Shattered Shell

by Brendan DuBois

  Paula looked up from her notebook, eyebrows furrowed. "So how do you know that gasoline or something else was used here?"

  He tapped the flashlight against the side of his head, near the burned tissue. "I used my eyes. Here, let me show you something."

  Mike squatted to the floor and ran his fingers across the scorched and blackened wood. "See this? Wooden floor, looks all burnt to hell. Right? Intense heat and flames. That's what you see on the surface, but I don't like to just look at the surface. Watch." From his coat pocket he took out a folding knife, which he undid, and then with the blade he dug at the floor. The knife looked tiny in his huge hands. He pulled up a couple of long slivers, and undamaged wood was exposed from under the charred covering.

  "The damage doesn't go that deep," Paula said, holding her notebook in both hands.

  "That's right," he said, as if pleased she had guessed right. "Intense heat, but fast heat. Whatever burned in here quickly burned off. That tells you the fuel was something that burned in a short period of time. And if you look at the floor joints... " He dug around some more, exposing an area between two boards. It was black all the way through.

  "See that?" he said, tapping on the wood with his knife. "Let's say gasoline was spread over the floor. It runs down the cracks, so when the fire is lit, the fire reaches down through the soaked joists. Classic accelerant signature, and I knew what we had the minute things cooled down and we got in here."

  "So you have gasoline or something similar poured in here. How did it start?"

  He stood up, closed up the knife, and put it back into his coat, grinning. "Now, now, Miss Quinn. You really can't expect me to give away any of our trade secrets, do you? So I'll have to say no comment."

  She scribbled some more in her book, looked up, and smiled. "Outside you told us this was a probable arson. Care to change that to arson, with no probable attached?"

  Mike nodded. "All right, I'll give you that. A definite answer. This was arson."

  The hand with the pencil moved furiously. "And connected to the other three fires? All these arsons, are they connected in some way?"

  Mike paused, rubbed at his chin. "The reporter from The Porter Herald, he might be pissed if I tell you that. It'll mean a scoop for you, won't it?"

  "Unless he calls you between now and first thing Monday morning. Otherwise, yeah, then this will be an exclusive."

  "Hmm..."

  She brought her hands down to her waist, gloved fingers holding on to the pencil and notebook. "Look at it this way, Mike. I don't see him shivering in here on a Sunday morning. Do you? So who deserves the story?"

  That made him laugh, and he kicked at the floor and said, "Sure, you can say that. All four fires were connected. And now, if you'll excuse me, I got a hell of a lot of work to do before this day is done. So you'll kindly get the hell off this fire scene, okay?"

  Mike went past us and Paula caught my eye, and I knew she was proud of what she had just wormed out of Mike Ahern. And I also knew that she was overly talented for a newspaper like the Tyler Chronicle. We followed him out, Mike lumbering through the debris like a trained bear, shuffling and sniffing, and I blinked hard when we got outside, for the late morning sun was reflecting quite strongly off the snow. As we started back, Mike called out and said, "Lewis, a minute alone, if that's okay."

  I looked at Paula and shrugged, and she said, "Men," in the same tone she uses when discussing editors, and I joined him at his Chevette. He tossed his flashlight on the seat, turned to me, and said, "You want to set up a time this week?"

  "Do I?" I asked, not sure what he was saying.

  He shook his head. "Last Friday night, remember?"

  Oh. Last Friday night. He had agreed to see me about the arsons, and I had agreed to give him whatever information I had gathered in my research. Well, such a meeting seemed fairly useless considering what I was going to be involved with during the next few weeks, but then I remembered my upcoming brunch, and thought it wouldn't hurt.

  "Sure, Mike. Sorry I forgot. What's a good day for you?"

  "Let's shoot for sometime on Friday. And is this going to be worthwhile?"

  "I certainly hope so," I said, and then there was a creaking noise and a loud bang. We both turned in time to see a scorched beam at the motel, weighed down by the snow, fall into the mound of debris. I looked back at Mike and said, "What a waste."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Look at this," I said. "A guy builds a motel, runs a business that does fairly well, employs a bunch of people, and in one night some clown takes it all away."

  Mike fished a cigarette from a pack hidden in a shirt pocket, lit it up, and shrugged. "Screw 'em. That's what insurance is for."

  We had brunch at practically the only open restaurant on Sunday morning in this part of Tyler Beach, which was the Portside Room, the in-house restaurant for the Ashburn House, located at the head of Ashburn Avenue. The Ashburn House is one of the more Iuxurious hotels on Tyler Beach, and also has a popular nightclub and the Portside Room, also considered one of the finer restaurants on the seacoast. The maitre d' sniffed at our smoky clothes and sat us in a corner, which was fine. I carried a Sunday Boston Globe and inside the newspaper I had secreted the file folder I had prepared last night.

  I ordered the eggs Benedict, while Paula had three scrambled eggs, hash browns, and bacon. As we ate we passed sections of the Globe around, and I read the editorial page and tried to keep my chuckling down to a minimum, while Paula stuck with the comics and the arts pages. When the dishes had been cleared away and we were both working on our second glasses of orange juice, I said, “Congratulations on getting a scoop for Monday. Will it make the Porter Herald angry?"

  Her eyes were glittering as she picked up her juice glass. "It sure will, and I can hardly wait. They're trying beat us in a circulation war, but being idiots, they don't have the resources. You can't cover a town like Tyler by going to the weekly selectmen's meetings and calling the police station every morning to see what's in the log. That's what the Herald reporter does, and that's why I'm going to clean his clock tomorrow."

  "Good for you," I said, and then I reached in past the advertising circulars and pulled out the file folder. "Here. This is for you. Maybe it will help in some clock cleaning next week."

  She took the folder, gave a quick glance inside, and said, "Okay, I think I should thank you, but what's this all about?"

  "It's stuff I've done research on for an article," I said, letting the old lie slip easily from my lips. "I've looked into the background of the people who had their motels burned these past weeks, trying to find a connection, patterns or something."

  "And?"

  "Didn't find a damn thing."

  "So you're passing it along to me."

  "Thought you could use it, maybe take a fresh look at it."

  That brought a nice smile. "Such confidence you have in my abilities."

  She opened the folder again, took a longer look, and read the names aloud. "Rob Olcott, owner of the SeaView. Been on the beach for five years. The first one, about mid-December. Then there was Karen Spooner. Remember her, that counterculture woman from Oregon? Ran the Snug Harbor Inn, right up to the first week in January. That was a sad one; saw her life savings go up in smoke. Then there was Frank Durant, owner of the Tyler Tower Motel. That burned down last week. Also runs a place up in North Tyler, and he told me that he sleeps there nights, with a shotgun at his side."

  Paula looked up at me. "Not much here on Sam Keller."

  "Well, that one was only a few days ago. Didn't have time to do some digging."

  She ran her thumb across some of the papers. "Looks like you made up for it with the other three people. I recognize some of these documents, from the town and the Secretary of State. But where did you get this other stuff?"

  I took a sip from my orange juice. "You'd be surprised what you can find out with a computer, modem, someone's birth date, and Social Security number."

  She looked at me. "N
o, I'd be surprised why someone who claims to be a magazine writer goes to this length to find information about motels being burned down. What's the point?"

  "Maybe he or they will start burning down houses for fun," I said. "Or maybe they'll pick a motel that isn't boarded up, that's filled with guests. Either way, I don't like what's going on in Tyler. This is winter, a time to take it slow and easy. Those poor firefighters have enough to worry about without a nut trying to burn down half the beach. Besides," I added, smiling, "all these fires cost a lot of overtime. Consider me just another concerned taxpayer."

  "So you think it's a nut, do you?"

  "If it's a nut, then there's nothing you or me or Mike Ahern or the cops can do about it, until he gets caught or surrenders. But I don't know. Consider it a gut feeling. This whole mess doesn't feel like it's a nut. The motels that have been burned, well, it feels like they were chosen for some reason, something that's not apparent.

  Again, she held up the folder. "Something not in here?"

  "That's right. I've talked some to Diane Woods, a little bit to Mike Ahern, and I've done all that research, and there's nothing there, no connection. I've looked to see if any of them were in financial difficulties. Nothing. Oh, they weren't rich, but all three were doing all right, and I'll bet you that Sam Keller and his wife were doing okay as well. I thought maybe that they each had a secret partner, or maybe a behind-the-scenes person who owned all of the places, but that didn't go anywhere, either."

  "So why the gift?"

  I stopped for a moment as our waitress dropped off the check, which I beat Paula in picking up. I left a hefty tip and Paula smiled. Winters are hard in New Hampshire, and especially hard for those workers dependent on people climbing out of a perfectly warm house and driving through freezing weather for an expensive breakfast.

  I said, "The gift is for three reasons. First, I've got something coming up this week, and I can't spend as much time working on this."

  "Oh, something interesting?"

  I felt a queasiness at the back of my throat, knowing what I would be doing tomorrow.

  "Something that has to be done," I said. "So I thought you might like some additional background, maybe some extra places you can poke around. Second, well, I may be good in digging up records, but Paula, you know the people here better than I do. I can't remember the last time I've been to a selectmen's or a planning board meeting. You know the people, and I think you might be able to find some connections there I've missed. Are these people related in some way? Go to the same church? Have feuds?"

  She smiled and put the folder down on her coat, which was in the chair next to her. "You make me sound like Queen Gossip. And let me tell you, you haven't missed that much in going to town meetings. Most people who go are hardworking types, just trying to do their best for the town and themselves, but usually they're drowned out by small minds wrestling with even smaller issues. And what was the third reason?"

  "The third reason is that I think you're a dear. That's why you got the gift."

  I think she blushed, which made me happy. Nice to know I still had that ability. She finished off her juice and said, "You know I've been spending time with Jerry."

  "I know. Is it nice?"

  She shrugged. "Nice enough," and she looked up at me, something in her expression. "It's just that I think you're a dear, too. Don't you forget it."

  "I won't."

  As we got up and dragged on our winter coats, she said, "I'm impressed with what you got there." And then she giggled. "Is it because of your spy training?"

  "Maybe it is, maybe it isn't."

  We walked out and then we were in the cold sea air. She put her arm through mine and said, "In the time I've known you, I've tried practically everything, from threats to bribes, to get you to talk about what you did in the Pentagon, or to find out why when you’re in a bathing suit, it looks like someone's used your skin for target practice. Why won't you talk?"

  I squeezed her arm with mine. "It's not a matter of won't. It’s a matter of can't."

  Was it dangerous?"

  "Rarely. Mostly it was boring."

  "But secretive."

  "Very."

  We reached her car and as she fumbled in her coat for her keys, she said, "So when can I expect you to tell me? When we have a new president? A new Congress?"

  I touched her cheek. "The day people decide they don't want secrets anymore, and the spooks are all happily paid off to retirement, and we don't have to worry about demons who blow up airlines, shoot children in playgrounds, or burn down houses in the middle of the night, then give me a call, and I'll tell you everything."

  She shook her head. "I won't hold my breath."

  "Neither would I."

  "Thanks for the gift. I'll let you know if I get anything," and she smiled one more time. "That will be a wonderful day, when I can get a scoop over Shoreline and the Porter Herald in one mouth."

  I said that was fine and I gave her a quick kiss, which was nice enough, and then I walked back to my own vehicle, digging my hands in my pockets, boots crunching on the snow and ice, looking out at the empty sands of Tyler Beach and the cold waters of the demanding ocean, dreading the week that was ahead of me.

  Chapter Five

  At about ten on Monday morning I went to a condominium complex called Tyler Harbor Meadows, which is on the northern end of Tyler Harbor, where it narrows to meet the tidal flow of the Wonalancet River. It's made up of about a dozen townhouses, built near the water's edge and together in a horseshoe formation, and I pulled into an empty parking spot near number 14, Diane Woods's place.

  There was a brisk wind coming off the harbor and I kept my hands in my coat as I walked across the parking lot, glancing back once. Out on the harbor was the normal complement of fishing boats, but all of the sailing boats --- including Diane's Miranda --- were gone, now in storage. I didn't like the view. I liked seeing Diane's boat out there, for I had been on a number of enjoyable day jaunts with her and sometimes with Kara as an extra passenger ---and just seeing the empty cold waters was disturbing.

  Diane answered the door on the first ring, and she tried to smile as she took my coat, and failed. This wasn't going to be a smile-filled morning. I followed her up the carpeted stairs, which led to a kitchen on the left, overlooking the parking lot and the harbor. On the right was a small living room, with a low wooden counter holding up a television and stereo system, and a tan couch with matching chairs. There was another set of stairs that led upstairs to a bedroom and a study.

  The kitchen had white-tiled floor and a glass-topped table with white tubular chairs. On the refrigerator door were a number of photographs. Most either showed Diane with Kara or Kara alone, and there were a lot of smiles. I could not look at those happy pieces of paper for more than a few seconds before my throat started to ache. Diane draped my coat over one of the chairs and said, "Thanks for coming."

  "You're welcome," I said, still holding a small tan notebook in my hand. "How's Kara doing? Is she eating all right?"

  Diane shrugged, one hand on the back of the chair, leaning on it for support. "She's doing better, but she can only do soft foods, like scrambled eggs or soup. Her jaw's still pretty sore... And the bruises..."

  She paused, gave a quick nod. "It's the nighttime when it's worse. She doesn't sleep that well, and she wants all the lights on, and, well, most of the time she has a bad dream about every couple of hours."

  "She's upstairs?"

  "Yeah, she was reading when you got here." She folded her arms. "Can't watch too much daytime TV. Ever watch daytime TV? All the goddamn talk shows, most of them have to do with violence against women or some sexual freak show, or shows that make us look like crazed, man-hating deviants, and shit like that, Kara doesn't need to see right now."

  I kept my voice gentle. "Is she ready to see me? Does she know what I'm up to?"

  A curt shake of the head. "We've talked about it, and that hasn't been a wonderful topic to discuss, but yeah, she
knows what you’re here for, what's going to happen." Her eyes filled a bit, and she turned to look at the harbor. "Oh, Christ, this is so hard... There's no way I can sleep at night, knowing he might get away wlth it, that he's laughing, telling his buddies about screwing Kara. I can't let him get away with it."

  I rubbed at the notebook. "I know. And Felix and me, we're going to do our best."

  She looked back at me, briefly rubbed at her eyes. "Felix Tinios is going work with you on this? Really? What was the jerk's price?"

  "Nothing you have to worry about," I said. "Look, let's get started."

  Diane nodded briskly, started walking around the kitchen table. "You're right. I have the incident report in my study. Do you want to look at that first?"

  "No," I said, following her to the set of stairs that went up to the next floor of the condo. "Later, but right now I want to hear it fresh, and from Kara."

  "I understand."

  My legs were heavy as I went upstairs, and I tried to concentrate on what I would be doing over the next few minutes. At the top of the stairs a door to the right led to Diane's study, and the opposite door opened up to a bedroom that had a grand view of the harbor, the marshes, and the boxy buildings of the Falconer nuclear power plant a couple of miles away. I was trying to smile as I went into the bedroom. There was a set of bureaus, two rocking chairs, a television, and sitting in bed, up against the pillows, was Kara Miles, friend and lover of one of my best friends, a talented computer programmer who enjoyed Cajun music and mountain climbing, and who was now known simply as a rape victim.

  And at that thought, I stopped pretending to smile.

  Though Kara did do her best to smile at me as I came in. A blue down comforter was pulled up to her waist and she had on a green plaid flannel nightgown, buttoned to the neck with a little red bow, a romance novel folded over on her lap. On the nightstand next to her was a box of Kleenex, a reading lamp, a glass of water, and some medicine bottles. On the nightstand on the other side of the bed were some paperback books and a leather holster with Diane's .357 Ruger service revolver.