Lisa Scottoline - Save Me

“I know. I could play you the voice message. I saved it, if you want to hear it.” Rose hesitated. “It might be upsetting, now.”

“No, play it.”

Rose slid her phone from her purse, then thumbed to voicemail and played the message on speaker. Kurt’s amplified words echoed eerily through the burned-out cafeteria, then the message clicked off. She eyed Warren for a reaction in the twilight-blue haze.

“Can’t say I can explain that,” he said, rubbing his chin.

“He sounds kinda drunk, right?”

“Kinda.”

“If he was, why would Hank let him drive? Doesn’t that seem weird to you? That a guy with a wife and a new baby would let his buzzed friend drive him home?”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m wondering if someone killed Kurt because he was asking questions about the fire. Or because he knew about the polyurethane.”

“ What? ” Warren’s small eyes flew open. “You’re talking about murder. ”

“I know. I’m just trying to figure it out, and I can’t explain why Hank would let Kurt drive drunk. Unless Hank didn’t know.” Rose thought about it, brainstorming. “Unless Hank saw Kurt have his usual one or two beers, but maybe someone slipped something into his drink. One of these new buddies he mentioned. It’s plausible, isn’t it? It could have happened.”

“Maybe, but murder?”

“I’m just saying it smells, don’t you agree? That guy on the tape doesn’t sound like Kurt after only two beers, does he?”

“It doesn’t but I still don’t get why Hank got into the car with him.”

“Maybe Hank couldn’t tell. What if Kurt wasn’t that talkative? What if Hank saw Kurt drink only two beers and figured he was fine to drive, even if he did slur a little?” Rose put her phone away. “Something’s wrong with this picture, and two men are dead. And I think it’s connected with the fire.”

Warren frowned. “We should go to the police.”

“With what? What do we say? A buzzed guy got in a truck, drove, and had an accident? That’s not suspicious.”

“True.”

“And they think that the fire was accidental. Besides, I’m the last person who they’d believe, since I’m involved.”

“That’s true, too.” Warren sighed, a huge exhale from his barrel chest. “But if someone murdered Kurt and Hank, I want to be the first to know about it.”

“Then maybe you can help,” Rose said, with hope.

Rose hit the gas, with Warren in the passenger seat. He’d changed into slacks and a fresh polo shirt, which he’d had with him for night school, and he’d shaved in the school’s men’s room. She could see, in the light, that he was older than she’d thought, maybe thirty-five. Or maybe it was the grim set to his jaw, as if he were gearing up for the task ahead. They were in rush-hour traffic on the bucolic back roads out of Reesburgh, heading to Campanile’s headquarters, near West Chester.

“Okay, so what’s the plan?” Warren asked, looking over.

“Let’s review, okay?” Rose wasn’t sure what to do next. “We can’t know where we’re going if we don’t know where we’ve been.”

“That’s deep.”

“You’re telling me. I just learned it.” Rose smiled. “Now, Kurt thought that polyurethane left in the teachers’ lounge contributed to the explosion, but he was killed before I could ask him how. So far I’ve heard a few different reasons for the explosion, like faulty wiring, a gas leak, and a punch list not done. What have you heard?”

“The same thing, except for the punch list. Punch lists never get done, and nothing explodes.”

“So what caused the explosion?”

Warren shrugged. “The fire marshals’ report won’t come out for weeks, and that’s what the lawsuits will be about, and all that.”

“So let’s try to figure it out, ourselves. You’re an expert, and I’m a… mom.”

Warren smiled crookedly. “You’re kinda nutty, lady.”

Rose smiled back. She slowed, passing an Amish man driving a buggy, his head tilted down and only his beard visible under the brim of his straw hat. “We have an advantage. They think it’s accidental, and we don’t.”

“Okay.”

“So how exactly do you make an explosion with gas, loose wires, and cans of polyurethane?”

Warren looked over. “Where did you say the poly was?”

“The polyurethane? In the teachers’ lounge.” Rose thought back to her conversation with Kristen. “Somebody shellacked the cabinets on Thursday, the day before the explosion, and left it there. That seems odd to me.”

“Why?”

“Shellacking cabinets is the kind of thing they do before you move in, that’s what we did at my new house, and it was already done in the lounge, I saw a photo. Why do the cabinets need a second coat, all of a sudden? It was a month after school opened.”

Warren nodded slowly. “The teachers eat in there?”

“Some, yes.”

Warren wrinkled his nose. “That would stink.”

“It did, and that’s what I thought.” Rose thought again of Kristen. They whizzed by horse pastures with run-in sheds, and hand-painted signs advertising Halloween hay rides and corn mazes. “The lounge reeked of it, and there were WET PAINT signs everywhere.”

“That’s interesting.”

“Why?”

“The poly would have hidden any gas smell.”

Rose looked over, her ears pricking up. “So if a bad guy knew he was going to make a gas leak, he might shellac some cabinets to mask the odor.”

“Right.”

“How do you make a gas leak? Is that hard?”

“No, easy. The gas leaked in the wall between the kitchen and the lounge, and there was a big three-quarter-inch pipe there. I know, I cleaned up the debris. If somebody got into the building on Thursday or Thursday night, they could give the gas valve in the wall a quarter turn.”

“Wouldn’t that show, a hole in the wall?” Rose asked, as the country scenery gave way to a concrete ramp, heading to Route 202, going north.

“Not if it was behind a cabinet or an appliance. Gas would leak out, but nobody would smell it because of the poly, and they’d also get desensitized to it.”

Rose remembered Kurt telling her the same thing, about being desensitized. “So let’s say the bad guy shellacked the cabinets to hide the gas smell. How does the wall explode?”

“He needs a spark to make an explosion.” Warren frowned, in thought.

“Wouldn’t the loose wiring provide a spark?”

“It could, but not for sure.” Warren shook his head. “It’s not necessarily a live spark.”

“So what causes a live spark in a wall?”

“The spark didn’t have to be in the wall. The poly was in the teachers’ lounge, so the spark could have been in the teachers’ lounge. An appliance could do it, or the oven.”

Rose thought a minute. The Kristenburgers. “How about a microwave?”

“Yes. They could have rigged the micro to spark.”

“How?”

Warren looked over. “Ever put tinfoil in a microwave? You get live sparks, blue flashes, the whole nine.”

“No, tinfoil wouldn’t have worked. The teacher would have seen it.”

“Not if it was hidden inside the micro, like in the plastic part on top.” Warren’s brown eyes came to life. “Here we go, I got it. On Thursday, you shellac the cabinets and leave the poly out. It stinks. Then on Thursday night, when nobody’s around, you hide tinfoil in the microwave, turn a valve in the gas pipe, and loosen the wiring in the wall. An electrician could do all those things in fifteen minutes.”

“Okay.”

“Then, you leave the caps on the poly open a little, so the fumes leak into the micro. Nobody can tell because it stinks anyway, and you put up the signs.”