But there again, she’d been thwarted. Calvin’s insidious good nature and independence, so valued by others and so weak at its core, took early genetic hold, making of Linda a rebellious acolyte, more interested in boys than in farming, and downright lazy at home, doing chores only under threat. Bobby, of course, had been perfect, quick and eager and happy to participate in his mother’s dream, and for a brief few years, Marie thought she’d caught her golden ring.
But then Linda, of all people, messed things up, marrying Padgett, becoming pregnant, and getting her weakwilled father to betray his own blood for the sake of an interloper.
Marie shifted in her seat, her anger stirring like the lava from deep inside a volcano-just as it always had. Linda, she thought derisively. Didn’t even like farming, despite all her fakery in pretending to be Padgett’s helpmate.
Bobby had once more been the hero, acceding to his father’s decision, saying how relieved he was to play second fiddle to a former juvenile delinquent. As furious as Marie had been by the whole turn of events, she’d still been amazed by her son’s good grace.
Bobby had been all she’d ever hoped for, her dream incarnate, her comfort in the face of old age. His death had broken her heart and made of life something not worth living.
Back in Newark, Lil Farber and members of her unit, supported by an armor-wearing tactical team, grouped around a scarred, stained, hollow-core door on the second floor of one of the city’s tenement buildings. Whispering into her radio to the people watching the fire escape, she called off a brief countdown, nodded to the two tactical men carrying a steel battering ram between them, and stepped back to give them room.
With precision born of frequent practice, the two easily smacked the door’s handle on the first swing, sending the door flying back on its hinges with an explosive bang. The men instantly peeled off to both sides, one of them taking the ram with him, while four more with flashlight-equipped shotguns poured through the opening, shouting out who they were and warning everyone not to move.
It was a raid, brought about by a solid tip from a trusted snitch, who said that keeping company with a prostitute at this address and looking forward to a long evening of sex and illegal drugs would be Fredo Loria, Gino Famolare’s right-hand man and chief flunky.
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.”