Fire Season Read online

  The wind had died, and the fog hung in low patches over the highway. It was still dark, the horizon just gray to Coffin’s left, above the long march of dunes between Route 6 and the Atlantic. He passed Pilgrim Lake, flat and still as a sheet of glass, and the sad, romantic summer cottages at Beach Point, along the parallel stretch of 6A—Shore Road, to the locals—just before the highway started to rise toward High Head. The cottages had been there since 1931, somehow surviving the postwar onslaught of tourist motels, standing in a precise, compact row—tiny, identical, white with green trim, each one named after a different flower: Zinnia, Dahlia, Lilac, Wisteria—like the daughters of an obsessive gardener. Coffin had never stayed in one—why would he?—but still, they filled him with a bleak nostalgia: they were relics of a lost time, a time of modest expectations.

  Something moved in the fog, just at the edge of Coffin’s peripheral vision, close to the car—a man, appearing out of nowhere, suddenly in the roadway—Coffin swerved, stomped on the brake, expecting to hear a hard thud as the Crown Vic’s black plastic grille crushed the man’s pelvis and sent him flying down the embankment, into the cold, wet tangle of weeds in the ditch. The antilock brakes juddered under Coffin’s foot—the Crown Vic yawed wildly but didn’t lock up or spin—two wheels went off the edge of the pavement and Coffin feared for a moment that the car would roll, but he managed to nudge it back onto the highway and bring it to a safe stop. He unbuckled and climbed out—smell of hot tires, a cloud of dust and sand. A man stood on the pavement, fifty yards behind the idling cruiser. A fat man. Coffin squinted, walked toward him.

  “Tony?” he said. “Is that you?”

  * * *

  When the man in the gray hoodie turned the corner onto Atkins Lane, Lola started to run—she didn’t want him to get too far ahead, too far out of sight. Then she heard him running, too, footsteps crunching in the oyster shell lane, and a surge of adrenaline swept through her—the cop’s houndlike impulse when a suspect runs away: chase them, catch them, throw them to the ground. But just as Lola reached the corner the running footsteps stopped, and she stopped, too—listening, thinking. She stayed in the shadows, reached into her pocket for her keys. Took them out. Shook them. “Sir? Are you there? You dropped your keys!”

  * * *

  “Don’t come near me!” Tony said, backing away. His eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his head on long springs.

  “Tony,” Coffin said. “It’s me, Frankie.”

  Tony stopped, stared at Coffin. His feet were bare, and his pants appeared to be backward—the seat blousing awkwardly above his crotch. “Frankie? What are you doing out here?”

  “Looking for a body,” Coffin said. “You?”

  Tony thought for a minute. “I’m not sure,” he said. He pointed toward the dunes. “I woke up over there. I feel like I’ve been walkin’ around out here for hours.”

  “You woke up out in the dunes?”

  Tony nodded. His hair was wild. “What day is it, Frankie?”

  “Tuesday.”

  “Tuesday. You sure?”

  “Yep.”

  “Holy shit.” Tony looked down at his bare feet. “What happened to my shoes, Frankie?”

  “Want a ride?” Coffin said. “You can stay in the car while I check out this guy’s house. Warm up. Listen to the radio.”

  “Sure, Frankie. That sounds nice.”

  * * *

  He was sure it was the lady cop, even though he couldn’t really see her face in the dark—the woman with the keys was the right height, the right build. Besides, what woman who wasn’t a cop would follow a man down a dark alley to give him back his keys, even in Provincetown?

  The lady cop was staying in the shadows, moving slowly on the grass at the edge of the lane, almost silent. She was listening, he thought—trying to pick up any slight sound he might make. She’d put the keys back in her pocket. She had to be carrying a gun, though the man in the gray hoodie couldn’t see it.

  He’d picked a bad place to hide, he realized—he was cut off by fences on three sides—unless he wanted to climb, the only way out was toward the street. He’d sit tight, let her go by, and then double back, cut between the waterfront houses to the beach. Except she wasn’t going by. She’d stopped maybe ten feet from where he was crouched and seemed to be almost sniffing the air, which made him wonder if he smelled. The gas fumes in the church had ignited unexpectedly, the fireball blowing him out the door and into the parking lot, singeing his eyebrows. Did he smell like smoke? Like burned hair?

  She took a step toward him—slowly, quietly—then another. Not looking at him, though: she was peering into the gap between the shed and the house instead, the deep shadows at the back of the lot. His heart was pounding. If she caught him back there, it wouldn’t be so easy to explain. Why had he run? Why was he hiding? He needed something—a weapon. He reached out blindly in the darkness, feeling on the ground—a rock, a big stick, anything—and found (perfect!) a few bricks stacked beside the shed, solid and gritty to the touch. He picked up the top brick as quietly as he could, trying to move just one muscle at a time, holding his breath. The cop had her back to him now, just a few feet away. He stayed low, took a half-step forward, the brick in his raised hand.

  * * *

  Branstool’s house stood in a wooded patch at the end of Kestrel Lane, overlooking the bay. Coffin pulled into the driveway and put the Crown Vic in park. Chief Willoughby was already there—his old Chevy police cruiser idling next to the garage.

  “You stay put,” Coffin said to Tony. “When I’m done here I’ll take you home. Doris must be worried about you.”

  “Oh, crap,” Tony said, rubbing a hand over his face. “Doris. What am I gonna tell her, Frankie?”

  Coffin pursed his lips. “Tell her you were out getting laid.”

  “Yeah, right.” Tony snorted. “Like she’d believe that.”

  Coffin dug in his jacket pocket, handed Tony his cell phone. “Here, give her a call. Let her know you’re okay.”

  Coffin grabbed a big Maglite from the Crown Vic. He was not carrying a sidearm. He thought about pulling the shotgun from its overhead mount behind the front seats but decided against it—too cumbersome, and almost certainly unnecessary—only a fool or a madman would go back to the victim’s house after cutting off his head and placing it in a tank full of lobsters ten miles away.

  There was no one in Chief Willoughby’s car. The front door of Branstool’s house was standing halfway open, and the lights in the entryway were out.

  Coffin reached inside the door, felt for the light switch, flipped it up, then down—nothing. He wavered for a second, then went back to the car, pressed the hidden button, and unclipped the shotgun from its rack.

  “You need me, Frankie?” Tony said.

  “The shape you’re in?” Coffin said. “No thanks—you just sit tight. Don’t come in the house behind me or I might shoot you by mistake. If you hear anything funky, call for backup.”

  “Maybe you ought to call for backup now,” Tony said. “Just in case.”

  “Not yet. We’re stretched pretty thin. I just want to make sure Willoughby’s okay.”

  He cradled the shotgun in his left arm, aimed the flashlight with his right hand, and stepped inside the dark house.

  * * *

  I can almost smell him, Lola thought—he was that close. She stopped a few feet from the shed, listening intently while she searched the gloom behind the house for any sign of movement, any shape that didn’t belong. Her right hand went silently into her jacket pocket, touched the Glock 9 mm she carried when she was off duty.

  Lola felt the movement before she heard it, saw a quick blur in her extreme peripheral vision and tried to duck away as the brick came down, hard, on the side of her head. It was like a small bomb going off inside her skull—a loud clack, an explosion of red light behind her eyes. Stunned, she fell to all fours, ears rushing, vision narrowed to a fizzy gray pinhole before it widened again. She heard running foots
teps heading out toward Bradford Street. She staggered to her feet, tried to run, but she was too dizzy and had to stop, hands on her knees.

  “Fuck,” she said. “Fucking motherfucker.” She touched her head, two inches behind the right ear: a lump already rising—some blood, but not rivers of it. She felt a wave of nausea, took a few deep breaths. Had she lost consciousness for a second? She wasn’t sure.

  “Lola? You back here?”

  It was Jeff Skillings. Lola had never been more glad to see him.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’m over here. He got away.”

  “He?”

  “Sweatshirt guy. Hit me and took off.” She waved toward Bradford Street. “Long gone by now.”

  Skillings was already on his shoulder radio, talking to Marge. “Yep, backup and ambulance to Atkins Way and Commercial. Lola’s injured.”

  “I’m not injured,” Lola said. She straightened up, got dizzy again but shook it off. “It’s just a bump on the head.”

  Skillings put a hand on her shoulder, peered into her face. “Easy there, tough guy,” he said. “You don’t look so great.”

  Lola touched the bump behind her ear again, winced a little, then grinned. “Hell, Jeff—I used to ride motocross. I’ve been beat up lots worse than this.”

  * * *

  Coffin passed through a high-ceilinged foyer and into a large living room, sweeping the area with his flashlight. He held the big Maglite the way he’d been trained: up by his ear, gripping it just where the lens housing met the shaft. The better to crack you over the head with, he thought. He felt a bit silly carrying the twelve gauge, but at the same time was glad for its solid lethality—around seven pounds of badass, fully loaded. The only trouble, he thought, was that the shotgun didn’t have a flashlight mount—that would have made things easier.

  The house was quiet—no sign of Chief Willoughby. Your basic McMansion, Coffin thought, probably four times the size of Coffin’s place, perched on the bluff overlooking the beach. Looking across the bay through the big back windows he could see St. Mary’s burning quite clearly. The fire had gotten very large: it lit up the low cloud cover over Provincetown, and a pillar of smoke and sparks rose high into the sky. Coffin could see the flashing lights of the fire trucks, too, and what looked like an ambulance heading up the east end of Commercial Street.

  He swept the Maglite slowly back across the room, into the corners, into the hallway that led off to his left—probably to the bedrooms—down the three broad steps into the open kitchen. The furniture was as bland as Branstool himself: it was hard to make out much color in the flashlight beam, but it appeared that everything had been done in varying degrees of beige: beige chairs, beige couch, beige carpet. The only things that gave the room any character at all, Coffin thought, were the ducks.

  There were at least a hundred of them in the living room alone: wooden decoys, realistically carved and painted. Some appeared to be antiques, some were new. There were mallards, scoters, buffleheads, wood ducks, hooded ducks, teal, loons, grebes, mergansers, geese, and swans—and those were just the ones Coffin could identify. There were ducks on shelves from floor to ceiling, ducks on tables, ducks on the mantel, ducks on the floor under the baby grand piano. Evidently, Coffin thought, Branstool liked ducks.

  Coffin turned and slowly made his way down the dark corridor that led away from the living room—pausing to try a bank of light switches, still with no luck. One after another he checked the two smallish bedrooms facing the street, then the home office with its blond desk, beige executive chair, and glass cases full of life-sized wooden ducks. The master suite was on the bay side of the house, naturally—Coffin pushed the door open with his elbow, swept with the Maglite—bed, dresser, fifty or sixty ducks—and stepped quietly into the room. The hair on the back of his neck prickled—he heard movement to his right, from what, the bathroom? The bathroom door was closed; a pale strip of light leaked out from under it.

  Coffin doused the Maglite and crossed the room in five silent steps. He set the big flashlight on the carpet, then braced his shoulder against the wall beside the bathroom door. His heart stuttered, then beat fast—big adrenaline surge, live wire deep in his veins. Too old for this, he thought. He took a deep breath, swung away from the wall, and delivered a solid kick to the bathroom door, just below the latch. There was a splintering of wood and the door flew open as Coffin racked and mounted the shotgun, aiming it directly into the round, startled face of Clarence Willoughby, chief of the Truro Police Department.

  “Jesus Christ—don’t shoot!” Willoughby shouted, dropping his flashlight and covering his face with the magazine he’d been reading—the October issue of Fine Woodworking.

  “Willoughby?” Coffin said, lowering the twelve gauge.

  “Coffin?” Willoughby lowered the magazine slowly. “For fuck’s sake—are you out of your mind?”

  “What are you doing in here?”

  Willoughby pointed at the toilet he was sitting on with both index fingers. “I’m taking a crap, Coffin. What does it look like?”

  “Here? You’re taking a crap here?”

  “You were late. I had to go.” Willoughby shrugged. “Anyway, there’s nothing here. I checked the whole place. No body, no blood, no struggle. They must have done it someplace else.”

  “You checked the whole place,” Coffin said.

  “Yep.”

  “Every room.”

  “Yep.”

  “Did you check the garage?”

  “The garage?” Willoughby paused. “Well, no—not yet. I was gonna hit the garage on my way out.”

  * * *

  Branstool’s garage was a detached, three-car affair with a large upstairs coach house that could have been rented out for a great deal of money during the summer. The garage itself was unlocked, the interior large and clean—the concrete floor looked scrubbed—no oil stains, no mud or sand. There were two cars: a recent and unremarkable Lexus sedan, and a sleek, beautiful Ferrari convertible.

  “Holy smokes, Bullwinkle,” Willoughby said. “Would you look at this baby. What do you think it cost—a couple hundred grand?”

  “No idea,” Coffin said. “More, maybe.”

  Willoughby scratched at his beard stubble. “You know, I’ve been thinking—you said this guy runs a nursing home, right?”

  “Right,” Coffin said.

  “So how much does a guy like that make, would you say?”

  Coffin shrugged. “Maybe a hundred—hundred fifty, tops.”

  “A hundred fifty grand a year, but he’s got a trophy house on the bay and a Ferrari convertible. How does a guy pay for all that?”

  “Powerball?” Coffin said. “Inheritance?”

  “Sure, Powerball. Good one, Coffin.”

  “Did you see any car keys in the house?”

  Willoughby raised his eyebrows. “You thinkin’ about taking a spin?”

  “I was wondering what’s in the Lexus’s trunk,” Coffin said. He tried the door, aimed his flashlight in the window. “But it’s locked up.”

  “Shouldn’t be too hard to find the keys, if we had some light.”

  “It can wait. Whatever’s in there isn’t going anywhere.”

  “Ha.” Willoughby grunted. “That’s for damn sure.”

  * * *

  A set of broad wooden steps led up to the garage’s second floor. In recent years, as the housing bubble swelled and it seemed that the supply of well-heeled renters was limitless, the typical garage apartment had evolved from a small, modestly appointed living space into a miniature luxury vacation home, complete with gourmet kitchen, master suite, and a Jacuzzi overlooking Cape Cod Bay. That’s what Coffin was expecting as he climbed the stairs—something gleaming, with a marble-tiled master bath and a view to die for.

  The door at the top of the stairs was slightly ajar. Willoughby and Coffin exchanged looks—Coffin touching a finger to his lips. Willoughby took a deep breath, then pushed the door open and swept the room with his flashlight, while Coff
in stepped forward with the shotgun mounted, its barrel following the spot of light around the room.

  “Whaddya know,” said Willoughby. “It’s a wood shop. Must be where the ducks came from.”

  He was right—instead of a lucrative summer rental property, Branstool had built himself a deluxe wood shop. It was equipped with woodworking tools of all sorts: there was a lathe, a drill press, a jigsaw, a table saw, a radial arm saw, racks of chisels, screwdrivers, mallets, a belt sander, what might have been a computer-controlled carving machine (Coffin’s knowledge of woodworking began and ended with his eighth grade wood shop class), routers, drills, planers—it all looked like top-of-the-line stuff, Coffin thought, new or practically new.

  Coffin pointed. “Put the light back on the radial arm saw,” he said. “I saw something over there.”

  Willoughby panned the light slowly back to the big, table-mounted saw. “Oh, shit,” he said. “I thought it was just shadows. Son of a bitch.”

  It was true, Coffin thought. In the pale beam of Willoughby’s flashlight, all that blood did look like shadows—but of course there was too much of it. Dried or drying blood was everywhere: pooled on the floor, spattered in a dark, indefinite strip across the ceiling. Blood on the saw—the blade, the steel legs, the saw bed. Blood on the lathe and the drill press, six feet away. Blood on the walls, the cabinetry, the pegboard loaded with hand tools, the workbench. More blood, Coffin thought, than you’d think a person could possibly contain.

  Willoughby cleared his throat softly. “You said they cut off his head, right?”