Something Richard had said niggled at my brain, and try as I might, I didn’t know why. With Eve busy setting tables for dinner and Jim, Marc, and Damien scrambling around the kitchen, I talked out my problem with Monsieur Lavoie, who was sitting at the table next to mine and just finishing the last of the mimosas.
“Why would Richard talking about packing the van mean anything to me?” I asked him, even though I wasn’t really expecting an answer.
“Ah, cherie. Perhaps he has given you an idea, yes? About moving along? Perhaps this suggests to you that you and Jim, you are ready to—how do you say it—take things to the next level?”
How we’d segued from Richard and vans to Jim and me and the perfect happily ever after, I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Monsieur’s weird advice aside, I thought through the problem again. “What do you do in a van?” I brainstormed out loud “You drive. Richard and Fi drive. From here to Florida. But not until they pack. And packing is what they want me to help them do. Because, of course, I’m an excellent packer. If I was going on a trip, I’d have everything folded and stacked so nicely—”
I sat up as if I’d been zapped by lightning, and Monsieur leaned forward, concerned. “Cherie? You are all right?”
“I’m an idiot, that’s what I am!” I leaped out of my chair and raced into the office for my phone, and when I dialed and Tyler’s voice mail came on—again—I grumbled a word I hardly ever used. Right before I told him where I was going and why.
“He’s leaving town, Tyler,” I said. “And we’ve got to stop him before he does. He’s going to disappear off the face of the earth again. And then we’ll never prove that Eve is innocent!”
Twenty
BY THE TIME I GOT TO KEGAN’S APARTMENT I HAD convinced myself that I was crazy. Folded laundry doesn’t mean a thing. Or at least it shouldn’t. But when I added the folded laundry to the hair color and the fact that Kegan knew that the fumes from that aerosol can were going to ignite at cooking class that night…
My heart told me it wasn’t possible that Kegan was the murderer I’d been looking for.
But it was looking more probable by the moment.
I parked in the lot outside his building and did a quick assessment of the cars there. Kegan’s was parked near the door, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I could watch and I could wait. I could try Tyler again, and this time if he didn’t answer, I could talk to one of the other cops and explain that I’d spotted a wanted fugitive.
This was the right course of action. It was safe and it was sane, and let’s face it, if I am anything, I am safe and I am sane.
Of course, my safe and sane thinking didn’t take glitches into account.
Glitch number one: Kegan came out of his apartment with an armful of books. He tossed them into the trunk of his car. He took a gas can out of the car.
My blood ran cold.
When I dialed my phone, my hands were shaking.
“Tyler?” I was so relieved it was him and not his recorded voice, I could have cried. If I had the time. “Kegan isn’t Kegan. He’s Joseph Grant. The arsonist. He’s leaving town. Right this very minute. And I think he’s going to burn down his building before he does.”
As I may have mentioned before, I am not a fan of Tyler the person. He is cold and arrogant, and once upon a time, he broke Eve’s heart. For this, I can never forgive him. But Tyler the cop is another animal altogether.
“I’ll be right there,” he told me after he’d gotten the particulars of Kegan’s address and apartment number. “So will the fire department. You stay put.”
Of course I would. It was the safe and sane thing to do.
Except for Glitch number two.
Not far from where I was parked, a young mother got out of her car with a baby in her arms. She started toward the building.
Safe and sane went out the window at the same time I hopped out my car door. I stationed myself directly in front of her before she could set foot inside the building.
“Go,” I said, and yes, she did look at me like I was some kind of crazy person. “The cops are on their way,” I added because let’s face it, this carried a little more weight than me standing there yammering. “There’s a dangerous person in the building. You and the baby, get in your car and drive away. Fast.”
She didn’t argue. And me? As long as I was there, I figured I might as well make good use of my time.
I raced into the building and pounded on every door I passed.
“There’s a fire! You have to get out. Fire! Call everyone in the building! You have to get out.”
Doors opened, people streamed into the hallway and headed outside. Theoretically, I was inducing a panic, and I could get in big-time trouble. It was a small price to pay for keeping the tenants of Kegan’s building alive.
The last door in the hallway was his, and I’m lucky it wasn’t locked, because I hit it full blast and stumbled into his living room just in time to see Kegan pouring gasoline on his dining room table.
“You’ll never get away with it, Kegan. The cops are on their way.” I was short of breath, and the fumes of the gasoline choked me. I fought for air. “Maybe I should just call you Joseph Grant, huh? That is who you are, isn’t it? Joseph Grant, the arsonist. The murderer. I can’t believe—”
“Give me a break! Nobody’s as naive as you! It’s not possible. It’s not real.” I hardly recognized Kegan, his face was so twisted with anger. He didn’t look surprised to see me, and he didn’t look especially concerned, either. As cool as can be, he consulted a book that was open on the table.
“Home on the Range.” I choked as I read the title aloud. “I thought—”
“What? That I was looking to re-create life in the Old West? I guess in a way, I am, if it means ridding the world of the people who are trying to destroy it and returning Mother Earth to the way she’s supposed to be. But sorry, Annie, this book isn’t all about re-creating things; it’s all about burning down buildings. I haven’t done this in a while; I’m a little rusty.” He finished what he was doing and tossed the can aside. “You couldn’t keep your nose out of it, could you?”
“But you wanted to help with the investigation and—”
“Your little investigation was a perfect way for me to find out what you were doing and what you knew. Convenient, huh? You got me into Brad’s town house so that I could erase his computer files. And in case you haven’t figured it out yet, Gillian never would have ended up dead if you hadn’t talked to her and I hadn’t heard about that package from Brad. I was watching her house, you see. I knew the package arrived early that Monday and I knew I had to find out what was inside. When she wouldn’t cooperate…”
He didn’t elaborate. I was glad. My stomach went cold. My brain teetered on the edge of panic. It took more self-control than I knew I had to keep words coming out of my mouth. “Then there was something in that package!”
“There was nothing in it!” There was another gas can on the floor, and Kegan grabbed it. Yes, I should have taken this as a clue that things were not going to go well, but honestly, I couldn’t help myself. This was Kegan. And he was my friend. Or at least I thought he was.
My eyes filled with tears. Maybe that was from the gas fumes.
Noticing my reaction, Kegan’s top lip curled. “Brad recognized me in class. It’s this damn blushing. Never have been able to control it. Don’t you remember? That second week of class. We were leaving the restaurant—”
“And I thought I heard a cat!” In my current, befuddled state, it took a moment for me to put the pieces together. “But it wasn’t a cat. It was Brad telling you he knew about Mother Earth’s Warriors—MEW.”
“Damn, if he would have just kept his mouth shut! But Brad was Brad. You know, a real pain in the ass. He tried to blackmail me. No way I was going to let him get away with it.”
“So Brad had to die.” I gulped down the sour taste in my mouth.
“And I do appreciate you giving me all those articles.” He pointed to the
file folder on the table. It was soaked with gasoline. “I planned to conveniently lose them, but this makes more of a statement, don’t you think? If you had just kept out of it, Annie. Instead, I had to—”
“Take a couple shots at me at that protest rally! I thought it was Reggie.”
“Reggie was a convenient scapegoat. Things would have been just fine if you would have left it that way.”
“But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not with Eve’s life on the line. I still can’t stop, Kegan. You know that. Just like you know that if we didn’t find the proof Brad claimed to have, it’s still out there somewhere.”
“Exactly why I’ve got to make sure there’s no trace of me left once I get out of town.” Just for good measure, Kegan sprinkled a few more drops of gasoline on the table. “No fingerprints. No nothing. That’s the really good thing about fire, it has a way of taking care of things like evidence.”
I gulped, and though I knew it was probably not the right thing to say to an arsonist with a gasoline can in one hand, the pulsing sound of fire sirens in the distance gave me courage. “That’s why all those years ago, you faked Joseph Grant’s death.”
“Another sucker helped me out. A homeless guy who thought I was being charitable when I offered him a place to sleep for the night. You think he would have noticed that we were about the same height and weight, about the same age and build. Bones are bones, Annie. And it’s hard to tell who they belong to when they’re charred enough.”
“You can’t mean that.” I took a step closer. “You can’t be a stone-cold killer. We were friends, Kegan.”
“Oh, please!”
“And Grandpa Holtz?”
“Got you on that one, didn’t I? As soon as I realized you were one of those chicks who can’t keep her nose out of other people’s business, I knew I had to win you over. So I played the dead grandpa card. Works every time. Don’t look so upset.” He rolled his eyes. “You wanted to prove Eve was innocent, didn’t you? There you go. You did it. Too bad you’re not going to be alive to tell the cops when they get here.”
I didn’t see it coming, and even if I had, I never would have been able to move fast enough. Kegan reared back and pitched the open can of gasoline at me. Gas rained down on me, soaking my hair and my clothes. Instinctively, I closed my eyes and turned away so that I was facing the door, and by the time I did that, Kegan was already there.
“Thanks for all your help, Annie.” He had a lighter in his hands, and he held it up for me to see. “I’m going to be heading out now. My guess is that when they find you in the rubble, they’ll figure you were just trying to get even. You know, for all that unrequited love.”
“You mean even that wasn’t true?” Yes, I had more important things to worry about, but talk about a blow to the ego! “You came on to me—”
“Just so you’d feel sorry for me. You were getting too close, asking too many questions. Now the cops will think you were depressed because I left town and left you all alone. Why do you think I made sure I called Jim so many times when we were out together? He’ll tell them the truth. That he was worried and jealous. That you wanted me more than you wanted him.”
“That’s crazy!”
“Not so crazy. As a matter of fact, it’s brilliant.”
“Too bad it’s not going to work.”
These brave words didn’t come from me, because by that time, I was shaking in my shoes. Thank goodness, help had arrived. Tyler and the SWAT team were right outside the door. Tyler had his gun out, and he held Kegan in his sights while another officer ripped the cigarette lighter out of his hands.
“You OK, Annie?” he called to me.
I wasn’t. I was soaked with gasoline and scared to death. I needed a bath. And a hug. And—
“Annie!”
I saw a blur and heard my name. The fumes must have gone right to my brain, because I swore it was spoken with a Scottish accent.
The next second, Jim’s arms were around me.
“Water.” He said this at the same time he scooped me into his arms and carried me to the bathroom. He turned on the shower and plunked me down in it. “We need to get that gasoline off you. Hold still!”
This wasn’t fair, since I wasn’t squirming. I was too surprised to move.
He grabbed the handheld shower and poured water over my head and across my shoulders and down the length of my body.
“What on earth!” I sputtered. “How did you—”
“Putting the chocolate fountain away. I found an envelope. In the storage room. Brad must have hidden it in there.”
“He stopped at the restaurant the Saturday before he died.” This had not seemed significant when I first heard about it. Now, if I wasn’t too stunned to move, I would have slapped my forehead. “And the envelope?”
“Had copies of old newspaper articles. And Brad’s notes proving that Kegan was really this Joseph Grant character. And one of the forks from the restaurant. Carefully wrapped.”
I squinted at Jim. It was the only way I could see him through the cascade of water.
“Can’t say for sure.” He worked the water through my hair. “But I think maybe Brad picked it up at class after Kegan had used it. Fingerprints, do you think? Or maybe DNA. It was the last thing he needed to prove that Kegan wasn’t who he said he was. He was really Joseph Grant.”
“I think you are brilliant!”
“And I think you take far too many chances.” He kissed me. Hard. “I’m sorry I’m not the kind of man you want,” he said when he was done.
And I looked at him like he was crazy, because of course he was. “That’s why you were spouting that really bad poetry? You thought—”
Jim turned nearly as red as Kegan. “Lavoie is French. I figured he must know how to woo a woman. I thought if I could be more romantic, you’d stop hanging around with Kegan and—”
“You’re the most romantic man I know.” It was my turn to kiss him. “And the most generous and the most wonderful. I was investigating with Kegan. Nothing else. At least I thought I was investigating.”
“Which means you never liked him.”
“Which you wouldn’t even ask unless you were jealous.”
“A little.”
I smiled. No easy task, since I felt as if I was standing under Niagara Falls.
Jim smiled back. Right before he climbed into the bathtub and wrapped his arms around me.
When the firefighters found us there, we were still lip-locked.
RECIPES
Kegan’s Smokin’ Good
Chicken Dip
Brad’s Favorite Onion Soup
Jim’s Dilly of a Chili
As Corny as Monsieur Lavoie’s
Advice on Love
Grilled Corn on the Cob
Annie’s Hot
(But Not Too Crispy)
Chicken Wings
Eve’s Divine Mac ’n’ Three Cheese
Damien’s (Organic!)
Horseradish Slaw
Marc’s Zesty Burgers
Hot off the Grill Ice Cream Sundae for Emma, Lucy, Doris, Gloria, Wendy, Rosemary, Alice, and Little Ricky
The Bellywasher’s Mojito
Kegan’s Smokin’ Good Chicken Dip
Serves 6 to 8
4 chicken breasts, boiled, chilled, and shredded
1 12-ounce bottle hot sauce
16 ounces ranch dressing
1½ cups chopped celery
2 8-ounce blocks, cream cheese
Heat oven to 350° F. In a large bowl, mix shredded chicken with hot sauce. Coat well. In skillet over low heat, combine the rest of the ingredients. When cream cheese is melted, add the mixture to the chicken. Stir to combine. Transfer the chicken mixture to a 9"×13" pan and bake, uncovered, for 45 minutes. Serve with tortilla chips.
Brad’s Favorite Onion Soup
Serves 4 to 6
1½ tablespoons unsalted butter
2 pounds yellow onions, thinly sliced
1 large clove garlic, finely chop
ped
¼ cup apple brandy or sherry
1 bay leaf
4 sprigs fresh thyme
32 ounces low-sodium beef broth
1 small baguette
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup grated Gruyère cheese
¼ teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
Heat the broiler. Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and caramelized, about 20 minutes. Add the garlic and cook, stirring for 1 minute. Add the apple brandy and cook until it reaches a syrupy consistency, about 8 minutes. Add the bay leaf, thyme, and beef broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 30 minutes. Meanwhile, cut the baguette in half lenthwise. Place the bread on a baking sheet, sprinkle with the cheese, and broil until melted and lightly golden brown. Transfer to a cutting board and cut crosswise into pieces. Remove the soup from heat, discard the bay leaf and thyme, and season with the salt and pepper. Ladle into individual bowls, sprinkle with the parsley, and serve with the bread.
Jim’s Dilly of a Chili
Serves 6
1 large onion
1 leek
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 pounds ground beef
1 pound ground hot pork sausage
1 large green pepper, chopped
1 large red pepper, chopped
1 can whole tomatoes with juice
2 cans diced/chunk tomatoes
2 or 3 packets of chili seasoning mix
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 can white northern beans, drained and rinsed
3–5 sour dill pickles, chopped
In large skillet, saute onion and leek in olive oil until soft. Add beef and pork. Brown, and drain excess grease. Transfer meat to large stock pot. Add peppers and tomatoes. Cook for 2 hours on low heat, stirring occasionally. Add chili seasoning to meat mixture. Cook 15 minutes. Add beans, cook an additional 15 minutes. Add dill pickles. Cook until pickles heat through, approximately 5 minutes.
Dead Men Don't Get the Munchies Page 23