Robert B. Parker's Slow Burn

by Ace Atkins

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Better ask Jerry.”

  I nodded. “Did Rob keep a journal or have a personal computer?”

  “He had both.”

  “May I see them?”

  She shrugged and looked down at her hands. She twisted the tissue in her fingers. “Cops got all that,” she said. “They came over and took everything last night.”

  I nodded again.

  “But you’re not with the cops.”

  “No.”

  “Boston Fire?”

  “Nope.”

  “Who do you work for?”

  “Spenser.”

  “And who’s that?”

  I pointed to myself, smiled, and again offered my condolences. She stood, walked me from the room, and pointed out Jerry Ramaglia, who was visible through a pair of French doors. Outside, I found him pacing and smoking a cigarette. He had on a ball cap that told me he was assistant chief of the Sparks Association. Soon he might need a new hat.

  I asked him about Featherstone talking about the arsons.

  “Nah,” he said. “I never heard him say that. He knew something about who torched that church or any of those warehouses and he’d a told me. We spent pretty much every day together. We were at that fire. Worked it all night. Yeah. He knew something about an arson and he’d have called me straight off. Between you and me, the wife is a little . . . you know.”

  He swirled his index finger beside his head.

  “Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs?”

  “Right.”

  “You think she made it up?”

  “I didn’t say that,” he said. “But maybe she’s not remembering things right. You know she’s in shock. Maybe she’s trying to make some sense of someone shooting Rob. He’s just a nice guy. No one would want to kill someone like Rob Featherstone. Whoever did it just wanted his wallet. He got jacked. But not ’cause he knows something. That’s really nuts.”

  “Did he tell you that I’d stopped by?”

  “He only told me he’d met a private investigator at the museum,” he said. “He told me you were looking into the fires and told me to ask around for you.”

  “Can you still put out the word with the Sparks?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Of course. Whatever it takes to find who did this to Rob.”

  “Did he have a computer he used at the museum?”

  “Just for business,” he said. “Not personal. We take inventory on it for T-shirt sales, fund-raisers, and all that.”

  “Security cameras?”

  “Nah,” he said. “But I’ll talk to the boys. We’re going to get together tonight at the museum. He was a good chief. A really good one. A born leader. Did he tell you that a fireman saved his life when he was a kid?”

  I shook my head.

  “He was on the top floor of a triple-decker and everyone got out except for him and his sister,” he said. “A jake busted open his bedroom window and carried him and his sister out at the same freakin’ time. He never forgot it. Felt he owed it to these guys the rest of his life.”

  He crushed the cigarette under the heel of his shoe. He looked up at me. More people had arrived at the cracker-box house. Ramaglia looked in the window and then back to me. “I gotta get back to everyone.”

  “Of course.”

  “You think he really might’ve been on to something?” he said. “One guy doing all this shit?”

  “Police are taking it seriously.”

  “Be a hell of a thing if we could stop all this burning. I don’t think I’ve had a good night’s sleep all freakin’ summer.”

  “What kind of person would want to set fires every night?”

  Ramaglia shrugged and took a deep breath. “Someone good and smart,” he said. “He’s got some sense about how it’s done and how to do it. That takes some kind of genius nutso.”

  29

  On the way home, I dropped by the Engine 8/Ladder 1 firehouse in the North End. Jack McGee and another firefighter were unloading groceries from the back of a pickup truck. I helped them carry the load up to the second floor, making a couple trips down to the pickup truck on Hanover.

  “You caught me at a bad time, Spenser,” Jack said. “I’m supposed to cook tonight.”

  “How about I help,” I said. “And we talk.”

  “You any good?” he said. “This is a tough crew.”

  “Could Bobby Orr skate?”

  “Go to it, chief,” McGee said. “I was going to make some hamburger steaks and mashed potatoes. But you can use anything we have in the galley.”

  I sorted through the pantry and the commercial-size refrigerator, perused the newly arrived boxes and bags. I found several pounds of shrimp in the freezer, some white rice in the pantry, and many onions and peppers fresh from the store. I stood back, folded my arms across my chest, and nodded at McGee. “Can your boys take the spice?”

  “Yeah, sure,” he said. “And if they can’t, the others will bust their balls.”

  “How many?”

  “We got eight, maybe nine.”

  “You have six pounds of shrimp in the freezer,” I said. “I can add some vegetables and rice and make shrimp étouffée.”

  McGee shrugged. “Sounds good to me,” he said. “What else do you need?”

  “A bottle of Tabasco,” I said. “And a couple loaves of crusty bread.”

  “I’ll send someone down to the Salumeria Italiana.”

  I nodded. “Perfect.”

  McGee tossed a very manly white apron to me and I wrapped it around my waist. I grabbed the shrimp and set them to thaw under running water. Placing a chopping board on the counter, I went to work on the onions, peppers, celery, and garlic. “You think they might have some green onions at the Salumeria?”

  “We’ll get ’em,” he said. “What can I do?”

  “Do you know how to make a roux?”

  “What the fuck is that?”

  “A Louisiana gravy.”

  “Nope,” he said. “But I can try.”

  I found a black skillet the size of a wagon wheel and set it on the burner. I took several sticks of butter from the refrigerator and olive oil and flour from the cabinet. I explained how you kept the burner on medium and stirred in a stick of butter with a little oil with a half-cup of flour. “Keep stirring it until it turns the color of toffee.”

  “Whaddya want to talk to me about?”

  “I just got back from a wake for Rob Featherstone.”

  “Yeah,” McGee said. “I heard about Rob. He was a little odd, but a good egg, you know? He took care of me and the boys. He’d been a Spark for longer than I been a firemen.”

  “His wife thinks he knew something about the arsons.”

  McGee stopped stirring the butter. I could see it was beginning to burn and made the hand motion for him to continue. The smell of melting butter with the flour and spices wasn’t too bad. I wanted to crack open a cold beer, but drinking at the firehouse was a little frowned upon.

  “Okay,” he said. “Are you talking Holy Innocents? Or the others?”

  “Cahill admitted the church and these warehouse fires are connected.”

  “Son of a bitch,” he said. “Finally, they admit it.”

  “The guy calls himself Mr. Firebug and taunts Arson with letters,” I said. “The commissioner doesn’t want anyone to panic or for it to get out to the media.”

  “The media would love that shit,” McGee said. He kept dutifully stirring. “Mr. Firebug. Shit. I always felt the church was a revenge thing, but what about these warehouses and abandoned houses? What gives?”

  “I would’ve guessed revenge, too,” I said. “But for the first time in my life, it turns out I was wrong.”

  “The first time?”

  “I know,” I said. “Can you believe it?”


  “Nope.”

  I walked up next to McGee. He was a thick-bodied guy and took up a lot of space by the stove. I examined his roux. Still not brown enough. “Keep stirring.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  I went back to chopping. Out the window, there was a nice view of Hanover Street and the Paul Revere statue. Tourists surrounded Paul and took photos with him and his horse while I made fine work of the garlic, chopped onion, green pepper, and celery.

  If I’d had more time to prep, I would’ve made shrimp stock with the shells and heads. But the étouffée would stand on its own.

  I peered back into the skillet. I scraped the onions, green peppers, and celery into a bowl. I dumped the bowl into the skillet and told McGee to keep it going.

  “Cahill must have some physical evidence he’s sitting on,” McGee said. “Right?”

  “Between me, you, and the étouffée?” I said. “He has some fragments of some type of device. Same stuff has shown up at some recent fires.”

  “And now Rob Featherstone is dead,” he said. His big face shone with sweat while he worked. “You know, we had a fire three days ago on Endicott, near the Greenway. We thought it was an abandoned building but found some guy on the second floor with his damn dog. He’d been sleeping and saw the smoke, but he was afraid to leave. We got him out and had to get up on the roof to put out the third floor.”

  “More people are going to get hurt.”

  “I’m just saying we get at least one or two of these a week,” McGee said. “You know how many we used to work?”

  I shook my head.

  “Maybe one like this every six months.”

  “You gotta hate prolific psychopaths,” I said. “Mr. Firebug.”

  “Any fucking guy calling himself that should get his nuts handed to him.”

  “Keep stirring,” I said. “Don’t burn the roux.”

  “I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”

  “Me and you both, McGee.”

  30

  Z and I jogged along the Charles River on a route I knew so well I could run it backward with my eyes closed. I had already packed for the Cape and would pick up Susan in Cambridge after her last appointment. The investigation could wait until Sunday. We ran three miles at a fast clip, sprinting at every mile marker and then a full-out race at the end toward the Hatch Shell.

  As Z was quite a bit younger than me, I let him win. No reason to embarrass him.

  We cooled down with a half-mile walk. We both moved with our hands laced above our heads. It was early, but the morning sun had already started to bake the sidewalk. The Esplanade was busy with runners, walkers, and skateboarders. Early risers drank coffee at the little café.

  As we moved toward the bridge over Storrow, I spotted Vinnie Morris leaning against a large black Mercedes. He was reading a newspaper. A cup of coffee was in his hand.

  “Nice suit,” Z said.

  “It’s what a life of crime can buy,” I said.

  “Something to consider,” Z said.

  I nodded. I fist-bumped him in our own private joke and walked toward Vinnie. He had on a navy linen suit with a crisp shirt open at the throat and slip-on loafers. As his watch glinted in the sun, I surmised it was probably worth more than my retirement account.

  He nodded at me. “You pull a hamstring back there?”

  “I was taking it easy on the kid.”

  “Sure,” Vinnie said. “You versus a D-one running back. No contest.”

  “You bring me a coffee?”

  “Of course,” Vinnie said. “And there’s lobster benedict in the trunk.”

  “Just passing through?” I said. I turned my torso back and forth and gripped my right foot behind me in a quad stretch. I did the same with the left. Tomorrow I would be sore. But as I’d be relaxing with Susan, it wasn’t a major concern.

  “What the fuck were you thinking, taking on Davey Stefanakos?”

  “It was the first time I’d met Davey,” I said. “He seems very nice. Very professional.”

  “You bet,” Vinnie said. “After what you and Hawk did to DeMarco’s people last year, he’s invested in more quality. Stefanakos will swallow you whole. He was a pro fighter. Beat the hell out of some Russian guy. Nearly killed him and got banned for life.”

  “Not Ivan Drago,” I said. “He brought hope to us all.”

  “I’d advise you get out of town for a while.”

  “Already in the works.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Doesn’t have anything to do with DeMarco,” I said. “It’s Susan’s birthday. I’m pretty sure DeMarco will still be pissed when I get back.”

  “You bet he will,” Vinnie said. He reached for his coffee, took a sip, and then shook his head. “He may have put some money down on the deal.”

  “The deal?”

  “Your head,” Vinnie said. “Your fucking life. You think you’re making buddies with DeMarco like you did Tony Marcus and Gino Fish? You guys shake hands and then start sending each other Christmas cards? Christ, not everyone gets soft.”

  “No one ever accused you of getting soft.”

  “Damn right,” Vinnie said. “It was take over my own crew or get pushed out. I wasn’t raised like that. No one pushes me out until I’m ready.”

  “I agree.”

  “So watch your back,” Vinnie said. “I’ll be there if you need me. But I can’t be there all the time. Who else knows where you’re going?”

  “Hawk, Z,” I said. “Henry Cimoli.”

  “And don’t tell nobody else,” he said. “I’d keep Hawk and Chief Dan George there close. DeMarco thinks you’re trying to frame him for that church fire and all these crazy fires.”

  “I made an inquiry,” I said. “Through your pal Tommy Torch.”

  “Tommy Torch is no friend of mine,” he said. “He’s a pederast lowlife. Looks like he told DeMarco and his crew what you were up to. Must’ve gone to the highest bidder.”

  “I didn’t offer him anything,” I said. “Besides putting in a good word with the D.A. if his info worked out.”

  “You know how to go right to the criminal’s heart.”

  I nodded. Vinnie offered his hand. As he did so, he looked over his shoulder and then along the Esplanade. Convinced no one was watching, he nodded and got back into the long Mercedes.

  I watched him cut up into Beacon Hill as I walked back to my apartment.

  Nice to have friends.

  Did you kill him?” Kevin said.

  “Would you shut the hell up,” Johnny said. “Jesus.”

  “I’m serious,” Kevin said. “You need to let me know. Because that makes me part of it. I’m not going to jail for this shit. I just want to help.”

  “You’re already part of it,” Johnny said. He lit up a Marlboro Red and blew smoke out the window. They were stuck in traffic on the Neponset Bridge headed over to Quincy. He mashed his horn and pounded the wheel with his fist.

  Johnny had to check on a faulty sensor at a packie before they made the rounds tonight and Kevin decided to tag along. Johnny had two places that were perfect in Roxbury and another in Braintree. Johnny had grown up there and knew the streets by heart.

  “Just what did Featherstone say to you?”

  “Like I said, he saw your vehicle at the warehouse we torched,” Kevin said. “I told him it was probably one of your security jobs. But he kept on pushing it.”

  “Did he mention anything about any cops or guys in Arson?”

  “Nope,” Kevin said. “I think he kept it to himself. He was just kind of talking out loud.”

  “He was sure as hell talking to somebody,” Johnny said. “I fucking know it. He was asking you about me because he’d already decided what to do. He wanted to play the fucking hero and take me down. He thought you’d be his goat.”
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br />   “Featherstone wasn’t like that,” Kevin said. “You could’ve talked to him. Maybe let him know what we’re doing and how it was going to help the whole department. He’d get it.”

  “Guess we’ll never know,” Johnnie said. Smiling, smoke leaking out of his nostrils. The traffic moved to a crawl and Johnny reached across him to the glove box. He pulled out a business card and handed it to him.

  “Ever heard of this guy?”

  “A private eye?” Kevin said. He sort of laughed. “Nope.”

  “You sure?”

  “Are you doubting me?” Kevin said. “I been in this damn thing from the start. So don’t get paranoid that everyone is turning. I said I’d stick with it and I’ll stick with it. We got the whole department hopping. Things are gonna get better for them. The city will take care of them. Give them what they need. Where’d you get that card?”

  “Found it someplace,” Johnny said.

  “On Featherstone?”

  Johnny mashed his horn and threw up his hands. The car in front of him at a dead stop, traffic moving along ahead into Quincy. The bright summer sun going down over the river.

  “We gotta find him,” Johnny said. “I know this guy at Engine Eight. He says this guy is a pal of that fat ass Jack McGee. He’s seen them together. If this guy knew Featherstone and Featherstone told him about us, we are royally fucked.”

  “And then where does it stop, Johnny?” Kevin said. “This is to do some good. You can’t get nuts on me. This guy doesn’t know shit.”

  “He’s not part of the department,” Johnny said. “This snoop is a fucking outsider. We need to let him know he’s not welcome to any of this.”

  Johnny moved off the bridge and zipped around the big SUV that had been blocking him for the last ten minutes. He gave an old woman the finger and then reached up with his little hand to puff on the cigarette. He tucked the cigarette back in his mouth as he took a turn.

  “And how do we do that?” Kevin said. But already knowing the answer.

  “You hit a man where he lives and he’ll never get back up.”

  31

  The next morning, Susan and I lay side by side in lounge chairs facing a large, clover-shaped pool. The pool looked very much the same as it had more than twenty years ago. The hotel not so much. The carpet was dated and the restaurant less than spectacular. Back in the glory days, it was Dunfey’s. Now it was just called the Resort and Conference Center at Hyannis.