Shattered Shell (48 page)

"Then you want to go ahead?"

My insides were still jumbling around, like they were busily rearranging themselves, the organs and tendons fastening and unfastening. "I don't know," I said, conscious my voice was sounding bleak. "I don't know what to say to Diane."

"Don't look to me," Felix said. "I'm afraid it's all yours."

"I know, I know," I said, and I remembered last week and the photo contact sheets I saw, and something opened up to me. "Well, let's go back downstairs. I have an idea how to find out just how truthful Nick is."

Back in the cellar Nick looked up at us again, a questioning sense of hope about his face, and I said, "This arsonist. You know his name?"

"I do."

"And if we agree to go along, will you help set up a sting? Get him to agree to bum a property here on Tyler, so we can catch him in the act?"

He started smiling, the smile of a confident victory. "Yeah, I can do that. Real easy."

"Fine," I said. "One more thing. Is this gentleman the arsonist?”

I mentioned a name. Felix seemed to take a deep breath.

Nick's eyes widened for a moment. "You know," he said, his voice softer. "You know who he is."

"No," I said, feeling old and tired and hurtful. "I just suspected. You just confirmed it."

I turned to Felix, who looked like he was in shock himself "We need to talk again," I said. "And longer, this time."

Two days later, after some rest, relaxation, and serious planning I gave Paula Quinn a call. After the usual polite chitchat, I said, "Your friend Jerry. Could you set up something with the two of us?"

Paula laughed. "What, a meeting? A lunch date?"

"A technical session," I said. "I need some photographic advice, and I was hoping you'd be able to smooth the way. What I know about cameras comes from those little sheets of paper they slip in each roll of film. I'm going to need some heavy-duty advice."

Paula laughed again. "This sounds quite spooky, Lewis. You plan to take some pictures in a high school cheerleader shower area?"

"Now, that's an idea."

She got another fit of the giggles, and after placing me on hold for a minute or so, she came back on the line. "Jerry can see you today at three, if it's convenient."

"Three's just fine," I said.

"So, tell me, what's up? You've got any more great ideas on where we go next on the arsons?"

Dear me. "Not now, but give me a couple of days, Paula. I just might at that."

"Fine. Jeez, got a deadline coming up. Let's do lunch next week."

"You've got it."

That afternoon I was in the
Chronicle
's office, sitting at the meeting room table and with Jerry Croteau across from me. He was wearing tan corduroys and a photographer's mesh vest, and his camera bag was on the far end of the table. Its shoulder strap was frayed and the pockets bulged with lenses and other mysteries of his profession.

"Paula tells me you're looking for some technical advice," he said, his hands clasped before him. They were thick and chapped --- working with darkroom chemicals can do a number on your complexion.

"That I am," I said, holding a pen over a pad of paper. "Advice on both still and moving photography. I'll be using a thirty five-millimeter and a standard camcorder."

He was still smiling widely. "Well, I can help you a lot with the first, and a little bit with the second. What do you need?"

"Nighttime photography," I said. "I want to take some night photos and be able to identify what's being photographed. But I don't want any flashes or anything to let anybody know that a picture's being taken."

"Hmmm," he said, rubbing at his beard. "What will you be taking photos of'?"

I looked right at him. "Wildlife."

He nodded, as if understanding. "Urn, okay. Wildlife. Fast moving, slow-moving?"

"Oh, relatively slow-moving."

"Um, can I guess here? Will this wildlife be, urn, two legged?"

I nodded. "Very good. Two-legged it is."

"All right, then," Jerry said. "Start taking some notes. For your thirty-five-millimeter, I'd recommend the Kodak I-R Special. It's an infrared film but it's real fast, so you can pick up some good details. Especially if your subject's slow-moving. Will there be some ambient light?"

"A little, but not much," I said, scribbling away,

"Okay, that's good to know. For your camcorder, Sony puts out a special infrared film for scientists and nature specialists. Called NightWorks. You should be able to do just fine."

"Glad to know that," I said, and after a few more minutes of technical talk, I capped my pen and shook his hand, thankful for what he had just done, and still a bit queasy with knowing he and Paula were sharing something special and intimate, something I was not a part of.

"Thanks for your help," I said, really meaning it. "I knew you'd be able to have what I need."

"Sure, no problem," Jerry said, getting up from behind the polished table. ''I'm just curious what you're up to."

"Well, let's just say that next weekend I plan to do some documentary work."

"Sounds interesting. Um, can I ask you something?"

"Of course," I said, reaching for my coat.

"Paula tells me that sometimes you're involved in some… interesting things, things that can be newsworthy."

I put on the coat, wincing at the pain still in my arms and shoulder blades. "That's an interesting description, but yes, she's right."

He looked around the office for a moment. 'Well, I guess what I'm asking is this. If whatever you're doing is something that's newsworthy, will you let me know?"

I thought for a moment and said, "No, you'll be the second to know."

He was grinning. "The second? Who'd be the first?"

"Paula," I said, heading out of the conference room. "She has first dibs, and always has."

He laughed and said, "Well, hell, that sounds just fine."

"Glad to hear it," and I went outside.

Two nights later, after much more work and phone calls and a puzzled meeting with the president of the Tyler Beach Chamber of Commerce, I was in the office of the Black Cat Motel, on the beach and near the Falconer border. The room was cold, and even though I had a quartz heater humming along by my feet, every now and then I shivered.

At the desk near me I had some water and a package of cheese and crackers and nothing else, for I didn't expect a long night, not at all. Everything should be happening in the next fifteen minutes or so.

Before me was a window with venetian blinds, which were partially open, allowing the lens of my 35mm Nikon and the lens of a Sony camcorder to poke through. Both were on tripods and both were aiming across the tiny parking lot, at the Roscoe House Inn. The windows were dark and the night was cold, and the parking lot was unplowed. Both cameras were focused on the front door of the Roscoe House, which was conveniently unlocked.

I looked around for a minute at the empty office. I felt like I was in a haunted house, with the spirits and voices and scents of hundreds of guests still living in the walls around me. I rubbed my frigid hands and moved closer to the heater, still in awe of how everything was coming back together, was coming full circle. Almost there, almost there to finishing everything up.

Yeah, but what about Diane and Kara? came an insistent voice inside of me. What in hell are you doing with those two?

I tried to force those thoughts out of my mind as I bent over to look through the camera's viewfinder. I was doing the best I could. That's all I could do, and nothing else.

So shut up, I said to those insistent voices, and I kept watch out on the parking lot, and then I stopped breathing for a moment.

Motion, coming from the left. I kept my eye down, waiting, not moving.

A figure came out of the shadows, walking with some difficulty in the snow. In another five or six seconds, the shape would come out into the parking lot, where a streetlight was doing a fairly good job of lighting everything up.

Seconds, that's all.

The figure came closer. I dared not move.

Then it became clear. A man, dressed in a long coat, carrying something in his hands.

I focused the camera. There he was.

Mike Ahern, fire inspector for the town of Tyler, New Hampshire.

Chapter Thirty

I backed up from the gear, my ears straining from listening and my leg muscles twitching from standing so long, and out by the entrance, a harsh whisper: "Cole?"

"Over here, and be careful, there's a lot of furniture along the way."

Mike Ahem glided into the room, unbuttoning his coal, and in one hand he held a police radio. He looked at my camera gear and said, "I still think this whole thing stinks. If it ever gets out that you set this up, if it goes down wrong, then ---"

"Then you get my ass arrested and nothing else happens," I said, looking back out through the window. "But if it does work out, then you crack the case and you're a hero, with newspaper headlines across New England."

"Screw the headlines, I just want this asshole," he said, sitting down on the desk. "Are you sure he'll be here?"

"That's the arrangement I made," I said. "The burn is set for the next ten minutes. It was quite specific."

"And how about the man doing the hiring? How come I can't have him?"

"Because it was part of the deal. You get the guy who's been burning Tyler Beach, and that's a promise. The man with this deal has nothing to do with the earlier fires."

Mike grunted, looked at the camera gear, and said, "I take it the film belongs to me when the night is over?"

"You take it, right," I said. "The film is all yours."

"And how did I get this wonderful gift of an arsonist in action?"

I turned back to the window. "You came here at the suggestion of an anonymous informant. This informant had specific information about the crime that no one else knew. With the cooperation of the hotel owners and the Chamber of Commerce, you've set up this sting. Now will you please shut up, or at least show some gratitude?"

Another noncommittal grunt and I returned to the camera gear, checking again for the fiftieth or hundredth time that everything was powered up, everything was in focus. I checked my pocket watch and when I looked up, there he was.

"Movement," I said. With no sound or apparent motion, Mike was at my side.

"Where?" he demanded, his voice firm but quiet.

"Over by the side of the hotel, left-hand side, by the door. He's going in."

I turned on the camcorder and bent down to the 35mm and started snapping off a series of pictures. The camera has a power winder, and the little whir-whir noises of the film advancing seemed very loud in the office. I could also hear Mike's breathing quicken, as he murmured, "That's right, darlin', you go right in here."

In looking through the viewfinder, I felt a brief moment of panic. The man was carrying a heavy duffel bag on his shoulder, and I couldn't make out his head, never mind his face. He moved quick and sure, and in seconds was through the front door.

"He's in," I said, and Mike murmured back, "I know."

"How long do you think for the setup?"

"Not long at all," he said, holding the police radio with both hands. "He's had quite the experience. I just hope he doesn't go out the rear door."

"No reason to," I said, looking again through the camera, "The front door is easy enough, and we're probably the only people around in a hundred yards."

From inside the Roscoe House Inn came the ghostly flickers of a flashlight being used, visible through the windows, and then the place got dark.

"Good boy," Mike said, keeping his voice low. "Don't want to make an impression, that's right. No need to shine a lot of lights and get people nervous. You do your business now, and then be on your way."

The place was now dark. My hands on the camera made the picture shake, and I tried to steel myself into not shaking, but I couldn't help it.

Mike suddenly said, "If this goes down tonight, Lewis, then I'm yours. You ever need anything from the town or the fire department, I'll take care of it. Personally."

I tried looking through the camera without using my hands.

"How about a reduction on my tax bill?"

“I’ll take care of it."

"Mike, I was just joking."

His answer was plain and to the point: "I wasn't."

Then it just happened. Simple as that. No burst of fireworks, no floodlights, no glare of publicity. Just the door opening up and a man stepping out, a man carrying a now-empty duffel bag in his hands.

Jerry Croteau, staff photographer for The Tyler
Chronicle
.