St. Albans Fire

by Mayor, Archer

  Joe glanced down the table at the lone state trooper and invited him to join in with a silent nod.

  The man smiled and sat forward. “We got hold of St. Albans PD after we came up with nothing on our own computers and found out that Linda Padgett was stopped for speeding and given a warning just outside of St. Albans on the same night we think Gregory was killed. She was heading back into town from the bay.”

  Joe nodded. “Thanks. On my end, I had the crime lab compare a bunch of John Doe prints they collected at Gregory’s house to Linda’s. They found several matches. It was their opinion that, given the number of prints and where they were found, she must have spent a fair amount of time there.”

  “How’d you get her prints to compare to?” Willy asked.

  “I collected a bunch of her personal items from home—birth control dispenser, sanitary napkin box, stuff like that—and sent them to the lab.”

  “She wasn’t there?”

  “I made sure neither she nor Marie would be,” Joe replied, and then addressed them all. “I also had a brief chat with her husband, Jeff, and asked him about the time the whole family discussed Gregory’s offer to list the farm. Marie had told me it was no big deal—that Linda had made a pitch to sell and run with the money, but that she’d folded once everyone else went against her. Jeff’s story was a little different. He says she really pushed for it, crying, yelling. Told me it was the first time he realized she might not really like the farming life.”

  “Well, duh,” Willy snorted. “You have to talk to this clown with a two-by-four in your hand?”

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” Sam muttered to herself.

  “Pretty understandable self-denial,” Joe explained. “The farm means everything to him. That’s partly what made me think for a while that Marie did it.”

  “And crispy-crittered her own kid?” Willy asked with an incredulous laugh. “I love it. You are hard, boss man.”

  “Bad enough that the sister did it,” Sam said quietly. “So what’s the connection between Bobby dying and Linda killing Gregory?”

  “I think we better ask her that face-to-face,” Joe concluded.

  Chapter 26

  SHE SAT ON THE GROUND, using his gravestone as a backrest, her eyes squinting against the setting sun as she took in the view all the way across St. Albans, the bay, the lake with its islands, and to the ragged gray horizon cut like a rough tear by the Adirondack Mountains.

  It had been a beautiful day, clear and dry and warm with the scent of spring. She’d longed to sit on the grass like this, using Bobby to rest against as they used to, back-to-back, long ago. But until now it had been too cold or too wet, so typical of this godforsaken land. She’d been missing his company—his easygoing ways, his willingness to listen, the fact that he never once mocked her dreams, no matter how fanciful.

  He was the only one she’d told about John, and he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, as she knew he wouldn’t, no matter how uncomfortable he felt. That part made her feel a little guilty at first, before her own enthusiasm overwhelmed her. But she hadn’t been able to keep it to herself, and who else was there?

  Bobby was great, of course. Understanding and supportive, even if a little confused. He first assumed that she was breaking up with Jeff, naturally enough. It was hard to explain that becoming John’s lover had less to do with sex than with the launching of something new and bright and hopeful for all of them. That in this man’s arms, surrounded by his things, intoxicated by his presumption of privilege and money, she caught hold of a vision that she could make real for her family—including Jeff.

  She pursed her lips slightly. It wasn’t Bobby’s fault, of course. As good and as sympathetic as he’d been, she knew it hadn’t fully made sense to him. He’d been too brainwashed by the whole farming family mystique, and God knows, that was no surprise, given the company he kept. Jeff treated the farm like the Holy Grail, Dad saw it as a sacred trust, even Mom got it twisted up in the Bible, if only from the Book of Job. None of them could be expected to see the wisdom of her insight—the sheer, unromantic practicality of it.

  She rubbed her flat stomach with her hand, touching the underside of one breast in the process, and smiled. Okay, truthfully, it hadn’t started that way, so altruistically. She’d been attracted by the man’s style—his clothes, his car, the self-confidence in his eyes. He was clean, for one thing, with slim, well-cared-for hands, and smelled great. That first day, the only time he’d been by the farm, to ask if they wanted to list it with his company, she reacted to the whole package like an animal in heat, bumping up against him once at the door, placing her hand against the small of his back, catching a whiff of his aftershave.

  It was a small step to finding out where he lived, to dropping by his house after hours one night, to literally stepping into his arms as soon as he opened the door. Not saying a word, she kissed him hard, feeling his hands immediately slipping under her clothes, expertly undressing her all the way to his bed, in total silence, like a tangible, corporeal dream.

  That had been all about relief and freedom and unbridled sex. The visionary stuff came later, when she understood that at least some part of this pleasure could be transplanted to her home and husband, who she knew could supply the love that John was incapable of. In the sex was born a greater hunger, and in that hunger, a need that slipped imperceptibly into obsession.

  She told Bobby of her affair with John Gregory, of her attraction to his belongings, his freedom, his money, and his lifestyle. But she didn’t tell him of her plans to make a gift of their ilk to her family—how she would end their mother’s anger and shame, alleviate their father’s crushing responsibility, and allow Bobby and Jeff and her children to taste and flourish in a life beyond cow manure, poverty, and the grinding dictatorship of daily chores.

  She didn’t tell him how pure serendipity let her appear at John’s house one night, when he was distracted by a phone call and hadn’t noticed her enter, and overhear him discussing a barn-burning job with a professional arsonist.

  So quiet she thought she’d stopped breathing, she listened, transfixed, all horror displaced by the notion that this was like a sign from above—the answer to everyone’s problems. The herd and the barn could be destroyed in one fell swoop, the insurance money collected, and the entire farm sold for several times its value.

  All because of her sleeping with John.

  Her guilt replaced by mission, she made achieving her goal her only purpose. She went at her affair with renewed vigor, satisfying John every way he wished, until she found an opportunity to go through his files and extract the name she’d heard mentioned—Dante Lagasso.

  The rest followed naturally. Contacting Lagasso, starting the process, gathering the money. She didn’t know when it would happen or who would do it—Lagasso had said that was a rule—and stayed awake for nights on end, waiting for her liberation.

  She leaned her head back against the smooth granite of the headstone, closing her eyes to hold off the tears.

  Bobby, what the hell were you doing in there? Of all nights? I was giving you a whole new life.

  She tried emptying her mind, getting things lined up again. There was a path to follow here—fault to find… Right. John. In the end, this was all his fault. If he hadn’t come by that day; hadn’t flirted with her the way he had, in her own kitchen; hadn’t exposed her to… everything.

  He was the one who killed Bobby in the end, because that’s how you had to look at things these days—you had to find the source. The source of evil. And once you traced it, you had to get rid of it. Find the evildoer. John had threatened them all, finally—burning barns of hardworking farmers; seducing married women; driving around in that useless car; killing innocent boys…

  She’d done well, killing him. She’d set things right.

  · · ·

  Joe met Gail and her bodyguard at the door of the overflow hearing room. He’d waited in the hallway until the crowd had dwindled to a handful before crossin
g the threshold, knowing the cop would hold her back, not wanting her surrounded by a crush of people. And a crush there had been. Joe wondered what the fire marshal’s opinion might have been had he been there.

  “Worthwhile day?” he asked her as she approached, slinging her bag onto her shoulder and weaving her way through the tangle of chairs. He exchanged friendly nods with the cop, a state trooper he knew only as Mark.

  “Not really,” she said. “You catch the guy yet?”

  “No, but we’re making progress.” He didn’t tell her that the progress concerned only Linda Padgett and that no one had the slightest idea of Gino Famolare’s whereabouts.

  “Great.” She brushed by him, paused as Mark stepped ahead of her into the hallway to check, and then followed suit, Joe bringing up the rear. He noticed that Mark was keeping a diplomatic poker face.

  “You want to switch off a little?” he asked him. “I’ll keep her company if you want to follow in my car.”

  They both looked to Gail, who nodded tiredly. “I’d like to pick up a few groceries on the way.”

  They stepped out into the setting sun and walked over to the parking lot reserved for members. Joe had parked illegally, half on a sidewalk, and left his badge on the dash, hoping for some mercy from the overworked Montpelier parking enforcement officers. Either they hadn’t been by or it had worked.

  He opened his passenger door for Gail, asking as she stepped in, “How’re you doing?”

  She didn’t answer, waiting for him to circle around and join her. He started the engine and pulled into the street.

  “That’s a loaded question,” she finally answered.

  “He may never show up,” he tried comforting her. “It was probably just a lot of hot air.”

  “Amazing as it sounds,” she said, her voice hard, “that’s not very helpful.”

  He didn’t say anything, aiming for State Street instead, and eventually the Shaw’s supermarket around the corner, on Main.

  “I’m sorry,” she said a few minutes later, not looking at him. “I’m tired.”

  “You may be tired,” he agreed. “But you’ve also had your life turned upside down—again. I’m the one who’s sorry.”

  She suddenly burst into tears, causing him to almost rear-end the car in front of him. As he reached for her with one hand, she caught it in her own and squeezed it, saying, “It’s okay, it’s okay. I just… I don’t know.”

  He pulled into Shaw’s and parked haphazardly, noticing in the rearview mirror that Mark was more carefully doing the same, keeping them in sight.

  With the engine still running, Joe reached out for her and took her in his arms. It was the first real display of affection they’d shared in quite a while, a realization that filled him with sudden bittersweetness. She hung on tight, her face buried in his shoulder, as he rubbed her back.

  “I was so hoping all this was behind me,” she said eventually, her voice muffled by his jacket.

  “I know. I know. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s happening all over again,” she continued, pulling back slightly to speak. “Getting worse every night. The nightmares, the insomnia. I’m back on sleeping pills that don’t work. I check the doors and windows again and again. I can’t taste what I eat, and I’m never hungry anyhow.”

  He kissed her, interrupting, and then said, “I never wanted this to happen.”

  “You couldn’t help it, Joe,” she answered. “It’s your job. It’s the people you deal with. It’s your life.”

  “Still,” he soothed her, “it seems so unfair.”

  Her face scrunched up like a child’s. “It is. I know that’s dumb, and I know a lot of people have had it a lot worse than I have, but I feel like I’ve paid enough. I’ve got good things to offer, and I really want to do that. I promise to work hard. But I want to be left alone.”

  The crying surged once more, and he gathered her more tightly to him. “We’ll get you that. I promise. We’ll make it work.”

  They shopped for her few grocery items after that, holding hands, not speaking much, oblivious of Mark trailing behind, his eyes on everything but them. In their separate ways, Joe and she felt bruised and worn, not unlike weary travelers who have just been told they have many more miles to go.

  With a couple of plastic bags of bananas, canned soup, and some vegetables, they left the town behind them a half hour later under a sky tinged with the furious last blush of the setting sun, and worked their way in a two-car caravan toward Gail’s condo development. Joe was lost in a reverie of futile tactics, all aimed at removing Gino Famolare from circulation. Gail seemed barely awake, slouched down in her seat, staring blankly at the darkening scenery slipping by.

  On her street, as they approached the house, a man detached himself from the shadows of her garage door to greet them as they pulled into the driveway—another cop, here already a couple of hours, and assigned to watch the house for the rest of the night.

  Joe killed the engine, got out, and circled the car to help Gail with the groceries she had nestled in her lap. As they were sorting out the bundles, Mark pulled past the driveway, sidled up to the curb, and then backed into the driveway beside them, facing out. As he did, Gail stepped out of the way, looking up as his headlights swept the row of parked cars across the street—and illuminated the pale, round face of a man sitting deep inside the shadows of an unmarked delivery truck.

  From her countless examinations of his otherwise bland mug shot, Gail instantly recognized Gino Famolare.

  She dropped her groceries onto the ground and grabbed Joe’s arm. “My God. That’s him. In the van.”

  The headlights had moved on and were now pointing at the car directly behind the van. But Joe didn’t hesitate, trusting in what she’d seen. He threw her back into the car, pulled his gun out, and yelled, crouched in a shooter’s stance, “You in the van. Get out with your hands where I can see them.”

  The two other cops instantly yielded to instinct, the one by the garage imitating Joe, and Mark, still in his car, turning on the spotlight by his outside mirror and shining it on the van.

  All three saw Gino’s pale blur as he ducked down behind the wheel, fired up his engine, and stamped on the accelerator, clipping the car ahead of him as he spun out of his parking space.

  But Mark had anticipated him. As the van emerged into the street, its rear tires squealing, the bodyguard drove his car like a battering ram against the other man’s rear quarter panel, throwing the van into a skid and causing its own momentum to propel it into a utility pole, where it stopped with a metal-crunching thud.

  As Joe and the other cop ran toward the wreck, and Mark piled out of his car, his gun out, Gino stumbled from the van on the far side and began running, limping badly, in the opposite direction.

  In his hand was a semiautomatic, clearly visible under the streetlight.

  All three officers rounded the crashed cars at the same time and stood for a brief moment, lined up as at the range.

  “Gino Famolare. Stop where you are,” Joe shouted, some twenty yards away.

  His back to them, Gino stopped, still holding the gun.

  “Put the gun down, kick it away, get on your knees, and lock your hands behind your head,” Joe ordered.

  Instead, Gino turned around. The gun was still pointed at the ground. All three cops spread out as Joe repeated, “Put the gun down—now.”

  But everyone knew what was going to happen, turning what followed into a ritualistic suicide. Gino brought his gun hand up, fired once in Joe’s direction, and immediately collapsed in a fusillade of bullets. He lay still and crumpled in the ear-ringing silence, faintly shrouded by a pale gray mist of gun smoke delivered by the cool, barely perceptible evening breeze. A thick rivulet of blood began to leak toward the gutter from under him.

  Chapter 27

  SAMMIE MARTENS WALKED UP TO JOE outside Gail’s condo. There were vehicles everywhere, supplying enough flashing strobes to satisfy a parade marshal, from the initial responde
rs to the post-shoot investigators to the crime scene techs and the arson guys. This last group had been called in to remove all the incendiaries Gino had planted throughout Gail’s house.

  “You okay, boss?”

  “We are now,” he answered, nodding toward where the medical examiner was crouched over Gino’s body. “Suicide by cop.”

  “So I heard,” she said. “How’s Gail?”

  Joe hesitated, remembering Gail’s oddly shut-down demeanor following the shooting, when he’d hoped she might’ve been in some way relieved. “She didn’t get hurt,” he said cautiously.

  “Great,” Sam answered vaguely, getting to the real reason she was here. “I don’t know if this is the time or place, but Linda Padgett’s gone missing, and her dad says one of his handguns isn’t where he left it. It’s usually locked up, because of the kids, but she knows where the key is.”

  Joe nodded, his brain cataloging all he knew of this family’s complicated dynamics. “How long she been gone?”

  “Five hours, give or take.”

  “Any ideas?”

  Sam smiled ruefully. “That’s why I’m here.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I got one. Let me check on Gail again and get clearance to leave, and I’ll be right with you.”

  · · ·

  Sunset was long gone from the ridge hosting the cemetery. Now, replacing the swatches of red and orange across the fading blue sky was a canopy of cold, sharp stars mirroring the St. Albans city lights cradled in the trough of land below.

  Sam and Joe parked their car well shy of the cemetery gate and made their way slowly and quietly through the short undergrowth of headstones, helped by the night’s dim light. Eventually, they made out the dark shape of a figure wrapped in a blanket, bundled up against Bobby’s new stone and outlined against the urban glow far below.

  Joe gestured to Sam to stand watch from two rows behind as he moved to a spot slightly off to one side of their quarry and cleared his throat, gently so as not to startle her.