Fahrenheit 1600 (Victor Kozol) (16 page)

Mike Shoemaker had been with the Pennsylvania State
Police for twenty years, rising through the ranks from a highway patrol trooper
for ten years and the last ten investigating fires. Mike has seen them all in
his career which took him all over the Commonwealth.

“So here we have an old, free standing, garage with
one of those new pre-packaged crematory retorts standing in the middle of it.
And that’s the area where it looks like it started. Mike knew these units could
have fat fires, particularly if they were overloaded. They could also erupt if
the chimney flue was blocked. A funeral home in Philadelphia and two in
Pittsburg lost parts of their buildings in just such fires. The cause of two
was that the retort was overloaded with an extra heavy body, which overheated
the flue and the fire spread to the surrounding structure. The third was a tree
fell on top of the flue and blocked the exhaust.

But, upon opening the retort doors at Vic’s garage, there
were no remains in the chamber. Normally this evidence points to a fat fire,
but where is the body? Mike will have to interview the owner after he is sure
of the facts.

He makes a call to the Perfectall Manufacturing
Company in Chicago Illinois, builder of the retort. After identifying himself,
he asks to speak to one of their engineers. Tom Haskell quality control
engineer gets on the phone with Mike, after hearing Mike’s initial findings, he
says. “We have never had any combustion in one of our units that wasn’t set
into operation by the operator. The units can only go into a combustion mode by
pressing the three buttons on the control panel. Never had a unit self-ignite
by some kind of short circuit or electrical malfunction. We just have too many backups
designed into the product.”

As to fires once the unit was operating, Tom tells
Mike exactly what he already knew about oversized bodies and blocked flues.
Mike also knew that there was a manual override procedure taught at the
operator classes for dealing with that. Mike thanks Tom for telling him about
the electrical circuitry and the other part about fat fires. This almost
certainly ruled out any new reason for a retort to start combustion on its own.
Mike needed to be sure so he would still get an independent electrical engineer
to check the circuits to make sure that the safeguards Tom said were in place
and operational.

The only other lead he had to pursue was to get
Victor Kozol’s take on what happened, as he was apparently the last one to use the
retort and was legally responsible for it.

Victor smiled and sat Mike down in his small office.

“As you can see we run a pretty tight operation
here, I’m pretty much it around here.”

Mike begins, “When was the last time you used the
retort?”

“Let’s see” looking through his cremation permits,
“here it is three weeks ago we had John Halobosky cremated.”

“You only used the crematory once in three weeks?”

“Yes, it’s been slow here of late; I wish I was
busier.”

“You don’t do any outside business with other funeral
directors or let them operate your retort?”

“Heavens no, they don’t like me because I’m a
competitor, and I would never let an outsider touch my equipment.”

“Okay Vic, I guess that’s all for now, but could you
make me a copy of the cremations you did this year?”

“Sure, I have it right here, give me a second to get
it and you can take it with you.”

Victor wasn’t sure how this interview went.
Shoemaker has no evidence of additional bodies including the big one the other
night. However, he doesn’t seem ready to call it a short circuit or some other
thing like a lightning strike either. Just have to wait and hope he gets some
more interesting fires to investigate and goes away.

The next chore was for Vic to meet with his
insurance representative Charley Kranovick. Charley asks Vic to stop over to
his office.

“The good news is that your father had the building
fully insured and you have been keeping up with the premiums. It looks like a
total loss and you will be getting about $60,000 to rebuild. However, you never
called me to put the crematory retort on the coverage. That is too major of an
item to be covered under contents; it would have needed a separate rider for
inclusion on the master policy.”

“You mean I still owe for a machine that is now
destroyed?”

“I’m sorry Vic, it is the policy holder’s obligation
to notify me of any additions or changes to their policy.”

Vic now knows that the co-signers on the lease who
are Sam’s “investors” are on the hook for replacing the $50,000 retort. This is
not what he disclosed to Sam in that brief telephone exchange yesterday. All of
this will have to be faced head-on with Sam in the not too distant future.

Chapter 30

Sam

At 5:00 a.m. the next morning the doorbell began intruding
into Vic’s dream. He is now half-awake with a hangover from last night’s
downing of a six pack to dull the pain from all of his troubles. Yes, it is the
doorbell, not the dream; and it won’t stop.

“Who in the hell is here in the middle of the night;
and what can be so important to disrupt the only peace I ever see on this
planet?”

The ring is now a steady unrelenting noise getting
louder in Vic’s addled brain. He has no choice but to grab his slippers and
robe and head for the front door downstairs.

Vic cracks open the door in his stupor and is pushed
violently back as the door swings in crashing against the wall behind it.

“What the hell is this?”

With that, Vinnie spins Vic around and frog marches him
back to his office where he is unceremoniously dumped into his chair. The chair
is then spun around to face Vinnie and a snarling Sam.

“After your phone call, I did some checking on
retort fires Vic, it seems you screwed up; not the machine. Since you lied to
me, it’s now personal.

You have now embarrassed me in front of my people in
New York. I can take the heat Vic, but can you? You see, this is more than just
saving face; it is financial, and people get hurt when a lot of money is lost.
How do you think those unnamed bodies in those pouches you cremated got there
in the first place? Did you ever stop to think that some of them might have
owed the same associates that loaned you money?”

Vic is scared, and wants all of this just to go
away. “Look Sam, I think this is a good time to let bygones be just that and we
go our separate ways. I’ll take my losses and you take yours and we simply part
company as friends.”

With that, Vinnie smacks Vic with a backhand to the
face that spins the office chair around in a complete circle.

“What the hell did you do that for?”

“Just to get your attention Vic, you seemed to be a
little unfocused. Now that I have your attention, we can proceed like the
businessmen that we are.”

“Yah, but …”

Wham, another couple of blows to the face sends
Vic’s chair in the other direction and he is now woozy from all the hits. In
this instant, Vic finally is forced to bring to his consciousness what he
always knew and has been repressing for months, that he is cremating and
destroying evidence of murdered victims for the New York mob.

Vic no longer has the luxury of the one hundred
miles of distance from New York to protect him from his ‘investors’. All of
these past months, he was living the good life never caring where the money was
coming from. He is now looking straight into the eyes of the source of that
money. Not having a hangover anymore, Vic now feels a new emotion, pure. raw
fear for himself and his future.

“Now listen up. This is what’s going to happen,Vic.
You are going to take your insurance money and rebuild the crematory as fast as
possible. You are going to open for business again normally, and be ready to
receive ‘shipments’ from us again. Further, because of your negligence with my
associate’s money, that they so graciously lent you, when you were ‘up against
a wall financially’ you are going to assume some new duties.”

“New what,” Vic whimpers.

“You will take that shiny new suburban that my
friends and I paid for and make pickups in New York for us, instead of us
driving the ‘shipments’ here to you.”

“What? I never agreed …”

Thump, a fist goes into Vic’s stomach and he double
over in pain falling out of the chair and crashing onto the floor.

“Well now you are agreeing; are we clear on that?”

“Yah Sam, Vic gasps. But why the tough guy ruffing
up?”

“What could happen to you next, could make this seem
like child’s play Vic, that’s why. Now, I don’t want you hurt nor do you want
to be hurt. So, man up and pay your debts by getting on board with the program.
This is all I am going to say on this matter. I want progress reports on your
rebuilding schedule, and finally, I expect to hear that you are operational and
ready to come to New York. That’s all, goodbye Vic. Oh, and by the way, you
have a cute little playmate, Karen, I think is her name.”

Vic hears the door close, and after a few minutes
crawls up on all fours slowly and painfully getting back into his chair. Vic is
now terrified for himself and Karen.

Chapter 31

Hitting Bottom

The next morning didn’t bring any cheer to Vic.
He was even more miserable than he had ever been in his entire life, and that’s
saying a lot. Physically, he felt like he had been hit by a bus, and that might
be the better part of his situation. His deteriorating relationship with New
York was brought to this point by Sam figuring out what actually happened to
the retort. Vic began wondering how long it would take the fire marshal to come
to a similar conclusion. You add this to the one part Sam doesn’t know, he doesn’t
have the nearly $50,000 needed to pay off the lease for the destroyed retort
since it was uninsured.

There seemed to be only two possible outcomes from
all of this; he could go to jail for a whole raft of criminal acts, or be
killed or maimed by the mob for screwing up the operation.

Vic now answers the phone and it’s Karen on the
‘find out committee’ wondering why she hasn’t seen much of him lately.

“Look Karen, the fire really has me down right now.
I just don’t think I would be good company.”

Vic fails to mention that he might be dangerous
company to hang around with right now. Sam already knew about his parents in
Florida, he now also knows about Karen. No one connected to me is safe in this
situation Vic reasons.

But Karen insists, “I’ll come over tonight, make us
something to eat and we can just chill out.”

Vic is truly lonely so he replies, “Okay, but don’t
expect to find me in a good mood.”

Vic goes over to the mirror, and for the first time
since the altercation gets a look at himself.

“Oh my god, I look like one of those hockey players
coming off the ice after a fight, how do I keep this from Karen?” He picks up
the phone to cancel out Karen, but can’t bring himself to do it, and drops the
phone back onto the cradle. Vic is trapped.

Karen is shocked when she gets her first good look
at Vic.

“What happened to you?”

“I tripped on the throw rug at the top of the stairs
and tumbled down, but nothing appears to be broken.”
At least for now,
Vic thinks.

Karen gets closer to survey the damage; she is much
too astute to believe Vic’s answer; “You look like people we get in the
hospital on weekends after a barroom brawl.”

“Well I can assure you I wasn’t in any barroom
fighting.”

Karen lets it drop until after they eat and Vic has
a couple of beers to relax him. Karen opens up with, “Vic I can tell something
big is going on here; you have always been tight lipped about your life, but
you are really closed down right now.”

“I know. It’s just an accumulation of everything
that’s happened lately. I just feel trapped and defeated.”

“Look after any storm, no matter how severe, the sun
always shines.”

Vic knows that neither he nor Karen have ever seen
this kind of storm.

“Want to talk about this?”

“I don’t want to get anyone else, especially you,
getting involved in my self-made troubles.”

“Why not?”

“Because there could be consequences. And if you had
nothing to do with any of it, why should I ensnare you into it?”

“Vic, this is getting really weird, what situation
and ensnared how? Aren’t we two people who care very much about each other
trying to get our arms around a problem that might be too big for either one of
us alone?”

“If only it were that simple Karen.”

“Are you going to open up, or am I going to be forever
shut out of your life?”

“Did you ever hear the expression ‘If I tell you
I’ll have to kill you’?” Well, what if I tell you and someone else will have to
kill you?”

“This conversation keeps going in circles Vic. Who
is going to kill whom in Duryea Pennsylvania?”

“Karen, you don’t have to be someone important to
get killed like the Kennedys and Martin Luther King. Ordinary people can get
into a situation that can get them killed.”

“Wow, you are evasively telling me that you are
involved in something very dangerous.”

“If I get specific, you will be involved too.
Knowledge is power, but it can also be damning.”

“Vic, I still want to know, I’ll take my chances on
being damned.”

“You may be sorry you insisted, but here it is.”

For the next thirty minutes Vic recounts his very
unhappy life starting with college, getting stuck with a business he let fail,
and finally meeting the mysterious lawyer in Atlantic City. How his financial
debacle made him turn to people he would have never dreamed of associating
with. Finally, describing the terrible liability he has become to himself, his
family and even her.

“It isn’t pretty, but you can leave now, since anyone
with a half a brain would want to put plenty of distance between me and them
after they heard that story. I wish any part, or all of it, weren’t true. But,
that’s the way it is Karen. I only wish that you would walk away in silence. If
you don’t your life could be in jeopardy, especially if they thought you knew
what I just told you.”

“Vic, you don’t think I asked you to open up to me
so that I could just walk out on you? I love you. The test of any relationship
is going through the tough times together. But if I stay, you have to promise
me that you will accept my help to get you out of this.”

What help, you going to bake a cake with a file in
it so I can break out of my maximum security cell?”

“No, but there was a way in,; so there has to be a
way out of this.”

“Sure Karen, I call Chief Sarensky down at boro hall
and say you’re not going to believe this. He would say you’re right, I don’t
believe it, and perhaps you are just covering for a fire you caused on your own
property. The local police won’t be able to protect me or touch those guys all
the way back in New York.”

“You may be right on that Vic. But, I was thinking
of something else. My mother’s brother, John Flaherty, lives in Philadelphia
and is a senior agent with the FBI.”

“The FBI, are you crazy? That’s like … overkill.”

“Is it Vic? Let’s see, you have murder, interstate
commerce, destruction of evidence, conspiracy, and more all wrapped up here.”

Vic thought,
not bad for a nurse to rattle off
all of those technical charges
. “You mean you bring in Uncle John. I tell
him what I just revealed to you and he cuffs me and hauls me back to Philly to
rot in jail?”

“No Vic, there are deals people make with law
enforcement where the lesser guys turn evidence on the higher-ups who are the
real criminals. The low level guy gets probation or a fine and the
big fish
,
who masterminded everything, gets prosecuted for the major crimes and does real
jail time.”

“I guess I can see myself in witness protection,
wearing a wig on a desert island, waiting for some hit man to wack me.”

“Vic, if you do nothing, you won’t have to worry
about that. They already found you; just look at that face. I would say you
have been warned. The next time they come you may be in your own morgue
downstairs; you have to preempt them and move first.”