by K J Kalis
“Thanks, Ma. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Candace raised her eyebrows and crunched on a carrot. “More blackouts today?”
“Yup. As soon as you are done with your snack, we’ll get them loaded.”
Candace wiped her hands on a napkin next to her. “Seems like the bosses are doing more and more of these. Are they working?”
Roger shook his head and took a swig of cold coffee. He was sure drinking pots of coffee every day wasn’t helping his indigestion at all. “They say it is, but no one believes that. There are still fires popping up. They are just trying to cover their butts. That’s all.”
“Their rationale is if the power isn’t on, they can’t get sued? Is that it?”
“That’s about the size of it. Are you ready?”
“Sure enough. Who’s going in the pit now?”
“Sauk Valley — that whole county. I’m sending the grid coordinates to the system now.”
“Man,” Candace said, her fingers flying over the keyboard. “That’s a lot of people to put in the dark. Hope they are ready. Is customer service at least sending texts to warn them?”
“Nope. Poor people are on their own.”
Roger saw that Candace had readied the system on her end. “I’m switching them off in three, two, one…”
The power management system display changed over immediately to show a new area that was outlined in red. Sauk Valley, with nearly half a million homes in the county, was now in the dark for at least the next forty-eight hours.
37
Connor ran his hand through his hair and got up from his computer. He’d been in his office nearly all day upgrading the coding to the program that had infested Palm Coast Electric & Power. He had spent nearly two hours hunting around, probing, to see if anyone in their IT department knew he was in their program. They didn’t seem to. He could see them respond to a couple of glitches he sent them, but they went directly to the problem. No one bothered to see if there had been an intrusion. That was good.
He rolled his shoulders, trying to get the ache out of them from sitting for hours. He went to the window. Outside, there was a lone car passing by his house, the people not stopping to look his direction. There was no need for them to do so. His home, on a corner lot, was kept nicely enough to not attract the attention of the local zoning people and it wasn’t fancy enough to draw any attention from anyone else. The blinds were drawn on the windows, except for the one he was looking out of. He folded his arms across his chest, taking a deep breath. There were times he could swear he could smell Janet’s perfume still in the house. Once, a month after her death, he had opened the bottle that was still on her dresser, letting the scent fill their room. He hadn’t gotten out of bed for a week after that.
Tired of looking out the window, he went to Grace’s room. Her things were all the same as the day that she and Janet had left for their trip. Her bed was made, the combs and brushes arranged neatly on her dresser next to the collection of colored lip balms that Janet had gotten her as a compromise. She wasn’t ready to wear lipstick, Janet had said. The posters of places she wanted to visit littered the walls and a basket of clean laundry stood in front of her closet doors. It was like her room was stuck in time. The only thing missing was Grace. The room needed her laughter, her voice, her energy to come alive. It was stalled, with no way to make it right. Grace wasn’t coming back.
Without really thinking about it, Connor found himself in the garage, staring at Janet’s car. Finding himself places without knowing how he’d gotten there had happened a lot lately. There’d been no noise from the trunk. Not one murmur since he’d thrown Theresa Walsh in the back two days before. Surely by now, she’d be trying to get out, he thought.
It was time. He reached into the driver’s side window and hit the button that opened the trunk. The latch popped. He waited for a moment, waited to see if Theresa would kick the lid open and try to scratch at his eyes. There was nothing. No sound, no movement.
Putting a hand on the lid, he lifted it up, stepping back in case she was lying in wait, playing possum. Still no movement. Connor looked inside, using the flashlight on his cell phone. She was in the same position he had put her in the car a few days before, on her side, her leg twisted the wrong direction. He shined the light on her face. It had taken on a bluish cast, her eyes closed. He waited for a minute to see if her chest would rise and fall. It didn’t. Her body hadn’t started to smell yet, but he knew it would soon. He slammed the trunk lid closed. There was nothing but smoldering rage in him, “Bart, you should have listened to me. I gave you a chance. That’s all I wanted,” he said out loud.
Connor went back into the house and logged into his computer program. He set it to trigger in a few hours, once the sun had set. Bart would see what he was capable of. Connor would make sure that Bart couldn’t ignore him. Bart had tried, but his time had run out.
38
The investigation at the church wasn’t nearly done. Freddie beat the lunch hour traffic and grabbed a cup of coffee and a bottle of water to drink at a drive-through two doors down from where the remains of the building were still cordoned off.
He pulled in the driveway and parked in the lot behind what was left of the building. He got out of the SUV and grabbed his radio and a flashlight. He wanted to do the first walkthrough and then get his equipment to do a more thorough job of looking for the source of the fire.
From the moment he walked into the building he knew it had been arson. The smell of what was left of the building told him so. Every fire had a smell all of its own. It told a story. Some told of cooking fires that had gone wrong. Some had the lingering scent of a candle left burning. Freddie lifted his head and tried to catch the scent of the church fire. He took two steps forward and knew what it was — gasoline. The back door of the church gave someone entering two options: they could go down the hallway and into the main part of the building or go up the flight of steps to the offices. Freddie walked straight forward. The walls were charred and black, signs of where the flames had licked up and eaten away at what it could find that would burn. The ceiling was exposed, partially from the fire and partially from the firefighters who needed to check that embers hadn’t lodged high up, threatening to start the blaze again. The carpet squeaked under Freddie’s boots. The water that had soaked through hadn’t dried even though there was nearly no humidity in the air. The soot and dirt mixed with the water made muddy footprints as he walked closer to the center of the building. About halfway down the hall, the area opened up. To the right, there were doors that led into the worship center. Straight ahead was a reception area or lobby. Freddie didn’t know what to call it. There was an office directly ahead, right by the front door. He imagined that was for the secretary. He started at the front of the building and worked his way back, shining his light on the walls and what was left of the floor. By the darker areas that were left by the fire, he could tell where the gas had been splashed. In his mind’s eye, he could see whoever started the fire walking through the building, pouring accelerant on everything he could find.
Freddie stopped for a moment, staring. He realized that though the blaze had been substantial, five pictures mounted on the wall had been left intact. He used part of his sleeve to wipe the soot from the images and looked closer. Each picture was in a matching frame, a small placard underneath, a woman, two teenagers and two men.
“Wondering about those pictures?”
Freddie spun around at the sound of the voice. “I was.”
A man approached, wearing a sling on his arm and walking with a limp. “I’m James Caine. I am,” the man looked around at what was left of the building, “I was, the pastor here.”
Freddie nodded. “Freddie Henderson. Arson unit.”
Pastor Caine squinted, “You thinking this was intentional?”
“I can already tell it was. See those dark bands on the walls?”
The pastor nodded.
“That’s where gasoline was splashed. L
ooks like whoever did this soaked the place down pretty good.” Freddie noticed the color drain from the pastor’s face. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Sprained wrist and some smoke inhalation. I’m lucky I got out. Flames were all around me by the time I knew the place was on fire. How long do you think the person was in the building?”
“I haven’t done my whole walkthrough yet, but I’d guess at least a half-hour.” Freddie wanted to change the subject before he got too involved in discussing the case. He wanted to but couldn’t. “What’s the deal with these pictures?”
A look of sadness passed behind the pastor’s eyes, “Those were missionaries. We sent them to the Congo to help with a water project. We didn’t know there was going to be an Ebola outbreak. We lost them all.”
Freddie leaned toward the pictures, his heart sinking. Ebola was an awful way to die. “When was that?”
“About two years ago.” The pastor pointed to the pictures. “The two men were elders of the church. One of the girls was his daughter.” He nodded toward the images that were on the top, “This was a mother and daughter — Janet and Grace Lewis.” The pastor shook his head, “Each one of them was so precious. They couldn’t even call before they died. No cell signal in the area where they were quarantined. A worker from the World Health Organization that was treating them brought home letters for their families.”
“How did their families take it?”
The pastor shook his head. “We lost all of them. The one guy was single, the other one — the one that had the daughter left behind a wife and a son. She took their son and moved back to Virginia.”
“How about the mother and the daughter?”
“I haven’t seen the husband since their funeral. Didn’t see him much around the church before that. I think he blamed me for sending them. Janet had told me before they left that her husband wasn’t exactly supportive of them going out on missions.” The pastor hung his head. “There are some things you think will never happen. Our missionaries getting Ebola and dying way out in the Congo without their families was something we never anticipated. It was a tragedy.”
“Do you know if the husband is still in the area?”
“He might be. Name’s Connor Lewis.”
Freddie wrinkled his brow. “Know anything about him?”
Pastor James shook his head. “Wish I did. Kinda the job for a pastor. He didn’t come around much. Wasn’t sure he was into the church thing. Speaking of which, you go to church?”
Freddie sighed. “Work most weekends especially this time of the year. I’ll swing by once you rebuild.”
Pastor James put his hand on Freddie’s arm. “I’ll let you get to it. Bet you’ve got a load of paperwork to do with this mess. I’m going to be praying for whoever did this. That person is in some kinda trouble for them to do something like this.”
“You’ve got that right, pastor.” Freddie took one last look at the pictures and went out to his truck to get his evidence kit and camera. Something wasn’t sitting right with him about the fire, but he wasn’t sure what. Maybe it was just the fact he’d had two arsons in the same week both using gasoline as the accelerant. It wasn’t unusual, he realized. Gas was easy to get and pretty cheap, even in California. But there was something, something he couldn’t put his finger on. He just hoped he could figure it out before there was another fire.
39
Van had gotten ahead of Kat in traffic a bit on their way home from the FBI offices. As she pulled down the street, she saw the yellow school bus Jack rode on going in the opposite direction. She said a silent prayer that Van had gotten to him when the bus stopped, not that she minded him going to the neighbors, but after the day she had, she needed something to go her way. The idea of getting caught in a long conversation with anyone didn’t sound appealing.
She pulled the Jeep down the driveway and saw the truck parked outside. For some reason, Van hadn’t parked in the garage. She tried her garage door opener. No luck. She threw the Jeep in park, turned it off and walked in the house. “Van? Jack?”
The dogs came running to her, sniffing her legs and licking her hand. “Where are the boys?” she asked them, their tails wagging.
“Hi, Mama!” Jack said, “Van said the power is out.”
“I noticed.” They were now part of the blackouts that were eating up so much of the San Jose area. Her heart sank a little bit. Who was at the center of that? Bart Walsh.
Kat heard rattling in the garage and realized Van was lifting the door. The roar of the generator coming to life made Kat turn her head. She walked outside to find Van on the side of the house attaching a heavy yellow cable to the outdoor electrical panel. He shouted over the din of the engine, “Just have to connect this inside and we’ll be good to go.”
Though she was exhausted, she smiled. Nice to be married to a Marine.
The rest of the evening passed quickly. They grilled hot dogs outside and played with the dogs until it got too dark to see anymore. Inside, the generator gave them enough power to charge their cell phones and keep the food cold with one lamp working. It didn’t matter too much to Kat. After the day they’d had, the questioning by the FBI, her panic attack and coming home to the power being off, she was ready to go to bed early. She walked through the kitchen, padding in socks and leggings. As she passed the spot on the counter where the phones were plugged in, they started to blare all at the same time. She leaned over, looking at the screens. “Van!” she shouted, “The phones!”
Van walked into the kitchen, a scowl on his face, “What’s the matter?”
“The phones — there’s a warning.”
He picked up his phone and squinted at his screen. “It’s just a wildfire warning. Not an evacuation order. We’re okay.”
Kat felt her heart thundering in her chest. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. She knew her nervous system was fried from the panic attack earlier in the day. She needed a good night’s rest. That wouldn’t be happening now. “What do we do?”
“Nothing. It’s just a warning. We’ve got our go-bags ready. They will let us know if we need to evacuate.” He put his hand on her arm. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“They already turned off our power. How could there be a wildfire in this area?” Van raised his eyebrows. Kat realized how silly she sounded. “Sorry. I know the answer to that question already.”
Van’s face softened. “Try to get some sleep. You’ll feel better if you rest.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Kat followed Van up to their bedroom, stopping in Jack’s room to make sure he was settled for the night. He was sound asleep, Woof sprawled out next to him taking up half the bed. Jack didn’t seem to mind. She sat down on the edge, knowing how hard of a sleeper Jack was. She scratched Woof’s belly, getting a yawn and a stretch out of him before he curled up and went back to sleep. Despite the day they had, the feeling of deep gratitude swept over her looking at Jack’s peaceful face and the sweet dog they had rescued the day Jack had been kidnapped. Kat got up off the bed, trying to be as quiet as she could.
In their bedroom, Van was already asleep, laying on his side. At the foot of the bed was Tyrant, her tall body and black face curled into a small ball, waiting for Kat. Kat slid into bed trying not to disturb either of them.
The window was cracked open, the night air flowing into the room and touching her face. It wasn’t particularly cool, but it was cooler than it had been during the day. Turning on her side to face the window, she listened. The night was extraordinarily quiet, only the din of a generator down the street breaking up the silence that had settled over the neighborhood. Kat wondered how her neighbors were doing and made a mental note to go and check on the ones she knew in the morning. She had already gotten a text that school would be canceled during the power outage, so she and Jack could go and check on people. It would be good. They’d take the dogs, she decided.
She tucked her hands up under her face, listening to Van’s breathing. His level of calm no matter
what happened still surprised her. There were people who adapted well to chaos and those that didn’t. Van fell into the first camp. She realized she fell into the second.
Loud banging woke Kat up. Groggy, she realized she must have fallen asleep. Where was the banging coming from? She sat up in bed and shook Van, “Do you hear that?”
As Van rolled over, Tyrant leaped off of the bed and ran out of their room. Kat could hear her barking downstairs. Kat pulled a blanket off the chair that was next to their bed, wrapped it around herself and made her way down the steps. The banging was coming from the front door. “Fire department, open up!” Kat looked through the peephole and saw two uniformed firefighters in full turnout gear. “Open up!” Kat quickly gave Tyrant the command to sit and wait as she opened the door.
“Ma’am, I’m with the fire department. There’s a wildfire coming your way. We need you to evacuate your family now.”
The firefighter in the back stepped forward, “Kat? Is that you?”
“Chuck?”
“Yeah.” Chuck stepped closer to the door. “Listen, this is no joke. The fire’s just below you on the ridge. It moved a lot faster than we thought it would. Get your family and get out of here.”
“Yes, okay. Let me get everyone out the door. Give me a minute.” Kat ran up the steps and shook Jack awake. “Get your go-bag. We have to leave now!”
Before he could answer her, she ran to the bedroom and shook Van. “There’s a fire. We’ve got to go now. The firefighters are waiting for us.”
Van was up and moving before she finished her sentence. Kat grabbed her go-bag out of the closet, put on a jacket over her t-shirt and ran down the steps, calling for Tyrant to follow. As Kat stuffed her cell phone and laptop in her bag, Jack and Woof came down the steps, a look of pale fear over Jack’s face. “Mom, what’s going on?”