WHEN PETER RUSSO DISCOVERED THAT SAUNDERS Construction got hired as the general contractor for the Zenergy fuel cell site in his beloved hometown of Bridgeville, Connecticut, his chest practically exploded. Not only had Brock Saunders sold his older brother, Jeff, a worthless investment in the biggest Ponzi scheme outside of Bernie Madoff, almost causing the Russo family to lose their farm in the late 1980’s, but Brock had date-raped one of Peter’s best friends two years before the scheme went bust.
The light from a brilliant peach and purple early-May sunset illuminated the fuel cell construction site as Peter grimly took stock of the land’s devastation. Astonishingly located in a pleasant residential neighborhood that hadn’t guessed an electricity-generating behemoth was being built in the treed expanse abutting the road, Peter found Saunders Construction signs plastered all over the chain link fence surrounding the property. How Saunders got hired to do the site work for Zenergy’s fuel cell facility, adjacent to a natural gas pipeline that most people welcomed because it freed them from the tyranny of oil, didn’t rank as public knowledge. Neither did how Zenergy somehow obtained the wooded tract in the leafy riverfront town. Yet the facility was just about up and running.
“Satan with a backhoe loader,” Peter, hale and hearty at fifty four, explained to Brutus, his rescue pit bull and stalwart companion. “Zenergy steals the land. Saunders guts it and builds a butt-ugly industrial eyesore that belongs on the Jersey Turnpike. No way it should be in a residential neighborhood. And Saunders should be in jail, not fucking Bridgeville up the ass again.”
Reluctant to tell Nancy Yates about Saunders’s involvement, Peter didn’t mention it or anything else about his newly hatched plan to give Zenergy and Saunders a raised middle finger. He also knew to stay away from Saunders in person; the last time Peter saw him had been after Nancy broke down and told him everything.
“Yeah, I shoved him. So what?” Peter said to the police officer Brock flagged down at the ferry landing, where Peter found him standing alongside his precious Porsche. Peter’s best buddy, John Tomassi, had just joined the force, and told him privately in no uncertain terms to stay away from Saunders.
“He’s a piece of shit, but he’ll bring charges the next time. For once in your life, think about consequences.” Tomassi grabbed him by the shoulder and squeezed hard with his meaty paw.
“Jesus, alright. Lay off. But what he did should have consequences, too.”
“Nancy didn’t report it. End of story as far as you and Brock are concerned.”
But, it wasn’t, not by a long shot. Peter knew the last thing Nancy’s poor health, depression and anxiety needed was a reminder of Brock’s violations let alone his reappearance in Bridgeville after being run out by burned investors who wanted him tarred and feathered or, better yet, roasted alive on a spit.
Peter poked around the Zenergy fuel cell facility site for much longer than anyone suspected. On every evening excursion, he spat on Brock’s photoshopped face adorning the Saunders signs.
“Rot in hell, Brockie.”
The perpetual smirk on Brock Saunders’s face had been a fixture since toddlerhood. An only child, his mother coddled him while his father beat the shit out of him, favoring a jab-cross-hook punch combination. Whenever possible, Brock could be found outside, where he loved to catch frogs and kill them. Taller and meaner than most kids his age, he bullied almost everyone except the farm boys like Jeff Russo, his school classmate who brawled with ferocity. Brock focused his rifle scope elsewhere, spreading suffering and fear among the more defenseless. No mercy kills; just prolonged agony that the adults in charge either didn’t know about, care about or view as more than boys will be boys. The rewards of hyper-masculinity as practiced in American schoolboy Darwinism were good to Brock. A quick study, he branched out into sexual predation in his teens, twisting the bodies and souls of young women, preferably defenseless ones, like screw tops.
In his twenties, Brock’s father called in a few favors after Brock fucked up too many times at the family construction firm and got him a marketing gig for Pioneer Premium Properties, a high-flying real estate developer. Brock sold $50,000 units of can’t-miss real estate investments to almost everyone he knew. In those heady go-go times, New England commercial real estate ran hotter than the sun. All Brock had to do was reserve a meeting space, offer a full bar with passed hors d’oeuvres, dim the lights for a short dog-and-pony slide carousel, and voila. Eager investors, now including average folks like teachers, farmers, small business owners, and retirees pressed checks into his hands. No one wanted to miss the boat to riches and tax write-offs, although the small-potatoes investors didn’t even belong in the same universe with the real estate scheme. Somehow, big-time accountants, auditors and bankers blessed it all; their names, synonymous with fiduciary standards, impressing everyone.
How Jeff and the family patriarch, Artie Russo, got sucked in, given what Jeff, twenty-five at the time, knew about Brock infuriated Peter.
“You gave that scumbag $50,000? What the fuck is wrong with you?” Peter shouted at Jeff and his father. Artie and Peter never had a good relationship, even before Artie ruled from on high that Jeff would get the farm, freezing out his independent-minded younger son who left home after dropping out of community college. Peter kept his distance, finding steady work on the booming aerospace assembly lines that prospered in the area.
“You’re a good for nothing ingrate,” Artie yelled in response. “You don’t know shit. What did you ever do for me?”
“Oh, right. Everything’s all about you. For once in your life, admit it. You fucked up. I know this wasn’t only Jeff’s idea.”
Jeff muttered something inaudible. Peter leaned towards him. “What?”
“Didn’t want to miss out. Sure thing—everyone said.”
“Yeah,” Artie said, jutting out the chin that both his sons had inherited. His wife, Peter and Jeff’s mother, died earlier that year after driving drunk into a tree, saddling Jeff with Artie’s constant presence on the farm that desperately needed modernizing.
“Oh, so you’d jump off a building if everyone said to?” Peter barked a laugh and poked Jeff in the ribs to see if he got the richness of being able to throw Artie’s mantra from their youth right back in his face. But Jeff, slumped in a chair, his head in his hands, didn’t stir. To this day, only Peter knew how close he came to taking his own life.
PETER SNEERED AT THE BIG ZENERGY SIGNS THREATENING doom and damnation for anyone who dared trespass.
“Oh yeah? Just try.” The promise of arrest, fines and prosecution egged him on. Creative revenge could indeed be a dish eaten cold. “I answer to a higher power. Count on it.”
The gap he’d jimmied in the chain-link fence surrounding the fuel cell went undetected. Peter searched online for information about how the chemical reaction in the huge fuel cell converted natural gas into electricity. He learned that Zenergy had big contracts for selling the electricity it would generate in Bridgeville. But when it came out that contractually, only 15 percent of the electricity would go to town residents who already paid through the nose, Peter took it as a personal challenge.
“Game on.”
There were a lot of if’s involved in his decision that beauty would be his weapon of choice. Brock Saunders sullied everything and everyone he touched. Saunders Construction’s involvement leaked an even more putrid stench that just added to his zeal. If Zenergy had just located the brutally industrial facility on the business side of town, if Zenergy had just acted in good faith by actually asking permission to build in Bridgeville, if Zenergy had just wanted to be a good neighbor and share some electricity, if Zenergy hadn’t hired Saunders to kill every living tree in sight. Brutus agreed with him—the desecration of a modest neighborhood of small ranch houses and modest capes smacked of complete disrespect, a Saunders specialty.
“Disrespect can’t go unpunished, right, buddy?” As the only living creature with knowledge of Peter’s secret mission, Brutus’s opinion counted for a lot. “Gotta swing for the fences here, B.”
Peter wore a miner’s helmet to explore when the sun went down. He created a schematic of the site and labelled the pathetic plants Saunders’ sub-contractors slapped into the ground.
“Ten dead, four beyond hope and three on life support. Atrocious, Brutus. And there’s not an ounce of topsoil.”
The invasion of cement trucks and earthmoving equipment left an alien landscape in stark contrast to Bridgeville’s towering oaks, maples, and pine trees. A world of hurt, decorated with cigarette butts, cans, bottles, fast-food wrappers, styrofoam, ketchup packets, and used condoms.
“Not on my watch,” Peter said, double-gloving and shoving it all into big plastic bags. The condoms were the worst. It was probably just kids looking for a place to hump, but still. “Not cool.”
Peter ripped out the raggedy dwarf Arborvitae quickly; the holes hadn’t been dug deep enough for petunias. Round-the-clock nurturing in the ICU wouldn’t have helped these babies.
Armed with spades, shovels and a pitchfork, Peter coasted his pickup truck with his headlights off into a small clearing near some evergreens. A security firm patrolled the site after eleven, so he made sure he was always out by 10:30. Expertly, he mixed manure and topsoil in a barrel, all from the Russo farm’s stockpiles. He added time-honored growth boosters: coffee grounds, rotting banana peels, pulverized sea shells, and fresh water from the brook near his house.
“Brutus, we were meant to do this, dude. Look at this. Just pitiful, fucking pitiful.” Brutus lifted a leg and pissed. “My feelings exactly, buddy.”
Peter worked methodically for a week straight. Jeff, who Peter left completely in the dark, including about Brock Saunders’s resurrection after his prolonged exile from Bridgeville, quizzed him about his evening activities and seemed to think Peter had finally gotten over the heartbreak of Carmen Fiori, who had cut him off at the knees two years ago.
“At least tell me your new lady’s name, Romeo. She’s gotta be a saint or blind to put up with you. C’mon, Pete, dish.”
“Hey, don’t jinx me.” Peter wiggled his hips.
Jeff shook his head. “I feel sorry for her. You look like you’re having a seizure.” The two brothers laughed, and in that moment, they looked almost like twins, although Jeff, two years older at fifty-six and more weathered by the sun, outweighed Peter by about twenty pounds. Jeff and Peter had the same thick dark hair shot with gray, the same deep brown eyes and the same strong chins. They both would have scoffed at being called handsome, but age had been kind to them.
Nancy called him a few times during his nocturnal excursions and left messages about her latest travails with online dating.
“Another dagger to my heart,” she said. “He might’ve been the one.”
Since this happened with amazing frequency, Peter barely had to glance at the guy’s bio and headshot to know that Nancy had leaped again before she looked.
“He lives on a boat, Nance. You get seasick on an escalator.” Peter held his hands up in disbelief. “Plus, he looks like a gerbil.”
“Only in profile.”
“The one from last week collected shrunken heads.”
“Bullshit. He collected Russian fur hats, the kind with earflaps.”
“Same difference.”
Peter tried not to whistle or hum—nothing to draw attention to himself. He counted on Brutus to keep quiet, too, so he packed Brutus a little care package every night: a juicy bone, an old tennis ball, and a ripped dish towel. Brutus had more joy in destroying a dish towel than most people experience at Christmas.
A few times Peter felt like he wasn’t alone up there in the woods. It couldn’t be the security people; they stuck to the paved front of the fuel cell and never came early. It had to be nocturnal animals foraging for food. So, he tethered Brutus to a tree; there was no point of him chasing after some raccoon or fox. Fisher cats were mean as hell, too.
When the soil finally smelled fecund and ripe, Peter rechecked his selections. “Let’s see. Mountain laurel, pink azalea, holly, and Stella De Oro day lilies in purple and yellow. OK, time to cook with gas.”
The first night went well. He dug deep into the newly fertile soil, gently lowering the bushes and plants. But then it rained like hell for two days straight. Thunder, lightning and high winds shut everything down. Once he got back up there, tire-spinning mud and quicksand kept him from parking close.
“Shit. I can’t do this all in one trip.” He lugged his tools and the remaining plants in two trips. On the second one, he stumbled over Brutus and landed on a shovel blade with his right hand.
“Fuck.” He sucked on his butchered hand and soldiered on.
Throbbing pain and swelling made it difficult to grip the bloody shovel. Perspiration stung his eyes and big ropes of snot hung from his nose. At 10:50, he looked at his trusty Timex and knew it was way past time to get out of there.
Pain and fatigue made him woozy. Steadying his legs against Brutus who braced himself to provide a sturdy base, Peter surveyed the fruit of his labor as he gathered up his tools.
“Fucking A+, my man.” It looked so good, phenomenal actually, until blaring sirens and flashing lights cut through the dark. Cop cars, ambulances, and fire trucks seemed to burst out of nowhere.
“WHAT THE HELL?” PETER’S BODY REFUSED TO MOVE. Sitting down heavily on a nearby boulder, he pulled Brutus close and hugged him tight with his good arm.
“I love you, buddy.” Peter whispered as Brutus’s powerful chest expanded and contracted in perfect rhythm. Brutus licked Peter’s cheek and looked at him expectantly.
“I don’t know what’s happening. Just sit tight, B. Sit like you’ve never sat before.”
The cops swarmed closer and closer. They had to be locked and loaded, ready to counter any threat. Peter knew their adrenaline rush was off the charts. He prayed with all his might the cops wouldn’t shoot Brutus. He heard the clicking of weapons and looked down in horror as the red laser dot landed on his chest.
“This is Bridgeville Police: drop your weapon and come out with your hands high in the air. Walk slowly,” a loud male voice commanded.
Peter staggered to his feet, hands above his head. “Fellas, I’m coming out. I’m unarmed—it’s Peter Russo. But my dog is here; don’t shoot him.”
Brutus started barking like a madman. Peter inched forward slowly just as instructed. He got on his knees and begged them not to hurt Brutus. Guns trained, they patted him down and cuffed his hands behind his back.
“Jesus, he’s covered in blood.”
“My dog, guys, my dog.”
“Shut your mouth!”
“Wait, Russo? Peter Russo is that you?” One of the younger cops, who Peter recognized as Kenny Johnson, a skilled baseball player who almost played in college, nodded at him and said something inaudible to the others. All but two of them lowered their weapons and asked him what the hell he was doing at the facility in the dead of night.
An ambulance sped past them and Peter asked, “What’s going on? What’s this all about?”
The loudest, biggest cop, who Peter didn’t recognize, yelled at him. “Maybe you should tell us.”
“I don’t believe this. Everybody’s up here to arrest me for what, trespassing? Jesus, I only planted some bushes and flowers.”
“This is no time for bullshit, Russo. You know damn well what’s going down here. Where’s your truck?”
“What …”
“Shut it.” Herding him into the backseat of a squad car, someone squashed his head down hard.
“My dog, what are you going to do with him?”
When they got down to Peter’s truck, the caravan of cops stopped. Weapons drawn, they fanned out in a circle. The bright lights illuminated the truck, and the command to exit the vehicle with hands in the air crackled through the loudspeaker.
“There’s nobody in there,” Peter said.
“Shut up.”
The responders closing in on the truck were armed to the teeth. They captured it and tore open the front doors.
“Clear,” came the response. “Got his wallet and ID. It’s Peter Russo.”
One of the other cops who knew Peter from fishing down by the ferry, Billy O’Leary, came up to the back window of the patrol car. “Man, you are in deep kimchee,” he said. “Is that Brutus back there?” Peter nodded.
“Hey,” O’Leary yelled out. “I’m handling the dog. Calling Animal Control right now.”
“That fucking dog is low priority.”
“OK—listen,” O’Leary said into his cellphone. “We’ve got a clusterfuck up here at the fuel cell. We need you to handle an agitated pit bull tied up to a tree. It belongs to the suspect.”
“Get over here,” the officer in charge yelled.
“What?” O’Leary talked quickly on his phone as he looked at Peter. “Judgment call. Don’t shoot the dog unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
AT THE STATION, PETER WAS FINGERPRINTED, photographed, swabbed, and booked. They left him in his bloody and mud-sodden clothes. His injured hand pulsated and swelled gruesomely while the cops conferred. Peter decided against playing the card of asking to see his buddy, Sergeant John Tomassi. If he was in the station, Tomassi would make his way over soon enough.
Finally, the senior arresting officer took him to the interrogation room, read him his rights again and sat him down.
“I want my lawyer,” Peter said. An EMT tried to clean his wound but wasn’t happy about the bleeding.
“You should’ve taken him to the ER for stitches,” she said. “I don’t know if these butterfly bandages will hold the edges together.” Nobody appeared too concerned.
“Make your call, Russo.” Trying to hold the phone in his left hand and dial with his right, he kept dropping the phone and messing up the numbers. His right hand was as useful as a brick. Finally, he got through to Lori Welles, his good friend who happened to be a very successful local attorney.
“Lori,” Peter said. “Wake up, this is urgent.”
Lori mumbled something incoherent, so Peter spoke louder. “It’s me, Peter Russo.”
“Hello? Peter,” she said, in a voice muffled with sleep. “Why are you calling me this late?”
“Lori, get over to the Bridgeville police station as fast as you can. I’ve been arrested and there’s a wall of shit coming at me. They’re going to shoot Brutus—you’ve got to save him.”
“Don’t say another word to anyone, Peter.” Lori cleared her throat and pushed her sleeping lover in the back. “I’m on my way. Who’s going to shoot Brutus?” Her groggy partner rolled over to the far edge of the king-sized bed, out of Lori ‘s reach.
“Brutus is tied to a tree up at the fuel cell on Maple Street, and he’s going bananas. Animal Control could kill him. You gotta call Jeff and get Marti in on this. Brutus needs all the help he can get.”
Lori hung up and reached for Martina Dunn, shaking her by the shoulder until she roused. Marti, a tall and athletic wine merchant in West Hadley, did not wake easily. Lori pulled the covers off and showed no mercy as she maneuvered a naked Marti out of bed.
“Goddammit,” Marti yelled, rolling onto her back and rubbing her eyes.
“For fuck’s sake, Marti. Wake up! I need you.” Lori’s tension rose as she got Marti up to speed. “Peter’s in trouble, and Brutus is about to be shot by Animal Control. I’ll go handle Peter, but I really need you to pull the stops out for Brutus.”
“Lor, breathe. Teamwork, babe.” Marti hugged her hard. “I’ll call my ex.”
They each threw on sweats, grabbed their cell phones and jumped into their respective cars. Lori roared down the road while Marti, driving wildly through the dark as she tried to focus, regretted her generous nightcap of French brandy when she barely missed a galloping deer.
Nobody worked a phone like Marti. She could chew out vendors and purr to customers simultaneously. She jumped into action, calling her old girlfriend, the one woman on the planet who could keep Brutus alive. Her ex not only wrote for the Hatfield Gazette, the biggest paper in the area, but she loved animals passionately—actually more than people. Plus, her brother ran the West Hadley Public Works Department.
“You want me to do what?”
“Two things, really.” Marti tamped down her rapid-fire speech, courtesy of her New Jersey upbringing, to a slower pace. “First, threaten Bridgeville’s mayor you’ll publish all the dirt you have on him unless he makes Brutus priority number one.”
“Peter’s Brutus?”
“Yes—haven’t you been listening to anything I said?”
“Yeah, but it’s two in the morning and I was having a great dream about an orgy. Everyone wanted a piece of me.”
Marti heard loud yawning that sounded halfway to snoring. “Wake up, come on.”
“OK, ok. What’s the second thing? Wait, don’t tell me. Call my brother and get one of his Animal Control people over there, right?”
“Exactly. Please, please.”
“You owe me, bitch.”
No sooner had Marti hung up than Bridgeville’s mayor learned that allegations of campaign irregularities would be made public unless he called Animal Control and instructed them to let West Hadley take the lead in dealing with Brutus.
Marti waited anxiously, driving through the humid night and clutching her phone. When the call came through, Marti answered it in a nanosecond.
“Talk to me.”
“Ok, listen. My brother got Animal Control to send an officer who’s trained in something called non-lethal animal subjugation. Now, there’s a mouthful. And Bridgeville’s gonna let West Hadley do their non-lethal thing.”
“You’re the best—I really owe you, babe. How about a bottle of primo wine?”
“Sure, a bottle of 2015 Chateau Lafite Rothschild and we’re close to even. Maybe throw in your fine self for old time’s sake.”
“What?” Marti relaxed her death grip on the phone. “You’ll like the 2015 Mouton Rothschild better. It’s just like me—finesse and power.”
“Tramp.”
“Ha. Trust me, put it away for twenty years and drink it for a great occasion. Then you’ll thank me.”
Marti and her ex made kissing sounds before they hung up. Lori texted that Jeff was on his way and would meet her in the parking lot.
When Marti eased into the space next to Jeff’s pickup, he ran over in a panic. “Nobody’s telling me what’s what with Pete or why Brutus is a dead man walking!”
Marti calmed him down as they waited for Animal Control from Bridgeville and West Hadley. Explaining the situation as best she could somehow upset Jeff even more.
“I’m gonna kill Pete. And, they’re gonna try non-lethal subjugation? The fuck does that mean?” Jeff seethed as he handed her his spare flashlight.
“Look, I don’t know, either. I think there’s a dart gun. I mean, how hard could it be to shoot a dart into Brutus? He’s huge.”
The West Hadley and Bridgeville Animal Control trucks arrived back to back. It became immediately obvious that neither town’s personnel wanted to see the other there.
“I got the OK from the chief to let this shitshow happen for exactly five minutes,” the Bridgeville Animal Control officer said. “And you do know it’s the middle of the night, and I’m not getting overtime.”
“Back off. It’s our technology,” the West Hadley guy said, brandishing the gun. “I’ve got three tranquilizer darts. One should be plenty.”
Two Bridgeville cops hiked through the woods with the tense group to the approximate area where Brutus remained tied to a tree.
“Call out to him, Jeff,” Marti urged. “He knows your voice.”
“Brutus, buddy. Where are you?” Jeff searched unsuccessfully in his pockets for a dog treat. Luckily, one of the cops had some Snausages in his car, meant for his own pup. He ran back to get them while the group waited.
Brutus barked savagely, making him easy to locate with the powerful flashlights they all clutched.
“Healthy set of lungs on that dog.”
The cop with the Snausages returned breathlessly and nudged Jeff to holler for Brutus.
“This baby,” the West Hadley officer said, “is a shoo-in at ten yards.”
“So, you’ve done this before?” Marti, Jeff and Snausage cop voiced this concern simultaneously.
“Uh, no, not really.”
“What does that mean?” Marti ventured.
“We just got it, but I watched the training video a couple times. No worries.” The West Hadley officer caressed his new toy.
Marti, Jeff and Snausage cop exchanged worried looks. The other cop yawned and scratched his balls. The Bridgeville Animal guy spat and kicked the ground in disgust.
“OK, this is how it’s gonna go,” West Hadley said. “You,” nodding towards Snausage cop, “throw the treat close to him. When he bends down to get it, I’ll shoot the dart. Piece of cake.”
The first attempt was wide of the mark. Brutus retrieved the Snausage too quickly.
The second attempt hit the tree. The Bridgeville Animal guy threw his hands up in anger and stomped away.
“Hey, can I see that gun?” Officer Snausage examined it carefully. “How about that dart?”
“Look folks, this is fucked up.” Jeff’s voice bristled with frustration and anger. “We’ve got exactly one dart and one Snausage left. This is it—one and done, right, Officer Piece of Cake?”
“Bite me.”
“You first. You better watch your tone, son.”
Officer Snausage whirled into action. He threw the Snausage and fired the dart into Brutus’s flank. After a few seconds of yelping confusion, Brutus crashed to the ground.
“Hey, man. Not cool,” West Hadley protested.
“Thank God,” Marti shouted.
“Great shot.” The other Bridgeville cop high-fived Snausage cop.
Jeff pumped his arms in the air. “You’re my man.”
“You’re not my type, Russo,” Officer Snausage said, puffed up with pride. Then he grinned and accepted a hearty fist bump.
SERGEANT JOHN TOMASSI PEERED OVER HIS BIFOCALS at Peter, his boyhood chum since they were fat boys playing side by side on the offensive line in Mighty Mites football forty-five years ago. Peter stood before him, disheveled, muddy, bloody, and arrested.
“What the fuck, Russo?” Tomassi’s fearsome unibrow amplified his frown. His permanent five o’clock shadow seemed to darken as if to reflect his extreme irritation at Peter’s arrest at the Zenergy fuel cell facility. “I got one hour left in my shift, and now I gotta deal with you getting arrested on a goddamn boatload of charges.”
“So, tell you what, John, just let me go.” Peter’s stocky build and graying dark hair matched Tomassi’s. He shrugged as Tomassi took his glasses off with one hand and dramatically massaged the bridge of his nose with the other. “Just sayin’ since of all the paperwork, it might be easier.” He stared straight into Tomassi’s bloodshot eyes, hoping to see some softening, a flicker of their long friendship.
“No can do. Zenergy’s got weight; they even got departments in the area to put out an alert and a BOLO about suspicious activity near their facility. Asshole,” he snorted at Peter.
“Really? Since when do they get to dictate what cops should be on the lookout for? Unbelievable.” Peter shifted uneasily on the ugly linoleum floor, finally sitting down in an uncomfortable plastic chair.
“You’re going to enjoy a nice long Memorial Day weekend here on account of all the courts being closed until Tuesday.” Tomassi popped a breath mint and leafed through his notepad. “Your brother called. Not to alarm you or anything, but evidently pit bulls like Brutus can’t tolerate the drug in the tranquilizer dart they shot him with.”
“Shit.” Peter picked at the blood-soaked bandage on his hand before wiping away a tear that trickled down his cheek. “Why did your guys have to go in so heavy? Locked and loaded ‘cause of me and Brutus? They could’ve killed us.”
“What don’t you get? You just had to be a wise-ass, with your flowers and bushes. I’m not even gonna talk about the attack on Lou Stulow, the security guard.” Seeing Peter shake his head no, Tomassi held up his calloused hand. “Save it for your lawyer. Now, back to someone I actually care about—Brutus. Yeah, he’s gonna stay another day in the animal hospital. Jeff also said he wouldn’t be coming to visit you until he could feel enough brotherly love not to freaking strangle you.” Tomassi checked his watch. “I’m outta here in five. Lemme give you a piece of advice: zip it and make like a boy scout from here on in.” He patted Peter gruffly on the back and then swatted him hard in the head with his notepad.
“Thanks.”
“What?”
“You’re deaf and stupid? I might stop by on Memorial Day with one of Donna’s amazing chili hot dogs if you play your cards right.” Tomassi left the room with all the grace of a wounded hippo, slamming the door behind him.
Lori Welles, forty-five and proudly out for basically her entire life, entered the room with her dark hair pulled up in a top-knot like a Japanese samurai. Beautiful, even at that hour and without make-up, she looked royally peeved.
“I want to slap you. And I want to cut open your head to see if you have an actual brain in there. But, then I might get arrested, and that would be about as useful here as a cat at a dog show.”
“I can’t pay you, Lor. I’ve got like a negative balance. Maybe just get me through the weekend and I’ll wing it from there. Or we can barter, right?”
Peter’s bank account, never flush, had shriveled to an all-time low. None of his friends had any spare change, either. That is, none except for Carmen Fiori, who ran her family’s apple orchard like Warren Buffet. But when Carmen dumped him, she made it very clear that he was never to darken her doorstep.
“Don’t worry about that now,” Lori said. “Let’s sort through everything and get the assault charge thrown out. Obviously, it’s circumstantial bullshit. But I’m swamped with work, literally up to my neck. We gotta get you out of here. I need someone to help out.”
“OK, good. But just not Vic Baldini, I’m begging you. I know you use him sometimes, but anyone else. The shitty late-night commercials, the bad comb-over …
“Peter could have listed a million reasons, but Lori honed in on his major reservation.
“And he’s Carmen’s ex brother-in-law, yadda, yadda. Beggars can’t be choosers. If I can get him to help, he’s on the case.”
“Oy.”
“He’s a good tactician with a nose for the kill. Just close your eyes when you talk to him if you’re such a priss. Maybe he’ll figure out how to get you off for being mentally deficient.”
“I thought you were on my side. What’s this, tough love?”
“You shouldn’t have posted so much trash-talking about Zenergy on Facebook. Combine it with Saunders Construction, and you know I mean the history Brock has with your family. By the way, does Jeff know that Saunders is back in the game in Bridgeville? I hope to God I won’t have to defend him, too, once he finds out.” She rubbed her eyes, and Peter saw how sleepy she looked.
“You’re working too hard. Sorry to add more to your plate.”
“You’re like family. I’d be insulted if you called anyone else. But, everything I just said plus the guard getting assaulted while you were up there recreating the Garden of Eden makes you look bad. Really bad.”
Peter swatted away the comment. “Oh, so it’s OK for Zenergy to poison our air and water? That assault on the guard wasn’t me, and they’re morons if they think I did it. He’s gonna be OK, right?’
Lori shrugged. “Hope so. It’s a messy head wound, and they can be tricky.”
“They better hurry with the blood tests from my clothes and everything. It’s my own blood for Chrissake. I wanna get home to Brutus, the poor guy. And my hand hurts like hell.” He held it up to show her.
“Boo-hoo. Suck it up cupcake. Here’s a smooch to make it better.’ Lori smiled and blew him a kiss.
AFTER LORI TOOK OFF, A GUARD ESCORTED PETER BACK to his cell. He looked around to see if he had company at chez Bridgeville PD. “Anyone else here?”
“Yo, Pops,” a young man called out. “What you here for?”
Peter saw a tattooed set of arms sticking through the bars of the cell near him. “Same as you—nothing.”
The young man laughed and called out to the cell next to him, “Hey, el Viejo—aight!”
“Hey, Pops,” another young male voice said. “Over here. You ever coach a Little League team in Hatfield?”
Peter tried to get a closer look at the young men, especially the one who asked about baseball. Short, muscular and just as tatted out, he had sleek dark hair cut in an elaborate buzz but Peter didn’t recognize him.
“I coached Little League with the Big Brothers program in Hatfield about ten or so years ago,” he said, trying to retrieve this buried memory. “Help me here; did you play on that team?”
“Man, I knew I remembered you!” The young man crouched into a baseball hitting stance. “You always told me to be ‘baseball ready’ and I never forget a voice. You got old, Coach.”
Peter chuckled. “You could say that again. What else do you remember? What’s your name?”
“Marco. What the hell you doing here, Coach?
“This is all a misunderstanding. It’ll be settled soon.”
“Ain’t no misunderstanding if you in here with us, Pops, on this fine Memorial Day weekend,” the first guy said, stroking his black knife-edged goatee. “Hey, I’m Paco.”
“Pleased to meet you. I kind of like being Pops, but my real name is Peter.”
“What your kids call you?” Paco asked.
“Divorced, no kids. At least none that I know of.”
“Coach, ‘member that sweet time I hit the winning inside-the-park homerun against West Hadley?”
“Marco—wow. That’s a blast from the past. Of course, I remember, but do you remember that I bought the team Dairy Queen after every game?” Peter asked, recalling just how excited the boys got when they piled into coaches’ cars, win or lose, and they got to order ice cream at the walk-up window.
“Man—you went broke on us! Blizzards were the bomb.”
“You asked for every kind of candy in the world to be mixed into yours. You still have teeth?” Peter pretended to count as Marco laughed, flashing a smile that a beaver would love.
“So, like serious now, Coach. What you get arrested for?”
“Long story, guys.”
“You see us goin’ anywhere?” Paco said, his voice filled with frustration. Peter knew better than to ask what they had been arrested for. It would probably depress the hell out of him and they would tell him if they felt like it. “We got nothin’ but time, Pops.”
Peter sighed. “They arrested me for trespassing, vandalism and aggravated assault.”
“What the what?” Marco yelled. “No way.”
“Aggravated assault ain’t you, Pops,” Paco said solemnly.
“Thank you. At least somebody aside from my family and lawyer gets that. But I definitely was trespassing.” Peter thought for a minute. “Vandalism could go either way.”
“Hey, Coach,” Marco said after a pause, employing the regretful tone a surgeon might use for a terminally ill patient who has weeks to live. “That aggro assault charge could be some real shit. You gotta get a good attorney.”
“Chow time,” Officer Kenny Johnson came in and announced. “Peter, I see you’ve made friends.”
“I’m a friendly guy, Officer.”
“He coached me in Little League,” Marco said proudly.
“No shit,” Kenny raised an eyebrow. “Me, too.”
“Wait a minute, Kenny,” Peter said. “When you go home, can you get ahold of a team picture from about ten years ago? You played at least one season on the mixed team for Bridgeville and Hatfield, right?”
“Yeah, I did.” Kenny, twenty-four, looked exactly the same as he did at thirteen, with curious eyes and plain features. He still wore his brown hair high and tight, and his tall muscular build made his babyface even more noticeable.
“Damn,” Marco said. “Are you that KJ kid who could hit like anything?”
“You gotta be kidding me,” Paco said loudly. “What is this a fucking reunion? I never got no Little League. I was in the Dominican trying to play street ball with a stick and some raggedy ass kids.”
Kenny walked over to Marco and they slapped hands. “Marco, I’m not gonna talk about what you’re doing here. But, you were Derek Jeter at shortstop. Man, you had his hands and wheels.”
“Yeah, back in the day. Get that picture, Officer KJ. Aight?”
Peter shook his head in wonder. Cosmic coincidences like this one didn’t just happen. Once he got out of jail, he’d have to ask Ian Edwards, his karma-obsessed friend and occasional personal trainer, how to explain the force that pulled off this phenomenon. It wasn’t random, that’s for sure. Suddenly, Peter wanted nothing more than to go for a pre-dawn walk down by the river, dogs off-leash, birds singing, water flowing, cool wind in his face, and not a soul in sight.
PETER GOT TO SEE IAN MUCH SOONER THAN HE EXPECTED.
Ian Edwards and his business partner, Andre Jackson, were very serious about trying to salvage their fitness clients from the scrap heap. Ian’s clients tended to be spiritual and broken somehow or else highly entertained by his idiosyncrasies, while Andre’s wanted to get ripped and lose weight. Yet, Be It Gym aka BIG worked. In fact, they were turning away clients. They created their business partnership after their mutual employer, Ladies in Fitness Together (LiFT), went bankrupt during the Great Recession. Never particularly close, they still felt a kinship and the urgent need for both a paycheck and a gym facility. So, they looked at each other and shrugged, why not?
At first, business was so slow that Andre auctioned off personal training sessions at fundraisers for PeeWee football and Little League, which is how Peter entered the BIG orbit. Ian ended up offering cheap Pilates classes through the Adult Education program in two towns. They grew the business and kept the hype to a minimum, personalizing the experience for each client.
“Don’t sit on furniture, don’t lift weights, don’t eat meat, and avoid sex,” Ian counseled. The white ex-cop from the UK preached the virtues of vegetarianism, tee-totaling, discomfort, and celibacy. He claimed to have bedded more women than he cared to remember, including the one he trailed to the States like a lovesick puppy in his earlier unenlightened days.
“There’s always a gutting betrayal in love,” he said to an incredulous Andre. “That’s why country music grabs people’s hearts. You know, somebody done someone wrong. It’s the human condition.” Now, enlightened and evolved, Ian’s dedication to asceticism simmered steadily but never too explosively; Lao Tzu’s warning that the brightest flame burns half as long adorned an elaborate tattoo down the inside of Ian’s left arm.
“That’s bullshit,” Andre said, whenever one of his clients seemed swayed by Ian’s list of don’ts. “You gotta lift weights, eat more protein and boogie on. But really, don’t sit so much.”
Andre, a handsome African American in his mid-thirties, was a devoted dad with three kids and deep roots in the community. No longer together with the kids’ mother, he lived for the time he got to spend with them. Andre’s high school sports feats were still legend, but he had moved on to a few careers since those days. Many people remembered him as the best phlebotomist who ever took their blood or inserted an IV when he worked at the local hospital.
Ian’s yoga devotions and British accent made him unusual in Bridgeville, but aside from that he blended in easily. A frequent patron of the Alewife Java Hut, Bridgeville’s most popular coffee shop, he looked like every other hipster wannabe late-thirties dad, with his shaved head, tattoos and lean build. Except he wasn’t a dad or a hipster.
“Children are to be pitied,” he said. “Look at the condition of the world that they’ve been born into! They’re fucked.”
“You need to get a life, dude, you know—take your mind off all the negative shit,” Andre said. “I’m not even talking about a new woman. Maybe some kind of plant to begin with; you’d probably forget to feed a pet, so start with a cactus.”
“I include you in my prayers for mankind, Andre. I have a special one for you,” Ian said, extending his middle finger with a flourish.
“Right back at you.”
But Ian could be surprising, with an abiding love for technology and a nest-egg. Although this at times conflicted with attaining nirvana, it ensured that he kept up his private investigator license, hard-earned when he toiled for Discreet Review, a marital infidelity powerhouse.
Lori had enjoyed some weird yet deep chats with Ian, including the revelation about his PI license. She filed that nugget in the back of her steel-trap mind in case she ever needed some outside-the-box work done. Now was that time.
AROUND 5:45 A.M. ON THE FRIDAY OF PETER’S ARREST, Andre propped open the gym’s front door to enjoy the sunrise and the sweet-smelling fresh air.
Ian, on his way over, greeted the day, too. “Here comes the sun,” he sang happily, unwilling to shield his eyes from the mesmerizing yellow light.
Andre bopped to the beat of the radio, vacuuming every inch of the gym, his usual routine. Ian wandered in after parking his car, grabbed an oil can to adjust an annoying squeaky spring on the Pilates Reformer, and suddenly started screaming once he saw the unholy mess.
“Andre! Oh, no—What the fuck?”
Andre couldn’t hear him over the vacuum, so Ian ran over and yanked the plug out of the wall.
“What have you done?” Ian yelled in a very un-Zen manner.
“What is your damn problem this time, man?” Andre followed Ian over to the Pilates corner and there, stuck in a previously gleaming Reformer machine, lay a big mangled bird.
Ian and Andre glared at each other as they beheld the Canada goose lying bloody and quite dead in the Pilates Reformer.
“Fuck me, this is really bad,” Ian sputtered, pacing between foam rollers, yoga mats and clean fluffy white towels.
“Fuck you is right.” Andre owned up to being a total neat-freak and germaphobe. In fact, this had led to a serious conflict in his phlebotomy career. He was not about to let this colossal dead goose, which looked like it could feed twenty-five hearty eaters at Thanksgiving, besmirch his gym. Blood needed to be where it belonged: in veins, arteries and test tubes.
“Don’t touch anything,” Ian commanded, keeping his distance and ignoring the latex gloves Andre threw in his direction.
“C’mon, already. Let’s just throw it in the trash and be done with it.” Andre stuffed feathers and assorted body parts into the bag.
“Why you think this was an accident is beyond me. This could be a message.” The ex-cop couldn’t stop spinning investigatory habits drilled into his head. “Who had access? Motive? Opportunity? Is anything missing?” Ian recoiled as one of the goose’s bloody legs fell on the floor near him.
“This never happened,” Andre snapped and threw a big towel at Ian, motioning him to start cleaning. “We got to be careful about people poking their nose into our business. You tell just anybody and they tell somebody and pretty soon we’re gonna get closed down. Probably blamed, too, for animal cruelty or some shit. Unbelievable.”
“Shut up, Andre. This is seriously unlucky back where I come from.”
“Seems to me finding a dead bird in your gym isn’t lucky anywhere.”
“No, you don’t get it. There’s serious religious omens and superstitions at play here. All is not well.” Ian kept wringing the towel and taking deep breaths.
“Man, you need to get a grip. It’s just a damn stupid dead bird.” Andre headed off to the dumpster with a disgusted look.
Ian was still looking up dead bird omens on his smartphone when Andre came back in. “Hey, enough of this crap,” Andre said. “I’m going to the Alewife for coffee. You want anything?’
“What? Did you know in Scotland finding a dead bird is a bad omen for supper? You might be served the corpse if you don’t spit on it immediately. Do you still have the bag?”
“Get a hold of yourself, man. Get the big-boy underpants on.” Andre tried unsuccessfully not to laugh. He knew from experience Ian could be very touchy and might sulk for days, confusing clients into thinking they had angered him somehow. That was bad for business, and Andre prided himself on providing a quality product.
Ian stalked off outside and soon returned, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.
“Oh, no—you didn’t,” Andre said. “This is no way for a dude in touch with his third eye to behave.”
“Go on, ignore the obvious, Andre. You don’t have an enlightened bone in your body.”
“I’m ignoring your crazy, asshole.”
“This goose omen is too much; it’s a warning from the universe.” Ian grabbed his water bottle and baseball cap. “I’ll be back for my eight o’clock.”
“Later, man.” Andre left soon after to go the Alewife for his beloved morning java.
When he got back twenty minutes later, the dead goose and the overwhelming smell of disinfectant annoyed him so much that he felt his blood pressure rising.
Andre found some pine-scented candles and lit them near the Reformer. Checking his phone for new messages, he found three urgent texts from Lori starting at seven A.M.
Lori picked up right away. “Peter Russo’s in jail on a crazy-ass assault charge. Can you talk Ian into getting over to Vic Baldini’s office for a quick meet-and-greet and doing some PI stuff? I had to get Vic in on this because I’m up to my eyeballs in work. I swear to God, Peter needs Ian. And tell him to act like a human being—not like some space cadet.”
He’s on it,” Andre said. “I’ll get him back here and then over to this Vic guy’s office ASAP.”
“Don’t you have to ask him?”
“Hell, no. He’ll do it. Call you back soon.”
Andre drummed his fingers impatiently as he waited for Ian to answer his phone. “C’mon, pick up, man.”
“What, Andre. I’m up a tree so this better be important.”
“Dude, get the fuck down. Peter Russo’s in trouble, and Lori says he needs your help.”
“Is this some kind of joke? Don’t mess with my tree time.”
“No, this is real. Get back here,” Andre yelled.
“OK.” Ian started to chant loudly, and Andre’s blood pressure climbed even higher. “Ian, you OK?”
“No. None of us are. It’s the goose, don’t you get it? The goose is only the beginning.”
“YEAH,” LORI SAID AS VIC SHOT DOWN THE IDEA ON the phone. “I know you think he’s a village idiot, but first of all, you don’t really know him. Second of all, he’s got a unique way of cutting to the chase. Peter’s got a huge problem, and the sooner we uncover what the hell went down, the sooner he’s home. You know what Memorial Day weekend is like around here; nothing gets done. I want Ian on the case.”
“Lori, he’s too psycho. Once I was behind him in line for coffee at the Alewife, and I’m talking on my phone, he turns around and stares at me without blinking with those spooky blue eyes for like five minutes. If I hadn’t wanted a latte so bad, I would’ve split.”
Lori smiled. Ian did that to people when he thought they had just uttered something spectacularly stupid. “Vic, you don’t talk on the phone; you yell. Look, just because you’re opposites doesn’t mean that he’s not the guy to break this bullshit down.”
Vic exhaled loudly. “I got my own PI, and I don’t like flakes.”
“Listen, someone had to have a beef with the guard that got violent the same night Peter was gardening up there like a moron. Ian’s on his way—make nice.”
About an hour later at Vic’s wood-paneled office decorated in haute Ralph Lauren, replete with antlered deer heads on the walls, Ian and Vic sized each other up unblinkingly.
“I can’t believe you’re a PI,” Vic said. He glanced up and down, curling his lip in palpable dismay. “Hey, Bob Marley,” he nodded at Ian’s T-shirt, “you carry a gun?”
“Absolutely not. Guns kill, and I’m not a killer. But I do have this,” Ian said, taking the high road by not pulling the deer heads off the wall and beating Vic with them. “You can find out more about someone with the ultimate tool.” He held out his iPhone.
“Hey, that’s actually true.” Vic, chubby and sporting a shiny golf shirt at least a size too small, stroked his comb-over like it was a beloved pet.
“Social media tells all. And, I have these,” Ian pointed to his eyes, ears, skull, and heart.
“Yeah, me too. And a ten-foot shlong. My regular guy is on a cruise, and this is a rush job. Add Lori on my ass, and you’re hired. I gotta know your rates.”
“$125 an hour and twenty-six cents per mile.”
“What? Those are for top-notch PI’s.”
“Of whom I am one,” Ian said primly. “Besides, Vic—I have to eat and pay rent.”
“Alright, fine—it’s not my dime, anyway. On the down-low, an anonymous someone’s paying the bills, and she wants her identity to remain secret. So, shhh.” Vic put his finger to his lips.
“Oh, I bet it’s Carmen Fiori. That wasn’t very hard to figure out. But I won’t tell.” Ian chuckled before saying, “I’ll need an advance.”
“You’re not as dumb as you look. Now we’re gonna do this my way. Find out who the guard is shtupping. Who, what, when, where, how. Why, I don’t give a shit—oldest story in the book. Stay away from him. You don’t want to get hit with a tampering charge.”
“Anything else?” Ian asked, already thinking of ten million modifications, his mouth puckered like he just ate a lemon.
“You got a problem? Tough shit. I started out with a slip-and-fall law firm. You know, personal injury. People who take a tumble at Home Depot and get money. I already forgot what you never knew about greed and the itsy-bitsy line between opportunity and extortion.”
“Vic, I’m not critiquing.” Ian held up his hands in supplication. “Don’t forget that I was a beat cop back in the day.”
“England,” Vic snorted derisively.
“What, you think everybody spends all day bowing and curtseying? Like I said, I’m not judging.”
“Bullshit. Everybody judges. But you know what? Out on my own, I play both sides of the ball, and every client gets a thousand percent of me. Defendant, plaintiff, whatever. I return every phone call; every lonely little old lady hears back from me. I climb into the foxhole with my clients. Give me conflict any day. I eat it for breakfast on a spoon. You want tactics? I got tactics. I could get you a settlement for a hangnail. I go to war for my clients, and you want me on your side. Just ask Lori and Carm.” Vic panted after his long monologue and reached into his pocket for his ever-present Chapstick. “Cherry’s the best.”
“You’re actually foaming at the mouth,” Ian marveled. “Calm down. I’ll do it your way.”
“I’m only getting warmed up; this is first gear. You don’t want to see third gear.”
“Definitely not. But you need a meditation intervention to detach from your anger. Negative energy is a killer.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Vic rested his sockless loafer-clad foot on a leather stool. “I’ll take it under advisement.”
Ian quickly gulped some room-temperature water from his ever-present thermos. “Tell me what you need for Peter’s defense.”
“It’s fricking Memorial Day weekend. The cops got the parade, beer-soaked picnics; they’re not ultra-motivated to investigate until Tuesday, I’m betting. So you do the legwork. Get all the dirt, everything, because that leads us to who wants him dead. Then find a loose link and exploit the hell out of it. Get it done like yesterday.”
“I’ll circle back to you soon.”
“Buddy, if you’re too busy helping housewives lose cellulite, let me know. I’ll find someone else before the door hits you in the ass on your way out.”
Ian gritted his teeth into a smile. “No worries, mate. I include you in my special prayers.”
“Thanks. A little extra in the God department couldn’t hurt.”
THE FRIDAY MORNING OF PETER’S ARREST, CARMEN Fiori, forty-nine and unaware of this momentous event, stood naked in front of the full-length mirror in her huge bedroom closet and critically assessed her petite silhouette. The light from the antique wall sconces and the soft earth tones that graced her inner sanctuary, built out of her cheating ex-husband’s closet, were designed to flatter.
“The legs are the last thing to go.” Carmen still approved of her shapely legs and the black shoulder-length bob framing her brown eyes, Roman nose and rose-bud lips, a look she’d tinkered with for years. Just like Cleopatra, her studious young grandson, Jimmy, suggested, delightedly showing her a picture from his favorite book on ancient Egypt. But Carmen frowned at her drooping breasts.
“Damn gravity.”
Carmen strapped the girls into a sag-defying padded bra and stepped into her basic spring uniform of tan capris, a black V-necked sweater and sneakers. As she did her makeup, adroitly applying concealer to her under-eye bags, she decided Botox could wait another month.
Amped after a big cup of high-test espresso, Carmen walked the hilly expanse of Fiori Orchards, armed with her iPad and phone. She saw some rot on the Honeycrisps in Section A and photographed it carefully. Back in the house, she sent the pictures to the specialists at the state Apple Council. Absentmindedly, sipping at her second cup of coffee, she scrolled through her new text messages and almost fell over when she read Lori Welles’s brief text about Peter’s arrest.
WTF, she texted back.
Peter had muscled into her sex fantasies for almost a whole year. Carmen’s sixteen-speed vibrator worked impeccably, but she never came with such shuddering fulfilment as when Peter crowded into the picture. She recognized the irony; the man she couldn’t kick out fast enough needed to be in her head for the earth to move. Just thinking about him in this unguarded moment made her pulsate, an electric charge that juiced her pants and splashed her coffee.
“Oh my God, Carmen. Get a grip.”
Carmen had shut Peter out abruptly from her life two years ago, right after her daughter, Becky, died at twenty-three, high and drunk after yet another night of partying at the quarry. Although Peter supported her lovingly when her mother finally passed away from Alzheimer’s, a gut-wrenching shadow of her former self, Carmen couldn’t handle him after Becky died. She knew he cared about Becky and Jimmy, but the double whammy of losing her mother and her only child in three years destroyed her world.
After the overwhelming awfulness of Becky’s funeral, which Carmen remembered in precise detail, she forced him to leave. She felt her edges sharp as glass and didn’t hesitate to skewer even the well-wishers. When a woman came up to her at the gas station and said she was so brave, Carmen stared at her with disgust.
“Here’s a word of advice, die before your children so you don’t have to be brave.”
Carmen boiled it down to simple calculations, all of them zero-sum decisions: cling to Peter and depend utterly on him or crawl out of the wreckage and depend on herself, somehow rising like a phoenix from the ashes of her life. And it had to be her, not only for Jimmy’s sake but for her own. So, she built an impregnable iron fortress, reinforced with barbed wire and snarling wolves, to chase Peter away and keep him out for good.
“You destroyed your own happiness,” her grief counselor said when Carmen could finally do more than cry during their sessions.
“I hate happy. It’s bullshit, and what you’re really talking about is love, isn’t it?” Carmen jumped up from the armchair she usually curled up in. “Romantic love or whatever ridiculous fucking name you want—it makes you blind and stupid. Look at what my being in love with Peter did. It doesn’t have a place in my life anymore.”
“Is that fair to him? To yourself?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. We’re done here.” She never went back.
Carmen was raising Becky’s son, the introspective Jimmy, now eight years old. He devoured books and delighted in impressing his grandma with his unusual interests, currently pyramids and pharaohs. Whoever Jimmy’s father had been, Becky, then seventeen, couldn’t remember or wouldn’t say when she told her mother she was pregnant.
“I’ll get an abortion, Ma. It’s just a stupid mistake; I’m sorry.”
“That’s my grandchild, not just a stupid mistake,” Carmen yelled, shocking them both. They locked eyes as they stood wordlessly frozen in place.
Finally, through tears, Carmen spoke first. “I’m sorry, but I’m not sorry I said it. Of course, it’s your choice. I absolutely believe that.” She wiped her face and blew her nose noisily. Becky did the same, only louder, and they cried in each other’s arms.
Becky loved Jimmy and made sure to give him the Fiori last name, but being a teen mom sucked, in her own words.
“Jimmy Fiori is gonna know where he’s from. I can’t give him much, but I can give him our history,” she said to her grandfather, who slowly embraced the whole situation. Becky worked at the orchard after Jimmy’s birth and earned her GED. Carmen paid her a generous salary and helped with Jimmy, but Becky didn’t step up the way Carmen thought she should.
“I need a life,” she complained to Carmen. “I’m missing all the fun. I want to go out with my friends. Why can’t you watch him more?”
“Becky, you can’t go out every night and party. I’m happy to do three nights a week. And you better be using birth control.”
“Butt out, Mom.”
“You just asked me for more help, so I’ll butt in every now and then, thank you very much. I’ve got a life, too.” Carmen bit back the pointed observation that Becky was acting like a spoiled brat. She didn’t want to go there again.
Peter used to come over once Jimmy, who slept like a log, went to bed. And Carmen spent a lot of time at Peter’s cottage. She huddled with Annie, Jeff’s wife, to scout through the attic for old black-and-white pictures of the Russo clan and farm. After checking with Peter, who gave her carte blanche to do whatever she wanted, she got them framed and hung them artfully on the walls. She also moved his collection of rubber chickens to a shelf in the garage.
Lori panicked when Carmen spiraled into an absolute recluse after Becky died, only able to surface from the depths of her personal hell for Jimmy and the orchard. Anything and anyone else, including Peter had to go, not that Lori understood what happened there. But Lori knew Carmen would do anything to help Peter out of jam.
Lori and Carmen went way back to elementary school. Feisty and always ready to fight for a cause, Carmen took no prisoners, even as a kid. When Lori, younger by a few years, needed protection from schoolyard bullies who taunted her for being different, shouts of “dyke” ringing through the air, Carmen made them pay. She also taught Lori a few key moves, like the best way to kick someone in the groin.
Carmen’s fingers danced madly as she and Lori exchanged texts. When Vic called her to complain about ruining his Memorial Day plans, Carmen set him straight.
“You’re doing it or I’ll make your life a living hell. Obviously, I’m footing the bill. It’s Pete, for Christ’s sake. And don’t tell him it’s me or I’ll hunt you down, so help me God.”
“OK, I got it. Try a little decaf, would ya? But hey, you’re the boss.”
“Damn straight and don’t forget it.” Carmen’s ex-husband Anthony Baldini, better known as Ant, had hit the road long ago. A hard partier who never met a vice he couldn’t master, he didn’t have Vic’s ambition, loyalty, or smarts. The Baldini’s hailed from West Hadley where their used-car dealer lots were celebrated for their trashiness. Carmen had never taken the Baldini name, and Becky couldn’t wait to legally change her last name to Fiori when she turned sixteen.
A few hours later, Carmen spoke to Lori on the phone. “How bad is it, Lor? Pete didn’t assault anyone, I know it like I know my name. But Saunders being involved must’ve made him crazy. I get that. But, if I was talking to him, I’d kill him for being such a pig-headed ass.”
Lori sighed. “I know. I’ve asked Ian Edwards, you know, the personal trainer who’s partners with Andre at BIG? He’s a trip and a half, but he’s also a licensed PI and sharp as a tack. You’re going to pay his bill, too, Ms. Moneybags.”
“Only under two conditions—I want to meet Ian face to face, and Pete never finds out I’m doing this.”
“Don’t you think Peter will suspect something? I mean he knows Vic is your ex brother-in-law.”
“Yeah, but he also knows Vic is an ambulance chaser who wins cases. And you work with him sometimes. It’s just a small-town connection. You know, the usual incest.”
Carmen busied herself with prowling the orchard for more rot, disease and insects. The orchard laborers stayed far away, sensing her mood. But whenever she saw a potential problem, she summoned Miguel, the foreman who was her first hire when she took over the business and who she trusted with her life. She knew his boyfriend, backstory and immigration woes. He called her La Luchadora, the strong fighting woman who never quits.
“Don’t forget who doesn’t take shit,” Carmen reminded him.
“Don’t I know it.”
Carmen’s humble Mediterranean heritage—her parents joked that her baby bottles were a mixture of olive oil, red wine and milk—informed her life. No processed food, no crap from anyone except the loser she ended up married to for twelve years, no surrender. Even as a girl, she’d cultivated her own vegetable patch, eagerly asking her beloved grandmother, Nonna, for recipes from the old country.
“It’s peasant food,” her mother said disdainfully. “Don’t listen to her. Such nonsense. Since when is American cooking not good enough for you?”
Nonna taught her how to pluck zucchini blossoms at daybreak and to stuff them with meat, rice, and cheese. Carmen learned how to get rid of evil spirits, how to put a curse on someone, how to use every part of a chicken, and how to save the blood for Nonna’s secret sauce.
When her father, Aldo Fiori, finally washed his hands of his two slacker sons and loser son-in-law, he put Carmen in charge of Fiori Orchards. Painstakingly, she dragged it out of the Stone Age.
“We’re gonna stop being like every other dinosaur orchard around here. I want sustainable horticulture,” she said to Peter.
“Whore-what?”
“Ha-ha.” She slapped away his wandering hands.
Her brothers were furious at Aldo for passing them over. Carmen knew they were dunces, indulged by their mother until they thought the sun rose and set on their command.
“Better you than them,” Aldo said to Carmen, waving off the whining protests. “I didn’t work my ass off to have them run it into the ground.”
Nick, Carmen’s older brother and a womanizing layabout, still irritated Aldo immensely whenever they crossed paths. Frank, her younger brother, owed money to just about everyone. Frank’s gambling addiction, made much worse by Bridgeville’s proximity to three enticing casinos, kept him in and out of rehab, hospital emergency rooms and permanently in Aldo’s shithouse. But little Jimmy, his only great-grandchild, made Aldo smile.
EARLY SATURDAY MORNING, JEFF, STILL APOPLECTIC, came by with warm freshly-baked crumb cakes from Rudy’s for the cops and a bombastic expletive-laden diatribe for his brother. He showed Peter a take-out cup of steaming coffee from the Alewife Java Hut, Peter’s favorite morning haunt, and refused to give it to him.
“Oh, come on, Jeff. The coffee here is pure rotgut.”
“You don’t deserve it.”
After finally handing Peter the coffee and ranting for at least five minutes, Jeff calmed down sufficiently to inform him that Ian was on the case as a private investigator.
“Lori’s busy, Vic’s busy—no one imagined you would be such an asshole. They need someone to get all the goods double-time on who might’ve attacked the guard. Lori tapped Ian to do the leg-work, and Vic’s in, too. BPD’s not gonna give you special treatment. There’s a line.” Jeff said, tilting his chair onto the back two legs. “That yoga freak has a current PI license, can you believe it?”
“You gotta be shitting me,” Peter said. “Maybe I forgot that minor detail about Ian, but I thought I knew as much about him as any earthling could, outside of Andre.”
“Hey, Nancy’s coming to see you today. Get ready—she’s fit to be tied.”
Nancy Yates had a work ethic that would shame the most industrious honey bee. She got ahead by busting her ass off. After the ugly divorce that left her financially strapped with two furious young sons, who still hated her as grown-ups, a steady paycheck and good benefits, including full psych coverage thanks to Brock Saunders, became her reason for being. When recessions and constant mergers generated layoffs in the financial services sector, Nancy hung on, sometimes by her fingertips. Nancy’s cosmic clusterfuck as an aging single woman with major health problems and a handful of nothing fed the flames of her stress. It made her crazy. But what Peter had done made her practically certifiable.
Nancy burst into the interview room ready for blood.
“You jackass. If I could go back in time, I’d give you four flat tires every night just in case you hot-wired the ignition.” Nancy, currently a blonde, pounded the table with the heel of her well-manicured hand, barely able to fit her bulk into the molded plastic chair. Morbidly obese now, she sat with difficulty. Her blue eyes blazed angrily.
Peter acknowledged Nancy’s fury with a vigorous head nod. “Mea culpa, but something had to be done, so I did it. I am not going to let those corporate bastards and government lackeys scorch the earth.”
Officer Billy O’Leary listened to the conversation with disapproval.
“Russo, come on. Just keep quiet like Tomassi told you.”
“None of this would’ve happened if those Zenergy ratfucks showed some respect for nature. Wait, that’s an insult to rodents. And I’m not even mentioning how no one living near the fuel cell has a prayer of selling their houses or—”
“Enough!” Nancy said. “We get it. But you’re on a big shit list now. The cops, the town, the state, and probably even the FBI. They’ll be watching everything you do and say.”
Peter waved at imaginary cameras and gave a spirited thumbs-up.
“So why did Lori bring Vic in? I mean aside from the obvious. I saw his latest profile on OKCupid. Tell me he’s a better lawyer than a liar. According to him, he looks like George Clooney and has a net worth like Bill Gates.”
“Ha—he’s a dead ringer for a warthog,” Peter said. “And by obvious, you mean I need a sketchy operator to help my case? Or do you mean because Lori’s so in demand and had to scrape under a rock for a quick sidekick? Or do you mean Vic’s old connection to Carmen, the woman who doesn’t give a flying shit about me? Whatever. Lori’s lead on this, not that I know how the hell I’ll pay. I want my freedom back. But I’m not done.”
“Shut up, Peter.” Nancy held up a finger in warning.
Jeff wandered in and nodded to O’Leary. “Hey, Nance.”
“Your idiot brother.”
“Yup.” Jeff pulled over a chair. “Look, sorry to butt in on your time with Mr. Jerkoff, but I just had a good thought on the food truck.”
“Did it hurt?” Peter asked. “Steam is coming out your ears.”
“Listen to me. Now that Rachel’s officially celiac, on top of everything else, I want to do something positive for her. Plus I can swing a barter deal for a truck. And you obviously need more of a hobby than being a pain in everybody’s ass. So, the timing could work.”
Jeff and Peter had kicked the food truck idea around for the past year or so, but everything got derailed when Jeff’s twenty-two-year-old daughter, Rachel, got busted for heroin possession six months earlier.
“Wait, are you saying that you wanna do gluten-free?”
“Yeah. I mean, we still do breakfast and lunch for downtown Hatfield during the week and farmers’ markets on Saturdays. Just everything’s gluten-free.”
“That’s not a money-maker. Any gluten-free baked stuff I’ve tasted absolutely sucked.”
“Actually,” Nancy interjected. “Gluten-free is hot, so Rachel’s problem kind of gives you an opportunity. You bake your own.” She paused and stared at Peter. “Jeff, has he always been this slow?”
“Would it kill you to come to the point?” Peter asked, suddenly irritable as his lack of sleep, throbbing hand and pent-up anger at his predicament kicked in.
“Einstein,” Jeff said. “Rachel’s almost done with cooking school—specializing in baking. Does any of this ring a bell?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“We could hire a full-time baker and let Rach learn the ropes.”
“Easy peasy. Are we actually gonna shit or get off the pot?” Peter raised his eyes towards the ceiling tiles and lightly pumped his hands in a modified praise-Jesus.“Try some recipes, buy some potholders and a couple of baking sheets. If it tastes halfway decent and doesn’t poison our friends, we fire on all cylinders.”
“Time’s up,” O’Leary announced. He motioned for Jeff and Nancy to leave. “Jesus, Russo—potholders? It’s all about silicone oven mitts, man.”
“But you’re going to need a dedicated baking facility if you actually go into production.” Nancy struggled to rise from the chair. Waving off Jeff’s help, she turned to O’Leary and pointed at Peter. “I’d shackle that one if I were you.”
“Ditto.” Jeff pointed his fingers at his eyes and then at Peter’s. “I’m watching you.”
“Look before you go, I gotta tell you something, and you’re not gonna like it.”
“What now?” Nancy looked at Jeff and rolled her eyes.
“Don’t kill the messenger, but, I don’t know—maybe it helps you understand. So, Saunders Construction did the Zenergy site.” Peter waited anxiously to gauge their reaction.
“What? Saunders? If that motherfucker’s back in town, so help me God,” Jeff said angrily.
Nancy clutched at Peter’s arm, raking it with her nails. “You’re serious. No bullshit, you wouldn’t.” Her face broke into a grimace as she choked back a sob. “I have to get out of here.”
JEFF AND NANCY WALKED OUT OF THE POLICE station together, each reliving their years-long nightmares of Brock Saunders. Nancy had to rest against a wall. Wheezing audibly, she fumbled in her pocketbook. “I need my inhaler.” Two puffs later, she still couldn’t move. “Oh my God, Jeff—what are we gonna do?” She wiped the tears rolling down her face on the back of her trembling hands.
“Nothing.” Jeff’s voice sounded octaves deeper. “Don’t panic. We rebuilt our lives—no surrender. That piece of shit doesn’t get to win. I gotta find out more. Fucking Pete—now I get it.” He clenched his fists and almost punched the brick wall before stopping himself.
“I feel like barfing. My blood pressure is through the roof—I’m seeing spots.” Nancy panted as she spoke, her eyes closed.
“Damn it, Nance. You can’t breathe, your heart’s gonna explode, the diabetes, all the meds, the shots, you name it. Jeff propped her up as best he could. She outweighed him by at least forty pounds. “Don’t pass out.”
Kenny Johnson climbed the stairs near them after parking his Jeep in the lot.
“What’s goin’ on?” Approaching quickly, he held Nancy’s wrist in his hand and took her pulse. “That’s not good.”
“I’m fine.” Nancy shook him off. “Just a big shock.”
Jeff nodded. “Thanks, Kenny. If she says she’s OK …”
Kenny assessed Nancy carefully. “Go sit down on that bench. Do you have a baby aspirin, Ms. Yates? We can get the EMTs out here.”
“No.”
“Nance, pop an aspirin.” Jeff dug into her purse and opened the small bottle. “Take it.”
“Kenny, I’m OK now.” Nancy chewed the aspirin and tried to smile.
Seeing how she rallied, Kenny started to walk inside. “Call 911 if you feel bad again. Don’t wait.”
Jeff relaxed as the color returned to Nancy’s face. “Alright, I’m driving you home.”
Nancy’s baggage could break a bull elephant’s spine. Cigarettes, sunbathing, stress, booze, and insomnia had aged her so quickly that she didn’t even recognize herself at thirty. Divorced with two kids and a boring office job wasn’t how she’d pictured her future. Yet she surprised everybody but herself by being a whiz with technology and crawled up the ladder as a tech specialist for an insurance conglomerate. Post-Brock, depression, anxiety and asthma held onto her ankles like dead weights. By forty, a hysterectomy, high cholesterol, dramatic weight gain, and early menopause. Her fifties now featured hypertension, Type-2 diabetes, sleep apnea, and epic hives.
Back in middle school, Nancy and Peter became tight as they sat week after week in detention, busted for having Bad Attitudes. Nancy smoked like a chimney in the bathrooms, chomped gum in class and showed too much skin. Peter never shut up, dropping one-liners like a stand-up comedian and disrupting every class. They hung out when they could, Nancy, an only child, becoming friendly with Jeff, too.
Nancy and Peter had slept together once after she got divorced, about six months before Brock violated her. Curiosity and alcohol fueled whatever sparks led them to the bedroom, and although Nancy thought that this could be the start of something, Peter doused the flame without realizing she wouldn’t mind more.
“Wow, let’s not do that again. I think that was the tequila talking. Sorry it sucked.” Peter, divorced after a brief marriage in his twenties, shook her awake to talk after he got dressed while she was pretend-sleeping. She had been thinking about reaching over to get him hard again when he bolted out of bed.
“Oh, yeah. Wow, no, it’s OK. We have like zero sexual chemistry.” Nancy played along. “No offense.” She tucked the sheets up over her still-naked body and staged an elaborate yawn.
“None taken. Already checked off on our bucket lists, right? Hey, don’t tell Jeff or Tomassi.”
“Tell them what—we had lousy drunken sex? Please.”
“Sometimes, it’s just an itch, you know? We’re OK, though, right?”
“Sure. I’m going back to sleep,” Nancy said, turning away from Peter and doing a halfway decent job of acting casual. “Close the door on your way out. Catch you later.”
JEFF COULD NEVER SHAKE OFF THE SUCKER PUNCH of being utterly ripped off, the heart-stopping moment when he knew he had lost everything. Artie Russo, Jeff and Peter’s father farmed the fruit and vegetable fields that his father farmed before him. And, unfortunately, he farmed it exactly the way his father did. Innovations were met with suspicion and derision, but fortunately for the balance sheet, so was debt. Artie ran the farm on a shoestring budget; he didn’t trust bankers as far as he could throw them. When Artie anointed Jeff as his successor at age twenty-three, Jeff couldn’t believe the meager cash flow. Neither could the accountant he hired on the sly. In a bad year, plagued by drought or too much rain, the farm fell dangerously into the red. Peter avoided Artie like the plague and made it known that unless Jeff needed help with the crops, Peter wasn’t visiting. Jeff shouldered the burden, staying awake nights trying to think of ways to make more money.
“The asshole doesn’t get that to make money, you have to spend money.” Peter bought another round of beers at their favorite watering hole, nodding as Jeff complained.
“I don’t know what to do.” Jeff didn’t even notice the pretty young woman making eyes at him from across the room until Peter pointed her out.
“She likes your ugly mug. Poor thing needs glasses.”
“Fuck off.”
The Russo farm’s acres of proximity to the Connecticut River brought developers out of the woodwork. Where once schooners, sloops and freight steamboats sailed the river, now jet skis and motorboats dominated the waterways. Fertile alluvial soil, almost rockless, graced the Russo homestead. But with Bridgeville now ranking as the hottest town West of the river for residential and commercial real estate, a day didn’t go by without a card in the mail, a phone call, a knock on the door, or an inquiring email.
“Hell, no. We got river water and dirt in our veins,” Jeff joked, turning down every offer to sell after consulting with Peter. Artie made his wishes known, too.
“You never sell this farm, you hear me. Never.”
Traitors to the hold-out farming community practically had to flee town after inking their deals with developers eager to blow up their fields. No one except the greedy and corrupt got rich off of farming.
“I’m good,” Peter said when Jeff agonized for the millionth time about Artie’s Byzantine manipulation to divide, conquer and rule. Their mother, an alcoholic by then, did nothing to interfere with Artie’s decision. Jeff and Peter hardly expected her to, either. They’d watched her live for as long as they could remember in the shadow of a tyrannical husband who only let her have charge of the kitchen and the washing machine. When she died, they mourned, mostly for what could have been, but she had long ago become a bit player in their lives.
“I’ve got a great gig at the factory. You keep the headache of dealing with the old man and running the farm. I’ll be your right-hand man when you need me.”
“Hello, dipshit—I need you. But when he kicks off, you’re getting like 25 percent of the farm. The good and the bad.” Jeff held out his pinky for Peter to grab with his own. They shook pinkies just like they did when they were boys.
“So make me a deal, boss. What do you need?”
“A deal? Like I pay you in cash money? And don’t call me that.”
“You can pay me in beer.”
“I can’t pay you, period. Everything is so run down, it’s for shit. But, how ‘bout you take a crop and handle it from planting to harvest?” Jeff scratched his head and thought for a minute. “I’ll keep Dad away from you, but don’t fuck it up. You got the corn.”
“OK, but we need new equipment to do it right. The old man hasn’t upgraded since the 1950’s.”
“Yeah, that John Deere is held together by spit and duct tape. Get your ass over to some auctions and get what you need.” Jeff never let on to Artie that to get the equipment, he’d have to borrow from the bank. Set up with a generous line of credit, collateralized by the farm, Jeff made changes to improve everything. Slowly, the modernization paid off until Brock Saunders made his pitch, selling Jeff and Artie on the promise of can’t miss riches.
“I’ll kill him,” Jeff vowed angrily to Peter after the Ponzi scheme unraveled. “I’m gonna cut off his balls and stuff them in his lying sonovabitch mouth.”
“Yeah, you gotta get in line.”
Brock Saunders bolted from his hometown in the dark of night after the implosion of Pioneer Premium Properties’ shell game. When the first few irate investors, choking with rage or tears, called him at the office before it shut down, Brock stonewalled.
“I’m as surprised as you are. Call Customer Service. Someone will definitely get back to you.” Brock’s stock response didn’t buy him much time. Customer Service didn’t exist now that the shit hit the fan. And just about everybody knew the location of his palatial bachelor pad. He split before Jeff and hundreds of others got to confront him.
Brock laid low. Although advised by legal counsel to stay in the area, it came out in court documents that Brock took up exile in an oceanside condo overlooking the Atlantic in posh Westerly, RI, some two hours away from Bridgeville. Rented under a fake name, he sat on the terrace, drank heavily, avoided his father and gorged on fried clams. Never appearing anywhere without sunglasses and a baseball cap, he finally agreed to meet his lawyer at a rest stop on I-95. Brock had no idea that the prized attorney was wearing a wire.
“Brock, I hear that you’re going to be charged with fraud and securities law violations, just like everyone else at PPP. We can probably bargain if you roll over on your bosses. I’m more concerned with the IRS. Did you declare all your income?”
Brock hemmed and hawed. “By all, do you mean everything?” He guzzled his vodka gimlet and signaled for another one.
The lawyer had gotten rich off the billable hours he spent defending Brock’s father, always for Saunders Construction’s failure to provide or pay for contracted goods and services. But the lawyer’s hands got dirty. Busted by the feds, he offered them Brock.
“All, everything—what the hell’s the difference?” The lawyer dismissed the inconvenience of semantics.
“What I tell you is private, right?” Brock paused, waiting for a yes. “So, not exactly all. You know, I had some shitty accountants who didn’t give me good advice. It’s their goddam fault.”
“How many?”
“How many accountants or millions?”
NANCY, STILL LABORING TO BREATHE, STRUGGLED to keep from free-falling back to the fateful night that changed her life forever. Fire and Ice, a popular bar in West Hadley, pulsated per usual with loud music and musk that fateful night when Nancy, then thirty-three, decided to go to Brock’s place.
“We’ll have some fun,” he said, and kissed her willing lips again at the end of the long u-shaped bar. It functioned essentially as his lair when he graced the place, and Nancy was happy to be the chosen one for a change.
After her divorce at age thirty-one, Nancy became a Saturday night regular. She dressed her curvy figure to attract attention like every other woman out on the town. Cleavage, big hair, tight miniskirt, black opaque tights. She met up with some girlfriends usually, and they eyed the attractive men who eyed them back. People bought each other drinks, and everyone wanted to get lucky with someone.
Brock Saunders dropped by every now and then. He was making money hand over fist for Pioneer Premium Properties. Their parties were the stuff of legend on huge chartered yachts and in tricked-out mansions. Food, booze, entertainment; costs upwards of six-figures were nothing. But Brock liked to scout for easy prey outside of work.
“You don’t eat where you shit,” his boss told him after some complaints about Brock’s aggressive trawling of secretaries. “Work the older rich broads whose money we want, otherwise get your pussy elsewhere.”
At Fire and Ice, Brock favored the grand entrance. Good-looking, with hard brown eyes and brown hair, he accentuated his muscular physique by dressing like a character straight out of Miami Vice. He even had the shades.
“Drinks for all the ladies.” Brock expensed everything, so it was really no skin off his back.
Nancy held her booze well, but she never brought men home; her kids were there. In her pocketbook, she always kept condoms hidden inside a small zippered compartment.
“I don’t want my kids finding them,” she said, showing her friends where she kept them in case they needed one quick.
Brock’s showy visits pissed off more than a few average guys. He just sucked the air out of the room.
“Fucking asshole with house money.”
“Watch out, ladies—here it comes again. Bend over.”
“I’m gettin’ mine, no matter what. Fuck Brock.”
Nancy flirted with Brock like she flirted with every guy. Everyone knew Brock prowled with a purpose. He went through women like water, and Nancy didn’t see herself with him. But after Nancy and Peter’s fizzled one-night stand, and a few lousy lays from the bar, Nancy eyed Brock differently. He became a Maybe.
“What do you think about me going after Brock?” she asked one of her friends.
“He’s pretty hot. I’d do him.”
“Yeah, he’s gotta be better than some of the losers around here.” Nancy pointed her index finger and made it droop, prompting giggles from everyone at her table. “What do you hear about him in bed?”
Her friend signaled the bartended for another drink. “Check out his hands. He’s gotta be hung with a beer bottle.”
They laughed, and Nancy looked for him, but she only saw his back, broad shoulders, moussed hair, and hands splayed across the ass of the brunette leaning into him.
“Hey, get a room,” someone yelled. Brock grinned, extracting his tongue from the brunette’s mouth long enough to flash his teeth. They left together around eleven, Brock’s very obvious hard-on tenting his pants. Nancy left alone soon after; none of the available guys still standing at that hour appealed to her, and the sitter needed to get home.
The following month, Nancy sat alone at the bar on a Friday night, a rare occasion for her. Both kids were sleeping over friends’ houses, so she indulged her need for a martini and repartee. She even played darts with an old geezer who regaled her with tales about building the Alaska pipeline. Laughing and focused on the game, she was startled when the bartender walked over and set another martini down on the counter.
“From Brock,” he said.
Nancy looked to where the bartender had nodded. Brock raised his glass to her and smiled. Nancy strolled over to him, making sure to emphasize her sashaying hips and two inches of exposed cleavage.
“Thanks, Brock.”
“My pleasure, Nancy. It is Nancy, right?” He took her hand in his and tickled her palm with his index finger.
“You know my name. Don’t forget I was only two years behind you at school, Brock.” Nancy sipped at her martini, bringing it to her lips with her free hand.
“Did we ever go out?”
“No, and that’s your loss.” Nancy took her hand back and reached for a cigarette from her purse. She waited until Brock lit it for her.
“I can see what I missed,” he said, getting even closer. “That needs to be fixed. You with someone?”
“Not at the moment. How about you?” Nancy felt his hot breath close to her ear. The smell of his cologne and his obvious interest made her body tingle with excitement.
“Tonight, I’m with you,” he said, kissing her on the neck before lightly licking her ear.
“Oh, really? What—” Her words evaporated into his mouth as he kissed her lips. She kissed him back, their tongues getting to know each other.
“Come back to my place,” Brock whispered, “You can follow me in your car.”
Nancy knew all eyes were on them as he draped his arm over her shoulder and steered her out the door. She hesitated in the parking lot, almost too drunk to navigate.
“Just follow me.” Brock drove his Porsche slowly as he lead the way.
Feeling her up as they pawed each other in the elevator up to his river-view penthouse, he placed her hand on his cock. “For you.”
He made them both drinks, put on some light rock and patted the couch next to him. After getting her shirt and bra off, he licked and sucked her nipples until she moaned loudly.
“You got me so hard I can’t move. Help me, you bad girl,” he said, unzipping his pants and pushing her head down so she could take him in her mouth. Nancy obliged him but gagged as he came, his hands holding her head immobile.
“Nice, very nice. Finish your drink.” Once she had drained her glass, he offered her the rest of his untouched glass.
Nancy felt the room start spinning. So dizzy, suddenly, she couldn’t even stand when Brock tried to pull her up. She sagged against him as he dragged her to his king-size bed.
“I don’t feel good,” she said, as he took off her skirt and tights, her limbs like foreign objects. “Another time, OK?”
“You let me handle things. You need some Vitamin B, get it? B for Brock.”
“I’m gonna go. Just go home.” Nancy could hear herself mumbling, her voice going weak as she tasted fear.
“The party’s just starting,” she heard him say before she lost consciousness
When she woke up, she couldn’t figure out anything. No memory of where she was and why she had such a headache. Within seconds, she felt throbbing pain in her pelvis. Brock snored loudly, his foul breath making her retch and realize where she was. She staggered to the bathroom and sat on the toilet, feeling for all the world like she’d just birthed twins out of both ends. Nancy reached for some toilet paper and saw a bunch of used condoms in the garbage can by the sink. She had to wet the paper, it hurt so much when she wiped. Wincing with pain, the blood proof that it wasn’t all in her head, she gasped at her perineum bulging purple and puffy, everything swollen, her anatomy almost unrecognizable.
“Bastard, you fucking bastard,” she cried. Clutching the wall as she made her way towards Brock, she screamed. “You drugged me, didn’t you? And then you raped me.” Big, heaving sobs made her almost incoherent.
“News to me,” Brock said from the bed. “You begged for it, Nancy. You just don’t remember.” Brock propped himself up on one elbow and laughed. “You should see yourself.”
“How could you? Fuck you—you hurt me.”
“Bullshit. You couldn’t get enough, always asking for more.” He sank back onto the pillows and rolled over. “You should thank me. Instead you’re an ungrateful bitch.”
Nancy wept now with rage, crawling for her clothes. “I’m gonna make you pay.”
“Yeah, right. Get your shit and get out.”
OFFICER KENNY JOHNSON COMPLETED HIS MONTHLY required target practice perfectly at the gun range after running into Jeff and Nancy. His hand-eye coordination never failed him. Getting hired right out of the Police Academy by the Bridgeville PD had been Kenny’s goal after the rude awakening that baseball didn’t love him as much as he loved it. At least not at the Division-1 college level.
“Too many really good outfielders on the team,” he explained to his disappointed parents. “And in college, I’m just decent—nothing special.”
They didn’t seem to grasp that no matter how much Kenny tried, he would never be more than second or third-string, riding the bench for game after game.
“I’m gonna play club ball. It’s fun, less pressure and I can actually have a life.”
Kenny had a little too much fun freshman year, getting hammered at frat parties and fooling around with lots of pretty young women who found his friendly nature, cute face and jacked body quite appealing. But after getting slapped with academic probation, a humiliating comeuppance for a kid who never got below a B in high school, he hit the books.
Kenny double-majored in Criminal Justice and Sociology, playing club ball the whole time. Now at the Bridgeville PD, he was at the bottom of the totem pole, but he loved being a cop. Tomassi took him under his wing, doling out advice and kicks in the pants when he thought Kenny messed up or could do better.
After Peter asked him to look for the photo of the baseball team, Kenny, who shared an old house with some high school buddies, searched his parent’s attic and basement on Saturday. His parents put their modest home on the market, stunned to hear it could fetch three times what they paid for it. Crammed full of moving boxes in every room, Kenny had to walk upstairs to find a giant box filled with all his baseball awards. He rummaged under all the trophies until he found the 5 x 8 picture inside a dog-eared folder.
Kenny stared at the picture, going over faces he hadn’t thought about in years. He finally located Marco in the front row, a small kid beaming excitedly with a mouthful of big crooked teeth.
“Damn, Marco. What happened?”
Kenny looked at Peter, husky and strong in his team T-shirt, and at himself, gangly and grinning in the back row with all the tallest boys. With no one home, Kenny drank straight from an open carton of milk from the refrigerator, left a quick note on the table and let himself out the back door. He carefully placed the picture on the passenger seat of his Jeep.
Peter wanted to talk to Marco about the same thing Kenny pondered. He waited until Marco was done conferring with his Legal Aid lawyer. Once he got back, it was recreation time. Peter called him over to stand in the shade of a big oak tree. Paco was sunning himself in the corner of the yard.
“Marco, what’re you now, twenty-three?”
“Yeah. Twenty-three and goin’ nowhere.”
“So, what’s up with that?” Peter waited for Marco to respond, but he just kicked the dirt.
“Coach, no offense. I don’t wanna talk about it.”
“I’m not judging.”
“Yo, coach. No disrespect, but for real, why’d you do what you did? Just coz you thought it was ugly? Shit, you got a lot more buildings to do. Come to Hatfield, man.”
Peter laughed but stopped when he saw Marco’s serious expression. “Well, there’s more than meets than eye here, Marco. Really bad blood, for starters.”
“Jail bad?” Marco looked at him expectantly. “A guy like you with everything ain’t gonna throw it away for nothin’.”
“Believe me, I don’t have everything.”
Marco squared up to face Peter. “Ima call bullshit, no offense. You got family, friends, a nice place to live, right? Probs women, too. What you think most people got?”
Peter sighed and reached out his hand for Marco to slap. “Damn. When you put it like that, I have to tell you. Alright. The fucker who is building that fuel cell is the same piece of shit who ripped off my brother for so much money that we almost lost the farm, and he date-raped one of my best friends. She’s never been the same since.”
Marco’s eyes popped out as he whistled loudly. “And you just plant flowers? Mess up the motherfucker, Coach. He hurt your people.”
“An eye for an eye sounds so good, believe me. But I can’t go there. I got a warning to stay away from him long ago or he’d press charges.”
“I know a guy who knows a guy. Just say the word.”
“No. Now I’m gonna change the subject. When you get out, you’re gonna need a job. Call me.”
“You got a business? Nobody hires dudes like me.”
“Starting a food truck with my brother. You know, the guy who yelled at me non-stop on Saturday.”
“Yeah. First I thought you was yelling at yourself coz you got almost the same voice. He’s mad pissed. You sure the deal’s still on?”
“Yup. Might take a while, but it’s on. You know how to drive?”
“Course I do. Even got a license.”
“Good man,” Peter clapped Marco on the shoulder. “Hey, I think I see Kenny. Maybe he got that picture.”
Before Peter could walk across the yard to get Kenny’s attention, Officer Billy O’Leary strolled over.
“Tomassi needs to see you. Come with me.”
Peter obliged, following O’Leary towards Tomassi’s small office.
“Here comes trouble. Hey, jailbird—get over here,” Tomassi called out. O’Leary delivered Peter and happily selected one of the chili dogs that sat in a Tupperware container on Tomassi’s desk. Tomassi, resplendent in knee-length plaid shorts and a bright yellow shirt that strained against his impressive belly, opened a big bag of potato chips and started munching.
Peter, unsure of how pissed Tomassi still was, waited to be invited. “Beautiful. Donna added hot sauce to the chili, right?”
“Like a gallon. Take one.” Tomassi commanded, his mouth full of chips.
Peter took a big bite and smiled, sweat beading on his forehead. “Hot, really hot.” His face turned bright red. “You got any water?”
O’Leary reached down into the insulated freezer bag under Tomassi’s desk and extracted two bottles. “You want one, Sarge?”
“Yeah, one for you and one for me, right, Billy?”
“Aw, come on, John. Have mercy.” Peter took the unopened bottle out of Tomassi’s hand and drank it in two gulps. “Thanks. Tell Donna she’s the best.”
“I tell her that every day.” Tomassi smiled broadly and waggled his unibrow.
Kenny knocked on the door frame. “Whoa, is there one for me?”
Tomassi handed him the last one. “Enjoy. What you got?” He nodded at the picture Kenny put down on the desk.
Peter grabbed it and whistled. “Damn, look at that stud of a coach. What a good-looking guy.”
“In your dreams,” Tomassi said. “So, let’s see. Kenny, there’s you in the back row looking like a dweeb.”
“Sarge, the kid in the front is Marco Torres, the guy from Hatfield on a second bust for weed. We were all on that team together for two seasons.”
“Wow, that’s crazy,” O’Leary said.
“He was a great kid,” Peter said. “A pleasure to coach.”
“He ran like a deer, so fast. When we had to run around the field, he lapped just about everybody. We had to tell him to slow down; he was making us look bad,” Kenny said with a laugh.
“He’s young,” Tomassi said. “Maybe he can turn it around.”
AT HIS LAST GIG ON LOCAL RADIO BEFORE GETTING arrested, Peter entertained listeners for over two hours as a guest on Bridgeville Byway. After playing back-to-back sets of Creedence Clearwater Revival and Allman Brothers tunes, he launched into some stories about Brutus. His favorite one was always about Brutus terrified to get his nails cut at PetSmart.
He’d just told some bird-watchers looking for eagles near the ferry that very story when they asked if Brutus was dangerous.
“This damn dog is a marshmallow, and that’s how he gets more bosom action than me. We just pull into the parking lot at PetSmart to get his nails clipped, and he starts crying. We get in the store, and he’s bawling and shaking like a leaf. In no time, he’s got the buxomest one cradling his head, two extremely well-endowed gals hugging his front legs and another hot babe on his back paws. They’re cooing to him and whispering sweet nothings. I swear he looked at me and winked.”
Down by the river, Peter enjoyed his reign like a chatty emperor. Walking Brutus, he shot the breeze with just about anyone. He had a special place in his heart for the hopeful eagle watchers who came armed with binoculars and cameras, and who usually left disappointed.
“It’s easier to find the eagles in winter because they nest in the trees along the riverbank,” Peter consoled. “And if the river doesn’t freeze in a hard winter, you’ll see some of them just soaring above the water, scouting for food.”
Brutus used these chats as opportunities to relieve himself and to reinforce his alpha dog status. He could stare down a Cockapoo or Goldendoodle in less than five seconds, so lots of dog-walkers waved at Peter but gave Brutus a wide berth.
“You might see a few Great Blue Herons today—they love it here in spring and summer,” Peter would say to people imploring him for help in spotting eagles. “The biggest one around here is Big Daddy, you can’t miss him. He cruises the river looking for prey—fish, frogs, reptiles. They all go crazy when the shad migrate upriver. But you’ll definitely spot a few Belted Kingfishers, and you can’t miss hearing the racket they make.”
“Is that a woodpecker?” Someone inevitably asked, pointing to a big bird with a bright red crest and black and white markings tapping away at a tree.
“Yeah, of course. That’s a pileated beauty, an absolute workhorse. He makes holes other species like to live in, like owls, bats and pine martens. Right now, he’s chowing down on insects who live in dead trees. Check out his size. Just huge.”
“Are you like the mayor of the river and the wildlife down here?” A well-meaning idiot always asked Peter some variation of this question.
“Man, the river takes care of me and the wildlife. This river goes 400 miles through four states. And no one rules the river. The native Americans and early settlers fought over the river. And I don’t need to tell you how that turned out. Then, the river turned into a water highway. It carried more traffic than the railroads. But industry used it as a dump. Pollution of all kind—pick your poison. They damn near killed it and all the wildlife that depends on a healthy river like the bald eagles you’re trying to find.”
Peter could talk about the river for hours. But when people asked about his scholarly credentials, he laughed.
“I’m a graduate of the school of life. College wasn’t my thing. I’d rather poke out my eyes than sit in a big lecture hall. I worked third shift at Pratt long enough to support my vices: rescuing dogs, hanging out with my buddies and giving Mother Nature the good lovin’ she deserves.”
After Jeff gave him the corn, Peter took his responsibilities very seriously. He brought in great harvests, thanks to all the upgrades and his own sweat. Once he caught some corn thieves trying to stuff burlap bags full of his prize Silver Queen variety, the one that fetched the highest price. He charged at them, and sicced Brutus’s much-loved predecessor, Angus, a rescue Rottweiler mix, on the culprits. They ran for their lives and dropped the sacks in their hurry to get away. Peter never got tired of telling the story.
Artie lost his way after his wife died, and he complied with Jeff’s dictate to give Peter a wide berth. But the gut-wrenching loss of the $50,000 that he urged Jeff to invest in Pioneer’s real estate scam after hearing his buddies talk it up, sent Artie to an early grave. It also brought the farm close to bankruptcy when the loan payments were due and couldn’t be paid. After a lot of tense back-and-forth, including coming very close to filing for Chapter 12 bankruptcy, the bank a long-time agricultural lender and, itself, a victim of the swindle, agreed to renegotiate the terms.
When the Great Recession hastened the decimation of what was left of the manufacturing industry in New England, Peter got downsized.
“I can’t believe it,” he told Jeff. “Like twenty-five years is gone in a puff of smoke.”
The middling severance package couldn’t support the mortgage on his riverside condo when he ran the numbers. Always a realist, Peter sold his pride and joy and moved to a small outbuilding catty-corner to the farm’s main house, now a happy home with Jeff and Annie, his wife, and his kids, Rachel and Sean.
Peter really put his back into renovating the old dwelling. After a lot of help from his fishing buddies, Jeff and John Tomassi, to put in a decent bathroom, kitchen and rear deck, he had a great place to enjoy the sunsets over a cold beer. Less than a tenth of a mile from the river, he could fish, hike and bullshit with Jeff whenever he wanted.
As soon as Jeff’s son, Sean, finished the ag-sci program at the state university, Peter crowned him the Corn King. Sean planted Butter and Sugar, Early Sunglow and Snowcrest, and revamped the irrigation system.
After Peter’s doctor read him the riot act about his weight and his drinking, Peter upped his rambles and started working out at BIG, using the personal training sessions he’d won in a fundraiser auction. Ian and Andre quickly took to him while they made him laugh with their messianic zeal to reduce his body fat.
“You lunatics measure and weigh me like a 4-H cow. Don’t you have something better to do?” Peter definitely had a gut but his broad shoulders and sturdy limbs hid a lot of sins. He drove Ian and Andre crazy because his hiking boots were always encrusted with dirt which he tracked into their gym.
“You are my punishment for having been very bad in a previous life,” Ian sighed. “Why can’t you at least hose off or buy a pair of cheap sneakers?”
“Nope, I refuse to support the swoosh. I’m old-school; it’s either this or my old smelly feet, guys.”
“Dude, you are like Pigpen from Charlie Brown,” Andre scolded, nipping at Peter’s heels with a Dirt Devil hand-vacuum. “And either you’ve been hitting MacDonald’s again or you have 6 pounds of dirt in your damn boots.”
“For Pete’s sake, Peter.” Ian chuckled and patted Peter on the belly. “Would a carrot kill you? Even if it is dirt, you haven’t lost an ounce and your body fat is higher than ever. And has anyone ever told you that you’ve got a face for radio?”
“I love being on the radio. You ever listen to me?”
In fact, whenever Peter was announced as a guest, people tuned in for his rich baritone, Brutus stories, and musical stylings. He milked it for all it was worth and felt a responsibility to conjure up the heyday of beloved FM deejays when they spun great rock music and held a generation together.
But the last time he appeared, just before his arrest, the free-spirited radio station had changed. Peter started to launch into the Brutus at PetSmart story, but the producer wouldn’t let him.
“Peter,” the host leaned over and covered the microphone. “You can’t say ‘bosom’ on the air. Last time you told this story, we got some angry emails and calls.”
“So, what am I supposed to say? Tits?”
“No, don’t say that either. Also, don’t say buxom, well-endowed, chick, or hot babe. Maybe go with something new …”
“Man, this political correctness crap makes it impossible to tell a good story.”
“Peter,” the host sighed and held up his hands imploringly. “Tell a different story or wrap it up.”
So, Peter, after a quick whispered lecture on the difficulties of finding tit synonyms, announced his lucky eagle feather catch, which he altered on the fly to feature Brutus more prominently.
“Two weeks ago, and this is true, by the way, I caught a huge eagle feather drifting down from the sky. I knew it was a blessing from Mother Nature, so I raised my baseball cap in salute to that magnificent bird. I thanked her for bringing me good luck. I turn around to show Brutus and he’s gone. Suddenly, from the middle of the river, comes a loud voice through a megaphone. ‘We’ve got Brutus.’ I look around to see if he was dognapped, but it’s the high school crew team. Son-of-a-gun Brutus was pursuing some beaver and swam like halfway across the river before he gave out. They haul him out of the water, all panting and exhausted. They save his damn life. So, the spirits have smiled upon me and Brutus. And they can smile upon you. Find us down by the river, and I’ll gladly show you my epic plume.”
The host moaned audibly as Peter winked at him. Before the producer could cut Peter’s mic, he said, “Step right up, ladies and gents. I’ll be taking names and kicking butt, so no cutting in line.”
IN THE WEEKS LEADING UP TO PETER’S ARREST, ZENERGY topped the most wanted list, dead or alive, and it would have surprised almost no one to learn Zenergy and Satan were joined at the hip. Plus, it turned out Zenergy benefitted from major financial incentives and tax credits courtesy of the shadowy New England Consortium Council, a quasi-governmental regional authority.
But no one in town government even peeped about Saunders Construction’s contract from Zenergy. Saunders Construction went belly-up in the Great Recession, mourned by few. Brock pleaded guilty to tax evasion after being charged by a federal grand jury working with the IRS and FBI.
“Brock didn’t get prison, I can’t fucking believe it.” Jeff fumed as he watched the proceedings unfold.
“Greased palms, baby.” Peter threw the newspaper on the floor. “He gets probation and community service? What a joke.”
“I’m gonna find him and beat the shit out of him, like in the old days.”
“Don’t. It’ll just blow back on you. He’s protected, the bastard. We got such a corrupt state.”
Brock never set foot in Bridgeville again as far as anyone could tell. But Saunders Construction did. Its faltering steps to reinvent itself after the Great Recession crashed and burned at least twice.
When Jeff brought Peter a change of clothes and some pictures of Brutus, which Peter proudly showed off to Marco and Paco, he floated his latest theory about Saunders and Zenergy’s unholy alliance.
“I been thinking. Saunders pulled strings to get Zenergy that land. I know it.”
Peter took off his T-shirt and gasped after he smelled it. “Hey, this is rag material. It stinks—what am I, a goddam skunk?”
“Yup—switched at birth. I got a skunk brother. Let’s get back to the land question.”
“Gotta be something under the table. There’s no way they got that land on the up and up.”
Zenergy, a darling of Wall Street, nonetheless had a glaring weakness. Its vulnerability, its kryptonite, was land, particularly in the densely populated and highly profitable East Coast corridor between Washington and Boston.
Zenergy had no problem wooing federal, state and local officials or entering intricate deals with pipeline, utility and natural gas conglomerates. They hired a platoon of lobbyists to schmooze, cajole and threaten. But the problem remained getting hold of land.
Bridgeville endured a terrible winter that year. Blizzard followed blizzard, the polar vortex moved in and wouldn’t leave. When Bridgevillians finally staggered out of their homes at the end of April, they rubbed their eyes like blinking moles. Spring’s tentative arrival seemed miraculous until Zenergy’s brutalist fuel cell on Maple Street blindsided them. Rising high above the tarps in which it had been cocooned during the winter, the massive structure caused traffic jams, accusations and fury.
The Bridgeville Gazette thundered its disapproval in a front-page editorial in the May 4 edition. “Neighborhood desecrated by fuel cell facility.”
The next day, at the first hastily called meeting of concerned citizens in the town library’s auxiliary wing, shouting and yelling about firing the Town Council escalated out of control.
“Not in Bridgewater Backyards! NIBBY!”
“It’s NIMBY, you morons,” Nancy corrected loudly. “What about ‘Leave Our Land Alone?’ LOLA.”
“The cat’s out of the bag, people. Too little too late,” Peter said. “Let’s get names and then vote out their asses.”
“What do we want?” The call and response echoed. “No fuel cell!”
The following week, Bridgeville’s mayor attended a town forum that kicked off with a beloved elderly gadfly proclaiming loudly from the stage at the Senior Center’s main meeting room.
“Zenergy stole Bridgeville’s heritage right out from under us. We need to kick the bastards out.”
The overflow audience didn’t need much prompting to rev up to full fury. Copies of the Bridgeville Gazette’s editorial hung from the back of each folding chair, some of which were still covered with crumbs from the featured lunch of breaded cod.
In a community where everything seemed to be debated forever in committees on public-access TV, the secrecy surrounding the fuel cell stoked every kind of conspiracy theory from the Illuminati to imminent thermonuclear warfare. But Peter, who knew more about the fuel cell than he let on, voiced the big question once the old man finally yielded the floor, grinning happily as two strapping firemen helped him off the stage.
“Who sold out Bridgeville? We deserve answers.” Peter motioned for the yelling and clapping to get louder.
“People, please. Allow me to speak,” said the mayor, a nondescript middle-aged man with a receding hairline and a severe underbite. “The New England Council Consortium and Zenergy submitted a document to the town zoning committee through a subsidiary about two years ago. All they applied for was a ruling on whether the land had any wetlands issues that would make it an unbuildable property. The gas company owned the land.”
The audience buzzed as people tried to puzzle out the request. Nancy stood up and demanded to be recognized by the mayor.
“Nancy,” he sighed.
“Clearly, Zenergy and the Consortium had ulterior motives. So, three years ago, let’s say, the gas company owns this land and is never going to build on it. How and when did the Consortium and Zenergy buy it?”
“It might be too complicated to explain.” The mayor hedged, looking at his watch.
“Try me.” Nancy crossed her arms and remained standing.
“Well, please sit down. There may have been an intermediary. And the ruling just slipped through without any red flags being raised because there was no wetlands impingement. Just a yes or no vote.” The mayor looked quite chagrined. “That was it. We had no idea this ruling was the tip of the iceberg.”
“Well, we’re on the Titanic,” Peter said loudly. “And we’re going down.”
Someone yelled out from the back of the room. “Corruption or stupidity?”
“How dare you?” the mayor responded indignantly. “Quite frankly, I resent your remarks. We work hard for the greater good of Bridgeville.”
“I am beyond done with incompetent men explaining and running the world,” Nancy, still standing, shouted. “This is a slap in the face to everyone who loves Bridgeville.”
AT 5:55, ANDRE EXCUSED HIMSELF FOR A MOMENT from monitoring a client on the lat pulldown machine. He motioned for Ian, who had just strolled in.
“Lori’s stopping by for a quickie. Can you take her?”
“What? You know I’m celibate.”
“Ha ha. Just help her work out the kinks. She carries her stress in her shoulders and neck. Make sure to give them a quick going over.” After Ian gave him a long look, Andre added, “I’m just saying …”
“Andre, focus on your client—her form is deteriorating.”
Lori dashed through the doorway at precisely 6:05, a vision in neon orange spandex. Once again, a topknot swept up her hair.
“Lori, you smell like vodka. Am I right?” Ian stared at her reproachfully.
“Just one vodka gimlet. What’re you a bloodhound?”
“Brings back memories. Right—playtime’s over. I am now in charge of this fitness intervention. Please walk across the room as fast as you can.”
“Andre—I thought you were going to help me got the knots out. I don’t want to exercise. And especially not with this character.” Lori complied with Ian’s instructions while beseeching Andre.
“I see the problem,” Ian announced.
“What problem? Andre, tell him. I don’t have any problems walking.”
Andre choked back laughter and shrugged.
“Yes, you do. Now tell me, how tight are your hamstrings?”
“Ian, I don’t want—wait, actually they’re pretty tight.”
“Your hamstrings are thrusting your pelvis forward like a cheap tart. Between your waist and your knees, your body is terribly unorganized.”
“What! Andre—are you paying him to mess with me?” Lori grinned but her hands were firmly planted on her hips in a very defiant stance.
“Hey, I told you I had a client.” Andre adjusted the woman’s arm so that she didn’t swing the dumbbell and hit herself in the face.
“But, I didn’t think he’d be so critical.”
“Uh-hem,” Ian said loudly. “He, as in me, is very much in this room. Now Lori, we are going to take a walk outside to the park across the street. Look, the light is still lovely. Let’s go.” He shooed her out the door and onto the park’s green lawn before she could muster a sustained protest.
“Seriously, you think walking with you is going to help my stress?”
“Just listen and watch me for a second. You need to tighten your butt cheeks, really feel purposeful clenching.”
Lori roared. “Oh, my God. Is this as opposed to casual clenching? You’re too much.”
“Maybe so, but I want you to walk alongside me, feeling the angle of your pelvis shift as you tighten up your arse. Now, keep squeezing your cheeks and walk ahead of me,” he instructed. “Faster. Zoom, Lori—zoom.”
Surging ahead, Lori was up the small incline in no time. “Wow, pretty fast.”
“Yes, well if you don’t squeeze your cheeks when you move, no one will ever want to squeeze them, either. Ouch.” He rubbed his arm where Lori smacked him.
“You got what was coming.”
“Fine. Now let’s zoom over to that hill.” Ian pointed to his left. “Stride with stiff arms as you go. Left arm moves forward with right leg and so on.” Admiring his pupil’s form as she conquered the hill, he encouraged her by shouting, “Take it with your butt, Lori. Feel it in your ass—in the ass!”
Lori flipped him off while charging up the hill. When he rocketed up the hill to join her, she unleashed. “Do you even hear yourself? I have a certain professional respectability I’d like to maintain, if you don’t mind.”
“Yes, but your glute power is a thing of beauty. You were magnificent down there.”
“Shut up, you idiot. My point is not registering with your brain. And you need to go see Carmen tomorrow morning.”
“I don’t understand why she wants to meet me if you and Vic have already given me marching orders.”
They walked back so fast Lori barely got to explain why. “That’s just how she is.”
“Just so long as she pays the bills. I’m not doing it pro bono. I already discussed this with Vic. Much as Peter is a good mate, I don’t do free.”
“Understood. Hey, when we get inside, can you actually help me loosen up my neck and shoulders?”
As they re-entered the gym, Andre looked at them to see if blood had been drawn. Surprised to find Lori and Ian bantering good-naturedly, Andre offered Lori a cup of water.
“Not now, Andre,” Ian said. “She’s going to work on some rotation to loosen up her neck and shoulders.”
Lori reached for the cup and took a big gulp. “Geez, who knew Ian was such a dictator?”
“You don’t know the half of what I put up with, Lor. He’s impossible.”
“Well, unkinking your neck and shoulders is going to be mission impossible, Lori, if you don’t get down on this mat right away and get into the child’s play pose.”
“Hey, sounds pretty good.” Andre, free for five minutes between clients, squatted next to Lori.
Ian surrendered to the moment and knelt next to Andre. Side-by-side on the mat, like three ducks in a row, they elongated their spines in ever deeper stretches. As they breathed in unison, Ian felt a shift in the air, as if the earth had just started spinning a little more interestingly.
WHEN IAN AND CARMEN FINALLY MET FACE-TO-FACE Saturday morning at the orchard, Carmen didn’t seem very friendly. Ian, still surprised at the extent of her micro-management to exonerate Peter, considering she had cut him off like a gangrenous limb, played the Brit card while trying to break the ice. In his experience, the sooner women heard his accent and then gazed into his baby blues, the sooner he got what he wanted.
“This is a lovely orchard, Carmen. Breathtaking—I would love to meditate here.” Ian peered at her, taking in her poker face. “What is your favorite view from here? Your favorite apple?” Finally, he noticed Carmen staring at his feet. Sporting his favorite minimalist sneakers, the toe-separating Vibram Five-Fingers, he offered her the opportunity to try them on.
Cracking a smile, Carmen demurred. “You have to be kidding. First of all, eew. Second of all, those are the ugliest things I’ve ever seen.”
“Are you sure? You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. These will literally change your life.”
“My life is going fine without them, thank you very much. Now let’s talk turkey. What are you going to do to get Pete off the hook?”
“Well, it’s your loss; I’ll have to convince you another time.” Ian dictated a text to himself. “Get Carmen to try toe shoes.” He ignored her derisive snort. “Shall we walk?”
“No. Lori warned me about walking with you. I don’t like being told to take it in the ass.”
Ian gestured as if he were shooing away a buzzing fly. “Merely trying to help Lori get her pelvis under control.”
Carmen cackled. “You. Are. Insane.”
“Hardly. Now this is what I’m going to do.” Outlining his plan to her, she nodded approvingly.
After Carmen and Ian shook on it, she texted Lori her approval. Seeing Ian still standing in front of her, she said, “What are you waiting for? Go straighten out this mess. Like by Monday.”
Returning to the gym, Ian knew he needed some help to get it all accomplished in the compressed timeframe Carmen laid out.
“Andre—”
“Hell, yeah. I’m in.”
“How did you know what I was going to say?”
“I know what you’re thinking before you do. I’m in your head,” Andre teased.
“That’s a scary place. Better you than me.”
They started by compiling a quick dossier on the security guard. Ian insisted on documenting everything carefully.
“It’s important to be methodical so you don’t wind up reinventing the wheel each time you construct the scenario.”
“Come on, we need to haul ass. This security guard might could be a dead-end.”
“Right. Work your contacts in the community, Andre. The security guard is key; we just need to find how the dots connect to him. The cops have more than enough circumstantial evidence to implicate Peter. We need to find the hidden links they won’t bother investigating, and that’s typical by the way. They’ll just want to close the case and move on.”
Three hours later, Andre called with exciting news. “Guess what I found out from my cousin’s neighbor’s ex-boyfriend? This skanky guard’s a real player, and lately he’s been banging a married babe whose got a psycho for a husband. Let’s see the police get hold of that juicy fact as quick as me. Skanko’s making time with another man’s woman could be a big lead, dude.”
“I’m not going to say I told you so.”
“You just did.”
“Imagine that. So, what’s her name, and who’s she still married to?”
“Kimmy La-something. And he’s Skippy La-something.”
“Skippy Lafford? This is unbelievable—I once investigated him for something entirely different, but he’s a known piece of shite. Arrests on possession, drunk driving, theft, and brawling.”
“Wow—talk about coincidence. I got goosebumps, man.”
“There’s no such thing as coincidence, Andre. How many times do we have to go over this.”
“I can’t hear you.”
“Look, stay on the guard and Kimmy. I’ll do Skippy and known associates.”
“Got it.”
They worked non-stop over the long weekend, fueled by caffeine and adrenaline. Andre didn’t have the kids, so he was glad to have something to keep him busy.
“Brain power needs fuel. It’s a scientific fact,” Andre said. “Come over for dinner.”
Ian waved a baggy full of celery and carrots in the air. “I’m all set.”
“Give me that.” Andre grabbed the bag from him. “This is fine if you’re a guinea pig. What, you think black people don’t know how to make salad?”
“Really, Andre. How am I supposed to respond?”
“You’re supposed to graciously accept my extremely generous invitation.” Andre did his best imitation of WASP-y nasal intonation.
When Ian arrived at Andre’s house, bearing a basil plant for his host, Andre had just finished garnishing a platter of sliced beefsteak tomatoes overlaid with thin cucumber slices.
“Mmm, parsley,” Ian said, reaching for a stalk. “I’ll do the vinaigrette. Do you like garlic?”
“Bring it.”
Andre set the table, putting a glass full of water by Ian’s plate and a big glass of red wine by his own. “For the antioxidants.”
“Right.”
Ian demolished his half of the tomato salad after bowing his head over the food, sopping up the dressing with a whole wheat roll. Once Andre finished his broiled chicken and salad, they put together the case, bit by bit.
“Skippy is a piece of shit, no doubt about it.” Andre pointed to a threatening tweet as they examined his social media posts. “Look, he called her a cunt.”
According to Andre’s sources, Skippy’s fury at being cuckolded by the security guard boiled over by the beginning of May. Ian found his previous file on Skippy, and they decided to concentrate on Skippy’s merry band of thugs and Kimmy Lafford.
“I’ve got to say Skippy had motive. What was he doing Thursday night? There’s his opportunity,” Ian mused. “Does he have an alibi? I mean it’s quite easy to attack someone at night with a metal object if you lie in wait or sneak up, and, voila—we’ve got means. Now all we have to do is get some proof.”
Ian and Andre searched database after database to track Skippy and his crew’s movements. They scoured public records that tracked everything under the sun.
“Look at these pictures of her and Stulow together. The dates work, too. You can see when Kimmy and Skippy broke up, and when Kimmy starts up with Stulow.”
“Hey, I saw Brock Saunders at the nursing home in West Hadley the other day. I meant to tell you.” Andre taught senior yoga and a chair exercise class at Wood Haven, the local skilled nursing facility, two afternoons per week.
“Don’t tell Peter or Jeff,” Ian said. “Last thing they need is to confront him.”
Brock visited his mother every other day, usually after Bingo, now that he was back in the area. He brought her favorite salty snacks, either a small bag of potato chips or a few slices of salami, both on her doctor’s list of absolute no-no’s.
Brock showered the nurses with donuts and chocolates. They looked forward to his visits.
“Such a nice son.”
Mrs. Saunders rarely got a visit from her husband. Her poor prognosis due to congestive heart failure and emphysema meant her days were numbered, but he occupied his time with the business and a series of widows and divorcees.
When Brock’s father summoned him back to Bridgeville, it wasn’t because he missed Brock. Saunders Construction, limping along as the region’s prospects dimmed, needed a shot of marketing pizzazz. Brock had been living in Wilmington, North Carolina, playing golf and dabbling successfully in real estate. But the combination of his mother’s poor health and his father’s badgering brought him home.
“We need to get in with the Consortium,” his father said. “They’re the only thing growing around here.”
Brock nosed around and learned on the down-low about Zenergy’s dealings with the Consortium. Saunders Construction undercut every bid to get the Zenergy contract.
“We’re not going to make any money on this,” Brock said.
“No shit, Sherlock. But we’ll cut some corners on material and labor to sock something away.”
“Yeah, but that could be dangerous.”
“Not our problem. You in or out? I don’t want any whining bullshit. Either you man up or hit the road. And your name is on the line of credit, so if you go all pussy on me, this is gonna bite you in the ass big-time.”
Saunders senior specialized in acrimony with most of his peers. This certainly included Aldo Fiori. In fact, Aldo spat whenever the name came up.
“Pieces of shit, the lot of ‘em.”
Carmen never mentioned Brock, in particular, without shuddering. Peter hadn’t asked her point blank if Brock had tried something with her because he was pretty sure Carmen would have killed him, but she and her friends didn’t hide their contempt for Brock. When Vic took on Peter’s case, he shed more light on the particulars of Aldo’s latest anti-Saunders campaign.
“I can’t believe Carm didn’t fill you in,” Vic said with surprise.
“Yeah, well there’s that little detail of her not speaking to me.”
The Fiori’s orchard abutted disputed land that Brock’s father had won in a marathon booze-soaked gambling weekend with his regular crew of liars and cheats. The state claimed the land as compensation for non-payment of taxes and other financial shenanigans.
Aldo Fiori had nothing but contempt for his new next-door neighbor. Old farm boys never forgot the bad blood that seeped down through generations. Yet when some of Aldo’s field hands began telling about dynamite blasting, dying timber rattlesnakes and exploded dinosaur fossils, or at least that’s what he thought they were saying as he listened to their agitated descriptions in a combination of Spanish, English, and Italian, he didn’t hesitate to act.
Vic’s keen nose for threats to Fiori interests was key, and Aldo scored first blood.
“It’s cause you got a crush on Carm,” Aldo rasped, casting a knowing eye at Vic. “You Baldini’s.”
“Oh, get off it, Aldo. Carm’s my brother’s ex-wife, and she’s old enough to be my mother.” Vic laughed and jumped back when Aldo dropped a bocce ball about a centimeter away from his foot.
“You’re dog meat, she hears you saying that. Now go check this shit out.”
Vic reported back quickly. “Looks like he’s clearing land for some high-end houses—without the necessary permits.”
“Yeah, well that ain’t his land. It’s the state’s. I don’t want no development up here sucking the aquifer dry. Let’s shut him down. We need a little birdie. You got any ideas?”
“Plenty, Aldo. First, he’s counting on the state being too broke and broken. But guess what? If it’s state land, you can’t blow up dinosaur fossils and bones; you can only do that on your own land.”
“Yeah.”
“What do ya mean yeah? That’s important.”
“Eh, everyone does it. Dinosaurs. You remember when they built the mall? They found more dinosaur bones and, you know, footprints than you got hair, more than anywhere in New England. But, you’re right. On private land, the state can’t do squat. You go to Home Depot or Target, and you’re standing on dinosaurs from like a million years ago.”
“Aldo, focus. Saunders is breaking the law. Plus he’s blowing up and killing timber rattlesnakes; they’re endangered and protected.”
“Oh big whoop. Who’s gonna care? I mean, I like’em; they eat all the varmints. But I don’t get too cozy when they’re around.”
“I just gave you two ways to shut him down and piss him off big-time.”
“Do it. I fucking hate that guy.”
State officials responded immediately. They didn’t find any dead rattlesnakes but they found plenty of damaged fossils.
It didn’t take long for Saunders to retaliate. First, he informed the town that Fiori’s wells were contaminated with radon, lead and all sorts of agricultural waste. The health inspectors showed up quickly if apologetically. Then Saunders somehow dumped a dozen dead timber rattlers right by Aldo’s primary apple storage facility and sent his own alert to the Department of Environmental Protection. The officials converged on Fiori Orchards before Aldo even know what was happening.
Vic couldn’t keep them at bay. “Are you serious?” He implored the DEEP inspector who imposed fines of $2,000 per dead timber rattlesnake and threatened imprisonment for up to 180 days if one more got “molested.”
Aldo seethed. “It’s on, baby. This ain’t over.”
BY NOON ON MONDAY, IAN SAT IN VIC’S OFFICE WITH Lori on speakerphone and confidently sketched out what he considered the real story.
“Here’s how I see it. Can you hear me OK, Lori?”
“Loud and clear.”
“Dazzle us,” Vic said, leaning back in his chair, motioning for Ian to get going.
“The gist of it is this: Skippy Lafford wanted revenge for Kimmy dumping him and shacking up with Stulow aka sleazeball Zenergy security guard. Skippy stalked Stulow night and day until he knew everything about his routines. He carefully planned—and this is premeditated, so I’m thinking attempted murder is the right charge.”
“Leave that to us, Ian,” Lori said. “Play on your ballfield.”
“Yeah,” Vic chimed in. “Think less. Don’t hurt yourself.”
“Fine. Skippy and his crew decided that a nighttime head thrashing up at the fuel cell facility would do the trick. Hard enough and it would kill him or at least drop him unconscious into a bloody heap so animals could eat his face. Or at least that’s what Tank LaBois told me when I threatened to go to the police about a certain parole violation.”
Ian knew where Tank hung with his buddies, getting high and drunk—not too far from where Becky Fiori died. The terrain, steep and rocky, stunned in the late afternoon sun as Ian searched for Tank. Skippy Lafford used him as muscle on the previous case Ian worked, so Tank had to know what Skippy was up to these days.
“Tank’s the weak link,” Ian said out loud while floating on his back in Small Lake after Andre discovered Kimmy Lafford’s involvement. Small Lake, a beautiful body of water near Devil’s Falls, officially lacked a name. No one in Bridgeville agreed on whether it should be called Big Pond or Small Lake, but Ian was firmly in the lake camp. When he needed to think unfettered thoughts and let them soar beyond gravity, Ian loved to float. He walked out chest-high before flipping onto his back. The towering pine trees scented the air and framed a cloudless sky. He gave himself twenty minutes in the bracingly cold water, checking his waterproof watch every now and then. As he drifted pleasantly weightless, a strategy came to him.
An hour later, dressed in dry clothes, Ian searched for Tank. The softening light filtered in rays through the canopy of leaves, illuminating floating particles and swarms of tiny insects. Loud crickets chirped ceaselessly, and Ian cocked his head to listen to trilling bird songs and occasional owl hoots.
The smell of weed and cigarettes beckoned Ian closer to Tank’s lair. Someone was pissing like a racehorse in the woods to Ian’s right, and he saw the enormous hulk of a man who could only be Tank. Ian hurried to catch Tank shaking out the last few drops of yeasty urine; any advantage over the 6 foot 8, 350 pound giant needed to be used.
“Oh, shit,” Tank yelled as Ian materialized in his line of vision.
“Hullo, Tank. Long time no see.”
“What the fuck? You still hungry for my meat?” Tank patted his quickly zipped-in junk.
“Funny. Sorry I didn’t knock. Still on parole, are we Tank?”
“You know I am. Stop busting my ass and get lost.” Tank turned back to the trail, but Ian followed closely at his heels.
“Oh, I thought we could get reacquainted, a reunion of sorts to remember old times.” Ian spoke to Tank’s broad flabby back, but he knew Tank was all ears.
“I got nothin’ to say to you.”
“I think you do,” Ian said confidently. “So, Tank. I hear you’re up to some old tricks with Skippy Lafford. Your parole officer know?”
Tank turned around and looked down at Ian through bleary eyes. His breath heavy with beer and years of neglected dental hygiene, Tank spat at Ian’s feet. “Fuck you.”
“Now, now. Here’s how it’s going to go down, Tank. Skippy’s a risk for you to be seen with, yet I somehow found many photos of your escapades on social media. Here’s you both at a strip club; did you think those tatas were real? And here’s a really good one of you two sharing a bong.” Ian scrolled through his phone, holding up pictures for Tank to see. “I can send these to the West Hadley police and the parole office with one little tap.” Ian wiggled his index finger in the air and then hovered it over his phone.
Tank’s shoulders slumped. “I will fuck you up,” he said somewhat dejectedly, his demeanor now more house cat than king of the jungle.
“Tell me about Skippy and Kimmy. What he did when she left him.”
“Oh, man. You know about that? I’m not ratting out nobody, but I’m not going back inside neither.”
“So, just between us—no need for your parole officer to know—did you help Skippy take down the guard at the Zenergy plant? I mean, Kimmy shagging the guard had to sting, right?”
“Hell, yeah, if shagging means fucking. You want your snatch cheatin’ on you? I didn’t do nothin’ to that guard, it was all Skip. He slugged him in the head with a hammer wrench. I just helped with, you know, logistics. We did a couple practice runs, like getting ready for the big game. That’s it.”
“Good lad. Tell me more.”
Vic chortled with glee at Ian’s reenactment of the conversation. “Told you to find the weak link. Just gotta have a nose for the jugular.”
“Of course, it helped immensely that I knew Tank from previous successful work,” Ian sniffed, unwilling to shower Vic with all the credit.
“True, so true.” Lori murmured her assent.
Ian, soothed by her acknowledgement of his ingenuity, launched back into the story. “Skippy takes a trial run one night in mid-May at the Zenergy facility. The boys drop him off on a side street, and Skippy times the assault. But Tank said Skippy was worried about how close the neighborhood houses were to the fuel cell. Someone might be able to see him.”
“Yeah, those older ranches are so close that the neighbors can flush each other’s toilets and a lot more, if you get my drift.” Vic smirked and shrugged. “I get a couple of voyeurism clients every year. If they don’t use recording devices, I can get it kicked out.”
“That’s why you have a reputation as a sleazebag, Vic,” Lori said. “Lose those clients. You don’t need them.”
“Money’s money.”
Ian rotated his neck right and left before tenting the tips of his outstretched middle fingers and bowing his head. “A prayer,” he told Vic. He could hear Lori laughing.
“Stop with the prissy shit. Human cesspools furnished this place.” Vic gestured proudly at the elaborate crown molding and animal heads adorning his walls. “Where I come from, you gotta be willing to tear somebody’s face off.”
“Vic, you’re from West Hadley.” Lori’s voice crackled with amusement over the speaker.
“The wrong side of West Hadley. Cut to the chase already, Ian.”
“OK. Now, it’s D-Day, the Thursday night before Memorial Day weekend. Skippy sends Kimmy a batch of threatening texts, dons his all-black outfit, including gloves and a balaclava, grabs his weapon, and mobilizes the troops.”
“We can guess the rest,” Lori said. “So—”
“Let me finish the narrative,” Vic interrupted. “Skippy sneaks up on Stulow and clobbers him. Bam, bam! Stulow drops like a dead weight onto his panic button and Skippy fades into the night.”
“Exactly,” Lori said. “Peter winds up taking the fall for Skippy’s attack. This is great.”
“Gotta love it. BPD, here comes a gift-wrapped present. You’re welcome,” Vic crowed.
Ian walked over to one of the deer heads on the wall and patted it solemnly.
“They’re dead.” Vic pointed to an impressively antlered buck that Ian couldn’t reach. “This whole hunting and safari vibe costs plenty, lemme tell you.”
“Nobody hunts deer on safari, Vic,” Lori laughed. “Just shoot through your kitchen window. Ian, take a bow. It would’ve taken BPD a lot longer to do the investigation, so you’ve basically sprung Peter.”
Ian couldn’t let it go. “How are you going to get the cops to look beyond Peter?”
Vic cracked his knuckles loudly. “Probable cause. Actually, they need to want to look at probable cause beyond Peter. Tomassi’s not gonna give his buddy any obvious special favors. BPD’s running squeaky clean after that captain with all the hard-core porn on his work computer. I always knew he was a scumbag. Everything by the book, now. You gotta get a compliance check if you fart over there. So, we’ll throw down a line of breadcrumbs for them. You good, Lor?”
“Absolutely. Vic, take it from here, and we’ll talk tonight. Ian, terrific work. Marti’s about ready to shoot me for not paying enough attention to her. God, women are demanding, aren’t they?”
Vic and Ian nodded, catching each other’s eyes as they smiled.
“Hey, I thought you were a monk or something,” Vic said. “What do you know about women?”
“More than you ever will. Now, in a perfect world, the one I pray for,” Ian said as Vic rolled his eyes, “the cops see the love triangle because you serve it to them on a gleaming silver platter. They get off their arses to search Skippy’s place, look for the weapon and have a chat with Miss Kimmy. Are you going to subpoena cellphone records?”
“I got this, Jessica Jones. You did good. Now, it’s my turn.”
PETER GOT OUT OF JAIL TUESDAY MORNING AFTER LORI and Vic wheeled and dealed with the prosecutor to reduce the charges to misdemeanor trespassing, a $500 fine, a two-year probationary period, and four months of community service. Marco and Paco had already been taken to the courthouse, so Peter didn’t get to say good-bye.
Waiting for Jeff to pick him up, Peter saw Kenny Johnson looking glum.
“What’s the matter? You gonna miss me and Marco so much?”
“Yeah, right—that’s it.”
“So, tell me.”
“Girlfriend problems. She dumped me.” Kenny kicked the garbage can as he spoke.
“A great-looking guy like you? C’mon, Kenny. Plenty of fish in the sea.”
“Whatever.” Kenny clenched his jaw and busied himself with paperwork before looking up. “Peter, I’m glad you’re getting out of here. And don’t even think of messing up your probation.”
“OK, chief.” Peter saluted.
“You really thinking of hiring Marco when he gets out if you get the food truck going?”
“Yeah. And we’re gonna get it going. Why is everyone doubting me and Jeff?”
“No one’s doubting Jeff,” Kenny said with a grin, his dark mood lifting momentarily.
Vic told Peter to forget about Marco and Paco when Jeff brought him to his office for a wrap-up. “They’ll do some time. You should stay away from jailbirds. You’re lucky you got a fairy godmother.”
“What?”
“Never mind.” But, Peter couldn’t get Paco and Marco out of his head. The marijuana bust that landed them in the Bridgeville jail was a second offense for each of them.
“I want to do something for them. Try to wrap your mind around this bullshit: second possession of just over an ounce of weed, a pipe and a bong is getting them a minimum of ninety days of jail time and a big-time fine,” he said to Jeff Wednesday morning. They sat in Jeff’s kitchen, having coffee and home-made muffins while Brutus slept at Peter’s feet. Jeff motioned for him to shut up.
“Hey, the law’s the law. Thanks, hon,” Jeff said to his daughter, Rachel, doe-eyed and lively, as she refreshed their mugs.
“Do you like the muffins? I put more cinnamon and walnuts in than normal because I know you love them, Pete.” Rachel, a little too lean for Jeff’s comfort level, looked exactly like Annie did as a young woman. After being arrested on heroin possession, Rachel had enrolled in culinary school five months ago as a condition of her court-mandated rehab program.
“Jeff, Annie—I’m gonna tell it to you straight. If you can call getting lucky to be busted for heroin anywhere, it’s good it was here in town,” Tomassi said to her stunned parents. “This is a huge fucking problem everywhere. Don’t think it’s only your kid. Plus, she didn’t overdose, so get down on your knees, thank God and then do it a hundred more times.”
Rachel had been clean for six months, but the shock of her heroin use and how well she concealed it pulled the rug out from under Jeff and Annie. They fretted constantly about a relapse.
“Normal,” Jeff snorted. “There’s nothing normal about your uncle.”
“Awesome, Rach,” Peter said, waving off Jeff’s comment. “When are you done with the program?”
Jeff shot him a look. “Which one?”
“Oh, come on. Look, your dad and I are looking for a baking partner in the food truck, but now he wants it gluten-free. Right up your alley, kiddo. Any thoughts?”
“Again,” Jeff said, “read my lips. Who are you talking to—me or her?”
Rachel put a hand on her father’s shoulder. “How about both of us, Dad. Stop being so grouchy. It would be perfect for me. I’m gluten-free and I can really focus on specialty baking. But it’ll only work if you fund my share. I’ll pay you back once we make some money—and we will, like crazy.”
Jeff sighed. “Rach, it could put too much pressure on you. Start-ups are risky and, being honest here, I don’t know if you could handle having to bake on a deadline. Maybe just hire a more experienced baker and be an assistant.”
“Way to believe in me, Dad. Thanks a lot for your vote of confidence.” Rachel turned her back on him and walked behind Peter’s chair, gripping the back tightly, almost using Peter as a shield. “I’m ready for this. I need this,” she said, her voice tightening.
Peter tried to get Jeff to lighten up. “Hey, moron. We want your wallet not your opinion. What the hell do you know about start-ups or baking?”
Rachel stomped her foot. “You don’t have faith in me. What kind of father expects his daughter to fail? Well, it’s not gonna happen.” She appealed to Peter to back her up as Annie came in from the garage holding two bags of groceries. “Mom, Dad won’t help me.” Rachel’s eyes welled with tears and her bottom lip quivered.
“What the hell is going on here?” Annie asked. She kissed Peter on the cheek and looked back and forth between her husband and daughter. “Tell me why you’re spoiling Pete’s first real morning of freedom. And why my daughter is crying.” Her eyes harpooned Jeff’s, and he squirmed, his face already flushed with emotion.
Annie had kept the same blonde shag hairdo for years. Although she had put on weight, just like Jeff, she looked ready to shed her cardigan, kick off her clogs and whip his ass if he said one more word to upset Rachel.
“Easy now, everyone.” Peter held up his hands. “I didn’t come here to rock the boat. I just want to make this a Russo family enterprise. And, truth be told, I’d love for Rachel to be an equal partner in this project. You,” he said to Jeff, “might think of being one who takes a vow of silence.”
Rachel barked a laugh. “Exactly.”
“Of course we’ll do it as three equal partners,” Annie said. “This could work out for everyone. We need a baker, a truck and product. Rachel is a baker. Jeff can barter for the truck, and Pete can be chief driver. This’ll be great.”
“Annie,” Jeff began. “Not—”
She stopped him cold. “I don’t want to hear it. Let’s sketch out a rough plan.” Annie never met a problem she couldn’t pound into submission; she could have run the country from the back of a napkin. With a velvet fist, she resolved dilemmas that King Solomon would have abandoned as hopeless. The only one she couldn’t decipher was the one that caused her the most pain, Rachel’s drug use.
Rachel poured her mother a cup of coffee and sat down by her side. Rachel’s purple pixie cut and multiple ear-piercings contrasted with Annie’s head-to-toe LL Bean. Jeff regarded them anxiously and rolled his eyes at Peter who smiled and looked away, reaching down to stroke Brutus as he snored.
JOHN TOMASSI TEXTED PETER TO COME OVER FOR A beer the next day. Peter showed up at the Tomassi’s small but well-maintained colonial-style home to find Donna, sweating and surrounded by a cloud of bugs, kneeling on a rolled-up towel and weeding her vegetable garden.
“Hey, Donna. Want some help?”
“Peter, hi.” She waved her dirt-covered hand at him. “Oh my God. The rabbits are eating all my lettuce. I’m so annoyed. And you, Johnny wanted to wring your neck. You’re in for a big lecture; you deserve it, too.”
“Yeah, he isn’t my biggest fan right now. Listen, I can put up some rabbit-proof fencing and raise the railroad ties higher. It’s not like John’s gonna do it. Scoot over,” he said, bending down next to her and pulling up several handfuls of nasty weeds.
“Please? Johnny goes deaf when I ask him. I know it’s his hip and because he hates to eat salad.”
“Very true. He likes to call ketchup a vegetable. How are the kids?” Peter got a real kick out of the two Tomassi offspring because they read their gruff dad like a children’s book and could bend him to their will. “My god-daughter better be staying out of trouble.”
“Knock on wood, no problems. Cath is coming back for the fundraiser for Becky Fiori’s scholarship. She got a promotion. I’m sure she’ll say hi. I think Mike will be here Saturday, but he’ll be hanging out with Josh Richardson. They were always thick as thieves, but Mike says Josh could be moving to California. I hope not.”
“You done good. Cath and Mike are great.”
“Hey, Donna,” Tomassi yelled, coming outside. “Dirtbag bothering you?” Without waiting for an answer, he handed Peter a cold beer and guided him by the scruff of his neck to the rear deck. “Sit.”
“Is this the big lecture? I already know what you’re gonna say.”
“Tough titties.” Tomassi drained his beer and leaned against the railing. “You got really lucky. No more childish bullshit, you hear me? You gotta avoid any trouble, and I mean any. Someone’s got road rage because they don’t like how you drive? Ignore ‘em, even if they’re flipping you off with both hands. Someone bumps into you and wants to mix it up? Walk away. You got me? Any violation of the agreement lands you in massive shit.”
“Loud and clear. And thanks again for looking out for me.”
“What? I couldn’t and didn’t do anything special even though I knew the assault charge was bullshit.”
“Exactly my point, Sergeant. I could be in jail until doomsday for all the help you gave me.”
“Yeah, right. Lori and Vic were on it from the beginning. Even that whack job PI did solid work. But without Carmen? Good thing she still gives a shit. Oops—I wasn’t supposed to say that.”
“Carmen? You gotta tell me. What do you mean she gives a shit? Oh, wait. No. She didn’t, no way.”
“Yeah, no—she bankrolled your defense team. You never heard this from me. Swear? She’ll have my balls.”
“John, no worries. Donna’s already got ‘em framed and mounted on the wall. And you better not be yanking my chain about Carmen.”
“What chain, douchebag.”
Peter called Lori as he peeled out of Tomassi’s driveway. Getting no answer, he drove over to Vic’s office and barged in after hurriedly parking his truck across two spaces. He wanted to find out if Tomassi had it right. He stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of Carmen. She jumped up like she had been stung by a swarm of bees, recovered and then regarded him coolly as she resumed her perch on the rollback arm of Vic’s burnished Corinthian leather couch. Vic turned around from his well-stocked cocktail bar, clutching an ice cube in gleaming silver tongs, and chuckled.
“Look at what the cat dragged in.”
“Carmen, Vic. If I’d known this was a party, I’d have brought my world-famous onion dip and put on my fancy clothes.” Peter’s jeans and hands were smeared with dirt from Donna’s garden.
“Tell you what, I’ve got some calls to make. I’ll catch up with you in a few minutes.” Vic grabbed a handful of nuts and left the room.
“I need to talk to you,” Peter said to his back before he closed the door.
“Call me next time. I don’t do drop-ins. Better yet, lose my number—call Lori.”
Carmen and Peter stared at each other. Neither one blinked until Peter walked over to her and offered his hand.
“What’s this for?” Carmen asked. “Do you want me to wash it?”
“Ha. It’s just a hand, my hand. A little dirt won’t kill you.”
“Yeah, I’m aware. I grow apples.”
“Look, I just want to thank you for everything, Carm. A little birdie told me.” Peter kept his hand outstretched. “Shaking my hand won’t get you pregnant, despite what the nuns said.”
“I never believed them. But I didn’t do anything. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Peter gently took her hand. “‘Right. Is that the story we’re going with? Well then, thank you for doing nothing. I’m grateful from the bottom of my heart.”
“You’re welcome.” Carmen reclaimed her hand and took a step back.
“I’m still hoping we can talk. I mean, it’s been way too long.”
“Yeah, well, no. There’s really nothing left to say. How about we just take a raincheck.”
“Come on. We’re not getting any younger. I could drop dead tomorrow.”
“Look, Pete—no. And you’re not going to kick off any time soon. I’m not going there. No offense.”
“Some taken. You look fantastic, by the way.” His eyes scoped down her body and, immediately, he flashed back to how much he loved to hold her hips when they made it doggy-style. She smoothed her hair, and the movement drew his gaze to her breasts.
“Thank you. Eyes here,” she said pointing to her face. “Look, we might as well try to act like somewhat normal people. Maybe set up some boundaries so things aren’t so awkward.”
“Awkward doesn’t even begin to define whatever this is,” he said, gesturing at the two of them. “Let me guess—you get to define the boundaries. Are we going to sign an official peace treaty, too?”
“Here’s how it’s going to be. We keep it light. A ‘hello,’ a ‘wow can you believe this humidity.’ Easy. Nothing deep or heavy. And I want to make this beyond clear—no going out together and definitely no sex.” She crossed her arms across her chest and waited for his reaction.
“Geez, you’ve thought about this. You miss me.” He reached over to give her a hug.
“No touching!”
Peter held his hands up. “Come on, you know I’m a hugger. These are some strict rules. So no make big whoopee soon?”
“Cut it out.” But she couldn’t suppress a low chuckle.
“Carm, I always meant to tell you this—you’ve got a filthy laugh, dirty as hell.”
“Boundaries, Pete.”
“OK, boundaries. If I see you, I can wave. If we happen to be going to the movies at the same time, at the same movie theater, I should sit a few rows away. And if you’ve stopped breathing and need mouth-to-mouth and I’m the only living soul around, I should call 911 and wait for the ambulance. Is that it?”
“Exactly right. You’re getting much less feebleminded. A miracle.”
“Aw shucks, it was nothing.”
They stood face to face, neither of them saying anything. Peter knew he had to make an exit before he prostrated himself at her feet and either clung to her ankles like a toddler or tried to pleasure her right then and there.
“Hallelujah—it’s a new day.” He blew her a kiss and walked towards the door.
“Wait. I thought you came here to see Vic.”
“And spoil this moment? Not a chance. I’ll call him tomorrow.”
Carmen opened the door for him. “Good thinking. Vic doesn’t do drop-ins.”