Don't Cry Over Killed Milk (22 page)

Chapter 22

Frederick Bertlemann’s house was hidden in the woods surrounding Tripping Falls State Park. Only the narrow mouth of a gravel driveway was visible from the road. Emmanuel pointed it out through the passenger’s side window as he rode along with Damon.

Damon let Emmanuel out of the car. The maintenance man cut through the woods on foot to make his way back to the park. Damon turned into Bertlemann’s driveway and followed it thirty yards. The drive stopped in front of a home that resembled an enormous birdhouse. Its exterior was constructed of wide horizontal boards punctuated by circular windows and topped by a steep pitched roof.

 
BOOM!

The tremendous sound cracked the air and shook Damon’s car. Enormous splinters of wood sailed like missiles from the second story of the birdhouse. Damon ducked under his steering wheel. Sounds of wood crashing into the windshield pierced his ears. After a moment, the air fell silent. Damon looked up. One side of the top of Bertlemann’s house had been blown apart. Flames lapped up oxygen and shot skyward.

Damon pushed open the door to his Saab. Shards of glass, shingles, and burning wood littered the yard. Fiery pieces that vaulted into the surrounding woods lit masses of leaves nestled under the trees. Damon envisioned the small flames growing into a forest fire. He jerked the cell phone from his jacket pocket, dialed 911, and urged the dispatcher to send fire and ambulance rescue immediately. “Also, please contact Detective Gerry Sloman with the Arlington County police force about this right away,” he added rapidly. “I think it’s related to a murder he’s investigating.”

Damon ran toward the front of the burning home. He saw someone emerge from a screened-in porch at the side of the house and sprint into the woods between Bertlemann’s house and Tripping Falls. The person was dressed from head to foot in black and wore a ski mask. A backpack bounced behind the figure’s shoulders.

Damon’s mind raced. Was Frederick Bertlemann inside the house? Should he track down the runner or look inside? Saving a life was paramount. Heat scorched Damon’s face as he opened the front door.

Damon heard a shout from behind him. He turned to see Emmanuel Alvarez emerging from the woods and hurrying toward him.

“Did you see him?” Damon shouted.

“Who?” Emmanuel called back. The maintenance man stopped on the porch in front of Damon and wiped sweat from his face.

“Someone just ran from the house. That way.” Damon pointed. The person in black had entered the woods twenty yards from the spot Alvarez had exited.

“No,” Emmanuel said quickly. “You go after him. I’ll go inside and look for Bertlemann.”

“I called 911,” Damon shouted and dashed into the woods.

Damon raced hard in the direction he had seen the figure run. Although in excellent shape, he was close to a minute behind, and he wasn’t familiar with the terrain. A quarter of a mile into the woods, Damon came upon a narrow trail. Bertlemann probably used it to traverse from his home to the park every morning. Would the arsonist risk taking a trail? The chance of being spotted rose if he or she followed it, but it also allowed for a faster and quieter escape.

Damon put his hands on his knees to catch his breath and to listen. Other than the sound of birds, the air was silent. He started to move down the path, treading at a moderate pace. One minute later, Damon caught a glimpse of movement. He quickly ducked behind a fallen oak. Poking his head up for a peak, Damon spotted the culprit. The person in black was perched on a wide flat stone twenty-five feet ahead and to the right of the path. Thick tree trunks obstructed Damon’s line of vision. Staying crouched behind the oak, he crept five paces to his left to improve his view.

Gloved hands removed the black ski mask. Damon breathed in deeply, waiting to confirm his suspicions.

Bingo
! Straight blond locks splayed when released from the mask’s constraints. Aylin Erul unstrapped the backpack, set the mask inside, and pulled out a ranger’s uniform.

Damon watched Aylin don her uniform. His brain jetted through possible actions to take. If he left now to fetch Gerry, Aylin would be back at the park, dressed as a ranger by the time the detective arrived. But Damon’s eyewitness account of Aylin fleeing Bertlemann’s house had to count for something, didn’t it? Another option was to tackle her and call Gerry once he had her pinned to the ground.

The loud chirp of an incoming call on Damon’s cell phone resolved his dilemma. Damon fumbled his hand into his jacket pocket but not before Aylin looked up. Her glimmering green eyes locked with Damon’s.

Aylin took off in a dead sprint. Damon raced after her. She weaved among the trees, dodging thickets of spiny brush and fallen limbs. Aylin knew the wooded area better than Damon, but his legs were longer, and he quickly closed the gap between them. Twenty feet, fifteen, ten.

Arrgh!
Pain seared through Damon’s ankle as his foot caught in a hole obscured by matted leaves. He collapsed to the ground. Aylin glanced back then disappeared into the trees. Damon tried to jump back up, but his throbbing ankle refused to cooperate.

He cursed out loud. Damon pulled out his traitorous cell phone. No signal. Blaring alarms from fire engines in the distance reached his ears.

Damon stood and tried to keep weight off of his injured ankle. But he couldn’t hop more than a few feet at a time. He sank to his knees and crawled back toward Bertlemann’s house. When he reached the spot where Aylin had changed clothes, he spotted her backpack. She had left it behind in her haste. Damon hefted it over his shoulder and continued to plow in the direction of the sirens.

As he dragged his body forward, Damon smiled to himself. His conclusion as to the identity of Dominic’s accomplice, albeit late in the day, had been spot on. Not only had Aylin concocted a motive for Lawrence Drake to throw off the police, but she had conveniently been in Harrisonburg on the night of the murder, taking along Emmanuel to ensure that he was nowhere near his cabin when Dominic Freeze needed access to his garage. With Aylin in Harrisonburg, in Damon’s mind, that cemented Dominic Freeze as the man who pulled the trigger on the pressure washer.

The clincher that had finally registered with Damon was that Aylin had started work at the park only six months earlier. Every other Tripping Falls employee had been on staff before Jeremiah implemented his plot to ruin Dominic Freeze. Aylin, on the other hand, started three months after Dominic hired Marcus Pontfried to find the man who framed him for embezzlement.

Damon suspected that if anyone looked closely at Aylin’s prior work history as a ranger, the information would turn out to be falsified. It would be too coincidental that Dominic’s stepsister happened to be a park ranger. More likely, once Dominic knew where Jeremiah worked, he and his stepsister Michelle waited until there was a job opening at Tripping Falls. Michelle gave herself the name Aylin and created a resume that would fit the position to a tee.

And Damon had no doubt that Aylin Erul was indeed Michelle Walczak. The shape of the eyes of the little girl in the yearbook photo were the same as Aylin’s. She learned the intricacies of the park, including where tools that could be used as implements of death were kept, and most importantly, when and where Jeremiah would be alone in the park. She just had to get Emmanuel out of his cabin, which proved to be a simple task. Damon didn’t doubt that Aylin’s mother had plumbing problems—either created by Aylin or real—but Damon suspected Aylin had identified exactly which date Emmanuel would be “available” to assist.

The only thing that didn’t make complete sense was Aylin’s motive. Stepbrothers and stepsisters could be close, he supposed, but asking a sibling to participate as an accomplice to murder was over the top.

* * *

When Damon finally reached Frederick Bertlemann’s house, the fire department had snuffed out the blaze. The second floor had collapsed onto the first, destroying all but the foundation. Smoke rose from firehose-soaked clusters of charred trees and piles of leaves. Emergency personnel buzzed around two massive fire engines, three ambulances, and a half dozen police cars parked on Bertlemann’s lawn.

Paramedics were tending to a man on a stretcher. Gerry Sloman and Emmanuel Alvarez hovered behind the caregivers.

“Gerry!” Damon cried out as he crawled across the lawn.

The detective turned sharply. He and Emmanuel ran to Damon’s side.

“What happened? Are you all right?” Gerry shouted and reached down to help his friend to his feet.

“It’s Aylin, Gerry!” Damon shouted “It’s Aylin! Ten minutes ago she was headed toward the park.”

Gerry nodded his head and relayed the information via radio transmission. Then Gerry and Emmanuel hoisted Damon between them and carried him to an empty stretcher. A paramedic rushed to his side, but Damon waved him away. “I’m okay. I just twisted my ankle. Or I might have broken it. But I need to talk to the detective first.”

The paramedic reluctantly backed away.

“Don’t worry, Damon,” Gerry said. “We’ll get Aylin. And we arrested Dominic Freeze this morning. I’ll tell you about that, but first, tell me what you saw.” Emmanuel stepped in close to listen.

Damon relayed his story. He had convinced himself that Aylin was Dominic’s stepsister, Michelle Walczak. Recalling that Frederick Bertlemann regularly took hikes before the park opened, Damon wanted to show him Dominic’s picture and find out if he had ever seen Dominic at the park, either alone or with Aylin. Damon recounted watching the house explode, seeing a figure flee, and tracking down the arsonist, who turned out to be Aylin. He handed her backpack to Gerry. The detective delicately unzipped it and looked inside.

“An explosives kit,” Gerry said. “Between your testimony and this bag, we should have enough evidence to bring her up on charges for the attempted murder of Frederick Bertlemann.”

“Attempted murder?” Damon asked. “So Bertlemann is alive?”

Gerry smiled and lifted his chin in the direction of a nearby stretcher. Then he turned toward Emmanuel. “He is, thanks to Mr. Alvarez. Emmanuel rescued him. Bertlemann inhaled a substantial amount of smoke and has a few burns, but they aren’t life threatening.”

Damon reached out and shook Emmanuel’s hand.

The maintenance man smiled. “Mr. Bertlemann was smart. He was taking a bath when the explosion went off. He said he opened the bathroom door and saw flames engulfing a guest bedroom and the top of the stairs. So he stoppered the tub and submerged himself in the water.”

“Bertlemann was lucky, too,” Gerry said. “Lucky that the second floor didn’t collapse until after Emmanuel helped him out.”

“You went up the stairs through the fire?” Damon asked.

“Thankfully, I didn’t have to.” Emmanuel grinned. “I went inside and it was scorching hot and smoky. Flames hadn’t reached the downstairs yet, but the staircase looked impassable. I called upstairs and Mr. Bertlemann responded—said he was in the bathtub. Fortunately the bathroom door was right at the top of the steps.” Emannuel wiped his brow. “Mr. Bertlemann really saved himself. I had no idea what I could do other than wait for the fire department, but then he yelled down that there was a fire extinguisher in the cabinet under the kitchen sink. Bertlemann opened the door to the bathroom and I threw the extinguisher up the steps. A lucky shot—it rolled right to him. He dipped his clothes in tub water, put them on, and then used the extinguisher to fight his way through the flames down the stairs.”

Damon had to hand it to Frederick Bertlemann. He thought through the situation with a level head. But he was also extremely fortunate that Emmanuel was on the scene.

“Were you able to speak to Mr. Bertlemann?” Damon asked Gerry.

“Yes,” Gerry replied.

Gerry, Damon, and Emmanuel watched as the paramedics loaded Frederick Bertlemann into a waiting ambulance. The vehicle sped away from the smoldering remnants of the man’s home. A paramedic tugged on Emmanuel’s sleeve. Emmanuel didn’t have any burns, but he’d inhaled quite a bit of smoke, and the paramedic insisted on transporting him to the hospital as a precaution.

 
“Frederick Bertlemann was well enough to speak after he and Emmanuel escaped from the house,” Gerry said once he and Damon were alone. “He just returned from visiting his daughter in Colorado and didn’t even know Jeremiah Milk had been killed until I told him.”

“So the police hadn’t shown him Dominic’s picture?”

“Not until now. None of the park staff had ever mentioned Bertlemann’s name. I showed him a photo of Dominic a few minutes before you crawled in from the woods.”

“And Bertlemann had seen him?”