Roast Mortem (32 page)

“Don't worry about it,” he said, picking up his pint. “Thanks for the beer.”

As Ryan moved toward the bar, Val sat back down and leaned across the table. “Josie Fairfield and the captain were supposed to be married. Did you know that?”

I arched an eyebrow. “The leader of the wolf pack was ready to tie the knot? When was this exactly?”

“Oh, like ten years ago,” Val said. “Josie broke it off with the captain just a few months after 9/11. According to Ed Schott, she just didn't want to deal with the captain's grief. Six months later she was hooked up with a much older guy who had
a lot
more money and a lot less baggage, the head of Fairfield Equipment—”

“And now that her husband is dead, she has her freedom and her money, so—”

“She wants her first love back. It's a very old song.” Val tipped her head toward the bar. “Only it looks like Michael Quinn's not in the mood to be played.”

“NO!
YOU'RE
NOT LISTENING!”

Val and I froze, along with every other patron in the pub. Josie Fairfield finally lost it. She was now shouting at the top of her lungs.

Oh God, poor Michael—and poor Ryan.
He stood right behind his boss, trying to talk sense into her ear, but she'd belted back too much booze. Her arm windmilled crazily, trying to wave him away.

“NO! I WANT TO KNOW—WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO? START
ANOTHER
FIRE?”

I blanched, looked to Val.
What did that mean?

Val mouthed something, but I didn't understand her. Then we watched Michael rise from the bar, take Josie by the elbow, and calmly escort her to the pub's front door. He caught my eye as he past our booth, but I couldn't read him.

Ryan trailed behind the two. He also made fleeting eye contact with us and, brother, did he look miserable.

“What a job that guy has,” Val said when they were gone. “Now I really need a smoke. You want to come?”

“Sure.”

We crossed the crowded room and stepped out the back door, leaving the warm, golden light for the dark, quiet patio. The hulking outline of a large Dumpster sat a few yards away, but the prevailing smell on this dim square of concrete was stale tar. A carpet of butts had been crushed into the ground below my low-heeled boots, and I considered for a moment the hundreds of conversations (drunken and sober) that must have preceded those ends.

A laughing couple rose from a weathered, wrought iron bench, nodding a greeting as they headed inside.

Now Val and I were alone.

She dug into her bag, put a cig between her lips, and snapped her disposable lighter three times. When the tricolored flame kissed the cylinder's tip, she glanced my way.

“Want one?”

I was running on a serious caffeine deficit, so I was sorely tempted. But I'd given up nicotine once in my life, and (like my addiction to a certain ex-husband) I had no intention of fighting that battle again. I thanked her for the offer then said, “So tell me. What did Mrs. Fairfield mean when she shouted that stuff about—”

“Starting
another
fire?”

I nodded.

Val moved to the wrought iron bench and sat down, took long silent drags. “Oh, man, I needed that.”

I pulled up a battered garden chair, checked for beer spills, and sat down opposite her. The metal was freezing and the cold seeped through my blue jeans to the backs of my thighs. I ignored it, along with an increasingly edgy feeling that I simply attributed to a creeping jonesing for my own drug of choice.

“So?” I pressed. “Josie Fairfield is an
arsonist
?”

“I always thought that story was just a story. Guess we know the truth—I mean, given her little drunken confession in there. But it's not unheard of, right?”

“What?”

“Come on, Clare, haven't you heard of that game the occasional
whacked-out
New York female plays? Setting a fire to meet a fireman?”

“You've got to be kidding.”

Val released a delicate but toxic plume of white into the black night. “James says it probably happens a few times a year.”

“And that's how Mrs. Fairfield met Michael?”

“They met when her apartment's kitchen caught fire. That's all I knew . . . before tonight, I mean—”

A muffled ring tone sounded in Val's bag:
You spin me right round, baby, right round . . .

Val instantly brightened. She hastily dug into her handbag again then silenced the tinny eighties tune as she brought the phone to her ear.

“Hey, what's up?”

As Val chatted, I noticed she was careful not to say the name of the caller. It didn't matter. I already knew she'd set that ring tone for one very special friend.

“Hold on a second,” she told Dean Tassos and turned to me. “I'm going to take this in the ladies'. Then I'm heading home. Would you give me a ride, Clare? James obviously isn't showing.”

“Of course.”

With unexpected relief I watched the shapely outline of Valerie's suit move into the glow of the open doorway. My wool sweater wasn't thick enough for the March night, but I liked the solitude of this smokers' patio so I folded my arms close, leaned back in the battered metal chair, and closed my eyes.

Inside the crowded pub, the band was starting up again. I had no desire to join the party. So much had happened tonight, let alone in the past ten days, that I just wanted a few minutes peace. Too bad I never got it.

“Hello, Clare.”

My eyes immediately opened. A wide-shouldered silhouette loomed in the doorway, blocking most of the pub's golden light. Shifting shadows veiled the giant's face but not his identity.

“Hello, Michael.”

“I
hadn't pegged you for a smoker.”

“I'm not. I was just leaving.” I rose from the chair.

“Don't go. I want to talk to you.”

“I don't think that's such a great idea.”

“Why not? Is my cousin around? I didn't see him.”

“He had to work.”

“When doesn't he?”

“Like I said, I should go—”

Michael folded his arms, leaned against the doorframe, effectively blocking my exit.

The closer I stepped toward the man, the more he came out of shadow. His pasty complexion appeared to have more color now, flushed from drink or that little drama queen act with Josie or both.

“That was quite a scene in there,” I said.

Michael shrugged. “Josie can't take no for answer. She never could.”

“You have zero interest in her, I take it?”

“Let's just say the woman's well-cushioned life hasn't brought out the best in her character.”

“I see. Well, I should go back inside . . .” I tried to step around him.

“I saw you at Bigsie's funeral,” he said. “It was nice, you comin'. I'm sorry I didn't have a chance to say hello to you at the church.”

“You were comforting the man's family. I'm the one who's sorry. I'm sorry for your loss . . .”

He gestured to the empty bench. “Won't you sit down with me? Just for a minute?”

I glanced over his shoulder into the crowded pub. “Val's coming back.”

I folded my arms. “What's the matter, dove?” His crow's feet crinkled. “You think I'd stoop to ravishin' you in a bar's back alley?”

“When anything involves you, Michael, I don't know what to think.”

“You can trust me.” He crossed his heart with two fingers—the good Boy Scout. “Promise.”

“I don't know. Seems to me your promises leave something to be desired.”

“Maybe they do. But I need to talk to you about something important . . . About the way Bigs died.”

Okay, that I didn't expect.
“What can you tell me?”

He leaned down, his breath heavy with the smell of alcohol. “He was murdered.”

“That's what James said.”

Michael straightened. “James shouldn't have shot off his mouth.”

“Please,” I whispered, “talk to me. Who's responsible?”

“It's complicated . . .”

Somewhere over our heads, an unsettling thunder began. The Number 7 line was just a block away from where we stood. In midtown Manhattan the tracks were buried deep underground, but here in Queens, the subway train was elevated, periodically roaring over neighborhood streets, making quiet talk impossible. (Then again, in my experience, whenever
any
previously buried thing was brought out into the open, polite talk became impossible.)

The captain untangled his arms as he moved around me. With unsteady steps, he went to the bench, sunk heavily down. When the deafening noise finally died out, he spoke again.

“I got the evidence today, put it in a package addressed to you.”

“Me?” I sat down next to him on the bench.

“I would have sent the thing to Mike, but one look at the return address and he'd surely toss it in the bin. I want you to give the package to my cousin, explain why it's important. You'll know once you look it over. Mike will listen to you. And after you're done convincin' him, you two call me and we can get this whole thing handled right.”

“You want Mike's help?”

“Mikey and I have had our differences. But I know he's a good cop. To a
fault
maybe, but he's still my blood—and he's the only government official in this town I trust.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Never let the fire get behind you, darlin', that's what it means.”

“English?”

“I can't give the evidence to any of the brass above me. Someone may have been paid off. There's no way I can know . . .”

“What's in the package? Can't you tell me?”

“Not here. Not now.” He glanced at the doorway again. Shadows moved past, but none materialized. “I shouldn't even be talkin' to you. But I noticed you came here alone tonight. And you were lookin' my way an awful lot this evening . . . and I thought maybe . . .”

His eyes held mine. As I waited for him to complete his sentence, an icy breeze touched my hair. I tried not to shiver. “Well?”

“I thought maybe you were havin' second thoughts about my offer.”

“You mean Atlantic City?”

“I mean me, Clare. You and me.”

Oh brother.
“There is no you and me. Is there even a package? Or are you playing me again?”

“What I told you in my office, Clare, that was true. I've never met a woman quite like you.”

“Stop it. You're still trying to get back at Mike.”

“Not this time.”

“Listen to me: I've got your number. Mike told me the truth about what happened with your little brother, Kevin. The
whole
truth. You left out enough of the story to make Mike look like a cold-hearted monster. You told me that story to make me doubt him.”

“Can you blame me?”

“Yes! I know you've been through terrible things in your life, Michael, terrible things . . . and I'm sorry for that. But it doesn't excuse your treatment of your cousin.”

“My little brother would have been my brother in the FDNY if it wasn't for my cousin—”

“Mike had nothing to do with what happened to Kevin! Don't you get it?”

“Get what?”

“Your little brother self-destructed right before he was supposed to enter the fire academy because he was afraid.”

“Afraid? Of who?”

“Of you, Michael. I'm a mother! I know!”

He just gawked at me, looking confused.

I sighed. To me it was clear as sunlit glass. Kevin and Lucia had been on the very same unhappy ride, driven by father figures who wanted them to be something they just didn't want to be.

“Kevin didn't want to join the FDNY, but he didn't want to risk your disappointment. He was terrified you'd turn your back on him. So he screwed up royally by driving drunk. He blamed the police, Mike, anyone but himself—and you bought right into it.”

“If my little brother had come to me, told me how he felt, I would have understood. I'd never turn my back on my own flesh and blood.”

“You turned on your own cousin, didn't you? You've been treating Mike like the enemy, but he isn't. All you did for all these years was twist the real story until it fit into a bogus ‘truth' you could live with.”

Michael blinked. He suddenly looked less sure of himself. I could only hope it was because a thin wedge of insight was finally penetrating his thick cranium.

“Come on. Don't you think it's time that you two buried the hatchet?”

“Aw, darlin' . . .” He exhaled hard, rubbed the back of his neck. “There's too much bad blood between us. Years of it. Too much we did to each other. I'd like to be on level ground with my cousin again . . . I would. But Mike won't want to bury the hatchet with me—not unless it's in my skull.”

“How can you say that?”

“You don't know everything.” He parted his lips, pointed. “You see this gold tooth? That was Mike's right hook . . .”

“What don't I know? Tell me.”

“No . . .” He held my eyes. “You tell me. Tell me why you're still sitting here now, talking to me . . . You must feel what's between us, Clare, because I can feel it . . .”

I began to answer, but somewhere above, the Number 7 train was approaching again, the insistent machinery growing louder, drowning out my words.

Michael leaned closer, his breath so saturated with whiskey I could almost feel the burn of the shot. Before I knew what was happening, the man's iron band of an arm was behind my back, crushing me close.