Page 37 of Love Again

“Really? Is that how it works?”

Mateus shakes his head and smiles again. “No. I don’t know. But Carlson’s sister is a double amputee—I learned that last fall. My subconscious must have tucked that away somewhere.”

“You’ve worked a case with him before?”

Mateus nods. “Colton Security did. A murder. Laurel found the body, and she knew the girl. It was complicated.”

Devon and Carlson return, but she still won’t look at me.

“Mateus, I’d like you to start gathering information from other fire departments and local law enforcement to find common points of ignition, property owners, or connections between the sites.

Devon doesn’t flinch, doesn’t blink, and doesn’t move. All she says is, “Wouldn’t it be faster if we split up?”

But Carlson shakes his head. “No, it’s actually perfect that you guys have worked together before. Unless”—and here, he arches an eyebrow at her—“there’s a problem I need to know about.”

Devon shakes her head. “Nope, no problem. I thought two people going in opposite directions might be a better idea.”

Oh, she’s killing me.

Carlson explains. “Having two pairs of eyes on the scene means that one might catch something the other missed. I do want you working together and reporting back whenever you’re out in the field. If you find anything, take pictures of it, bag it correctly, and take it to the local police authorities. I don’t want the chain of custody mucked up by not reporting.” He wipes his eyes. “If they could lift some prints, that would be ideal, but I’m not holding my breath.

Carlson clearly needs a bone, so I offer one. “Orr was found out by a pinky fingerprint found years afterward, and fingerprint technology has only gotten better. That’s how they caught him years later. We need to be able to catch real evidence to make this stick. So what are we looking for?” Maybe now he’ll answer.

Carlson glances to Devon. “Hopefully you’ll find it. Devon and I went over my houseboat the next day with another fire investigator. She found this.”

He sets a glass bottle, smaller that a prescription bottle, down on the desk. Its plastic cap is scorched and twisted. There’s a tooth in it. A baby tooth.

“What the fuck?” Mateus stands up to take a closer look.

“It was in this bottle,” says Carlson, answering for her. “Just like this. In a cast iron pot in the galley.”

“May I?” I reach down and pick it up. The white-enameled speck is a front baby tooth. “Are they giving us DNA evidence?”

“I don’t know,” says Carlson. “We don’t know whose tooth it is, or if it’s from a child or adult. I had Jessie, our coroner, take a took, and she says it looks to her like the pulp was chemically removed. But she can’t say for sure. I’ve never taken the cap off.”

I say what I’m sure we’re all thinking. “It’s creepy. The arsonist must think that chemically wiping out the pulp will take care of a DNA match. But the dentin under the enamel? That has mtDNA, traits from the mother’s side, and that makes a match really easy.”

“And another showed up somewhere else, I’m guessing,” says Mateus.

Carlson reaches into his pocket and takes out a second glass jar. This time, the plastic cap is so bubbled and melted, it coats the inside of the glass, and there’s a small opening at the top.

“Trailer in Portland. Saxton’s Bay Fire Department was called in because the trailer park was next to a propane storage facility. Again, another firefighter, not one of our guys, found it buried in garbage that seems to be the ignition point. It was in a silicone sleeve, like the kind you use for a potholder or grill mitt. The fire seemed accidental, but the tooth changed that.”

This tooth is an incisor—small, pointed, and very white.

I struggle to make sense of what I’m seeing. “This is out of my wheelhouse. I just left school, and nowhere did arsonists who leave a talisman behind ever come up. Returning in a crowd to watch, yes. Leaving physical evidence that will not burn up in a fire, no. How about you, Mateus?”

He, too, shakes his head. “This is a weirdo. If he’s a firebug, part of the thrill is having the evidence burn up. Having all that power with no accountability. It can be part of the sexual rush. You might be right. This might not be a pyro.”

Devon says quietly, “So not a firebug.”

And then Carlson gets a call and we’re dismissed, just like that. Mateus plans to call other police and fire departments to ask if they found similar bottles, and, if so, ask if we can have the evidence on loan. We need to reconvene and then Carlson will give us the two names of the suspects he’s identified.

He is clearly looking for corroboration. It’s almost as if he doesn’t trust himself—or the suspects are really high profile.

Even though that’s how it usually works in a debrief or even in a tabletop scenario—when you’re done, you’re done—it still feels sudden. Devon walks out of the building ahead of me.

I feel there’s so much unfinished business inside that room.