Robert B. Parker's Slow Burn (Spenser, #44)(45)

“Yeah,” I said. “Me, too.”





39


Pearl barked and circled as I entered with bags from Whole Foods and set them on the upstairs kitchen counter. Susan had on a loose linen skirt and a navy silk tank, her hair piled in a messy bun on top of her head.

“How bad is the apartment?” she said. She stood in front of me, placing both hands on my face. She wanted to look into my eyes.

“Do you remember that fantastic white suit I used to wear?”

“Do I?”

“Whoosh,” I said. “Gone.”

“Oh, thank God,” she said. “And the black leather trench coat?”

“All the old wardrobe is gone.”

“Hmm,” she said. “Maybe there is an upside.”

“If I don’t go shopping or do some laundry, I may have to dip into your closet.”

“There’s a little give in some of my wrap dresses,” she said. “But not that much.”

“How about I cook dinner and we can discuss?”

“A roomie with benefits?”

I rolled my chambray shirt up to my elbows and started to wash the greens. They were local and very fresh. I let them drain in a colander and laid out the rest of the salad: a carrot, a purple onion, red pepper, and some candied walnuts. I mixed some Creole mustard with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar as requested by Susan and placed the baguette in the oven to warm.

As it heated, I opened a beer and began to stir up some pimento cheese. I grated a nice hunk of smoked cheddar from American Provisions, added a bit of cream cheese, some Blue Plate mayo, and pimentos. I liked to use a lot of black pepper and some spices from Boudreaux’s.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll stop by Ball and Buck tomorrow for some shirts. I’ll need some new workout gear, too.”

“And pants, socks, shoes, new furniture, and a place to live.”

“Oh,” I said. “And that, too.”

I made the salad and set the table. I sliced the bread for sandwiches from the hot baguette. She turned off the television and joined me in the dining room. I continued on my Narragansett kick while eating two large sandwiches and a side salad. I had yet to tell her about the lemon meringue.

“Have you learned anything new?”

“After two days of watching video at the TV station, we turned up a couple of suspects.”

“That’s promising.”

The sandwiches were so good, I immediately began to make more. I set two small ones out for Susan while I let Pearl lick the bowl.

“Both of them have ties to the fire department,” I said. “One of them is just a kid. He wants to be a Boston firefighter.”

“Starting off as an arsonist won’t look good on his application.”

“If it’s who I believe, I can’t figure out what they hope to accomplish,” I said. “I’m going to talk to the younger one tomorrow. He seems the most promising.”

“And the other?”

“Not so much,” I said. “Other than the fact that he is a frustrated wannabe firefighter and the Sparks Association people thought he was a total nutjob. And he once screamed at a man who’s now been murdered.”

“Haven’t we all?”

“There’s a third man who was seen with them. But no one knows who he is.”

“Harry Lime?”

I lifted an eyebrow and drank some beer. Pearl had finished with the bowl but continued to nose it around the kitchen floor. I picked it up and set it in the sink to wash.

“We believe there’s three of them,” I said. “If I can get just one to talk, it’ll all come apart.”

“If one out of three isn’t a complete sociopath,” she said. “After all they’ve done.”

I nodded. “I can’t imagine they wanted it to go this far,” I said. “Three firefighters dead.”

“And a man who supported the department.”

“Any recommendations on talking with the kid?”

Susan poured some Riesling from the refrigerator. She leaned against the counter. “It’s pretty much the same as you did with Z,” she said. “Find the person he looks up to and destroy the image.”

“This creep is no Jumbo Nelson,” I said. “And Z had a heart. And brains.”

“The power of three,” she said. “There’s always one who might feel ostracized. The trick is finding out who.”

“And why.”





40


I found Kevin Teehan working in the garden section of a Home Depot in Somerville. I’d spent the morning learning as much as I could about him. He was twenty-two, a high school dropout, had earned two misdemeanor charges for assault, and he was a longtime volunteer with the fire department in Blackburn. I recognized him from a Facebook photo I’d found online. He posted a lot of photos about firefighting and his mother, who I gathered had died when he was young.

Teehan was a little guy, short and skinny, with a wisp of a beard like Shaggy on Scooby-Doo. The closer I got, I saw he’d buzz-cut his dark hair and had quite a collection of acne scars on his face. He wore small studs in each earlobe. Hip.

He watered several flats of white and pink impatiens. The impatiens were now on summer sale.