by Steven James
Most of the time I try to focus on the positive impact that my work at the NCAVC has, but sometimes I wonder what the point of it all is.
Up. The majority of people who’ve ever lived on our planet have led short, difficult, brutal lives and then died before their dreams could come true.
Down. People like Sylvia Padilla and that man last night and Christie, my wife who passed away last year, taking all of our plans for the future with her.
Up. It’s tragic and pointless, but it’s the way the world is.
Down. We live in a country where television newscasters are allowed to get excited about the score of a baseball game but aren’t allowed to show emotion or remorse while reporting a homicide, a suicide bombing, or a rape.
Up.
Down. That’s our world.
Enough with the left. Only managed nine. Time for the right.
Sweating, sweating. Today would be a scorcher.
Every time I pulled my chin toward the goalpost, I was able to glimpse the stoic ships in the harbor and catch the glisten of sunlight on the ocean. Without last night’s anxious wind, the sea was early morning still.
Up.
Coronado Island stared at me from the bay. The island was a study in contrasts, with thousands of naval personnel living in anonymous-looking barracks right across the street from some of the most expensive real estate in the world; and of course one of America’s most lush hotels, the Hotel del Coronado, lay only a quarter mile from the Spartan living conditions of the Navy SEAL Amphibious Training Base.
Down.
I snagged eleven with my right arm. It’s my stronger arm, anyway. I could feel the burn. I did as many sets as I could until my arms were blown out, and the bandage on my left forearm began to get soaked with something other than sweat. So I started my jog again. This time I chose a path that took me along the beach.
The water beside me seemed so still, so tame in the dawning day, so different from last night. A few timid waves tiptoed across the surface, just enough to keep the ocean from becoming an endless sheet of glass.
And if I didn’t know what went on deep beneath those ripples, I probably would have felt a sense of calm. But I’d been scuba diving enough to know the truth: deep beneath the surface, in the places where the sun’s light will never reach, lies a whole different world. Even on days like this, when the surface looked peaceful and serene, dark currents, swift and strong, were snaking endlessly through the depths. Never tiring. Never resting. Always, always on the move.
As I ran beside the paradoxical ocean, I couldn’t help but think of my walk with Tessa last night.
Both eerie and beautiful.
And then I thought of John Doe’s suicide.
It was only another mile or so to the trolley tracks where he died. I decided to cruise past the scene, see if I noticed anything different in the daylight.
As I crossed Kettner Boulevard, I could hear the Orange Line approaching, so I knew that the trolleys were running again.
Life moving on.
Soon, the people of San Diego would be listening to their mp3 players, sipping their lattes, and deciding what movie to see this weekend, as they rode the trolleys to work, oblivious to the dark stain on the tracks beneath them.
Just six more blocks. Sunlight blazing. The day had come in at full force. It would probably hit eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit today. Maybe more.
Life is a puzzle to me with its moments of inexpressible joy and its seasons of heart-wrenching pain—sunlight dancing on the surface while the deadly currents roam below.
Suffering comes crashing into our lives and then washes away and we find a way to go on.
Or we don’t. Some people don’t.
I rounded the block.
It’s a balancing act. You want tragedy to hurt, you need it to hurt, because once it stops hurting, the part of you that matters most becomes hollow and numb. Part of being human is letting life hurt.
But on the other hand, if it hurts too much, if you get caught dwelling on the meaninglessness and suffering, you can drown in it. I’ve seen people get jaded and I’ve seen them pull apart at the seams. Either extreme, you lose. I haven’t figured out how to strike the balance in my own life yet, but I know this much—every time the dark currents rise to the surface, they take a little of my optimism back with them into the abyss.
Only three more blocks.
At two blocks I began to catch the scent of scorched wood.
At one block I saw a hazy layer of smoke hovering above the pavement.
It couldn’t be.
I came to the corner of K Street and 15th and I froze. My skin felt clammy and cool, even as the day blazed to life around me.
Gray smoke smudged the morning, curling up from the blackened shell of a charred but still structurally intact two-story home.
The house lay directly across the street from where the homeless man had appeared last night—less than one city block from where I’d parked and tried to predict the future.
I stood staring at the smoldering ruins, trying to catch my breath, trying to process what this might mean.
If a crowd had been there earlier, it had dispersed, and instead a few tired-looking firefighters lingered by their truck. Beside them, I noticed Lien-hua and Lieutenant Aina Mendez walking toward the cooling remains of the home.
After allowing myself a brief glance at a certain section of freshly scrubbed track, I jogged over to join them.
16
Based on the amount of water soaking the home’s foundation, I guessed the building had cooled sufficiently, which meant the fire had been suppressed several hours ago. And based on the limited degree of structural damage, I figured that the firefighters must have made it here almost immediately. Maybe they received a tip.
Lieutenant Mendez waved to me. “Buenos días, Dr. Bowers. I didn’t think you would come. I couldn’t get in touch with you.”
I gestured to my outfit. “Went for a little jog. Left my cell at the hotel. And Lieutenant Mendez, I keep telling you my friends call me Pat.”
She gave me a polite nod. “Sí, Dr. Bowers.”
I’d first met Aina three weeks earlier when I came to San Diego for a day to do an initial assessment of the case. I liked her right away. She struck me as savvy, street smart, and, most impressive of all, open-minded. Too often detectives only look for evidence that confirms their suspicions or fits their “gut instincts.” Not Aina; she trusted facts above feelings. And that makes all the difference in the world.
Though it was still early in the day, Lien-hua wore dark sunglasses. She tipped them up and eyed my soaked T-shirt. “How many did you get in?”
“A hundred forty-eight, total.”
“Slipping in your old age, huh?”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
I asked Aina for a pair of latex gloves and snapped them on. After all, evidence is evidence, even if it’s covered with soot. Then she signaled for two of the firefighters resting on the curb to lend Lien-hua and me their boots. They grudgingly obliged, and we pulled them on and followed Aina into the blackened mouth of what used to be someone’s front door.
17
“Whoever started this fire,” Aina said, “did so after the officers finished processing the scene of John Doe’s suicide. We’re guessing 2:00 a.m. as the time the first fuel was ignited.”
Detective Dunn and his team must have finished up as quickly as they could to keep the trolleys on schedule. It didn’t surprise me, though. It all seemed simple enough: a drug-crazed homeless guy throws himself in front of a trolley. Period. Except that the timing and location of the fire told me that things weren’t as simple and clear cut as they seemed.
“Any chance the fire was accidental?” I asked Aina.
“Unlikely. You’ll see when we get to the point of origin.”
“Witnesses?” Lien-hua asked.
Aina led the way through the soot-stained kitchen. “No one who’s talking, but that’s no surpr
ise. People in this neighborhood don’t generally like talking to the police. Oh, but we did find the young man who was at the tobacco store.”
“Anything?” I asked.
“He’s a foreign exchange student from Korea. We spoke with him early this morning. He didn’t witness the suicide and was at his apartment when the fire began. I can’t see any connection. The store owner didn’t see anything, either.”
I nodded. “Lien-hua,” I said. “Talk me through your profile. Just the highlights.”
“It pains you to say that, doesn’t it? To ask me for the profile?”
“More than you know.”
Aina must have given her a questioning look because Lien-hua tightened her voice and explained, “Pat thinks profiling is a complete waste of time.”
“Not a complete waste of time,” I said. “It keeps a lot of novelists off welfare.”
Lien-hua stepped on one of the boards underfoot hard enough to crack it, and I wondered if the board represented anything specific to her. Probably best not to ask.
“Well,” she said. “We have no eyewitnesses, no footprints, or other incriminating physical evidence of any kind, so he’s forensically aware. He’s experienced, older than most arsonists. Probably midthirties. He’s precise and exacting, takes pride in his work. Possibly admires news reports about the fires to his friends: ‘See that fire? That guy really knows what he’s doing.’ Things like that. He works alone on the fires. Lives alone. Has military experience.”
“Military experience?” asked Aina.
“A significant percentage of arsonists have military experience. Until I can show otherwise, I’m starting with the hypothesis that ours does too. He doesn’t seem to start the fires for profit or to mask another crime. And since he doesn’t stick around to watch the buildings burn, I doubt he’s doing it for the thrill. He has another motive, though I’m not sure yet what it is.”
“Let’s not forget timing,” I said. “Each of the fires, except for this fire last night, was set when the wind was less than ten miles per hour. That’s rare in San Diego.”
“So what changed his pattern?” Lien-hua asked.
“Well, Agent Jiang.” I cracked my knuckles. “That’s what I’m here to figure out.”
She shook her head. “You’ve been watching too many cop movies.”
I was trying to think of a witty reply when Aina paused at the threshold of the living room and asked, “So, how many fires have you worked?” She directed the question to both of us.
“Enough,” I said.
“Not so many,” replied Lien-hua. “My specialty is serial homicides.”
“Well,” said Aina, “a few basics. If we can identify the direction and spread of the fire, we can narrow down the most likely location of its origin.” She pointed at the wall. “Heat transfers from the flame to the surface of the walls or the ceiling. The farther the flames move from the fuel package, the less heat they’ll have, and the less damage they’ll cause.”
Lien-hua’s eyes scanned the room like careful lasers. Beautifully dark, mysteriously inviting lasers. Then she pointed. “So, here, the wallpaper is scorched and peeling . . .” She stepped into the room beside us, looked over the walls again. “But here, the wallpaper at that same height is gone, and the fire ate into the drywall. So, this room is probably closer to the place the fire started.”
I love watching her work.
Actually, I don’t mind watching her, whatever she’s doing.
“Sí,” Aina said. “Of course, other factors can affect heat flow— the building materials, room layout, airflow, and so on, but the extent of surface damage is one of the first things we look for.”
As we picked our way through the corpse of a home, it struck me how similar Aina’s job is to mine. Both of us evaluate the evidence, study the way something moves through space and time, and then use what we know about patterns to pinpoint the point of origin. She studies the flow and movement of smoke and flames; I study the flow and movement of people. But the principle is still the same. The secret to solving a case boils down to timing and location.
I heard a ring tone. Aina glanced down, tugged her phone off her belt. “Excuse me, I need to take this. You two look around. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Lien-hua and I stepped carefully past some blackened boards. Nearly all of the structural supports and door frames were still in place, but most of them were at least partially charred by the blaze. I directed Lien-hua’s attention to the ceiling on both sides of a door frame. “See how only one side is covered with soot?”
She walked back and forth beneath the doorjamb, examining the ceiling on each side. “Yes.”
“Buoyant gases move though the air similar to the way water flows down a river,” I said. “When water meets a rock, it passes around the rock, and then some of the water curls back toward the rock.”
“You sound like an ex–raft guide.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“It’s called an eddy, right?”
I nodded. “Sometimes the eddies are so strong the water actually flows back upstream. That’s what happens when hot gases pass through a building. As the gas passes through a doorway, some of it curls back toward the ceiling, creating an eddy of air that doesn’t consume the wood but leaves a sooty residue. By identifying these eddies, we can work backward through a structure—”
“To find the source of the fire.”
“Right.”
We passed through several more rooms, Lien-hua carefully observing the eddies above the doorjambs, working with surprising acuity to lead us to a room at the back of the house. From the evidence I’d seen so far, I agreed that this room was probably the source of the blaze. “Not bad for a profiler,” I said.
“Yeah, well, this environmental stuff isn’t that complex. Maybe I should write a novel about it.”
“Touché.”
The electricity in the house was off, but enough sunlight cut through the window for us to see around the room. I noted that the glass in the window frames was still intact.
With an exacting gaze, Lien-hua traced a line up the wall toward the ceiling. “These marks, here; what do they mean?”
“The fire plume made those. Usually, when you find them, they indicate proximity to the point of origin.”
I heard Aina’s footsteps by the doorway. “Very good, Dr. Bowers,” she said. “When a fire is started against a wall, the wall does two things: it reflects heat and doesn’t allow the cooler air to escape the blaze. This creates a taller flame than a similar fire with the same heat release rate located in the middle of a room. In corners, the effect is increased, creating an even higher fire plume. And see how the floor directly beneath the plume is consumed? That’s where he put the accelerant.”
I examined the room. “But this room isn’t extensively damaged, never reached full involvement. Not like the point of origin for the other fires.”
“That’s because he used a different accelerant this time, probably gasoline.”
Lien-hua looked confused. “How can you tell?”
“Gasoline flares up, burns very rapidly,” Aina said. “It devours all the oxygen in the room before the rest of the materials in the room become hot enough to ignite. It’s a sloppy, beginner’s way to start a fire. In the movies, arsonists slosh gasoline around, toss in a cigarette, and voom! But that’s not how the professionals do it. To start an effective fire, you need a fuel package that’ll burn longer.”
“Lien-hua,” I said, “are you sure our arsonist is working alone?”
“Not certain,” she said. “But up until now, that’s where everything has pointed.”
“Do we know anything about the accelerants for the other fires yet?” I asked Aina.
She shook her head. “Not yet. Chromatograms were inconclusive. We’re tracking purchases of acetone and methylated spirits in the days prior to each fire, but so far, nothing solid.”
I scanned the room. Out the window, I had a direct sight li
ne to the street corner that John Doe had rounded before he jumped onto the hood of my rental car. I gazed at the fire’s point of origin again. “The fire’s placement in the room isn’t right either,” I said. “On the flight from Denver, I looked over the building diagrams that you sent me, Aina—the ones from the other fires—and our arsonist likes to use vents, stairwells, windows, the natural airflow through a building, to keep feeding his fires oxygen. But the guy last night, he started the fire along an exterior wall, with no consideration of airflow.” I pointed. “He didn’t even open the window. Taking into account the change in accelerant and inefficient point of origin—”
“It’s not the same guy,” Lien-hua said.
“That’s what I’ve been thinking too,” said Aina.
The evidence at this scene certainly seemed to point to a different offender, but I wasn’t convinced. “And yet this home’s location makes perfect sense in relationship to the other fires. That’s what’s got me. If it wasn’t him, how did the guy last night know to start the fire on this street?”
“Coincidence?” Aina said.
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” I said.
She tapped at her phone. “I really have to go. We found the person who called in the fire. I’d like to speak to her. I’ll get back in touch with you.”
Lien-hua and I nodded, Aina left, and for a few minutes Lien-hua and I looked around the room. Finally, I said, “I’m really stumped here. We have the right kind of crime, the right location, and timing that fits the escalating progression of the series, fourteen fires by the same guy, and now, suddenly, a different arsonist shows up?”
“It doesn’t fit, does it?”
“No. Either that, or I’m missing a big piece of the puzzle.”
“OK. Let’s walk through it,” she suggested. “Reconstruct what happened.”
“Good,” I said. “Based on what we know, there’re two arsonists, so for now let’s just say it’s the two of us.”
“OK,” she said. “It’s just the two of us.”
The way she said those words gave me pause. I wanted to ask her something, wasn’t sure how to phrase it. “Wait,” I said. “Before we start. There was something you wanted to tell me last night. Outside Tessa’s door.”