Child of Fire (14 page)

Emmett stared at me, waiting for my reaction. “Why are there so few children in Hammer Bay?” I asked. “I see lots of couples, lots of station wagons and plastic swing sets on people’s lawns, but not many kids. Why is that?”

Emmett’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t seem to know what I was talking about. “Mr. Lem had been torn apart by some sort of wild animal.” And yet, he’d called it a murder.

I knew better than to say the word
dog
. “Six days ago? You know, I have the most incredible alibi,” I said. Wiley was still staring at me from the corner. My skin prickled where I imagined a bullet going in.

“I know you do,” Emmett said. He opened the other folder. “You were still in jail, awaiting arraignment for … how many murders was it?”

That wasn’t a question I felt any need to answer.

“Well, the number changed every time they found a new body, right? And the charges were dropped, weren’t they?”

I didn’t answer.

“In fact, some people were calling you a hero.”

“I’m not a hero,” I said, too quickly. A hero would have done more than kill a few predators. A hero would have saved his friend.

“Find any designer drugs in Hammer Bay, Mr. Lilly? Have you seen anything that can make the lame walk, and turn them into crazed killers, too?”

“Not yet.”

“And your relationship to Mr. Lem?”

“I don’t have one.”

Emmett nodded at me. “I think we should take a break. Wiley.”

Wiley shut off the camera. Emmett collected his folders and left the room. Wiley led me back to my cell.

It was still dark outside. Alone in the cell, I lay down on the bench and let myself drift off to sleep again.

I awoke to the sound of the cell being opened. This time it was Sugar Dubois letting me out. He didn’t handcuff me. I glanced at the window and saw daylight.

“What …” Sugar said. He seemed almost shy. “Why did you have so many meat wrappers in your apartment?”

“I’m a collector,” I said. “A rare cube steak can fetch a couple hundred bucks on eBay.”

Sugar didn’t think that was very funny. He led me out into the front offices. Annalise was already standing by the front door with Emmett. Shireen, Luke, and Wiley were nowhere in sight.

“You folks can go,” Emmett said. “If you intend to leave town, let me know about it first. Understand?”

I looked at Annalise. She shrugged dismissively and walked toward the door. I heard Emmett make a low growl in his throat. He was used to being treated like a big shot.

I followed Annalise into the street. The Celica and the black and red trucks were gone. There was nothing to do but walk back to our rooms. My stomach grumbled, but food would have to wait. I wanted my ghost knife.

I noticed a silver Escalade parked on a side street near the station. It looked out of place, but I put it out of my mind. I had other things to think about.

“Did you know Karoly Lem?” I asked Annalise. She didn’t answer. She was walking with her hands held out a little from her body. It wasn’t a big change in her body language, but I noticed it. I spoke in a low voice. “Do you need a trip to the butcher shop?”

“Yes!” she hissed.

We walked quickly through town. “Why hasn’t the meat cured you?” I asked her.

“I don’t know. It always has in the past, but this time a little piece of pain remains, and I can’t make it go away. The pain grows back.”

“What should we do?”

She frowned up at me. That word
we
had just slipped out, but she didn’t like it. “The longer a piece of meat has been dead, the less use it is to me. We need something as fresh as possible, and a lot of it.”

A man walked toward us. He was dressed as a county electrical worker. I looked him in the eyes to catch his attention. “Excuse me,” I said.

He checked us out. He didn’t like the way I looked, but seeing Annalise beside me seemed to reassure him. “Yes?”

“We’re not local—maybe that’s obvious—but we’re looking for a butcher shop. Is there one in town?”

“Well, I always go to the supermarket,” he said.

“We’ve been there,” I said.

“Okay. There is a place. It’s expensive. It’s at the other end of town just off Ocean Street. Look for a New Agey crystal and book shop and turn right. It’s just a couple of doors down. You can’t miss it.”

“Thanks,” I said.

I turned to Annalise. “That’s just a couple of blocks past our motel. Do you want another ten pounds?”

“Twenty,” she said.

We walked the length of Ocean, found the New Age bookstore, and walked up the side street. The butcher shop was closed and wouldn’t open for another hour. At my suggestion, we walked back to Ocean and found a place to eat breakfast.

The silver Escalade now sat parked on the corner while we went into a seafood restaurant. I wasn’t happy to see it again so much closer to us.

After we sat at a table, Annalise ordered for both of us. Apparently, we both wanted the fried-fish omelets, with a side of fish. After the waitress left, I excused myself.

I slipped out the back door of the restaurant. The alley smelled of old fish bones and was apparently home to a clan of feral cats. I made my way to the corner.

A quick trip up the side street showed me that the Escalade was still on the corner. Someone was sitting in the driver’s seat. The engine was off, but the brake lights were on. Keeping a foot on the brake was a good driving habit, but it was bad for a stakeout.

I walked casually toward the vehicle. I would have
liked to have a hat to pull down low or a different jacket to put on, but I didn’t. I hoped that being casual would cut it.

It didn’t. When I was still a full car length away, the engine started and the car jolted into the street. I ran toward it, hoping for a glimpse of the driver, but the SUV squealed into traffic, turned a corner, and was gone.

So much for my ninja skills. I went back into the restaurant and joined Annalise at the table.

“Where have you been?” she asked. The waitress approached our table with our food.

“Checking out a car.”

Annalise grunted. She took my plate, scraped the side order of fish and half of my omelet onto hers, then returned the rest to me. She used her hands cautiously, tenderly, but her expression was calm. I took her toast.

We ate slowly, killing time. We didn’t talk. Annalise watched the street, so I bought the Seattle newspaper and scanned it for my name. There was nothing, thank God. While I read, Annalise ordered another plate of fish. I didn’t ask if it helped.

Ten
A.M.
finally arrived. Annalise and I strolled over to the butcher shop and bought five whole beef tenderloins. The butcher wrapped them all up in one package. It weighed twenty-five pounds, and I carried it.

At the motel, Annalise stopped in at the manager’s office. I followed.

The manager was the same nervous little guy I’d seen while the Dubois brothers were ransacking our things. He gaped at the big package wrapped in butcher paper on my shoulder, then opened his mouth to ask a question. Annalise didn’t give him the chance.

“Have there been any messages for me?” she asked.

The manager looked down at his desk and shuffled some papers. He rubbed his nose and said: “Nothing. I’m sorry.”

Annalise swore under her breath and turned toward the door. She was going to walk out.

“Hey,” I said to her. She stopped and looked up at me. “You do know he’s lying, right?”

She seemed startled. She turned back toward the manager. If he had kept his cool, he might have bluffed his way through it. Instead, he began to stammer and protest with all the sincerity of a hack politician.

“Now, hold on,” he said. “I … I don’t want to … um … want to be rude, but I …”

Annalise yanked the package of tenderloins from my hands and walked over to the counter. She lifted the beef over her head and slammed it down on the counter like a sledgehammer.

The wood cracked. Instead of a flat counter, it was now a sagging V shape. The manager screamed out, “Jesus!” as he leapt backward. Annalise tossed the slab of meat to me. It nearly knocked me on my rear end.

“You lied to me.” Annalise’s voice was quiet. I was standing behind her, but I knew the expression on her face very well. Annalise had a way of looking at people as if they were something small and disgusting and in need of stepping on.

The manager retreated toward the back wall. There was a door behind him, but he seemed to have forgotten it was there. If he had a weapon in the place, he’d forgotten about that, too.

“I … I …” was all he could say.

“Where is that message?” Annalise said. Her voice was rising. “It belongs to me.”

“I don’t have it,” the manager squealed.

“Who does?” Annalise hissed. “Who took it? Was it Able Katz? Charles Hammer?”

“What? No!”

“It was Emmett Dubois,” I said. The manager looked at me, his fear suddenly doubled. “The message was from
a Polish guy who stayed here, right? And just before he was killed, Chief Dubois came by here and collected the note. Right? Or was it just after he was killed?”

“I can’t tell you anything,” the man said. “You don’t understand.”

“I understand,” I assured him. “You’re afraid for your life, right? How much are you paying Dubois every month?”

“I can’t,” he said. “I can’t talk about it.”

“Give me the figure. That’s all I want. How much?”

He looked at Annalise. He was afraid of us, sure, but he
wanted
to tell. We all want to tell. We all want to air our grievances and spread our gossip. Dubois had scared him pretty well, but Annalise and I were all the excuse this little guy needed.

“A hundred dollars,” he said.

“That’s fine. Now, did Emmett collect that message from you before Mr. Lem was killed, or after?”

“You said the figure was all you wanted. You said—”

“It was all that I wanted. She”—I nodded toward Annalise—“wants something more.”

He sighed. “Before,” he said.

“That’s what I thought,” I told him. “Don’t worry, no one needs to know that we heard it from you.”

Annalise folded her arms across her chest. “What did the message say?”

“I didn’t read it,” the manager said, his voice nearly pleading. “I just put it in an envelope like the foreigner asked and set it aside for you. I didn’t even know it was important until Emmett came by asking about it. I swear.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “That’s fine. Annalise, will we be moving to new digs?”

“No, we won’t,” she said.

I set the meat on the edge of the manager’s desk. Red juices dripped through the torn butcher paper onto a stack
of papers. “Well then,” I said to the little guy, “It looks like you’re stuck with us for a while. Let’s go into the back.”

He needed a little convincing, but eventually I led him through the door into his back office. As I suspected, he had a hidden camera at the front desk. I collected the VHS tape, wondering if the Dubois brothers were on one of these cassettes, too. A hidden stash of bribe videos would be good insurance, if he had the wit to play his cards right.

But we were here for the fire and the dead kids. We were here for Charlie Three. Dubois wasn’t any of my business.

“Listen,” I said as I tucked the videotape under my arm. “That message was important. More important than you realize, and you put a lot of people in danger by turning it over to Chief Dubois.”

“What are you, then? FBI?”

“Of course not. And don’t ask that question again. We’re going to be staying here for a few more days, then we’ll be moving on. Keep your head down and you’ll be fine. Understand?”

We walked back out into the front office. He looked at his ruined desk and groaned. “What am I going to tell my wife?”

“Tell her that two disreputable-looking people came in here and lost their tempers,” I said. “Try to stay as close to the truth as possible. You’re not much of a liar.”

Annalise and I went outside. She checked the van. Everything that the Dubois brothers had thrown into the parking lot had been carelessly thrown back inside.

We went into my room. I retrieved my ghost knife from the cut in the floor and pocketed it. It felt good.

I dropped the beef onto the table and unwrapped it. I cut a long strip of meat and then cut that into tiny slivers. Annalise started to pick them up with her fingers and gulp them down.

“How did you know Dubois had the message?”
Annalise asked. “And what difference does it make when he got it?”

“When the chief asked me about Karoly Lem, I figured he had something to do with you, even though I’d never heard of him before. He stayed at this motel, right?”

Annalise nodded while she chewed.

I kept the meat coming. “Not good. With all of us staying at the same place, it’s too easy for someone like Dubois to connect us. Anyway, Lem is dead, and Dubois has to investigate, or at least make it look like he’s investigating it.”

“Do you think he killed Karoly?” she asked, her mouth full.

“I can’t really tell, but I’d bet he did. What was Karoly here to do?”

She didn’t answer me right away. She slid another piece of raw beef into her mouth and chewed.

I sighed. “I can guess, but it would be better if you just told me. Was he another one of your wooden men?”

“No,” she answered quickly. “You’re my wooden man. I’ve never had another.”

“Okay,” I said. I still didn’t know what a wooden man was. “Then what was he doing? Casing the town?”

“Pretty much,” she answered. “There aren’t enough peers in the society to check out every strange report, so we have investigators who check things out. Hammer Bay …” She trailed off. Then she ate a piece of beef. With most people, you could let the silence play out and they’d eventually feel the need to fill it. But Annalise wasn’t a people person. She was used to long silences.

“What about Hammer Bay?” I asked.

“We’ve investigated Hammer Bay before,” she said. “We never found a reason to do an action, but we’ve had people here.”

“What made you send them?”

“This time it was the success of the toy company. ‘Toy
Company Breaks All the Rules to Succeed’ was the headline, I think. I have the clipping in the van.” She lifted a hunk of beef and gulped it down. “We end up investigating a lot of that sort of thing—businesses that should fail but rake in tons of money instead. People who get rich quick. People who win lotteries.”