Archer Mayor - St. Albans Fire

But speed was no longer the point. In fact, it wasn’t even a factor. In some part of his grief-racked brain-a part he wasn’t directly consulting-Gino was actually thinking that he had the entire rest of his life to complete this assignment, regardless of how brief that might be.

He slid down into his seat more comfortably as the cruiser turned around in the driveway and returned whence it had come. He didn’t know where she was being taken or how long they’d keep her under wraps. But he knew where she’d resurface. He’d taken the time to study her history, her personality, her habits.

And that’s where he’d be waiting.

Joe found Gail in a small meeting room floor on the third floor of the Department of Public Safety headquarters building in Waterbury. She was sitting at a fake-wood table in front of a cardboard cup of tepid coffee, surrounded by blackboards, motivational posters, and a rickety metal stand supporting a TV and a VCR.

She stood as he entered, but didn’t circle the table to greet him. He went to her instead, putting his arms around her shoulders.

“I am so sorry, Gail,” he told her again. “When I heard this guy might be in the neighborhood, I couldn’t not warn you.”

Gently, she placed her hands on his chest and pushed him back enough to see his face. “That was not a warning, Joe. With my history, that was a threat. Telling me not to drive my car or step out of the house? Who is this man?”

Joe pulled two seats around so they could face each other and indicated she should sit. She did so, but cautiously, as if preparing to run at any moment. It was anyone’s guess what panic she’d been struggling with-an army of ghosts he could only imagine.

“His name is Gino Famolare,” he explained. “He’s an arsonist, Newark-born, Mob-connected, and he was hired to burn a few barns around St. Albans.”

“And now he’s after me?” she asked incredulously.

“Maybe. Like I said, I’m only being careful there. He was overheard saying he’d do to me like I’d done to him, or something like that, before he disappeared a few days ago.”

“And you did what to him?”

“It’s what he thinks I did. Would you like a refresher on that coffee?”

Gail gave him a flat look. “No.”

“Sorry. We-the Newark cops and we-were putting pressure on him indirectly. Talking to his wife, his girlfriend, staking his place out, and in the midst of it, the girlfriend bolted, we don’t know why. We chased after her, but she crashed her car and died. Apparently, Famolare made it personal.”

Joe didn’t mention how easily he understood Gino’s motivation, and how thoroughly, in two brief encounters, he, too, had fallen under Peggy’s spell. Gino’s vow to do unto Joe as Joe had done unto him carried more emotional weight than Joe felt comfortable sharing.

Gail blinked a couple of times, still staring at him. “Do you have a picture of him?”

He reached into his breast pocket. “I thought you might ask.”

He laid a mug shot on the table beside them. As with all such photographs, it was debatable whether the subject’s own mother would recognize him, but it was all Joe had.

Gail picked it up and studied it. “A wife and girlfriend both.”

“Yeah, the girlfriend was young enough to be his daughter. Beautiful, very much in love with him.”

“You spoke with her?”

“Yes. Tried to get her to give him up. He had her stashed in a town house in the safest part of town. Quite the love pad.”

“And the wife?”

Joe had no idea where these questions were going, or what had stimulated them, but he didn’t feel he could quibble. “More like an urban suburb, the way Newark and its surroundings are set up.”

She frowned, dropped the mug shot onto the table, and sat back for the first time. “I meant, did you meet her, too?”

“Oh, yeah. Slightly dirty pool. We wanted to know what she knew, and we used the girlfriend as leverage.”

“You told her?” It was asked without inflection.

For the first time, a small alarm went off in his head. “He did kill a kid. Burned him alive.”

“I read the papers, Joe. Every day.”

He pressed his lips together, silenced by the ice in her voice.

“How did the wife take it?” she asked.

“Not well, and it still didn’t get us anything. As far as we could tell, he kept her and their daughters in the dark about his activities.”

Gail slid forward in her chair and began to stand. Joe reached out to take her hands, but she quickly moved them away and stood on her own. He stayed put, looking up at her.

“Are you okay?” he asked lamely.

She walked to the far end of the small room, putting the table between them again. “That’s not a serious question, right?”

About the only time he had ever seen her so on edge was during the days and weeks following the rape.

“No. Of course not. I’m just hoping to put things right.”

Her face darkened. “So far, it doesn’t sound like you’ve done too well. Besides helping to get a girl killed, destroying a man’s otherwise clueless family, and then siccing the same wacko on me, have you gotten any closer to making the world a safer place?”

He was stunned into silence. Never before had she spoken to him with such contempt.

He rose, too, and moved to the door. “I’m going to put you up at a motel, at least for the rest of the night,” he said. “You have any preferences?”

“I want to go home. That’s where I feel safest.”

Joe hesitated.

“Do you have the slightest shred of evidence this man is even in the state, much less watching my house?” she asked him.

“No. But we don’t know he isn’t, either. He’s very upset, Gail, and-”

“I know the feeling,” she interrupted.

He took a breath. “And very determined. The threat he made against you is like a blood oath. We-I-have no reason to think he won’t act on it. I can’t let that happen. I love you too much.”

There was a prolonged stillness between them, punctuated only by the slight humming of the fluorescent lighting overhead.

She scowled suddenly and touched her forehead with her fingertips, as if acknowledging a headache. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“It’s all right.”

“I’m tired, is all.”

“I know. That’s why I suggested a motel.”

“Not that way,” she explained, her eyes sorrowful. “I’m tired of this kind of stress-I’ve got enough of my own. I’m running out of reserves.”

He took a step toward her, gripped by her implication and the fear it ignited within him-one that had grown over the last couple of years. “We will get him, Gail.”

She sighed deeply. “That’s not what I mean.”

He knew what she meant, but he didn’t press her-didn’t want the words out in the open.

“I tell you what,” he said instead. “Let me put you in a safe place for the rest of tonight and tomorrow, while my guys check your place from top to bottom. After that, you can go home. But it’s got to be with twenty-four-hour-a-day protection, both there and at work. Discreet, if you want, but around-the-clock.”

He’d expected resistance, but when it came to personal safety, he should have known better. Both her house in Brattleboro and her Montpelier condo were minifortresses, rigged with locks, lights, and alarms.

“Okay,” was all she said.

Gino didn’t linger for long, but he did take the time to gloat a little, at least. He watched as several unmarked cars drove up the street and parked at various locations along the block. A group of casual-appearing men and women, some carrying oversize briefcases, convened on the sidewalk before Gail’s address, hovering like disorganized guests looking for a leader, until one of them worked the front-door combination and let them all in.