Pump Fake

by Michael Beck

  "It says here that the police suspect Cupid has killed multiple times and are investigating several other cases that might be linked to him. The police believe that the murder might be linked to the organ-theft trade."

  "They're wasting their time."

  "Why? It does seem logical. It says a heart on the black-market could go for upwards of two hundred thousand dollars."

  "I'm sure it would. But this person isn't killing for money. Why are the victims half naked? Why are they always on the floor? And if it is part of the organ-theft trade why didn't he take my mom's? Or Jade's, for that matter? No, this is something else. Something far more evil than killing for money."

  "He enjoys it."

  "Why do you say that?" I said, surprised at hearing my own thoughts come back to me.

  "The frenzy in which your mother was killed. The way in which he knocks the victim out before killing them. He enjoys taking his time. I've always wondered why he spared Jade? For someone who loves killing so much it strikes me as odd."

  I'd always wondered that myself. Cupid was a bloodthirsty, merciless killing machine, yet he had spared my helpless six-year-old sister. However, since we found the container of gas at the Abrahams crime scene my thoughts had back-flipped.

  "He didn't spare Jade," I said. "She was meant to die when he torched the house."

  There was a big bang on the side of the Winnebago and Acilino stuck his head in the doorway. "Mole says to come over."

  I found Mole where he always was. Francine, as usual, was trying to kill me with second hand smoke. Today she was watching old re-runs of Magnum PI.

  "Some people say I bear a striking resemblance to a young Tom Selleck," I commented modestly. Well, okay, those people might have been just the one. And the one may have been a drunken hooker, but I really believe she was sincere.

  "I did a search of all fire deaths in the New York area over the past fourteen years," said Mole.

  "How many?"

  "One thousand two hundred and thirty."

  "What?"

  "Think about it. You have bush fires, house fires, car fires, boat fires. The list is endless. So I added in some parameters to narrow it down. I checked only deaths where the victim was a male between the ages of thirty and fifty-five, where the crime scene was within a twenty mile radius of your parents' home and where the cause of the fire was ambiguous. I also ruled out all deaths by asphyxiation. I only examined cases where the victims were burnt beyond recognition and that occurred around two years apart, starting from 1998. That narrowed it down considerably."

  "How many?"

  "Ten. Here are the addresses."

  * * * *

  I went to the address that was closest to my parents' home. It was a small but new single-family home in Queens, having been rebuilt after a fire two years ago. The lawn needed mowing and the picket fence had a pronounced lean. A middle-aged woman, with dark hair and deep lines around the corners of her mouth, sat on a swing-seat on the front porch, watching a young girl play on a tire swing in the front yard.

  "Can I help you?" she asked, as I walked up the path to the porch. There were half empty bottles of cheap whisky and rum on the ground next to her. She was oblivious to whisky sloshing out of her glass on to her t-shirt. She was half, if not fully, smashed.

  "Sorry to intrude, Mrs. Haynes. I'm Mark Hugo with the New York City Fire Department. We're reviewing the safety procedures we advise residents to follow with a view to reducing home fires." I showed her the ID that Mole had given me. "I know this is a sensitive issue and you have recently suffered a great loss but could you answer a few questions about the cause of the fire? Any information is confidential and anonymous."

  "Hello, Mr. Hugo, call me Adelle. And it's Jenkins now. I dropped the Haynes after my husband went up like a Fourth of July firecracker two years ago."

  "Oh...right."

  "That's a great name you have their, Mr. Hugo. I loved reading your poems and books at school. But lately I'm sorry to say I think your romantic stuff is shit. 'It is better to have loved and lost, than not loved at all.' That is complete bullshit. Excuse me for being rude but you lied."

  "How's that?"

  "Life isn't great and grand. Life sucks. How come you never put that in a poem?"

  "Believe me, if I wrote one now, that's exactly what you would get."

  She raised her glass to me. "Well here's to you then. Oh, I forgot my manners. Care for a drink? It's cheap and nasty and will probably give you stomach ulcers but it will sure take the edge off."

  "Sure." Number one rule of detecting. Never say no to food, cigarettes or drink when extracting information.

  Adelle poured whisky into a glass and handed it to me. "So how can I help you, Mr. Hugo?"

  "I wonder if you can tell me something about how the fire started. I have it listed as a possible electric fault."

  Adelle considered me as she drank at least half the contents of her glass. The woman had a steel stomach.

  "So this is anonymous? It doesn't get reported?"

  "Adelle, anything you tell me will stay between us."

  Adelle drank deeply again while she watched the little girl on the swing. The girl was pretty, with long dark hair. She laughed each time the swing reached its apex. It was hard to believe that this tired, defeated woman had once been a carefree kid, just like her daughter. Like she said, life was shit.

  She looked at me with empty eyes. "You're wasting your time here."

  "What do you mean?"

  "He didn't die because of any fire safety reason."

  "Why then?"

  She was silent so long I thought she wasn't going to answer. "He hurt my girl."

  My eyes turned to the sweet girl soaring on the swing.

  "Do you believe in God, Mr. Hugo?" she said.

  "No."

  She nodded and drank deeply again. "Neither do I anymore. Too many bad things happen in this world to believe in a God, don't you think?"

  "Far too many," I agreed.

  "But we might be wrong. Perhaps God caused the fire that killed my husband because he knew what he had done was beyond forgiveness. Perhaps it was God's hand that started the fire?"

  "Some people think that God might even need a helping hand now and then," I said, looking pointedly at the lighter sitting on a packet of cigarettes next to her chair. She followed my glance, reached down and took a cigarette from the pack.

  "I wouldn't know anything about that." She lit her cigarette, and gazed at me expressionlessly.

  We both sat and watched the girl swing for a while. I threw back my whisky without even noticing and stood up.

  "Thanks for the drink, Adelle. Good luck. Oh, I wouldn't mention this again to anyone if I was you. You understand?"

  She nodded abstractedly, still watching her daughter. As I opened the gate she called, out. "Hey! You want to hear something funny?"

  "Sure."

  "I still loved him. Even after what he did, I still loved him. Funny, eh?"

  I nodded. "Yeah, funny."

  * * * *

  The second address was in New Rochelle, only ten minutes from the Bronx. A forty-year-old childless man burnt to death at home while his wife was away visiting relatives. This was as much fun as doing dental surgery on myself.

  I rang the doorbell on a two-story white stucco house set on an acre that had to be worth at least four times my parents' house value. Half a dozen cars were parked out the front, along with a truck with Lenny's Pools printed on it. A Bobcat was excavating a huge hole in the wet ground. I turned away and tried to ignore it. The smell of freshly turned earth always reminded me of death.

  Mrs. Buckley was about forty-five, had a frozen Botox face and, like Adele Haynes, held a drink in her hand. All similarities, however, ended there. Mrs. Buckley was laughing and appeared to have not a care in the world. I could hear music and laughter in the background. Mrs. Buckley was having a party. Mr. Buckley died three months ago. The grieving widow.

  "Deliveries a
round the back, sweetie."

  I gave her the same spiel I gave Adelle Haynes, without the sensitivity. I didn't think Mrs. Buckley was exactly struggling to come to terms with her husband's death. The only struggle here was whether to go with a thirty or twenty foot pool.

  "It must have been a shock when he died?" I said after introducing myself.

  "You have no idea, Honey. Who would have thought that old miser would have a million dollar insurance policy? You could have knocked me over with a feather."

  This was not exactly what I meant but at least I now knew where Mrs. Buckley was coming from.

  "The police never determined the cause of the fire?"

  "No, but you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to work this one out. I kept telling that old fool to give up the cigarettes or they would put him in an early grave." She laughed. "I had no idea it would be this soon though. If he fell asleep once with a cigarette in his hand, he did it a hundred times. I was just lucky I wasn't at home at the time or the old coot would have killed me too. Lucky me, eh? Would you like to come in to the party?"

  "Ah...no thanks. Was there an autopsy, Mrs. Buckley?"

  "He was burnt to a crisp. It wasn't exactly a mystery why he died."

  "Do you know if he was missing anything?"

  "Missing something? What do you mean? Like his wallet?" She studied me, perplexed.

  "No." I moved uncomfortably. "Some part of him."

  She looked at me askance.

  "Well, all of his hair and skin were gone. Does that do it for you?"

  "Nothing internal?"

  "Mister, what the hell are you on about?"

  "Did he have any heart problems?"

  "The only heart problem he had was that his heart was made of stone. You've never met a more solitary, grumpy, morose individual. Now, young-man-with-these-creepy-questions-that-are-starting-to-freak-me-out, I have a party to attend to." She paused as she was shutting the door. "Look for another line of work, young man. I don't think you're cut out for this."

  The door closed in my face.

  * * * *

  The third place was a small but well-kept home. Like the first house I had visited, it too was located in Queens. The lawn was neatly cut and the bushes trimmed. The gutters, however, were beginning to rust and the weatherboards were beginning to peel. I was struck by the similarities with the Hayne's house; both were missing a man's touch. Geoff Symonds died two years ago from a house fire. He left a wife and three kids. Two bikes sat in front of a red '84 Ford station wagon. It had been washed recently but the paintwork was faded and the tires worn.

  Bikes. Great. Kids.

  I could see it now. Excuse me, Mrs. Symonds. Don't stop, keep feeding the kids. Oh, by the way, can you tell me when your husband was incinerated, did you notice if he was missing his heart?

  This job had big, hairy balls.

  A slim, pleasant looking, thirty-something woman answered the door. Her hands were covered in flour and she had a white smudge on her cheek.

  "Yes?"

  "Mrs. Symonds?"

  "Yes, can I help you?"

  "I'm Mark Turner from Good Food Stores where your husband worked. I'm the union rep and I'm just paying a courtesy visit to see if everything is going okay with you and your family?"

  "Oh." Her lip trembled as she smiled. "Come in, Mr. Turner."

  "Call me Mark."

  "I'm Karen. Have a seat."

  The living room had a cheap vinyl couch, two threadbare chairs and a small TV. Two boys lay on the floor playing with toy soldiers. One of the boys was completely bald. The house was cheap and run down but as clean as a marine barracks before inspection. The house screamed poor, but someone sure as hell cared.

  "I'm sorry, Mark, should I know you? Did you work with Geoff?" Karen asked, as she wiped her hands on a towel.

  "No. I started after Geoff's death so we never met. But I felt I should call sometime to see how you were doing."

  "We're getting by," she said simply.

  Looking around at the boys playing happily on the worn but recently vacuumed carpet, I could see they were. I liked this woman. The last thing she needed was me picking at old wounds but I had to know. "It must have been a huge blow to you and the family?" I ventured.

  A cloud went over her face as she watched her boys playing. "You have no idea. Their father was everything to them. To me too."

  "He was a good father," I said. It wasn't a question.

  "He loved being a dad. He took the boys camping and fishing every chance he could get. He was a good man. Every summer he gave up a week of his holidays to be a leader at Camp Neon. It's a camp for disadvantaged city boys. He liked to give back."

  "How did it happen, if you don't mind my asking?"

  She sighed. "It was so goddam stupid I still can't believe it. Geoff used to store a lot of stuff under the house and must have knocked one of the gas pipes and caused a slow gas leak. When he went to light the pilot on the gas heater it exploded right in his face. He never had a chance. I was at the hospital visiting Benny." She nodded toward the bald boy. "Benny was in the middle of his chemo treatment. He has leukemia. Geoff couldn't come because he was working an extra shift." She wiped her eyes as she patted Benny's back, who looked up and smiled. "We needed the money," she whispered.

  We both watched the boys play.

  "Did Geoff have life insurance?" I asked after a while.

  "Yes, but the mortgage and Benny's treatment has chewed all that up. I work as much as I can at the supermarket but I have to pay a sitter so that doesn't help much. Some of the ladies from the church babysit, but I don't have any family to help. Plus, at times, I can't leave Benny. Sometimes it gets pretty bad, you know?"

  "Let me look into it. The union can probably help you out some. That's what it's for."

  She looked away, hiding her tears and just nodded.

  "One thing. Did you have any trouble getting the life insurance? Did they find anything strange in the autopsy that might have hindered it?"

  "Strange? What do you mean?"

  "Anything out of the normal, that's all," I said lamely.

  "Mark, there was nothing normal about what was left of Geoff." She spoke quietly so her boys couldn't hear. "His chest was obliterated in the explosion which started the fire. There was hardly anything left to bury. You wouldn't understand."

  Unfortunately, I did. I would never forget what I had seen in the remains of my trailer last August.

  "His coffin could have been for a child," she murmured, looking at Benny and I knew what she was thinking.

  "You can't give up," I said.

  "Who said anything about giving up? My kids need me."

  I was walking down the pathway when I heard the door shut and saw Karen coming towards me.

  She glanced back at the door then leaned in close to me. "You wanted to know if there was anything strange?" she whispered.

  "Yeah?"

  "There was one thing that always struck me as a little odd."

  "What was that?"

  "The police thought it was nothing, so it's probably not worth mentioning."

  "Karen." I put my hands on her shoulders so she had to look at me. She was crying. "Tell me," I said.

  "His feet."

  "What about his feet?"

  "He had no shoes on."

  "I don't understand. The report said it was night time so he was probably getting ready for bed. He may not have bothered to put his slippers on."

  She shook her head.

  "No. Geoff would never go outside without putting his shoes on. Ever. We have a fire ant problem and he could have got bitten."

  "Karen, he probably forgot because it was late and couldn't be bothered."

  "That's what the police said."

  "There you go. Anyone could forget."

  "That's right. But would you forget to put your shoes on if you were allergic to ant venom and one bite could kill you?"

  CHAPTER 21

  All my men were dead excep
t for two fat guys, who were so red and sweaty in the face I considered ringing an ambulance now to save time.

  "We can still win this, big guy" said the not quite so fat guy to the even fatter guy. The fatter guy probably called him Skinny.

  "That's right. It's not over until it's over," said Fatty. They batted fists.

  "We keep going until we hear that fat lady singing," I said sarcastically. In this case, it would probably be one of their wives yelling, "Dinner!"

  Fatty and Skinny, however, took me seriously.

  "Yeah!"

  "Right on, Captain."

  They had dubbed me Captain from the start of the laser battle because Bear was leading one team, and I the other. We had started with twelve men and women each, from a Company called The Big Store. I had assumed that this was a description of the size of the store, until the employees rolled up. Now, I wasn't quite sure if The Big Store actually sold items for big people or if it was just run by big people. Either way, the name was right on.

  I was down to two teammates and Bear still had six. We were hiding behind one of the inflatable walls that were scattered throughout the darkened room of our new facility. The yellow flag, which we had to capture to win the game, was on the other side of the room.

  "What's the plan, Cap?"

  "We're with you, Captain."

  I looked at my two highly-tuned cohorts and sighed. "Okay. You two take the right side and I'll take the left. Let's go for the flag."

  They looked at each other.

  "Ah, should we really split up our forces like that, Cap? Wouldn't we better sticking together?" said Skinny.

  Skinny had already accidentally killed three of our team with friendly fire, so I seriously doubted this. But they didn't call me the Captain for nothing.

  "I'll create a diversion on the other side so you two will have a free run for the flag."

  It would have to be a hell of a diversion for anyone to miss seeing these two. Fatty and Skinny moved off, crawling along the right flank, their butts high in the air. If there were sensors on their butts they would have been dead within a couple of seconds. I shook my head. It was like watching two elephants stalking a lion in three foot high grass.

  I ran along the left side from wall to wall, barely pausing. Both teams had been moving slowly from wall to wall, shooting from behind cover as often as they could. It had been as exciting as a re-run of Jeopardy. The players didn't realize that, in this game, speed was your greatest weapon. To hit a fast moving target required good reflexes and speed. The men from The Big Store weren't exactly overflowing with either.