Raffi Yessayan - 2 in the Hat

Mooney negotiated the Expressway traffic, exiting off the ramp to the tunnel. “I don’t understand. Why didn’t I know about this sooner?” Mooney asked. “You talk with Angel just about every day, and you didn’t tell him about Zardino?”

Mooney shot a look at his passenger. Connie was facing straight ahead. The tunnel lights created flickering shadows across his face. “I did tell him,” Connie said, his voice edged in anger. “He wouldn’t listen. And tonight I figured out that Zardino’s picking his victims from the audience. He’s using his celebrity as a wrongly convicted man to work these college kids, to gain their trust.”

“You’ve confirmed that?” Mooney asked.

“Earlier I checked with BU and BC. Both schools had Zardino in for his lecture.”

“Did any of the vics go to those lectures?”

“I haven’t confirmed that yet, but each of the female victims bears a striking resemblance to a woman Zardino grew up with. Her name is Natalie Fresco.”

“And?” Mooney said.

“She claims he used to be her stalker. She was so spooked by him ten years ago that she got him fired from his job. Around the time of the first murders.”

“Where was he working?” Mooney asked.

“A store across the street from her shop. Newbury Street.”

“Right near the Fens,” Mooney said. “He had opportunity.”

“I had the manager at the store check their old records. Zardino used to help set up window displays. Lugged around props, helped move the mannequins.”

“So he dressed up dolls? I wonder if he likes dressing people?” Mooney asked.

“I know a lot of this is circumstantial, but there’s more. The day I went to interview Natalie at her store, guess who was parked out front in a white van?” The prosecutor was quiet for a beat. For effect. “Sarge, I saw him in the same van, stuck in traffic on Walter Street the night Tucker and Pine were found on Peter’s Hill. Both times he had a Bruin’s cap pulled down over his head. It’s enough to bring him in for questioning. And it’s enough for a search warrant.”

“I think I need to have a talk with Mr. Zardino,” Mooney said. “Maybe freeze the house and get that search warrant.”

“Look for the white van in his garage. Older model, mint condition, registered in his mother’s name. Used to be his dad’s,” Connie said. “Probably sat in the garage all those years until he needed it again.”

“Does Zardino know you saw him tonight at UMass?”

Connie nodded. “After the speech, I went up and said hello. It made me nervous, seeing him so close to Marcy Alves. I walked Marcy to her car, then I tried to call Angel, but he didn’t pick up. So I drove over to talk to you. I don’t think Zardino knows I suspect him of anything.”

“We can’t take that chance.” Mooney flipped on his wigwags and strobes, accelerating through the tunnel. He struggled to control his anger. What the hell had Alves been thinking? Connie had come up with some of the best leads in the investigation. This was not the time for some bullshit pissing contest. He had eight dead kids on his hands. He’d deal with Alves later. Now he needed to get to Zardino’s house before he took off or tried to destroy any potential evidence.

Or worse, before Zardino went out in his van, trolling for his next victims.

Connie watched as the roof of 2252 Paris Street crashed down onto the attic below, sending up a plume of flames and smoke darker than the sky. Richard Zardino’s old colonial was fully engulfed. Fanned by the steady wind off Boston Harbor, the fire was burning almost blue hot. Once an object as dry as the timber skeleton of an old house began to burn hot, there was no putting out the flames. The only thing the Boston Fire Department could do was control the fire and try to save the other houses by wetting down neighboring roofs.

He and Mooney stood across the street as the old house and the garage with its white van full of trace evidence burned with roaring heat. He could feel his face and hands tingling with it, his lungs filling with the sooty warm air.

The fire reminded him of the times he helped his grandfather with his annual smudge fire to get rid of brush and trash on the farm. But as his grandmother predicted, the conservative little smudge fire always bloomed into a massive bonfire.

But those fires weren’t as fascinating as the incinerator the old man had designed using an old oil tank with an attached blower. You could burn anything in that thing. You could feed even a good-sized log in and it would disintegrate as you pushed. Fire could burn evidence clean. He knew it and Richard Zardino did too.

Connie felt a hand on his shoulder. “What a tragedy,” Angel Alves said. “Is he in there?”

“That’s the fifty-thousand-dollar question,” Connie said, turning to Alves. He hadn’t noticed the crowd that had gathered along the street, just beyond the barriers set up by the police department.

“Thanks to you, we’re not going to know until they put out this damn fire,” Mooney said, his face flushed with heat and anger. “I wanted to talk to Zardino. I wanted the evidence to wrap up this case. Now we don’t have either. We don’t know if he’s dead or alive. All because someone bruised your ego.”

“That’s not it, Sarge-”

“Later,” Mooney cut him off. “I don’t know where your head has been the last few days. At least Connie gives a shit about catching this guy.”

Connie didn’t want to put himself between the two partners. He turned away from Alves. Looking past Mooney, he saw that every house on the street was lit up, people gathering to gossip the way they always did when something bad happened to one of their neighbors. This was the event of the century for most of these people. Young kids in pajamas riding their bikes back and forth across the street. An elderly woman in a bathrobe at the end of the block, holding on to her walker, complete with tennis ball gliders. For an old lady, this would be like a front row seat on the fifty yard line at the Super Bowl.

Interesting. Out of the corner of his eye Connie noticed that there were no lights on in the Fresco house. Natalie might still be at work or out for a movie, but it was getting late. And where was the elderly Mrs. Fresco? He turned to Mooney. “Sarge?” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t turn around. Keep looking at me. I just thought of something.”

When his Little Things got too demanding, Sleep put them in the trunk in the attic and latched it. He could still hear them banging around, but it was always a little quieter. Now they wouldn’t be bothering him anymore. He couldn’t think about them, all twisted flesh-colored plastic, their hair burned away, their beautiful clothes nothing but ash. He had to focus on what was important.

He had brought his wire, and he’d found a roll of duct tape in the pantry. He tried to explain to Natalie and her mother that if they waited in the closet until the police and firemen were done across the street, then the three of them could sit at the kitchen table and have a cup of tea. The one thing he’d taken with him from the house was Momma’s wedding album. He’d show them the gorgeous photos of Momma in her satin wedding gown. They’d work their way through the pages-Momma standing with her bouquet, his father in his natty suit. The attendants, smiling and young. And the last few pages, meant for the inscribed well-wishes of their wedding guests, on those final yellowed and smooth pages were the photos he’d taken of his couples, capturing forever their most joyous time.

But even with the tape and wire, he could hear someone kicking the locked closet door. Fortunately the ruckus outside was enough to drown out the noise. He’d check on them in a minute, but now he had to get back to the front room, pull back the curtain and see what was going on.