St. Albans Fire (28 page)

The tip proved sound. Sprawled naked on the bed with an equally exposed young woman, Fredo even had the telltale white smears under his nostrils of a recent snort of cocaine. With no small degree of satisfaction, Farber placed him under arrest.

· · ·

Several hours later, Joe Gunther, staying at a motel on the edge of St. Albans, was dragged from his sleep by the nervous buzzing of his pager as it vibrated across the glossy surface of his night table.

He read the number and the brief message, “Call me now—Lil,” and dialed back immediately, propping his pillows against the wall behind him.

“Farber.”

“Lil. It’s Joe.”

She didn’t waste time. “Sorry to bounce you out of bed. We busted Fredo Loria tonight, Gino’s lieutenant, or best buddy, or whatever you want to call him, and threatened him with the three strikes rule unless he ratted out his boss. He told us something I thought you’d like to know ASAP.”

“Shoot,” Joe said, the last shreds of fog clearing from his brain.

“I’ll give it to you in two parts,” she went on. “The easy stuff first. Fredo confirmed that, just as we thought, Gino made three trips to Vermont, the timing corresponding to your three barn fires. But here’s the catch, and it ties into what Santo Massi told us the night we grabbed him. You asked him if the forty grand was for one or more jobs, and he said one, meaning the phone conversation he overheard between Gregory and Lagasso was probably about the first one.”

“Loomis,” Joe said softly.

“Whoever. But what we got out of Fredo just now was that there were only two jobs brokered through Lagasso in any case, each for forty thousand. The third was done off the books.”

“Meaning what?”

“Lagasso knew nothing about it. The customer and Gino dealt direct.”

“Did Fredo know who the customer was?”

Lil laughed. “You want it that easy? Forget about it. There’s one more thing, though: The night we sweated Santo, he told you that later Gino heard about someone dying in—quote, unquote—‘it.’ He screwed that up. The death didn’t happen in the fire he’d heard discussed, but in the third one he knew nothing about. He just assumed they were one and the same. Fredo remembers otherwise because Lagasso talked about how Gino was on a roll, and that they were all top-dollar deals from out of state.”

“Did Gregory do all the hiring?” Joe asked.

“I don’t know,” Lil answered him, “and nor did Fredo. But, for what it’s worth, the price remained the same.”

Joe remained silent, thinking.

“There’s something else,” Lil added. “While Gino never told Fredo who hired him, he was worked up enough about the fatality in number three to vent a little.”

“That upset him?” Joe asked, surprised.

He could almost see Lil shaking her head in amusement. “Not hardly. That death ended a perfect record—it was all about vanity. Anyhow, again according to Fredo, Gino ranted how he hadn’t wanted any of the jobs to begin with, since he wasn’t used to barns and didn’t like the way they’re laid out. He was also angry about having to kill the cows, so the kid dying, too, really turned his crank.”

Joe thought back to when all this started. He, Shafer, and Jonathon had wondered if—given the evidence—the torch might have improvised and that a lack of familiarity with barns might have played a role in making two of the arsons so easy to pair up.

Lil’s voice changed to something a little warier. “Joe, Fredo also told us something you’re not going to like. That’s really why I woke you up instead of waiting till morning.”

He didn’t like the sound of that. “What is it?”

“Gino’s holding you directly responsible for Peggy DeAngelis’s death.”

“Me?”

“Fredo said he’d never seen him so worked up. ‘Out of his mind,’ was the phrase he used. Peggy must have given Gino your name, but whatever it was, that’s all Fredo heard from him: Gunther this and Gunther that. The punch line is that the last time Fredo saw him, Gino was heading your way to even the score.”

“All right,” Joe said neutrally, adding this surprise to an already complicated equation.

“That’s not really it, though,” Lil added, hesitant for the first time since he’d known her. “He said he was going to settle it ‘in kind.’ I never asked you. I mean, it never came up. But are you married?”

A cold chill swept through him. “That’s what he meant?”

“Fredo quoted him as saying he was going to do to you what you did to him. That’s the way I took it.”

Joe was already swinging his legs out from under the covers. “Thanks, Lil. I appreciate it. Is there anything else you can tell me—anything at all? What car he’s driving, what he’s wearing, who he might’ve called?”

“We went through Peggy’s house after the crash. We could tell he’d been living there—or some man had—but to answer your question, no. We’ve checked everything and everywhere. That’s why we busted Fredo. But it looks like Gino’s off the face of the earth for the moment. We’re still on it, though. Anything we hear that’ll help, we’ll let you know.”

Joe was struggling into his pants with one hand. “Thanks, Lil. I owe you one.”

“No, you don’t,” she said. “You broke open a case we were going nowhere with. Good luck.”

Joe hung up, buckled his pants, and hit the phone’s speed dial.

“Answering for the Vermont Bureau of Investigation.”

“This is Joe Gunther. Oh-two-twenty-four. I need an emergency dispatch of a marked patrol unit to the following address in Montpelier, to pick up a woman named Gail Zigman.” He gave the operator the name and number of the street. “This is Code Three. Take her to Waterbury HQ. I’ll be there as quick as I can.”

“Ten-four,” came the crisp reply.

Gunther dialed again.

A very sleepy Gail answered.

“It’s Joe. Wake up.”

“Joe?”

“Yeah. I hate to do this to you, but you’ve got to listen, and please do what I tell you. I’m on my way, and I’ll explain it in less than an hour.”

“Joe, what’s going on?” Her voice was now clear, brittle, alarmed by his tone.

“A man may be after you, using you to get at me. You need to get out of the house.”

“Who? Why? What’s this about?”

“Later, Gail. I promise. I just want you safe right now.”

“Okay, okay.”

He was pulling on his shirt, almost dropping the phone. “Not yet, though, okay? Don’t use your car, and don’t leave the house until a police car shows up. He’ll be playing his lights. Right now get dressed and wait by the front door, and then wait till he comes to the door. He’s going to take you to Waterbury. That’s where I’ll find you.”

“Is he outside now?” she asked, her voice tight with fear. He knew that all the nightmares she’d learned to control since her rape must be suddenly exploding from her subconscious.

“Not necessarily,” he tried soothing her. “He may not even know who you are. I just got a call about this guy from the police in Newark, and I’m only being cautious. He made a generalized threat against whoever might be in my life, and then he vanished.”

He heard a hard edge creep into her voice. “Joe, if it was that vague, you wouldn’t have called me.”

“I’m not lying to you, Gail. What would you prefer? That I overreact, or pretend nothing will happen until it does?”

“I’m scared,” she said after a pause.

“I know that. I’m truly sorry. Now please do what I asked so I can start heading your way. Okay?”

“Okay.”

· · ·

The trip to Waterbury was the fastest Joe had ever driven, never dropping under a hundred miles an hour and often hitting a hundred and thirty. Only once did he let go of the wheel with one hand, to confirm by radio that Gail had been picked up, but throughout it all, as in a closed-circuit mantra, he berated himself nonstop.

To put this particular person into this kind of danger, not only after all they’d shared, but especially as they had recently entered some ill-defined and unaddressed emotional landscape, led to an anxiety he hadn’t felt since he and his late wife had confronted her terminal cancer over thirty years ago.

The barn fires, the killing of John Gregory, the intellectual satisfaction of trying to solve the puzzle, all melted away in the face of this suddenly loose cannon bringing what was normally an exercise at arm’s length to cataclysmic proximity. All-too-recent memories of how he’d felt watching Peggy’s car burn into the pavement crowded his mind. That death had made him feel guilty. A similar fate for Gail—with him directly to blame—would be devastating.

Joe drove as if his life depended on it.

· · ·

Gino sat in the passenger seat of his van, rendered invisible from the streetlights by the cab’s inner gloom. The throbbing blue flashes from the passing cruiser’s strobes bounced off the row of apartments opposite him, a paradoxical combination of blinding aggression and colorful harmlessness.

Intrigued after an initial surge of startled apprehension, he watched as the car pulled up to Gail’s address and a uniformed officer got out and approached her door.

Something must have happened back in Newark, he thought. His mind immediately went to Fredo—loyal, obedient, but sloppy. Easy for the cops to squeeze, but not someone with a lot to tell.

Gino looked thoughtful as Gail was escorted back to the car and ushered into the front seat.

They hadn’t wasted any time, he’d give them that, but, then, he’d also lost a few days collecting himself and doing his homework—target acquisition, as he liked to term it.

But speed was no longer the point. In fact, it wasn’t even a factor. In some part of his grief-racked brain—a part he wasn’t directly consulting—Gino was actually thinking that he had the entire rest of his life to complete this assignment, regardless of how brief that might be.

He slid down into his seat more comfortably as the cruiser turned around in the driveway and returned whence it had come. He didn’t know where she was being taken or how long they’d keep her under wraps. But he knew where she’d resurface. He’d taken the time to study her history, her personality, her habits.

And that’s where he’d be waiting.

JOE FOUND GAIL IN A SMALL MEETING ROOM FLOOR
on the third floor of the Department of Public Safety headquarters building in Waterbury. She was sitting at a fake-wood table in front of a cardboard cup of tepid coffee, surrounded by blackboards, motivational posters, and a rickety metal stand supporting a TV and a VCR.

She stood as he entered, but didn’t circle the table to greet him. He went to her instead, putting his arms around her shoulders.

“I am so sorry, Gail,” he told her again. “When I heard this guy might be in the neighborhood, I couldn’t not warn you.”

Gently, she placed her hands on his chest and pushed him back enough to see his face. “That was not a warning, Joe. With my history, that was a threat. Telling me not to drive my car or step out of the house? Who is this man?”

Joe pulled two seats around so they could face each other and indicated she should sit. She did so, but cautiously, as if preparing to run at any moment. It was anyone’s guess what panic she’d been struggling with—an army of ghosts he could only imagine.

“His name is Gino Famolare,” he explained. “He’s an arsonist, Newark-born, Mob-connected, and he was hired to burn a few barns around St. Albans.”

“And now he’s after me?” she asked incredulously.

“Maybe. Like I said, I’m only being careful there. He was overheard saying he’d do to me like I’d done to him, or something like that, before he disappeared a few days ago.”

“And you did what to him?”

“It’s what he thinks I did. Would you like a refresher on that coffee?”

Gail gave him a flat look. “No.”

“Sorry. We—the Newark cops and we—were putting pressure on him indirectly. Talking to his wife, his girlfriend, staking his place out, and in the midst of it, the girlfriend bolted, we don’t know why. We chased after her, but she crashed her car and died. Apparently, Famolare made it personal.”

Joe didn’t mention how easily he understood Gino’s motivation, and how thoroughly, in two brief encounters, he, too, had fallen under Peggy’s spell. Gino’s vow to do unto Joe as Joe had done unto him carried more emotional weight than Joe felt comfortable sharing.

Gail blinked a couple of times, still staring at him. “Do you have a picture of him?”

He reached into his breast pocket. “I thought you might ask.”

He laid a mug shot on the table beside them. As with all such photographs, it was debatable whether the subject’s own mother would recognize him, but it was all Joe had.

Gail picked it up and studied it. “A wife and girlfriend both.”

“Yeah, the girlfriend was young enough to be his daughter. Beautiful, very much in love with him.”

“You spoke with her?”

“Yes. Tried to get her to give him up. He had her stashed in a town house in the safest part of town. Quite the love pad.”

“And the wife?”

Joe had no idea where these questions were going, or what had stimulated them, but he didn’t feel he could quibble. “More like an urban suburb, the way Newark and its surroundings are set up.”

She frowned, dropped the mug shot onto the table, and sat back for the first time. “I meant, did you meet her, too?”

“Oh, yeah. Slightly dirty pool. We wanted to know what she knew, and we used the girlfriend as leverage.”

“You told her?” It was asked without inflection.

For the first time, a small alarm went off in his head. “He did kill a kid. Burned him alive.”

“I read the papers, Joe. Every day.”

He pressed his lips together, silenced by the ice in her voice.

“How did the wife take it?” she asked.

“Not well, and it still didn’t get us anything. As far as we could tell, he kept her and their daughters in the dark about his activities.”

Gail slid forward in her chair and began to stand. Joe reached out to take her hands, but she quickly moved them away and stood on her own. He stayed put, looking up at her.

“Are you okay?” he asked lamely.

She walked to the far end of the small room, putting the table between them again. “That’s not a serious question, right?”