Baby Girl Doe (Stephanie Chalice Thrillers Book 5) (11 page)

Someone had been completely incinerated in the driver’s seat, and although it was impossible to make a visual identification, I had a very strong suspicion who the fire had claimed.
A Suffolk County police officer approached Tate and handed him a printout. I’d only seen a couple of cars go up the way this one had. I was sure the police officer had run the plate and identified the registered owner. Tate studied the printout and then exhaled wearily as he looked toward the sky. I walked over to him to check out my theory.

“Chalice? What in God’s name are you doing here? Don’t tell me you’re monitoring the emergency frequencies.”

“Not likely. I was pulling out of Vito’s parking lot when I saw you racing by like all hell had broken loose. I figured I’d tag along.”

“Still, shouldn’t you be home mothering your baby and spooning with Gus? You’ve got a strange way of vacationing, girl.”

Spooning? Did he really say spooning? Forget that. Did he just call me
girl
?
“Who expired?”

“So you really just want to get right to it, don’t you? Gus told me you eat, sleep, and drink the job, but I had no idea.”

“Well, who expired? I’ve got a feeling it was that infuriating handyman who scared the crap out of us the morning of Gus’ birthday.”

“If you’re asking who the car is registered to, it’s registered to Camryn Claymore. Other than that the only thing that’s expired is the warranty on my coffeemaker.”

“Cute. Any idea what caused the fire?”

“Chalice, you pulled up right behind me—did you see me perform an investigation?

“No. You just struck me as being omnipotent.”

Tate gave me a peculiar look. “Omnipotent? You mean like Odin, the Norse God?”

“Exactly right, Odin the Allfather, ruler of Asgard.”
And his hunky son, Thor. I mean is Chris Hemsworth delicious or what?

“It’s usually a fuel system leak.”

“How will you know if it’s arson?”

“Arson?” Tate shook his head with despair. “Again you’re starting with your murder theory shit?” I could see that Tate was in no mood to entertain a homicide query. “I’m busy, Chalice, now unless you’re inviting me for more of Ma’s fabulous cooking . . .”

“All right, all right, I’ll go.” I started to back away. I was going to ask him one more question, but there was no need. I already knew the answer. Vehicular arson is almost impossible to prove especially if the fire originates in the engine compartment. I glanced over at the toasted Subaru. It looked as if it had been hit with a bunker buster missile. Charnoff, Tate’s investigator, was going to have to work double time if he was going to figure this one out.

I felt incredibly guilty about holding up dinner, but once I get a bug in my head . . . well you know, I just can’t let it go.
Perhaps it was all the smoke and soot that started the wheels turning in my head, but when I left the car fire, I found myself instinctively driving toward Bill Alden’s burnt cabin. I didn’t know what I’d find there, but I felt certain that I had to go. I grabbed one of those enormous Jonagold apples and began munching while I phoned Gus.

“I’m starving,” he said. “I thought you’d be home already.”

“Sorry, babe, a car went up in flames just off Montauk Highway and traffic ground to a halt.”

Gus chuckled. “You torched a car?” It was a distinctive chuckle, one I knew well. It meant that he was still in good spirits, but if I wasn’t home in the next five minutes, he’d start eating the furniture.

“No, but I certainly had motive. It was Ray’s car.”

“Ray the noisemaker?”

“One and the same.”

“Eek. Was he burnt?”

“Like volcano chicken.”

“Dead?” he asked apprehensively.

“If that’s who was in the car. I recognized his vomit-green wagon, and the police ran the license plate. It was registered to Camryn Claymore, realtor to the stars. Anyway, you know how fast a car goes up. The gas tank exploded just after I arrived.”

“After you arrived?”

Uh oh.

“So you didn’t just get stuck in traffic; you responded to the incident.”

“Well, it was kind of on the way.”

“Stephanie!”

Oh shit
. It sounded like he was ready to explode. “Um . . .”

“Stop fumfering.”

“Fumfering? When did you become Yiddish?”

“Stop being evasive. Where are you now?”

“In the car?”

“It’s just not funny anymore.”

“I know. I’m sorry. Have a snack, and I’ll be home very soon. I bought all kinds of goodies at the pork store.”

“You’ll have to do better than that,” Gus demanded.

“I’ll wrap my body in prosciutto, and you can peel it off with your teeth.”

“Wow,” he said with utter amazement in his voice. “You’ve really outdone yourself this time—that’s quite an enticing offer. All right, you’re off the hook for now, but you’d better be home in thirty minutes.”

Alden’s house was just up the road. If I moved fast, I’d be able to have a quick look around and get home within Gus’ time frame. Fortunately the days were long, and the sky was still reasonably bright. “Will do, babe. Love ya.” I nailed the accelerator and sped up the road toward the cabin.

It looked far worse than I remembered. Also, to my chagrin, the doors and windows had been boarded up, and I didn’t have any protective gear with me. Still, I had come all this way, so I got out of the car and began looking around the property.

The ground was strewn with debris from the cabin: burnt wood, waterlogged sheetrock, asphalt roofing shingles, fiberglass insulation, and shattered glass. The air was still pungent with the smell of the burnt cabin. I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for, but I was in a persistent mood, so I strolled all around, examining everything on the ground and hoping for something to jump out at me.
Nada.

There was a pair of Adirondack chairs set at the top of the bluff facing the Atlantic. I imagined old Bill Alden in one of the chairs, enjoying the fresh air and gazing off at the distant ocean. It looked inviting, so I accepted, but checked my watch before taking a seat—there was still time for me to make Gus’ curfew.
Five minutes to take in the view and then back in the car. No dillydallying after that.

An old fork was lying on the other chair. It was cheap flatware, like the kind you’d expect to find in a greasy spoon with the tines bent and dried egg stuck in every crevice. I picked it up for a closer look, and true to form, it was bent in the middle, exaggerating the S-shape. I placed it on the arm of the Adirondack chair and turned to take in the Atlantic.

The view was beautiful. Actually it was hypnotic. Maybe it was the time of day and the angle of the sun, but I felt my eyelids growing heavy. I really wanted to let myself go because it was the perfect setting for a snooze.
No. You can’t do this. Gus will have your head.
And I wasn’t making a reference to oral sex. I forced my eyes open and jumped out of the Adirondack chair. A pack of cigarettes was lying on the ground under the chair. It was a pack of Camels, and I remembered Vito saying that they were Alden’s brand. The pack was wet and yucky, but diehard Stephanie felt around in her pocket, snapped on a pair of blue gloves, and picked it up.

What are you doing? Hodgkin told you there was no evidence of foul play.

It didn’t matter to me. I opened the half-empty pack, held it up to my nose, and took a whiff, despite the fact that I absolutely detest cigarettes.
Hot damn.
I recoiled from the smell. It burned my nostrils and smelled nothing like tobacco.

“I come bearing gifts.”
I plopped a grocery bag on the kitchen table while Gus and Ma seared me with their gazes. I imagined a laser cutting through a solid gold table and a restrained James Bond inching away as best he could while the beam approached his junk.

Bond: “Do you expect me to talk?”

Goldfinger
:
“No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.”

Yeah, that’s exactly how they were looking at me.

Gus abandoned a tall glass of beer and begrudgingly gave me a kiss. “Babe,” he said with peaked eyebrows.
Translation: your husband is mightily displeased.

Ma shook her head from side to side but was unable to conceal her grin. “Late to the ball again, Cinderella? What am I going to do with you?” She turned to the stove and raised the flame under one of the pots.

Max was absolutely giddy, bouncing up and down in his baby seat with his arms wide to welcome his mommy. He was animated like a puppy welcoming home its master after a long, lonely day of sleeping and gonad cleansing. I picked him up and smothered him with kisses until he giggled. “Look what mommy brought home,” I said as I scooped the fresh mozzarella out of the bag with my free hand. “I brought
mozzie
, and fresh bread, and the most incredible prosciutto.”

Gus wasted no time—he unwrapped the mozzie and began slicing it up.

“Gorgeous Jonagold apples and . . . pignoli cookies for your nonni.”

“Ou,”
Ma said excitedly. “I haven’t had a good pignoli cookie in ages. They’ve become ridiculously expensive.”

I handed her the box.

She untied the string and began munching. “These are very good,” she boasted. “Okay, you’re forgiven.”

“Not so fast,” Gus said with a piece of cheese in his mouth. “What do I get?”

“The prosciutto. I gave Vito my measurements, and he calculated the square inches necessary to cover me from head to toe.”

“Madonna,”
Ma said with one of those stop-the-music expressions. “No dirty talk in front of your son.”

Max started to make monkey sounds, whooping happily.

I eyed Gus. “That’s the kind of reaction I should be getting from you.”

Gus grinned. “Sorry, hon . . . I can’t wait for you to come to bed in a cold-cut nightie. I’ll bring the mustard.”

Ma cringed. “Too much information.” She threw her hands up in the air and turned back to the stove.

I stashed Max in his child seat and reached into my pocket. “Look what else I have.”

“A pack of Camels? I can’t wait to hear this one,” Gus said. “What’s going on now?”

“Evidence, my dear Watson. I found it at Bill Alden’s place.”

“I can’t believe you went there. What made you go back?”

“It’s my sixth-sense thingy. Something pulled me back to the burnt cabin.”

“She’s a witch,” Ma announced without turning around. “Like her aunt, Zia Francesca.”

“So what’s so important that you had to pick up a disgusting, waterlogged pack of cigarettes?”

“They smell funny.”

“Funny?” Gus asked. “What do you mean?”

“Here, take a quick whiff.” I had slipped the Camels into a clean, unused baggie I’d found in our SUV. I tossed it to him.

Gus handled it carefully, so as not to contaminate the evidence within. He put his nose to the opening, sniffed briefly, and began to blink rapidly. “It’s pretty faint, but it smells acrid,” he said, “I can’t tell what it is though.”

“We need the nose, Ma,” I said. “What does this smell like to you?

Ma stuck her nose in the bag and smelled the cigarettes. “Nuts,” she said as she rubbed the side of her nose.

“Almonds?”

Ma thought for a moment and then concurred. “Yes, almonds. Why?”

“I know why,” Gus said with a big smile on his face. He sealed the bag and handed it back. “The bloodhound found a pack of arsenic-laced cigarettes.”

“Madonna,”
Ma said. “And you let me stick my nose in there. You trying to kill me?”

“I doubt there’s enough residue to do any harm, Ma. Don’t worry.” I looked at Gus and raised my eyebrows. “The medical examiner was wrong. Alden
was
being poisoned.”

He kissed me on the forehead. “Sometimes you are just so on-point that it scares me. How did you ever—”

“Just dumb luck. I saw a pack of cigarettes lying under one of the Adirondack chairs out in the backyard. The rest, as they say, is history.”

“Chain of evidence, babe, did you tell Rich Tate about your find yet?”

“I invited him over for dinner.”

“Good,” Ma said. “I like him.”

“He’s single, you know.”

Ma threatened me with a wooden spoon. “I said I liked him. I didn’t say I wanted to jump his bones, wise guy.” She shook her head again. “How did I ever raise such a disrespectful child?”

“Just lucky, I guess.”

“The pack is still in its plastic wrap,” Gus said. “Maybe they’ll be able to pull prints from it.”

“Maybe,” I said. I’d wait until later before telling Gus that I had a fair idea whose fingerprints we might find.

Dick Aiello, the Suffolk County special services officer, wrapped lightly on the door.
His stock thought process began to run through his head while he waited for the door to open.
Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.
His last call had been a difficult one, a car accident due to a drunk driver—an innocent child killed. He heard the doorknob turn.
Christ, how much longer can I go on doing this job?
He knew exactly how long. It was eighteen months before he could put in his retirement papers.
I’ll just have to tough it out a little longer.

“Yes?” A woman answered the door wearing a robe. “
Oh
. . . Hello,” she said with uneasiness. “Is something wrong, Officer?”

Aiello presented his best brave face, the one that was cordial and nonthreatening. “Officer Aiello, ma’am, Suffolk County Police Department. Are you Camryn Claymore?”

“Yes,”
she answered apprehensively.

“May I come in, Ms. Claymore?”

Camryn stared into Aiello’s eyes and then cinched her robe.

Aiello followed her over to the couch and sat down.

She pulled a handful of Kleenex from the tissue box. “What happened?” she asked, her face mired with anxiety. “Is it Ray?” Tears began to drizzle down her cheek. She quickly blotted them with her tissues.

“There was an accident, Ms. Claymore. A car fire.”

“Oh no. Where? When?”

“Just a few hours ago. The car was registered in your name, a green Subaru, I’m afraid the occupant died in the fire.”

She gasped and sniffled. “Oh my God, my brother Ray?”

“We haven’t been able to identify the victim, Ms. Claymore. Your brother drives that car?”

She nodded and sat silently for several moments appearing to be lost in thought. “God, who else could it be? Can I see him?”

“Not tonight. The body is being assessed by the medical examiner.”

“But—” There was desperation in her voice.

“I’m sorry. It wouldn’t help. The victim was burned extensively—unidentifiable.”

“Oh no.” She began to cry. “How did this happen?” she demanded.

“We don’t know what caused the car to catch fire. It’s been impounded and will be studied to determine the cause.”

“His car just exploded?”

Aiello shrugged. “I’m sorry. We just don’t know right now.”

“But—” She interrupted herself and remained quiet.

Aiello had been in this place many times before.
Almost done
, he thought. The next of kin wanted hope or closure, but routinely he wasn’t in a position to offer either. Back in his early days on the job, he would carry each notification with him for days, mourning and suffering just like the people he’d notified. His skin had thickened over the years. All he could do was wait an appropriate amount of time and provide his business card.

Camryn was still silent, weeping and looking lost in thought.

Aiello glanced at his watch and then handed her his business card. “I’m very sorry to bring you this worrisome news, Ms. Claymore. We’ll be in touch to provide more information. In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to call my office if you have any questions.” Aiello stood. “Once again, ma’am, I’m very sorry.”

Camryn remained silent as she walked Aiello to the door. She watched him stroll toward his car and then softly closed the door behind him. She lit a cigarette and inhaled a deep drag before dispelling smoke toward the ceiling. She poured two fingers of bourbon into a tall glass and walked into the bedroom, the sound of humming growing louder as she opened the door.

Kaley was naked on the bed, spread eagle with a Rabbit Habit vibrator in her hand. Her eyes were wide. She was panting and her chest was heaving. It was an effort for her to stop. She finally mustered the strength to shut her toy and looked up at Camryn, her face keen with anticipation. “Baby,” Kaley said. “You look damn good in your grief.”