Archer Mayor - St. Albans Fire

He kissed her, interrupting, and then said, “I never wanted this to happen.”

“You couldn’t help it, Joe,” she answered. “It’s your job. It’s the people you deal with. It’s your life.”

“Still,” he soothed her, “it seems so unfair.”

Her face scrunched up like a child’s. “It is . I know that’s dumb, and I know a lot of people have had it a lot worse than I have, but I feel like I’ve paid enough. I’ve got good things to offer, and I really want to do that. I promise to work hard. But I want to be left alone.”

The crying surged once more, and he gathered her more tightly to him. “We’ll get you that. I promise. We’ll make it work.”

They shopped for her few grocery items after that, holding hands, not speaking much, oblivious of Mark trailing behind, his eyes on everything but them. In their separate ways, Joe and she felt bruised and worn, not unlike weary travelers who have just been told they have many more miles to go.

With a couple of plastic bags of bananas, canned soup, and some vegetables, they left the town behind them a half hour later under a sky tinged with the furious last blush of the setting sun, and worked their way in a two-car caravan toward Gail’s condo development. Joe was lost in a reverie of futile tactics, all aimed at removing Gino Famolare from circulation. Gail seemed barely awake, slouched down in her seat, staring blankly at the darkening scenery slipping by.

On her street, as they approached the house, a man detached himself from the shadows of her garage door to greet them as they pulled into the driveway-another cop, here already a couple of hours, and assigned to watch the house for the rest of the night.

Joe killed the engine, got out, and circled the car to help Gail with the groceries she had nestled in her lap. As they were sorting out the bundles, Mark pulled past the driveway, sidled up to the curb, and then backed into the driveway beside them, facing out. As he did, Gail stepped out of the way, looking up as his headlights swept the row of parked cars across the street-and illuminated the pale, round face of a man sitting deep inside the shadows of an unmarked delivery truck.

From her countless examinations of his otherwise bland mug shot, Gail instantly recognized Gino Famolare.

She dropped her groceries onto the ground and grabbed Joe’s arm. “My God. That’s him. In the van.”

The headlights had moved on and were now pointing at the car directly behind the van. But Joe didn’t hesitate, trusting in what she’d seen. He threw her back into the car, pulled his gun out, and yelled, crouched in a shooter’s stance, “You in the van. Get out with your hands where I can see them.”

The two other cops instantly yielded to instinct, the one by the garage imitating Joe, and Mark, still in his car, turning on the spotlight by his outside mirror and shining it on the van.

All three saw Gino’s pale blur as he ducked down behind the wheel, fired up his engine, and stamped on the accelerator, clipping the car ahead of him as he spun out of his parking space.

But Mark had anticipated him. As the van emerged into the street, its rear tires squealing, the bodyguard drove his car like a battering ram against the other man’s rear quarter panel, throwing the van into a skid and causing its own momentum to propel it into a utility pole, where it stopped with a metal-crunching thud.

As Joe and the other cop ran toward the wreck, and Mark piled out of his car, his gun out, Gino stumbled from the van on the far side and began running, limping badly, in the opposite direction.

In his hand was a semiautomatic, clearly visible under the streetlight.

All three officers rounded the crashed cars at the same time and stood for a brief moment, lined up as at the range.

“Gino Famolare. Stop where you are,” Joe shouted, some twenty yards away.

His back to them, Gino stopped, still holding the gun.

“Put the gun down, kick it away, get on your knees, and lock your hands behind your head,” Joe ordered.

Instead, Gino turned around. The gun was still pointed at the ground. All three cops spread out as Joe repeated, “Put the gun down- now. ”

But everyone knew what was going to happen, turning what followed into a ritualistic suicide. Gino brought his gun hand up, fired once in Joe’s direction, and immediately collapsed in a fusillade of bullets. He lay still and crumpled in the ear-ringing silence, faintly shrouded by a pale gray mist of gun smoke delivered by the cool, barely perceptible evening breeze. A thick rivulet of blood began to leak toward the gutter from under him.

Sammie Martens walked up to Joe outside Gail’s condo. There were vehicles everywhere, supplying enough flashing strobes to satisfy a parade marshal, from the initial responders to the post-shoot investigators to the crime scene techs and the arson guys. This last group had been called in to remove all the incendiaries Gino had planted throughout Gail’s house.

“You okay, boss?”

“We are now,” he answered, nodding toward where the medical examiner was crouched over Gino’s body. “Suicide by cop.”

“So I heard,” she said. “How’s Gail?”

Joe hesitated, remembering Gail’s oddly shut-down demeanor following the shooting, when he’d hoped she might’ve been in some way relieved. “She didn’t get hurt,” he said cautiously.

“Great,” Sam answered vaguely, getting to the real reason she was here. “I don’t know if this is the time or place, but Linda Padgett’s gone missing, and her dad says one of his handguns isn’t where he left it. It’s usually locked up, because of the kids, but she knows where the key is.”

Joe nodded, his brain cataloging all he knew of this family’s complicated dynamics. “How long she been gone?”

“Five hours, give or take.”

“Any ideas?”

Sam smiled ruefully. “That’s why I’m here.”

“Okay,” he said. “I got one. Let me check on Gail again and get clearance to leave, and I’ll be right with you.”

Sunset was long gone from the ridge hosting the cemetery. Now, replacing the swatches of red and orange across the fading blue sky was a canopy of cold, sharp stars mirroring the St. Albans city lights cradled in the trough of land below.

Sam and Joe parked their car well shy of the cemetery gate and made their way slowly and quietly through the short undergrowth of headstones, helped by the night’s dim light. Eventually, they made out the dark shape of a figure wrapped in a blanket, bundled up against Bobby’s new stone and outlined against the urban glow far below.

Joe gestured to Sam to stand watch from two rows behind as he moved to a spot slightly off to one side of their quarry and cleared his throat, gently so as not to startle her.

She was so motionless, he wondered if she was even alive, a thought that had crossed his mind on the drive over here.

“Nice night,” he said hopefully, his eyes on the invisible horizon. “A little cold, still. You warm enough?”

Linda didn’t answer.

Joe slowly, almost casually, sidestepped in her direction, causing her to stir at last.

“I have a gun.”

“I know,” he said lightly, trying to hide his relief. “I just thought I’d pick the next pew, if that’s all right. This one right here.” He laid his hand atop a headstone two over from her and sat on the ground as she was, using the stone as a backrest.

“Beautiful spot,” he commented. “Sad Bobby can’t enjoy it.”

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I want you to give me the gun and come with me so we can sort this out.”

“What’s to sort out? I heard you’ve been asking questions. You know what happened.”