “I’ll decide that,” Herb said. “I see some lights flickering around on my property, I’m not going to check it out unarmed. You better tell me what you’re doing before I call the police.”

  “I think Gus may have hidden something here,” I said, waving my hand around to take in the inside of the carriage house. “I think what he hid might have gotten him killed. And the other night a friend of his was also killed, maybe for the same reason.”

  “Gus committed suicide,” said Herb.

  “Maybe not,” I said.

  “So did you find what you were looking for?”

  I shook my head. “This cabinet,” I said, pointing my chin at the steel cabinet I’d just broken into. “Is that your stuff inside? Are you the one who put the padlock on it?”

  He shook his head. “It was empty except for a few old paint cans and some jars of nails. I told Gus if he needed to store anything, he could clean it out and use it. If it had a padlock on it, it wasn’t mine.”

  “Come over here,” I said, “and see if you can explain this. And maybe you’ll put that gun away?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said.

  “Well,” I said, “just don’t shoot me, please.”

  Herb came over so that he was standing behind me. “What did Gus put in there?”

  I showed him one of the fishing vests, still in its factory plastic wrap.

  “Maybe he was going to take up fishing,” he said.

  “There are six vests altogether,” I said. “A fisherman needs only one. Shine your light in there. Let’s look on the other shelves.”

  “You look,” said Herb. “Show me what you see. I’m going to stand back here with my gun.”

  I shrugged and bent to the next shelf down. It held three one-foot-square cardboard boxes. I slid them out and put them on the garage floor.

  Herb shined his light on them. The first box contained six brand-new shrink-wrapped television remote-control wands. The second held some coils of red, blue, and white electrical wire and a handful of rolls of black electrical tape. The third box held about a dozen packs of square twelve-volt batteries and the same number of packages of double-A batteries.

  I looked up at Herb. “This isn’t your stuff?”

  He shook his head. “Must’ve been Gus’s.”

  “Make any sense to you?”

  “None whatsoever,” he said. “What’s on that bottom shelf?”

  I bent down. There were three more cardboard boxes. I slid one out and pried open the top. It held half a dozen smaller boxes, each containing shotgun shells. I showed one of the small boxes to Herb.

  “Shotgun shells?” he said.

  I nodded. “High-base, twelve-gauge, BB shot. Six boxes. Twenty-five shells per box.” I then opened one of the other boxes. It contained six rolls of nail-gun nails.

  I held one of the rolls up for Herb to see.

  “Nails,” he said. “I’m getting a bad feeling.”

  “Me, too.” I read the stenciled letters on the top of the third box. I did not open it. “It says C-4,” I said to Herb. “This box has got C-4 in it, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Plastique,” he whispered. “What in the name of hell was Gus—?”

  “Stand up and turn around.” The sudden loud voice echoed in the big garage. “Move away from there.” It was a deep, booming, familiar voice, and it came from a man silhouetted in the open doorway on the other side of the Karmann Ghia.

  “Sarge?” I said. “That you?”

  Phil Trapelo flicked on a flashlight and shined it first in my face, then at Herb. “Put down your gun and your flashlight, Herb,” he said.

  Trapelo was holding a handgun of his own. He held it out at arm’s length, bracing it with the hand that held the flashlight and aiming it at the middle of Herb’s face.

  Herb squatted down and, without taking his eyes off Phil Trapelo, he laid his gun and his flashlight on the garage floor near the bumper of the Karmann Ghia. “What the hell are you doing, Sarge?” he said.

  “I’ve had to keep an eye on the lawyer, here,” said Trapelo, gesturing at me with his gun. “He doesn’t seem to know when to back off.”

  I turned to Herb. “You two know each other, huh?”

  “I was in a support group with the Sarge for a while,” he said. “After my son was killed.”

  “Did it help?”

  Herb glanced at Trapelo. “Yes. I made some good friends. People I thought I could trust.” He looked at Trapelo for a minute, then shrugged. “We had a lot in common, of course. They helped me feel that I wasn’t alone.”

  “But you stopped going,” I said.

  He smiled. “The Sarge, here, can be a little …” He waved his hand.

  “Intense?” said Trapelo. He was smiling, too.

  “Sarge hates war,” said Herb. “He can get kind of extreme sometimes. Right, Sarge?”

  Trapelo nodded. “I don’t call it extreme. I just call it clear thinking. So”—he nodded at the steel cabinet—”yeah, we thought we’d see if we couldn’t introduce some reality testing into the situation.”

  I remembered what Pedro Accardo said to me on the phone the night before his throat was slit beside the stream in Acton. “On Veterans Day, huh? Eleven, eleven, eleven, right? You planning to blow yourself up, Sarge? Or is the idea for your followers to blow up themselves while you pull the strings? Gus Shaw and Pedro Accardo got wise to you, right?”

  Trapelo looked at me, then at Herb. “You should tell your friend to shut the hell up.”

  “Is he right?” Herb said to Trapelo. “Is that why you killed Gus?”

  “Somebody’s got to fire the first shot,” said Trapelo. “I say, let it begin here.” I heard the fervor of the true believer in Phil Trapelo’s voice, saw it in his face. I’d seen that same blaze of conviction in the eyes of televangelists. And serial killers.

  “What do you know about Gus’s photographs from Iraq?” I said.

  Trapelo shook his head. “Gus thought photographs could make a difference. We disagreed about that.”

  “Do you know where they are?” I said. “Did you take them?”

  “I don’t—”

  That’s when Herb Croyden, who was standing right beside me, suddenly yelled, “Watch out!” He ducked and darted sideways and scrambled on the garage floor for his automatic pistol. At the same time, a shot exploded inside the garage, and Herb grunted and staggered backward. His gun skittered across the cement floor toward me. Just as I got my hand on it, there was another shot. I managed to get my finger on the trigger and get off a shot at Trapelo. Then Herb crashed into me and knocked me off balance. As I was falling backward I yanked off two more wild shots in Trapelo’s direction. Then my shoulders and the back of my head smashed against the steel cabinet. The cabinet toppled and crashed onto the concrete garage floor with an explosive clang, and my back slammed onto the floor with all of Herb Croyden’s weight on my chest.

  I lay there for a moment, blinking against the darts of pain in my head. Then I took a couple of deep breaths and managed to roll Herb off me and onto
his back. I was still holding his gun. I pointed it where Phil Trapelo had been standing. But he was gone.

  I got up on my hands and knees and looked at Herb. A red blotch was spreading across the top of his left shoulder. His eyes were clenched shut, but he seemed to be breathing all right.

  “Hang in there for a minute,” I said to him. “I’ll be right back.”

  I crept toward the open door on the side of the carriage house, knelt beside it, and darted my head outside and back in again. The black-and-white still photograph that registered in my brain showed nobody out there.

  I looked again. Saw nobody. Heard no shot ring out.

  I patted my pants pocket and found my hand-sized Maglite. I fished it out, then stood up and went outside. I listened to the quietness of the Concord countryside for a moment, then turned on my light.

  As I stood there panning my flashlight around the outside of the carriage house, I heard the distant, muffled sound of a car starting up. The sound came from the direction of Monument Street. Phil Trapelo, making his escape, I guessed.

  I went back into the carriage house and shined my light quickly on the cement floor in the area where Trapelo had been standing when I shot at him. As expected, I saw no blood.

  I went over to where Herb Croyden was lying on his back, knelt beside him, and shined my light on his face. His eyelids were fluttering, and he was taking short, shallow, gasping breaths.

  “Herb,” I said. “Hey, Herb.”

  His eyes opened. “Did he get away?”

  I nodded. “He did. How do you feel?”

  “Exactly like I got shot in the shoulder,” he said. He reached up with his right hand, fingered his wound, then took his hand away and looked at it. It was red with blood. “It’s not spurting, is it?”

  I used my Leatherman tool to cut away his jacket and shirt. The bullet had entered where the top of his left deltoid muscle joined his arm to his shoulder, and it left a deep gouge through his flesh. It was seeping blood, but not pumping it.

  “No arteries were hit,” I said. I cut Herb’s shirt into squares, packed them into a tight, thick compress, and pushed it against the wound. “Can you hold that there?”

  Herb reached up and held my improvised bandage on his wound with his left hand.

  “As tight as you can,” I said.

  He looked at me and nodded.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Kinda numb, actually,” he said.

  “The bullet took out a hunk of your muscle and kept on going,” I said. “You were pretty lucky. A few inches to the side …”

  Herb’s face was pale, but his eyes were clear. “I’m getting a little chilly here,” he said. “This floor is cold. You’re going to call 911 and cover me with something, aren’t you? You’ll find a blanket on the back seat of the Caddy.”

  “I’m glad you’ve got your wits about you,” I said. “One of us should.” I opened the back door of the Cadillac, found a khaki-colored army blanket, and spread it over Herb. Then I folded up my jacket and tucked it under his head. “How’s that?” I said.

  He nodded. “Much better.” He closed his eyes.

  I worried that he’d lapse into shock. “Stay awake, Herb. Please?”

  His eyes opened. “I’m awake, okay?”

  I fished my cell phone from my pocket, dialed 911, and told the operator that a man had been shot and she should send an ambulance quickly and report it to state police detective Roger Horowitz. I gave her Herb’s address and emphasized that they should come all the way to the carriage house at the end of the long driveway.

  Then I called Horowitz’s cell phone number.

  “Jesus Christ, Coyne,” he said by way of answering. “It’s Saturday night. Almost Sunday morning. You got something against me and my wife sleeping together?”

  “I just called 911 and told them to contact you,” I said. “I figured they might not, and if they did, I thought you’d want to know why.”

  “Called 911, huh?” he said. “What’d you get yourself into this time?”

  I sketched out for him what had happened as clearly and succinctly as I could.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “You talking about suicide bombers?”

  “Individuals wearing battery-powered fishing vests packed with plastic explosives and nails and BB shot blowing themselves up in public places,” I said. “That’s right.”

  “And this Trapelo? He’s the ringleader, huh?”

  “Yes. He shot Herb and got away.”

  Horowitz blew a big exaggerated sigh into the telephone. “Okay, then. You stay put. There’ll be local cops along with the ambulance. Don’t say anything to them. I gotta make a couple phone calls. Then I’ll be right along.”

  “Say hi to Alyse for me,” I said.

  “Your pal Coyne says hello,” I heard him say. There was a pause, and then he said, “She says she wishes you’d stop haunting us.”

  “Boo,” I said.

  NINETEEN

  I folded my phone, stuck it in my shirt pocket, and turned back to look at Herb. As I did, amidst the boxes of suicide-bombing supplies scattered on the garage floor, I noticed the corner of a manila envelope sticking out from under the toppled-over steel cabinet.

  I picked up the envelope. It was sealed with cellophane tape. Nothing was written on it. I moved my fingers over it. It felt like the outlines of several thin square plastic boxes. The kind of boxes that held CDs and DVDs.

  If I wasn’t mistaken, I’d found Gus’s photos.

  I glanced at Herb. His eyes were closed. His breathing came in shallow little pants, and his skin looked pale and clammy.

  I unzipped my jacket and stuffed the envelope down inside the front of my shirt.

  I was zipping my jacket back up when I heard a quick intake of breath and the scrape of a foot on the concrete floor behind me. I turned. Beth Croyden was standing there hugging herself.

  #x201C;What happened?” she said. “Is Herb—”

  “He was shot,” I said. I wondered if she’d seen the envelope or what I’d done with it. “It’s a superficial wound,” I said. “He’s a little shocky, but he’ll be okay. An ambulance is on the way.”

  “Shot?” she said.

  I nodded.

  “Those were gunshots I heard, then,” she said. She waved her hand around the garage, taking in the overturned steel cabinet and the cardboard boxes and her wounded husband. “Who did this?”

  “A guy named Phil Trapelo. Do you know him?”

  Beth gave her head a small shake that could have meant yes or no. She came over and knelt down beside Herb, laid the back of her hand on his forehead, then bent over and kissed him. “Now what have you done?” she said softly. She looked up at me. “We were up in our bedroom getting ready for bed. Herb thought he saw some lights down here at the carriage house. I told him, I said, ‘Why don’t we call the police?’ But not my old James Bond here. He had to go investigate himself. So what happened?”

  I shrugged. “It’s a long story. We better wait for the police.”

  Beth cocked her head at me, then nodded. “I understand. This is all connected to Gus Shaw, though, isn’t it?”

  “Probably.”

  She returned her attention to Herb. She stroked his cheek, bent close to his face, and spoke softly to him, and I heard him murmur some kind of reply.

  I glanced around the carriage house. The various boxes holding what I guessed were the component parts for suicide bombs that I’d found in the steel cabinet were scattered on the floor. A couple of them had opened and spilled out their contents—TV remotes, packets of multicolored electrical wire, coils of nails, batteries. I wondered what would’ve happened if one of Phil Trapelo’s bullets had hit the box containing the C-4 plastic explosive.

  I heard the distant wail of sirens and went outside to wait. The sirens grew louder, and then I saw the headlights cutting through the trees along the winding driveway. A minute later an emergency wagon came skidding to a stop in front of the carriage hou
se, and two EMTs hopped out.

  “He’s in there,” I said, pointing at the door that opened into the carriage house.

  They went inside. A few minutes later Beth Croyden came wandering out and stood beside me. “They kicked me out,” she said. “Implied I was just in the way.”

  “They’ll probably let you ride in the ambulance with him, if you want,” I said.

  A minute later a Concord town police cruiser arrived, and right behind it came Roger Horowitz’s unmarked Ford sedan. The two local cops and Horowitz climbed out of their vehicles at the same time, Horowitz from the passenger side of his. They all came over to me and Beth.

  Horowitz flashed his badge at the uniforms. “We got this guy,” he said. “You boys stay with the lady.” He grabbed my elbow and steered me over to where he’d left his car. “Here we go again, Coyne,” he said. “Except I got no coffee and doughnuts this time. Let’s you and me climb in back.”

  We got into the backseat of his car. Marcia Benetti, his partner, was sitting behind the wheel. I said hello to her, and she grunted at me.

  “Okay,” said Horowitz. “Let’s make this fast and thorough. Can we do that?”

  I nodded.

  “Just so you know,” he said, “I already put the word out on Philip Trapelo, so let’s start with him. Tell me everything you know about him.”

  Everything I knew turned out not to be much. Trapelo was involved with the support group for post-traumatic stress disorder victims that met Tuesday evenings at the VFW hall in Burlington. People called him the Sarge. He appeared to be in his late fifties, maybe even early sixties. He held strong pro-veteran and anti-war sentiments. He was short and compact. Gray hair, cut military style. Deep voice. He carried an automatic sidearm.

  No, I didn’t know where Trapelo lived or worked or what kind of car he drove. Not counting tonight’s encounter, I’d only met him once. All I knew was his cell phone number, which I looked up on my own phone and recited for them.

  “So, Coyne,” said Horowitz, “what the hell were you doing here on a Saturday night in the first place?”

  “As you know,” I said, “all along Alex has refused to believe that her brother committed suicide. More and more I’ve come around to her way of thinking. What happened to Pedro Accardo—and finding my business card in his hand—pretty much clinched it for me.” I shrugged. “I came here just to see if I could find something that would give me a clue about Gus.” I jerked my thumb in the direction of the garage. “I guess I did.”