“What type of gas, Fredo?” He spoke quietly.
“Gasoline,” Fredo said with relief, happy to have the answer. “She burned to death.”
There was dead silence as both men were brought up short-Fredo by the realization of what he’d just said almost cheerily, and Gino by the excruciating irony of the nature of Peggy’s death.
“That cop,” Gino finally said, hearing his own voice as if it were coming from far off. “Was it the older one?”
“Yeah, Gino,” Fredo said nervously. “The one you said was from Vermont-who talked to her before.”
Gino didn’t respond.
“You there?” Fredo asked.
“Joe Gunther.”
Fredo hesitated before asking, “What? Oh… yeah. Are you okay?”
No answer.
Fredo tried again. “Sorry. Dumb. I mean, is there anything I can do to help?”
“Did you kill him after he killed Peggy?”
Fredo was clearly stumped this time. Having been there, he knew Gunther hadn’t even seen the accident and that Peggy had caused it herself. Finally, for want of a more self-protective answer, he risked admitting, “No.”
“Then forget about it,” Gino said flatly, his voice dull. “I’ll do it myself.”
Gino wasn’t the only one receiving bad news by phone. At last back in flowing traffic, two hours following the crash, and heading toward the arson task force office, Joe answered his cell phone.
“Gunther.”
“Joe, it’s Jonathon Michael.”
“What’ve you got?” Already, Joe’s apprehension rose. There was something about the younger man’s voice that told him to prepare for the worst.
“Kind of a weird development, to be honest. John Samuel Gregory was found dead in his condo a couple of hours ago.”
“Dead how?” Joe asked, his wording catching Willy’s attention.
“Dead murdered,” Jonathon answered. “So far, we can’t figure out who did it or what was used, but he has a good-size hole in the top of his head, like somebody hammered him with a railroad spike.”
“Wild guess,” Joe suggested, “you have no clue.”
“Nothing,” Jonathon admitted.
“Who do you have on it?”
“Right now it’s Tim and me. The forensic team is still here, collecting stuff.”
Joe was already shaking his head. “Jonathon, you need more help. You’ve got three arsons, two homicides, maybe a third if the tractor accident was intentional. Not to mention possible flimflamming by the Realtors, with all the legal mumbo jumbo that implies.”
“I hear you, Joe. I’ve been calling around. More people’ll be coming in, but they got to clear their decks first. We’re talking maybe a couple of days before I can rally a team.”
“Get hold of Sammie Martens, then,” Joe urged. “She may be in the far corner of the state, but I happen to know she’s got a light load, and she’d be perfect for this. Until the others show up, at least, it should help. You don’t have time to wait.”
“You got it. Will do.”
Joe hesitated a moment, thinking back to what had happened so far in Newark-the deaths of Santo and Peggy, Gino’s vanishing act, the fact that neither Tito nor Dante Lagasso would ever open up, at least not before bevies of lawyers had earned their keep. Aside from a few useful facts, this little field trip had garnered nothing but disaster.
And considering the present mess, it was unlikely that Joe and Willy would be allowed much more room to move. Farber and Ben Silva were deep into it now, and their tolerance for these previously laughed-at Vermonters would be wearing thin.
Finally, there was the most nagging consideration of alclass="underline" If John Gregory-the presumed instigator of this whole string of events-had been murdered, then who killed him? And why? The evidence linking a Newark arsonist to Gregory was circumstantial at best. Had chasing it also made Joe miss a far more complicated scenario than a lucrative, if bloody-minded, land deal? It was certainly looking that way.
Had Joe dropped the ball big-time?
“I’m coming home, too,” he suddenly added. “With reinforcements.”
“You done down there?” Jonathon asked, surprised.
“That’s one way to put it.”
Chapter 21
A beautiful view, Joe thought. Soothing, tranquil, encouraging of meditation. The setting sun cast the distant Adirondacks into bold relief and made the calm waters of St. Albans Bay look like a mirror framed by the flat, forested land of its cradling U-shaped shore.
A far cry from Newark’s tangled, crowded, sharp-angled bristle.
“You all right, boss?” a soft female voice asked from near his shoulder.
He turned away from the picture window to gaze upon the scene behind him. A large, modern, urban-style condo, something out of a men’s magazine for the upwardly mobile, swinging single male living in an anonymous metropolitan center.
Except, of course, for the blood.
“Yeah, Sam,” Joe said to her. “Just wondering what the hell’s going on, is all.”
“We’ll figure it out,” she said supportively, and quickly moved over to one of the lab technicians, who was putting away his equipment after a full day of trace evidence collection. Joe watched her at work-earnest, high-strung, responsible to a fault, constantly worried she might let something slip, Sammie Martens was as dedicated to her job as a bloodhound in pursuit.
And for all of that, she was also as vulnerable, insecure, and in need of praise as a child being judged by her elders. He’d often thought that her romantic connection to Willy Kunkle was either the most counterintuitive of lifesaving medicines or a recipe for disaster. Two more volatile personalities he was hard put to imagine, and yet, by now, they’d already been together for several years.
Joe continued surveying the scene-the designer chair facing the window, the blood down its back and covering the floor behind it. The body had long since been removed for autopsy in nearby Burlington, but it was clear what had happened. Joe could almost see, as if they were visible, the killer’s footsteps as he’d entered the large room from the hallway, approached the chair across a rug-covered, silent floor, and killed John Gregory where he sat.
Whoever he was, he’d been in here before, Joe ventured. And he’d had a key.
Sam reapproached, her conversation with the technician concluded. “What do you think?”
“Not a stranger killing,” Joe said. “You up to speed on what’s been going on?”
She nodded once, sharply, a tiny reflection of her military past. “Jonathon filled me in on the local background, and I managed to squeeze just enough out of Willy to hear that things didn’t turn out too well in Newark.”
“You could say that,” Joe admitted ruefully.
She digested that before asking, “Did anyone besides Clark Wolff and Gregory know they were working a land deal together?”
“Not that Wolff will admit to or knows about. That was the whole point of the secrecy.”
“And as far as we can tell,” she continued, “Gregory hasn’t pissed anyone off a whole lot since he’s been here.”
Joe half smiled. “Well, I’ve clearly got some reservations now. But no, you’re right. So far, we don’t know of any run-ins.”
Sam was nodding to herself, her brain in overdrive. “On the other hand, you lost track of Famolare what? A day or two ago? Plenty of time for him to drive up here and do the dirty.”
Joe couldn’t disagree. He’d considered it himself. “For what reason, though?”
“He might’ve thought Gregory squealed on him.” She pointed at the chair. “That he pointed you in Gino’s direction. That would’ve explained why you were in Newark checking him out.”
“Could be,” Joe conceded. “Seems a little extreme. Wasn’t the first time the police had sniffed up his pant leg.”
“Except that we don’t know what kind of relationship the two of them had.”
Joe pushed his lips out contemplatively and lowered his chin to his chest. “I’m not sure what we know anymore.” He let out a sigh and straightened his back suddenly, eyeing the hallway to the front door. “Guess it’s time to see what forensics has to offer.”