Page 36 of Love Again
I clear my throat. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but only ten percent of arsonists are ever caught, and only one percent are ever convicted. You’ve got to build a strong case. What is this evidence you found at the other fire sites?”
Carlson ignores my question and taps the table. “No. You all have to build a strong case. I have three suspects—two IDed and one unidentified. That’s why I felt it was time to bring in more people.”
I know I’ll sound like the overeager, just-out-of-school freshman, but I have to ask. “Are you thinking one of the suspects could be related to a fire department?
Carlson looks uncomfortable. “Yes.”
“Like Orr?”
“Stranger things have happened.”
“Who’s Orr?” asks Devon.
I answer before I have time to realize what Carlson is inferring. “John Leonard Orr was a fire captain who set fires across Los Angeles in the 1980s and ’90s. He also wrote novels about arsonists. He was responsible for millions of dollars in damages, and four people died.”
Mateus is still looking at the bodies, and he sets the photos in a stack on the table for a minute. Devon touches the top one with her fingers, looks down and flinches, and moves her hand away fast.
It’s like she touched a live wire. I can’t make out what it is, and then the colors in the image resolve: it’s an infant.
“Sorry,” says Mateus and quickly shoves the photo and the others back into the white, opaque sleeve.
Devon immediately deflects. “Jack, should we get my paperwork out of the way? I mean, what do I need to do?”
It isn’t until after they disappear to some HR wing of the department that I’m alone with Mateus. “You’re with Laurel, right?”
“One hundred percent.”
“Let me see that envelope,” I say, and he slides it across the table. The images are hard to take. Once, Devon and our team had to secure, tag, and wait on the coroners for five campers caught in a heavy brush fire.
It was brutal. Devon sleepwalks sometimes, and she left our bedroom in a trance twice the following week. It was as if she was trying to escape what she saw, what she had to do.
“Laurel said Devon carried the baby out, but they couldn’t revive it. I should have been more careful.” He slips the photos back inside.
“I bet she had a hard time with it.”
“She did. Laurel said Devon told her she saw a therapist for a while. You’ve worked with Devon. She’s a rock. But this . . .” He shakes his head. “No one should live through it or have to see it. Pretty awful.”
I can’t think about her suffering, being in pain, and I have to change the subject. “Did you catch that he cut her off back there?”
“About the houseboat fire? Oh, yeah. I’m really a profiler and I’m good at it. Totally broadsided that conversation.”
“So I read it right?”
Mateus smiles. “There’s some history between the two of them.”
“That’s what I thought too. She was about to say something he didn’t want her to say. Do you think he really knows who’s setting the fires and pulled us in to cover for the fact there’s some personal connection?”
“I don’t think so. I’m not picking up on that from him. But”—he shrugs—“you never know. My gut says there’s a piece or two he’s not sharing with us, and that’s okay. We can do our work and provide the information he wants. Hopefully, we’ll at least get an arrest.”
Mateus winces for a moment, pulls up a chair, and sits down. His face is twisted in pain like he’s got a Charlie horse.
“Pulled a muscle?”
“I wish,” he says through gritted teeth, and then he releases a sigh as whatever pain he had seems to pass. Glancing up, he grins. He pulls his left pant leg up a couple of inches, enough to let me see he’s wearing a prosthetic.
“Oh, man, I’m sorry. I had no—man. You sure fooled me.”
“Ha. Thanks. I’m much better at fooling myself. I did that for a long time.” He rubs his knee. “I swear, being in the same room with Carlson triggers phantom pain. Like, every time.”
