Block Lawrence - Hit and Run стр 29.

He settled in behind the wheel, made himself comfortable, and started in on the paper. He never did get to the crossword puzzle.

16

He almost missed the real story.

It was on the third page of the second section. Arson, Murder Found in White Plains Fire, the headline announced, and it was White Plains that caught his eye. If it had been less specific and said Westchester instead he might have skipped right past it, but hed been to White Plains countless times, first to see the old man and then to see Dot. Hed catch the train at Grand Central and a cab from the station, and hed sit drinking iced tea on the wraparound front porch of the big old house on Taunton Place, or in the cozy kitchen. So he read about the fire in White Plains, and knew shortly that he wouldnt be going there again, because there was no more house, no more porch, no more kitchen. No more Dot.

Evidently there had been a story in yesterdays paper, which of course he hadnt seen. But earlier Monday, he thought, though it could have been Sunday, it wasnt all that clear earlier, he read, a fire had broken out in the early morning hours, raging out of control before firefighters could arrive on the scene, and consuming virtually all of the century-old house right down to its foundation.

The fire had begun in the kitchen, which was where theyd found the charred body of the householder and sole resident, identified by neighbors as Dorothea Harbison. Investigators had suspected arson immediately, attributing the all-consuming fury of the blaze to the liberal use of an accelerant throughout the residence. Initially it seemed at least possible that Ms. Harbison had set the fire herself; neighbors described her as quiet and reclusive and thought shed shown signs of depression in recent months.

Keller wanted to argue with them, whoever they were. Reclusive? She didnt suffer fools or share her personal business with the world, but that didnt make her some goddam cat lady, wearing the same old flannel nightgown until it fell apart. Signs of depression? What signs of depression? She didnt go around giggling, but hed never known her to be genuinely depressed, and she was about as suicidal as Mary Fucking Poppins.

But there was no longer a question of suicide, the story continued, because a medical examination revealed that the woman had been shot twice in the head with a small-caliber handgun. The wounds were not consistent with suicide no kidding, thought Keller nor was the handgun found at the scene, which led investigators to conclude that the woman had been shot to death and the fire set to conceal the crime.

But it

didnt work, did it? Keller said out loud. Fucking idiots.

He forced himself to read the rest of it. The motive for the murder was obscure, according to the Times , although police were not ready to rule out robbery. An unnamed police source was able to identify Dorothea Harbison as the former companion and caretaker of the late Giuseppe Ragone, aka Joe the Dragon , during the long years of his retirement from the world of organized crime.

As far as Keller knew, no one outside of the tabloid press had ever called the old man Joe the Dragon. There were people who referred to him, though never to his face, as Joey Rags, or the Ragman, because of the coincidence of his surname combined with his one-time involvement with a Garment District trucking local. Keller himself never thought of him or referred to him as anything other than the old man.

And the old man had never retired. Hed let go of a lot of his interests toward the end, but he was still brokering jobs and sending Keller out to take care of them right up to the very end.

As Joe the Dragons live-in companion and presumed confidante, the unnamed source went on, Harbison would have been privy to a lot of O.C. information. Maybe someone was afraid shed tell what she knew. Ragones been gone a long time, but what is it they say? Sooner or later the chickens come home to roost.

It was as pointless as anything he might have done, but he couldnt help himself. He dropped coins in a pay phone and dialed Dots number.

Coo-wheeeet!

Not a working number. Well, that was the truth, wasnt it? Burn a house to the ground and you had to expect an interruption in telephone service.

He got his quarters back and used them to call his own phone number, half expecting the same coo-wheeeet and the same recording. Instead he got a ring. His machine was set to pick up after two rings if he had messages and after four if he didnt, so that he could retrieve them from a distance while avoiding the toll if there were none to retrieve. He was surprised when it rang a third time, hed expected messages after this long an absence, and he was even more surprised when the phone went on to ring a fourth and a fifth and a sixth time, and might have gone on ringing forever if he hadnt ended the connection.

Why would it do that? He didnt have call-waiting, so it couldnt be that the machine was already handling a call. If that happened hed just get a busy signal.