Arsonist

CHAPTER 28

Stanton lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Though it was well past two in the morning, he couldn’t sleep. The rush of skydiving was still with him and he could hear the wind in his ears. His heart would start pounding again for no reason and he would get butterflies in his stomach. Also, his head and his back ached from the landing and he thought he had injured his knee.

He tried to sleep but the fatigue would only wash over him for so long before he would wake and stare at the ceiling again. He turned on some music, soft jazz, and drank a glass of warm milk.

It was eight in the morning when his cell phone woke him from a brief sleep. He was exhausted and thought about just turning it off, but decided to check. He was always worried about getting that call from his ex saying something was wrong with his boys.

The caller ID on his phone said, “NATHAN SELL.”

“This is Stanton.”

“Jon, it’s Nate, man. Get your ass up, I got something for you.”

“What is it?”

“Got a call about a homicide up here in Old Town. I was gonna work it when someone mentioned that it was similar to something you got.”

“What is it?”

“Fire.”

Stanton’s heart dropped. “Is it a family?”

“Yeah, man. Six damn kids and mom and dad. Fucking believe that?”

“What made them think homicide?”

“One of the uniforms used to be a lab tech and smelled an accelerant. He called it in. I got Benny comin’ out in a few hours.”

“I’ll be right down.”

Stanton wrote the address on his palm and then quickly put it into Google Maps on his iPhone. He got dressed without showering or shaving and was out the door in less than ten minutes.

The freeway was relatively clear and he got up to Old Town quickly. He turned music on, a classical station, but couldn’t concentrate on it so he turned it off.

The neighborhood was a mass of fire engines, police cruisers, neighbors, and several ambulances. The ME’s van was parked up on the sidewalk and there was an SUV with the words “CSI” emblazoned on the side parked behind it. Stanton came to a stop near the police tape before getting out.

Nathan Sell was tall and lean. He stood in a gray suit on the sidewalk, watching the men work the house. Homicide detectives could do little at suspected arson sites, but they had to be there supervising the work. Someone’s butt had to be on the line if something went wrong.

“You got anything?” Stanton said, walking up to him.

“Not a damn thing. The temperature got so hot most of the jewelry in the bedroom’s melted. The bodies…there’s not much left.”

“I need to see them.”

“Have at it.”

Stanton walked up the driveway. Nothing was left of the house but a few pieces of the frame and a half-melted shed in the back. He found a tech’s bag near where the front door had been and placed booties on his feet before going in.

The walls had been completely burned away and he could see the remnants of the family. Eight blackened skeletons huddled together in the living room. Nothing was surrounded them like the prior scene; nothing that indicated they had been tied together. The father, or what Stanton guessed had been the father, had his arms around the younger children, trying to protect them from the flames.

Stanton turned away and walked out.

“Well?” Nathan said.

“It’s the same. The same person did this.”

Nathan shook his head. “Some days, I wish I’d gone to business school like my mama told me to.”

A van pulled up; Channel 4 News, the NBC affiliate. A leggy blond stepped out of the passenger side and an overweight guy with a Chargers cap jumped out of the driver’s side and they met up with another man who came out of the back. They gathered some equipment, the second man held a mirror for the blond to check her make-up, and they ducked under the police tape.

“Fucking vultures,” Nathan said, stepping toward them.

“No,” Stanton said. “I want them here.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, I need to talk to them.”

“Your ass.”

Stanton walked over. He knew the blond. She had been to several crime scenes over the past six months and was aggressive. Many reporters were in your face but she went about it the right way, waiting until everyone had cleared out before hitting detectives up one-on-one with the tough questions.

“Detective Stanton,” she said, a smile on her face, “you got a quote for me other than ‘no comment’ or ‘get behind the tape’?”

“How about I want to give you an exclusive interview?”

“I’d say you want something in return. Sorry, I got a boyfriend, although you are cute,” she said, rubbing his chest with her fingers.

“What I want is much simpler: I want this to be breaking news on Channel 4 right now, and on every broadcast today.”

“I can’t do that. It’s the producer that makes-”

“Your name’s Katherine, right?”

“Yeah, Katherine Blank.”

“Katherine, we could both sit here and try to convince the other that our hands are tied on all the things we want to do and that the orders are coming down from on high, but we both know that’s garbage. This is my scene and I can do what I want with it. This is your segment and you can do what you want. The producer won’t fight you on it.”

She smiled. “I always thought you were smarter than you looked. Okay, lemme make a call.”

Stanton waited while she took out her cell phone and spoke in hushed tones with someone on the other end. He turned away from the scorched house and looked across the street. The home there had a bicycle in the driveway and several toys on the lawn. A toddler came out with her mother and the mother was forcing her to pick up her toys. It made Stanton smile and he forgot for a moment what he was doing. When the mother saw all the vehicles and the smoking ruins of her neighbor’s house, she quickly grabbed the child and went back inside.

“All right, Detective,” Katherine said. “You got a deal.”

“Okay, you ready?”

“One sec.”

They checked her make-up again and then sound and visual. The cameraman indicated he was ready and the assistant that had checked her make-up was now standing behind him, watching nervously. There was a mic in Katherine’s ear, hardly more than a clear bit of plastic, and she was nodding along to a conversation somewhere else as if everyone could hear it.

“That’s right, Christopher, I’m here at the scene right now with Detective Jonathan Stanton of the San Diego Police Department Homicide Unit and we’re looking at what was once a beautiful two story home on La Brea Drive and what, as you can see, is just ashes now.” She turned to him. “Now, Detective, it’s early in the case but the fact that the Homicide Unit has sent someone-I think we can safely assume that the police department believes this to be a homicide.”

“We do, yes.”

“And is there any evidence of that here?”

“Well I can’t speak too much about an ongoing investigation, but what I can tell you is that the pattern of the homicide is nearly identical to another fire we had last week that is still under investigation. The victims were nearly identical: a family of four in that one. The only difference now being that there were eight lives taken, four of them children. One was a young child of probably no more than eighteen months.”

“It’s hard to imagine who would do something like this to children.”

“Well, monsters exist. They’re out there and they’re hunting. This monster is particularly dangerous because he targets families and takes out a large number of victims at once.”

“And, I know you stated you can’t talk about the details of an ongoing investigation, but are there any leads or roads you’re exploring right now that could lead to a suspect? Any help that our viewers may be able to give?”

“Unfortunately, no. The evidence in this case has burned away with the rest of the house. As of this moment we have no leads. The sad fact is, Katherine, that we may not be able to capture him before he commits another one of these crimes. So I’m asking anyone out there, that if they have any information that could help us find who did this, please call the tip hotline on the website for San Diego PD. You could be saving many lives.”

Katherine asked him several more questions before saying, “Thank you, Detective, for your time here and good luck.”

“Thank you.”

Stanton waited until she had finished her segment and the camera turned off. “I’m going to have one of my officers track down a photo of the family for you. Can you show it on the segment?”

“Sure. Out of curiosity, why are you so anxious to help?”

“There’s someone I want to see this segment. Thanks, though, I appreciate it.”

“Anytime. I think I should say you owe me one.”

“You got it.”

Nathan whistled through his teeth. “You are going to get your ass reamed for that, my man. You made us look like we have our heads up our asses and this guy is outsmarting us. Childs’ head is going to explode.”

“I know, but I had to do it.”

“If you say so.” He turned back to the house. “You got this?”

“Yeah, I’ll be here if anyone asks.”

Stanton joined some of the techs and uniforms while they waited for Benny to arrive. They did a walk-through of the house and then began canvasing the neighborhood. Stanton joined in.

Several of the neighbors said they heard nothing until there was an explosion. Many of them thought it was an earthquake at first and they were panicking until they got outside and saw the flames consuming the house. Stanton knocked on one door across the street and an old man in a bathrobe answered.

“SDPD, we’re investigating the fire across the street.”

“What fire?”

Stanton stepped to the side so he could see. The man squinted, mumbled something about getting his glasses and then went inside a few moments before stepping back out. He observed the house but was still squinting.

“I’ll be damned. I thought I smelled smoke but I gotta take so many a them damn sleeping pills I thought I was having a dream.” The man looked at Stanton, as if he’d just noticed him for the first time. “Don’t think I can help you, Officer.”

“Thanks anyway.”

The next house was much larger and better kept. Stanton knocked on the door and a middle-aged woman in workout clothes answered. He asked her if she had seen anything and she said that they had all been asleep.

As the woman was speaking, Stanton noticed the young girl sitting on the stairs listening. She was fifteen or sixteen and appeared like she was intensely interested in what was being said. The woman mentioned hearing a car a short time before the fire.

“How long before?”

“I couldn’t say. I didn’t see the fire start but the explosion did wake us up. It was, I dunno, maybe fifteen or twenty minutes. Around five in the morning.”

“What’s your daughter’s name?”

“Tabitha, why?”

“May I speak to her?”

“I guess, but I told you she doesn’t know anything, Detective.”

“If I can just have a word.” Stanton saw the hesitation on the woman’s face. “Sometimes teenagers can hear things others can’t. They have more sensitive hearing because of their age and hormones.”

“Whatever you say.” She turned to the girl and said, “Come talk to the detective.”

The girl sighed and came over. She rolled her eyes and folded her arms before leaning against the doorframe.

“Hi, Tabitha, my name is Jon and I’m with the San Diego Police Department. I’m trying to figure out what happened last night and I just wanted to see if you saw or heard anything.”

“No, mom already told you we were asleep.”

“So you were in your bed asleep around five in the morning?”

“Yes.”

“Was anyone in the room with you?”

“No, it’s just for me.”

Stanton ran his tongue across the back of his teeth as he considered her. She had glanced to the left when she stated that she was in her room. Leftward glancing during conversation tended to indicate constructed images or sounds whereas glancing right tended to indicate remembered images or sounds, correlating to the logic and creative hemispheres of the brain. She had also used distancing language: instead of “my mom” it was just “mom.” Instead of “my room” she had said “it’s.” She was physically distancing herself from Stanton as well by folding her arms; people who are lying typically only move limbs toward their bodies.

With her mother standing right behind her, though, there was no way she would reveal anything.

“Okay, Tabitha, thanks. If you think of anything, you’ll let me know, right?”

“Sure,” she said, turning away and heading up the stairs.

Stanton turned toward the house and saw Benny arrive. There was another arson investigator that the police department liked to use, but Stanton couldn’t remember his name. He would have to look that up when he got back to the precinct.

His cell phone rang. There were two calls he was waiting for and this was the first one, though it came much quicker than he would’ve thought.

“Hi, Danny.”

“You out of the damn multiple-wife havin’, magic underwear wearin’ mind a yours? What the fuck did you go on the news for?”

“I had to-”

“No, no, fuck you. Fuck you, Jon. I had to sit at my desk and have Chin Ho chew my ass for ten minutes. Do you know what kinda panic this’ll cause? How many old farts with itchy trigger fingers will blow their neighbor’s head off ‘cause they think he’s a damn arsonist?”

“I know, but I had to risk-”

“Get your ass back here right now.”

“I’m working the scene.”

“Fuck the scene and fuck you. Get back here, now!”

The phone clicked and ended. Stanton took a deep breath as he walked to his car and watched Benny arrive and get his kit out of the truck and go to work.