C HAPTER 14

The skeletal remains of the young sculptress known as Crazy Daisy were found in a shallow grave under a tree, a stone cairn marking the spot. Mitch had been told about the grave by Hangtown, but chose to keep the news from Des until after the funeral. Des found this both curious and upsetting. She could not believe he had kept silent. But she did not hassle Mitch about it. He had just buried his friend. He had told her when he was ready. And that would have to do for now.

Soave tried to find out who Crazy Daisy really was. A dental mold was made, a DNA sample taken, the FBI informed. Word was put out through the media. But she matched no missing person report filed in 1972, and no relatives stepped forward now to claim her. Truly, she was a lost soul, gone and forgotten. After a suitable waiting period she was reburied in the Dorset town cemetery in a proper casket set inside a sealed concrete burial vault, according to Connecticut state law. Her headstone read simply DAISY, SUMMER OF ’72.

Funeral costs were paid for by the Patterson Gallery.

Des did have to be debriefed up in Meriden about the Takai Frye shooting by a lieutenant from Internal Affairs. She told him what she’d walked in on after she and Soave found Trooper Olsen dead at the front gate: Wendell Frye pointing the loaded Barrett at his daughter, Mitch Berger standing there alongside of her, unarmed. She said that she’d ordered the old man to drop his weapon but that he’d opened fire before she could get a single shot off. She did not raise the question of whether she’d held her fire too long. The lieutenant did not raise it either. He had what he needed, including Soave’s unequivocal backing of her actions. Besides which, Wendell Frye was dead anyway. Case closed.

After the debriefing, she ran into Soave on his way into the old headmaster’s house, the red brick mansion with the slate mansard roof that was home to the Central District’s Major Crime Squad.

Soave grinned at the sight of her and said, “How did it go in there?”

“It went. Thanks for watching my back.”

“Hey, that’s what teammates do,” he answered emphatically.

They lingered there in the parking lot for a moment, the barking of German shepherds serving as steady background noise. The state police’s K-9 training center was located there on the secluded hilltop campus, as was the world-renowned Forensic Science lab.

“Where’s little Tommy?” she asked.

Soave made a face. “I got him transferred to arson. My brother said I should have spoken up sooner. I put in for somebody smart. Maybe I’ll get lucky this time, huh?”

“You never know. Maybe you’ll even get a woman.”

He leaned against his cruiser, smoothing his see-through mustache. “Des, I think maybe I’ve got a better handle on you now than I did before. What do you think?”

Des considered this for a moment, Soave glancing at her unsurely. He was trying. He really was. She couldn’t slap him down. Understanding was too precious a commodity, no matter the history or the circumstances. So she smiled and said, “Rico, there’s hope for you yet. Get yourself some decent threads, lose that caterpillar on your lip, and lil’ Tawny will have herself quite some catch.”

“What, you don’t like my mustache?” he demanded, flabbergasted.

“That’s correct.”

“Why didn’t you say something before?”

“It’s your face, wow man.”

“Des, are you honestly happy down there in Dorset?”

“I am, Rico. That’s where the real job is.”

Soave stuck out his hand and said, “Let’s stay in touch this time, okay?”

“Deal,” she said, shaking it firmly.

“Yo, would you come if I invited you?”

“Come where, Rico?”

“To the wedding.”

“I wouldn’t have to be a bridesmaid, would I?” Des loathed bridesmaid dresses. They were always made out of something pink and shiny, and made her look like one of Count Dracula’s girls.

“Nah, Tawny’s got like a million sisters and cousins.”

“In that case,” Des replied, “I’d be proud to come.”

She got there at ten o’clock.

She did not want to take a chance on being late. Nor could she bring in another officer. Not if she wanted to keep this off the books. She did consider calling Soave, but decided not to. Even though he’d said all the right things, she was still not sure if she could trust him. She had to be sure on this one.

So she called Mitch. He brought his truck, as well as a half dozen six-by-eight-inch panes of glass, a tin of glazing compound and a putty knife. They sat there on watch together in his cab. He’d parked about halfway down the block, close enough to keep an eye out. Her own ride was stashed well out of sight.

“Are you sure we’re not partners?” he asked her.

“Totally.”

“Still, you have to admit that this is getting to be a habit.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“At the very least, I should get an honorary badge.”

“Tell you what-if you’ll stop flapping your gums, there’s a Darren doll in it for you. Now listen up-once this breaks I want you out of sight. You’re not to get involved, understood?”

Mitch said he understood.

“Is there anything else we need to go over?”

“Yeah, we haven’t discussed how pretty you look in the moonlight,” he said, beaming at her. “Aren’t you going to say anything about how I look in the moonlight?”

“White. You look awfully white.” She glanced at her watch and said, “Okay, let’s split up. Anything goes down from your end, you signal me with your flashlight, deal?”

“Deal.” He solemnly stuck out his hand so they could shake on it, Des wincing from his grip. “Hey, what’s wrong with your hand?”

“Nothing,” she growled, flexing it, feeling the soreness. “I ran into something, that’s all.” Which was entirely true. Nose cartilage qualified as something.

They split up, Mitch taking up a post in the bushes around back, with a thermos of coffee and his leather jacket for warmth against the late-October chill. If the Mod Squad tried to get in from that side, he would spot them. Des had chosen a spot for herself behind a privet hedge in front of an historic mansion on the other side of the street, two doors down. From there she could keep her eyes trained both on the front of the building and on Mitch. She’d also scored herself a spare set of keys. When she needed to go in, she’d be ready.

She flashed her light at Mitch to let him know she was in position. He flashed his back. Then she settled in for the wait, her hands stuffed deep in the pockets of her heavy wool pea coat. Her thoughts were on him. There had been a bit of strain between them ever since that night Hangtown shot Takai. They had not talked about it. They needed to. But now was not the right time.

It was Mitch who spotted them first, shortly after one o’clock. When Des saw his signal she immediately took off across the street, sprinting up the path to the front of the building. Swiftly, she unlocked the front door, shutting it softly behind her. Now she stood in the darkness of the front hallway with her ears pricked up, waiting for the sound that she knew would come next. Because a ground-level window was the obvious way in. All they had to do was break a single pane, reach inside and unlock it. There was no security alarm to worry about. She stood there poised on the balls of her feet, waiting, waiting…

And then she heard it-the sound of glass breaking. It was down the hall to her right. She darted in that direction, pausing in the darkness at each open door she came to… Nothing… nothing

… still nothing… until she’d reached the room at the end of the hall. And could hear them hoisting themselves in the window, one after another. Des waited there just inside the doorway with her hand on the light switch. Waited until they were all safe and snug inside.

That was when she flicked on the glaring overhead lights and said, “I understand this is where the Claire Danes Fan Club meets.”

There were five of them altogether, Ronnie and four other boys. All of them wearing those same dark hooded jackets they’d had on when she spotted them at the market. All of them cradling as many family-sized bags of potato chips in their arms as they could handle.

Naturally, they totally freaked at the sight of her standing there in that classroom with them. And they did exactly what most frightened fifteen-year-old boys would do under the circumstances-throw the bags of potato chips in the air and run, stampeding down the corridor toward the front door. She let them go.

With the exception of Ronnie, that is. Ronnie she grabbed and held, her hand clamped around his skinny arm as he struggled to get free, his bags of chips falling to the floor at his feet. Ronnie with his peach-fuzz goatee and his gangsta sneer. Ronnie with his red bandanna and his falling-down jeans.

It was Ronnie who she wanted.

The classroom they were standing in was familiar to her, Des realized. It was Moose Frye’s classroom. Ben and Ricky’s classroom, with the same tiny desks and the same uplifting motto stenciled on the wall above the blackboard: A GOOD BOOK IS A GOOD FRIEND.

Her eyes fell on the bags of potato chips that were heaped on the floor. Thirty bags of them at least. She found it surprising and upsetting that these small-town kids knew the dirty little secret about America’s favorite snack food-it was a highly effective accelerant, pure grease, that left no telltale residue behind. Dogs that were trained to sniff out accelerants got nowhere with chips, and chemical tests turned up zilch. She thought only the pros knew this. Must be out on the Internet, she reflected unhappily. She would have to tell the arson squad.

Now she turned her cold gaze on Ronnie, who continued to struggle feebly in her grasp. The kid was frailer than a week-old kitten. “You were going to burn down this school,” she said to him accusingly.

“Ricky told you, didn’t he?” he demanded, his head cocked at her insolently. “I’ll kick his ass.”

“Ricky didn’t have to tell me, you moron. I’ve been on to you garbageheads for a couple of weeks.”

He said nothing in response, just stood there trying to strike a gangbanger pose. For such a smart kid he sure was pathetic.

She took a gentler tone. “Do you want to try to explain this to me, Ronnie?”

“Why should I?” he said, jabbing himself in the chest with his thumb.

“Because I have some latitude here, that’s why. I can look upon this as some high-spirited local kids throwing a rock through a school window. Or I can see it as breaking and entering, which is a felony, coupled with attempted arson, which is major-league bad news. We’re talking serious time, Ronnie.” She paused, letting this sink in for a moment. “It’s up to me to decide which way to go, and that depends totally on how you behave over the next few minutes.”

He reached into his jacket for a cigarette and stuck it between his teeth. “You want me to do you a solid, is that it?” he asked, fumbling for a light.

She swatted the cigarette from his mouth, sending it flying halfway across the room. “I want you to talk to me.”

“Well, I’m not giving up the rest of my boys,” he shot back. “You can’t make me do that.”

“Use your head, dope! I just laid my own two eyes on them-I can make them from their school photos.” Des shook her head at him in disgust. “I’m wasting my time here. You’re just a lame-assed punk. I’m running you in.” She started for the door with Ronnie in tow.

He panicked. “No, wait! W-we can work this out. What… what do you want to know?”

“I want to know why.”

“We thought it would be cool,” he answered simply.

“You thought it would be cool to burn down Center School? Man, what are you on? Because I have got to get me some of that.”

“Not a thing,” Ronnie insisted. “Never when we go out on a mission. That’s forbidden.”

“So this is the ‘real’ you talking?”

“Absolutely. And this is something we gave a lot of thought to, okay? We thought it would serve ’em right, okay? All they keep doing is arguing about this place. Jerking us around. Pretending they care about us when they don’t. We’re sick of being jerked around. We’re sick of them telling us they want what’s best for us. They don’t. So we thought we’d show ’em just how we feel, okay?”

Des glanced around at the aging classroom. “You hate this place, is that it?”

He let out a nasty laugh. “I hate everything.”

“Then I really don’t know how to talk to you, Ronnie,” Des said regretfully. “Because if you truly believe what you’re saying then you’re coming from the same moral place as a terrorist. You’re not fit to live among other people. Come on, let’s go.”

“Where are we going?” he wondered, wide-eyed.

“You don’t ask the questions. I do.”

She ushered him outside through the front door and flashed her light three times at Mitch. Their go-ahead signal. His job now was to repair the window and clean up the broken glass-with luck, the school would know nothing about this in the morning. Her job was to lead Ronnie Welmers to her cruiser, which she’d parked in the lot behind town hall.

She put him in the front seat and got in next to him behind the wheel. “Okay, it’s time to deal,” she said, looking him right in the eye. “For starters, the Mod Squad is history. I know who you are and where you live. Anything happens again-graffiti, antics, anything-all five of you go directly to jail. And I am so not goofing, understand?”

He nodded, swallowing. “What else do you want?” he asked, his reedy voice soaring an octave.

She started up her cruiser, pulled out of the parking lot and headed north on Dorset Street in the 2-A.M. stillness. “I want you to be a man instead of a punk. I want you to be responsible.”

“For what?” he asked, watching the road carefully, desperate to know where she was taking him.

“For your little brother. And those ladies next door. They’ve got themselves a problem. And I’m going to tell you straight up what it is-your dad, in case you didn’t know it.”

“I know it,” Ronnie said quietly.

“What’s his story, anyway?”

“He’s a dead man walking. His business is in the toilet. He’s bitter, broke, horny. Plus he’s a total ass.” Ronnie sneaked a hopeful look at her. “Word, did you break his nose?”

“Why, what did he say?”

“That he got hit in the nose with a golf club, by accident.”

“Works for me,” she said, straight-faced.

“You have it wrong, you know. He’s not hot for Phoebe. He’s hot for Mrs. Beddoe.”

Des glanced over at him in surprise. “How do you know that?”

“Phoebe told me.”

“You two are friends?

“Kind of.”

“Why did your dad give Ricky that black eye?”

“Because Ricky talked back to him.”

“Ricky told me you gave it to him.”

“No way. I love the little turd. All we’ve got is each other. He’s just afraid the law will come down on Dad and we’ll end up in some foster home.”

She thought this over as she steered her cruiser up the Old Post Road in the darkness. “You like Phoebe a lot, don’t you?”

“I mean, yeah…” he answered uncomfortably. “But they’re grooming her for the big leagues. She’ll go off to Yale, marry a lawyer.”

“You could do that. Go to Yale, be a lawyer.”

“I’m not that smart.”

“Word, I used to be married to a Yale Law School graduate-they aren’t that smart.” She glanced across the seat at him. He looked incredibly young, riding there next to her. They always looked younger when they were in custody. And smaller. “From now on, Phoebe’s family to you. If I get one more phone call from that mother of hers, I’m busting you for tonight’s antics, understand?”

“Does this mean you’re not busting me now?”

“Depends. Do you realize the enormity of what you almost did?”

“Why are you asking me that?” asked Ronnie, frowning.

“Because if you don’t, then I’ll have to run you over to the Troop F Barracks in Westbrook, where they’ll lock you up in a cell for the night with the rest of the trash. Man, are they going to love that smooth white flesh of yours. In the morning you’ll be arraigned at New London Superior Court on-”

“I understand,” Ronnie said urgently.

“What do you understand?”

“What I almost did tonight. How heavy it would have been.”

“If your father steps out of line again, I want to hear from you. He lays a hand on you or your brother, he gets busy with the Beddoe ladies, you pick up the phone and you call me.”

“You want me to rat out my own father to the police?”

“Not to the police, to me.”

“God, this is too freakin’ weird.”

“Life is freakin’ weird. Get used to it.” Des came to a stop by the stone pillars at the foot of Somerset Ridge. “Up to you, big man. Either we deal or we head for Westbrook. What’s it to be?”

“I’ll call you,” he said hoarsely.

“Smart move,” she said, easing down the road toward his house. “I knew you had it in you.”

“Damn,” Ronnie Welmers marveled, shaking his head. “You’re not very nice, are you?”

“That’s where you are way wrong,” Des said, flashing a smile at him. “Remember this day, sweetness. Remember it often. Because I am the nicest person you will ever meet.”

Загрузка...