Explosive Forces

by D. D. Ayres

  Maybe Glover had driven by and seen them, though they had parked a block away in an unmarked van. If that were so, they couldn’t leave without getting at least part of what they’d come for. It wasn’t often a judge gave authority for a second warrant on the same weekend. But new evidence had come to light, directing them to look in other directions.

  After the emergency sirens revved up, Durvan gave the order to enter the premises by any means necessary. They needed to get in and out before all hell broke loose.

  Once inside, Durvan was like an old maid aunt, dropping a tarp on the entry floor and directing the other officers to wipe their wet feet before continuing inside. Noah might be about to be disgraced, but his father had earned respect.

  “Inventory everything you take. I don’t want any screwups.” Durvan pulled on plastic gloves. “And, for god’s sakes, don’t wreck anything unnecessarily. Glover senior is a retired cop.”

  They had what they came for within two minutes. But Durvan took his time writing up the inventory, hoping that the storm would bring Noah home. One of the officers was getting antsy. A tornado had been sited over White Settlement, where he lived. Emergency vehicle sirens of every type could be heard far and near. It was a bad night, for a lot of people. But not as bad as it was going to get for Noah Glover.

  In addition to the search warrant itself, Durvan held an order to arrest.

  They were ready to leave when Durvan heard a truck pull into the drive. He approached the door with a smile.

  Noah walked in as casually as a man can who’s shedding water like he’d been dipped in a stream. His hands were up in the position of surrender. But Durvan had an officer pat him down anyway.

  Noah smirked, thinking how much he’d rather still be lying between Carly’s soft thighs. As the man’s hand slid up his inseam, he jerked. “Careful. You owe me dinner over that move.”

  Durvan stepped up to him, beefy face tight with anger. “You think this is a joke, Glover?”

  Noah met his gaze with a hard stare that spared his old friend nothing. “Not even a little.”

  The corner of Durvan’s mustache twitched. “Where have you been?”

  Noah lowered his hands and crossed his arms. “You and I both know I’m not going to tell you about that.”

  Durvan’s expression hardened. “We’ll see. I’ve got probable cause. You’re under arrest, you son of a bitch.”

  * * *

  Cursing his lack of vision, he wiped repeatedly at the fogged-up windshield. Darlene’s crap car didn’t have a working defroster. Giving up, he rolled down the driver’s side window. Wind and rain shoved their way in past his face, but he didn’t notice. A big fat grin spread across his dripping features at the sight unfolding down the block.

  And to think he almost missed it.

  Across the street, under the glare of the porch lights, Noah Glover was being escorted out of his house, a policeman on either side. It wasn’t until he was being turned to be tucked into the rear seat of a patrol car that light glinted off the pair of cuffs circling his wrists.

  He sat there a long time after the police cars had one by one pulled away from the curb. The worst of the storm had blown on through. He held a lighter, the only thing his jerk-off of a father had ever given him. But, for the first time in months, he didn’t feel like lighting so much as a firecracker.

  A calm had settled over him. The work, the struggle, the soul-grinding disappointment of his life had been lifted away. Noah Glover was under arrest.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Noah sat in his sister’s Mercedes staring straight ahead. “Thanks for bailing me out.”

  Sandra nodded. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

  Noah was silent for a moment. It was bad.

  There’d been questions, so many questions he’d lost count. Not a big deal, in and of itself. He knew the drill. Yet before, he had always been on the other side of an interrogation.

  Leave the suspect in a room for a while, long enough to wonder what the arresting officer had on him. Let him grow restless, angry, reckless, whatever his emotionally volatile trigger was. Then, when the suspect was vulnerable, irritable, hungry, thirsty, maybe jonesing for a hit of something illegal, or bloodshot-eyes tired, begin the interview.

  When Durvan had finally sauntered in, in a dry shirt and looking as if he’d had a cat nap Noah didn’t allow himself, the look in his mentor’s eyes told him it was worse than he’d imagined. They had evidence.

  Just how much and what kind had been parceled out in a slow drip of information over two hours, interspersed with dozens of rephrased questions that all revolved around when did he start setting fires.

  God Almighty. They thought he was an arsonist.

  He glanced over at his sister, who was watching him like a bomb that might go off.

  “Don’t look at me like that. I’m okay. But the charges have been revved up a notch.” Or nine.

  “What does that mean?”

  “They matched gasoline used in my so-called suicide attempt to the service station near my house.”

  “How did they do that?”

  “With a gas chromatograph. Every service station’s tanks have a signature mixture. It’s an accumulation of gasoline residues from tankers, ground-water seepage, degrading tanks, and things in the ground that come in with the ground water. We use it fairly often to locate an arsonist.”

  “Durvan did this to you?”

  He glanced at Sandra and kept talking because she looked close to tears or dismemberment of his superior, neither of which he wanted to handle just now.

  “It’s standard procedure if we get samples of the accelerant used in an arson case. Gasoline is cheap, available, and no one thinks twice when someone comes in with a tank and carts away a couple of gallons. When we suspect arson, I collect samples from all the service stations within a four-block area. If the samples from the fires match just one station, I know where my suspect is getting his fuel. Caught one guy recently because he’d been seen on a bike pedaling away from a fire. I went and checked out the station’s video for the day after the next suspect fire in the area. Bingo, guy on bike filled a gas tank. His face was visible. Showed it around and had him in custody within two days.”

  “Can’t Durvan do something like that to prove you’re innocent?”

  “It’s not just the one fire anymore. One of the arson cases I’ve been working for months came up as a match.”

  “You’ve going to have to explain that.”

  “Okay. But could we leave the precinct parking lot? I recognize that reporter.” He pointed to the woman coming across the lot toward them at a fast clip, recorder already in hand.

  Sandra’s eyes narrowed. “No problem.”

  She started her engine and waved at the woman. Then she moved her car right into the path of the reporter, as if she planned pull up alongside her. When they were even, the woman leaning slightly forward with a smile of anticipation, Sandra flipped her the bird and pressed her pedal, sending the Mercedes sailing past.

  Noah shook his head but kept silent.

  Sandra drove several blocks, hit the drive-thru lane of a fast food place to buy two large coffees and then entered the interstate going west through town before she spoke again. “Explain.”

  Noah sipped the black coffee in gratitude. He hadn’t slept much and his brain processes were getting dicey. “When the lab tested the tank from the house, they got matches to the samples of gasoline from other arson fires as well. It’s routine. We have unsolved arson fires backlogged all the time for lack of evidence. Sandra, they have me, the gasoline, and six unsolved arson fires all linked.”

  Sandra scoffed. “So what? All of what you’re telling me is circumstantial at best. Hundreds of people use that station daily. It’s coincidence that the fires match.”

  Noah frowned. He was forgetting something. He gulped coffee. Oh yeah. He’d skipped over the most important part. “The gasoline matches are only to the fires I’ve been investigati
ng for the past six months.”

  “What are you saying? Durvan now thinks you’re a serial arsonist?”

  Hard as it had been for him to sit and hear it, that’s what the department now thought. “Durvan thinks I chose those particular fires to investigate to keep them from being solved,” he added for confirmation before Sandra’s could ask, “because I set them.”

  “That’s ridiculous. You fight fires.” But her voice was hollow now, disturbed by this new evidence. “What does that mean?”

  “It means someone’s been after me longer than I’ve realized.”

  She frowned as she stared ahead, her lawyer game face in place. “Still circumstantial.”

  “There’s more, Sandra. The last arson was a homicide. A homeless man died in the blaze.”

  Her head swiveled toward him. “Oh, Noah.”

  “Yeah. Durvan’s been looking for motivation for my suicide attempt. Something beyond Bailey’s and Jillian’s deaths. He thinks he’s got it now. The homeless guy’s death is what tipped the balance toward suicide for me. Guilt over causing the death of that poor bastard.”

  “That’s why bail was set so high.”

  “Yeah. But the charges haven’t been introduced, or I might not have gotten out, fearing flight risk. They are still pulling the final indictment together. That’s why they went back into the house. So far, all I’ve been charged with is the arson last Friday night.”

  He looked over at Sandra, who gripped the wheel so tight her knuckles were white with the tension. “I didn’t do this.”

  “You don’t have to say that.”

  “Yes. I do. It could get worse. The way it’s going, there’s probably more stuff I don’t know about yet waiting to bite me in the ass.”

  “What are you going to do?

  “Work the case until I’m formally arraigned. I’ve been one dumb sum’ bitch not to pick up on something before now. This isn’t a simple crime of passion. It’s been a slow build to an execution.”

  “You’re going to need help. I can move to Fort Worth, at least until you are formally arraigned. Run interference with the press.”

  “No. I want you to stand back from this. You have a reputation to think of.”

  “Then at least let me get you an attorney. You need someone with criminal experience.”

  Noah nodded slowly. “I won’t argue with that.”

  “There’s more, isn’t there?”

  Noah nodded, hating to lay it on his sister’s shoulders. But he needed to think clearly, and no one thought more clearly than Sandra Glover. Except maybe a certain woman with Happy Hair. Carly had tried to make him see a pattern last night. He wished now he’d listened better. But dammit, they absolutely couldn’t have further contact now.

  “They found footage from a surveillance camera two blocks away from where the fire took place Friday night. They showed it to me. It’s grainy and wasn’t meant to show action that far away. But it shows what looks like me and Harley in the parking lot and then entering the back of that store half an hour before the fire.”

  “Jesus.”

  He nodded. Something about the tape was bothering him, but they wouldn’t play it a second time when he asked. “I’d sure like a look at the footage again.”

  “I’ll get Angel on it.”

  Noah turned a questioning gaze on her. “Angel?”

  “Angel Gutierrez. Private eye.”

  He smiled for the first time in hours. First-rate thinker, his sister. “Okay. I’ll bite. On Gutierrez. But only if you promise to go back to Abilene and stay there until I call. He’s to deal only with me.”

  “You can trust him. He’s the best.”

  “One more thing. Carly Harrington-Reese had nothing to do with this. I want to keep her clear of the whole business. So I need you to get a message to her.”

  Sandra tossed her head, anger breaking through her nerves. “You’ve just told me you’re about to be arraigned for homicide, and you’re worried about a woman?”

  Noah gave his sister a considering look. “Carly saved my life. Without her, you and Dad and Mom and Andy would have buried me today.”

  Sandra gasped but didn’t argue. “What do you want me to tell her?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “MODEL” CITIZEN SAVES SUSPECTED SUICIDE

  CITY ARSON DETECTIVE CHARGED IN ARSON FIRE

  The headlines arrayed on her aunt’s kitchen table made it hard for Carly to breathe. She’d already seen the local morning news on several channels before she turned them off in frustration and anger. But seeing the words in print had more impact. Nothing she read or didn’t read, saw or didn’t see, would change the immediate and disastrous fact: Noah had been arrested for arson.

  According to all the sources, other charges were pending.

  She did wish that she hadn’t been identified as the woman who’d saved Noah Glover’s life. That made for a whole other source of calls and texts from friends who wanted to know if she was okay. The trouble was, she wasn’t quite sure how she felt, other than annoyed as hell. Especially since one headline referred to her past, as if it had anything to do with the fact she’d saved a man’s life.

  Luckily, Noah’s sister had called to warn her that Noah had been arrested—and made bail—and that the story was about to go public in a big way.

  Even as she packed her bags to leave her apartment, Carly fielded and turned down half a dozen requests to be interviewed by local media. How they knew where to find her she couldn’t figure out, until one reporter reminded her that her phone number and address were on the statement she’d made to the police. Someone had leaked it. That fact sent her to her aunt’s home, where she’d spent the night.

  The media weren’t being as aggressive at a local judge’s residence. They’d stayed behind her gate once Jarius’s police cruiser came up the drive.

  “Look at this.” Fredda Wiley pointed to an article lower down the page in Section B of the Fort Worth Star Telegram. “‘According to one source who asked not to be identified, Glover has had a difficult year. First with the death of a firefighter friend killed when a wall of a building collapsed in a fire. And then the death of his ex-wife.’”

  “What?” Carly snatched the paper from her aunt. She scanned the article so quickly it took her three times before her eyes would adjust so that the words made sense. Jillian Tilson, the former Mrs. Noah Glover and recently divorced for the second time, died of a drug overdose eleven months ago. She was reported to have been despondent over the break-up of her second marriage and was abusing prescription painkillers as a result.”

  “Did you know about this?” Aunt Fredda was watching her closely.

  Carly shook her head. “I know he’s divorced. And that he has custody of his son, Andy. I don’t know the details.” She felt bad lying to her aunt. But this was something Noah hadn’t been able to tell his own son. It felt wrong to share his confidence. But now it was spread over the media, as if it had any relevance. Poor Noah. No wonder he’d tried to protect his family by urging them to leave town.

  Fredda took the paper back and finished reading the piece. “I’d be despondent, too, if someone took my child from me. However, there must have been extenuating circumstances with the wife to award custody to the father.”

  “His ex didn’t want to be a mother. She walked out on them when Andy was two months old and never came back.”

  Fredda lifted her reading glasses to her brow. “I thought you didn’t know the details?”

  Carly shrugged. “I know he didn’t do what he’s accused of.”

  Aunt Fredda leaned toward her. “I understand you like the man, Carly. But don’t confuse attraction with reality. There are some serious charges laid out here.”

  Carly folded her arms, annoyance breaking through her natural respect for her relative. “Haven’t you said before that you have a sixth sense about many of the young people who come before you in court?”

  “Yes, but I don’t usually have feelings f
or the people who come before me.”

  “I need some air.”

  Before her aunt could detain her, Carly turned and walked to the back door only to see that the crowd of half a dozen media people parked before the closed gate of her aunt’s property hadn’t budged.

  She turned back and nearly plowed into Jarius. He had arrived after midnight and gone straight up to his old room to sleep. She sometimes wondered if he actually lived at his apartment. He was shaved, showered, and dressed in his police uniform complete with utility belt, gun, and radio. In other words, ready for duty.

  She looked up at him. “I need to get out of here. Now.”

  He evaluated her expression for a moment, and then her attire. She wore a crisp white shirt with the collar up and sleeves scrunched up, jean shorts with rolled hems, and sandals. “You’re kinda casual, cuz. Sure you want to face the horde looking like that?”

  She stuck a finger in his chest. “The point, cuz, would be that you get me out of here without the horde knowing about it.

  “Right.” He grinned. “Let me grab a protein bar, then I’ll bring the cruiser under the porte cochere and you can slip in.”

  A few minutes later Carly was crouched down in the front passenger seat of the police cruiser, half hidden by Jarius’s laptop as he drove through the gates of his mother’s property. He didn’t slow for the reporters. In fact, he gunned the big engine of his cruiser as they turned onto the last thirty yards of the drive.

  Only when they were leaving the neighborhood did Carly sit up. “Thanks.”

  Jarius nodded. He looked every inch a police officer behind the wheel. Solid, capable, dependable. He slanted her a curious look. “You holding up okay?”

  “Maybe. It would be easier if I had something to do.”

  “What about Flawless?”

  “There is no Flawless.”

  “Aren’t you going to reopen?”

  “I’ve lost my merchandise. The interior, a lot of which I did myself, painting and papering, is destroyed.”