Knockdown: A Home Repair Is Homicide Mystery (30 page)

He took the key she handed him and vanished through the side door leading to the stairway up. Moments later his face showed briefly in the window above, and he flashed the high sign.

Then George and Ellie hurried over for their keys. “You be careful,” Ellie urged, giving Jake a quick hug.

“I will.” The whole street was practically solid with people milling around, waiting.

Ellie took the key for the big apartment over the gift shop just past Furniture Avenue, overlooking the first of the alleys Wade was worried about, and went in.

George strode away up the alley itself, to perch atop the old shed back there and keep watch on whoever went by the alley’s opening onto the street. “That leaves me,” Wade said.

They made their way together between the shouting middle-schoolers and their harried parents, a gang of teen girls madly texting even as they tottered on their stack-heeled sandals, and a quartet of pleasantly sozzled, Uncle Sam—costumed men singing patriotic songs as they weaved along arm in arm.

Wade stopped in front of the old Berman building, once a row of
department stores and now transformed into gift shops, an antiques store, and a soda fountain. Turning, he gazed sternly at Jake.

“You’ll stay between us,” he ordered. “At all times, where one of us can see you, right?”

It gave her a little more than two blocks of street to cover as she tried to lure Steven Garner Jr. into their trap. “And you’ll keep that tracking gadget.…” Wade went on.

“In my pocket,” she agreed. “You’ve all got your cellphones, and the minute I spot him, I’ll press the panic button.”

That would send a message to Sam at home, who would at once ring all the cellphones, to alert the watchers in case they had not seen Garner already.

“And you’ll put this on,” Wade said, pulling a hat out of his sweatshirt pocket.

It was a ball cap with a tiny blinking LED light clipped to the bill; he put it on her head and settled it there, then held her face in both his hands for an instant. “So I can …”

Relief washed over her. Thinking up the plan from the safety of home was one thing; going through with it was quite another, she realized suddenly, especially at night and in a crowd.

The streetlights shone yellow, casting a warm glow on the assembled revelers. She’d thought it would be plenty to see by, but now it only seemed to make their faces blur anonymously.

Still, Wade couldn’t lose track of her. “Thank you.” She smiled up at him. “Now go on, before he sees you.”

With a nod, he was gone, hustling in through the glass door between the soda fountain and the antiques store.

Its big glass front window held old Eastport artifacts, wooden lobster traps and handmade herring seines and fingerless mitts, their woolen fabric stiffened with ancient salt and sweat into the shape of some long-dead fisherman’s hand.

And all at once she was alone, feeling as if that cold hand were around her heart.
Alone in a crowd
, she thought, slowly making her way back down the sidewalk to the hardware store.

Because that was the plan: back and forth, until either the bad guy showed up or the evening ended. Like dragging a piece of bait through the water, hoping that a fish would—

“Excuse me.” A young man in a hurry pushed past, bumping her as he went by; for a heart-stunned instant she thought it was him, but it wasn’t. She relaxed again.

As much as she could. Across the street in the darkness behind the law office, firecrackers erupted in a fury of light and gunshot-sounding reports; she jumped again.

But it, too, was a false alarm, and by now she was almost back to Furniture Avenue, its gloomy mouth opening like a narrow maw. Crossing the alley, she refrained from glancing up it toward the shed where she knew George Valentine sat.

But she was happy to know his guardian gaze was upon her as she crossed the alley and continued on toward the hardware store. A little girl sat on the bench out front, crying while her mother tried to comfort her by telling her the fireworks would surely be starting any minute.

“But I want them now!” the girl sobbed, and Jake knew just how the child felt.
Come on, come on
, she thought.
If he’s going to try to grab me, let him get going
.

But he didn’t, so she went on walking back and forth among the children and the adults, the tourists and the local people, all waiting for the action to begin, too.

Before long, night finally fell completely and the waiting audience members began settling into the places they’d chosen for watching the show.
I should have worn better shoes
, she thought as she finished another circuit to the antiques store, then back. She had on sandals, and it was getting cold; around her, people pulled on jackets and sweatshirts.

And … hats. Lots of hats, many of them ball caps, and most of those with—she couldn’t believe it. But there they were:

Blinking LED lights.
Drat
, she thought, spotting the trinket booth selling caps printed with the logos of sports teams, each cap with a light unit clipped to its brim.

Just like her own. The light clips were sold separately, as well, not just with the hats. And they were everywhere: blinking from babies’ bonnets, ladies’ scarves, teens’ jackets … They were everywhere.

Blinking and winking, a bright-dotted sea of them. How would Wade or anyone else pick her out in all those …?

But then another, much bigger light drew her gaze abruptly, a sudden brilliance out on the water. It was a flare shooting up, but not the standard kind.

An “ooh” rose from the crowd as the flare flew a hundred or so feet into the air, dragging a flame tail, then exploded with a dull pop into a stunted pinwheel of red and gold.

She knew what had happened: a fireworks shell had misfired. In previous years, Wade had been on the fireboat, so she’d heard how much the guys hated duds.

Uneasily, Jake put a hand in her jacket pocket, touched the tracking device, and located the panic button with her fingers. Out on the water, red and white boat lights bobbed; a small plane few overhead, then circled out toward the island of Campobello.

But nothing else happened. “Maybe that was just to get our attention,” said someone nearby.

Jake turned sharply, thinking she knew the voice. But in the crush of people, she couldn’t pick out whose it was. Meanwhile, by now the temperature had dropped to that of an autumn evening, and the crowd’s constant murmur took on an impatient undertone.

“I hope they hurry up,” complained someone. “I’m
freezing.
”

Me, too
, thought Jake, turning again in front of a display of antique tin-can labels, mostly for sardines, which at one time had been the small bayside city’s foremost industry. Scanning the throngs, she searched for a pair of big ears, for a face that she had last seen under a stocking mask, and most of all for a pair of eyes whose malevolence she hoped to forget, someday.

But not tonight.
Maybe he won’t come
. But … how could he resist? It was the perfect chance for him to grab her.

Or so he would believe.
Come on
, she thought. “Come on,” said someone, aiming the remark out at the water where the barge still floated.

But there was no answer, and nothing else happened.

So they waited, and then they waited some more.

FROM WHERE HE SAT ATOP THE BATTERED OLD SHED AT THE
top of the alley, George Valentine could see all the way down to Water Street and beyond, out the wooden fish pier and on to the water.

All in all, he thought it was a good place to be. Back in the old days, before everything got regulated all to hell and gone, he’d been among the men out on the barge, handling those high explosives like he had some idea what he was doing.

But those days were over, too. Now that he was a family man, his days of setting bombs off—even these beautiful, celebratory ones for tonight—were behind him.

Not that this fool’s errand he was on right now was much better. But Jake had her mind made up, and his wife, Ellie, was Jake’s best friend, and
her
mind was made up, too.

And George knew his own mind and its contents were not even faintly relevant, once those two got their heads together. Jake was as independent as a hog on ice, and Ellie was no better.

Which was why he sat cross-legged on the shed’s just-barely-slanted wooden roof. His long johns kept him warm, the tread on his boots stuck to the rough plank roof so his butt didn’t slide, and he wore a warm hat, unlike the tourists who seemed to think a ball cap would keep their ears nice and cozy.

Also, with a cellphone in his pocket and his own good head on his shoulders, he felt entirely able to handle whatever might happen next, mostly because he had always done so.

Then came the shell misfire, a thump-and-sputter he recalled from his own times on the barge. “Jeez,” he muttered, wincing at the
memory of the sparks falling, sizzling metals and chemicals that if they landed on you would burn you to the bone.

After that, silence. No yelling, so that was good. On the barge the guys would be readying another shell. He wrapped his arms around his knees and waited.

Not too many people were passing by the alleyway’s opening now; they’d all found their spots and planted themselves to watch the show. Only Jacobia kept trudging by every few minutes, first one way and then the other.

And then … and then just about the time he expected her to show up again, she didn’t. George frowned in the chilly darkness atop the shed. Had he gotten distracted waiting for the fireworks to begin in earnest, and lost track of the time?

He didn’t think so. He thought about calling one of the other cellphones to find out if any of the watchers in the buildings’ front windows could see her.

But then he hesitated, because meanwhile, one of them might be trying to call him, maybe even with an urgent message. No, better to look for himself, he decided, and if he saw her, then he’d just scramble right back here.

So he did, hopping down from the shed roof to land on the old asphalt alley paving, then scampering in darkness between the brick buildings almost down to the sidewalk. There he paused, peering to the left and right … and spotted her.

She’d stopped to gaze out at the dark water where all the boats’ running lights mingled to form a swathe of bobbing red and white gleams. Everyone else seemed to be looking out there, too.

He squinted that way himself. It did seem like a long time since that misfire had gone off. He thought the results of it might be giving the guys some trouble somehow, keeping them from getting the next one set up.

He hoped that was all it was. And
if
it was, he understood their caution; having several hundred pounds of unfamiliar bombs on a
boat with you in the dark did tend to get on the nerves of even the most experienced Fourth of July fireworks handlers.

Which these guys weren’t, from what he understood. Jake, though—she was okay. George turned, not stopping to try to catch her eye. The idea was just to check on her, and besides, if the guy really was here, George didn’t want to tip his hand.

The key word being
if
. But his was not to reason why, George told himself as he hoisted up onto the shed. He’d volunteered to help—well, his wife, Ellie, had volunteered him, actually, but it came to the same thing—so that’s what he’d do.

He resettled himself on the slanting planks just as Jake crossed the alley again, her head turning sharply away from him toward the water as she went by, as if she was watching something very interesting happening out there.

HUNKERED DOWN INSIDE THE SHED BEHIND THE WATER
Street buildings, Steven felt and heard the man climb back onto the roof overhead. It had been at least five minutes now since that odd-sounding thump had come from the water, and Steven had almost decided he’d better go down to the street, too, and find out what was going on.

Instead, the man had come back, his gait and posture showing that he was unconcerned, and resumed his perch. Steven resigned himself to a continued endurance of the funky stink in here, then congratulated himself on this decision as moments later, Jacobia Tiptree appeared at the end of the alley again.

Luck
, he thought, rubbing his hands together. He’d been here since late afternoon, ever since leaving the old house. It hadn’t been in his plan, but once he got downtown he realized his chance to hide anywhere around here might vanish at any time.

So when he’d reached the shed and the excellent concealment it offered, he’d decided not to let its advantages slip away. A small,
confined space, an unappetizing appearance, a great line of sight all the way to the street …

He couldn’t have found a more fortunate location if he’d put it here himself. Not that it was
all
good, filled as it was with old clay plant-pot shards, moldy straw, and various other objects so disgustingly deteriorated, he couldn’t even identify them.

Now, with his back aching from the long confinement and low headroom, the stink of ancient potting soil long left to nourish colonies of bacteria, viruses, and maybe amoebas—God, he hated the very word
amoeba
—invaded his nose and throat. Everything he touched felt gritty, slimy, or a combination of the two.

What this place needed was Lysol. Or better yet, a match and gasoline. But there was no help for it, or for this squalid hut he was squatting in, either. Once he was finished here, he would find a hotel with a chlorinated pool somewhere and check into it, he promised himself, and soak to his heart’s content.…

Boots scraping the shed roof dragged him from his thoughts. A fine rain of grit filtered down onto him where he crouched; he leaned forward to peer through the low door and see what was up. But then he realized the man up there was simply shifting position.

And then … there she was again, in the gap between buildings at the end of the alley. She looked annoyed, as if she, too, was getting impatient for the right moment to arrive.

Soon
, he promised her, his hand going to his pocket for the knife just as she turned and looked straight up the alley. Right at him …