Death Night

by Ritter, Todd

  She knew she needed to get out of the bell tower, even as a dozen questions raced through her brain. They bounced into her head, one after the other, as she edged around the bell on her way toward the door. Why had Danny been up here? Had he brought the propane tanks? If so, why was he now dead?

  But the answer to the last one was clear.

  Danny was dead because he hadn’t been alone.

  Not now.

  Not all day.

  Someone had helped him start the fires. Someone who then killed him once the elements were in place to destroy the town’s last remaining historical landmark. Someone who was still inside the church. Kat felt his presence—a silent hum of energy in the darkness.

  She spun around and faced the door. He was there. Waiting at the top of the steps. She heard his breathing, sensed the hammering of his heart.

  “I know you’re there,” Kat said, training her Glock at the darkened doorway. “You might as well show yourself.”

  Movement came from the top of the steps. The shadows separated slightly, revealing the silhouette of a man standing in the doorway. Kat aimed the flashlight in the same direction as her gun, the frantic beam at first catching only bits and pieces of the man. A hand. A shoulder. An ear.

  She steadied the light, pointing it squarely at his face. The harsh glow revealed a man she recognized. A man she had seen several times that day.

  “I can explain,” Burt Hammond said, squinting in the glare. “Just hear me out.”

  He carried a plastic bucket filled with liquid that sloshed around inside it. Kat hoped it was water, but she knew better. Water didn’t smell like that. Water didn’t tickle the inside of her nose. It didn’t make her eyes sting.

  The bucket was filled with gasoline. She recognized the odor from a thousand trips to the gas station.

  Kat tightened her grip on the Glock. “Hands up. Right now.”

  Burt dropped the bucket, gasoline splashing over its side. Two pale palms rose in the darkened doorway. The flashlight glinted off his sweat-slicked face. His eyes, twitching and fearful, pleaded with her.

  “It doesn’t have to end this way,” he said. “Please. Just listen to me.”

  “We’ll talk at the station. You can tell me how you knew about the casino.”

  “I can tell you now.” Burt’s voice was a mixture of terror and eagerness. He wanted to talk. To explain himself. To maybe even bring Kat around to his way of thinking. “A friend of mine told me about it. David Brandt. He works in real estate. We were playing golf last week and he mentioned that he had sold the old Perry Mill tract to a billionaire in Italy. I pieced together the rest.”

  “And Rebecca Bradford? You’re the one who saw the book on Constance’s desk. You’re the one who sent it to Lucia Trapani.”

  Burt nodded nervously.

  “When Constance called that stupid meeting for tonight, I knew that’s what she was going to talk about.”

  “So you killed her before she got the chance.”

  “I did it for the historical society,” Burt said. “We had so much debt, Kat. We were drowning in it. I knew that this could be the thing that saved us. If Constance stayed quiet about what happened on that land, then we might get some money. A win-win situation for everyone.”

  But, Kat knew, his plan had backfired. Lucia had arrived early, meeting Constance instead. When their meeting was over, Constance had called Burt during the fund-raiser at Maison D’Avignon. He’s the one who’d pulled the fire alarm there, using it as an opportunity to sneak away unnoticed and run through the neighboring backyards to the museum. Depending on his pace, it would only have taken him a few minutes.

  Burt kept talking, spilling out a desperate torrent of words. “I was going to try to reason with Constance. But she was not a reasonable woman, Kat. She was angry. More angry than I’d ever seen her. She kept yelling that I had betrayed her. That I had betrayed this town. She pushed me, too. Shoved me right into one of the exhibits. She told me that she was going to reveal all the terrible things that had happened on that land. And I couldn’t let her do that. There was too much at stake. So when Constance turned around, I grabbed the first thing I could get my hands on.”

  “An iron,” Kat said.

  “Yes.”

  “You hit her with it.”

  Another “Yes” from Burt, this time more ashamed. “I just wanted to stop her. I didn’t mean to kill her.”

  “But you did. At least, you thought you did. And to cover it up, you grabbed a kerosene lamp, smashed it to the floor, and set the museum on fire.”

  “I didn’t want to, but I had to. Evidence was everywhere. My fingerprints were everywhere.”

  Then, Kat knew, he’d rushed back to Maison D’Avignon, getting there just as the fire trucks sped past on their way to the museum.

  “What about the other fires? Why did you set them?”

  Kat didn’t bother asking Burt if he had set them. She already knew that. The shame burning his cheeks told her so.

  “Last night, watching the museum burn, it hit me that maybe the fire was the best thing that could happen to the museum. Yes, I knew we’d lose some things. Some very precious things. But it was heavily insured. It would be rebuilt. It would come back better than ever. I knew it would. And watching those flames dance, I also knew that the town, the whole town, could do the same thing.”

  “But you’re trying to destroy it.”

  Burt laughed—an ironic, crazed chuckle. When she heard it, a dagger of fear jabbed Kat in the gut.

  “Destroy it? Don’t you see, Kat? I’m saving it.”

  “From what?”

  “Itself.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with Perry Hollow. It’s recovered since the mill closed.”

  “But it’s sinking again,” Burt hissed. “You see it, Kat. I know you do. Fewer visitors. A couple of shops closing here and there. And the town will continue to decline unless someone makes a drastic change.”

  “Burning down a few old buildings isn’t going to do that.”

  Burt nodded again. Trying to placate her. Trying to pander. “You’re right. But a casino will. Funded by the one of the world’s richest men. That will change the town completely. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the town can be reborn. But first it has to be approved, and you and I both know that’s a tough sell. Or it would have been. But not now.”

  Kat understood now. She understood completely. Burt knew the casino plan would have many detractors, who’d fight it tooth and nail. So his goal was to hurt the town, to cripple it so badly that even those against a casino would have no choice but to approve it for the money its construction would bring to Perry Hollow.

  Burt continued, babbling madly. “Imagine how quickly it’ll be approved now that we need the resources to rebuild the hotel and rec center. The library. The church.”

  That last word shoved the dagger of fear deeper into Kat’s body. It was clear that Burt wasn’t finished yet. That there was still one more building to go. He needed to do what he had tried to do at the museum—erase his sins with the cleansing power of fire.

  “Did Danny help you start the fires?” Kat asked. “Or was he just a convenient scapegoat?”

  “He threatened me last night. He really said those things about burning down the town. He was capable of it. I knew that when I hired him.”

  Burt had done a background check. Of course. Kat felt like an idiot for not realizing it. He had known all along about the arson in Danny’s past.

  “So you called him around seven this morning. I saw it on his phone.”

  “I told him he was a suspect in the museum fire,” Burt said. “I assured him that I knew he was innocent, but that he needed to lie low for the day. I told him to get out of town. Not to come in to work. Not to answer his phone. But before he left, I suggested he do a computer search of ways to start fires, maybe print out a few things, to see if he could come up with any ideas about who might be doing it.”

  And, Kat knew, to l
eave a trail of incriminating information in his wake. Burt was smart enough to know that someone needed to take the blame for these fires. Who better than a young firefighter with a few arsons under his belt?

  “Why did he believe you?”

  “Because I was his boss,” Burt said. “In more ways than one. As mayor, I could make him a full-time, paid firefighter. Not that he needed much convincing. He was very willing to help out. So eager.”

  “You told him to meet you here, didn’t you? At a little before one.”

  “Yes,” Burt said. “I told him I was trying to clear his name.”

  And when the firefighter arrived, Burt and his weapon of choice were waiting for him. Poor, naïve Danny Batallas. He fell for every lie that had been fed to him. Now he was dead. The fact that another life had been lost in her town, under her watch, made Kat burn with anger.

  “And all of this was for Perry Hollow?” she said. “The fires. The deaths. None of it had anything to do with you and your career?”

  Burt pursed his lips, pretending that he had never thought about it before. “Yes, this will change things for me, too. Cement my reputation. Maybe take me from being a lawn-mower salesman and mayor to something bigger.”

  “Like the state legislature,” Kat suggested. “Or the governor’s office.”

  She was certain that’s what had been going through Burt’s mind when he started fire after fire. And it gave Kat even more reason to despise him.

  “There was a baby in that library,” she said. “And his mother, who is most likely dead by now.”

  Her anger had reached full boil and was spreading from her chest to all points of her body. Her heartbeat pounded inside her head. Her index finger twitched on the Glock’s trigger, aching to squeeze it.

  “Her blood is on your hands, Burt. So is Danny’s. So is Constance’s.”

  “It wasn’t supposed to be like this, Chief. I swear. I was just going to start a fire in the library’s basement. But when I got inside, I heard voices. I didn’t know what to do. I got scared.”

  So he blew the place up, almost killing them all. He was no better than the bastards who had killed Rebecca Bradford and her family, and it took all the willpower Kat possessed not to shoot him dead on the spot. He certainly deserved it. But she was better than that. Better than him.

  “The ironic thing, Burt, is that Constance located Rebecca Bradford’s remains. Her skeleton is in police custody. More people know about her. Lots more. They know what happened on that land. All those deaths. And I have a feeling that at this very moment, Mr. Fanelli is looking for a new place to build your precious casino.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not,” Kat said. “I saw the bones. I saw Rebecca’s grave and we’ll find the others. The secret’s out, and everything you did today—all that death and waste—was for nothing.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  But he did. He believed every word. Kat could tell by the way his fearful eyes glinted in the flashlight’s glow. He resembled an animal, wild and afraid, caught in a hunter’s spotlight. And he acted the same way a terrified animal would.

  He pounced.

  He lunged toward her without warning—a beast bursting out of the shadows. Kat raised her Glock and fired off one unsteady shot. It missed, clearing his shoulder and allowing him to shove her toward the massive church bell behind her. The railing around the bell broke apart easily, splintering against her legs. Chunks of wood fell through the hole in the floor beneath the bell, dropping to the tower’s ground floor.

  Burt continued to push until she was against the bell itself, which rocked from the force of the collision. It rang once—a deep, vibrating tone that filled the tower.

  The bell soon rocked in the other direction, now pushing Kat forward. She tried to fire her Glock again, but Burt grabbed her wrist and thrust it upward, her arm jerked over her head. Her knuckles banged against the bell, pain shooting through her hand, her fingers opening against their will.

  The Glock slipped away, knocking against the bell before falling.

  Past the bell.

  Through the hole in the floor.

  All the way down to the bottom of the tower.

  The bell shifted again, rocking backward this time, moving away from Kat and leaving nothing to support her. Her arms whirled frantically, trying to keep her balance, trying to keep herself from falling through the gaping hole. Kat glanced down, seeing the rope dangling from the bell, tracing its path eight stories to the ground.

  She was going to fall. She knew it. Felt it in every panicked bone of her body.

  But then the bell rocked forward again, reconnecting with her back, pushing her toward Burt Hammond. Kat swung the flashlight, slamming it against Burt’s skull. The flashlight ricocheted off his head, its beam streaking the ceiling.

  She tried again, but Burt blocked the blow with an upraised arm. He pressed his free hand against her face. Pushing backward. Smashing her nose. Reducing her vision to blurry slits between his fingers. Then he shoved. Hard.

  The back of Kat’s head slammed into the bell. Her mind went black. So did her vision. They were eclipsed by an explosion of pain. Kat’s legs buckled and her arms dropped to her sides. She was vaguely aware of the flashlight slipping from her fingers, just as the Glock had done.

  Meanwhile, Burt’s hand still pressed against her face. He shoved her head into the bell a second time. Another detonation of pain. Another dulling of the senses.

  Kat’s legs collapsed beneath her, pitching her forward. Burt backed away and let her drop. She fell hard. Face-first. Her chest taking the brunt of the blow and knocking most of the air out of her lungs.

  Then Burt was upon her again, flipping her onto her back with the ease of someone handling a rag doll. That’s what Kat felt like. An inanimate object. Hollow. With neither a brain nor bones. When Burt leaped on top of her, it dislodged what little breath she had left.

  He sat on her chest, his weight pressing against her ribs, pinning her to the floor. His legs clamped around her, locking her arms in place. Kat’s kicks, weak and futile, did nothing to dislodge him.

  “I don’t want to do this, Kat,” he said. “I don’t. But it’s too late now.”

  His hand crept into her field of vision. It was clenched into a fist, except for the thumb, which pointed upward. In the center of the fist was a simple cigarette lighter. With one click, a flame appeared.

  “You’ll die a hero,” Burt said. “I’ll make sure of that. When they find you and Danny, they’ll know that he started the fires and that you died trying to stop him.”

  He moved the lighter toward her. The flame danced just inches from Kat’s face. Coming closer. And closer.

  “We’ll mourn you, Kat. I promise. You’ll be remembered.”

  Kat shut her eyes. She couldn’t watch anymore. Couldn’t see the moment of contact. Instead, for the second time that day, she pictured James. If this was how she was going to die, she wanted her last thought to be of her son. Not of fear. Or fire. Or pain.

  Memories flooded her brain. The positive pregnancy test that at the time was the last thing she wanted. His crimson face as he emerged, wailing, from her womb. Him as a baby, a toddler, the boy he was now, the man he’d eventually become.

  Kat was still picturing James when she felt the fire. It was on her left shoulder—an instant and intense heat that made her eyes snap open. Looking down, she saw the flames rising off her uniform, eating away at the fabric, biting into her flesh with white-hot teeth. The pain was unbearable. The sight was worse.

  The fire grew with terrifying speed. It quickly spread down her sleeve and roared toward her collar. Every inch of progress created more agonizing pain.

  Kat wanted to close her eyes again, but she saw that Burt had moved the lighter to her right shoulder.

  Another click.

  Another sudden leap of flame.

  In a second it would be pressed against her uniform, creating another fire. A few seconds
after that, she’d be engulfed. A scream formed in Kat’s throat, begging to be released. She swallowed it down, summoning words instead.

  “Stop,” she grunted. “I won’t tell. I swear.”

  Burt halted, wondering if he should believe her.

  “You’re right,” Kat said. “This will save the town. I know it will.”

  Burt moved his thumb away from the lighter. The flame vanished.

  The fire at Kat’s shoulder, however, continued to burn.

  Getting larger.

  Burning hotter.

  Searing her skin so badly that tears leaked from her eyes.

  Burt shifted with doubt. Not much but enough to give Kat room to move. She lifted her shoulder slightly. Close enough for the flames consuming her uniform to leap to the sleeve of Burt’s shirt. It ignited quickly, the cuff flaring like a candle’s wick.

  Seeing the flames, Burt rolled off her, trying to pat the fire out with his hands. Kat, arms now free, did the same, desperately slapping an open palm against her shoulder. When that didn’t work, she tore at the uniform, ripping it open and yanking it from her body. Once it was off, she rolled on top of it, smothering the remaining flames.

  Kat then moved toward the door, dragging herself across the floor. Her shoulder, raw and throbbing, still felt like it was on fire, slowing her progress.

  Burt, realizing he had been fooled, rushed toward her. He had grabbed the iron next to Danny and was holding it aloft, arm trembling from the weight, a snarl on his face. It was how he must have looked right before killing Constance. And Danny. Now it was Kat’s turn, and even if she beat him to the door, he’d surely overtake her at the top of the stairs.

  Crawling even faster, Kat spotted the bucket a few inches away. She stretched for it, her fingers curled around the lip of the bucket. She yanked it toward her, gasoline splashing her hands.

  Burt was upon her now. Standing over her.

  Kat got a hand under the bucket.

  She lifted it.

  She tossed.

  The gasoline rained down on Burt in a full-on assault that soaked his face, his hair, his clothes. He stumbled backward in shock, the iron dropping from his grip. Kat also fell back, gasping with fear and exhaustion. She dropped the bucket.