The Thomas Blume Series

Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Smoke and taillights.

The next day started with good intentions. I dragged the files on my family into the office and reviewed them all again. There was nothing new, of course. They had died from the fire at the house. Sarah had been hit over the head first. No signs of rape or much of a struggle. Cloth under Tommy’s fingernails where it is assumed he fought off an attacker. Even at the age of ten, my son had been willing to die to protect his mom. My brave boy.

And where had I been when they had been killed right in their very own home? I knew the answer. It was one that disgusted me and that I had been living with ever since. It was the sole reason for the guilt I carried—the reason that going through these files was like having someone suffocate me as I read.

I’d been on the other side of the Atlantic.

When we first met, Sarah had been working as a journalist in New York for some low-rent rag. I remember thinking how different she was from the stereotypical reporter in my mind. And not just because she spoke with an English accent and carried a smile that could stop a man dead in his tracks.

Sarah moved with a passion and a power I had never seen before. A hunger for truth and a selflessness—or disregard for her own safety, depending on how you looked at it—that landed her in trouble more than once.

She first crossed my path when the DeMarco crime family was hit by a major sting operation involving the FBI, Homeland Security, and NYPD. Anthony DeMarco, along with three of his accomplices, had been arrested for money laundering. There were rumors of drugs and human trafficking mixed up in it all and Sarah was right there in the thick of it.

She was the one who convinced Tony’s former accountant to turn State’s evidence. She was the one in the crosshairs and the one publishing anonymous exposés of the mob activities, until the Feds stepped in.

There was enough of an angle for the average reporter to have a field day, but Sarah had to take it further. She wanted an inside view of what it was like to be part of the world, she wanted a story that wasn’t just another rewording of the police beat.

Somehow, she got her hands on contact information for a housekeeper who’d worked on the inside.

After the interview, Sarah told me how skittish the maid had been, scared she’d be punished for squealing, even though Sarah promised to keep her identity a secret. Both of them knew what the Jersey mob was capable of doing if they discovered they’d been crossed. Sarah shrugged her shoulders a week later when a dark sedan seemed to be following her footsteps.

“All part of the job,” she said. “I refuse to be intimidated into silence.”

Fair to say, I was hooked. We both came into contact with the dregs of society, but only one of us was armed and able to radio for backup in an instant.

When the tail didn’t quit, I made her promise to enroll in a self-defense class, and start carrying mace. When that didn’t work, I asked her out.

I’d once questioned why she continued chasing dangerous stories when many of her colleagues had traded for easier jobs back in the UK. Sarah simply smiled and told me, “If you can’t do the smart thing, do the right thing.”

What was the right thing to do here? Was I wasting my time by running halfway around the world to investigate her death? Ridiculous question. I had no option. Even if I wanted to return to New York, my thirst for revenge wouldn’t let me.

After grabbing a lunch of Pita and Falafel at Amir’s restaurant—partly because it was close, but mostly because it was free—I stayed in the office for nearly ten hours. I ran some research online, finding nothing new. I made notes, cross-referenced leads, and even tried creating a timeline of events on the day they had died.

Night came almost too quickly, and when I looked out to the streets and saw that it was dark already, an idea came to me. I shut down my computer, locked the office, and headed down through the closing restaurant. Amir seemed in good spirits with his staff. He didn’t even look skeptical when we spoke. Not once did he ask about my drinking or how I had slept. I must have looked better than when we’d lunched together.

I did feel better. Especially now that I had a steady idea in my head. The notion had nothing to do with my family’s case, but perhaps it would go some way to clearing my mind and setting me back on a motivated path.

I headed out to my old Toyota and drove around the block a few times scoping the neighborhood. When I returned to my street, I parked at the end, behind one of the neighbor’s cars and some large industrial dumpsters. I sat and ate some sandwiches I picked up at a gas station, looking to the mostly empty roads around me and hoping my plan would pay off.

The meandering, tight-knit London routes made it hard to see much in terms of oncoming traffic, but I was confident in my location. It had been a long time since I had been on a true stake-out—the Newham Inn didn’t really count—and it felt good to be back on the treadmill.

It took ninety long minutes before the woman’s car arrived. I’d forgotten how tedious stakeouts could be, but I had a hunch she would show up again. She’d come two nights in a row … so why not a third?

The Audi passed me and crept towards my apartment. She pulled to the curb twenty yards ahead of me and stepped out. The interior light of the car came on when she opened her door, the dim illumination revealed a few things. She appeared to be in her mid-to-late forties. She also wore a luxurious camel-coat that looked like it might be worth more than my ancient car. She had pretty blonde hair cut shoulder-length in a simple fashion. I didn’t see much of her face, just the taut line of her lips drawn down into something that wasn’t quite a frown. Sadness maybe.

She stepped up onto the sidewalk, headed for the alley running alongside my apartment. When she disappeared around the corner, I placed my hand on the door handle, ready to open it if I lost sight of her for more than half a minute.

But she was back within ten seconds, apparently having changed her mind yet again. Why had it been so easy for her to come to my door and knock two nights ago but now she found it harder? There were far too many questions, and I knew from experience it would only frustrate me to try to figure them out on my own.

Instead, I watched her walk back to her car, get inside, and sit for a moment. Her shoulders sagged, and her head bowed. After a while, she started her engine and pulled away. I let her get a good distance ahead before I rolled out slowly behind her. I kept three cars between us on the still-busy city roads and followed her Audi, watching the taillights flickering in the steady to-and-fro of my wiper blades.

Christ, is it ever dry here?

It had been a while since I had tailed anyone, but the old familiar rhythm kicked in easily. I let a few cars weave in and out between us as we headed north. She drove for twenty minutes before turning into a suburb lined with identical-looking houses.

She entered a cul-de-sac and turned into a driveway. I passed her as a garage opened and she parked inside. At the end of the road, I turned the car, keeping my eyes on her through the rearview, and wound back through the street. I maintained a comfortable speed, not wanting to draw her attention.

I passed her house, momentarily able to see her again, but only from the same side as before. Still, there was no doubt—I had never seen the woman before the first night she’d knocked on my door.

What the hell did she want with me?

It was a good question, but I wasn’t going to press it tonight. If she was somehow afraid to speak to me, I certainly didn’t want to go up to her door and ring the bell at this late an hour. I passed her house, taking note of the numbers on her door and the name of the street. As I did, my mind began to form the most basic semblance of a strategy.

Halfway back to my apartment I decided that some mental lubrication might help stitch a plan together.