Heaven's Fire (31 page)

"I write all your messages, you stooge, so it's a little tough not to read them."

She stood up and retied the tie, then straightened his collar. "Where did this suit come from?"

"It's the one I keep here for court appearances."

Kathy nodded. "I thought I recognized it. Ten years old and doesn't look a day over nine." She flopped open one side of his jacket. "These pants look a little big, are you losing weight? Maybe you should have them taken in."

Simon kissed her on the top of the head. "I love you, you know that, you little snot?"

"I know." Kathy stepped back. "Collins already has people looking for Guida, but you be careful out there, you hear me?"

Simon saluted her dutifully and left, still looking a little rumpled despite Kathy’s best efforts.

She had to give Simon's ex credit for one thing. Dianne had cut him loose fast once she realized he wasn't going to be the trophy husband her career required. Good thing, too, because Simon would have hung on and tried to make it work, just like he had hung onto that old suit.

Alterations--of any kind--didn't come easily for Simon Aamot.

*****

The family hadn't made it to the house by the time Simon arrived, but a woman who looked a lot like Sadie welcomed Simon at the door. "You come and eat. My sister Sadie and her family will be here very soon. You want some wine? Some manicotti?"

This must be Marie, of the Italian Wedding Soup. She may not make tiny meatballs for her soup, but she said manicotti "man-i-
got
" like Sadie did, so Simon knew he was in good hands, gastronomically speaking.

After he'd filled a plate to placate Marie ("You eat now, you understand?"), Simon wandered through the assorted Firenzes. He wondered what it felt like to be a part of a family like this: big, boisterous, wearing their feelings on their sleeves or, in the case of Pat and Tudy, behind their sunglasses. Around him people were laughing and people were crying and no one seemed to be embarrassed by either.

Simon wondered what their reaction would be if he told them Ray was alive. And--either in tandem with Bryan Williams or alone--had caused Pasquale's death. For Simon’s part, he was relieved. The Alzheimer’s had muddied the water, but this was a simple case of greed. And greed, Simon understood.

Still, he wasn’t quite sure what to make of Williams. Normally Simon had a sense of whether a person he was interviewing was lying. In this case, his intuition was telling him just the opposite of what he wanted it to.

While Simon wouldn't be surprised if Williams had taken kick-backs, the man seemed to be telling the truth about Lake Days. But then, Simon hadn't gotten the chance to ask him the $15,000 question: whether he had paid Ray to sabotage the show.

Simon was itching to subpoena Williams' financial records, but there were no grounds. What Jake said that
Pasquale
had said, sure wouldn‘t hold up with a judge.

And speaking of Jake: What was the little scene between her and Williams?

Simon had wandered out onto the porch looking to stash his still full plate where Marie wouldn't catch him, when he heard a dog bark and the crunch of tires on the gravel drive.

Pat was driving, with his mother in the front seat and Angela and Tudy in the back. When they stopped, Angela helped her mother out of the car and led her toward the house. The two men, still wearing their sunglasses, fell in behind them. There was no sign of Tudy’s wife. Pat raised a hand in greeting to Simon.

As the group made its way to the house, Bela looped an expanding figure-eight, with the car on one end and the Firenzes on the other. At one point, he very nearly knocked Sadie over.

"Bad dog!" Pat scolded and lunged at him. Bela ran off into the field, howling like he'd been hurt. Pat held up his hands to show he hadn't touched the dog.

"Don't scream at poor Bela," Angela said, supporting Sadie's arm as they climbed the steps together and entered the house. "He's missing his friend."

Simon thought at first that she was talking about Pasquale, then realized he didn't see Lugosi around. "Where's Lugosi?"

"At the vet," Tudy said, mounting the steps slowly. "He got sick yesterday. Probably ate a bad rabbit, the dumb bunny." The old man mustered up a smile at his joke.

"He's lucky he can still catch rabbits," Pat said. He had followed Angela and his mother into the house. Now he came back on the porch with a bottle of wine in one hand and three stemmed plastic wine glasses in the other. He handed Simon the bottle and set the glasses on the porch railing, careful to push each stem firmly into its plastic base. Simon filled the glasses and handed one to Pat, one to Tudy, and took one himself.

Pat lifted his. "To my father."

They all clinked plastic glasses and drank. Pat removed his sunglasses, this time finally leaving them off.

Tudy looked off into the field where Bela had disappeared. "You remember Pat, the way your father called that dog
Leg
-osi? And Angela and Sadie would yell--ooh, you never heard such a scolding they'd give him."

"This was after Lugosi had the run-in with the Cougar, I assume?" Simon asked him, but it was Pat who answered.

"Oh, yeah. My father: Mr. Sensitivity." Pat stopped. "But you know, he never meant it mean. He loved that dog, wouldn‘t hear of putting him down."

"And now Pasquale is the one who's gone," Tudy said. He turned purposefully to Simon, like he was about to confront his devils--and Simon was them. "And what about my son? Is there any news?"

Simon wasn't sure how to answer and Tudy misinterpreted the hesitation. "I know, I know. The lake is deep and dark and cold. One person, one body..." The little man shook his finger at Simon. "But I want to bury my son, you understand? I don't want to leave him down there with the fishes."

"I know, Tudy, and I need to talk to you about something." He drew the old man away from the door as a cluster of late-comers mounted the porch steps. Pat greeted the group and then moved over to join Tudy and Simon.

Simon didn't know if what he was about to tell Tudy qualified as good news or bad news: Your son is alive. But he's likely a thief and a murderer.

On the other hand, the family had a right to know that money was missing, and that Ray was still alive. And as far as his investigation was concerned, they also might be able to tell him where Ray would run.

Simon glanced around, not wanting to be overheard. He had to tell Angela, too, about her husband, but he could hear her inside the front hall, talking to her mother and her aunt. Best to start with Pat and Tudy, so they would be there when he told Angela. And Sadie.

"At the church you said that you'd found something," Pat prodded him.

Simon hated breaking bad news. And he was really bad at it, tending to back into it rather than plunging straight in. "Our accountants went through your financial records."

"They found something was wrong." It wasn’t a question.

Simon did a "who-knows" with his hands. "You'll have to tell me. Maybe there's a simple explanation I haven't thought of. We found a copy of the Lake Days contract. It was for seventy-five thousand."

"Okay." Pat was waiting.

"Was that the amount you were paid for the show?"

"Yeah. We just got the balance."

"Biggest show we've done so far," Tudy added.

"Did either of you ever see the contract? Or the check for the fifty percent down payment?"

Tudy looked Pat. Pat looked at Tudy. They both looked at Simon.

"My dad normally handled the contracts, and Ray handled the money."

"Can you think of any reason why only twenty-two five of the thirty-seven five down payment that the contract stipulated was deposited?"

Pat looked at Tudy.

Tudy looked at Pat and shrugged. "Don't know. You boy?"

Pat shook his head. "No, but Ray..." he started, then stopped himself.

They all stood silent.

"My house was burned down," Simon said finally.

"I'm sorry, Simon, we should have called--" Pat looked embarrassed.

Simon should have been the one who was embarrassed. He was botching this. "I didn't mean that, Pat. The reason I brought it up is that it was arson. Somebody broke my basement window and tossed in a Molotov cocktail."

Tudy looked confused. "Is that one of those Russian drinks?"

"No," Pat said, laying his hand on the old man's back. "It's a bottle filled with gasoline. A rag is stuffed in the neck like a wick and lighted. When the bottle is thrown, it smashes and sends gasoline and fire all over the place."

"And somebody did this to your house, Simon?" Tudy asked.

Simon felt a fine sheen of sweat break out on his face. "They found a cigarette lighter outside my house."

"It was probably used to light the rag, right?" Tudy asked.

Pat had it now. "You think your fire had something to do with my father's death and with Ray's?"

"The lighter had Ray's fingerprints on it," Simon said.

"Was it silver? A Zippo?" Tudy asked.

Simon nodded, surprised. If he'd needed any further confirmation that it was Ray's lighter, he'd just gotten it.

"That was my Zippo, you remember Pat? Both your dad and me, we had them. I gave that lighter to Ray when he turned eighteen." Tudy set his wine on the porch railing as he spoke. The round base had fallen off and the glass toppled into the bushes below.

Pat watched it go and turned to Simon. "But your house burned down the night
after
Dad was killed. Ray was already--"

"You think my son had something to do with this mazeltov cocktail of yours?
"
Simon could practically see the wheels turning inside Tudy's head as he tried to comprehend this. "You accuse him when--?"

A crash and the sound of broken glass from the house stopped Tudy, and they all turned to look.

Framed in the kitchen window was Sadie. Simon wasn't operating at peak efficiency or he'd have remembered the kitchen sink was located under that window.

"Are you saying that Ray is alive?" Sadie demanded through the screen. "Are you saying Tudy’s son stole money from my husband and burned down your house to hide it?" Sadie had a keen mind. She also had an aging body, and that body was giving out. She started to sag.

Pat already was in the house and Simon could hear him rounding the corner to the kitchen to catch his mother. Simon turned back to Tudy.

The little man was hanging over the porch railing throwing up into the bushes.

God, Simon thought, I really do suck at this.

*****

Jake fired up her computer when she got into the office. He'd actually threatened her, the jerk.

The phone rang, and she picked it up. "Production!"

Breathing. A man's breathing.

"Production!" she screamed into the phone. She figured anybody with a lick of sense would hang up.

He did. She slammed the phone back down on the cradle.

Dang. So what was Bryan planning to do? Claim she was in cahoots with him? If it was a crime being too stupid and too much in loooove to see what a slime ball a man is, then she was guilty. What an idiot she'd been, not to see how shallow he was. How self-centered and materialistic. How conniving, how, how...

The phone rang again, and again, Jake picked up. "Production!"

A hesitation, and Jake was ready to hang up when she heard the unmistakable click of a handset being lifted. "This is Dianne Aamot. To whom am I speaking?"

Dianne
Aamot
?
Like in Simon's wife, Dianne Aamot??

Jake panicked and almost hung up. Steeling herself, she said, as calmly as she could muster, "This is Wendy Jacobus."

"Excellent," the voice on the other end of the line said. "Just the person I was looking for."

Jake just listened, wondering what was coming next.

"Ms. Jacobus, I'm with the law firm of Lancaster and Franks, which, as you probably know, represents TV8."

"Yeees." Lawyers were always bad news from Jake's perspective. What she didn't know was
which
bad news Attorney Aamot was calling about.

Liability for the sunken microwave van? Jake's destroying Luis's videotape, which, even though it was a smaller chunk of station property, was a lucrative one? Or maybe the lawyer was merely calling to ask Jake if she was fooling around with her ex-husband.

Choose any door, Jake thought. There's a lady tiger behind all of them. "What can I help you with Ms. Aamot?"

The sound of a pen--most likely a Mont Blanc--tapping on a wooden--most likely mahogany--desk. "I'd like to set up a time to meet. Perhaps today?"

Uh-oh. "I'm really sorry," Jake tried, "but today is impossible. TV8 is televising the fireworks tomorrow night and I'm the producer. I don't have a spare second between meetings." A bit of an overstatement, but Dianne wouldn't know that.

"And you'll be on the fireworks grounds tomorrow?"