At 2:21 a black Ford Explorer pulled in off Route 7. The Boxwood Motor Inn sign along the highway had its no vacancy section lit, but the SUV drove in anyway and paused in front of the motel office before slowly moving down the row of units that included mine. The vehicle came to a stop behind my Nissan. A figure stepped out of the front passenger side of the Explorer. He had what looked like a baseball bat in his right hand. The man was in work pants and a dark windbreaker and was tall and bulky.
I picked up my nine millimeter off the passenger seat beside me. The man with the bat did not pound on the door to my room or attempt to break it down. Instead, he smashed the windshield and headlights on my Nissan, did the same with the side and rear windows, and then got back into the SUV, which quickly rolled out onto the highway and turned north. I memorized the vehicle’s New York state tags and then wrote the number down.
I thought, Well, that wasn’t so bad. My pulse was pounding, but I was uninjured, I hadn’t had to shoot anybody, or get shot, and my toothbrush and shampoo were safe inside the room. I hadn’t learned much – just the license plate number of some vandals – but the incident certainly seemed to confirm that I had whomped a local Mafia hive with a stick, and all this mob mayhem had something to do with the murder of exemplary citizen and exquisite Sheffield homosexual Jim Sturdivant. That still made little sense to me, but finally I was getting somewhere.
Lights came on in several motel rooms, and the door opened to unit nine. A young man in sweat pants and a T-shirt looked out and around. The motel owner or night manager must have heard the commotion, and she came out wrapped in a sari. Both converged on my car and stood looking and exclaiming over the damage. I got out of the rental car and walked over.
I said, “That’s my car. I guess we have to call the police.”
They both stared at me.
“Weren’t you in your room?” the motel lady said. “Why were you in that other car?”
“It’s complicated,” I said, and then I heard my cell phone ring in the rental car. I said, “Excuse me for one minute,” and walked back to the Subaru.
“This is Strachey.” I looked for the caller number, but it had been blocked.
A male voice said, “Your house on Crow Street gets it next, and then your boyfriend, Tim Callahan. Do you understand what we’re saying?”
“Sure.”
“Just leave it alone.”
“Okay.”
Click.
I went back to where four people now stood peering at my smashed car.
“I’ll phone the police,” the motel lady said and headed back toward the office.
The guy in the T-shirt said, “They only went after your car, not anybody else’s. You must have pissed somebody off.”
“I think I did.”
“Any idea who?”
“Yeah, I think I know.”
“Did you see it happen?”
“I did.”
Now the guy just stared at me. Then he turned and walked back toward his room. He wanted no part of this, whatever it was. Smart. But he stood in the open doorway to his room to see what would happen next.
I had my phone with me now, and I called Timmy.
He answered immediately and said, “Don, wait. I’ve got someone on call-waiting. You have to hear this.”
“Hear what?” But he was gone.
The motel lady came out of the office again and strode my way. She moved with more confidence now that she had called the cops.
Timmy came back on the line. “They got your office!” he said excitedly. “That was a night detective at Division Two calling. Somebody apparently firebombed your office, and a lot of the building is burning. Nobody seems to have been hurt, but your office is totaled. Don, I’m sorry, but are you okay?”
“Yeah, I am. How do they know it was arson? The wiring in that place dates to the Harding administration.”
“Some of the crackheads in the parking lot saw it happen. Though the detective said he didn’t have a good description of the bomb-thrower, and he wants to talk to you. Maybe you should come home if you’re alert enough to drive. Did anything happen over there?”
I described my evening of excellent jazz and watching my car windows and headlights get obliterated. As I spoke, a Great Barrington police cruiser turned in off Route 7, its flashers putting on their light-show for no apparent reason.
Timmy said, “So there was no frank and useful exchange of views with the window-smasher?”
“No, I didn’t even follow him. I ID’d the vehicle, so there didn’t seem to be any point in trying to tail him. Or maybe I’m just more cautious than I used to be. Or in middle age I’m losing my nerve. What time was the firebombing?”
“Around one-fifteen, the police said.”
“It could have been the same guys as here. There was time for them to drive over here. Actually, after they did a job on my car, they phoned me.”
The Barrington cop was looking at the damage with a flashlight and talking with the motel lady, and they both glanced my way from time to time.
“What do you mean, they phoned you?” Timmy said.
“They had my cell number. They must have gotten it from Johnny Montarsi. They warned me off the case. Or that was my interpretation. They also mentioned your name, Timothy. They warned me off the Sturdivant case, and then they mentioned your name. If you get my drift.”
“Oh. Well. Oh.”
“They also said something about our house being next. So here’s the deal. You have to visit your sister in Rochester. They won’t know about Maureen. And I’ll call some people to keep an eye on our house.”
“Who?”
“Some people from South Pearl Street you’d rather not hear about. They’ll do it for money.”
The Great Barrington cop was coming my way now, followed by the motel lady.
Timmy said, “There’s no way I’m going to Rochester. I’m coming over there.”
“Mr. Strachey?” the officer said.
“Timmy, I have to speak with a policeman now. All right, don’t go to Rochester. Drive over here, check into another motel, and then call me and tell me where you are.”
He agreed to this, and I told the cop I needed to use the john and I would be right with him. In my motel bathroom, I placed a call to Albany and arranged for our Crow Street house to be protected in return for an exorbitant fee that was only a little less than Bill Moore was paying me. Oh, yes, Bill Moore, Bill Moore, Bill Moore. Where the hell was Mr. FBI agent/assassin/hot-tub borrower/same-sex bridegroom, anyway?
The police officer was young, well-scrubbed and looked at me suspiciously. He asked for my ID, which I produced, including my PI license. He said, “Do you have any idea who did this, sir?”
“I do,” I said, and told the cop that I had been having an affair with the actress Pamela Anderson, who, I said, was currently appearing in a play at the Williamstown Theater Festival. I said I had heard that Ms. Anderson’s manager believed it was her daily frequent bouts of incredible sex with me that were causing the actress to repeatedly blow her lines, and by smashing up my car the manager was warning me away from his distracted and exhausted client.
“What’s this manager’s name?” the cop said.
“Shel Glazer.”
“He’s in Williamstown?”
“I’m not sure where he’s staying.”
The officer’s radio crackled, and he went over to the festively lit cruiser to deal with some more urgent matter. I took the opportunity to rapidly collect my belongings from unit eight. The cop was still yacking on his radio when I came out, so I took this additional opportunity to climb into the rental car and drive away.