3 Great Thrillers

by Churton, Alex; Churton, Toby; Locke, John; Lustbader, Eric van; van Lustbader, Eric

  Which meant I should turn my head and see what was happening behind me. Unfortunately, just as I was about to do that, I heard her step out of the car, heard her footsteps coming my way. I didn’t dare look behind me and didn’t dare not to. The way things were developing, I didn’t like my chances.

  She walked purposefully, coming straight at me, but so far no one had tried to shoot me from behind. A number of thoughts flooded my brain, forcing me to make split-second decisions. I was going to have to rely on skill sets and survival instincts honed over fifteen years of daily application.

  She was in the vicinity of my right front bumper, which would normally cause me to move to my left. But no, that’s what they’d expect me to do. It’s what they’d be counting on.

  But I’d already looked in that direction and hadn’t seen anything to worry about. What was I missing? What was to the left of me that could possibly pose a threat?

  The house.

  Someone was probably inside the house, waiting to get a clear shot. She comes from the right, I move to my left, and bang.

  White shirt time.

  I waited another second until she was nearly on top of me, then ducked down and moved to my right and peered out from behind the rear bumper—then did a double-take.

  It was Kathleen Gray.

  “Donovan, what the hell are you up to?” she said, giving me just enough time to drop the gun into the trunk without her noticing. It would take a few seconds to gather myself and get my pulse back to normal. I took a deep breath and stood up.

  “Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she had to walk into mine,” I said.

  She didn’t fall for the misdirection. “Is that a gun in your trunk? Jesus, Donovan! Really, what are you up to?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I got a call from my friend at the burn center. Addie’s Aunt told her you were coming to look at the house. By the time I got Hazel on the phone, she was seconds away from calling the police! I told her she must have misunderstood your conversation, yet here you are.”

  “Relax. I’m just checking the scene.”

  “Excuse me? What are you, some kind of closet detective? What is it you’re looking for?”

  “Arson.”

  That threw her for a moment, made her pause. I said, “I spoke to Hazel because I wanted to see if anyone had set up a fund for Addie. I wanted to make a contribution.”

  “Imagine your surprise when you learned her family won the lottery.”

  “Yes, but then I found out the payments ended when her parents died, and now Hazel has changed her mind about adopting Addie.”

  “What does all this have to do with arson?”

  I lowered my voice and looked around to make sure no one else was lurking about. “It’s probably nothing,” I said. “But I know a guy who buys structured settlements. Then he kills the annuitant and keeps the money.”

  She looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “That sounds like a bad movie script,” she said.

  “Uh huh.”

  She shook her head. “Look, I know you’re some kind of muckymuck from the State Department or the CIA or Homeland Security or whatever. But this is Montclair, New Jersey, not Gotham City.”

  I said nothing.

  “You said you know this is happening. How do you know it’s true?”

  “A couple of years ago, this same guy tried to hire me to do the killing.”

  She looked startled for a moment. Then she burst into laughter. “Fine, so don’t tell me. Jesus, Donovan. You are so full of shit!”

  She was wearing a burgundy patent tweed coat that showed her legs from the knees down. She had on textured panty hose that looked hotter than they sound, with burgundy ankle boots.

  I said, “You heading back to work now?”

  “What, and miss the big caper?”

  I scanned the area around us again, knowing my time was running short. It wouldn’t be long before Chief Blaunert called Joe DeMeo, who might very well dispatch some thugs to kill me. I had to get Kathleen out of there, and quickly.

  “You got any idea what soot will do to those boots?” I said.

  “God, Donovan, you must date the girliest girls! I’ll just find a clean spot in there and watch you poke around, trying to impress me. Then you can take me to lunch.”

  “Look,” I said, “I’ll make you a deal. You pick out a busy restaurant and go there now. I’ll get this done in twenty minutes and meet you there.”

  She looked at me for what seemed like a long time before glancing at the house.

  “Look at all the flowers and stuffed animals by the porch,” she said. “That’s so sad.” She paused a moment, thinking about it. “I know it’s only been a few weeks, but she’s so adorable. If anyone on earth deserves a mother’s love, it’s Addie.”

  I nodded. “Pick a booth if they have one, and make sure my seat has a view of the main road.”

  “Are you for real?”

  “I am. And make sure I can see the restrooms and the kitchen from my side of the booth.”

  She hesitated. For a second, I was afraid I’d frightened her. Then she shrugged and said, “You’re a lot of work, you know that?”

  “I do.”

  “Promise you’ll show?”

  I did.

  She named a restaurant and told me how to get there. She started to go, then spun back around, smiled a mischievous smile. “Kiss me,” she said.

  I felt myself smile. “Okay, but not a movie kiss,” I said.

  I watched her drive away and kept watching to make sure no one followed her. Then I inspected the house. Most of the exterior walls were in place, but the interior had been decimated. I couldn’t get down to the basement or up to the second floor, but sections of the second floor had fallen into the master bedroom. It took me less than ten minutes to figure out what had happened and how, but I interviewed one of the neighbors anyway.

  13

  “Okay, so the attic window was open,” Kathleen said. “What does that prove?”

  We were in Nellie’s Diner. Nellie’s was my kind of place, though worlds apart from the Four Seasons. The outside looked like the club car on a passenger train. Inside made you feel like you’d taken a step back into the fifties. I hadn’t been alive in the fifties, but Nellie’s was how I imagined the restaurants of the day: gleaming places filled with chrome. Vinyl booths, easy-to-clean laminate tables and countertops, and smiling, clean-cut waiters dressed in white shirts, black bow ties, and white paper hats. On the tables: plasticized menus propped against mini jukeboxes that showcased rock ’n’ roll music. Menu fare included fried onion rings, baked beans, corn bread, patty melts, club sandwiches, pork chops, pot roast, chicken pot pie, spaghetti with meatballs, and fried chicken. Drinks included cherry and vanilla Cokes, root beer floats, and old-fashioned milk shakes. On the bar counter under glass covers were displayed chocolate fudge brownies, chocolate chip cookies, and cherry, lemon meringue, and coconut pies. Each of the pies had at least one slice missing so the customers could see what was inside. The waiter took our orders, and I told Kathleen, “Wait a sec,” so I could hear him tell the cook. She rolled her eyes.

  “One cowboy with spurs, no Tommy; a mayo club, cremated, and hold the grass!” he said.

  “What on earth?” Kathleen asked.

  I beamed. “It’s authentic diner talk. The ‘cowboy with spurs’ is my Western omelet with fries. ‘No Tommy’ means I don’t want ketchup. ‘Cremated’ means toast the bread. And ‘hold the grass’ means no lettuce on your club sandwich.”

  “How do you know this stuff?” she asked. “And why would you want to?”

  “Say it,” I said.

  “Say what?”

  “I’m fun.”

  She looked at me until a smile played around the corners of her mouth.

  “You are fun,” she said. “Now tell me why the open attic window means something, and tell me what else you think you found.”

  “Okay. First of
all, a fire requires three things to burn: oxygen, a fuel source, and heat. That’s called the fire triangle. An arsonist has to tamper with one or more of those elements to fake an accidental fire. For example, this fire was set at the end of January and the attic window was open. Who leaves a window open in January?”

  “Maybe the firemen opened it after the fact.”

  “No. The arsonist opened it to provide an oxygen source.”

  On the juke in the booth across from us, Rod Stewart was singing. Maggie May had stolen his soul and that’s a pain he can do without.

  “Tell me you’ve got more than the open window,” she said.

  “In the basement there were at least two points of origin. Also, in the floorboards in the master bedroom, under the bed, I saw some curved edges. I found some more in the hallway, and I’d bet the stairwell was full of them.”

  “So?”

  “So I think someone used a circular drill bit to drill holes in all those floorboards. That’s what created the air flow to feed the fire and make it spread much faster than it should.”

  “Well duh,” she said. “If a guy was traipsing all over the house, opening windows and drilling holes, especially under the bed, don’t you think Greg and Melanie would have heard him?”

  “The prep work was done earlier, before they got home. They wouldn’t have noticed the open attic window or the drill holes under the bed. The steps were carpeted, so those holes were hidden. The arsonist probably broke into the basement before they got home so he wouldn’t have to chance waking them up later. I noticed the attic access doors were open, and that’s something Greg and Melanie would have noticed when they tucked the kids in for the night. So the arsonist must have waited for the family to fall asleep. Then he sneaked up the stairs and opened the attic doors and doused the carpet in the kids’ room with gasoline.”

  “What? Excuse me, Columbo, but how do you know he doused the carpet?”

  “I pulled some of it up and guess what I saw?”

  “A stain that looks like Jesus on a tricycle?”

  “No, I found char patterns.”

  “Char patterns,” she said.

  “When you pour a liquid accelerant on carpet, it soaks into the fibers. When it burns, it makes concentrated char patterns on the sub-floor.”

  Kathleen frowned, still unconvinced. “What was all that with the neighbor guy and the color of the smoke?”

  “The color of the smoke and flames tells you what’s making it burn. Wood makes a yellow flame, or a red one, with gray or brown smoke.”

  “So what’s the problem? The neighbor guy said he saw a yellow flame.”

  “Right, but he also said black smoke.”

  “So?”

  “Black smoke means gasoline.”

  The waiter brought our orders and set them on the table. I tore into my omelet, but Kathleen just stared at me. Her face had turned serious.

  “Donovan, all these details, this isn’t your first rodeo,” she said. “You obviously know a lot about arson. You said this guy tried to hire you a couple years ago.”

  “So?”

  “To kill people.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I waited for her to speak. She gave me a look like she wanted to ask me something but wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.

  When my daughter Kimberly was eight, she started to ask me about Santa Claus. Before she voiced her question, I looked her in the eye and said, “Don’t ever ask me anything unless you’re ready to hear the truth.” Kimberly decided not to ask. Kathleen, on the other hand, had to know.

  “Have you ever done this to someone?” she asked. “Set their house on fire?”

  “You should eat,” I said. “That sandwich looks terrific.”

  She didn’t respond, so I looked up and saw her eyes burning a hole into my soul. “Have you?” she repeated.

  I signaled the waiter and handed him a twenty. “Before you do anything else,” I said to him, “I need a roll of duct tape or sealing tape.” He nodded, took the bill, and moved double-time toward the kitchen. To Kathleen, I said, “I’ve done some terrible things. Things I hope I never have to tell you about, and yes, I’ve been trained to set fires. But no, I’ve never done it.”

  “You swear?”

  I swore. Happily, it was the truth. Still, I decided not to tell her how close I’d come a few times. And I was well aware that by swearing on the past I hadn’t ruled out the future.

  She stared at me awhile before nodding slowly. “I believe you,” she said. “Look, I’m sure you’re a world-class shit heel. It wouldn’t even surprise me if you’d killed people for the CIA years ago, and God help me, I might even be able to live with that, depending on the circumstances. But since I started working with the kids at the burn center … well, you know.”

  I did know.

  Kathleen’s club sandwich had been cut into four pieces. She picked up a wedge and studied it. “What about the fire chief?” she asked. “If you’re right, that makes him wrong, and he’s the expert.”

  I speared a couple of fries and popped them into my mouth. There’s nothing like the taste of diner French fries. “They put hamburger grease in the oil,” I said. “Makes the French fries burst with flavor. You want some?”

  “No. What about the fire chief?”

  The waiter returned with a thick roll of clear sealing tape and said he’d be right back to refresh our drinks. I nodded and began taping the fingers on my right hand.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Making sure I don’t splay my metacarpals.”

  She showed me her bewildered look and watched me tape my wrist. After doing that, I removed a thin sheet of plastic from my wallet and began fitting it to the bottom part of my palm, from pinky to wrist. “Can you wrap this for me?” I asked.

  “You’re insane,” she said, but she wrapped the tape around the palm of my hand, covering the plastic and holding it in place. I flexed my hand to test it and decided it would do. “What about the fire chief?” she repeated.

  “He’s in on it.”

  “What?”

  “They paid him off after the fact. They didn’t want to, but they had to.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “This arsonist was good. The only reason he appears sloppy is because the fire department got to the scene so quickly. Four minutes and twenty seconds, if you can just imagine. Another five minutes and the fire would have killed all the evidence. The chief knew it was arson, some of his men probably knew. So whoever ordered the torch—I’m guessing Joe DeMeo—had to get to the chief.”

  “You said the chief was talking about his retirement.”

  “It’s all he talks about.”

  “So this Joe DeMeo character, he gave the chief enough money to look the other way?”

  “I expect the money was a bonus, like a reward for doing the right thing. DeMeo probably got the chief’s attention by threatening his wife, kids, and grandchildren.”

  The composite plastic affixed to the edge of my hand was invented by an engineering team at the University of Michigan in mid-2007. It’s strong as steel and as thin and pliable as a small sheet of paper. Made from clay and nontoxic glue, it mimics the brick and-mortar molecular structure found in seashells. The nanosheets of plastic are layered like bricks and held together with a gluelike polymer that creates cooperative hydrogen bonds between the layers. It takes several hours to build up the three hundred layers needed to make the thin sheet I kept in my wallet at all times.

  Kathleen watched me studying my hand. She said, “If Chief Blaunert’s involved in the cover up, why didn’t he destroy the evidence? It’s been two weeks.”

  “I’m guessing he hasn’t had a chance, what with all the press coverage, candlelight vigils, and people coming day and night to place shrine items on the lawn.”

  “But he must have known the insurance company would send someone to investigate.”

  “That’s the thing. He told me he wasn’t ex
pecting anyone this soon, which tells me no one has filed the claim yet. Or if it’s been filed, someone at the insurance company has either submitted a phony report or they’re delaying their investigation.”

  “Are you sure this DeMeo guy has that much clout?”

  “That much and more.”

  Again she looked at the piece of sandwich in her hand but didn’t taste it.

  “There’s something bothering you,” I said. “What is it?”

  “Are you in danger?” she asked.

  “I could be. The chief probably called DeMeo this morning right after my guy set the appointment. DeMeo probably told him to meet me and find out what I was up to.”

  “Doesn’t DeMeo know you’re with the government? Doesn’t he know you’ll turn him in?”

  I smiled. “These things aren’t as black and white as you might think. Taking Joe DeMeo down won’t be easy. He’s killed enough people to fill a cemetery.”

  Kathleen’s eyes began to cloud up. “Are you going to die on me?”

  “Not on purpose,” I said. “But nine million dollars is a lot of money, even to Joe DeMeo.”

  “What will he do?”

  “Send some goons to try to kill me.”

  She put her uneaten sandwich wedge back on her plate. “Donovan, I’m scared. What if he really does send some men to kill you?”

  “I’ll kill them first.”

  “You can do that?”

  I smiled. “I can.”

  “Are you sure?” she said. “You aren’t even scared?”

  “Not even,” I said, trying to sound not even scared. Then I asked her to help me tape the fingers and wrist of my left hand.

  “Why are we doing this?” she asked.

  “Don’t turn around,” I said, “but DeMeo’s goons are here.”

  A look of panic flashed across her face. “What? Where? How many are there?”

  “Two in the parking lot, one in the kitchen.”

  “Jesus Christ, Donovan! What are we going to do?”

  “The right thing.”

  “What, call the cops?”

  “No. The right thing in this situation is kill the guy in the kitchen first.”

  “Kill him?” Her words came out louder than she’d intended. I noticed the couple across from us glancing in our direction. Katherine lowered her voice. “Why would your first thought be to kill him?”