The Detonator Read online

  “Two things,” I say. “First. I got a picture of you in a text just a little while ago. You were walking around the exterior of my house in the dark. It was sent from Ellen’s phone. When I called it back, nobody answered. I think Alison Darling is using it.”

  “That’s one,” he says. “And for two?”

  “Alison’s mother, Patty, isn’t dying of cancer. She’s dead already. The boiler blew in her house three years ago. It mashed up her brains pretty bad and it was also accompanied by a fire. You can look it up in the old Times Union newspaper archives. By time the fire was done with her, there wasn’t much Patty Darling left to pull evidence off of.”

  Miller, pausing for a beat. Digesting the information.

  “Why would Alison lie about that to you? Doesn’t make sense.”

  “She’s playing with me. It’s part of her game. Her stalking game.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Arrest her ass.”

  He laughs. “Jeez, I don’t mean to make light of the situation, Ike. I know you’re freaked out by her reappearance into your life and what it could mean for you and Ellen if she decides to spill some very overdone beans. But I can’t arrest her for what amounts to joking around.”

  “She wasn’t joking.”

  “You described her as a jokester when she was a kid. Always making up her own knock-knock jokes.”

  “That was then. She’s an adult now and she’s not so funny. There’s more.”

  “What is it?”

  I tell him about the receipt. About the items it contained and the date. I also tell him about what Alison told me about Patty being careless after Brian died. About her heavy drinking. Her drug use. Her manic depression.

  “Okay, that’s interesting I’ll admit. But I’m sure APD arson was all over the scene if there was a burn death related to the blown boiler. Tell you what, I’ll check the files and see what I can see.”

  “Napalm, or versions of it, burns very hot. It can destroy any evidence that would lead an expert to believe the boiler didn’t just blow on its own, that the fire accompanying it wasn’t the result of a busted gas line. Done right, it can erase its own trace evidence.”

  “Okay, pal, slow down,” he says. “Funny, but if I wanted to rig a boiler to blow and burn the house down along with it, I’d make it look like Patty got drunk and did it herself.”

  “That’s not the way Alison would do it. She’d want to control the situation. Create a work of art.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Trust me. I used to blow shit up for a living with her father. I’m going with my gut on this one.”

  “Like I said, I’ll look into it. So what’s next, pal?”

  “I’m coming home tonight.”

  “What’s the rush?”

  My temples flare. I like Miller, but he’s not grasping what I’m trying to tell him. That I consider Alison a direct existential threat not only to the state of my marriage, but to my family. Their physical safety.

  “I don’t like what’s happening with Alison. I don’t trust her.”

  “Listen, Ike, all kidding aside, if you feel there’s a real problem, I’ll make sure a squad car makes a pass every hour on the hour tonight. Hopefully it will be a quiet night and the chief can spare the car and support staff without pissing off the mayor and the city council. You have a long, hidden driveway, but they’ll do their best. When will you be back?”

  “Couple hours give or take.”

  “Okay, give me a ring when you get in,” he says. Then, “Oh, and Ike.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Knock knock.”

  Is he fucking kidding?

  “Who’s there?”

  “Cargo.”

  “Cargo who?”

  “Cargo beep beep.”

  He laughs.

  I hang up.

  Chapter 23

  Before Tian can release the vehicle, I’m forced to hit up two separate ATMs to hand over one grand in cash, just to cover the grease monkey for his troubles. The pretty green doesn’t cover the cost of the repair either, including the new tire, the new rim, the brake drum, the calipers, the pads, and the labor associated with putting it all together. That’s another twenty-two hundred, which I slap onto my Amex.

  “Pretty steep,” I say.

  “Price of doing business after hours,” Tian says. “Plus, take into account I’ve missed five innings of the Red Sox-Spankmes game.”

  He grins a crooked gray-toothed smile. Like he’s baiting me, the New Yorker.

  “Luckily I don’t give a fuck about baseball, Tian, or is it Christian?”

  “Just Tian,” he says. Then, slapping me on the arm. “Just jokin’ with ya.”

  I pay him, snatch my keys from his hand, cross the lot to the now repaired Suburban.

  That was an hour ago.

  Now, as I approach the New York state border I try dialing Ellen’s cell for what has to be the twelfth time since I started the nighttime drive. But all I get is the message service.

  The road passes under my wheels. Maybe it’s my imagination getting the best of me, but I can’t help but see my family dead. Slaughtered by a young woman who wants revenge for something that happened when she was a girl. Something that occurred in the span of one single night, and that led to a whole lot of bad nights and days for her, her mother, and her father. A night that I’ve come to regret with all my heart. But a night that has yet to escape me.

  Maybe I should have at least kept in touch with Patty after the night in the motel room. Maybe I should have called her when her husband died, acknowledged her when they buried him. Certainly I saw her at the funeral. But I was too beat up myself for us to say much of anything to one another. I was in a wheelchair, my back bandaged and braced, my hearing all but gone while my eardrums began their long healing process.

  But I wanted to keep my distance from her. A distance matched by my shame for what I’d done with her two months prior, knowing that all I wanted was escape from Henry’s condition. Instead of running from her, I should have found a way to approach her at the funeral, apologize for catching her at a time when she was most vulnerable, as her marriage with Brian was unraveling.

  The past can’t be undone. Once the implosion sequence starts, the stages commenced, there’s no going back.

  But that’s not right either. Because what if I had been able to speak with her? What the hell would she have said to me as she witnessed Brian’s dark brown casket being lowered into the earth on a cold, wet day?

  Oh, it’s okay, Ike. No harm done.

  Go ahead, Ike, say it. Say the truth. Patty, casually speaking inside my head while I drive. Her imagined voice comes to me so clearly, it’s almost like she’s seated right beside me. Like sixteen years haven’t gone by since I last laid eyes on her. You took advantage of me. You wanted escape and you wanted your own particular brand of revenge not only against Ellen for bearing a child like Henry, but also against God for allowing the boy to be born with a disease that would cripple him and render him a slow death over a period of two decades.

  But then, it wasn’t God’s fault any more than it was Ellen’s. Any more than it was yours. Bad luck happens and that’s all it was. Ruining my life and the life of my daughter was no way to make it right in the eyes of the world and heaven above. I was in love with you, Ike. Had been from a distance for a long time. You knew I loved you from as far back as college. You saw it in my eyes when I’d come up to the dorm room to visit your best friend, Brian. Or when we’d all go out for beers. Or when we’d hit up a basketball game. I always found a reason to sit next to you, to press up against you, to set my hand close to yours.

  “I remember,” I whisper inside my head. “It was awkward because Ellen was with me. But then, I guess I kind of liked it too. Isn’t that right, Patty Cakes?”
<
br />   Patty Cakes…Oh my God, do you know how long it’s been since you called me that? Truth is, I think it used to make Ellen and Brian a little jealous when you’d say it. Tell me, Ike, do you remember that one Saturday in the fall of our senior year when the four of us got together for a long, lazy lunch? We drank all the beer in the fridge and then drew straws to see who would make the very necessary beer and cigarette run. You drew the shortest straw and sure enough, as if it were scripted that way, I volunteered to ride shotgun with you. I didn’t think it was fair you had to go all by your lonesome, after all.

  This was around the time that Ellen and you had decided to spend your lives together. At the same time, she was getting suspicious of my crush. As for Brian, he was oblivious, his world revolving around beer and football. But we weren’t parked in the liquor store parking lot inside your old blue Chevy three-on-the-tree pickup for more than a few seconds before I pressed my body up against yours.

  You were attracted to me and you knew it. Your Patty Cakes. No, that’s not right. Let’s call a spade a spade. You were very attracted to me. But I was still Brian’s girl and you were Ellen’s guy and right was right.

  You kissed me then. But the kiss was meant as a friendly kiss. When you shook your head no, you didn’t have to say another word. I backed off like a good girl should.

  But when we finally got back to the campus apartment with the beer and cigarettes, Ellen could see the truth painted on your face as plain as the sun shining down on the golden-leaved trees on that brilliant New England fall afternoon. She could see it on my face too, I’m sure. Something happened between us. What exactly happened, she had no idea and surely did not want to jump to any conclusions. She never said a word about it for the rest of the afternoon and evening. But that night when you were tucked in bed together, she spoke her mind. Didn’t she?

  “If you ever fuck her,” she whispered in your ear, “I will leave you. Do you understand me?”

  “How do you know what she said? You weren’t there.”

  You see, I know these things now because I’m dead. It’s one of the perks of being a ghostly figment of your imagination. I can gain unfettered access to your thoughts. Your memories. Good and bad.

  Ellen’s words frightened you that night because deep down in your heart of hearts, you loved Ellen more than anything on God’s earth. Did it matter that you’d popped the question and she’d already said yes? That you’d already bought the ring with the paltry savings you managed to scrape up? That her well-to-do father was willing to fund your business with Brian? Yes, but what really mattered was this: to lose her over me or anyone else, was to lose everything.

  So yes, it’s true. You knew how much I still loved you when we got together at that bar back in 1999, and you took advantage of that love at a time when you needed an escape the most. Now look at the mess you’ve created for yourself, and your family. Vengeance doesn’t know time. It only knows violence. It only knows explosiveness.

  Driving. Not aware of the road speeding under me. Tears filling my eyes.

  I wipe them from my cheeks with the back of my hand.

  “I don’t know what I’d do without you Ellen…Henry…You make me complete.” I say this aloud and it makes me feel odd. Bad. Like the thought on its own isn’t enough to convince myself. But I want to say it aloud because I want Patty to hear it. If she can hear it in heaven or where ever it is her soul has ended up.

  Really? says Patty’s voice once more in my brain.

  For a fraction of a moment, I imagine her buckled into the empty shotgun seat. I shoot a glance over my right shoulder, see her sitting there. Patty, wearing a pink T-shirt and a pair of black panties, like she wore on the night we last saw one another. Only, she doesn’t look like she did back then. Now there’s a bead of blood running down her forehead, dripping off her eyelids, onto her cheek. Half her body is badly burned. Blackened. The skin charred and disintegrated. So badly, the bones on her rib cage are visible.

  You really expect me to believe you’re sorry for what happened to me after you used me and hung me out to dry?

  “You’re not real,” I whisper quietly. “I just have a vivid imagination sometimes. Especially when I drive. Alone.”

  Well, imagine this, lover boy. Imagine a man tenderly making love to me all night. Telling me at least three times how much he has always loved me, but was afraid to say it. Knowing how much it would hurt my husband. How much it could hurt me, my child. How much he loved me, even in college. Even when we parked outside that liquor store, how much you wanted to pull down my panties and fuck me there and then. But you couldn’t. You wouldn’t hurt Ellen like that. But it was all bullshit, wasn’t it?

  “Takes two to tango, Patty Cakes,” I whisper. But this doesn’t seem to make me feel any better. “You asked me for a drink on that night in ’99. Not the other way around.”

  I’m still imagining her sitting beside me, riding with me along the long stretch of Massachusetts Turnpike. A second stream of blood is running over her other eye, the split in her forehead from the boiler explosion more visible in the overhead highway LED lanterns.

  You refused to wear a condom that night, Ike. That turned out to be a bad decision. But what was worse was refusing to answer my calls. Refusing to call me back. Even when you knew Brian and I split up for good. You know I left him for you. I guess I thought that if I made the move, you would come to me, and we would finally be together. And then, when he blew himself up and I was left behind to bury the body parts, you made sure as hell you occupied one end of the cemetery and I the other. Let me guess, you were shitting yourself in that wheelchair, praying to God above I didn’t blow your cover to Ellen.

  “I loved…love…my wife. I’m sorry for what happened. I’m not proud of it. But it happened. Now I have to move on from it.”

  Like Brian moved on? Like I moved on? Like Alison moved on? Like our unborn child moved on?

  “What the hell do you mean?” I’m shouting. Shouting aloud like Patty is truly seated beside me.

  What I mean is, this: How do you know we didn’t make a baby inside that motel, Ike? A baby boy, perhaps. A boy who might have turned out to be happy and healthy, with a long life ahead. Unlike poor Henry, whose days are numbered.

  “Now you’re just fucking with me. Fucking with my head. You never got pregnant. That’s impossible.”

  You know what is impossible, Ike?

  “This conversation.”

  Okay, maybe this conversation is all made up. A figment of one man’s never-ending guilty conscience. But what isn’t made up is this: A big boom is in your near future.

  I shake my head, make a fist, punch the empty passenger’s side seatback.

  “Turn your brain off, Ike,” I say. “Turn it off now.”

  Up head, a big green road sign. Welcome to New York State, it reads. A second smaller sign appears immediately after. It reads, Albany, 22 miles. Slowly, I twist my neck, catch a quick glance of the shotgun seat. Of course, it’s empty. But that doesn’t mean she’s not still there embedded inside my brain like the memory of an imploded building down in Alphabet City.

  “Fuck you, Patty Cakes,” I say. “And fuck me too.”

  Chapter 24

  At half past nine o’clock I make the turn onto the country road that takes me to my farmhouse. It’s located on a patch of five acres surrounded by an old apple orchard, the far eastern perimeter of which consists of a two-hundred-foot-high cliff wall that’s a part of the one-thousand-acre Thatcher State Park. In other words, I live out in the sticks, even if those sticks happen to be located within Albany County.

  I pull into the gravel driveway, drive the quarter-mile length lined with tall pines on both sides. Avenue of the Pines Ellen calls it. Until the trees open up onto a large front and back lawn, a white clapboard two-level farmhouse taking up the center space.

  I park outside a red barn
that we use mostly for housing our vehicles and some lawn cutting equipment. Hopping out of the Suburban, I go to the back door off the kitchen and head inside.

  “Ellen!” I shout. “Henry!”

  My spirits lift and a shockwave of relief washes over me when I hear the piano playing.

  I head into the music room, just beyond the kitchen and off a center corridor that leads to the front door and a staircase accessing the second floor. At the far end of the room, beyond the stone fireplace, is a baby grand piano that Ellen has owned since she was a teenager growing up in West Albany.

  Watching her, oblivious to my presence at the opposite end of the big, open room, I wish I had never strayed from her for even one night. Her long dark hair beautifully draped against her narrow shoulders, the smooth skin on her neck and chest visible beneath her summer-weight dress, a simple chain supporting a small silver angel set against it, I want nothing more than to crawl inside her body and snuggle up against her heart. But I know that if she ever found out the truth about Patty and me, the likely outcome would be too ugly to contemplate, too painful to visualize. That in mind, I have to do my best to shield her from it.

  Shield us.

  Ellen, Henry, and me.

  Suddenly, as if now sensing my presence, she looks up at me, her brown eyes filled with surprise and wonder.

  She lifts her hands from the keyboard.

  “What are you doing home?” she says. Then, realizing what she just said, she laughs. “Well, that didn’t sound too entirely gracious, now did it?”

  I press my lips together. Smile.

  “Let me start again,” she says. “To what do I owe the distinct pleasure of having my friend, husband, and lover home a day earlier than expected?”

  “Turns out all I had to do was pay just a little extra for Sunday evening service.”

  “How much extra?” she says, cynicism in her tone.

  Raising my right hand, I extend index finger and thumb, create a narrow space between the finger pads.

  “Just a teensy bit.”

  “I’ll bet,” she says. “Thank God my boyfriend didn’t come over tonight.” Again she laughs, because of course it’s a big joke…her having a boyfriend on the sly. “Or, hey, wait just one minute. Maybe it’s your girlfriend who didn’t show up?”