Save Me (24 page)

Chapter Fifty-six

Rose hit the gas, with Warren in the passenger seat. He’d changed into slacks and a fresh polo shirt, which he’d had with him for night school, and he’d shaved in the school’s men’s room. She could see, in the light, that he was older than she’d thought, maybe thirty-five. Or maybe it was the grim set to his jaw, as if he were gearing up for the task ahead. They were in rush-hour traffic on the bucolic back roads out of Reesburgh, heading to Campanile’s headquarters, near West Chester.

“Okay, so what’s the plan?” Warren asked, looking over.

“Let’s review, okay?” Rose wasn’t sure what to do next. “We can’t know where we’re going if we don’t know where we’ve been.”

“That’s deep.”

“You’re telling me. I just learned it.” Rose smiled. “Now, Kurt thought that polyurethane left in the teachers’ lounge contributed to the explosion, but he was killed before I could ask him how. So far I’ve heard a few different reasons for the explosion, like faulty wiring, a gas leak, and a punch list not done. What have you heard?”

“The same thing, except for the punch list. Punch lists never get done, and nothing explodes.”

“So what caused the explosion?”

Warren shrugged. “The fire marshals’ report won’t come out for weeks, and that’s what the lawsuits will be about, and all that.”

“So let’s try to figure it out, ourselves. You’re an expert, and I’m a … mom.”

Warren smiled crookedly. “You’re kinda nutty, lady.”

Rose smiled back. She slowed, passing an Amish man driving a buggy, his head tilted down and only his beard visible under the brim of his straw hat. “We have an advantage. They think it’s accidental, and we don’t.”

“Okay.”

“So how exactly do you make an explosion with gas, loose wires, and cans of polyurethane?”

Warren looked over. “Where did you say the poly was?”

“The polyurethane? In the teachers’ lounge.” Rose thought back to her conversation with Kristen. “Somebody shellacked the cabinets on Thursday, the day before the explosion, and left it there. That seems odd to me.”

“Why?”

“Shellacking cabinets is the kind of thing they do before you move in, that’s what we did at my new house, and it was already done in the lounge, I saw a photo. Why do the cabinets need a second coat, all of a sudden? It was a month after school opened.”

Warren nodded slowly. “The teachers eat in there?”

“Some, yes.”

Warren wrinkled his nose. “That would stink.”

“It did, and that’s what I thought.” Rose thought again of Kristen. They whizzed by horse pastures with run-in sheds, and hand-painted signs advertising Halloween hay rides and corn mazes. “The lounge reeked of it, and there were WET PAINT signs everywhere.”

“That’s interesting.”

“Why?”

“The poly would have hidden any gas smell.”

Rose looked over, her ears pricking up. “So if a bad guy knew he was going to make a gas leak, he might shellac some cabinets to mask the odor.”

“Right.”

“How do you make a gas leak? Is that hard?”

“No, easy. The gas leaked in the wall between the kitchen and the lounge, and there was a big three-quarter-inch pipe there. I know, I cleaned up the debris. If somebody got into the building on Thursday or Thursday night, they could give the gas valve in the wall a quarter turn.”

“Wouldn’t that show, a hole in the wall?” Rose asked, as the country scenery gave way to a concrete ramp, heading to Route 202, going north.

“Not if it was behind a cabinet or an appliance. Gas would leak out, but nobody would smell it because of the poly, and they’d also get desensitized to it.”

Rose remembered Kurt telling her the same thing, about being desensitized. “So let’s say the bad guy shellacked the cabinets to hide the gas smell. How does the wall explode?”

“He needs a spark to make an explosion.” Warren frowned, in thought.

“Wouldn’t the loose wiring provide a spark?”

“It could, but not for sure.” Warren shook his head. “It’s not necessarily a live spark.”

“So what causes a live spark in a wall?”

“The spark didn’t have to be in the wall. The poly was in the teachers’ lounge, so the spark could have been in the teachers’ lounge. An appliance could do it, or the oven.”

Rose thought a minute. The Kristenburgers. “How about a microwave?”

“Yes. They could have rigged the micro to spark.”

“How?”

Warren looked over. “Ever put tinfoil in a microwave? You get live sparks, blue flashes, the whole nine.”

“No, tinfoil wouldn’t have worked. The teacher would have seen it.”

“Not if it was hidden inside the micro, like in the plastic part on top.” Warren’s brown eyes came to life. “Here we go, I got it. On Thursday, you shellac the cabinets and leave the poly out. It stinks. Then on Thursday night, when nobody’s around, you hide tinfoil in the microwave, turn a valve in the gas pipe, and loosen the wiring in the wall. An electrician could do all those things in fifteen minutes.”

“Okay.”

“Then, you leave the caps on the poly open a little, so the fumes leak into the micro. Nobody can tell because it stinks anyway, and you put up the signs.”

Rose was confused. “But how do fumes leak
into
a microwave?”

“They drift in.”

“I thought microwaves were closed, sealed.”

“No, they’re not. A spark in the micro, with poly fumes inside, would cause an explosion, and if the gas had been leaking in the wall, from a big, three-quarter-inch pipe, it would go
boom
!” Warren made an explosion with his thick fingers.

“What’s the loose wiring have to do with it? Isn’t that overkill?” Rose thought a minute, answering her own question. “Wait, maybe not.”

“Why not?”

“Because that would show up later, when the fire marshals come in. In other words, if you want to make it look like an accident, you need an innocent cause, like faulty wiring.” Rose felt astounded. It all made sense. “Like you said, a wire could spark, but you’re not sure enough. So it’s an explanation, but not a reliable-enough cause.”

“True.” Warren nodded, shifting forward. “An electrician could do all of this, easy. If he worked the job, he could have a key. Or somebody else would, like one of the higher-ups. Hell, Campanile is the GC, and they hire the guy who installs the damn locks.”

“Right.” Rose hadn’t thought of that. “So we need to know the electrical sub and the electrical crew that Campanile used on the job, and we take it from there.”

“How are you gonna get that?”

“I’m not, you are.”

“Me?” Warren looked at her like she was nuts. “How?”

“You’re a carpenter, right?”

“All my life. My dad was one.”

“Okay, so let’s say you could be looking for a job, at Campanile.” Rose accelerated. She booked it because it was already 4:15 and they had to get to Campanile before closing time. “You go in, apply for a job, and get the info in an informal way. In conversation.”

“How?”

“You can do it.” Rose looked over. “You look the part because you
are
the part, and you’re not from here, so you can ask a lot of questions without seeming suspicious. Where are you from, with your accent?”

“Arlington, Texas.”

“Can you ham it up a little?”

“Sure thang, ma’am,” Warren answered, slyly. “What’re my lines?”

“Say you’re from Texas and you think big. You need a new job and you want to start at the top, with the best. You heard Campanile was the best, stuff like that.”

“Kiss some ass.”

Rose nodded. “Say you need a new job, you want to move up. You want to work for Campanile and become—what’s it called, what you would be?”

“I’d love to be project manager.”

“Great. Does Campanile have project managers?”

“Sure. But I bet they promote from within.”

“Well, let them say that. Tell them you’re new to the area, so you don’t know any of the subcontractors, but you can work with anybody.”

“Should I mention Reesburgh?”

“No, I’d leave that out. I don’t want them connecting you with the fire at all.”

“But I have to get them to talk about subs on the Reesburgh job.”

“You can’t go about it directly.” Rose glanced over as the car whizzed along. “Wait. Listen. Subcontractors are important, right?”

“Sure.” Warren cocked his head, listening. “The finished job is only as good as the subs.”

“Exactly. Say that, and say you’re good at managing subs and getting them to do their best work. Tell some dumb story of a sub you managed in Texas.”

“I didn’t.”

“Make it up.” Rose didn’t know if this plan broke her lie diet, but she wasn’t the one lying. “Drop the names of some subs in Arlington, ask if they work with good subs, then bring the conversation around to electrical subs, then maybe you can get a name of an electrician or two on the job. How many could there have been? Not that many. Think you can do it?”

“Yes.” Warren straightened up.

“They’re big, so they might have a human resources person. If they don’t know who the subs are, you might have to get through that interview to somebody who does, like somebody not in administration.”

“I thought of that already. I’ll say I want to talk to somebody who’s been in the field. I’ll say I flew up here and don’t want to leave until I see somebody tonight.”

“Okay, good.” Rose felt a wave of worry for him. “If you can’t get them to say it, then just leave. Don’t do anything to arouse their suspicion. If they came after Kurt, they could come after you.”

“Let ’em try.” Warren lifted an eyebrow. “I’m from Texas.”

Chapter Fifty-seven

Rose slouched down in the driver’s seat, pretending to read her BlackBerry, though she could barely see the screen through her sunglasses. Warren had gone into Campanile headquarters at 4:50, and it was 5:45. It meant he had probably gotten to the second interviewer, but she was beginning to worry. She prayed she hadn’t gotten him into anything dangerous.

She’d parked the car in the last row of the lot, where it couldn’t be seen from the entrance, and kept an eye on the entrance in the rearview mirror, waiting for him to appear. The Campanile offices were in a typical corporate center: low-profile buildings with fieldstone façades and smoked-glass windows. Each company had its own signed parking lot, and there were dried cornstalks tied to the CAMPANILE sign, next to a hay bale and a gigantic pumpkin.

Rose watched as Campanile employees filed in a steady stream from the front doors, wearing white ID tags around their necks, talking, laughing, and lighting up cigarettes. Everybody went to their cars, chirping them unlocked on the way, like so many corporate crickets. It was mostly women in the beginning, then a mixed group later, many of the men in navy-blue Campanile polo shirts, carrying clipboards with navy covers or navy messenger bags that read THE CAMPANILE GROUP.

Rose had the driver’s side window open because it was hot and she didn’t want to keep the engine running, drawing attention to herself. The breeze carried some of the employees’ conversations, and she caught snippets of some: “I told you not to email him, just call, Sue. He owes you an explanation.” And, “We need to move the staircase, relocate it on the south side. Problem solved.” And, “Run the numbers, Don. Do the math!”

Rose checked the rearview again, and two men in suits came out, one short and bald, and the other with dark hair and a massive build, maybe six-two and two hundred and fifty pounds. The big one struck her as familiar, but she didn’t know where she knew him. He walked down the steps, bending to talk with the man, their conversation too low to hear.

She tried to place the big man as he walked toward a car. His suit jacket blew open in the breeze, showing a major paunch and something else. A gun, in a shoulder holster. She blinked, startled. She had seen him before, but she couldn’t place him at all. The big man raised his key fob and unlocked a navy-blue SUV that read THE CAMPANILE GROUP on the side door.

Rose stayed low, racking her brain. She hadn’t seen the big man at school. She would remember somebody that tall because she was tall. Where had she met him? At a party? She wasn’t invited to parties. On the street? She didn’t live here. She didn’t know anybody at Campanile. She’d never heard of the company until the fire.

Suddenly, the bald man stopped by his car and turned back, calling to the big man. “Hey, Mojo!” he yelled, and the big man turned.

“What?”

“I take it back. Thursday’s better!”

The big man waved, acknowledging him, then got into his SUV.

Mojo?

Rose didn’t know any Mojo. It was obviously a nickname. She grabbed her phone and thumbed to the photo function as the man reversed in the SUV, then put it in drive and drove past her. As he went by, she snapped his photo, saved it, then hit ZOOM to enlarge it and studied the man’s face. He looked so familiar. Long nose, dark hair, huge build.

Rose remembered how she’d recognized him. She’d seen him last night, on one of the videos she’d watched, from Tanya’s TV station. She thumbed to the Internet on her phone, plugged in the website for the TV station, and pressed until she got to stories about the fire. She found the link for Tanya’s “More on Moms” interview of Eileen Gigot, then pressed PLAY. She sat through the opening about single moms, then the story segued to the boilerplate about the Homestead factory. The photo of some men came onto the screen, and one of them stood much taller than the others.

She pressed STOP. The man in the photo looked like Mojo, but the screen was too small to read his full name. She didn’t know if it mattered, but she didn’t have time to think about it now.

Warren was walking toward her car.

Chapter Fifty-eight

“You made it, thank God.” Rose unlocked the door, and Warren eased his large frame into the passenger seat and sat down.

“Here’s the deal. I gotta tell you, I think we were wrong.”

“What do you mean?” Rose could hear a change in his tone, and his blue eyes had cooled. She started the engine. “What happened? What’d they do?”

“Nothing. I went in, talked to the HR lady, and filed out an ap. She told me Campanile has no jobs right now. They promote PMs from within.”

“PMs? Project managers?” Rose reversed out of the space, then cruised to the exit behind the other cars.

“Yes. I said I wanted to talk to somebody in the field, and they were all hanging out in the hallway, all nice guys, so she pulled one of ’em in. Chip McGlynn. I sat down with him, one-on-one. Take a left up here.” Warren pointed. “If you’ll drop me off at the train, I can still make my class. They told me the train station is on Lancaster Avenue. They even offered to drop me off.”

“Did he tell you who the electrical sub was, on the school?”

“No, he didn’t know the job, and I didn’t press it.”

“He didn’t know?” Rose left the parking lot after the other cars. “He’s a guy in the field, and he didn’t know about a job in the news?”

“To tell the truth, I think he did know, but he didn’t want to say. I get that. Lots of big-time GCs keep quiet about which subs they use. It’s like a trade secret.”

“You didn’t say that before.” Rose frowned, driving.

“No, but once I sat down with him, and saw the operation, and how sweet the offices are, and met Chip and the guys, it’s ridiculous to think they could murder anybody.”

“You can’t tell that from—”

“They even told me they’d give me the first job that came up, then move me up to PM if I make the grade. And if they call, I’ll take it.”

“You’d
work
for them?” Rose asked, surprised. “But they could be—”

“They got this thing they call the Wall of Fame, with tons of awards from every building association you can name, and some from the state, too. They get the big jobs.”

“But what about Kurt and Hank? The driving?”

“I can’t explain it, but there’s a lot of things that people do I can’t explain. I can tell you for sure, Chip and those guys didn’t kill them, or blow up an elementary school.” Warren shrugged his heavy shoulders. “They got photos of their kids everywhere. They sponsor a softball team, and for Make a Wish, they gave a little boy from Allentown a ride on a cherry picker.”

“But Kurt said they left the polyurethane.”

“Not exactly. He said,
somebody
left poly in the lounge, and I tell you, that’s not on purpose. It happens all the time. The average laborer, he’s a pig.”

Rose flashed on Mojo. “One of their guys carries a gun. I saw it.”

“He’s probably in security, or carries payroll or petty cash. People have guns, and it doesn’t mean they’re bad guys. Hell, my dad has two rifles in his truck, and he’s honest as they come.”

“This guy doesn’t look like he carries petty cash. He was an executive, with a tie. His name’s Mojo.”

“Mojo?” Warren’s eyes lit up. “I just met him. He’s a
great
guy. He’s their security guy. Joe Modjeska.”

Rose made a mental note of the name. “What do you mean, security guy?”

“Mojo’s the Director of Security. That’s why he carries. He shoots a sixty-three.”

Rose recoiled. “He shoots who?”

“No, in golf. He shoots a sixty-three. He won the celebrity golf tournament. Cole Hamel was in it, and Werth, too. Mojo told me he’d get me tickets, next year.” Warren looked as excited as a little boy. “I love the Phils!”

“Me, too, but Mojo isn’t with the Phils.” Rose turned onto Lancaster Avenue. “So they won you over.”

“No, I got a reality check.” Warren’s tone stiffened. “You should just forget the whole thing.”

“Do you think they manipulated you, intentionally?”

“Why would they? They don’t know who I am. I didn’t mention Reesburgh.”

Rose fell silent, cruising up the street, congested in front of the Dunkin’ Donuts, a bank, and a Starbucks. “Why does a construction firm need a Director of Security? Isn’t that strange?”

“Not at all. You know how much theft goes on at job sites? People steal everything they can carry. Materials like copper piping, generators, drills, any tools at all. We’re not big enough at Bethany Run to have a guy like that, but Campanile is.”

Rose tried to imagine it. “So Mojo would travel around and visit the Campanile sites, to check on security?”

“Yes, sure.”

“That means he would have access to all the sites, at any time. He’d even have keys.”

Warren put up his hands. “Stop, wait, don’t get carried away again.”

“He could have rigged the microwave or put the poly in the lounge.”

“That’s crazy.” Warren scoffed. “He’d never do that, and he’s not an electrician; he’s a guy at the top. I loved Kurt and Hank like they were my brothers, but I don’t think anybody murdered them.”

“I do.” Rose felt a shudder run up her spine, saying it out loud.

“Wrong. Kurt made a bad choice, and Hank wasn’t thinking, and they’re both gone now. Nothing can bring them back, and no sense can be made of their deaths.” Warren pointed to the left side of the street. “There’s the station.”

“Well, thanks for the assist.” Rose turned into the parking lot.

“You’re welcome.” Warren got out of the car, took out his duffel bag, and looked at her. “You’re not gonna let it go, are you?”

Rose thought of Leo, saying the same thing. “I can never let it go.”

“Suit yourself. Stay well.”

“You, too.” Rose watched him go, wondering what to do next. She was thinking about Mojo and his gun, and she needed to know more. She slid out her phone, logged onto the Internet, and plugged Joseph Modjeska into Google. There was a page of entries, and she clicked on the first link:

Break-In at Corporate Center

“… Director of Security Joe Modjeska said that he was pleased that the Campanile’s offices weren’t burglarized, and all of their laptops were…”

She clicked and read a few more mentions, but they were all press releases, followed by photos of Mojo at the celebrity golf tournament, with Justin Timberlake and Charles Barkley. She scrolled backwards in time and came upon the press release that announced Mojo’s hiring:

Campanile CEO Ralph Wenziger is pleased to announce the hiring of Joe Modjeska as the company’s new Director of Security. Wenziger stated, “Joe comes to us with enormous expertise, having spent the past four years at the Maryland Occupational Safety & Health Administration in Baltimore, Maryland…”

She looked at the date on the press release. It was less than six months ago, which meant that Mojo was new to Campanile. It seemed odd. She hadn’t gotten the idea from Warren that Mojo was a new hire. She navigated to whitepages.com, typed in his name, and found his address.

837 Hummingbird Lane Malvern, PA

Rose plugged it into her GPS system and hit START.