Crispy Critters (A Crime Thriller)

by Theo Cage

  "Pretty typical," Cleary added. "The hot gas burns out their lungs. It only takes seconds. Did you test for accelerant?"

  "You just said the couch...”

  "You brought me here because you think this is arson. That almost always means gasoline or kerosene traces."

  "They had a dog here, clamoring around in that pile of burnt wood for about an hour."

  Cleary looked over at the debris. "Dogs are sometimes more accurate than the laboratory. They're trained to sniff out the by-products of accelerants. Saves a lot of time."

  "They didn't find anything. So that means what?"

  "Ninety percent of arsons involve the use of gasoline or solvents. If the dog didn’t find that, you don’t have much to make a case.”

  “What about the other ten percent?” asked the detective.

  Cleary frowned. “Kindling usually. Piled up furniture or wood scraps. Sometimes if there are a lot of drapes, an arson can start there. You can look for certain V-shaped burn patterns to determine the point of origination.”

  “This place had no drapes. The owner preferred tinfoil taped to the windows.”

  Cleary shrugged. “Poor man’s window coverings. You can buy them at Piggly Wiggly,” he said. The two cops seemed out of questions.

  “Okay, detective,” said Cleary. “Old house, dry as a popcorn fart - just waiting to light up like the fourth of July. The fire inspection office does a thorough review and comes up with nothing more than a guy with a nicotine addiction, smokin' home-rolled or maybe a joint, while he dozes off in front of the Shopping channel. Do you know how many people died from smoking accidents last year? Hundreds. So what makes you think this isn't just an accident?"

  "Three cases just like this one over a space of twelve months, all in the greater Phoenix area." Cleary turned to the blond cop who seemed fascinated by a distorted light bulb lying in the grass. Glass melts at over six hundred degrees, thought Cleary. They called that a pulled bulb. The direction of the pull was a clue to origination. This was quite a fire. He wished he’d seen it. And the cop had the number wrong. There were six house fires - but the zone was bigger than she had thought to examine. Hey, give credit where credit is due.

  "Three convicts?" asked Cleary.

  "Three child molesters."

  Cleary made a face. "You expect me to feel sorry for those perverts? Maybe someone is doing us all a favor." Both cops looked at him. "Do you have kids?" asked Cleary.

  Bathgate squinted at Cleary, evidently not liking the question. "I don't see what that has to do...?"

  "You don't see what? You don't worry about your kid being grabbed by some monster?"

  "Cleary! Let's stay on point here. You're the expert on arson. Could you plan a job like this? Start a fire without making it look like arson?" she asked.

  "There are two kinds of arsons: people who burn their houses because the insurance money is worth more than the pile of sticks they live in, or kids who have behavioral problems. 99% of intentional fires match that pattern. You are really going out on a limb here.

  If you hate the pervert next door, why not run him down with your car or fake a home invasion. Why go to all this trouble?"

  "Good question," said the female cop, too quickly for Cleary’s liking.

  "So am I done here?” Cleary pointed at the tangled pile of burnt timber looking like a giant game of pick-up-sticks. “Cause I'm not crawling through that crap unless someone is paying my cleaning bill."

  The blond walked over and for the first time got involved in the discussion. Up close he looked a lot older. "Where were you, Mr. Cleary, on the evening of June 12th?"

  "Where was I?"

  "It's a simple question."

  "A week ago? Tuesday? Playing cards with a buddy. We play Poker ever Tuesday night."

  "And your truck?"

  Cleary looked from one cop to the other. He was beginning to see where this might be going.

  "What time?" Cleary said.

  "Early morning. About 2:00 AM."

  "You see my truck, Detective? A rust-bucket 1993 F-150. It has over 200,000 miles on it. Held together with plastic bondo and faint hope. Not what you could call reliable. But what can you do on a firefighter’s pension?

  I was driving my buddy home late, when the truck stalled. We pushed it to the curb and..." Cleary was thinking ahead as fast as he could. Leo would back him on any story he shared with him. But if he said they took a cab, it would be too easy to check the time and dates with the taxi operator.

  "And?" said the blond cop.

  "So we hitchhiked home."

  "Hitchhiked? At 2:00 in the morning?"

  "Just got lucky, really. A young kid saw two grandfathers stuck at the side of the road and took pity on us. We got home, grabbed my friend’s car and battery cables and drove back. Gave it a boost. I was in bed by four."

  Cleary knew the two cops wanted to exchange glances, but they were far too professional to give anything away. His truck thought Cleary. Someone had ID'd his truck sitting a few blocks away from the house they had torched. Could be a police officer or a nosy neighbor that called it in. That was a huge mistake. The police could have shown up quicker, the neighbors might have gotten involved - and two old guys could have walked right into the end of their careers as The Revengers.

  “I’m a suspect?” asked Cleary, trying to damp his anger down. They were just doing their jobs. No sense getting bent out of shape. “Because my truck was seen near here?”

  “You have to admit, it raises some interesting questions,” said the blond.

  Cleary looked from one cop to the other. He could see the accusation in their eyes. He guessed they were both past making assumptions. Now it was just a hunt for evidence. Was there any point in trying to distract them?

  “I spent fifteen years fighting fires and another fifteen inspecting them. Proving arson isn’t that hard. Nailing the perpetrator - almost impossible. All that procedural stuff you guys use on a typical crime scene like DNA, fingerprinting and fibers - don’t mount up to a pile of donuts on a typical arson case. You need a confession, detectives. Otherwise, you … well, you’re basically fucked.”

  Bathgate didn’t even blink. Cleary guessed she had already thought about the challenges in this case. “I’ll need the name and the phone number of your poker playing friend.” Cleary gave it to her. Then he said his goodbyes and got into his truck.

  Just for effect, he held the gas pedal down before turning over the starter, intentionally flooding the carburetor. He knew this truck intimately, had bought it new twenty years before. As soon as he could smell gas rising up from the engine, he turned the ignition. The starter groaned several times then he turned the ignition off.

  Cleary looked at the blonde cop who was now almost to his passenger door, heading for his cruiser. He raised both hands in exasperation, looking angry, and got out and flipped up the hood release. Just as he got the engine cover open, the two cops rolled past him and disappeared up the road.

  Assholes, thought Cleary. Won't even help a senior citizen.

  :

  Tuesday night poker had been a tradition with Gordon Cleary and his four close friends for almost twenty years. They were religious about the weekly game; despite marriages, children growing up, divorces, sickness and funerals - they had all adhered to one tradition that remained unchanged; twenty-five cent ante, dealer’s choice, everyone helps pay for the snacks and beer.

  Larry was the first to go. He was a short, wiry firefighter, never married. Had his first and last heart attack chasing some kid down the back lane who broke a branch off his favorite crabapple tree. And he wasn't going to hurt the kid - probably just wanted to talk to him and give him a bag of green apples to take home.

  Now the poker team was down to four. There was talk of replacement, but Cleary would have none of it. Larry wasn't just a guy they happened to play cards with. He was funny and warm and would always pay for more than his share of the food pot.

  He also saved Clea
ry's life once. They were part of what is called an interior attack - four firefighters holding hoses, deep into an industrial warehouse, finally beating back the flames after hours on the site.

  Cleary was pushing forward when he felt a tug on his arm. He turned and saw Larry through his flash hood and breathing mask, tugging him back. Cleary didn't understand. They were clear, and the flameover was rolling back, a sign that the origin of the conflagration was under control.

  Cleary wanted to kill the fire; put its lights out. But Larry wouldn't let go. If it was anyone else, Cleary would have pulled away thinking the other guy had lost his nerve ... but this was Larry. He was a firefighter without an ego - he just did what he thought was right. So Cleary slumped his shoulders, expressing his sense of defeat and turned - just as the roof, sixteen feet about them, collapsed.

  Larry had sensed something. Later he said it was a sound, but you can't really hear anything in full gear. Cleary knew it was all instinct.

  So Cleary was not the least bit interested in replacing Larry. They would have to do with four.

  Then Tim got divorced, met another woman and moved with her to Texas when her company transferred her. Now they were down to three. Three players make for lousy poker. But Cleary refused to take on replacements.

  Now here it was Tuesday night, years later, and it was just Gordon and Leo. They both had a beer in front of them, sitting in Cleary's kitchen, a worn deck of cards sitting on the table that they hadn't touched for an hour - although Leo said he wouldn't mind a game of solitaire to clear his head. Poker night lately had become strategy and planning sessions, only the stakes were much higher than a $30 pot full of quarters. They were looking for justice.

  "What do you think, Gord? Are those cops onto us?" asked Leo. Cleary looked across the table at his friend of fifty years. How rare is that? Someone you can put up with - even enjoy their company - for five decades. He felt blessed.

  Cleary had called Leo the minute the two cops drove away and told him the story. Leo got a call a few hours later and repeated the tale of the hitchhiker. The cop had delved into the story in some detail. In the end, Leo said his memory wasn’t what it used to be and couldn’t remember all the details – finally, a decent use for garden-variety senility.

  "They have some circumstantial evidence, enough to fuel their interest, but not enough to get a warrant. That'll keep them up at night though. And I'm a big puzzle for them. Having no record and no priors - and no obvious motive. I remember as an inspector, that kind of thing would make me doubt myself. Ninety percent of the time cops know the suspects they’re dealing with. It's like a club. I don't belong to the club."

  Leo took a careful sip of his beer. He wasn't a big drinker. He could nurse a long neck for two hours. He also didn't seem worried. And he had already said he wanted to keep going.

  "Look. This is your call,” said Leo. “They have your name and you're the fire guy. I'm in 100% if you need me."

  Cleary looked tired. Without the game they called Crispy Critters, they had nothing anymore. Might as well turn off the lights. And a pathetic game of two-person poker wasn't going to cut it either. Nothing had the clean concise edge that tracking down pedophiles and sex maniacs delivered. Nothing. It was like a five-alarmer every time.

  Cleary sat forward. "This just ups the ante, Leo. We have to be smarter. And they’re only looking at four cases. They don't know about the other two yet. So, like I said yesterday, let’s look a little further afield. Do some traveling."

  What Cleary meant was stop focusing on just Phoenix proper and consider cities within one or two hours’ drive. Or longer, if it came to that. Cleary knew that the only way they would ever get caught was red-handed. And how likely was that? So extending their territory just improved their odds.

  Leo had been spending some time over the last twenty-four hours going over the Arizona Sex Offenders online database, specifically looking for targets that weren't in Phoenix.

  All the info they needed was on the web. There were thousands of offenders in the database, and the online info included names, birthdates, gender, age and current location. Leo eliminated anyone in an apartment or multi-use housing. They didn't want to start a fire that could accidentally kill innocent bystanders. Also, too many opportunities to be seen by people in the area. Leo wanted a stand-alone house, typically a small renter or something owned by the offender.

  The next step was to determine classification levels. Sex offenders were rated on their risk to reoffend and their danger to the community at large. Level 3 was the worst - and that was their focus.

  Finally, Leo would look at their actual offenses - people who caused harm, who were true predators. Those were the ones that made it onto their hit list. Why were these people tracked on a National database available to everyone with their picture and complete address information? Because the law was hopeless. They knew who was going to reoffend and who was a danger to the community. So did they keep them locked up longer? Of course not - they couldn't. The courts wouldn't allow it. So all they had left was to list these psychopaths on a public website with their last known address. Don't have time to check to see if there is a sexual deviant living right on your street? Well, that's just too freakin’ bad isn't it.

  Leo had a short list, which he brought on a piece of paper, hand-written. That was one of their rules - nothing on a computer. Clean out your browser history after every search. Create one manual list. Never cut and paste. And after Poker Tuesday, they burned the list and started over. That's the way it was. If the cops came back, the first thing they would do is confiscate technology. Ninety percent of cases were made nowadays by a computer tech on the police payroll doing forensics work on some poor idiots laptop. Nothing was safe on a personal computer- all those files you think you deleted - a clever tech can resurrect in minutes. And juries eat that Sherlock Holmes’ shit up.

  Leo unfolded the list and flattened the edges with his hand.

  "I know this is going to surprise you, Gord, but I found a perfect Crispy Critter in Palm Springs."

  Cleary raised his eyebrows. Though Palm Springs was only an hour away from Phoenix, he somehow never imagined a slimy reprobate holed up in a fancy house there.

  "Palm springs has a low rent division like everywhere else.” He showed Cleary his notes. “This is David Torrance. He's a Level 3. Lives in a small bungalow on 52nd Street near the Industrial Park. Checked it out on the Palm Springs Tax Roll site. He owns it. Has for years.

  And he's a bad guy, done a lot of nasty stuff. Spent eight years in Yuma's Dakota Level 4 unit. Released about a year ago. He's 42. Restrained from going within five hundred yards of any school or kindergarten - and for good reason. He likes to kidnap kids and keep them as his personal pet for days. What do ya’ think?"

  "I think you should consider very carefully whether you want to join me on this case," said Cleary.

  "Think I'm too old for this, do ya’?"

  Cleary couldn't help but smile. "Leo, you're tougher than a horny javelina pig on Red Bull. And you know it. You’re also the only guy I know over seventy, who has two girlfriends and a prescription for Viagra that keeps being renewed. But if you walk away now, they could never implicate you. Remember we've been lucky. No screw-ups or bad breaks yet. They're bound to happen eventually."

  "I think we’re on the side of the angels," said Leo, taking another drink.

  "That's not a defense in court," said Cleary, swallowing the last of the lukewarm backwash sloshing around in the bottom of his beer bottle. The first swig was always the best, full of bright promise; the last swig, almost a solemn duty. Maybe he could get that engraved on his tombstone.

  "Well, Gord, I signed up for the whole tour. And you’re the general. If this is on the to do list - dump one more sleazy pervert into hell’s dumpster – then, I'm your man."

  Cleary raised his empty beer bottle, and Leo tapped his against the side. "Done. A deal signed with the devil. Palm Springs, here we come," announced Cleary. "My
old clunker may not make it there and back. Maybe we should take your station wagon instead this time."

  That was, as it turned out, mistake number one.

  :

  Cleary and Leo had used the same tactic to get inside the sex offenders houses six times before.

  Just outside the neighborhood, Cleary would pull over into a back alley or a shopping mall and put on his bunker gear. This was the complete outfit a firefighter would wear before going into a major fire - yellow Nomex pants, a fire resistant yellow coat, boots, black rubber gloves, flash hood, firedome helmet and face shield.

  In many U.S. cities, firefighters made appearances at schools and kindergartens to prepare children in case they are ever confronted by one of these yellow monsters during an actual emergency.

  Cleary was six foot two. He bought the turnout gear at an auction for a fraction of the ten thousand dollars a full kit was worth. Leo thought he looked like a rubberized version of Godzilla.

  Cleary then squeezed himself back into the passenger seat and let Leo finish the driving duties. They parked this time in a back lane behind a dumpster - less noticeable by nosy neighbors. And Cleary rubbed peanut butter he had brought across the license plate, so it was less readable in the dark.

  Their rule was simple - if anyone at all saw them - they would turn back; a fully kitted firefighter was the epitome of official and trusted in most communities - but hardly forgettable.

  Torrance’s little bungalow had a handy side entrance hidden in the shadow of the house next door, three steps up to a concrete porch. Leo stayed back in the shadows; his bag of goodies stuffed into his backpack.

  Cleary knocked on the door, already sweating in the heavy suit. The sidelight went on and the side door opened. Cleary recognized Torrance from his picture on the sex offender’s site. Torrance looked surprised - just like they all did. Who expected a firefighter at their door at one in the morning?

  Cleary had to yell to be heard around the fire hood and head harness.

  "There's been a gas leak in the area, sir. I need to come in and inspect your furnace." Torrance didn't even reply - he just opened the door wider and let the spaceman into his home. Cleary tromped into a small living room and turned. Torrance still looked speechless, wondering perhaps if the firefighter could even hear him through all that rubber armor.