St. Albans Fire (31 page)

“Gino costs forty grand for an out-of-town torch job,” Willy added.

“Right,” Sam confirmed, grabbing another folder for consultation. “Which means Linda was still some seven thousand short if Gino was her intention. We have proof of her withdrawing five from the family farm account, no doubt something she hoped the eventual insurance payoff would cover before it was noticed. But that still left the final two thousand.”

She waved a sheet of paper in the air. “She also had a safe-deposit box in her name and Jeff’s. We don’t know for sure what was in it, but we did get a look at the signature card at the bank. With neither one of them having touched that box in over four years, she checked it out at exactly the same time she was scrounging for cash. We have a copy of the bank log, complete with her signature.”

Getting into the round-robin, Tim Shafer chimed in, “There was a thought that if she’d gone into that box to get something to sell, maybe she sold it either to a pawnshop or on something like eBay. Sure enough, after checking around here and in Burlington, and looking through her computer files, we found where she auctioned off a diamond ring for twenty-five hundred bucks.”

“I ran a check of the Cutts phone records,” Willy said in a bored voice. “Little jerk didn’t even have the sense to use a pay phone. Close to the same date she was pulling all this other shit, she also placed a couple of calls to a number in Jersey. I had the cops down there run it down—it’s one of the Italian social clubs Lagasso’s known to frequent.”

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.

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 crossing 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.