Knockdown: A Home Repair Is Homicide Mystery (19 page)

The police chief shrugged. “Something long and thin, the docs said, from the tiny holes it made. Like a shish kebab skewer, maybe, or …”

But even as he spoke, a mental picture rose in her head, of a woman on Key Street a few hours earlier.

She was an older woman, gray-haired and wearing a purple dress and hat … an old-fashioned hat, the kind women once secured to their hair with a—

“Hat pin,” she said. “I’ll just bet that it was a—”

But just then the old Vic’s engine settled at last and he drove off without hearing her.

SHUDDERING, STEVEN PULLED THE SOFT GRAY WIG FROM HIS
head and stuffed it into his bag, his nose wrinkling with distaste at the damp, perfumed smell coming from it.

He stripped off the clothes he’d been wearing, the dress and stockings and the hideous undergarments. Naked in the gloom of the ramshackle old kitchen, he pulled wet towelettes from a fresh packet and wiped his face with them, wrinkling his nose at their sharp reek.

As he did so, a vivid mental snapshot rose up, of his mother at her dressing table, fussing with her face. Dabbing and patting at it while he watched from her doorway, enthralled.

She’d been beautiful before all the bad things began happening. Fun, too, sometimes, spending all afternoon working on puzzles with him, or watching old monster movies, the two of them shrieking together as the big, fake-looking lizard rose up out of the waves to stomp Japan.

Even then, though, she’d shown signs of what was to come. Rages, weeping, cursing his father and sometimes Steven, too.

Afterwards she was sorry, begging them to forgive her, buying Steven special treats and demanding to know he still loved her.

Now he drew a fresh towelette over his eyelids, then drew his mascara-caked lashes through it as he’d seen her do, so long ago. After that, with his own clothes pulled on again, it was time to return the room to its previous state, as well.

First, the windows: he stood on the chair he’d found to pull the tacked-on trash bags from the holes he’d stuffed them into, in the broken plaster above the window frames.

The plastic tarp on the floor and the items he’d spread out on it had been harder to hide. Luckily, though, he’d had the wit to make sure the tarp had grommets, metal-reinforced holes at the tarp’s edges, through which a rope could be run.

So he’d done that, turning the tarp into a huge blue plastic bag with a drawstring made of clothesline around the top. All his stuff
in
the tarp, drawstring pulled tight, and presto, the bag went down the stairway hole with the things inside.

He’d tied the line’s loose ends in a knot he’d learned long ago, when he’d been in Cub Scouts. That is, before his mother had decided that Cub Scouts was too dangerous an activity for her son.

Once out of her frantic sight, he might be snatched by a filthy pervert, catch a ghastly disease from a bus seat, or eat and be fatally sickened by the refreshments at the scout meeting. Once his dad was gone, there seemed no end to the dangers a boy might fall prey to; by the end, even talking on the phone with a school classmate was … but never mind.

That was all over now. A sad smile curved his lips as he hauled the blue tarp bag up out of the cellar by way of the old door, which now opened onto a pitch-dark drop. Beyond it the stairs had been and, like his mother, were no more.

Next: the hook that had once held broom and dustpan was invisible unless you looked for it. Lifting the clothesline from it, he slid the line from the grommets and coiled it neatly, for he intended to use it again soon.

Finally, with the room once more sunk in gloom and his equipment ready at hand, he allowed himself to recall the rest of what he’d accomplished.

The look in that guy’s eyes when he realized what had just happened
 …

Anger, of course. But mostly fear. And … respect. As Steven moved away from the ginger-haired fellow still prostrate on the ground, he’d heard sirens approaching, seen the guy already calculating what to say to the cops about his injury, and those of his friends.

The ferret-faced boy, lying there near death …

Or so Steven hoped.
Don’t mess with me
, he’d telegraphed with his brief final glance at Mr. Ginger Hair. And in response, the guy had looked away in surrender.

Because he knew Steven had something on him, something big, that he didn’t want Steven to tell anyone about. So now Steven was safe from Mr. Ginger Hair and his pals. He could concentrate on readying the ruined kitchen for the next part of his mission, the capture and confinement of Jacobia Tiptree.

On gathering and arranging all the needed equipment, for instance: the clothesline, of course, and the chair, both placed now at the tarp’s center.

Next he carefully removed gold-framed photographs of his mother and father from his pack and placed them on the wrecked kitchen counter. The photographs were both studio portraits, his mother against a stock matte-brown backdrop, wearing a green suit with a mink collar, smiling with blood-red lips and already, in Steven’s opinion, a little wild-eyed.

Though at the time, she’d probably been thought of as merely vivacious. Steven’s father, dark-haired and with his own enormous ears sticking out like the handles on an urn, gazed gravely from his photo, which he’d sat for only at his wife’s insistence.

Steven recalled the quarrel:
What if something happens to you? And me without even a picture of you?

She’d ranted about it for weeks, until Steven’s dad gave in. Now his eyes seemed to watch Steven, but without any opinion or expression in them that Steven could discern.

It made Steven uneasy; both pictures did. But he wasn’t here for his own comfort, was he? “Good,” he whispered into the room’s silence. Now for his preparations to be complete, there were just two more tasks left to do, the trickiest of all. But tasks involving other people always were, he knew, so he was already resigned to this.

Also, it would be expensive; he pulled his wallet from his pocket and checked it. As he’d expected—

—but you can never be too careful
, his mother’s voice intruded briefly until he banished it—

—the ten crisp, new hundred-dollar bills he’d placed in it before
leaving home were still there. He hadn’t even known back then exactly what he’d end up spending them on, only that a good amount of cash on hand never hurt anything.

Outside, the parade had gone by long ago. The curbs and sidewalks were empty. As late afternoon came on, the action had shifted downtown, where the food tents, trinket tables, and other holiday venues were in full swing.

Later, when darkness fell, there would be the fireworks. Absently, Steven put a few broken crackers in his mouth and washed them down with a swig of juice, noticing as he did that his supplies were running low.

But no matter. By tonight, food would be the last of his concerns. He’d have found the ginger-haired guy again and given him his task, and explained carefully to him why he’d be wise to complete it properly.

And he’d have one thing more; that’s where the cash came in. Something besides food to occupy him, something to do in a place where no one expected him to be.

Something
better
.

THE IDEA SPRANG UP FULL-BLOWN, AND THE MINUTE IT
occurred to her she knew she was going to have to try it. The trouble was, it would take some cooperation from the rest of them.

And getting that would be the real challenge; determinedly, Jake climbed the stairs to Wade’s gun-repair workshop.

“He’s going to try to get me, you know. Or Sam. I don’t care what Bob Arnold says, if we don’t stop Garner, he’s going to—”

The workshop smelled sweetly of black powder, turpentine, a variety of stains and varnishes, sawdust, and a whiff of gun oil. To Jake, the mingled scents meant normalcy and security.

Only not right now. Unhappily, she crossed the rough plank floor to where Wade stood under the hanging work-lamps.

Ordinarily she loved this space. But now the brightly lit shop with its familiar long tables, drawers full of gun parts, and shelves packed with reference books, its specialized tools neatly hung on hooks and pegboards, all seemed to exist beyond a pane of invisible glass, one she couldn’t break through.

A glass made of fear … Looking up from his workbench, Wade ran a big hand distractedly over his brush-cut hair.

Clearly she’d interrupted him. “I’m sorry, I thought you were done—”

Working
. But in reply he merely closed the repair manual he was poring over and smiled, gesturing at a stool by the table. “I am. Just mooching around now.”

He enjoyed being in the shop, where his harbor-piloting work too seldom allowed him to spend time. “But what do you mean, stop him? We couldn’t even find him.”

His blue-gray eyes crinkled ruefully. “And I guess Bob’s put a stop to my unofficial efforts.”

He’d already called his pals off their assignment to locate the big-eared stranger, not that many of them were worried about Bob Arnold, or an assault charge, either.

Rough and ready
was a mild term for what most of Wade’s pals were. But one case of mistaken identity was plenty, he’d said, and besides, on the holiday they should be with their families.

“What I mean is, if he’s going to grab me—or try do to whatever he’s got in mind—he’s got to see me. Alone, without anyone else to back me up.”

Wade’s craggy face creased in a frown. “Maybe so, Jake, but you’re not going anywhere without plenty of reinforcement until I know he’s out of the picture. Sam, either,” he finished.

Which surprised her; Wade rarely issued ultimatums. He was not that kind of guy. And anyway, she wouldn’t have listened.

But from his tone she could tell that this time, she’d have to do some fast talking to convince him … starting by agreeing with him.

“Right. And I don’t want to be without it, either. Because Steven Garner Jr.…”

She paused, feeling again the drowning sensation that had swept over her at the sight of Sam’s picture with a target drawn on it. “He’s just flat-out scary,” she finished.

Wade’s face said he was glad she realized that. “But, Wade, what if I had a really ridiculous amount of backup?” she added. “I mean, so much of it that no one could possibly harm me?”

Fast talking, indeed; in fact, it was nearly embarrassing. But there was such a thing as exaggeration for effect, and from the flicker of interest in Wade’s eyes as she spoke, she thought she might have achieved it.

Or begun on it. “See, he wants to hurt me. Punish me. That’s what the picture of Sam was all about.”

Not that Garner wouldn’t hurt Sam if he could, she knew. But once the shock of the marked-up photo had eased, she realized, too, that for Garner, Sam wouldn’t be enough.

That punishment by proxy wouldn’t do it for him. “He wanted to scare me, and he’s done that. But what he wants, what’s really going to float his boat, is—”

“You.” Wade said it flatly. She could see the stubborn resistance in his eyes, his two big hands loosely clenched on the worktable, and the squared-off set of his broad shoulders—

But he was listening, and that was something.

“So what if I put myself out there,” she persisted, “but you all were watching from somewhere nearby? Tonight, say, on Water Street. I’m on the sidewalk, you’re all …”

He nodded, reluctantly. “Waiting. You lure him out, let him try something so Bob Arnold has a decent reason to grab him up?”

“You all could be right upstairs in the windows that look down onto the street. While I …”

Wade looked thoughtful—not convinced, but considering it. “I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it. And it
could
work.…”

If he had his way, he’d still just knock the guy’s block off and be done with it. But first they had to
find
the block.…

She pounced before he could reconsider. “That’s it, then. You find my dad and tell him. I’ll let Sam and Bella know what we’re doing, and Bella can call Ellie and George.”

She headed for the stairs.

“Wait a minute,” Wade said, stopping her, “how come you’re not going to call Ellie yourself?”

Generally, whatever Jake knew, Ellie knew about it no more than five or so seconds later, and Jake was the one who told her.

But not this time. “I need to, uh, get ready,” she improvised, and ignored his frown at the evasiveness of her reply.

Because persuading him of the safety of the plan she’d made was one thing; actually making it safe, though, was another.

Entirely another.

FROM AN UPSTAIRS WINDOW, HAROLD FINNEGAN WATCHED
his ginger-haired son, Jerry, slink into the house. Why’d the kid always have to look so sneaky? he wondered. As if it was in his bones, looking like he was up to something.

Shaking his head, Harold turned from the window as the front door closed quietly. Not slammed, for once.

And that’s the kind of small favor we’re grateful for around here nowadays
, Harold thought.
If the kid comes home without the cops chasing him, shuts a door without breaking every window in the house, we’re good
.

Twenty years earlier, he’d thought his heart might explode with happiness at the birth of his son. Now, after what felt like a lifetime of defiance and delinquency, he couldn’t wait for the kid to get out of the house.

“That you, son?” Harold returned to the desk in his upstairs study, and the papers piled on it. People didn’t realize how much work it was chairing the Fourth of July committee.

“Yeah.” Footsteps up the stairs. Harold could tell from the energy in his son’s step that he was going to ask for something.

Jerry always ditched the sullen act when he wanted a favor. “Hey, Dad?”

Harold looked up. In the doorway, Jerry leaned casually, all six feet of him. Skinny and pale, those squinty gray eyes of his glancing around Harold’s study calculatingly.

Looking for something to steal
, Harold thought. Rotten of him, he supposed, but he couldn’t help it.

He knew Jerry, knew him too well. “What’s up?”

The boy sighed.
Not a boy anymore
. He was a man now, God help him. And soon, despite everything Harold had tried to do—it hadn’t been easy, raising the kid without a mother, but he’d tried—soon he’d find out what that was like.