“What do you mean,” I said, my temperature rising, “ someone close to me?”
“Mine to know, doc, yours to worry about. The kid was sick, right? Why don’t we just leave it at that. And speaking of sick, let me ask. You smoke, doc?”
I was about to hang up but answered, seething, “No, I don’t smoke.”
“That’s funny then,” he said, “ ’cause I definitely smell something burning. Don’t you?”
The guy’s voice had this cozy, insinuating sort of tone to it, which actually scared me a little. “Don’t call me again, asshole.”
“ ’Cause it would be easy-you don’t know how easy-,” he went on, “to just burn that little nose of yours right off, any time we want. Remember, doc, you’re out west, not back in New York. Once a fire starts here, you never know how fast it might spread. Or to where.”
I put down the phone, my heart pounding, anger pouring out of me.
I definitely smell something burning. Don’t you?
I jumped up, a sudden alarm shooting through me. I ran to the door and pulled it open, stepping out into the corridor outside. I scanned in both directions, toward the lobby and the parking lot.
No one.
What the hell did he mean?
Then I looked down, my blood rushing to a stop. I saw what was on the mat.
Smell something burning?
It was a lit, half-smoked cigarette.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
T hirty minutes later I handed the cigarette to Don Sherwood.
I had carefully picked it up-a Salem-put it out, and placed it in a bag from my Dopp kit. Then I called Sherwood, who alerted the Pismo Beach police, who arrived minutes later, lights flashing, along with a detective named Reyes.
“You wanted something real,” I said, handing it to Sherwood. “Here- this is real! Go to town!”
The threatening call had come from an untraceable number. I had checked with the front desk before I’d even called Sherwood. The motel had security cameras, mostly on the stairwells, but the one on my outside corridor was on the fritz. It hadn’t even been turned on. The night manager said they hadn’t needed to look at them in years.
“How’re you doing?” Sherwood asked, taking me aside.
I was angry. Who wouldn’t be? And upset. “I’m not used to receiving these kinds of threats.”
“You want to file a complaint, Dr. Erlich, Detective Reyes will be happy to take it for you.”
“I don’t want to file a complaint!” I said. “What I want is for you to look into my nephew’s death. I told you what the guy said. He was warning me to back off. He referred to someone close to me who would be put in danger. You need a scorecard to figure who he meant by that? You need to put a car outside Charlie’s house. How much more ‘real’ does it have to get? Or maybe you just want to wait until he ends up like Evan. Or maybe next it’ll be me. ”
Sherwood just looked back and shrugged. “So maybe you oughta think on that advice,” he said. “There’s a lotta people around here you’ve already managed to piss off. Let’s start with the hospital. While we’re at it, why not toss in the local police? See what I mean? No telling who might’ve done this. I can’t just station a car. There wasn’t even a direct threat made against your brother. In the meantime”-he held up the bag-“Detective Reyes will take this back. Not that I’m particularly hopeful they’ll find anything.”
“How about Susan Pollack’s DNA?”
“I thought you said the caller was a man.”
“So someone else is involved.” I fixed on him. “You can’t keep ignoring this, Sherwood. Evan’s death wasn’t a suicide. You know it-I know it. Please, I’m begging you, station a car…”
He looked at me like his hands were tied.
“At least check Cooley and Greenway. You’ll find something. I know you will. Please, Sherwood, just do it. You’ll see.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
T he hotel switched my room to one closer to the lobby, with two police cars stationed below, and I slept with the door double-locked and the chain drawn-when I actually finally made it to sleep. I watched the clock strike two.
The next morning, I headed over to Charlie’s as soon as I showered.
Gabby opened the door. She was in a light green knitted tracksuit, stripes running down the sleeves. Her face seemed to have a new anxiety written all over it. “Come on in, Jay. Your brother’s not doing so well. Something happened last night. As if Evan is not enough
…”
My alarm bells started sounding. “ What? ”
I went with her inside. Charlie was slouched over the kitchen table, his face in his hands, his hair straggly and unkempt. He barely even stirred when he saw me. “Hello, Jay…”
“Your brother is a wreck,” Gabby said, “and so am I. How could someone do something like this? How is it possible someone could want to hurt us in this way…?”
“What happened, Gabby?” I knew already I wasn’t the only one who had been warned.
She opened the back door to their tiny fenced-in yard. There was a large plastic garbage bag set on the ground. Gabby’s face was pinched and somber. “Look, look what we found this morning…”
I hesitated for a second and peeked inside the bag.
“She’d been missing. We couldn’t find her for two days. I thought she had finally run off. That she had enough of us for good. I opened the front door to get the mail yesterday afternoon and this is what I found…”
The harsh, acrid smell told me immediately what was in there. I peered in, wincing at the charred, black shape.
“Who could do something so cruel, Jay? She didn’t harm anyone. The people here are filth. Drug dealers and meth heads. I am ashamed to have to live around them. People just want to hurt, that’s all! What have we done to deserve this?”
“The people here didn’t do this, Gabby.”
I closed the bag, my chest filling with both sadness and rage. My warning last night was suddenly clear. The butt on my front door.
I turned to my brother, his eyes dull and glazed. “There’s stuff you’re not telling me, Charlie.”
“What do you want, Jay? What do you want me to say?”
Gabby stepped in. “Your brother is a mess,” she said. “He cannot tell you anything today. He’s been irrational all morning. The grief has done this to him. I tried to give him his medications to calm him down, but he won’t take them. Isn’t that right, Charlie? Tell him.”
He had a glint in his eye. “The people here are animals, Jay.”
“He says he wants to leave.” Gabby went over and sat next to Charlie. “He says he wants to go to Canada or someplace.” She laughed derisively. “He is really crazy today. He thinks the devil is loose here. In Pismo Beach. Have you ever heard anything so stupid in your life? I keep telling him, we can’t leave. We can’t go anywhere in this godforsaken world. We’re stuck in this miserable, empty hole for the rest of our lives…”
“Gabby, please…” I went and sat down across from Charlie. His wild gray hair and beard were stained from the tears on his face. “The people here didn’t do this, Charlie. I think you know that, and that’s what’s made you scared.”
“Scared? Who wouldn’t be scared, Jay? We’re all going to hell. And you know who’s the first person we’ll
