Muller, Marcia - [10] The Shape of Dread (v1.0) (html) (63 page)

Of course Tracy might not have been looking at the View section when
she saw whatever it was that had given her such a turn. Perhaps it was
a straight news item.

Page four contained a continuation of the entertainment column and a
cartoon strip, but a piece on page five caught my eye. Titled "Unsolved
Crime of the Week," it appeared to be a regular syndicated feature
describing an open police file and asking readers to contact their
newspaper should they have knowledge of the perpetrator. That week's
crime was a
five-year-old arson-murder in Fort Myers, Florida, on the Gulf Coast.

I skimmed the article quickly. The arson had occurred at a
shopping-and-entertainment complex in the affluent resort area, at
three in the morning during the height of the winter tourist season.
There was no question that the fire had been set: traces of a liquid
accelerant—gasoline—were found in a crawl space below the level of the
blaze.

Due to the lateness of the hour, only one person had been killed.
The charred remains were initially thought to be those of the complex's
developer, Warren S. Howard, but a positive identification could not be
made. And in the weeks that followed the fire, a number of little-known
facts about Howard came to light: he was dangerously overextended and
deeply in debt; several of the stores and restaurants in the complex
had failed to renew their leases; he'd tried to raise capital by
selling off a tract of land he owned near the Fort Myers airport, but
the growth rate in that area had not been as projected, and there were
no takers; various liens against his property and lawsuits had been
filed.

A real estate developer on the brink of bankruptcy. A fire.

The police began to suspect that Howard had set fire to the complex
in order to fake his own death and escape his creditors. The body found
in the ashes, they theorized, could have been a derelict or other
person who would not be missed, whom Howard had lured inside and
knocked unconscious or perhaps drugged. The theory was given further
credence when Howard's wife, Melinda, who had been trying
unsuccessfully to collect on his personal and business insurance,
suddenly disappeared from the area. And it was confirmed when the
charred remains were identified as those of an old man who had run away
from a nursing home in nearby Cape Coral the previous December.

I let out my breath in a long sigh, my fingers dampening the
newsprint where I grasped it.

Warren and Melinda Howard sounded like two people I knew. But how
had Tracy recognized them from this account? I had tonight's fire at
Café Comedie to lead me to make the connection. What had told her… ?

And then I noticed that the piece was continued on the following
page. I flipped it over, found a plea for information and a photograph
of the Howards.

Melinda Howard was at least fifty: short, plump, with frizzily
penned blond hair and glasses. Warren Howard looked older: his hair was
white, the flesh under his eyes deeply pouched. He could have stood to
lose fifty or sixty pounds.

People I'd never seen before.

I wanted to scream in frustration. It fit: a real estate developer
and his wife, a near bankruptcy, a fire. It was perfect.

And all wrong.

Inside the coffee shop I could see Amy, chatting with the cashier, a
take-out container in hand. My irritation level rose to the boiling
point. Why was she buying something to drink when I'd told her to
hurry? I leaned on the horn.

Amy looked my way, exchanged a few more pleasantries with the
cashier, then came toward the door. She walked slowly, juggling her
purse with the paper cup and fishing around inside it. Before she got
to the car, she took out a stick of gum, unwrapped it, stuffed it into
her mouth, and dropped the wrapper on the ground.

"Sorry I took so long," she said.

I gritted my teeth. Amy closed the car door, snapping her gum.

"What's that?" she asked, motioning at the paper with her cup and
spilling cola on her hand.

I wanted to crumple the Times and hurl it behind the seat. In the
interests of Rae's unborn children, I restrained myself.

Amy leaned over, snapping her gum again and breathing wintergreen on
me. If she was going to make sounds like a ruminant all the way to the
cottage, I'd probably throttle her.

"Hey, that's funny," she said.

"What's funny?" I elbowed her back onto her own side of the car.

"That old guy." Her finger stabbed at the photo in the paper. "He
looks like he could be Rob Soriano's father."

I knocked her hand away and scrutinized the picture. Now I saw what
Tracy—who had spent a great deal of time observing others—had discerned
instantly. The only thing that surprised me was that Amy had caught it
before I did.

The man's stiff military bearing was the same as Soriano's, as were
the deep lines that bracketed his mouth. The wavy white hair could
easily have been clipped short and dyed a uniform brown. The pouches
under the eyes, upon closer examination, looked to be the product of
heredity rather than age; such things were surgically correctable, and
any irregularities could be masked by glasses. Weight could be lost,
muscles toned. And Melinda, who in no way resembled Kathy? A wife who
had died or been discarded.

Warren Howard was Rob Soriano.

Rob Soriano, not Jay Larkey, had murdered Tracy.

I folded the paper and put it back on the carrying seat. As I
flicked off the dome light and started the car, I said to Amy, "I want
you to watch for cops, so we don't get stopped. We need to get to the
cottage in a hurry."

There were no cars parked in front of the Barbour place or in the
turnaround where the road ended, and only one tucked into the trees by
the driveway of the farthest house. Lights showed over there, but the
Barbour cottage was dark. I pulled the MG next to the vine-covered
fence and shut off the engine.

I said to Amy, "Are you sure Marc said he'd wait for us?"

"Where would he—oh, you mean because there're no lights. The
shutters keep them from showing. We were pretty sure the cops wouldn't
come by, but we left them closed just in case."

I got out of the car, motioning for her to do the same. The night
was crisp, a strong wind blowing off the river. A full moon hung
overhead; in its rays the vast plain belonging to the salt company
looked glacial. I stood still for a moment, listening to the muted
rippling of the water and rustling of vegetation. In the distance a dog
howled mournfully.

Amy came up beside me; I could smell her wintergreen gum. She said,
"I'm scared."

"Of what? There's no reason." But I knew why: there was a wrongness
about the place, because of the evil thing that had happened here. I
myself felt a chill along my backbone.

She took out a key and unlocked the padlock on the hasp, removed it,
and pushed open the side of the gate whose hinges had not given way. It
swung all the way back and rested against a pyracantha bush. Amy shoved
it closed again and started through the thicket.

The bright moonlight helped us find our way. On the other side of
the bushes I made out thin lines of light where there were gaps around
the shutters on the windows overlooking the cottage's front porch. Its
sagging roof was outlined against the sky, chimney slightly atilt. On
the porch the dilapidated wicker furniture hunched in the shadows; the
glider moved fitfully in the wind, bumping the wall behind it.

The sense of wrongness was stronger here. Reflexively I patted my
shoulder bag, wishing I had my gun. In the past I'd owned two, kept one
at home and the other in the glovebox of the car, which I'd had fitted
with a special lock. But a few months ago, someone had broken into the
MG and gotten the compartment open. Later I'd decided against replacing
the gun. Now I wondered if that had been a wise decision.

Amy seemed to have banished whatever fears she'd felt, however. She
hurried up the sagging steps, fitted another key into the door lock,
and pushed it open. I put out a hand to restrain her, to urge caution,
but she stepped inside.

Directly ahead I saw a dark brick fireplace, with a huge stuffed
fish that certainly had never swum in these waters mounted on a plaque
above it. A fishing rod—the old-fashioned varnished-wood kind with big
metal guides for the line—leaned against the mantel, an open tackle box
on the floor next to it. The ceilings were low and beamed; the floors
were hardwood, covered by brown rag rugs; around the hearth stood a
grouping of the sort of knotty pine and chintz-cushioned chairs often
found in summer houses. A pair of floor lamps equipped with low-wattage
bulbs and yellowed
shades illuminated the semicircle.

Marc Emmons sat to the right of the fireplace. Amy said, "We're
here!" and trotted over to him, leaving me to shut the door. When I
came all the way into the room, she was standing beside his chair in a
stiff, defensive posture, eyes fixed on the man who sat in the shadows
across from him.

It was Rob Soriano, aka Warren S. Howard. He perched tensely on the
edge of the low chair. In his right hand was a .32 revolver.

Belatedly I realized that the car I'd seen pulled under the trees
farther down the road was parked at an inconvenient distance from the
lighted house, but not really all that far from this cottage.

Soriano nodded at me, steel-rimmed glasses glinting. Behind them his
eyes were jumpy. When he said, "Ms. McCone, I thought you'd never get
here," his voice was higher pitched than usual.

I placed my hands on the back of the chair in front of me. "Have you
been waiting long?"

"Less than an hour. Marc here has been trying to convince me you
wouldn't show up at all, but since I'd found out that Amy was waiting
for you at All Souls, I knew it would be only a matter of time."

So that had been Soriano on the phone. I'd figured the right motive
for the call but the wrong caller.

I glanced at Emmons. His face was pasty and sheened with sweat, in
spite of the chill in the room. He licked dry lips and said thickly,
"He found out from Jay where we were and that you were going to bring
her here. Why the hell'd you have to call him, Ame?"

Amy didn't reply. She was still staring at Soriano.

Oddly enough, I wasn't afraid, even though I now knew Soriano had
somehow rigged the explosion at the club and probably intended to kill
all of us, too. Dead calm settled over me. I dropped my shoulder bag
onto the chair and thought, I'll
take this slowly. Very slowly.

Emmons said to me, "Rob was there in Jay's office when your
assistant called and said you'd gone to L. A. looking for Tracy. You
found Lisa instead, didn't you?"

"The lead in L.A. didn't pan out," I lied. Since he'd been there,
Soriano also had overheard Larkey tell Rae he'd realized there was
something odd about Tracy's dental records. Blowing up a crowded
nightclub seemed an extreme measure to take to prevent Jay from passing
on his suspicions to the authorities, but Soriano had committed murder
and arson before—maybe more than once. He couldn't be aware that I knew
about his past, however…

I cast a pointed look at the gun in Soriano's hand and said, "What
is this, anyway? I came up here because Amy and Marc want me to help
them deal with the sheriff about a minor obstruction-of-justice charge.
I don't understand why you're here."

Soriano said, "I wasn't aware you were an attorney."

"I'm not. Seems they're too cheap to hire one."

He didn't respond. I glanced at Amy and Emmons, to see if they
understood how I wanted to play this. Comprehension was dawning in
Emmons's eyes; Amy merely flashed me a reproachful look.

Emmons said to her, "Is that what you told her, Ame? I said I'd be
glad to pay. Why didn't you just bring one of the lawyers, honey?"

Even now nothing registered with her. She glared down at him. "That
wasn't the plan—"

"Honey, it was too." To me he added, "I'm sorry she dragged you up
here. Why don't you just go back to the city? We'll settle our problem
with Rob and get in touch with one of the lawyers in the morning."

"Marc! I'm not staying here with him—"

"Then you go with Sharon, honey. The problem's really between Rob
and me."

Soriano was observing the exchange with grim amusement. "Not too
bright, is she?" he said. His meaning was clear; he saw through our
charade.

Amy whirled on him, face suddenly twisted in fury. "I'm not too
bright! Look who's talking!"

Emmons reached for her arm in a panic, but she slapped his hand
away. My God, I thought, she's going to tell him off while he's got
that gun in his hand!

The smile faded from Soriano's lips. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, just look at you. You're dead broke—oh yeah, Marc told me all
about that—and then you go and burn the club down with all those people
inside, including Jay. I suppose you think you can collect on the
insurance."

Soriano half rose from his chair. His face was ashen now, and his
lips writhed, seemingly incapable of forming words. In that instant I
realized that this was a man on the brink of coming apart. Rigging the
explosion had been an act of madness, without regard to the
consequences. Silencing Emmons—which undoubtedly had been his next
intention— had grown complicated, now included silencing both Amy and
me. He had no way of knowing what we'd told others, who else might know
enough to turn suspicion on him. Soriano's world was collapsing around
him, in spite of frantic efforts to shore it up.

"See how stupid you've been?" Amy said triumphantly.

Shut up, I thought. Shut up!

"So now who's not too bright? You should have learned from the last
time."

He got himself under control, said hoarsely, "The last time?"

"Yeah, in Florida." She looked at me. "That arsonist in the
newspaper picture was old Rob, all right. I always suspected his hair
was dyed. He was just porkier then, and needed a facelift—"