Proof Positive: A Joe Gunther Novel (Joe Gunther Series) (22 page)

“You are redefining the meaning of eating out,” she said, loosening her scarf and opening her collar. It was evening, and dark, and Joe was parked inconspicuously by the side of the road in Colchester.

Joe laughed. “When it comes to some of the things I eat and where I eat them, you better be prepared for worse. I’m just happy you’re providing something that’s been cooked within the last two days.”

“And well cooked at that, if my staff is any judge,” she said. “I found this place through their recommendation.” She handed him a couple of napkins and began rummaging through her shoulder bag.

“How’s Rachel holding up?” he asked, spreading out the napkins and placing one of the Cokes she’d extracted onto the dash.

“The novelty’s worn off,” Beverly conceded. “Now she’s just bored.”

“She’s still doing her work online, isn’t she?” he asked. “She’s not falling behind?”

“Not in the least,” she said brightly. “Besides, if all this effort results in her being released back into the wild, I will be happier than you can imagine.”

“She calling you a lot?”

She rolled her eyes. “If I had any doubts about equipping youngsters with cell phones—or anyone under thirty, for that matter—they’ve been settled. She’s even got me texting now.”

Her preparations completed, she asked, “What, exactly, is going on? You just mentioned something about hoping to spring a trap.”

“That about sums it up,” he replied, opening his can of soda. “We figured that in addition to putting Rachel under wraps, we ought to see about offering a substitute for these two sharks—draw them out, if we’re lucky.”

“Sammie?” she asked.

“Oh, God. Don’t start. I already had Willy beat me up about that.”

She spoke through a mouthful, an unusual breach of decorum for her. “No, no. That’s not what I was saying. I assumed that she’d be perfect for it—still young and athletic enough to pass for a student. What was Willy upset about?”

“That I constantly expose the mother of his child to danger.”

“Good Lord,” Beverly exclaimed. “How sweetly old-fashioned. I don’t suppose I should be surprised.”

Joe’s cell phone began buzzing where he’d placed it on the console between them. He reached for it, explaining, “We decided to keep off the radio on this. Just to be on the safe side.”

“Joe?” It was Sam.

“Go ahead,” he said, putting it on speaker so Beverly could hear.

“We’re thinking we’ve got some action here.”

“Is everyone in place?”

“Yeah. That’s all set.”

“What’ve you got?”

“It’s hard to say. The same car’s been by twice, driving slowly. Tinted windows, rolled up. Can’t make out who’s driving. Willy wants to launch an RPG at it, of course. The others go from wanting to stop it to assuming it’s a decoy to draw us out.”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

“You want to ignore it?”

“Not ignore it, but don’t jump on it. What do your instincts tell you? You’re in the thick of it.”

“I think it’s a diversion,” she answered without hesitation, which helped him believe that she wasn’t simply agreeing with him.

“What kind of car?”

“Dark red Ford Focus. Not a rental. Vermont registration.” She rattled it off quickly.

“You run it?”

“Yeah. Came back to some local yokel from the Old North End, in Burlington. Multiple arrests. Mostly petty stuff; nothing major.”

“All right. This may be it, or it may be he’s just lost. Keep me posted.”

“Really?” Beverly asked after he’d hung up. “Lost?”

“No,” he said, taking another bite. “They’re circling the bait. Anyhow, it would be dumb not to think so. I just wanted Willy to think for three seconds before he blows it up.”

“He
wouldn’t,
” she exclaimed, never having been completely sure of Kunkle’s mental balance.

“No,” he agreed, “he wouldn’t. But he’d like us to believe it.”

She was no longer eating. “What are you going to do?”

“Eat,” he replied cheerfully, sipping from his can. “They don’t want Rachel harmed—they want to know what she knows. More immediately, given what we’ve learned about how they operate, they want to find out if this isn’t exactly the trap it is. A large part of me doesn’t believe we’ll catch ’em tonight, unless we get very lucky.”

“So why are you doing it?”

“To stir things up,” he answered simply. “When the dust settles, we may be in a whole new ball game.” He raised his pizza slice as if in a toast. “At least, here’s hoping.”

The phone went off again. “A diversion—no doubt about it,” Sammie started right off. “The car just came by for a third time.”

“What’s everyone else seeing?” he asked, his mouth full.

“Nothing.”

“Okay.” He hung up.

“You want to drive out there?” Beverly asked, not actually knowing where the trap was located. The development they were near was older, dating back a few decades, and consisting of three interconnected circular drives, tethered to 2A via two feeder roads. The houses were a mishmash of plastic-clapboard, cookie cutter boxes, and more individually built, traditional suburban homes.

He pointed with his chin. “It’s only a couple blocks away. We’re good.” He narrowed his eyes then and told her, “Slump down in your seat.”

They both tucked their knees up—he as best as he could, given the steering wheel—and made themselves invisible to a pair of slowly approaching headlights. “Considering the speed,” he proposed, “I’d bet that’s the same car, widening his surveillance circle.”

The car drew abreast. Just as it slipped by, Joe risked a quick glance. “Yup. Same car. Red Focus. Interesting.”

“How?” she asked, still tucked down, uncertain about whether to straighten as he was doing.

“You’re okay,” he said. “It just displays more caution than I’d expect. Makes it almost guaranteed they’re smelling a rat.” He was looking into the rearview mirror as he spoke, and now said, “Watch it. He’s heading back.”

She quickly slid back down as Joe flopped almost into her lap, his face inches from the pizza. “Good God,” she burst out. “Is this routine?”

“Sometimes,” he laughed, speed-dialing the phone’s preset conference call setup so that the entire team could hear and join in. “He’s coming back at you fast,” he warned them.

Beverly and he saw the car’s brake lights flash quickly, making the falling snow around them ignite like tiny bulbs, just before the Focus took the corner into Sam’s street with its tires squealing. They were close enough—and the car traveling fast enough—that they heard it crash, even through the closed windows.

“He T-boned a parked car about half a block away,” Sam reported.

Over the distant wailing of a disturbed car alarm, Joe replied, “Everyone sit tight. Watch and wait.”

“No movement from the Focus,” Sam continued her running commentary. “Lights are coming on up and down the street; people starting to come out.”

“You upstairs, Sam?”

“Yup.”

“Keep your eyes on the monitors,” Joe warned her. “But get to the window with a backlight and pretend to look out, so they can see you’re home and acting normally. But not well enough to see your face,” he added as an afterthought.

“Already doing it, Boss.”

“Everyone else,” he went on. “Look for the person not watching the crash, or not acting like the rest of them, or anyone studying Sammie’s place.”

Being distant from the street itself, Joe could hear approaching emergency sirens in the far distance. “Somebody called 911,” he reported. “EMS and fire are on the way.”

He turned to Beverly, who leaned into him before he could speak and said quietly, so as not to be overheard, “Don’t tell me. Date’s over. You do know how to entertain a girl.”

She was already opening the door as he said, “Thanks, sweetheart. I’ll call you later.”

She looked back at him, her door almost closed. The pizza rested in her seat. “You do that, Joe. No matter what time of night. Okay?”

“Right.”

She smiled. “And enjoy the rest of that.” She slammed the door and was gone—back to her own car, and home.

The snow was falling harder. He looked longingly at the pizza, knowing that part of the evening had come and gone, and truly missing the woman who’d suggested they share it.

The first of the emergency trucks swept by, followed by a cruiser, just as an explosion shook the neighborhood and threw a bright orange flash up against the low clouds.

“Joe,” Sam shouted. “The parked car just blew up. The driver got out and is just standing there.”

He started his engine, all pretenses evaporated. “Eyes on the monitors, Sam, and listen for any breach downstairs. Remember the drill. Everybody, look around. If you see something out of whack, photograph it, follow it, whatever. These guys are testing us. We need to turn the tables on ’em. Sam, they may come for you. Don’t rule it out.”

He pulled away from the curb and raced to the corner, coming upon a block dancing with flames, flashing strobes, and even a few bright cell camera winks as bystanders took photos.

“Goddamned Facebook,” he muttered, thinking that they’d have to round up all the phones later to get what they were capturing.

*   *   *

On the second floor of the Colchester house, Sam crouched beside the broad table they’d set up as a command post, which was cluttered with a bank of small closed-circuit TV screens, and trained her shotgun on the room’s door. Megaphoned shouts, diesel engines, people yelling all drowned out any sounds within the house that she might have been able to hear otherwise, lending credence to Joe’s caution that the noise and commotion were to disguise an assault on her position.

Periodically, she’d glance at the screens, but of the cameras aimed at the property perimeter, most revealed either a milling crowd or debilitating lens flaring as a result of the flashing strobe lights, exacerbated by falling snow. By contrast, the interior cameras showed nothing moving at all.

“Anything, people?” Joe asked over the open phone line.

“Like we wouldn’t tell you?” Sam recognized Willy’s blunt rejoinder.

She saw a firefighter, his features blocked by his helmet and its visor, walking away from the blaze and carrying an ax and a canvas bag. She almost dismissed him, until she considered his context: He had no hose in hand, wasn’t headed toward a lighting unit, a hydrant, or the fire, and didn’t seem attached to any squad or truck.

“Check out the firefighter at my northeast corner,” she recommended. “I can’t figure out what he’s doing.”

She did seconds later, when on another screen, she saw his outline at a back window, followed by the ax coming through the glass and a grenade-like, cylindrical object bouncing across the rug.

“He’s thrown something into the house,” she called out.

The subsequent explosion whited out the camera and shook the building. Sam ran to the door and threw it open to see a thick cloud boiling up the stairwell from the first floor.

She worked to keep her voice calm as she reported, “Stairs are blocked. Can’t tell if it’s a smoke grenade or an incendiary. Anyone see that firefighter?”

The exchange of replies almost jamming the line revealed only confusion. She did note with comfort, however, no reaction from Willy, who as usual had gone silent and was presumably hard at work. Backups and pre-plans were fine and necessary in these situations, but for Sam, there was no substitute for a Willy on the loose, her best interests foremost on his mind.

She stepped back inside the room and closed the door as the smoke began lapping up and over the landing’s top edge.

*   *   *

Joe stopped partway down the street, listening to the chatter on the phone. He could see the crash site ahead, the staged fire trucks and ambulances, and—as it happened—the bright flash of the explosion inside Sam’s supposed safe house, followed by smoke oozing out of its lower windows.

And, of course, the people. They were running, gawking, talking on radios, taking pictures, hauling fire equipment—firefighters, police officers, EMTs, and civilians. He even saw the driver of the red Focus being questioned by Colchester cops.

The possible goals of this chaos were simple enough: either to assault a legitimate safe house in order to grab Rachel Reiling, or throw a staged police trap into turmoil for the pure hell of it. With the latest addition of the bomb, Joe was seriously doubting the first. Whoever his opponents were, they had not fallen for the trap. This mess was their way of stating that.

There was pride at play here, and flagrant braggadocio.

And there was intention: to reverse the police plan, flush the cops out of hiding, and force them to save one of their own.

It was this aspect of the situation that drew most of Joe’s focus. He began watching for people dressed for the weather, acting with purpose, but perhaps not to any constructive end. Sammie’s identification of an ax-wielding firefighter wandering on his own was an example. Joe therefore forced himself not to think of her—she was being helped by others, after all—and to determine instead the exit strategy of his enemies.

If any of this reversal was to be of benefit to them, now was the time for at least somebody to step back and take note overall.

Which is why he noticed a car with its lights out—beyond the scattering of trucks and their tangle of fire hose—leaving the curb at the far end of the block and slowly retreating toward the scene’s rear exit.

Joe threw his own car into reverse, to head the other way.

*   *   *

Upstairs, Sammie was running the shower in the adjacent bathroom, soaking towels and herself in preparation for a worst-case scenario. She also ran to the room’s door and laid a long, drenched towel at its base, where smoke was beginning to trickle in. The air was as hot as a sauna’s.

“Sam,” she heard Tom Wilson update her. “The bomb was an incendiary. The fire department is working to get it out and extract you, but it’s stubborn and the fire’s right under you. They can’t get ladders in place till they knock that part down. How’re you doing?”

She was standing at the door of the bathroom when its window smashed open, accompanied by a blast of cold air and the face of Willy Kunkle.