Money To Burn (3 page)
Authors: Katy Munger
Further talk would be futile. He was a man consumed by his work. I left him to his conclusions and made my way back upstairs. The house had been carefully renovated and the fireplace was spectacular. A bronze plaque embedded in the wall beside it had “May 30, 1872” etched across it.
The first floor included a living room dominated by an enormous oak conference table and a gleaming wood floor. Two other rooms had been converted into spacious offices—each with a curved window alcove that looked onto gardens outside. A long modern kitchen took up the rear of the house.
Upstairs was clearly home for Thomas Nash. One room was lined with shelves filled with books of all sizes, colors and, from the looks of the tides, topics. Nash had a fondness for wilderness books, it seemed, in addition to more scientific titles.
I continued down the hall and discovered a bedroom with a large antique bed heaped with identical pairs of chinos and blue jeans, while endless golf shirts hung from every bedpost and door knob. Was it possible he never bothered to clean his clothes and simply purchased more when he needed them? It was a great technique. Too bad I couldn’t afford it.
I grew restless and wandered back downstairs in search of mysterious harassers. For the next few hours, I snooped through his mail, read old New Yorkers—a habit I’d picked up in prison—and ignored the blinking message light on the answering machine. No one threw a rock through the window or left a dead rabbit on the doorstep.
Finally, bored, I abandoned all self-control and headed for the kitchen. Grabbing a handful of chocolate chip cookies and a glass of milk, I returned to the office, determined to listen to the answering machine while I ingested as many calories as possible in the shortest amount of time. Nash wasn’t interested in his phone messages, but I was. Maybe his harrasser had left a call-back number.
The first message had been left by someone with a cultivated, high southern voice who felt no need to leave her name. “I’m leaving Savannah now,” she said in a faint drawl. “I’ll be back very late and if I just can’t wait, I might have to stop by and say hello.” She giggled and hung up.
Okay. Now I knew he was straight. I wondered what his honey thought of his ackught ofpreoccupation with work.
The next caller didn’t bother to leave his name, either. He was too agitated. “You’re making a mistake,” a deep voice informed my client. “If you drop the case now, you’re sending a signal that you can be pushed around. It’s not going to stop unless you confront them. It will only get worse. Call me to discuss it.”
Had to be his lawyer, I thought, or possibly his partner.
The next call scared the hell out of me. The sound of heavy breathing filled the room, followed by a low rumbling laugh and a whispered threat altered by an electronic device: “Talk and I’ll rip your head off. Then I’ll leave it under your pillow for your family to find.” Click.
Any doubts I had about Nash’s need for protection vanished. The voice held no sign of self-consciousness and the words, which easily could have sounded silly, were absolutely terrifying. I decided to take the job a lot more seriously.
Around midnight, I tiptoed down the steps to the basement. Nash was bent low over a beaker of clear liquid that bubbled atop a small gas flame. Computers blinked and whirled around him and the air was rich with odors: tobacco, cinnamon maybe, or possibly cloves, and other less definable smells.
“Guess I’ll be going now,” I called out. “There’s a message on your machine that’s pretty grim. I think maybe we should take it to the cops. Don’t rewind it.”
He peered at me as if we had never met before. “What?” he asked, distracted.
“I’m going now,” I repeated, knowing anything more complicated would never penetrate his preoccupied brain. “Don’t rewind your answering machine. I’ll meet you at Elmo’s at nine tomorrow, okay?”
“What?” He stared at me for a few more seconds, before finally realizing who I was. “Yes, yes, of course. Elmo’s Diner at nine.” He bent back down over his bubbling brew. “Nine o’clock sharp.”
Sure. I made a mental note to stop by in the morning and drag him from his laboratory. No wonder he was so skinny. He probably had to be reminded to eat.
I left the building, congratulating myself on my good fortune: Nash lived only a block away from Another Thyme restaurant. After wandering around the house by myself all night, I could do with some company and Another Thyme had one of the nicest bars in Durham. Mahogany and brass gleamed in the candlelight, giving everyone a healthy glow instead of an alcoholic pallor. The staff was friendly and there were tables if you wanted to eat.
What I wanted to do was heid to dodrink.
I ordered a Tanqueray and tonic from an efficient bartender who wore her hair cut short and slicked back. She had to be a northern transplant. No southern belle would be caught dead in such a style, unless it was underneath her Dolly Parton wig.
“Pretty quiet,” I observed, looking around the near empty room.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “Been this way for over a week. Ever since word got out about the campus rapist. The kids are sticking pretty close to home.”
I nodded, annoyed that once again a solitary scumbag was wreaking havoc in my sleepy southern town. Recently, a rash of rapes had plagued the Duke campus and the cops were stymied. Apparently, the setup for the crime took place at a bar crowded with summer students. Someone was slipping one of the new date rape drugs into the drinks of female students, then spiriting them out of the bars without anyone noticing. The women were waking up in the morning, dumped in some corner of Duke Gardens, with no memories of the night before, headaches that could fell a horse, and clear signs of forced sex. It was real bad publicity for the school that alumni liked to call the Ivy League of the South.
So far, the cops had made little headway. They were reluctant to cause widespread panic, but their hesitation had emboldened the rapist. I knew from a friend in the department that he had struck six times in the last eight weeks and was likely to succeed again soon. What I wouldn’t pay to get my hands on him.
I sat there, imagining how I’d torture the creep with a pair of pliers and a campfire, while I nursed a few drinks in solitary comfort and watched the bartender break down the bar for the night. An hour later, not a single other customer had wandered in for a drink and I wondered if the entire Thomas Nash assignment would be as quiet as this night had been.
I should have known better, really I should have. It’s always calmest before the shit storm.
I staggered home around two o’clock in the morning, admiring the stillness of downtown Durham on a hot July night. Two hours later, my tangled alcohol dreams were interrupted by the persistent scream of sirens outside my window. I struggled awake. The acrid smell of burning wood and scorched rubber had lured me from sleep. I opened the window, inviting a cacophony of odors and sounds into my apartment. The fire was definitely nearby. From the sudden blaring of the many fire trucks and police cars racing toward the blaze, it was also a big one.
I threw a bathrobe over my blue night shirt, rescued my pink bunny slippers from beneath the couch and raced from the building toward the chaos.
Following the flashing lights of the fire trucks to Main Street, I saw a commotion near the railroad tracks t”>road trthat cut through the Liggett & Myers warehouse. Black smoke clogged the air and obscured the block from my view, while heavy fire hoses zigzagged across the sidewalk in front of me, blocking the way.
I didn’t need it spelled out for me, anyway.
I had let a client down. Big time.
Thick black smoke billowed in angry columns that spread like ink across the sky. The air was hot and rancid, the fire mingling with the Carolina humidity to choke the oxygen from the air. Though the house was wood, the blaze smelled of melting rubber, discharged ions and a funky mixture of plastic and chemicals. I retreated to a spot upwind and pitied the firefighters as they dashed from the trucks to disappear into the haze hovering around the burning structure.
The street was in chaos. A half dozen fire trucks had pulled up on the sidewalks with police cars close behind. Their colored lights revolved silently, transforming the smoky haze into a multicolored fog. The fire marshal’s car blocked the opening to the street and a couple of unmarked ATF vehicles flanked it. All sirens had been turned off and an eerie silence hung over the scene, spoiled only by the crackling and pops from the fire, the occasional squawk of a walkie-talkie or a shouted command.
Behind the officials, unnoticed yet by the cops, stood a row of neighbors who had been roused by the commotion and had crept from their beds to witness the disaster. At first, the blaze illuminated their figures so that they looked like actors standing before footlights. Then the wind shifted and smoke drifted across the assembled crowd, making them look as if they were waiting their turn to enter the heavy black gates of hell.
To these strangers, the fire was entertainment. But I had known Thomas Nash, however briefly, and I had to find out if he had escaped in time. If not, it would be my fault. I had promised to protect him.
I canvassed the yard, searching for someone I knew. Chances were good I had an ex-boyfriend running around the scene somewhere. But chances were slim I could identify him. Most of the firefighters wore heavy fire-retardant rubber suits, which didn’t help since I was most likely to recognize an ex-boyfriend buck naked.
I walked along the fringes of the crowd, searching until I spotted a man leaning against a tru
Doodle was built like a professional wrestler. His head emerged like a giant monolith from his massive neck. The revolving lights on the truck swept past him at intervals, illuminating his silhouette so that he looked like a living version of an Easter Island sculpture.
“You okay, Doodle?” I asked, sitting beside him on the running boaid of the truck. The side of his rubber suit was still warm from the fire.
“Casey?” He looked down at me and noticed my bathrobe. “This isn’t your house, is it? Because it’s a goner.”
“No.” The blaze had broken out of the upper windows and flames were licking up the second story of the house, casting fingerlike shadows across the grass. “Has anyone spoken to the owner yet?”
Doodle shrugged. “No one’s inside. I think they’re trying to locate the owner by phone right now.”
I thought of the steep steps descending to the basement. “I don’t think they’ll find him alive, Doodle,” I said. “How do you know that no one’s inside?”
“Freddie and Charlie canvassed the second floor when we first got here. Rita and Tommy checked out the ground. They didn’t find anyone, but the fire’s burning pretty hot right now and the hoses aren’t helping much. From the looks of it, I’d say the fire’s been helped along. But we can’t go back inside until the blaze has been checked.” He wheezed for breath, sipped water from a sports bottle then squirted the liquid over his face.
“What about the basement?” I asked. “Did anyone check? There’s a full laboratory down there.”
He looked at me curiously. “You know the house?”
I nodded.
“You know the owner?”
“His name is Thomas Nash. He lives on the second floor and has a lab in the basement. I saw him at midnight.” I hesitated. “He was a client of mine.”
Doodle’s eyes shifted to the fire. “What kind of a client?” he asked. He knew my line of business.
I let out a long sigh. “I was doing some bodyguard work for him.”
Doodle stared at the fire. “No one came out, Casey,” he said flatly. “And we weren’t able to get into the basement. Maynard Pope’s the cause and origination man on this one. He’s gonna want to talk to you.”
I hardly heard what Doodle said. The fire had reached the attic and whatever stored items were there ignited, sending the blaze to new heights. The fire seemed too strong, too towering to be real. It was like a special effect in a movie, and I felt myself being lulled into the passive state of a detached observer. I knew Thomas Nash was probably dead, but it wasn’t really registering. All I could do was stare at the flames.
“Casey?” Doodle repeated louder.
I shook my head, tearing myself away from the sight of the blaze. “Sorry. Jesus, how can you watch this all the time?”
“I know. It can hypnotize you. Listen, you better stick around, so Maynard can talk to you. I’m no expert, but I’d say this fire was set. If you know the building layout and the reason why, you might be able to help. Can you stand it?”
I thought of Thomas Nash bent absently over his instruments, oblivious to the world around him as he pursued answers in a microscopic world of his own.
“Yeah, I can stand it,” I said.
While I waited for the fire to be brought under control, I trudged home and changed into more suitable attire: a black tank top, matching leggings and my red high tops. Flame on. I took four aspirin and chugged a quart of water. Any trace of alcohol fogging my brain had disappeared from shock. I felt like a complete asshole for not taking my client’s death threats more seriously. Thomas Nash had hired me to help him and now chances were good that he was dead.
Still numb, I stopped by Dunkin’ Donuts on my way back to the scene. Listen, I was desperate. Durham is a disadvantaged town—it has no Krispy Kreme. When I ordered thirty coffees to go, the night manager knew I was heading to the fire. He gave me the coffee for free, and threw in five dozen doughnuts to boot. Durham is still a small town in many ways.
“God bless them,” he told me. “It looks like a bad one.”
Worse than he knew, I thought.
I staggered back to the scene bearing an armload of sustenance and was greeted like a returning hero. It didn’t make me feel any more like one.
font> I sat on the running board of someone’s pickup truck and watched in glum silence as Durham’s bravest battled to bring the blaze under control. The sun was rising over the nearby Duke campus by the time the flames were finally extinguished and the remains cool enough to investigate. Like all fire scenes, it begged the question: “Is that all there is?” The front wall of the house had been completely destroyed. It gaped open to the gawking crowd, like a giant dollhouse. The interior was reduced to a series of support walls and mounds of black ashes, dotted by melted lumps of possessions and strange charred shapes that had once been furniture. The doorway leading to the basement had disappeared, a dark hole taking its place. The bathroom fixtures on the first and second floors had survived the blaze and the sooty porcelain had been rinsed to a bright white by the high-pressure hoses. It stood out obscenely against the surrounding destruction. Embers steamed in the morning air as firemen lightly hosed down banks of ashes to preserve any evidence that might be left. A breeze was blowing in from the north and, slowly, the choking odor of the fire lifted until the ruins smelled almost pleasant, like a campfire late at night. Where the hell was Thomas Nash? “Casey?” Doodle looked exhausted in the morning light, his face streaked with grime. He had shed the suffocating rubber suit and his T-shirt was soaked through with sweat. His eyes were criss-crossed with fine threads of blood. “This is Maynard Pope. He needs to ask you some questions.” Maynard Pope was a wiry little man with a white buzz cut and gray stubble dotting his pointed chin. I knew him by reputation. He’d been busting arsonists and insurance scam artists for over thirty years. His colleagues called him Mad Dog because he was so tenacious. His detractors called him nothing at all. It was safer that way. “I ain’t got but a minute,” he said flatly. He had a peculiar voice that sounded like a cross between Donald Duck and Elmer Fudd. “Doodle says you think there’s a body in there.” I winced. Thomas Nash had become a body. I explained how I had left my client at midnight and that he had been in the basement. I described the layout of the house as the arson investigator listened carefully. When I was done, he pulled a notepad from his pocket and asked me to sketch the rooms. “I’m gonna need your help,” he said in his odd nasal voice. “Doodle says you’re standup and I’m taking him at his word. From what I can tell so far, the flash point is on the first floor, midway into the structure. That indicates that the point of origin may have been just below, which brings us to the basement. The fire spread upward from there. We’ve already checked the remaining wa heremainills and what’s left of the wiring. There’s no signs of arcing and no internal wall fires. I doubt it was electrical. But I got a problem with the fire spread patterns and the scorch lines. They lead off in a lot of different directions.” “Multiple origin points?” Doodle suggested. “Looks that way,” the little man agreed. “Tell me again what the upper rooms were.” He handed me the pad and pen again. I went over the layout of the upper floors, sketching them out as best I could. “Did anything unusual happen earlier in the evening?” he asked. “Any visitors or indications that this Nash guy was upset?” I shook my head. “There was a threatening phone call,” I explained. “He’d been receiving them regularly. That’s why he hired me. But he seemed unfazed when I told him he’d gotten another one.” A short fireman appropriately shaped like a hydrant scurried up to Maynard Pope and interrupted us. “Gene’s finished sounding the floors. We can get into the basement now, but the stairs are gone. We’re laddering down.” Maynard nodded, then turned back to me. “I want you to stand by in case we find a body. You might be able to identify what’s left of it.” With those ominous words, he hurried off. I watched as a ladder was lowered through the scorched opening to the basement and a line of firefighters descended, some with masks still hanging around their necks. Above them, water ran in dirty rivulets across the soggy ground floor and dripped from what was left of the second-story flooring, the sound of trickling water incongruous with the sight of the charred structure. The men took forever down below, out of my sight, and were joined after half an hour by even more people. One was a photographer and the bounce of his flash strobed from the dark basement opening at intervals. I had been abandoned to wait out my fears alone. Lost in my thoughts, I gradually became aware of a panting in the vicinity of my right shin. I looked down to find a shepherd collie mix sitting obediently at attention beside me, its female owner at its side. The owner wore a windbreaker emblazoned with the Durham Fire Department logo. A heavy belt encircled her waist and a large pouch hung from it. The dog was staring at the remains of the house, its tail thumping in excitement. Its fur was black but long white tufts of hair sprouted from behind each of the dog’s ears to curl toward its nose, and all four of its paws where white. “Well, hello there,” I said to the dog. It looked up at me without interest, then returned its gaze to the fire. “Annie’s only interested in fires,” the owner explained apologetically. “She’s an accelerant dog.” “No kidding?” I stepped back to give the dog a better look. I had heard about Annie, but never expected to meet her face-to-face. Or snout-to-snout, as it were. “I hear her evidence is good enough to be admitted into court,” I said. “That’s right.” The owner smiled and ruffled the back of Annie’s neck. “This gal’s got two hundred twenty-five million nerve endings in her nose alone. You and I have five million at best.” “Just as well, with the kind of boyfriends I have,” I said. The owner smiled. “Annie’s more accurate than all current laboratory tests. Maybe you ought to have her check out your boyfriends for you.” “What does she do exactly?” I asked. “She’s trained to sniff out five different kinds of accelerants used to start fires, from petroleum to acetone and alcohol-based products. If she finds something, she bows over the spot and waits until I arrive. I mark the spot and give her something to eat.” She patted the pouch hanging around her waist. “If someone has helped a fire along, believe me, Annie will find out.” “I’m impressed,” I admitted. “What’s the story here?” she asked. “Chief says it’s a suspicious fire.” She was obviously assuming that I was there in an official capacity. That’s what happens when you’re a woman wearing black—and an attitude. I didn’t bother to correct her. I told her what I knew and threw in my two cents worth about where the fire originated. “I think it was probably started in the basement. They’ve been down there a long time.” “That means they found a body,” she explained. “Annie and I will be going down next.” The watching crowd began to murmur as several men ascended up the ladder from the basement hole, poking their heads into the morning light like ground hogs about to see their shadows. They were followed up by another man gripping the front legs of a flat gurney. As the rest of the carrying board emerged into sight, I realized that the gurney held the remains of a body beneath a white plastic sheet. Its dark outline pressed against the opaque plastic with a pathetic smallness.