Fire In The Mind: Leonard Wise Book 1

by Arjay Lewis

  I took care of that fool detective. There is only one way they could have gotten his name; they tracked down the firebug. I told Mishan that eliminating the blackmailing bastard was the best choice, but he didn’t agree. He felt paying him off, getting the files, was the better choice.

  Now it’s all about containment. I paid the detective, got his copy of the folder. I made sure I could rent an office under his and then secreted several large cans of acetone there. That made things so much easier. I only had to focus on one room. The acetone did the rest.

  I didn’t mind arson being suspected with that building. After all, I didn’t have any insurance on it. But wait until they find out who rented the office that burned!

  It was such a feeling of power when I confronted that fool Norris in his car. I knew he would head right for it, could almost sense the thoughts in his head. He went to his broken-down vehicle, and there I stood behind a convenient telephone pole. It was so dramatic—I revealed myself as he started it up. Then he actually pointed his gun at me! At me! It took all my self control not to laugh at him. He was shaking so much I doubt he could’ve hit me even if he’d gotten off a shot.

  Besides, in seconds, it was over for him, his car in flames. I would’ve made it take longer, perhaps let him know what was coming and toyed with him a bit, but I could sense the damn cripple nearby. I’d hoped I’d trapped him in the building, but he’d gotten out and was on the way. I had to make it quick and leave.

  However, I will toy with someone. The cripple would be my first choice, yet I still sense he could be a danger to me. I dream of torturing him slowly on small, focused places on his body. Perhaps a toe, or a finger, then working to small points on his torso. Perhaps his genitals, that would be fun! And it would be a chance to practice focusing my abilities. I could make it take hours or even days.

  Then again, that insurance bitch is someone meaningful to him. I wonder why. Old friend? New lover? He must not have cared much for poor Wendy if he’s doing the nasty with this woman. He’s so average-looking, and yet he seems to have no shortage of willing females. He probably isn’t as choosy as I am.

  That would be rich. Take care of my insurance nuisance and eliminate another of the cripple’s lovers! I might even be able to use her to lure him to me. The coup de grace before I leave town and lay low for a while.

  I like that plan. I like it a great deal.

  sixteen

  Over an hour later, McGee and I were at the Mountainview police station, in the detective’s bull pen. He left me there for a minute and came back, the soot washed off his face. He held his jacket in his left hand, wiping a damp paper towel on it where he’d tumbled in the dirt.

  He’d been totally quiet on the drive back, but with a seething anger just under the surface. He’d done all the right things and spoken with the police of the City of Orange. He made a point to leave his name and number and made requests for a copy of the autopsy on Norris to be faxed to him. Now alone in the quiet room, he addressed me.

  “Mrs. Hoefler is due in at six,” he said, glancing at his watch. “After the job you did with Norris, I want you here.”

  “Sure, Bill,” I said quietly.

  He sat across from me heavily and looked at his watch. “You’re going to have to get cleaned up, you look like crap.”

  “Thank you,” I said as I got up.

  “But before you do, Len,” he said, and motioned for me to sit back down.

  I lowered myself into the seat. Whatever it is, here it comes.

  “I think you know more than you’re telling me,” McGee demanded.

  I opened my mouth to protest, but he held up his hand.

  “Now, don’t start giving me a song and dance—“

  “I don’t dance,” I interjected.

  “You listen. Maybe you can read minds and get these buzzes and all that. Good for you. I’m glad you can, probably saved both our asses today. But I’m a cop, and I know when my partner is not being honest with me.”

  I was touched. “I didn’t know you considered me your partner.”

  “On this case, I do, Len. But the point is you know something—and you’re not telling me.”

  “It’s pretty out there, Bill.”

  “Out there?” he rose up and began to wipe his jacket with the paper towel again. “People burning to death? Mishan, then Wendy, both with no explanation? Then, we almost get fried in a building with a goddamn bomb, and we find Norris fricasseed in his car. This whole case is completely out there, Len, and if you have a theory, I need to know it.”

  I sat there, stunned. Bill was a good cop and perhaps the idea I couldn’t share what I believed wasn’t due to his limitations, it was due to mine. I was experienced in a world of the supernatural, where the line between the known and unknown blur.

  It was time to be honest.

  “OK,” I said, not knowing exactly where to begin. “I have a theory about all of this, and it makes sense.” I stopped and decided to change tack. “Do you have a candle?”

  “A candle?” he frowned. “Why?”

  “It might make more sense if I demonstrate.”

  “Might take me a couple minutes to find one.”

  “Good, then I’ll get cleaned up. A candle, and a lighter or matches,” I said, getting up. “Where is the bathroom?”

  Bill stepped into the corridor and pointed. “Second door on the left.”

  I tapped my way to the small tiled room. A mirror over the sink showed my face burnished by soot and my hair askew. I spent a few minutes washing and arranging my hair into a more acceptable position. I also made sure to cover the stitched wound on the back of my head as carefully as I could.

  I took off my jacket and examined it. Black holes, some the size of a dime, were burned in it, some penetrating through the lining.

  “Now I really have a personal reason to nail this bastard,” I said aloud, my voice echoing in the empty bathroom. “He fried my tweed!”

  I cleaned it up as best as I could, and looking much more presentable, I located Bill in Interrogation Room B. Bill stood there with a stubby white candle melted onto a dirty white saucer.

  “Had some emergency candles from the last time the power went out. Must be years old. We have a backup generator now.”

  I sat at the other end of the table, facing him. “Can you please light it?” I said and shut my eyes as I cleared my mind. “And please turn off the overheads.”

  I heard Bill’s clothes rustle as he moved. “OK, it’s lit. But what is this about?”

  I opened my eyes. The room was darker, though light still flowed from the bullpen through the half-open door.

  The small candle was very easy to see, and I focused on it. I could see all of it, the yellow on the top becoming darker orange and fading into a dark blue which danced on the wick. I tried to feel it, become one with it. There was no longer a separation between myself and the flame: I was one with it.

  Still focused on the candle flame, I heard my own voice as if it came from someone else. “Pyrokinesis.”

  I concentrated the way Doctor Kohl and I had practiced years earlier, and the flame went out.

  “Damn!” Bill exclaimed.

  “There’s more,” I said. “Watch the flame.”

  “Len, the candle is out.”

  In the room, now darker, I could make out the silhouette of the candle and Bill’s hulking form behind it.

  The candle flickered once, and a flame appeared back on the top.

  I could hear McGee gasp, and I shut my eyes to break my concentration.

  “You can turn on the lights,” I said as I leaned back in my chair.

  The overhead fluorescents sparked, and the room was again filled with white light, eclipsing the small candle flame.

  “How did you…?” McGee said, an expression of awe on his face.
/>   “You can blow out the candle,” I said and rubbed my eyes. I was tired. I’d used a lot of mental power between my confrontation with Hallman and my reading of Norris. I had overtaxed myself with this little demonstration.

  “So, what’s the trick?” McGee asked.

  “No trick, Bill. Pyrokinesis,” I said and looked at him. “The ability to control fire with nothing but your mind.”

  Bill sat at the table, watching me quizzically.

  “What you’ve just seen,” I went on, “is little more than a parlor trick. I’ve seen people make the flame grow and shrink, even move to the left or right, through concentrated will and intention.”

  “Yeah, but this…” Bill said. “You snuffed it out and relit it.”

  “It appeared that way,” I explained. “But all I did was pull the flame into my mind. For a moment or two, it wasn’t burning because the energy that makes combustion occur was taken away from the candle and pulled into me.”

  Bill frowned. “How is that possible?”

  “It might just be a mental image, Bill, but it works.” I still felt tired and leaned heavily on the table. “Do you have any water?”

  “Plenty, sure,” Bill said, all but leaping up.

  I nodded, and Bill stepped out of the room. I closed my eyes and yawned, and by the time I was done, Bill was there with a Styrofoam cup filled with clear liquid, which he placed in front of me.

  “So,” Bill said, a strange light in his eyes. “What if there was someone who could do your parlor trick on a larger scale?”

  I smiled. My little demonstration pointed Bill’s mind in the correct direction.

  “Exactly,” I said, as I picked up the cup. “What I just did was as far as Doctor Kohl and I took it. We used it as a concentration exercise.”

  “If someone took it further,” he said and began to pace the floor as I drank greedily. “Someone with a gift…”

  “And he practiced the one ability,” I said, picking up where McGee left off. “Until he could start fires. Remember what Mishan told Briback?”

  “That he had a partner who could just make fire come out of his head,” McGee said with a nod. He began to pace the room again, so full of energy, he needed to let it out. “It fits. Mishan’s death, then Wendy’s—even Norris’s.” He stopped in mid-stride. “But when he did it to Wendy, why did he spare you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he thought I had a concussion from the fall.”

  “Jesus, Len,” McGee said. He exhaled heavily and shook his head. “You’re right, this is out there.”

  “Only a theory,” I said.

  “This is not something I can bring to Captain Harris or even Lieutenant Butler. And what can we do? How do we stop someone like that?”

  “Let’s look at it,” I said as I put the cup aside. “It must take a lot of energy. And I doubt he could strike at two targets at once.”

  “What are you talking about? He burned the building and then fried Norris.”

  “No, Bill. He set off something stored in the building, and it could have been anything from cans of paint thinner to a fertilizer bomb. That takes a lot less power than what he did to Wendy or her house. So he starts that fire and waits near Norris’s car. He’s still got enough power to finish him off.”

  “What are his limits?”

  “I can guess,” I said, shaking my head. “There must be some physical side effects. I met the guy, he wears sunglasses. Jenny—uh, Mrs. Baines—said he claimed uveitis—that’s a sensitivity to light.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I started out in medicine, Bill.”

  “Damn, next you’ll tell me you were a psychiatrist.”

  “No,” I said with a smirk. “I just studied to be one.”

  “And in your free time, you paint like Van Gogh and sculpt like Rodin?” Bill said. “Where do we go from here?”

  I picked up the manila folder from the desk and held it out to him.

  “Norris died for this. Let’s hope there is something we can use to stop him.”

  Bill opened it and extracted Norris’s file.

  “That reminds me,” I said. “Briback knew about Wendy’s parents and knew she made money on their death. That might be in there, and it might be useful when questioning Mrs. Hoefler.”

  Bill glanced at his watch. “We have about twenty minutes.” He handed me half of the papers and started to paw through his own stack. We each looked at our papers. I found mine weren’t terribly well organized, reports of deaths, unusual fires, with cards stapled to the corner, where Norris jotted notes. Under a card marked “Wallace,” I found newspaper clippings and certificates.

  “Here it is!” I said.

  McGee got up and stood behind me, reading over my shoulder.

  “What do these notations on the card mean?” I asked, indicating a series of initials that seemed random.

  “Don’t know,” McGee said, then stabbed at the papers with his index finger. “You’re right, this is it! Let me see.”

  I dutifully passed the pages to McGee, who took them and studied them as he paced around the table. He let out a whistle. “Wendy and her sister both received over a million dollars for their parents’ deaths. There were more than six insurance companies involved.” He let the papers fall to the table. “Damn, Norris was better than I thought. This must have been difficult to track down.”

  “Does it give you what you need?” I asked.

  He glanced at his watch. “Hopefully enough to loosen up Mrs. Hoefler.”

  seventeen

  At six ten, McGee brought Janice Hoefler into Interrogation Room C, the “Soft Interview” room, where I waited seated at the round table.

  It was going to be tricky. I was tired and had done more mental work in this one day than in the last six weeks.

  Mrs. Hoefler was flanked by her husband, who wore a shadow of a beard on his face, making him appear even more simian than before. Escorting them was the ever-present, clean-cut Officer Galland.

  “We’d like to speak to Mrs. Hoefler alone, Mr. Hoefler,” McGee was saying as they came in.

  “Who is he?” Hoefler said, indicating me.

  “Doctor Leonard Wise. Civilian consultant on this case. We just need to ask your wife some questions.”

  “She has to be represented by an attorney!” Hoefler said.

  “And where is your attorney?” McGee asked.

  “It’s me!” he said as he stood up straighter, lifting his head for effect.

  “Mr. Hoefler, it’s an obvious conflict of interest, representing your wife in this situation. Besides, we’re just checking a few facts. Neither of you is being charged with a crime,” McGee said with a disarming air of ease.

  I looked over at Jack Hoefler until he glanced at me and our eyes locked. I moved into his mind.

  You want to call another attorney…

  Aloud I said, “Do you want to call another attorney to represent you?”

  From my influence the idea seemed so logical to him at that moment that he rose. “I want to call another attorney,” Hoefler said, his eyes still locked on mine.

  “That’s fine, use the phone at the front desk,” McGee said with a look of amazement at me. “This officer will escort you.” He exchanged a look with Galland, who nodded as he got the message.

  Hoefler broke away from me, but I felt the idea was implanted. Then he turned to his wife. “Honey, if they ask you anything, you don’t have to answer until Barry gets here.”

  “Yes, Jack,” she said. I could tell she wanted to please her husband. Hoefler gave me a puzzled glance and walked out the door followed by Galland. McGee shut the door after them, then locked it surreptitiously.

  It was now just him and me with Janice Hoefler.

  “How are you tonight?” he asked quietly, as he sat across
from her, a smile on his face. He looked like the nicest guy in the world. “Can I get you anything, water, coffee?”

  “No, I’m fine,” she said, as she held her handbag tightly in her lap.

  “We just have a couple of questions,” McGee said, as he pulled open the file and extracted the pages I’d seen earlier.

  I watched her carefully. She was frightened, as if the fact that her husband left the room, even for a moment, left her unsure how to act.

  “I want to ask about your parents’ death,” McGee said.

  “I thought this was about Wendy,” Janice replied and clutched her handbag harder.

  “It is. But in doing some research, I thought it seemed your parents were killed under odd circumstances.”

  “No, they died in a car accident,” she said, the grip on her bag made her knuckles grow white.

  “Yes, but there was a fire. The bodies were burned very badly,” McGee said, focused on the papers. “You and your sister made a lot of money from insurance policies on the accident.”

  “They were old—things happen. We were just protecting ourselves,” she said quietly, her eyes flitting from the table to McGee, then to her handbag and to me.

  Bill went on. “I understand, Mrs. Hoefler, but it’s odd that both incidents involved fire. And an organization your sister worked for has a history of fire-related insurance claims.”

  “I’m sure you’ve heard of them,” I said, which drew her eyes to me. “It’s called the Nova Corporation.”

  The effect was as if I’d slapped her. Her eyes filled with tears and she looked down. “I don’t know anything about that…”

  McGee dropped the file folder on the table with a thud, which made her jump.

  “Come on, Mrs. Hoefler,” he said, the nice guy persona gone. “Your sister worked for these people for years. She bought a big house and a fancy car. And she never told you about it or explained how she came into so much money?”

  “My husband…should be coming back…” Mrs. Hoefler stammered.

  “Yes, he should, but let’s keep to the facts, shall we? Your parents die in a fire—a car accident, and you happen to have a lot of insurance with double indemnity for a traffic accident. It was as if you knew what was going to happen.”