Playing with Fire (15 page)

Beau had done his share of time at funerals. “Yeah, I know. You think there’d still be a case file or report somewhere?”

“Sure. Somewhere. If there was a fatality, there’d have to be a report at least. I’ll check with Ernie Tousant. If anyone can find it in the maze of files out back, he can.”

“Hey, I appreciate your help. Call when you find it, and I’ll send a man over.”

“Don’t bother. I’ll have my grandson drop it off. He’s got classes over at LSU every afternoon. You guys are probably over on St. Louis, right?”

Beau gave him the number, thanked him, and hung up. Slowly he smiled and sailed the mangled paper clip into the trash.
You can run, Maggie, but you can’t hide.

“Beau!” Jim hollered from the bull pen. “Line one. You’d better take it. The guy says he’s got fire trucks rolling to his house, but he wants you there too.”

“That’s all I need today,” he mumbled. “Some politico who wants special treatment so he can speed up the insurance claim.”

Frowning now, Beau snatched up the receiver. “Grayson.”

“You get over here. And this time I want something done. Before she kills someone.” Dr. Bennett was brief and to the point. He gave his address and hung up.

Beau slammed down the phone and headed for the door. He didn’t know how much of a lead the fire trucks had on him, but whatever it was, it was too much. On his way by Jim, he passed him the piece of paper with the address.

“Get on the radio. Find out who’s rolling on this and tell that engine that I do not, repeat
do not
, want them to overhaul that fire before I get there. All I need is for them to get this thing under control quick and start shoveling out my evidence. Russell, you’re with me on this one. Let’s move! My evidence is burning!”

Dammit, Maggie. You should have listened. Why didn’t you listen?

The crew had barely rolled out the hose and made the hydrant connection when Beau arrived. Maybe he had a shot at some evidence. Maybe.

When a well-dressed man came charging across the street, Beau sighed. He recognized the doctor from the hospital. “Russell, can you handle that?”

“Yes, sir. I imagine I can.”

“Good. Handle it away from me. Then work the bystanders and neighbors. Dig me up a witness. You know who Bennett’s pinned this one on, so let’s see if we can place her here. I’ll get on the physical evidence.”

Russell was as good as his word; he handled Bennett.
The man never got within ten feet. Beau grabbed his gear from the trunk of the car, leaving the shovel this time, but taking the camera. As it always did, the job absorbed him, forcing his emotions to the background. He worked the perimeter of the house first, looking specifically for forcible entry, shoe prints, spilled accelerant.

When he found a shoe print in the soft dirt of the side flower bed—a few inches from the edge of the walk—he wasn’t certain if it belonged to Bennett’s wife, kid, the perp or if Bennett had small feet. Right now, Beau didn’t care to whom it belonged. The print was beneath a jimmied window, and he didn’t look gift horses in the mouth. He was simply grateful that none of the smoke-eaters had trampled it.

Yet.

The day was early; they would eventually. Or they’d vent an upstairs window and chunks of falling glass would land in it. Water could destroy it. One way or another, this print was on the endangered list.

A couple of firefighters blew past him. Priority number one was the fire. First, last, and always. So he’d have to find a way to protect the print until he could cast it. They sure as hell weren’t going to tiptoe around it. Of course, if the responsibilities had been reversed, neither would he. First he took a close-up and a placement photo. Then he scanned the area.

Beau smiled. Bennett had one of those small, shiny aluminum garbage cans to supplement the city’s big blue plastic ones. Without a moment’s hesitation, Beau strode to the can and upended it, dumping garbage on the lawn.

Taking the can back to the flower bed, he flipped it upside down again and placed it over the area, careful
that the print was centered in the circumference of the opening. Then he twisted the can into the ground around the impression—forming a protective dome over the print. Finally he hefted an Arkansas fieldstone from the landscaping and weighted the can down. It’d have to do.

Fifteen minutes later the fire was under control, and Beau got his first quick look inside. It was an easy call. None easier in fact. This fire was definitely of an incendiary nature.

Zippers on the stove top were always a dead give-away. When a woman was pissed off at a man, she tended to grab all of his favorite stuff, pile it on the stove, and turn on the burners. Beau had lost count of the number of zippers he’d seen on stoves.

Fire destroyed the pants, but not the zippers. Zippers just didn’t burn up completely. Even when the teeth were plastic, the tab and slide were still made out of good old metal, which was much more durable than fabric or plastic. Anytime Beau saw zipper pieces, the call was easy.

This was a classic revenge fire, and a classic woman’s fire. The Littleton woman burning her husband’s bed with him still
in
it was an aberration of the female pattern. In general women set smaller fires aimed at defacing property, not destroying it. Women’s fires were impulsive. That’s why he’d had Russell drive Maggie home—to give her time to think and calm down.

To avoid exactly what had happened.

Beau’s lungs began to protest the heat and lingering smoke. It was too hot to stay inside and do a thorough job. The kitchen would have to be ventilated and cooled
out with fans before the arson squad could really get in. Not that there was much to do with this fire. Beau took a few shots and noted the time on the stove clock. The plastic was bubbled and scorched, but he could make out the position of the black hands. When fire cut the electricity to a stove, the built-in clock stopped, which gave an indication of when the fire might have been set.

For this fire in particular, the time line would be critical. In his mind he was doing more than gathering evidence. He was also filtering that evidence against what he knew of Maggie. The window of opportunity was tight, but she could have made it back into town to do this. However, for the first time since this dance with Maggie began, his instincts were telling him that this
wasn’t
her fire. Everything pointed to her, but it was wrong somehow.

The aftermath of a fire talked to Beau. Whispered to him. It always had. This one wasn’t whispering Maggie’s name. He couldn’t sense traces of anger. The fire felt cold to him, deliberate.

Regardless of your instinct, she’s still the primary suspect.
Beau knew that only too well. During the last week that phrase had been engraved on his heart. It was his first cautionary thought when he woke in the morning, and his last thought at night before he surrendered to dreams. Now, he had to do his job. In arson, you worked the people, not the fire. Because the fire didn’t leave you much.

Bennett was waiting for him down by the street. The man hadn’t once tried to look inside his house to see the damage. He had vigilante justice on his mind, and his single-mindedness irritated Beau immeasurably. So did
the doctor’s voice. When Bennett spoke there was always a subtle inflection that conveyed his utter contempt for mere mortals.

“Grayson, I assume that, finally, even you can grasp the implications of this fire. I want Maggie St. John arrested this afternoon. If you’d listened to me, she would have been arrested this morning and my house wouldn’t be ravaged now.”

Beau adjusted his hat, slipping it farther back on his head and decided that Maggie’s nickname for the doctor was dead-on. Beau didn’t much care for Dr. Just-Call-Me-God.

“Sir, unless Russell turned up an eye witness—” Beau paused for input; Russell shook his head—“I’ve got nothing to arrest her on.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” Bennett looked incredulous. “She’s just been put on an indefinite leave of absence. She carries a grudge. She is a troublemaker, has attacked a man with a scalpel, and things go up in flames around her. What more do you need? Do your job, Grayson.”

“You know.” Beau moved closer so he could look down at Bennett. The height differential wasn’t much, but Beau suspected the doctor would hate it. “I’m really getting tired of people telling me to do my job. Let me ask you something. Can you put the match in her hand? Did you see her turn the stove on? Did
anyone
see her or her car in this neighborhood, skulking about your house?”

“No, sir,” Russell quickly answered for the doctor, and Beau detected a distinct note of pleasure in that response.

“Did she threaten you or your house, Doctor? In the presence of a third party?”

“No.”

“Well then, Dr. Bennett, you’ll just have to be patient like the rest of us. Last time I looked, even Louisiana’s complicated Napoleonic codes don’t allow us to hang someone on motive and bad luck. If we
were
allowed to do so, I’d run you in. You have an insurance policy, I bet. Your kitchen just burned down, and you found the fire. Motive, bad luck, and opportunity.”

For a long time Bennett didn’t respond. Beau could see him struggling with anger, barely suppressing it as he said, “You’re going to do nothing? Not even get a search warrant?”

“And search for what? Whoever burned down your kitchen used your stove, Doctor. Even with a shoe print, we don’t have enough for a search warrant. A shoe print doesn’t prove that person was here
today.
Arson is the perfect crime. If you’re lucky or good, there’s no evidence. You want some advice, Doctor? Deal with the insurance company and let us deal with the case.”

Beau took a few steps away, then snapped his fingers. “Oh, yeah, if you’ve got a safe hidden away in your kitchen pantry, don’t open it until tomorrow. They hold heat, intense heat. Just the heat in the air can cause the contents to burst into flames, and we wouldn’t want your stock certificates to go up in smoke now, would we?”

Turning to Russell, he said, “I’m going back to the office. You take over, and I’ll send Jim out when I get there. You two comb this place like it was your mama’s house.”

Without a backward glance, Beau walked away. His mood didn’t improve at the office. His eyes were killing him. He hadn’t had any sleep. Carolyn Poag had phoned him three times. He was in no mood for Carolyn Poag to read him the riot act for being mean to Maggie, and he was sure that’s what she intended. He called anyway.

“Shear Indulgence!”

He winced at the sweet, chipper tone of the receptionist. “Carolyn Poag, please. Beau Grayson returning her call.”

The phone clicked to hold in a nanosecond. Beau sighed. Been there. Done that. All day.

Carolyn didn’t keep him waiting long, and she didn’t waste time on hellos. “What did you do to Maggie? She won’t pick up the phone, and she always picks up for me. Always.”

He sighed heavily and leaned forward on his desk. As he rubbed his eyes, he realized he didn’t want to know this. Not now. Not ever. But he had no choice. He had a job to do, and if Carolyn was stupid enough to unwittingly confirm Maggie’s window of opportunity, he had to listen.

Softly he suggested, “I didn’t
do
anything to her. Maybe she’s not home.”

“Where else would she be?”

Beau knew exactly where Maggie could have been, but he kept silent.

“Look, Mr. Grayson, Maggie keeps her world simple. She likes it that way. She’s got the hospital, me, and that dog. The hospital fired her. She’s not here. That means she’s at home.”

“So why are you calling me? Why don’t you just go check on her and be done with it?”

“Look up stubborn in the dictionary and you’ll find her picture. If she won’t pick up the phone for me, what makes you think she’s going to answer the door?” She sounded exasperated. “Even if she wasn’t mad at me for this morning, which she sure is—trust me—I don’t think I’m who she needs to see right now.”

He heard Carolyn take a deep breath as if accepting an unpleasant truth. “I only remind her of Sarah and the fire and her guilt. Sarah was my best friend. That’s how I got to know Maggie. She doesn’t need to be reminded of that. Or any of it. Not after this morning.”

“She was fine when she left here. She needed to cool down, but she was fine.”

“You can’t actually believe that. She’s hanging on by a thread! You saw an attack the night you went to her house. She told me. And if you don’t know by now, get a clue. Maggie is a world-class master at pretending she’s okay. Look, I couldn’t call any of the nurses at the hospital because I don’t want this to get around. That leaves you. Please. She’ll have to come to the door if she thinks it’s official. I just want to know she’s all right, and that she hasn’t … done anything.”

Beau heard the subtext that Carolyn was trying so hard not to verbalize. She was worried about Maggie’s mental state. He couldn’t buy her logic. Maybe something was wrong, but it wasn’t Maggie’s emotional stability. The woman who stormed out of his office wasn’t despondent or hanging by a thread. Granted, Carolyn knew Maggie longer, but Beau wasn’t sure she knew Maggie better.

He didn’t argue the point, though. Carolyn’s concern gave him a legitimate reason to visit a suspect without a warrant. Even as he told himself that agreeing to check on Maggie was a professional responsibility, he knew it wasn’t. This was personal.

Beau pulled into the driveway and eased up behind the red sports car. Even parked, the Mustang looked as if it were moving ninety miles an hour. It occurred to him that the automobile was a metaphor for Maggie. Only the auto didn’t have to expend energy to create the illusion of forward motion. Maggie did.

She put in her shift at the hospital, fought for her patients, fought for her sister nurses, and when the world had knocked all the fight out of her, she came home, curled up on her bed, and read about countries she’d never see. Exhausted, she could fall asleep, too tired to think about where she’d been or where she was going.

But no one was allowed to see the “night” Maggie—the one who curled up in the bed with travel books, the one who was vulnerable. Maggie showed only her fast side to the world. Years in the system had trained her well. Never let them see you sweat. Never let them close enough to hurt you. Never slow down and examine your life.