Arsonist

CHAPTER 43

It was nine in the morning when Stanton came into Northern and walked by the front desk with a quick nod hello to the receptionist, a manila folder under his arm. He found Slim Jim with his feet up and an iPod on, flipping through some reports in a brown file. Stanton lifted his earphones away from his ears.

“I’m meeting with Childs. I need you on this too.”

“What is it?”

“Arson cases.”

Slim Jim rose and followed him to Daniel Childs’ office. It was spacious but scarcely decorated. The only thing up on the walls were a few medals and his Marine Corps drill sergeant hat that was framed in a plastic case. Childs was reading over some documents on his computer and said, “Shut the door,” without looking up.

Stanton shut the door as Slim Jim collapsed onto the old couch in the corner. He pulled a sucker out of his jacket pocket and unwrapped it, thrusting it into his mouth and folding his hands on his chest.

“So,” Slim Jim said, “what’s up?”

Stanton took out some papers from the file under his arm and put them on the desk. Childs’ eyes went to them and he began reading through him. Stanton didn’t say anything until Childs pushed them away and then looked up at him.

“I told you you were off these cases.”

“I was right about them. I couldn’t let it go.”

“You were ordered to let it go.”

“Fine, suspend me. But fire Benny and follow up on these.” He took the two sketches out and placed them on the desk, Tabitha’s memory sketch on top of the other. “This is him, Danny. He’s targeting families and using an accelerant that most fire investigators can’t detect.”

Childs breathed heavily out his nose and lowered his eyes to the drawings. He glanced back up. “Slim Jim, you wanna keep these cases?”

“Hell no,” Slim Jim said, picking a piece of lint off his tie.

“It’s your case,” Childs said. “I’ll find another body to partner up with you.”

“Don’t need it. I’ll get Stephen when he gets out.”

“You kiddin’ me? He was shot and you’re gonna put him back to work?”

“I know him. He won’t lie in bed long.”

Childs leaned back in his chair. “All right, it’s your show. You run it. But if you fuck it up and this is wrong, or if you’re right and this…thing, gets away. It’s your ass.”

“I know.”

“So what’s next?”

“I want to give these to the media and have them on the six and ten o’clock news and every website and blog we can.”

“Tricky move,” Slim Jim said, pulling the sucker out and looking at it as he twirled it in his fingers, “he could run.”

“I know. I want a phone bank with as many people as we can spare. The calls’ll come quick and we need to nab him.”

“What makes you say that?” Childs said.

“He’s disorganized. He was so frantic to get work done at the Humbolts’ that he let a sixteen-year-old girl ID him. He didn’t care if neighbors of the girl he cut up saw him. He didn’t even bother to wear a wig or a baseball cap. The calls identifying him will come in quickly and we need to have people on standby to go as soon as we get the right call.”

“I ain’t got that many people, Jon. You can pull some interns and secretaries but that’s it.”

“What about the trainees at the academy?” Slim Jim said.

Childs shrugged. “You call over and see if they can send them.”

Slim Jim sighed as he stood up. “I wouldn’t have mentioned it if I thought it was going to be more work for me.”

Childs picked up the sketch. “Man, I hope you’re wrong about this. I hope it was a fucking accident. I don’t wanna know that people like this exist in the same world as my daughter.”

Within two hours, a room had been set up with twenty phones. Trainees had been pulled from their coursework at the academy on a volunteer basis; the volunteers having to make up the missed day on Saturday. Half a dozen interns from the local criminal justice programs at the city college joined them as did two secretaries. Stanton had run to Kinkos and gotten the sketches blown up. He pinned them to the wall at the front of the room. Childs and Slim Jim came in and stood by as Stanton turned to the people sitting on the folding chairs at the long tables they’d taken from the cafeteria. Slim Jim nodded to him, indicating that the sketches as well as an official statement had been sent to every media outlet in the county and even a few statewide.

“We’re going to get a lot of people claiming to be him,” Stanton said. “The accelerant he used was called naphtha. Ask them what type of accelerant they used in the fire and if they say anything else tell them the police are on their way to their location as we traced their number. They won’t be, but we need to get them off the phones as quickly as possible and make sure they don’t call back.”

One of the trainees, a young man, raised his hand. “What if he answers right?”

“Let any of the detectives in the room know and they’ll run a trace on the call. He won’t do that, though, he’s too smart and he hasn’t shown any indication of wanting to make contact with us in the past.” He glanced around. “Any other questions?”

“Yeah,” one of the other trainees said, “can I be the one to take the fucker for a ride when we catch him? I’d hate for him to get hurt by someone else’s crazy driving.”

There was a murmured, forced laugh from the crowd. Stanton smiled but didn’t respond. He gathered a couple of pens and a legal pad, pulled out a folding chair, and sat at one of the tables, staring at the phone.