Sarah’s smile disappeared. “What about him?” she asked.
“You told the police he’d threatened to burn down the garage. The studio, I mean. Now, just when did he say that?”
“Just about every time we talked since I got back from India,” she said. “He’d go on about my soul and about graven images, then he’d say if I didn’t get rid of the Ganesha, he would. I think he even said something about cleansing by fire.”
“Ah,” Joop said. “And where were you when the fire started?”
“I was supposed to be on campus,” she said. “But I wasn’t feeling well, so I cut my class. Lucky for me I did. If I hadn’t come home then, the whole studio probably would have burned down.”
“Can I give you some advice?” I said to Sarah.
She hesitated a moment. “Sure.”
“Don’t clean this place up yet. Even if the insurance people tell you it’s okay to clean it up, wait a week or two before touching anything. Just to be safe. You wouldn’t want anything to screw up your insurance settlement.”
Sarah indicated the broken windows. “But what if it snows?”
“Put plastic over the windows,” I said. “But I wouldn’t touch anything else. They’re strange people, insurance types, and you can’t be too careful.”
“Okay,” she said. “Okay, thanks.”
As we drove away, Joop started to scribble some notes. He likes to act the fool, but he’s a good, thorough investigator. “Smart kid,” he said. “Hates her daddy, but basically a nice kid. What did you think?”
I shrugged. “She was nice enough,” I said.
“Religion is so weird,” Joop said. “Everybody’s so certain they are right and everybody else is wrong. Hobart’s afraid his daughter will go to hell because she’s got a Ganesha stashed in a converted garage, Sarah is pissed at her daddy because she thinks he cares more about Jesus than about her. A hundred and forty years ago a whole bunch of folks in India died on account of the British didn’t have any respect for Hindus or Muslims. My Aunt Cooter’s Jesus looks more like an Episcopalian than a Jew. And who knows what you Catholics are up to?”
“Joop, take a Prozac,” I said. “We can leave religion out of this. We’ve got something better than religion. We’ve got evidence.”
“Evidence? Of what?”
“Of who set the fire,” I said.
“What are you talking about?” Joop asked. Then he started to grin. “Wait a minute. You found something, didn’t you?”
“I found something,” I said, then concentrated on my driving.
“Well?” Joop asked. “You going to tell me about it?”
I handed him the two envelopes, which he opened gingerly. “It’s glass,” he said.
“Clever lad yourself.”
Joop waited for me to explain. When I didn’t, he shook his head. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
I smiled and kept my eyes on the road.
“Sweeney, did anybody ever tell you that you’re a rat bastard?”
“You do,” I said. “All the time.”
“Well, that proves I am a clever lad,” he said.
Joop likes to play the redneck at times, but the truth is he’s better educated than I am, and probably smarter. So when I get a chance to torment him, I like to take advantage of it. He does the same to me. It’s a guy thing.
“I’ll tell you when I tell Hobart,” I said.
“Is that where we’re going now, back to the jail?”
“It is,” I said. “I’m just hoping we get there before he’s taken to his bail hearing.”
Kirby Abbott, Hobart’s lawyer, was with his client in the interview room. Kirby looked even more uncomfortable in the jail than Hobart did. Kirby’s a good man and a whiz in the courtroom, but he’s better when his clients are white-collar criminals. He doesn’t do so well with what he calls “the lower criminal classes.” Give him a client accused of securities fraud and our Kirby’s a happy man. Give him an accused arsonist, even if the arsonist is a rich Protestant minister, and Kirby turns a bit uneasy.
“How long before the bail hearing?” I asked.
Kirby consulted his watch. “We have a little over an hour. Why?”
I put the two envelopes on the table. “You’ll want to know about this,” I said. “It’s glass from the broken windows in the garage. The first envelope has glass from inside the garage, the other has glass found outside the garage.”
Kirby glanced in each envelope. “So?”
“So it suggests that Reverend Hobart has been telling us the truth,” I said. “He didn’t set the fire.”
Hobart started, then reached for the envelopes Kirby held in his hand. Kirby, though, didn’t hand them over. Instead he cocked his head and looked confused. He gave the contents of both envelopes a second look.
“I don’t understand,” he said. He looked at Joop, who shrugged.
I took the envelopes and emptied the glass onto the table. “Now compare them,” I said.
Kirby, Joop, and Hobart all leaned over the table, looking at the shards of glass.
“I don’t see any difference,” Kirby said. “Both sets are covered with oily smoke.”
“Well, that’s not quite right,” Joop said, pointing at the shards. “The glass from outside the garage only has that oily smoke stuff on one side. The glass from inside has the smoke on both sides.”
“So what?” Kirby said. “What does that mean?”
“Damned if I know,” Joop said.
“It means the statue of Ganesha was …”
“Ganesha?” Kirby asked.
“Ganesha is your basic four-armed, elephant-headed Lord of Obstacles,” Joop informed him. “The Hindu god of foresight and prosperity.”
Kirby still looked confused.
“The statue that got itself burnt,” Joop said.
“I see,” Kirby said. “Right. Ganesha.”
“These bits of glass show the statue was on fire before the Molotov cocktail was thrown through the garage window,” I said.
Kirby looked at the glass again. “How is that possible?” he asked. “And how can you tell from these bits of glass?”
I pointed to the glass. “If an object is thrown through a window, what happens to the glass? It breaks and falls on the floor, right?”
“I think we all grasp the basic concept of gravity,” Kirby said. He can get snotty at times, Kirby.
“And if the object that broke the window starts a fire, we’ll get smoke. Right?”
“We understand gravity and combustion,” Kirby said.
“And what happens to the glass on the floor?” I asked. “It gets covered with smoke. But it only gets covered on the one side. The side that’s up. The side that’s against the floor stays clean.”
Joop grinned and clapped his hands. “I get it,” he said.
Kirby cocked his head like a dog that’s heard a sound it doesn’t understand. He pointed to the glass shards that had come from inside the garage. “Then why do these pieces of glass have smoke on both sides?”
“There’s only one explanation,” I said. “The Molotov cocktail didn’t start the fire. The fire had to be burning before the window was broken. The inner side of the window was covered with oily smoke, then the bottle was thrown through the window, the glass was shattered, and the other side of the glass was covered with smoke.”
Kirby was nodding. “Okay. So the fire was going before the Molotov cocktail broke the window. But why does that prove Reverend Hobart didn’t do it?” He turned to Hobart. “This is purely a theoretical question, you understand. I’m not doubting you when you say you’re innocent.” They’re marvelous creatures, lawyers, always willing to give their clients the benefit of the doubt.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “Hobart’s got a motive for tossing a Molotov cocktail through the garage window—he’s worried about his daughter’s soul. But there isn’t any reason for him to break into the garage, set fire to the statue, then
go outside and throw a Molotov cocktail through the window.”
“But who would have a reason to do that?” Hobart asked.
“Your daughter,” Joop said.
“Sarah?” Hobart asked. “Why?”
“On account of she’s sincerely pissed off at you,” Joop said. “She feels you neglected her and her mother. First with your work, then with your church.”
“And for the insurance money,” I said. “Sarah was expecting the insurance people when Joop and I arrived. I assume the garage was covered in her insurance policy?”
“The garage and the statue,” Kirby said. He searched through his briefcase and pulled out some notes. “The statue was insured for eight thousand dollars.”
“Bingo,” Joop said. “Sarah only paid a touch over six thousand rupees for the little guy. That’s a hundred and eighty American dollars. With one simple move Sarah gets back at her daddy and picks up some serious cash.”
“But why would she need money?” Hobart asked. “I’ve got plenty of money. If she needed something, all she would have had to do is ask.”
“You were threatening to cut her off unless she got rid of the statue,” I said.
Hobart hung his head.
“She has a thesis to write,” Joop said. “You can’t study the religious implications of the Sepoy Mutiny when you’re worried about making the house payments, you know.”
Hobart looked up. “It still doesn’t make sense. I thought she worshiped the statue. Why would she burn it?”
Joop shook his head. “Naw, she doesn’t worship it. She just thinks it looks cool. Sarah’s no Hindu. She’s just a kid who’s pissed off at her daddy.”
“It all fits,” I said. “She even moved her loom out of the garage a few days before the fire. I’d call that suspicious.”
“The loom,” Hobart said. “That was her mother’s loom.” He looked miserable, poor guy. He was beginning to believe it.
“It would have been easy for her to do,” I continued. “The days are short now, so she could do it in the cover of darkness.”
“Not that she needed the dark,” Joop said. “Her house is surrounded by those big hedges. So there wasn’t anybody who could see her in mid-Molotov cocktail toss.”
“And isn’t it an odd coincidence that she returned home at just the right moment?” I said. “Just in time to call in the fire department? The garage and the statue were probably damaged more than she’d have liked, but even so, the damage was minimal.”
Hobart closed his eyes and put his face in his hands. I could see his lips moving. He was praying, I suppose. He had good reason to.
Kirby looked at his watch. “Well, this certainly changes things. We’ll need to talk to the district attorney before the bail hearing,” he said. “If we turn this information over to the DA, there’s a chance he’ll dismiss the charges at the bail hearing.”
Hobart looked up. “But what will happen to Sarah?”
Kirby stammered for a moment. He seemed to have forgotten that Sarah was Hobart’s daughter. “Uh, well, uh, I’m not entirely …”
“She could be arrested,” I said. Hobart had a right to know. “She could be charged with obstructing justice and filing a false police report, but that’s small beans. Sarah’s biggest problem is with attempting to defraud the insurance company out of eight thousand dollars. That’s a felony.”
“But at least she wouldn’t be charged with arson,” Kirby said. “It’s not illegal to burn up something you own.”
Hobart shook his head. “No, I won’t have my daughter arrested,” he said. “I won’t have her charged with a crime. I’d … I’d rather plead guilty. Can I do that at this bail hearing?”
Kirby seemed stunned. “Plead guilty?”
“If I pled guilty, would I be required to do it under oath?” Hobart asked.
Kirby held up his hands. “Wait, wait. Let’s just deal with the bail hearing. We don’t have to go to the district attorney with this information immediately. Let’s get you out of jail first, then we can figure out what to do.”
Hobart started to speak, but there was a sharp knock on the door and one of the corrections officers put his head in. “Sorry,” he said. “Mr. Abbott, you have a phone call. And the deputies are here to take your client to court for his bail hearing.”
“Damn,” Kirby said. “Damn, damn. Sweeney, come with me and explain all this one more time.”
I nodded and started to follow Kirby out the door. I held the door open for Joop.
“Go ahead on,” Joop said. “I’ve got something I want to say to the Rev here.”
I hesitated. I wasn’t sure it was a good idea for Joop to talk to Reverend Hobart alone. As I’ve said, he’s not always as diplomatic as he could be. But he’d already turned toward Hobart and started talking, so I left them alone.
While Kirby and I walked to the telephone, I explained the glass and smoke to him once again. He understood it well enough; he was just being careful, which is why he’s a good lawyer.
Joop caught up with us a few minutes later. He was grinning like a lord’s bastard. He held out his hand.
“I need to borrow your car,” he said. “Kirby can give you a lift back to the office after the bail hearing.”
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Joop smiled. “I’ll tell you when I get back to the office.”
“Joop Wheeler, you’re a rat bastard.” But turnabout is fair play—I’d made him wait for the smoke and glass explanation. I gave him my car keys, but I didn’t like it.
We had to wait half an hour for the bail hearing. It was a half hour made miserable by still more tacky Christmas music. A holly, jolly Christmas, indeed. I thought about finding the clerk of court and complaining about the separation of church and state, but nobody could seriously claim that music had anything to do with religion.
When we finally got into the courtroom, the hearing only took about ten minutes. The courts don’t keep people like Jason Hobart in jail awaiting trial. If you have money, you walk. It’s not right, but there it is and the whole world knows it.
After the hearing Hobart borrowed Kirby’s cellular telephone and went off to a quiet corner to make a call. He came back a few minutes later, looking somber.
“Chet Wilkins,” he said.
“Who is Chet Wilkins?” Kirby asked.
“It’s who I was with when Sarah … when her garage caught fire,” Hobart said. “I was at his house, praying with him. Chet is one of the deacons of my church. He’s just tested positive for HIV.”
“And you were with him that night?” Kirby asked. “He’s willing to testify to that?”
Hobart nodded. “He’d rather not, but he will if it’s necessary. You can see why I couldn’t tell you where I was. There are some members of our church—maybe most of them—who wouldn’t understand. They think AIDS is God’s curse. Chet’s a good man. He’s made some mistakes, but he sincerely wants to get right with God.”
Kirby looked at him for a moment. “Come on, let’s get out of here,” he said. “I’ll take you home.”
“Could you take me to Sarah’s house?” Hobart asked. “I have a lot to make up for. If I’m not too late.” He smiled sadly. “But I can’t believe I’m too late. I don’t think God would do that to me. I think the Lord set all this up, to show me what’s important in my life. I told you the Lord would take care of me.”
Kirby nodded. He wasn’t comfortable with all the talk about God. Nor was I, for that matter. Catholics don’t talk about God like He’s the neighbor down the street. “Yeah, sure,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Rather than tag along to Hobart’s reunion with his daughter, I took a cab back to the office. The cabbie had Christmas music on his radio, so I was nearly murderous by the time I got there.
I’d been there just long enough for the teapot to come to a boil when Joop came in. He was carrying the scorched Hindu statue from Sarah Hobart’s studio/garage.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Yes, but what are you doing with it?”
“I bought it,” he said.
“You what?”
“Bought it. Which word didn’t you understand?”
“You bought it? How much?”
“Eight thousand American dollars,” he said. “That’s what it was insured for.”
I stared at him. “Are you mad? Where did you get eight thousand dollars?”
“From Hobart,” he said. “He said we could bill him.”
“So that’s what you cooked up with Hobart,” I said. “Am I right in thinking Sarah will now cancel her insurance claim?”
Joop nodded. “It was the only logical solution,” he said. “Hobart didn’t want his little Sarah to lose her soul. And he didn’t want her to commit insurance fraud. And Sarah wanted the cash to finish her thesis. This way everybody’s happy.”
He was awfully full of himself. But I had to admit, it was a neat solution.
“What are you going to do with it?” I asked.
“I’m going to clean the little booger up,” Joop said. “He’s not that badly damaged.”
“And then what?”
“Then I’m going to put him in that corner,” he said, pointing. “Sweeney, bud, if there’s any folks in the world who need a god to clear away obstacles, it’s us private detectives.”
JAMES LINCOLN WARREN
BLACK SPARTACUS
May 1999
JAMES LINCOLN WARREN debuted his Eighteenth-century sleuth Alan Treviscoe in the pages of AHMM in March of 1998 with “The Dioscuri Deception.” A habitué of Lloyd’s Coffee-house, Treviscoe is an “indagator” for the maritime insurance firm—a position that didn’t exist at the time. Warren created the position for this character in this scrupulously researched series.
Lord Mansfield, resplendent in his scarlet robe and long white wig, stared at the man in the dock. The accused was a large black African dressed in what had once been very fine livery, and his tiewig, although indifferently powdered, was of the highest quality. The learned judge’s gaze shifted to Sir Richard Pelles for the defense, and he wondered again how a slave had managed to engage one of the finest barristers in England.
Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine Presents Fifty Years of Crime and Suspense Page 46