The explanation appeared moments later. A young woman stepped into view in a short skirt, skintight tank top, and what looked like motorcycle boots. The green of her hair radiated in the sunshine. Despite the cold nip in the air, the girl’s midriff was bare and her light jacket open to better display her wares.
“Man,” Willy added. “I bet things get a little strained in that household.”
The body language between the two women bore him out, as the girl flounced by her mother, uttering some unheard comment, causing the latter to glare at her in speechless irritation before slamming the door.
They crossed the yard to the car in the driveway.
“Follow them or sit tight?” Willy asked.
“Sit,” Joe responded.
The car-a Lexus-backed roughly into the street, its movements reflecting the anger of its driver, and sped away to the west.
Not two minutes later, a second car pulled into the same driveway from the opposite direction.
Willy grunted, surprised. “You know that was going to happen?”
“No clue,” Joe answered, watching carefully.
A man swung out of the car, locking the doors and pocketing the keys. He was dressed in jeans and a work shirt and was carrying an overnight bag.
“That our boy?” Joe asked.
Willy glanced at the rap sheet before him. “Gino Famolare, in the flesh. Guess he just missed them.”
“I don’t think so,” Joe said quietly. “Look.”
They watched as Famolare studied the street down which his wife and daughter had just vanished, apparently checking to make sure they weren’t coming back.
“My bet,” Joe said, “is that he likes a little quiet time after coming off the road. By the bag, he may have been gone a few days.”
“Why not just head for a bar?” Willy asked. “That’s what I used to do.”
Joe laughed softly. “Yeah-that clearly worked for you.”
“Up yours.”
They settled back to wait, expecting nothing much to happen, when-twenty minutes later-the door opened again and Famolare reappeared, wearing slacks, a sports shirt and jacket, and looking freshly showered.
“Oh-oh,” Willy said, straightening up. “The boy is restless and on the prowl.”
“Could be,” Joe agreed, starting the engine.
They followed Famolare’s car onto Bloomfield Avenue heading back toward Newark’s downtown.
“Business meeting?” Joe wondered out loud.
Willy wasn’t wavering. “I could smell the cologne a block away. He’s going to see his squeeze. Maybe she’s downtown ’cause he’s a cheap bastard, or maybe they’re meeting in a hotel because she’s married to Tony Break-Your-Legs or somebody, but it’s a broad. That much I guarantee.”
They went from Bloomfield to Martin Luther King and traveled into the city’s middle, up to the scaffold-clad courthouse with its statue of Lincoln sitting on a bench out front. There they turned left onto Market, driving east.
Willy smiled. “He’s headed for the Neck. I should’ve known. Perfect.”
“Why’s that?”
“Most discreet area in the county. It’s called Down Neck ’cause of how it fits between the Passaic and the harbor, or the Ironbound ’cause it’s surrounded by railroads. Huge Portuguese population.”
“Sounds charming,” Joe commented skeptically.
“Oh, no,” Willy protested. “It’s really great. Good food, good people. They police their own in the Neck. The cops never have to worry. Damned near the safest place I know.”
“Sounds like Chinatown in New York,” Joe said.
Willy shook his head. “Way different. Chinatown, you get the tongs and the gangs-everybody scared to death. The cops don’t go in ’cause they’re afraid they’ll get killed. In the Neck, it’s just peaceful-or else. You kill your wife here, nobody calls the cops until your body’s found in the gutter. No muss, no fuss. Everybody’s happy.”
In fact, having now entered the Neck, Joe noticed the whole mood of the street change. From downtown’s feeling of a clock stopped in an era of black-and-white, Market Street in the Ironbound was almost festive. Banners were hung over the road announcing an upcoming festival, stores and shops were decorated with colorful signs, many written in a language Joe couldn’t read. And the sidewalks were full of people laughing, relaxed, and looking utterly at home.
“There he goes,” Willy said as Famolare took a right down a side street.
Joe followed him, falling farther back in the dramatically thinned traffic. He eventually pulled into a parking spot a few streets down as their quarry stopped opposite a very pleasant two-story wood-sided house.
“Ah.” Willy smirked, enjoying himself. “The advantages of separate bank accounts and a little income on the side.”
Joe was half hoping a fat man in a business suit would appear on the house’s doorstep, but unfortunately, Willy had hit it right on. As Famolare emerged from his car, a beautiful young woman with long dark hair threw open the door and came running down the steps into his arms. They kissed warmly before he draped his arm across her shoulders and escorted her back into the house.
Willy laughed. “What’re we goin’ for, boss? A quickie or some quality time? I say we grab something to eat-like you said, the man’s been on the road for days.”
Inside the house, Peggy DeAngelis threw her arms around Gino’s neck, pushing him off balance against the closed door, and kissed him passionately, her hips grinding into his.
“God, I missed you,” she murmured between kisses.
He stayed silent, his hands coasting along the thin fabric of her dress, feeling the heat of her skin radiating beneath it. She wasn’t wearing much-just a pair of thong underwear-and as his fingertips discovered this, his own excitement began building. After receiving the news of the fatal fire in Vermont-an irritating and bothersome complication, not to mention a black mark on his reputation-he had thought of Peggy right off as the perfect antidote. Staking out his own house afterward, he’d thought his wife and kid would never leave for the latter’s weekly session with the shrink.
He pulled away long enough to savor the young woman before him, her eyes shining, her lips moist. He unbuttoned the top of her dress and buried his face between her breasts, breathing in her warmth.
Definitely the cure for a bad day.
Jonathon Michael left the farmhouse and got into his car, rolling down the window now that the sun’s effects were taking hold. The nights were still cold, and snow was still piled against the north walls of most buildings, but there was no mistaking the feeling of spring in the air.
Michael’s car, like those of most cops, was as much office as vehicle, so he drove a mile up the road, pulled off under a tree with a view of Lake Champlain in the distance, and started reviewing his notes.
He’d been driving back and forth ever since Joe Gunther’s departure south, chasing an angle he’d thought of only out of despair.
He opened the map that he, Tim Shafer, and Gunther had consulted days ago at the state police barracks. Then, they’d unsuccessfully tried extracting an explanation from Joe’s pattern of arsons and farm sales. Now Michael felt he was seeing one slowly coming into focus.
Methodically, he filled in a Post-It note and stuck it to the map, right over the property he’d just left, recently purchased from one of the farmers that Gunther had identified among his land sales. Michael’s motivation had sprung from the primary list of buyers Joe had compiled from town clerk records. What if he hadn’t probed deeply enough? Might not individual interviews with each buyer be more revealing?
In fact, they had been.
Wolff Properties-a loaded name for a realty firm, Michael had thought the first time he visited-was located in downtown St. Albans, on the first floor of one of the short, squat, red brick buildings facing the town’s historic Taylor Park, where a small, captured British cannon stood comically on guard, pointing-some thought tellingly-directly at the health food store.