“Worthwhile day?” he asked her as she approached, slinging her bag onto her shoulder and weaving her way through the tangle of chairs. He exchanged friendly nods with the cop, a state trooper he knew only as Mark.
“Not really,” she said. “You catch the guy yet?”
“No, but we’re making progress.” He didn’t tell her that the progress concerned only Linda Padgett and that no one had the slightest idea of Gino Famolare’s whereabouts.
“Great.” She brushed by him, paused as Mark stepped ahead of her into the hallway to check, and then followed suit, Joe bringing up the rear. He noticed that Mark was keeping a diplomatic poker face.
“You want to switch off a little?” he asked him. “I’ll keep her company if you want to follow in my car.”
They both looked to Gail, who nodded tiredly. “I’d like to pick up a few groceries on the way.”
They stepped out into the setting sun and walked over to the parking lot reserved for members. Joe had parked illegally, half on a sidewalk, and left his badge on the dash, hoping for some mercy from the overworked Montpelier parking enforcement officers. Either they hadn’t been by or it had worked.
He opened his passenger door for Gail, asking as she stepped in, “How’re you doing?”
She didn’t answer, waiting for him to circle around and join her. He started the engine and pulled into the street.
“That’s a loaded question,” she finally answered.
“He may never show up,” he tried comforting her. “It was probably just a lot of hot air.”
“Amazing as it sounds,” she said, her voice hard, “that’s not very helpful.”
He didn’t say anything, aiming for State Street instead, and eventually the Shaw’s supermarket around the corner, on Main.
“I’m sorry,” she said a few minutes later, not looking at him. “I’m tired.”
“You may be tired,” he agreed. “But you’ve also had your life turned upside down-again. I’m the one who’s sorry.”
She suddenly burst into tears, causing him to almost rear-end the car in front of him. As he reached for her with one hand, she caught it in her own and squeezed it, saying, “It’s okay, it’s okay. I just… I don’t know.”
He pulled into Shaw’s and parked haphazardly, noticing in the rearview mirror that Mark was more carefully doing the same, keeping them in sight.
With the engine still running, Joe reached out for her and took her in his arms. It was the first real display of affection they’d shared in quite a while, a realization that filled him with sudden bittersweetness. She hung on tight, her face buried in his shoulder, as he rubbed her back.
“I was so hoping all this was behind me,” she said eventually, her voice muffled by his jacket.
“I know. I know. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s happening all over again,” she continued, pulling back slightly to speak. “Getting worse every night. The nightmares, the insomnia. I’m back on sleeping pills that don’t work. I check the doors and windows again and again. I can’t taste what I eat, and I’m never hungry anyhow.”
He kissed her, interrupting, and then said, “I never wanted this to happen.”
“You couldn’t help it, Joe,” she answered. “It’s your job. It’s the people you deal with. It’s your life.”
“Still,” he soothed her, “it seems so unfair.”
Her face scrunched up like a child’s. “It is. I know that’s dumb, and I know a lot of people have had it a lot worse than I have, but I feel like I’ve paid enough. I’ve got good things to offer, and I really want to do that. I promise to work hard. But I want to be left alone.”
The crying surged once more, and he gathered her more tightly to him. “We’ll get you that. I promise. We’ll make it work.”
They shopped for her few grocery items after that, holding hands, not speaking much, oblivious of Mark trailing behind, his eyes on everything but them. In their separate ways, Joe and she felt bruised and worn, not unlike weary travelers who have just been told they have many more miles to go.
With a couple of plastic bags of bananas, canned soup, and some vegetables, they left the town behind them a half hour later under a sky tinged with the furious last blush of the setting sun, and worked their way in a two-car caravan toward Gail’s condo development. Joe was lost in a reverie of futile tactics, all aimed at removing Gino Famolare from circulation. Gail seemed barely awake, slouched down in her seat, staring blankly at the darkening scenery slipping by.
On her street, as they approached the house, a man detached himself from the shadows of her garage door to greet them as they pulled into the driveway-another cop, here already a couple of hours, and assigned to watch the house for the rest of the night.
Joe killed the engine, got out, and circled the car to help Gail with the groceries she had nestled in her lap. As they were sorting out the bundles, Mark pulled past the driveway, sidled up to the curb, and then backed into the driveway beside them, facing out. As he did, Gail stepped out of the way, looking up as his headlights swept the row of parked cars across the street-and illuminated the pale, round face of a man sitting deep inside the shadows of an unmarked delivery truck.
From her countless examinations of his otherwise bland mug shot, Gail instantly recognized Gino Famolare.
She dropped her groceries onto the ground and grabbed Joe’s arm. “My God. That’s him. In the van.”
The headlights had moved on and were now pointing at the car directly behind the van. But Joe didn’t hesitate, trusting in what she’d seen. He threw her back into the car, pulled his gun out, and yelled, crouched in a shooter’s stance, “You in the van. Get out with your hands where I can see them.”
The two other cops instantly yielded to instinct, the one by the garage imitating Joe, and Mark, still in his car, turning on the spotlight by his outside mirror and shining it on the van.
All three saw Gino’s pale blur as he ducked down behind the wheel, fired up his engine, and stamped on the accelerator, clipping the car ahead of him as he spun out of his parking space.
But Mark had anticipated him. As the van emerged into the street, its rear tires squealing, the bodyguard drove his car like a battering ram against the other man’s rear quarter panel, throwing the van into a skid and causing its own momentum to propel it into a utility pole, where it stopped with a metal-crunching thud.
As Joe and the other cop ran toward the wreck, and Mark piled out of his car, his gun out, Gino stumbled from the van on the far side and began running, limping badly, in the opposite direction.
In his hand was a semiautomatic, clearly visible under the streetlight.
All three officers rounded the crashed cars at the same time and stood for a brief moment, lined up as at the range.
“Gino Famolare. Stop where you are,” Joe shouted, some twenty yards away.
His back to them, Gino stopped, still holding the gun.
“Put the gun down, kick it away, get on your knees, and lock your hands behind your head,” Joe ordered.
Instead, Gino turned around. The gun was still pointed at the ground. All three cops spread out as Joe repeated, “Put the gun down-now.”
But everyone knew what was going to happen, turning what followed into a ritualistic suicide. Gino brought his gun hand up, fired once in Joe’s direction, and immediately collapsed in a fusillade of bullets. He lay still and crumpled in the ear-ringing silence, faintly shrouded by a pale gray mist of gun smoke delivered by the cool, barely perceptible evening breeze. A thick rivulet of blood began to leak toward the gutter from under him.
Chapter 27
Sammie Martens walked up to Joe outside Gail’s condo. There were vehicles everywhere, supplying enough flashing strobes to satisfy a parade marshal, from the initial responders to the post-shoot investigators to the crime scene techs and the arson guys. This last group had been called in to remove all the incendiaries Gino had planted throughout Gail’s house.