Chapter 57
A TELEPHONE RANG repeatedly in some corner of the second floor of George and Nancy Chu’s house. I waited out the sad, echoing bell tones before asking Jimenez the name and age of the Chus’ daughter. “Molly Chu. She’s ten.” I scribbled in my notebook, stepped around a mound of water-soaked rubble, and headed for the stairs. I called out to Rich, who was already starting down. Before I could tell him about Molly Chu, he showed me a paperback book that he held by the charred edges. Enough of the book cover remained so that I could read the title: Fire Lover, by Joseph Wambaugh. I knew the book. This was a nonfiction account of a serial arsonist who’d terrorized the state of California in the 1980s and ’90s. The blurb on the back cover recounted a scene of horror, a fire that had demolished a huge home improvement center, killing four people, including a little boy of two. While the fire burned, a man sat in his car, videotaping the images in his rearview mirror - the rigs pulling up, the firefighters boiling out, trying to do the dangerous and impossible, to knock down the inferno even as two other suspicious fires burned only blocks away. The man in the car was an arson investigator, John Leonard Orr, a captain of the Glendale Fire Department. Orr was well known and respected. He toured the state giving lectures to firefighters, helping law enforcement read the clues and understand the pathology of arsonists. And while he was traveling, John Orr set fires. He set the fire that had killed those four people. And because of his pattern of setting fires in towns where he was attending fire conferences, he was eventually caught. He was tried, convicted, and stashed in a small cell at Lompoc for the rest of his life, without possibility of parole. “Did you see this book?” Conklin asked Jimenez. Jimenez shook his head no, said, “What? We’re looking for books?” “I found it in the master bathroom between the sink and the toilet,” Conklin said to me. The pages of the book were damp and warped, but it was intact. Incredibly, books rarely burn, because of their density and because the oxygen the fire needs for combustion can’t get between the pages. Still holding the book by the edges, Rich opened the cover and showed me the block letters printed with a ballpoint pen on the title page. I sucked in my breath. This was the link that tied the homicides together. The Latin phrase was the killer’s signature, but why did he leave it? What was he trying to tell us? “Hanni was here,” Conklin said quietly. “Why didn’t he find this book?” I muttered, “Got me,” and focused on the handwritten words on the flyleaf, Sobria inebrietas. Even I could translate this one: “sober intoxication.” But what the hell did it mean?
Chapter 58
CONKLIN AND I had never had a serious fight, but we bickered during the entire two-hour drive back to the Hall. Rich insisted it was significant that a pro like Hanni had missed “the only clue in the whole damned crime scene.” I liked Chuck Hanni. I admired him. Rich didn’t have the same history, the same attachment, so he could be more objective. I had to consider his point of view. Was Hanni a psychopath hiding in plain sight? Or was Conklin so desperate to close the Malone case that he was turning an oversight into a major deal? I saw that Chuck Hanni was with Jacobi in the glass-walled corner office when Conklin and I entered the squad room. As we wove around the desks toward Jacobi’s office, Conklin said to me, “Let me handle this, okay?” Jacobi waved us into his small office, and Conklin leaned against the wall inside the door. I took a side chair next to Hanni, who squirmed in his seat in order to face me. “I was telling Jacobi, the Chu fire looks like the work of the same sick asshole who set the others,” Hanni said. “Don’t you think?” I was looking at Hanni’s familiar face and thinking of the time he’d told me about spontaneous human combustion. “It’s like this, Lindsay,” he’d said over beer at MacBain’s. “Biggish guy is drinking beer and smoking cigarettes in his La-Z-Boy. Falls asleep. The cigarette drops between the cushions and catches fire. Biggish guy’s fat is saturated with alcohol. The chair catches fire and so does the guy, like a freakin’ torch. “After they’ve been incinerated, the fire extinguishes itself. Nothing else catches, so all that’s left is the metal frame of the chair and the guy’s charred remains. “There’s your so-called spontaneous human combustion.” I had said “Ewwww,” laughed, and bought the next round. Now Conklin said from behind me, “Chuck, you were at the Chu scene and you didn’t let us know about it. What’s up with that?” “You think I was keeping something from you?” Hanni bristled. “I told Jimenez to notify you guys as soon as I saw the victims’ bodies.” Conklin took the paperback book from his inside jacket pocket. He reached over me, placed the book, now enclosed in a plastic evidence bag, on top of the pile of junk on Jacobi’s desktop. “This was inside the Chu house,” Conklin said, his voice matter-of-fact, but there was nothing innocent about it. “There’s block lettering on the first page, in Latin.” Hanni looked at the book in silence for a moment, then muttered, “How did I miss this?” Jacobi said, “Where’d you find it, Rich?” “In a bathroom, Lieutenant. In plain sight.” Jacobi looked at Hanni with the hard-boiled stare he’d perfected in twenty-five years of interrogating the worst people in the world. He said, “What about it, Chuck?”
Chapter 59
CHUCK HANNI’S CHAIR scraped the floor as he pushed back from Jacobi’s desk. He’d been caught off guard and was now indignant. “What? You think I’m like that Orr prick? Setting fires so I can be a hero? . . . Oh, and I planted that book to point suspicion at myself? Look! I gave the ATF a standing ovation when they brought John Orr down.” Conklin smiled, shrugged. I felt sweat beading up at my hairline. Hanni couldn’t be what Conklin was suggesting, but so many kind-faced seeming do-gooders had been convicted of mass murder, I had to know. I kept my mouth shut and let the scene play out. “Why didn’t you tell us about the Christiansen fire?” Conklin said, calmly. “Two wealthy people died. Their stuff was stolen -” “Christ,” Hanni interrupted. “I don’t sit around reminiscing about old cases - do you? Bad enough I see them in my dreams -” “But the MO was the same,” Conklin insisted. “And so I’m wondering if the killer can’t kick the habit. Maybe he’s still at it, and now he’s leaving clues at the crime scene. Like a book inscribed with a few words of Latin.” I watched Chuck’s expression, expecting him to bolt, or punch out at Rich, or break down. Instead he frowned, said, “What do you mean, the killer can’t kick the habit? Matt Waters confessed to the Christiansen fire two years ago. He’s doing time at the Q. Check it out, Conklin, before you start slinging accusations around.” My face got hot. Had Cindy gotten this wrong? The Christiansen fire had happened far from San Francisco, but still, I should have double-checked Cindy’s research. Jacobi’s intercom had buzzed a few times during this meeting, but he hadn’t picked up. Now Brenda Fregosi, our squad assistant, barged into the office, ripped a pink square of paper from a pad, handed it to Jacobi, saying, “What’s the matter, Lieutenant? You didn’t hear me ring?” Brenda turned and, swinging her hips, walked back across the gray linoleum to her desk. Jacobi read the note. “Molly Chu is responding to the hospital shrink,” he told us. “She might be ready to talk.” Chuck got out of his chair, but Jacobi stopped him. “Let’s talk, Chuck. Just you and me.”
Chapter 60
MY HEART LURCHED when I saw the little girl. Her hair was singed to an inch of frizzed, black fuzz sticking out from her scalp. Her eyebrows and lashes were gone, and her skin looked painfully pink. We approached her bed, which seemed to float under a bower of shiny helium balloons. Molly didn’t look at me or Conklin, but two Chinese women moved aside and a white-haired woman in her seventies with rounded features and sapphire blue eyes stood up and introduced herself as Molly’s psychiatrist, Dr. Olga Matlaga. The shrink spoke to the little girl, saying, “Some police officers are here to see you, sweetheart.” Molly turned toward me when I said her name, but her eyes were dull, as if the life had been sucked out of her, leaving only a stick-figure representation of a child. “Have you found Graybeard?” she asked me, her voice whispery and slowed by painkillers. I cast a questioning look at Dr. Matlaga, who explained, “Her dog, Graybeard, is missing.” I told Molly that we would put out an APB for Graybeard and told her what that meant. She nodded soberly and I asked, “Can you tell us what happened in your house?” The child turned her face toward the window. “Molly?” Conklin said. He dragged over a chair, sat so that he was at the little girl’s eye level. “Have lots of people been asking you questions?” Molly reached a hand toward the swinging arm of the table near her bed. Conklin lifted a glass of water, held it so the child could sip through the straw. “We know you’re tired, honey, but if you could just tell the story one more time.” Molly sighed, said, “I heard Graybeard barking. And then he stopped. I went back to my movie, and a little later I heard voices. My mom and dad always told me not to come downstairs when they had guests.” “Guests?” Conklin asked patiently. “More than one?” Molly nodded. “And they were friends of your parents?” Molly shrugged, said, “I only know that one of them carried me out of the fire.” “Can you tell us what he looked like?” “He had a nice face, and I think he had blond hair. And he was like Ruben’s age,” Molly said. “Ruben?” “My brother, Ruben. He’s in the cafeteria right now, but he goes to Cal Tech. He’s a sophomore.” “Had you ever seen this boy before?” I asked. I felt Dr. Matlaga’s hand at my elbow, signaling me that our time was over. “I didn’t know him,” Molly said. “I could have been dreaming,” she said, finally fixing her eyes on me. “But in my dream, whoever he was, I know he was an angel.” She closed her eyes, and tears spilled from under those lashless crescents and rolled silently down her cheeks.
Chapter 61
“HANNI IS IN THE CLEAR,” Jacobi said, standing over us, casting a shadow across our desks. “He was working the scene of a meth lab explosion the night of the Meacham fire. He said he told you.” I remembered. He’d told us that the Meacham fire had been his second job that night. “I’ve spoken to five people who were at that meth scene who swear Chuck was there until he got the call about the Meachams,” said Jacobi. “And I’ve confirmed that Matt Waters is doing life for the deaths of the Christiansens.” Conklin sighed. “Both of you,” said Jacobi. “Move on. Find out what the victims have in common. Boxer - McNeil and Chi are reporting to you. So make use of them. Concentrate on the Malones and the Meachams. Those are ours. Here’s the name of the primary working the Chus’ case in Monterey. Conklin, you might want to smooth things over with Hanni. He’s still working these cases.” I was looking at Rich as Jacobi stumped back to his office. Conklin said, “What? I have to buy Hanni flowers?” “That’ll confuse him,” I said. “Look, it made sense, didn’t it, Lindsay? The book was about an arsonist who was an arson investigator and Hanni missed it.” “You made a courageous call, Richie. Your reasoning was sound and you didn’t attack him. You brought it into the open with our immediate superior. Perfectly proper. I’m just glad you were wrong.” “So . . . look. You know him. Should I expect to find my tires slashed?” Conklin asked. I grinned at the idea of it. “You know what, Rich. I think Chuck feels so bad about missing that book, he’s going to slash his own tires. Just tell him, ‘Sorry, hope there are no hard feelings.’ Do the manly handshake thing, okay?” My phone rang. I held Richie’s glum gaze for a moment, knowing how bad he felt, feeling bad for him, then I answered the phone. Claire said, “Sugar, you and Conklin got a minute to come down here? I’ve got a few things to show you.”
Chapter 62
CLAIRE LOOKED UP when Rich and I banged open the ambulance bay doors to the autopsy suite. She wore a flower-printed paper cap and an apron, the ties straining across her girth. She said, “Hey, you guys. Check this out.” Instead of a corpse, there was a bisected tube of what looked like muscle, about seven inches long. The thing was clamped open on the autopsy table. “What is that?” I asked her. “This here’s a trachea,” Claire told us. “Belonged to a schnauzer Hanni found in the bushes outside the Chu house. See how pink it is? No soot in the pooch’s windpipe and his carbon monoxide is negative, so I’m saying he wasn’t in the house during the fire. Most likely he was in the yard, raised the alarm, and someone put him down with a blow to the head. “See this fracture here?” So much for the APB on Graybeard. Whose sad task would it be to tell Molly that her dog was dead? Claire went on to tell us she’d spent the day getting George and Nancy Chu’s bodies from the funeral home. “It’s not our jurisdiction, not our case, but I finally got permission from the Chus’ son, Ruben. Told him that if I have to testify against the killer and I haven’t examined all the victims’ bodies, I’ll get diced into pieces by the attorney for the defense.” I murmured an encouraging “uh-huh” and Claire went on. “Ruben Chu was a mess. Didn’t want his parents to ‘suffer any more indignities,’ but anyway . . . I got the release. Both bodies are at X-ray now,” Claire added. “What was your take?” I asked. “They were burned pretty bad, a few extremities fell off during their travels, but one of George Chu’s ankles still had several wraps of intact monofilament fibers on it. So that, my friends, is evidence that they were absolutely, positively tied up.” “Great job, Claire.” “And I got enough blood for the tox screens.” “You gonna keep us guessing, girlfriend?” “You’re saying I live to frustrate you? I’m talking as fast as I can.” Claire laughed. She squeezed my shoulder affectionately, then removed a sheet of paper from a manila envelope, put it down on the table next to the dog’s trachea. She ran her finger down the column of data. “High alcohol content in their blood,” she said. “Either the Chus had been drinking a lot, or else they’d been drinking high-octane stuff.” “Same as Sandy Meacham?” “Very much the same,” said Claire. I flashed on the inscription in the book. Sobria inebrietas. Sober intoxication. I autodialed Chuck Hanni on my cell phone. If I was right, it would explain why he didn’t detect the odor of ignitable liquids at either of our fire scenes. “Chuck? It’s Lindsay. Could those fires have been set with booze?”
Chapter 63
THE SUN WENT DOWN and someone in the night crew snapped on the bright overhead lights. Rich and I were still wandering around in the dark. Somewhere, a very smug killer was having his dinner, toasting himself on his success, maybe planning another fire - and we didn’t know who he was or when he would strike again. While Chi and McNeil reinterviewed the Malones’ and the Meachams’ friends and neighbors, Conklin and I sat at our desks, going over the murder book together. We reviewed Claire’s findings, the photos of rubberneckers at the fire scenes, the handwriting expert’s comparison of the inscriptions in each of the books left at the fire scenes, and the expert’s opinion: “I can’t say one hundred percent because it’s block lettering, but looks like all the samples were written by the same hand.” We reviewed our own eyeball tours of the crime scenes, trying to reduce all of it to a few illuminating truths, speaking in the kind of shorthand that you use with a partner. And I felt that other connection, too, the one I wouldn’t let Rich mention but sometimes just arced across our desks. Like it was doing now. I got up, went to the bathroom, washed my face, got a cup of coffee for me and one for Conklin, black, no sugar. Sat back down, said, “Now, where were we?” As the night tour walked and talked around us, Rich ticked off on his fingers what we had: “The couples were all in their forties and well-to-do. The doors to all the houses were unlocked, and the alarms weren’t set. No sign of gunfire. The couples all had a child of college age. They were all robbed, but the killer took only jewelry and cash.” “Okay, and here are a few suppositions,” I said. “The killer is smart enough and unthreatening enough to talk his way into the houses. And I’m going to also say that it seems probable that there were two assailants; one to tie up the victims, one to hold a gun.” Rich nodded, said, “He or they used fishing line as ligatures because they’d burn off quickly in the fire. And they used an untraceable accelerant. That’s careful. They don’t leave evidence, and that’s smart. “But I don’t think Molly Chu was in the plan,” Rich added. “This is the first time another person was in the house with the victims. I’m thinking Molly had already passed out from smoke inhalation when her ‘angel’ found her and subsequently carried her out. Kind of heroic, wouldn’t you say?” “So maybe the killer thought she didn’t see him,” I said. “And so he felt safe carrying her out of the house. Yeah, I don’t think he wanted the little girl to die, hon.” Rich looked up, grinned at me. “I, uh. Didn’t mean - shit.” “Forget it, babe,” said Conklin. “Means nothin’.” He grinned wider. I said, “Shut up,” and threw a paper clip at his head. He snatched it out of the air and went on. “So,” he said, “let’s say Molly saw one of the killers, okay? And let’s say he’s a college-age kid as Molly suggested. The Malones, the Meachams, the Chus, and that couple in Palo Alto, the Jablonskys - they all had kids in college. But their kids all went to different schools.” “True,” I said. “But a kid, any kid, comes to the door and looks presentable, Mom and Dad might open it. “Rich, maybe that’s the con. When I was in school, I was always bringing people home that my mom didn’t know. So, what if a couple of kids come to the door and say they’re friends with your kid?” “That would be easy to fake,” Rich said. “Local newspapers do stories on kids at school. So-and-so’s daughter or son, attending such-and-such school won this-or-that award.” Rich drummed his fingers on the desk, and I rested my chin in my hand. Instead of feeling on the brink of a breakthrough, it seemed that we’d just opened the field of potential suspects to every male college-age kid in California who knew high school Latin - and, by the way, was into robbery, torture, arson, and murder. I thought about the puzzle pieces. Providence favoring the killers’ actions, and money being the root of all evil. There was the sci-fi book Fahrenheit 451, and now a book about a high-placed fire official who’d set fires. When John Orr was caught, he’d said, “I was stupid, and I did what stupid people do.” These killers weren’t making Orr’s mistakes. They were going out of their way to show just how smart they were. Was saving Molly Chu their one miscalculation? Rich’s phone rang and he swiveled his chair toward the wall. He lowered his voice and said, “We’re working on it, Kelly, right now. It’s all we’re doing. I promise, when we know something, I’ll call you. We won’t let you down.”
Chapter 64
YUKI WAS AT the Whole Foods Market six blocks from her apartment, looking over the produce, thinking about a quick stir-fry for dinner, when she thought she glimpsed a familiar figure down the aisle. When she looked again, he was gone. She was hallucinating, she thought, so tired she could conjure up bogeymen anywhere. She dropped a head of broccoli into her cart and moved on toward the meat section. There she selected a shrink-wrapped tray of tiger prawns -and got the feeling again that Jason Twilly was only yards away. She looked up. And there he was, dressed in navy blue pinstripes, pink shirt, wearing a full smirk and standing near the pile of frozen free-range turkeys. Twilly waggled his fingers but made no move toward her, though he didn’t turn away. He had no cart, no basket. The bastard wasn’t shopping. He was stalking her. Yuki’s sudden fury gathered power and momentum, so that she saw only one possible course of action. She shoved her cart to the side of the aisle and marched toward Twilly, stopping a few feet from his sturdy English shoes. “What are you doing here, Jason?” she said, stretching her neck to look up at his crazy-handsome face with the eight-hundred-dollar eyeglass frames and lopsided smile. “Leave the groceries, Yuki,” he said. “Let me take you out to dinner. I promise I’ll behave. I just want to make up to you for our misunderstanding the last time -” “I want to be very clear about this,” Yuki said, cutting him off, using her clipped, rapid-fire style. “Mistakes happen. Maybe the misunderstanding was my fault, and I’ve apologized. Again, I’m sorry it happened. But you have to understand. I’m not interested, Jason - in anyone. It’s all work, all the time, for me. I’m not available, okay? So please don’t follow me again.” Jason’s odd, twisted smile blossomed into a full-blown laugh. “Nice speech,” he said, clapping his hands, an exaggerated round of mock applause. Yuki felt a little shock of fear as she backed away. What was wrong with this guy? What was he capable of doing? She remembered Cindy’s warning to her to be careful of what she said around Twilly. Would he dirty her reputation when he wrote about the Junie Moon trial? Whatever. “Good-bye, Jason. Leave me alone. I mean it.” “Hey, I’m writing a book, remember?” Twilly called out to her as she turned her back on him. She heard his voice as she pushed her cart down the aisle. She wanted to hide. She wanted to disappear. “You’re a key player, Yuki. Sorry if you don’t like it, but you’re the star of my whole freakin’ show.”
Chapter 65
WE WERE GATHERED on the deck of Rose Cottage, outside of Point Reyes, feeling the blessed night breeze on our cheeks. Yuki flipped on the heater for the hot tub, while Claire tossed a giant salad and made burgers for the grill. This impromptu getaway was Cindy’s idea. She had corralled us in a conference call only hours before, saying, “Since our first attempt at a Women’s Murder Club Annual Getaway Weekend was canceled due to someone answering a call to return to work, we should grab this opportunity to drop everything and go now.” Cindy added that she’d booked the cottage and that she would drive. There was no saying no to Cindy, and for once I was glad to turn the wheel over to her. Yuki and Claire had both slept in the backseat during the drive, and I’d ridden shotgun with Martha in my lap, her ears flapping in the wind. I listened to Cindy talk over the car’s CD player, my mind floating blissfully as we neared the ocean. Once we’d arrived at the rose-covered hobbit house with its two snug bedrooms plus picnic table and grill in the clearing at the edge of a forest, we’d slapped each other high fives and dropped our bags on our beds. Yuki had left her box of files in her room and come with Martha and me as we took a short run up a moonlit trail to the top of a wooded ridge and back again. And now I was ready for a meal, a margarita, and a great night’s sleep. But when we got back to Rose Cottage, my cell phone was ringing. Claire groused, “That damned thing’s been ringin’ its buttons off, girlfriend. Either turn it off or give it to me and I’ll stomp it to death.” I grinned at my best friend, pulled the phone from my handbag, saw the number on the caller ID. It was Jacobi. I stabbed the send button, said hello, and heard traffic noise mixed in with the wail of fire engine sirens. I shouted, “Jacobi. Jacobi, what’s up?” “Didn’t you get my messages?” “No, I just caught this ring on the fly.” The sirens in the background, the fact that Jacobi was calling at all, caused me to imagine a new fire and another couple of charred bodies killed by a psycho looking for kicks. I pressed my ear hard to the phone, strained to hear Jacobi over the street noise. “I’m on Missouri Street,” he told me. That was my street. What was he doing on my street? Had something happened to Joe? “There’s been a fire, Boxer. Look, there’s no good way to say this. You have to come home right now.”
Chapter 66
JACOBI DISCONNECTED the phone call, leaving static in my ear and a god-awful gap between what he’d said and what he’d left out. “There’s been a fire on Missouri Street,” I announced to the girls. “Jacobi told me to come home!” Cindy gave me the keys and we piled into her car. I floored the accelerator and we bumped down the twisting roads of the backwoods of Olema and out to the highway. I called Joe as I drove, ringing his apartment and mine, and I rang his cell, pressed redial again and again, never getting an answer. Where was he? Where was Joe? I don’t ask God for much, but as we neared Potrero Hill, I was praying that Joe was safe. When we reached Missouri at Twentieth, I saw that my street was roped off. I parked in the first empty spot, gripped Martha’s leash, and dashed up the steep residential block, leaving the girls to follow behind. I was winded when I caught sight of my house, saw that it was fenced in by fire rigs, patrol cars, and bystanders filling the narrow street. I frantically scoured the faces in the crowd, saw the two female students who lived on the second floor and the building manager, Sonya Marron, who lived on the ground floor. Sonya reached through the crowd and gripped my arm, saying, “Thank God, thank God.” There were tears in her eyes. “Was anyone hurt?” “No,” she said. “No one was home.” I hugged her then, relieved at last that Joe had not fallen asleep in my bed. But I still had questions, a ton of them. “What happened?” I asked Sonya. “I don’t know. I don’t know.” I looked for Jacobi, but I found Claire shouting at the fire captain, “I under-stand it may be a crime scene, but she’s a cop. With the SFPD!” I knew the fire department captain, Don Walker, a thin man with a prominent nose, weary eyes peering out from the soot on his face. He threw up his hands, and then he opened the front door. Claire gathered me under her wing, and along with Yuki, Cindy, and Martha, we entered the three-story apartment house that had been my home for ten years.
Chapter 67
I WAS WEAK-KNEED as we mounted the stairs, but my mind was sharp. The stairs hadn’t burned, and the doors to the two lower apartments stood open. The apartments looked untouched by fire. This made no sense. But it all became clear at the top of the stairs. The door to my apartment was in shards. I stepped through the shattered door frame and saw the stars and the moon where my ceiling used to be. I lowered my eyes from the night sky, finding it hard to take in the grotesque condition of my little nest. The walls were black, curtains gone, the glass in my kitchen cabinets blown out. My crockery and the food in my pantry had exploded, making the place smell crazily like popcorn and Clorox. My cozy living room furniture had melted down into hunks of sodden foam and wire springs. And then I knew - the fire had taken everything. Martha whined and I bent to her, buried my face in her fur. “Lindsay,” I heard someone shout. “Are you okay?” I turned to see Chuck Hanni coming out of the bedroom. Did he have something to do with this? Had Rich been right all along? And then I saw Conklin right behind Hanni, and both of their faces were sagging with my pain. Rich opened his arms. I held on to him in the smoking black ruins of my home, so glad he was there. But as I rested my head on his shoulder, the stark realization hit me: if Cindy hadn’t called with her impromptu getaway plan, I would have been home with Martha when the fire broke out. I ripped myself away from Rich and called out to Hanni. My voice was trembling. “Chuck, what happened here? I have to know. Did someone try to kill me?”