Fire and Bones (Temperance Brennan #23)

Chapter 28

CHAPTER 28

The Durango rolled up precisely at seven.

“Good morning, detective.” The day promised to be sunny. I vowed that I would be, too.

Half nodding, Deery hooked a thumb toward two cups bearing the little green Starbucks logo.

“I’ve made a breakthrough,” I said, wiggling the closest coffee free of its center console holder.

“As have I.”

Though bursting to share my news, I let Deery go first.

“A judge granted a warrant allowing me access to W-C Commerce.” The man came as close to effusive as I believe he was capable.

“The holding company that owns the two Foggy Bottom properties that were torched.”

“W-C stands for Warring-Clock.”

That surprised me. I thought the second initial would turn out to represent Warring’s associate, Bill Cady.

I lifted the small flap on the cup’s plastic lid and took a tentative sip. Flinched as the scalding liquid touched my lip.

Clock. Where had I heard that name?

Before my brain could cough up an answer, Deery provided one.

“Amon Clock was a Warring henchman who went by the nickname Alarm.”

“Yes! Alarm Clock dated a woman named Doris Gardner.” Disparate data bytes were toggling in my brain. “Gardner was killed during a shoot-out between Clock and a rival bootlegger.”

“Mmm.” Dismissive? “The relevant fact is that the sole living partner in W-C Commerce is Lloyd Emmitt Warring.”

“Lew. The man gunned down in his driveway last week.”

“The fires. The shooting. It’s become clear that someone is targeting the Warrings. What remains unclear is the reason. When I get to the why, I will get to the who.”

“I may have made a breakthrough with regard to motive.”

Deery regarded me with a face locked into skeptical angles.

“Doris Gardner died in 1944, leaving behind two daughters, Susan, age eight, and Sally, age six. In 1954, Susan Gardner married a man named Roger Lipsey. In 1961, the Lipseys had a daughter, Marilyn. Marilyn Lipsey married a man named Fenton Stoll and, in 1983, gave birth to your favorite twins, Roy and Ronan.”

“You know this how?”

I told him about the Lipsey-Stoll wedding announcement and my subsequent online research. One brow lifted slightly. In surprise? Approval?

“Doris is the great-grandmother of Ronan and Roy.” Deery grasped the link right away.

“Yes.”

“The twins who maintain a rather casual relationship with the truth.”

“Yes.”

“Susan Lipsey is their grandmother.”

“And their alibi.”

“Are you suggesting the arson and the drive-by are connected to Doris Gardner’s murder eighty years ago?”

“I’m suggesting they could be.”

“In your scenario, who is the doer?”

I shrugged. Who knows?

A moment of silence, then Deery’s eyes went needle thin. “I’m looking forward to our little talk with GrammaSue.”

Our?

Don’t read too much into that, Brennan .

Deery did his measured walk-through to get the car moving. Then we were off to Mount Airy.

Knowing that the drive would take forever with Detective Drag-ass at the wheel, I pulled out my cellphone to pass the time. A bit of googling produced several interesting factoids.

Mount Airy, Maryland, lies roughly sixty miles north of DC and thirty-five miles west of Baltimore. Its main street—not surprisingly called Main Street—straddles the Carroll and Frederick County lines. The town has a population just under ten thousand. The little burg exists due to its elevation.

Explanation. In 1830, when the B&O Railroad was attempting to connect the cities of Baltimore and Frederick, engineers concluded that a nearby ridge was too high for trains to navigate. The lines were laid two miles to the south and, as a result, Mount Airy was born. The town’s name had something to do with cold wind chilling a brakeman’s ears.

By looping through a warren of sites and message boards, I got the sense that entering the twenty-first century wasn’t a popular idea with many Mount Airy residents. Nevertheless, all the usual players were present—Walmart, Safeway, TJMaxx. You get the picture. Keep my burg quaint but assure me discount pickles and sandals.

We’d just crossed into Maryland when my mobile buzzed in my hand.

“Dr. Thacker,” I answered, seeing the name on caller ID. “How can I help you?”

“I got tox results back on the four Foggy Bottom DOAs. Thought you might be interested.”

“Definitely.” I meant it. But I was also suspicious of Thacker’s real motive for calling. Did she have additional cases in need of external review? A desire for written reports on the files I’d already read?

“I’ll keep this brief. Hill was clean. Not so much as an aspirin.”

“The young Canadian woman.”

“Yes. Green and Star both had traces of coke and high blood alcohol levels. El-Aman had alcohol and Xanax on board.”

“Wasn’t el-Aman Muslim?”

“When the cat’s away, as the saying goes.”

“No wonder they all slept through the fire.”

“All except Hill.”

“Right.” Thacker had allowed me to listen to a recording of the girl’s desperate 911 call. It still broke my heart to imagine the terror of her last moments.

“Unless there’s something else you need, I’ll be releasing the bodies today,” Thacker said.

“The families will be pleased.”

“Anything more on the subcellar remains?”

“I’m waiting for a call back from a colleague in Virginia.”

“The genetic genealogist?”

“Yes.”

“Here’s hoping that doesn’t blow too big a hole in my budget.”

“Thanks for the update,” I said.

Though I knew Deery had been listening—stilled movement, lowered breathing—he kept his eyes on the road, his questions to himself.

The address Roy provided took us to an elm- and poplar-shaded block two turns off Main Street and not far from Mount Airy’s small downtown area. A mix of old brick bungalows and older one- and two-story frame houses lined both sides. An auto repair shop took up part of the far end on the southeast corner.

Deery pulled to the curb beside a cop’s old tried-and-true. A fire hydrant.

The sun was beaming, the day growing warm. Only a few bits of gray fluff marred an otherwise flawless blue sky.

So why the cold prickle spreading across my skin?

Apprehension? Déjà vu?

Ignoring this most recent of my hindbrain’s curious alerts, I focused on Susan Lipsey’s home.

It was another Victorian, similar to the one that had burned in Foggy Bottom. Same fish-scale shingled roof. Same recessed and spindled second-story niches. Same high-peaked gables. Same round corner tower topped with turret and finial. The color scheme here was mustard and brown.

A wide front porch stretched the breadth of the first floor, ending in a roofed gazebo on the far right. Through leaf-plastered screening, I saw stacked lawn furniture and a collection of empty terra-cotta pots.

I followed Deery up a walkway bordered by thick, thistly bushes and climbed a balustraded staircase to a glossy brown front door. The buzzer made a tinny bleating sound when encouraged by Deery’s thumb. No bonging church bells for GrammaSue.

A very short wait, then a muted voice, deep and raspy, posed the anticipated question.

“Who’s there?”

“Police, Mrs. Lipsey. Please open up.”

To my surprise, a dead bolt shicked , the lever handle dived, and the door swung in on its chain.

The woman was tall and, despite her advanced years, well-muscled in a loose, fleshy way. Her hair was snowy, her skin so pale it seemed almost translucent. She had no brows or lashes, but several long white hairs corkscrewed from her corrugated upper lip.

A shapeless apricot housecoat draped her large frame, flattering as a hospital gown on a corpse. A pocket in a side hem bulged with a collection of items whose purpose I could only imagine. Phone? Keys? Inhaler? Stanley Cup?

Crimson polish added color to the woman’s nails. Neon blue and orange HOKAs added inches to her already impressive height.

“ID?” she demanded through the narrow space she’d created.

Deery badged her.

The woman read the shield, smoke drifting across her face from an unfiltered Camel squeezed between the knobby fingers of one blue-veined hand. After mumbling words I didn’t catch, she closed the gap, disengaged the chain, and opened the door wide.

“You are Mrs. Susan Lipsey?” Deery asked.

“Not sure that’s your business.” Defiant.

Deery’s face went stony.

“The boys said you’d be comin’ to grill me.” Though red-rimmed and watery, Lipsey’s eyes were the same gold-flecked hazel as those of her grandsons.

“May we come in?” Deery asked.

“I got a choice?” Welcoming as a straight-arm.

“No.”

“You carryin’ any airborne viruses I can catch? Covid? RSV?”

“No, ma’am.”

“At my age, you gotta be careful.”

“Of course.”

Lipsey dropped then crushed her Camel with one well-cushioned heel, then bent to scoop the butt into her palm. Taking one backward step, she indicated that we could enter.

I noted that she didn’t question my role. Assumed my presence had been part of the boys’ heads-up.

The air inside smelled of decades of fried food. Of laundry left too long in a washer.

Just beyond the door, a three-panel gilt-framed mirror leaned at a cockeyed angle against a baseboard, either fallen from a wall or waiting to be hung. While passing, I caught triptych snapshots of myself. White jeans. Chambray shirt. OluKai sandals. Anxious face.

The décor was a gloomy affair, all somber wallpapers, carpets, and drapes. Heavy brass fixtures overhead, dark hardwoods underfoot, here and there covered by a threadbare area rug. I knew that signs of wear could indicate carpets with history and value. These sad puppies just looked old.

Pocket treasures clanking and rustling, sneakers squeaking like an athlete’s crossing a gym, Lipsey led us down a hall to a solarium pooching out from the rear of the first floor. The small sunroom had top-to-bottom windows on three sides, a cathedral ceiling, a black-and-white tile floor. A jungle of vegetation waterfalled from hanging baskets and blossomed from freestanding pots.

Deery and I dropped into wicker armchairs, once white, now dead fish gray, the pattern on their cushions faded and unrecognizable. Lipsey sat on the matching sofa.

I’ve picked up certain competencies over the years. Horticulture and gardening are not among them. I could identify philodendra, pothos, and Boston ferns, all species I’d killed in the course of my lifetime. The remaining flora was a mystery to me.

Early-morning sunlight filtered gently through the grime-coated glass. The air carried a pleasant earthy scent.

Until Lipsey dug her pack of Camels from the pocket jumble, slid a book of matches from beneath the cellophane, and lit up. The acrid mix of nicotine, carbon monoxide, and tar soon overrode the aromas of greenery and moist soil.

“May I record our conversation?” Deery asked, waggling his phone.

“You’re assumin’ we’ll have one.”

“Is that consent, Mrs. Lipsey?”

No response.

“Ma’am?”

Eyes hard, the old woman quipped, “You tell me.”

Though in her late eighties, it was clear that Susan Lipsey wouldn’t be short-listing herself for a retirement home anytime soon.

Deery glared at the old woman.

Lipsey glared back.

As per Deery’s directive, I continued to hold my tongue.

For a very long moment, silence filled the small space, punctured only by Lipsey’s wheezy breathing and a rhythmic ticking.

Tic.

Tic.

Tic .

My eyes ran a quick circuit. Noted water dripping from a hanging fern into a plastic container below.

Tic.

Tic

Tic.

“May I begin, ma’am?” Deery engaged the recorder on his phone.

Lipsey raised the Camel’s burning tip upright. Eyes crimped, she watched the red glow nibble tobacco and paper.

“I’m here about a fire that took place in the Foggy Bottom area of Washington, DC,” Deery began, voice flat.

Lipsey took a deep drag. Exhaled slowly. Focused on the pale gray cone she’d sent into the air.

Why the hostility? I wondered. Did the old woman’s animosity stem from a general distrust of law enforcement? Or, like her grandsons, was Susan Lipsey hiding something?

“When?” she asked, rheumy eyes fixed on the cloud disintegrating in front of her face.

“When what?” Like the smoke, Deery’s patience was disappearing fast.

“When do you know when you’ve had enough? Done enough?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t understand.”

“Is it just before you succeed? Just after?”

“I’d like—” Deery started.

“Ask me. It’s right before the reaper takes to eyeballing your ass. And lately, I feel his crosshairs on mine.”

Lipsey flicked the remains of her cigarette toward the fern’s catch basin. The butt hit the water with a soft hiss .

“So. It’s your lucky day, detective. I’m gonna give it to you straight.”

What followed shocked me to the core.