Devil's Night (30 page)

Rounding the hole, she descended the banked side. She slipped at the halfway point, sliding the rest of the way on her behind. At the bottom, she bumped against something solid and cold. Something that definitely wasn’t old wood.

Clearing away the dirt with her hands, she found a chunk of something that resembled coal. Only it was far too large to be a piece of coal. Heavier, too. Kat could barely lift it.

When she dropped the chunk of rock, it clattered against another piece that was sunk deeper into the ground. Kat noticed other pieces as well, jutting from the wall of the hole and jaggedly poking out of the pieces of wood. She reached out to the block she had tried to lift and rapped it with her fist.

It was lead. Kat realized it as soon as her knuckles knocked against it. She also knew why there were chunks of it sitting at the bottom of a hole, just as she understood who had dug the hole in the first place.

The digger was Constance Bishop, who had ventured out here several nights in a row, first with a metal detector, then with a shovel. The chunks of lead and the disintegrating wood were the last remaining pieces of the coffin that she had unearthed.

And the land—the site of the mill that not only gave Perry Hollow its name but also its reason for being—was the final resting place of a woman named Rebecca Bradford.

*

Henry slipped through the front door of Maison D’Avignon at nine thirty-one. Not too bad, seeing how he had still been at Deana’s only five minutes earlier. The evening had gone by cruelly fast, the hours seeming to zip by in a matter of seconds. Yet there were moments—watching Adam sleep, for example, or feeling his surprisingly strong fist grip his index finger—when time seemed to stop, expand, stretch until forever. A minute felt like a lifetime.

He wondered if parenthood was really just a series of time shifts. Watching your child sleep for five minutes could seem like an entire day. Then years could pass in the blink of an eye. Henry imagined every parent in the world trying to adjust to the various speeds, wishing life would go at a single slow, steady pace. He had been a father for no more than two hours, and already it left him reeling.

He had been cradling Adam again when he realized it was close to nine-thirty. That’s when he was scheduled to interview Lucia Trapani about Fanelli USA. He didn’t like the thought of leaving his son. He loathed it, in fact. But he needed to meet her, if only to try to reschedule the interview for another time. The fire at his hotel had left him without a number to call and cancel. Standing her up would guarantee he’d never get the story. And that was something he still needed to do.

Yes, he planned to give Dario his two weeks’ notice as soon as he got back to Rome. And yes, he could have shrugged off the story and never contacted his editor again. But for the time being, he was still being paid to find out about what big project Giuseppe Fanelli had planned for the United States. If he did, then Dario would certainly provide him with a glowing recommendation when Henry moved back to Pennsylvania to be with his son.

Deana drove Henry to the restaurant. Because Doreen was long gone, they had to take Adam, as well. The mad rush of diaper bags and stubborn car seats gave Henry another glimpse of being a parent. If pressed to describe how it felt in a single word, he would have said
frenzied
.

But now he was at the fanciest restaurant in Perry Hollow, without a wallet and with a fresh sheen of sweat on his forehead. Standing by the front door, he took a moment to compose himself, checking his reflection in the mirror that hung behind the maître d’s stand.

That confirmed it. He looked like shit.

The rush to get there had left him panting, his cheeks rosy from stress. His hair, combed only by his fingers, jutted out at weird angles. He was certain bits of oil from that fire trap of a swimming pool were still nestled among his locks.

Turning away from the mirror, he pulled his shirt to his nose and sniffed. He smelled bad, too. The jeans and flannel shirt had survived the rec center fire intact, but now they reeked of smoke and gasoline, with just a hint of chlorine for good measure.

Still, he had no choice but to step farther into the restaurant, making a right into the darkly elegant bar. There were exactly two people inside. One was the bartender. The other was a woman perched on a bar stool, scrolling through messages on her BlackBerry.

In her mid-forties, she was attractive, with olive skin and auburn hair. She was dressed in a black suit, an emerald blouse peeking out from under her jacket. On her feet were heels so high and elaborate that they looked more like torture devices than footwear. Henry had spent enough time in Rome to know that the shoes were Italian and that the woman had to be Lucia Trapani.

Glancing up from her phone, she caught his reflection in the mirror behind the bar. “From the way you’re looking at me,” she said, “you’re either a lumberjack trying to pick me up or that reporter who bugged me for the interview.”

“I’m the reporter,” Henry said, taking the stool next to her.

Lucia stared at the ice in her glass. “I thought so. What are you drinking?”

“Whatever you’re having, I guess.”

“Two bourbons,” Lucia told the bartender before turning to Henry. “So, Mr. Goll, what’s so urgent that you made me drive to a town that seems to be on fire all the time?”

He must have looked surprised by her knowledge because she added, “They were talking about it on the Philadelphia news stations. Even if they weren’t, I would have known. Part of my job is to keep tabs on what’s happening in Perry Hollow.”

Their drinks arrived. Lucia swirled the amber liquid around the glass before taking a sip. Henry merely gulped his. After the day he had had, he needed a good belt of something.

“A fan of small towns, are you?”

Lucia grimaced. “Hardly. I keep track to make sure I didn’t fuck up royally.”

“You’re the one who picked Perry Hollow?”

“It wasn’t Fanelli, that’s for damn sure,” Lucia said. “He has no grasp of United States geography. He just wanted land for his first American venture. He didn’t care where it was. That was my job, to find the perfect place. I looked for proximity to major cities, reasonable land prices, low tax bases. Perry Hollow had everything we needed, not to mention a freshly cleared patch of lakefront property. Plus, it was in Pennsylvania, which is important with this kind of thing.”

Henry’s notebooks had been turned to ash during the fire at the Sleepy Hollow Inn, and he hadn’t thought to stop at some point during the day and get more. With nothing to write on—or with—he begged a pen from the bartender and began taking notes on cocktail napkins.

“Is everything okay?” Lucia stared at him with bemused concern. “I have to say, you look frazzled.”

“It’s been a long day,” Henry said. “Back to Mr. Fanelli’s project, what does being in Pennsylvania have to do with it?”

“The laws, of course. While more and more states are allowing it, we wanted a place that had been at it but not too long. We didn’t want to go someplace where competition was already entrenched. So New Jersey was out. Louisiana was out. We didn’t even think about Nevada.”

Henry stopped writing. He gave Lucia a quizzical look while scratching his head with the end of his pen. “What exactly does Mr. Fanelli plan on building here?”

Lucia Trapani laughed—a throaty, incredulous laugh that Henry had only heard before in the movies.

“You honestly don’t know?” she said. “He’s entering the United States gaming industry. Fanelli Entertainment USA is going to build a casino in Perry Hollow.”

Henry, a pale man to begin with, was certain the news made his face a whole lot whiter. He knew from the way he got cold in an instant, like all the warm blood had just left his body. It wasn’t surprise from learning about the casino project that did it. It was the fact that building a casino in Perry Hollow was about the worst idea he had ever heard. The town’s roads weren’t built for that kind of traffic. The burning of the Sleepy Hollow Inn meant the town had exactly zero hotels.

Then there was Kat and her practically nonexistent police force. Henry knew without a doubt that she and Carl Bauersox were good cops, but they’d be overwhelmed by having a casino dropped into their midst.

Years earlier, about three lives ago, he had gone to Atlantic City for fun and Las Vegas for work. He liked both places well enough. He’d even consider going back someday. But the glitziest hotels and brightest neon couldn’t quite hide the seedier parts of both cities. Pawnshops and gambling addicts. Prostitutes and junkies. Where casinos went, they were sure to follow. Picturing all of that in tiny, sleepy Perry Hollow broke his heart.

“Is it a done deal?” he asked. “Has it been approved by town officials?”

“Almost. We still need to introduce it before the planning board next month.”

“It’s going to be a tough sell. People in this town like things the way they are. They won’t want it approved.”

“Considering the state Perry Hollow is in at the moment,” Lucia said, “I don’t think they’ll have a choice. Besides, we’re working on a great pitch. You should see the concept art for the hotel. It puts the Bellagio to shame. Mr. Fanelli doesn’t believe in moderation. He goes big.”

Her BlackBerry started to vibrate, buzzing its way down the bar toward her hand. She glanced at it before sighing. “Speaking of the devil. That man never sleeps. It’s probably why he’s so fucking rich.”

Excusing herself, she slipped off the stool and headed deeper into the empty restaurant, hips swaying. Her heels clicked on the hardwood floor, quickly and steadily. It sounded like somebody trying to tap out a rhythm on a typewriter. Henry echoed the sound with the tip of his borrowed pen, rapping it against the bar.

It took at least five taps to make him realize he had heard that sound once before that day.

10
P
.
M
.

Kat was yawning so hard she thought she’d never stop. Her hands felt numb on the Crown Vic’s wheel, barely steering. Despite discovering Rebecca Bradford’s grave, she was still more tired than she had been all day. No more adrenaline rush to keep her going. She was running on fumes.

When her cell phone rang, she answered it quickly, in mid-yawn.

“Hey, Chief.” It was Carl, sounding just as tired as she did. “Randall Stroup got a hit on Danny Batallas’s vehicle. He drives a black Ford pickup. Want the license plate number?”

“Text it to me,” Kat said. She was too busy driving to write it down and she knew she’d never remember it. Her brain was mush.

“Righto, Chief.”

Kat ended the call and turned down Main Street. It was mostly empty, populated by a few stragglers rushing home. It reminded her of how the town had looked in the days after the mill closed. Barren. Deserted. A ghost town haunted by the few people who had decided to stick it out.

Her phone buzzed, alerting her that Carl had sent the text. She tapped the touchscreen, revealing the message that Danny had a vanity plate.
FYRMAN.
Either he took his job too seriously or he enjoyed it far too much. Knowing what she had found in his apartment, Kat assumed it was the latter.

The phone rang again while she was still eyeing the text. She answered it, even though the number was one she didn’t recognize.

“Kat?” It was Henry, his voice a rushed whisper. “I know what Dave and Betty Freeman heard.”

Kat was confused, unshakable exhaustion clouding her brain. “What?”

“The clicking they heard outside last night,” Henry said. “It was a woman. Walking in high heels. And she’s here.”

“Where are you?”

“Maison D’Avignon. At the bar.”

Kat, still steering down Main Street, glanced out the window and saw the striped awning and red door of Perry Hollow’s finest restaurant. She slammed on the brakes.

“I’m right outside,” she said. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

She was there in two, plopping down on the stool next to Henry and ordering a tall glass of water from the bartender. No more coffee for her, no matter how many hours she stayed awake. Sipping her drink, she followed Henry’s gaze to a well-dressed woman standing between the bar and the equally empty restaurant. She was on her phone, talking rapidly in what Kat could only assume was Italian. The woman wasn’t a native of Perry Hollow, that much was certain. Even the wealthiest folks in town didn’t dress like that.

“Who is she?”

Henry told her everything. The woman’s name. The fact that she worked for Giuseppe Fanelli. By the time he got to the part about their plans to build a casino alongside Lake Squall, Kat started to feel nauseated. Perry Hollow wasn’t equipped to handle something as big and unpredictable as a casino. If it was built, it would be the end of the town as she knew it.

Across the room, the woman ended the call. She quickly made her way back to the bar, heels clicking sharply on the floor. The sound stopped when she saw Kat’s uniform.

“I have a feeling I’ve just been hoodwinked.” She turned to Henry. “Was this whole interview a setup?”

“Lucia Trapani,” Henry said, “meet Chief Kat Campbell.”

Kat offered her hand, but Lucia refused to shake it. Instead, she slid onto the bar stool far more elegantly than Kat had done and ordered another drink.

“If you’re here to ask me about the fires,” she said, taking a moment to size up Kat before dismissing her, “then start now. My time is valuable.”

“Were you in town last night?” Kat asked.

Henry answered the question for her. “She was. When I spoke to her on the phone this morning, she said she had driven in last night.”

“You have a good memory.” While the tone of Lucia’s voice was polite, her expression was anything but. She stared daggers at them, making Kat feel lucky that looks couldn’t kill. The glare on Lucia Trapani’s face seemed lethal enough.

“What brought you to Perry Hollow?”

“Business. I attended the fund-raiser held by your local Chamber of Commerce.”

“Who invited you?”

“No one,” Lucia replied. “I crashed it.”