The Detonator Page 11

  A dull pain settles in my stomach. I know she’s kidding around. But her words are hitting a little too close to home.

  She moves in close to me, her lips nearly touching mine. “You wouldn’t ever cheat on me, would you, Singer?”

  She waits for an answer.

  I feel myself tensing up.

  “Of course not,” I say. “Why would you even ask a question like that?”

  She raises up her hand, makes like a pair of scissors with two extended fingers.

  “Good, because you know what I’d do if you did.” She brings the fingers together. “Snip, snip. And then I’d take you for all your worth.”

  The dull pain now becomes a sharp one.

  “You don’t have to worry,” I say. “I’m not worth all that much now that Master Blasters is history.” But I’m putting on an act and I pray it doesn’t show on my face. “Henry’s okay?” I say, quickly changing the subject.

  “Yes. He’s in the den watching television.”

  I listen for the sound of SpongeBob SquarePants reruns. Or maybe a Batman cartoon. I hear the television, but I can’t make out what’s playing.

  Taking a step inside, I slowly approach the piano. I’m not entirely sure why, but I feel as if I’m walking into a minefield. That at any second, a blasting cap will be triggered and my leg will be blown off at the knee.

  “I called and called, El,” I say. “You never answered.”

  Her eyes go wide.

  “Oh my God,” she says, walking around me to the small catch-all table set by the front door. Snatching up her iPhone, she stares down at the screen. “Well, that explains that,” she adds. “It’s turned off.”

  “I received a picture of you and Henry, asleep.”

  She nods, while pressing the start button on the smartphone.

  “Alison’s phone was out of charge so she asked if she could use mine. She was nice enough to give us a ride home, so I thought, why not?”

  Alison. My overactive mind paints a picture of the dirty-blonde young woman sneaking around my house while my exhausted family slept.

  “You know, Singer,” Ellen goes on, “Alison really is a nice person. Hard to believe she’s Brian and Patty’s daughter. Now I feel really badly about not keeping in touch with them after all these years. But after what happened. That explosion down in New York. The way you were caught up in it. What he tried to do to you. I guess it was better to let it all go. Plus…”

  “Plus what?”

  “This is silly, I guess. But Patty has always had a thing for you. We both know that.”

  “I’ve always loved you.”

  “But you never made a nickname for me like you did Patty Cakes.”

  “There’s that,” I say, reminded of the whacked-out conversation I had with Patty in my head all the way from Worcester to the New York state border. “And then there’s something else you should know.”

  She just looks at me, perplexed.

  “Patty’s dead,” I say.

  Her eyes grow wide. She exhales, but doesn’t inhale.

  “How is that possible?” she says, genuine sadness tainting her voice. “I thought she had cancer and was in the process of dying, if that makes any sense. I don’t understand.”

  Shaking my head. “I thought she did too. But I did a little checking up and she’s already dead.”

  “Alison,” she says. “Why would she lie about a cancer? What would motivate her to make up something so horrible? It seems so totally out of character.”

  “I don’t know, El.” Touching the Miracle Ear hearing aid in my right ear. “Could be I didn’t hear her right.”

  She bites down on her bottom lip, like she’s processing this new development. “When did it happen?”

  “She died three years ago. Either I didn’t hear her right, or Alison wasn’t telling the truth.”

  “Those ears of yours.” She goes to the piano, sits down on the bench, eyes the keys, raises her hands like she wants to play something, but then decides against it, settling the palms of her hands on her thighs.

  “I know, they can’t be trusted. In any case, she died in a boiler explosion in her home. It was followed by a very bad fire. I guess we missed it in the papers.”

  “Oh, poor, poor Patty,” she says, slowly shaking her head in both disgust and sadness. “I never read the obits. You know that. Now I feel even worse for Alison. I should have said something. Patty and I were as close as friends can be at one time.”

  She looks out the big window on her left onto the darkness, as if seeing herself comforting Alison.

  “Why were you sleeping?” I say after a beat.

  She perks up at the question. “After we got home and brought our bags upstairs, Alison suggested a drink of some cold lemonade. She mixed it for us while we sat out on the porch and enjoyed the rest of the beautiful afternoon. After a little while, I got sleepy, and so did Henry, so we decided to take a nap.” Shaking her head, her smooth dark hair veiling her sweet face. “I never realized how much vacation can be exhausting.”

  Alison, mixing them some lemonade. Alison slipping them a mickey.

  “How long were you out?”

  “Believe it or not, about three full, restful hours.”

  “You never nap, El. Henry might nap a lot because of his condition, but I can’t imagine him not spending two or three hours playing Nintendo right off the bat after having been deprived of his fix all week.”

  “Crazy, I know, right? But there you have it.” She stands. “Course, now we’ll probably be up all night.”

  “Let’s hope not.”

  She fingers a couple of piano keys. Even standing she makes beautiful music. As she stares down at the keyboard, a sour grin now suddenly replaces the happy face.

  “For some reason,” she mumbles, “the C-minor key is sticking. Must be the humidity, or wear and tear. The piano is almost as old as I am.”

  I’m not sure why, but it strikes me as odd that she’s complaining about keys that stick. Maybe I’m being paranoid.

  “Listen,” she goes on, “have you eaten? Henry and I slept through dinner. We were thinking of ordering a pizza.”

  I glance at my watch. “It’s almost ten.”

  “It’s still summer.” She smiles, like vacation hasn’t ended. “’Sides, Smith’s Tavern is still delivering.”

  Smith’s is the only pizza joint that delivers in the mostly rural area. Otherwise, you have to call a joint in the city and that can take an hour and cost a fortune. I don’t make nearly the cash sniffing out bombs in Albany that I did shooting buildings.

  “I’m in if you’re in,” I say. Cocking my head over my shoulder. “I’ll go check on Henry.”

  But before all that, I head back into the kitchen, take a look around the brightly lit room, half expecting Alison to jump out of the closet. I go to the fridge, open it, grab a cold beer. Popping the tab, some of the foam oozes out the opening, drips onto my hand. I shift over to the sink, turn on the water, wash the foam from my hand. It’s then I notice the two drinking glasses set in the sink.

  Alison made Ellen and Henry lemonade. They then fell asleep for several hours. Just doesn’t sound right to me. It’s one thing to offer my family a ride home. But to then hang around and make lemonade, and at the same time, text me from Ellen’s phone. I stare down at the now empty glasses in the sink and my mind spins.

  A realization sinks in.

  I lift the glass out of the sink, run my finger around the interior, bring it to my nose. Nothing but the smell of lemons. But that doesn’t mean Alison didn’t purposely try to knock Ellen and Henry out while she did something inside the house. Maybe she searched the place. Stole something. Took pictures. Who knows what the hell she could be up to.

  The front doorbell rings. At the same time, the swinging door that separates the kit
chen from the TV room/den opens.

  “Hey, Dad, you’re home,” Henry says. Then, “Who’s that at the door?”

  “Pizza guy,” I say. But then, I’m not even sure Ellen has had time to order the pizza yet.

  “You stay here,” I say, pulling a steak knife from out of the drawer, sliding it into my back pocket.

  Heading out of the kitchen, I go to the front door.

  Chapter 25

  I breathe easy. Because the person at the door is not a stranger. It’s not Alison either. It’s Homicide Detective Nick Miller.

  “Hope I’m not interrupting,” he says, stepping into the vestibule.

  “You might have called first,” I say, feeling for the knife in my back jeans pocket. I pull it out.

  “Sorry to rattle the cage,” he says, not without a smile on his face. Looking at the knife. “Jesus, I didn’t think explosive junkies were that jumpy.”

  He’s wearing a blue blazer, white button-down, and a red-and-black-striped Repp tie, the ball knot of which is neatly tied. His slacks are tan, and his shoes are brown polished cordovans. If it weren’t ten at night, I’d say he was on his way to work.

  Ellen comes in. I hide the knife by inverting it in my hand, the blade now pressing against the interior of my forearm.

  “Hi, Nick,” she says, pleasantly. “You’re just in time for some pizza. Smith’s. The best.”

  “I’m not staying,” he says. “I was in the neighborhood, so thought I’d stop by and see Ike real quick now that your vacation is over.”

  Ellen does her best not to look cross-eyed at him. He’s a downtown homicide detective. Our farmhouse is located way out in the country. Not exactly in Miller’s neighborhood.

  “Well, if you change your mind,” she says, “the pizza will be here any minute.”

  She leaves us alone.

  “Get rid of that thing,” he once again insists, staring down at the hand that holds the knife. “You want, I can provide you with a service weapon. I can have someone drop it off for you. I seem to recall your having been approved for a carry/conceal permit.”

  My initial reaction is to deny the offer, because the first image that blasts through my brain is shoving the barrel of my semiautomatic into my mouth while sitting inside my truck in the Port of Albany. But under the very real and present dangerous circumstances what harm can having a piece to defend myself and my family do?

  “That would be good,” I say.

  He looks at me for a beat. Then, “I looked into that blown boiler at Patty Darling’s house back in 2012. It was quite the explosion. Quite the fire. As I was looking into it, it all started coming back to me. How unusual it is for a boiler to blow and for it to result in a fire.”

  “Arson?”

  “They didn’t find any problem with the scene. Investigation showed nothing unusual for an old boiler that built up too much pressure and blew its lid, literally.”

  “What about an autopsy?”

  “Body was pretty badly burned. The entire house went up. It was a natural gas boiler after all, and I’m told the line was severed. But from what the report says, death was consistent with the blunt force trauma from an explosion. Her bedroom was located directly above the boiler room. It took the full force of the mostly vertical explosion. Like it had been directed to blow that way. She died instantly.”

  In my head I see the Patty Darling I conjured up in my head while making the drive back to Albany. The cracked skull, the blood leaking from her nostril, the pink cotton T-shirt, the black panties, the mussed up dirty-blonde hair, the burnt-to-a-crisp skin.

  I pull the receipt from my pocket, hand it to him.

  “You might want to hang onto this, Nick. You ask me, Alison rigged some sort of timed fuse IED to the boiler that not only blew it sky high, but also ignited a bucket full of napalm. Stuff would have burned so hot when combined with a natural gas fire, there wouldn’t be much trace evidence of it left. Residue might have gotten picked up by the vacuum, the sifting kits or even the sifters. But they’d have to be looking for something out of the ordinary to notice anything other than a blown boiler and a resulting severed gas line, which is exactly what it looked like. This is small-time Albany after all. Not uptown Manhattan.”

  “You weren’t there, last I heard.”

  “Hey, all I know is she told me her mother was dying of cancer and now I find out she was killed in an explosion. Something’s not adding up with my former partner’s daughter.”

  “She’s mad. She’s angry over what happened to her mother and how badly it all turned out for her family. Once she gets it out of her system, you won’t hear from her again.”

  “That so. You believe that?”

  “She’s a successful young woman, Singer. A doctor of nano-thermites. She’s a professional, with contracts all over the country. Not a sadistic madwoman, Ike.”

  “So what are you saying, Nick?”

  “What I’m saying is, she doesn’t exactly fit the profile of a stalker bent on doing physical harm. It just doesn’t add up.”

  I nod. “Wish I could believe you.”

  A voice explodes over the radio stored inside Miller’s car. Something about the downtown Albany Wellington Hotel.

  “Jesus, they’re driving me nuts about that implosion tomorrow.”

  “Let’s hope it has nothing to do with homicide.”

  His eyes go wide. “Chief wants everyone on deck case anything goes wrong. You planning on being there?”

  “I’m technically working for arson. I’ll be on call.”

  He grins. “You wish it was Master Blasters taking down that building, don’t you?”

  “How’s that?”

  “You wish it was you blowing the Wellington. Or, what do you call it… Shooting.”

  “Had crossed my mind.”

  “One day, Singer,” he says. “One day you’ll get that license back. What happened to you all those years ago wasn’t your fault.”

  “Tell that to the judge who revoked my license. A dozen people were injured in a blast that occurred without warning. If we hadn’t had most people behind the exclusion zone already, there would have been deaths and I’d be doing fifteen to twenty for involuntary manslaughter. There’s a cut-rate demo guy in Philly doing twenty years for manslaughter after the tower he was taking down fell onto some innocent passersby.”

  “Life and death ain’t fair. You ask me your partner was trying to kill you.”

  His words are enough to make me become conscious of the big purple scar that runs the length of my back. Where a piece of hot steel cut me.

  “You know that. I know that. Maybe God knows that. But try convincing the judge.”

  Just then, two white headlights cut through the darkness of the long, tree-lined driveway. Someone pulling up. The car stops and a kid gets out, a pizza in hand.

  “Looks like your dinner has arrived,” Miller says. “I’ll take off.”

  “Okay,” I say, as the kid approaches the open door.

  “You order a pizza?” the skinny boy says to the detective.

  “Not me,” Miller says. “I was just leaving.”

  Making his way across the porch floor, the detective descends the steps. Before taking the gravel path back to his ride, he turns.

  “I won’t forget about sending over the you-know-what along with the proper paperwork.”

  He makes like a pistol with his right hand, brings his thumb down slow.

  “Thanks,” I say. Then, to the kid. “Pizza belongs to me.”

  I dig for some cash, hand him a twenty.

  “Keep the change,” I offer.

  He thanks me, takes off. That’s when something occurs to me. I set the pizza onto the small table that collects keys, cell phones, and sunglasses. I run back out onto the porch.

  “Nick,” I bark. “Hold
on.” Descending the steps, I go to the Suburban, open up the back, grab the damaged rim, carry it back to his unmarked cruiser. “Do me a favor,” I say, opening the back door, setting the rim inside. “Lay that on Pendergast’s desk, will you?” I say, referring to the young cop assigned to me in bomb squad. “Put a note on it asking him to have it tested for any foreign elements. There’s more where this came from, he needs it.”

  “What kind of foreign elements?”

  “Anything not already visible to the naked eye that shouldn’t be there.”

  He furrows his brow. “Thought you had a simple flat.”

  “Blowout, which the mechanic suggested wasn’t all that simple.”

  “I’ll see that it gets done.”

  I shut the door.

  “Sure you don’t want a slice for the road?” I say through the open window.

  “And risk getting sauce on my tie? Thought you knew me better than that. ’Sides, at my age, a chef salad and a plain yogurt will suffice for dinner.” Grinning. “Washed down with some Jack Daniel’s, of course.”

  I step back and away from the cruiser. He takes off, the gravel crunching under his wheels. I climb the steps back up to the house. For a time I stand out on the porch in the darkness, listening for anything unusual. Staring out onto the woods that take up the entire front perimeter of my property.

  Alison.

  Maybe she’s out there. Or maybe she’s not. The fact that I don’t hear anything other than crickets doesn’t mean something bad isn’t out there waiting for me. Waiting for me and Ellen and sweet old Henry.

  A quick glance over my shoulder. I imagine Patty seated on the porch swing, bleeding, smiling, rocking slowly fore and aft. Her head is cracked like an egg and the skin on the entire right half of her body is burnt and blackened to the bone. It makes my back teeth hurt just to look at her, and it breaks my heart knowing how beautiful she was in real life.

  “Hey, Ike baby, two starving people in here,” Ellen shouts.