by Susie Gayle
From the garage roof, Sarah lowers Basket, and then Rowdy, and finally Spark.
“Stay,” I tell them. “Please.”
I turn back to help Sarah down, but she disappears back through the window for a moment.
“Sarah!” I call. “What are you doing?” Through the first-floor windows, I can see the orange glow of flames consuming our kitchen.
She appears again two seconds later with a cell phone in one hand and my car keys in the other. I help her onto the car and then to the ground.
“Here. Figured we might need these.”
“Thanks.” I dial 911 and report the fire as Sarah stows all three pets into the backseat of my car and backs it down to the end of the driveway, a hopefully safe distance away. I get into the passenger seat to wait for the fire department to come, watching as our rented house on Saltwater Drive burns.
“Too far,” Sarah says softly, staring at the flames. “Too far.”
I nod in agreement, and then twist in my seat to make sure everyone is okay back there. Rowdy barks once.
“Yeah, I know. We owe you big.” Rowdy probably just saved our lives; if not for him waking us, we might have remained asleep while our bedroom filled with smoke.
***
It doesn’t take long for the fire department to quell the blaze, or at least it doesn’t feel like long. The house is destroyed; anything that didn’t burn is either smoke-damaged or water-logged, with the exception of our bedroom. The fire chief’s best guess is that it started in the kitchen, since that room was completely consumed, but he assures us there will be a full investigation—especially since the bedroom doorknob was tied tightly to the closed bathroom door across the hall with nylon cord, making it impossible to open.
Patty Mayhew shows up while the firefighters are fighting the fire, but she keeps her distance and waits until the flames are out before she approaches me and Sarah.
“I’m sorry,” she tells us. “Really, I am.”
“Thanks, Patty. No one was hurt, and everything else was just stuff.”
“How do you want to handle this?” she asks, straight-faced.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, obviously it’s going down as arson in the report. An investigation could take days, if not weeks, to come to a conclusion. If you knew anything that you wanted to tell me, I’m all ears; if not, then as a licensed private investigator in the state of Maine, I would assume that you’re fully capable of getting to the bottom of this yourself. If that’s what you wanted.”
I raise an eyebrow. “I thought you were always a cop first, and a friend second?”
She shrugs with one shoulder. “Every rule has its exceptions.”
I nod. “We didn’t see or hear anything. Rowdy woke us, and we smelled smoke. When I couldn’t open the door, we climbed out the window and onto the car. That’s all.”
“Alright. Thanks, Will. And again, I’m sorry.”
“Sure.”
Once she’s gone, Sarah asks, “What are we going to do now?”
“First, we’re going to check into a hotel. Pet-friendly, of course. Then… we’re going to form a plan.”
CHAPTER 15
* * *
The next morning, we leave Basket and Spark at the motel room just outside of town. I drop Sarah off on Saltwater Drive, where Karen and Sammy are waiting to help her sift through whatever she can salvage of the fire, working around the fire marshal that’s investigating in the kitchen.
Then Rowdy and I head into town—not to the Pet Shop Stop, but to town hall.
As I enter, a woman at the check-in desk looks up sharply. I recognize her immediately as the same woman from the council meeting that gave me grief about Rowdy being there.
Before she can say anything, I look around and say, “I don’t see any signs.”
She sneers at me as I march toward the mayor’s office.
The second gatekeeper is none other than Aaron Sutherland, the mayor’s assistant, whose desk is positioned just outside the office. He looks up at me and says, “I’m sorry, Mayor Sturgess is not available at the moment.”
I ignore him completely and push into the office, closing the door behind Rowdy and locking it from the inside.
Sturgess glances up at me from a stack of paperwork, an amused smirk on his face. “Good morning, Will. To what do I owe you, and your dog, the pleasure?”
“You win.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I said, you win. It’s done. The Pet Emporium thing was a lie to draw you out, and it worked. Just not the way we’d hoped. We don’t want any further trouble, so… you win.”
Sturgess frowns. “I’m really not sure what you’re talking about, Will.”
“Yes, you are. Someone set fire to our kitchen last night and rigged our bedroom door so we couldn’t get out.”
“Oh my,” Sturgess says emphatically, frowning deeply. “I’m terribly sorry to hear that. I hope everyone is alright.”
“If they weren’t, we’d be having a very different conversation right now.”
“I don’t know why you would assume I had anything to do with it.”
I roll my eyes. “Come on, Sturgess. Your assistant’s apparently not as slick as you; I saw him speeding away down my street right after the fire started. Now, I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing that you’re vetting him, just like John Blumberg did for you. Am I right?”
Sturgess says nothing, so I continue. “When you were younger, before you were mayor, Blumberg cut you in on his whole ‘puritanical Seaview Rock’ perspective. And in return, he became your advocate and helped you get elected. You’ve since returned the favor, most specifically by way of Logan Morse’s murder. And now, you’re doing the same thing for your young pal Aaron, right? Does he want to be mayor when he grows up?”
Sturgess folds his hands on the desk and looks me over. “Let’s suppose, even for a moment, that even one iota of this is true—and I’m not saying it is. Why are you here talking to me, instead of the police?”
“Like I said,” I shrug, “you win. We don’t want this town rocked by another scandal. And now that your side has shown us what they’re willing to do, we don’t want to take any more unnecessary risks. We don’t want any more deaths. We’re willing to work with you.”
“Even Sarah?” he asks.
“Especially Sarah.” That part is not even remotely true; the reason I’m here alone is because she was afraid that she would punch the mayor right in his smarmy mouth. “Look, I’ve been doing my homework. I know you killed Buddy Valencia. I know you killed Logan Morse. I know about Derik Dobson, and now I know about your assistant. If I wanted you behind bars, you would be. Take that as a sign of good faith.”
Sturgess stares at me quietly for a long time. Then, very slowly, he claps his hands together three times, his face breaking into a grin as he does. “Wow. I mean, just wow. They told me you were good, but sheesh! That is impressive work, Will. And to be the bigger man and come in here and open up to me like that… wow.” He shakes his head. “Just think of what we could accomplish, all of us working together. This town will be perfect, just like we’ve always wanted it to be.”
“That’s the idea.” I nod. “Anyway, that’s, uh, that’s all I wanted to say. I’ll leave you to whatever it is you do.”
As I turn to leave, the mayor says, “You were wrong about just one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Buddy Valencia? That wasn’t me.”
“No?” I ask.
He shakes his head, grinning. “But everything else… like I said, wow.”
I smile. “Thanks, Mayor Sturgess.”
“Let’s talk soon.”
“Sure.” I leave his office, again ignoring Aaron on the way out. Rowdy growls at him a little. As I head down the hall, I mutter to myself, “No, really, thank you Mr. Mayor.” Once we’re outside the town hall building, I kneel down and unclip the little silver digital recorder from R
owdy’s collar. It’s just a tiny thing, almost small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, that Dennis uses when he’s out and about and gets inspired for a new Bill Mulligan comic.
And now it has about as close to a confession as we’re going to come.
I wish I’d thought of it earlier, but then again, the timing wasn’t right. By appealing to the mayor’s sense of ego, making him think that he’d won something, that he’d gained an ally through his instruction and action, I’d gotten what I’d came for. In a way, both our plans worked; Sarah’s plan paid off by forcing the other side to do something drastic (even if it meant having our house partially burnt down), and my plan paid off by managing to get a confession out of Sturgess (even if it’s not quite as clear-cut as I’d hoped).
Ten minutes later I play the clip for Patty Mayhew, who listens intently to every word of the exchange between me and him. At the end of it, she looks up at me without lifting her head.
“Is it enough?” I ask eagerly.
“It’s close,” she says. “Is there anything else? Even just a little more to go on?”
I nod. “I can get more.”
You might think I’m acting awfully calm through this whole thing for a guy that was nearly killed and his house set ablaze only hours prior. The truth is, my blood was boiling. I was enraged. Long after the fire was put out, after we’d checked into a motel and settled in and realized that no one was getting any sleep, I paced and ranted and cursed and shouted.
Then finally I realized how placid Sarah had been the entire time, sitting on the edge of the bed and patiently listening to me whine, and I said, “How on earth can you be this calm right now?!”
And Sarah stood up and hugged me and asked, “What’s the use in getting angry? You’re no good to anyone like this. What is it that people like to say? Don’t get mad…”
“…Get even.”
“Exactly.”
So that’s what I’m going to do. Get even.
CHAPTER 16
* * *
On the eastern side of Seaview Rock is a beige cottage-style home with an ancient-looking truck parked in the carport. I pull up to the curb and knock on the door and wait. The woman that answers wears bifocals on a chain around her neck and a shawl over her shoulders and looks to be around eighty. She smiles as she opens the door.
Then she wrinkles her nose and frowns when she notices who it is.
“You,” she practically hisses.
“I know, I know. I’m still annoyingly breathing,” I tell her. “Sorry about that. Can I borrow a minute of you and your husband’s time?”
“No,” Mrs. Blumberg says flatly.
“No? Well, Buddy Valencia, Derik Dobson, and Logan Morse say I can.”
Her face goes slack—or as slack as possible for someone as wrinkled as her. (I know, you’re supposed to respect your elders. But I also believe that respect goes both ways, and these people deserve none.)
“John is out back working in the garden,” she says. “We’ll give you two minutes.” She opens the screen door to let me in, but puts up a hand quickly when Rowdy tries to follow me. “No! The dog stays outside. He’ll frighten my cat, Duke.”
Well, there goes my ace in the hole. I guess that tactic won’t work twice.
“That’s fine,” I tell her. “Rowdy, stay.”
I follow her into the house, through a floral-designed living room and into a kitchen with a backdoor that leads to their small yard. She hobbles down the three wooden steps while I stand behind her near the door.
“John?” she calls out to the old man on his hands and knees in the garden. “We have a… visitor.”
John Blumberg looks up and squints at me. “What do you want?”
“Just to talk for a few minutes.”
“About how you’re trying to ruin my town?” he demands.
“And about how you tried to have me killed in turn.”
He scoffs and resumes harvesting his cucumbers. “You have no proof.”
“You’re right, I don’t. Not about that, anyway. Do you remember a fellow named Buddy Valencia?”
Mr. Blumberg looks at his wife quickly, and then back to me. “Nope. Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Are you sure?” I ask. “Because from what I hear, he used to be your shop neighbor, or whatever you call it, about eighteen years ago. Apparently he made the best scones on the planet.”
“They weren’t that good,” he mutters.
“Oh, so you do remember him?” I ask. “Because Buddy was doing pretty well for himself. Then Buddy disappeared. And I find it really odd that you and your council paid off his lease only three days later. It’s like you knew he wasn’t coming back.”
“That was almost twenty years ago,” he insists. “I barely remember it.”
“Sure, I understand. There were so many others, right?”
John Blumberg, with some difficulty, stands. “Just what are you trying to say, Mr. Sullivan?”
“I’m saying that you and your wife are murderers, Mr. Blumberg,” I tell him plainly. “I know that you two sent Sarah the cupcakes laced with cyanide. Depending on how long you’ve been favoring rat poison, maybe that’s how you did in poor Buddy, too. Would’ve been pretty easy, right? Sharing a wall like that?” I eye up his cucumbers and take a calculated risk. “In fact, last time I was here, Mrs. Blumberg mentioned that she’d been doing her own pickling for about twenty years now. I can’t think of a better place to hide a body than your own garden.”
Mr. Blumberg almost laughs. “You can’t dig up my garden! You don’t have the authority.”
“You’re right, I don’t.” I pull out my cell phone. “But the police are waiting for my call. And no offense, John, but you’re kind of up there in years. I don’t think you can dig Buddy up before they get here.”
“No,” John Blumberg says, his eyes growing wide as he shakes his head. “You’re suspended. The police arrested you. You’re not even supposed to be here!”
I shrug. “Maybe. Let’s see what Patty has to say.” I press a button on my phone.
“Wait, wait, wait,” John insists. “Hang on, Will.” He puts on a big fake smile. “We can work something out here, I think.”
I lower my phone. “Like what?”
He looks at his wife for help, his eyes pleading.
“We have influence,” she says. “We can help you.”
“Not anymore.” I make the call.
***
Patty Mayhew has a pretty busy day. First she arrests Mayor Sturgess and his assistant, Aaron Sutherland, on counts of murder and arson, respectively. Then she has a team excavate the entire Blumberg backyard until they find the bones that most likely belong to one Robert “Buddy” Valencia, buried about five and a half feet underground.
And while digging, they find the remains of three others.
Forensic testing can take a while, but I’m pretty confident that the bodies they’ve discovered will match the people that went missing over the last thirty-something years, people that allegedly skipped town or plain disappeared.
Naturally, the Blumbergs are arrested. I don’t know what’s going to happen to them, considering their age, but I hope it’s terrible.
***
I knock on Georgia Strauss’s door. She opens it and simply says, “I heard. Well done, Will.”
“Georgia, you owe me like, a thousand dollars.”
She smirks. She actually smirks, one of the first times I’ve ever seen a genuine smile on her face. “Come in.” I follow her in. Her home is warm and inviting, not overly decorous or lavish. “Let me find my checkbook.”
“I don’t want your money, Georgia.”
She turns sharply with one manicured eyebrow raised. “Oh?”
“No. I just want the truth. I found your ‘scones’ for you. You knew about Buddy Valencia, but you couldn’t just tell me. Why not? What’s the connection?”
“That wasn’t part of our deal.”
“You
’re right. You pointed me in the right direction; you don’t owe me any answers. But let me tell you what I know. Eighteen years ago, there were five members of town council: Tammy Weis, Julian Thomas, Glenn Richter, John Blumberg… and Georgia Strauss.” Earlier, when Sammy read from the council minutes from all those years ago, he’d left her name off on purpose, knowing that I was working with her. But I had gotten a look at the document for myself.
She doesn’t say anything, but her shoulders droop a bit resignedly.
“Were you involved?” I ask.
“I didn’t know what was happening.”
“I don’t believe that.”
She turns and sighs. “Fine. I had an inkling, but… I chose to ignore it.”
“So this is some sort of atonement?”
“The mistakes of history are doomed to be repeated unless someone intervenes,” she tells me. “I didn’t want that to happen to anyone else.”
I nod slowly. Regardless of what I think of her right now, I understand her position. “I’m not going to take anything from you, Georgia. And you’re not going to take anything from me anymore—not my time, not my resources. I think we’re done here.”
“That seems fair.” She lowers her gaze to the floor and asks, “Are you going to… for lack of a better term, tell on me?”
“I thought about it, but… no. I’m not going to. You have to live with the decisions you’ve made.”
“You’re right. I do.”
I start toward the door to leave when she adds, “By the way… your suspension was overturned.”
“Goodbye, Georgia.”
CHAPTER 17
* * *
“This is nice,” Sarah says with a content sigh.
“It sure beats a motel.” The two of us sit on plastic folding chairs on our new deck, behind our new house at 1442 Sandbar Avenue. Basket lies under Sarah’s chair, basking in the shade, while Spark and Rowdy chase each other through the yard, trampling wildflowers and marking their newfound territory.
