Blue Smoke

  gaps came about because he was inside, but he’s not afraid to wait, to pick his moment. He waited three months after his uncle kicked him out of the house to retaliate by setting his cousin’s house on fire. That had to be him.”

  “I can help you with that one. I know some people in Frederick County.”

  “I was hoping you did, and would. We’re reopening Josh Bolton’s case.” She sipped some of the Diet Pepsi she’d poured herself. “It’s going to be him there, John. If there’s nothing else that comes out of this, nothing else, I need to nail him for that.” She couldn’t stop the tremor in her voice, or in her heart. “For Josh.”

  “You let it get personal, let it crawl in there, Reena, you’re playing into his hands.”

  “I know it. I’m working on it. He wants me to know it’s him. No matter how he set the scenes, covered his tracks, he wants me to know. But why now? Why wait all these years, then move on me so directly? Something’s changed, something lit his fuse.”

  Nodding, John forked up more eggs. “He’s kept you on his radar all this time, and slipped under yours to take hits at you. Maybe it’s something you’ve changed. Could be as simple as you buying this house. Getting involved with the guy next door.”

  “Maybe, maybe.” But she shook her head. “I’ve had big moments in my life before now. Graduating college—he got a GED in prison. Getting my shield, and he’s been drifting, at least on record, from job to job. I’ve been involved with men before, and we can’t find any serious relationships for him. He can’t get into my head and know how I felt about the men I’ve been involved with, if I was serious. From the outside, my relationship with Luke looked serious. And yeah,” she said before John could speak, “he blew up his damn car, but he didn’t contact me. He didn’t start a dialogue.”

  “Maybe it’s the timing. The twenty-year thing. Anniversaries are milestones, after all. But finding his motive is going to help you work him. We want to shut him down before he gets tired of playing and comes after you. You know he will, Reena. You know how dangerous he is.”

  “I know he’s dangerous. I know he’s a violent sociopath with misogynistic tendencies. He’ll never let any slight—actual or perceived—go unpunished. But he won’t come after me, not for a while. This is too exciting for him, makes him important. He could, however, come after people I love. That scares me boneless, John. I’m afraid for my family, for you, for Bo.”

  “Playing into his hands again.”

  “I know that, too. I’m a good cop. Am I a good cop, John?”

  “You’re a good cop.”

  “Most of my time on the job’s been concentrated on arson investigation. The puzzle of it. Working the evidence, details, observation, psychology, physiology. I’m not a street cop.” She drew in a breath. “I can count the times I’ve had to draw my weapon in the line. I’ve never once had to fire it. I’ve subdued suspects, but only once have I ever had to subdue an armed suspect. Last month. And my hands were shaking the whole time. I had a nine millimeter, he had a pissant knife, and for God’s sake, John, my hands were shaking.”

  “Did you subdue the suspect?”

  “Yes.” She dragged a hand through her hair. “Yes I did.” She closed her eyes. “Okay.”

  She spent the day dealing with the myriad and headachy chores of the job. Reading reports, writing them, making calls, waiting for them.

  The legwork took her back to her own neighborhood to question one of Joey’s old friends.

  Tony Borelli had been a skinny, sulky-faced boy, a year ahead of her in school. His mother, she recalled, had been a screamer. The sort of woman who stood on her steps or the sidewalk, screeching at her kids, the neighbors, her husband. The occasional total stranger.

  She’d died from complications due to a stroke at the age of forty-eight.

  Tony had had his share of dustups. Shoplifting, joyriding, possession, and had done a short stretch in his early twenties for his involvement in a chop-shop organization in South Baltimore.

  He was still skinny, a bag of bones in grease-stained jeans and a faded red T-shirt. His hair was topped by a gray gimme cap with the name Stenson’s Auto Repair scrolled across it.

  He had a Honda Accord on a lift, and wiped oil off his hands with a bandanna that might, once, have been blue.

  “Joey Pastorelli? Jesus, haven’t seen him since we were kids.”

  “You and he were pretty tight back in the day, Tony.”

  “Kids.” He shrugged, continued to drain oil from the Honda. “Sure, we ran together awhile. Thought we were badasses.”

  “You were.”

  Tony flicked a glance over, nearly smiled. “Guess we were. That was a long time ago, Reena.” His eyes tracked over to O’Donnell, who loitered near a workbench as if fascinated by the display of parts and tools. “Gotta grow up sometime.”

  “I’m still friends with a lot of the kids I ran with back then. Even the ones who left the neighborhood. We keep in touch.”

  “Girls are different, maybe. Joey went off to New York when we were, what, twelve? Long time ago.”

  He continued to work, she noted, just as he continued to give O’Donnell nervous looks.

  “You had some trouble along the way, Tony.”

  “Yeah, I had some trouble. Did some time. Once you do, some people, they never figure you can clean it up. I got a wife now, I got a kid. I got a job here. I’m a good mechanic.”

  “A skill that helped you get a job chopping cars.”

  “I was twenty, for Chrissake. Paid my debt to society. What do you want from me?”

  “I want to know the last time you saw or spoke to Joey Pastorelli. He’s made some trips back to Baltimore, Tony. A guy comes back to the neighborhood, he’s bound to touch base with his old friends. You’re holding back on me, and you keep doing it, I can make trouble for you. I wouldn’t like doing it, but I would.”

  “This all goes back to when he knocked you around when we were kids.” He pointed a grease-stained finger. “I didn’t have anything to do with that, that’s not on me. I don’t hit girls—women. You see anything on my sheet about hitting women?”

  “No. I don’t see anything on your sheet about violent behavior, period. Just like I see you kept your lip zipped when you got busted for chopping. Didn’t name names. You think this is about loyalty, Tony? We’re looking at Joey in connection to murder. You want a piece of that, accessory after the fact?”

  “Whoa, wait. Hold on.” He stepped back, the wrench dangling from his hand. “Murder? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Swear on my life.”

  “Tell me about Joey.”

  “Okay, maybe he’s breezed through a couple of times. Maybe we had a beer. There’s no law against it.”

  “When? Where?”

  “Man.” He pulled off his cap, showing Reena his hair was thinning, veeing back from his forehead to form a long, sharp widow’s peak. “First time I heard from him, after the fire, all that crazy shit, was right before I hooked up with the chop shop. He came back around, said he had some business to take care of. Said he knew these guys if I was looking to make some money. He took me over to the shop. That’s how I got into it.”

  “You were busted in 1993.”

  “Yeah. Chopped for about a year before I got busted.”

  She felt the clutch in her gut. “So Joey plugged you in in ’ninety-two?”

  “That’d be right.”

  “When? Spring, summer, winter?”

  “Well, God, how’m I supposed to remember?”

  “Give me a weather picture, Tony. Joey comes around, all these years since, you hit a couple of bars maybe. You walk? Was there snow?”

  “No, it was nice out. I remember. I was smoking some weed, listening to the ball game. I remember now. Early in the season, but it was nice out. April or May, I guess.”

  It was hot in the garage, hot and close, but the sweat that had beaded on Tony’s face was from more than steamy working conditions. “Look, if he killed some
body, he didn’t tell me about it. I’m not saying I’m surprised he did, or could, but he didn’t tell me.” Tony wet his lips. “Talked about you some.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Just bullshitting. Asked me if I still saw you around . . . if, you know, I’d ever gotten any of that.”

  “What else?”

  “I was pretty loaded, Reena. I just remember we talked the kind of shit you talk, and he hooked me up with the operation. I did three years for that, and I got clean. Been working here since. He blew through again a few years after I got out.”

  “ ’Ninety-nine?”

  “Yeah. I had a drink with him for old times’ sake. He tells me he’s got a lot of lines dangling, can help me out. But I wasn’t going back down that road, told him. Pissed him off, and we got into it a little. Took off, left me stranded on The Block ’cause he was driving. Nearly froze my ass off trying to get a cab home.”

  “Cold out?”

  “Witch’s tit. Slid on some ice, fell on my ass. I met Tracey a few weeks later. That cleaned me up some more. She doesn’t take any bullshit.”

  “Good for her.”

  “Good for me. And I know it, Reena. Next time I saw Joey I told him flat out I couldn’t do that shit anymore.”

  “When was this?”

  Tony shifted his weight. “Couple weeks ago. Maybe three. He came by the house. I don’t know how he found out where we’re living. It was close to midnight. Scared Tracey. Woke up the kid. He’d been drinking, wanted me to come out with him. I wouldn’t let him in, and I sent him away. He didn’t like it.”

  “Was he on foot?”

  “No. Ah, I watched, to make sure he kept going. I saw him get into a Cherokee. Black Jeep Cherokee. Looked like a ’ninety-three.”

  “Catch the plates?”

  “No, sorry. Never looked.” He kneaded his cap between his hands now, but what she saw wasn’t guilt nerves. It was fear. “He upset my wife and kid. Things are different now. I’ve got a family. If he’s done murder, I don’t want him coming around my family.”

  “He contacts you again, I want to know about it. I don’t want you to tell him we’ve had this talk. If you can, find out where he’s staying, but don’t press it.”

  “You’re scaring me some, Reena.”

  “Good, because he’s a scary guy. If he works up a mad about you, he’ll hurt you. He’ll hurt your family. That’s not bullshit, Tony, that’s straight.”

  She walked out with O’Donnell, then turned when Tony came out of the garage, calling her.

  “Ah, something else. Private.”

  “Sure. Be right with you,” she said to O’Donnell, and walked around the side of the building with Tony.

  “He really kill somebody?”

  “We’re looking at that.”

  “And you think he might try to hurt Tracey or the kid?”

  “He deals in payback, Tony. Right now he’s too busy to worry about you. But if we don’t get him, he may find the time. You’re going to want to stay out of his way, and contact me if he gets in touch.”

  “Yeah, I got that. I got a break when Tracey took a chance on me. I don’t risk that, not for anything or anyone. Listen.” He took his cap off again, ran his hand through what was left of his hair. “Um, when we were kids, before, well, before all hell broke loose on the block, he used to follow you.”

  “Follow me?”

  “He used to watch you around school, around the neighborhood. He’d, ah, sneak out at night and look in the windows of your house, maybe climb that tree in the back, try to see into your bedroom. I went with him sometimes.”

  “See anything interesting, Tony?”

  His gaze lowered to the toes of his boots. “He was going to rape you. He didn’t call it that, and I’m telling you straight, Reena, I didn’t think of it like that, either. I was twelve. He said he was going to do you, wanted me to come along for it. I didn’t want any part of that, and, besides, I thought he was just blowing smoke. Mostly I thought it was gross. But after, well, when everybody heard how he’d knocked you down and . . . I knew what he’d been trying. I didn’t say anything to anybody.”

  “You’re saying it now.”

  He looked back at her. “I’ve got a little girl. She’s just five. When I think . . . I’m sorry. I want to say I’m sorry I didn’t say anything to anyone before he tried to hurt you. I want you to know, you’ve got my word, if he gets in touch with me again, I won’t tell him you’re looking for him. And I’ll call you first thing.”

  “All right, Tony.” To seal it, she took his hand, shook it. “It’s nice you have a family now.”

  “Makes a difference.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, it does.”

  We have confirmation Joey P. was in the area at or around the time of Josh’s death, and of the vehicular fire of Luke’s car. We have confirmation he was in Baltimore two to three weeks ago.”

  Reena briefed the arson squad, Steve as fire inspector and members of the Crime Scene Unit.

  “He was reported to be driving a black Jeep Cherokee, possibly a ’ninety-three, when he left the residence of Tony Borelli. There is no vehicle registered in the name of Joseph Pastorelli, Junior. Or Senior. His mother doesn’t own a car. It’s possible the vehicle was borrowed from an acquaintance, or more likely stolen. We’re in the process of culling through reports of stolen Cherokees. Younger?”

  He shifted in his chair. “We’re still piecing things together, but it looks like the device placed in Goodnight’s gas tank was the same type used in the Chambers vehicular fire six years ago. Firecracker floating in a cup, soaked rags for a fuse. We’re looking at like crimes, pulling them in from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. We’re also taking a closer look at the homicide and car torching in North Carolina that took out Hugh Fitzgerald. And the case, deemed accidental death, of Joshua Bolton is now reopened.”

  One of the other detectives nodded toward the board where both Pastorellis’ mug shots were pinned, along with various crime-scene photos. “We’re going on the assumption that this guy’s been lighting fires for ten years or more, has killed at least two people, and never got smoke in his eyes before this?”

  “That’s right,” Reena said. “He’s careful, he’s good. It’s very possible he had some protection from the Carbionellis, has likely done some torch work for them. And the assumption continues that up until this point he had no motive to make himself known to me. What that motive is? He’s still the only one who knows it. But he keeps coming back here. He’s drawn back to Baltimore.”

  “You’re part of the reason why,” Steve pointed out.

  “Me,” she agreed, “his father and what happened during that August of ’eighty-five. He holds grudges, and he’s not afraid to hold them for a long time. Before this, as far as we know, he came in, took his shot, backed off. This time, he’s staying, he’s playing it out. He’ll call again. He’ll light something up again.”

  She looked back at the mug shot. “This time he means to finish it.”

  At the end of shift, Reena gathered up files and notes. She’d work, she decided, but she wanted to work at home, without the background noise. And she wanted to be home the next time he called.

  She balanced folders as she grabbed the phone. “Arson Unit, Hale. Yeah, thanks for getting back to me. NYPD,” she told O’Donnell, and set down the files to take notes. “Yeah, yeah, I’m getting it. You’ve got the name of the fire and arson inspectors? The detective on the burglary case? I’d appreciate that. I’ll be in touch.”

  She hung up, looked at O’Donnell. “The watch, the earrings, a lot of other goodies, stolen from an apartment on the Upper East Side, December fifteenth of last year. The building was evacuated due to a fire in a neighboring apartment—empty apartment as the owners were on vacation. When the fire department suppressed, let people back into the building, these people found they’d been hit. Cash, jewelry, coin collection.”

  “Small, portable.”

  “T
here’s a doorman on the building, but one of the other tenants had a party that night. Catered. People in and out—guests, wait people, so on. Wouldn’t be hard to slip through that, get into an empty apartment, set a fire.”

  “Cause of fire determined?”

  “They’re sending copies of the files overnight, but the gist was multiple points of origin. Utility closet full of cleaning supplies, sofa, bed. That place was also burgled. Small objets d’art, some jewelry that wasn’t in the home safe.”

  “Somebody inside had a piece of it.”

  “No arrests, as yet, no recovery of stolen goods. NYPD’s grateful for the possible lead.”

  “Tit for tat,” O’Donnell said.