Credo's Bandidos, page 17
Kate held the last of a sticky cruller to her mouth. Before popping it in, she said, “Okay, Alex. Run us through what happened. In detail this time.”
I told them about waking up without the dogs next to me, how I went out to find them and saw an orange glow approaching the kitchen window.
Mitch interrupted me. “Describe the color in detail, please.”
I turned my head to the side, trying to bring the moment into focus. “The most predominant color was orange, but I think I also saw some yellow.” I didn’t know what the colors meant, but I knew enough to know they were important to an arson investigator. “And I think when it hit the table, I saw a bit of blue?” I phrased it like a question because I wasn’t positive about what I’d seen.
Cocking his jaw to the side, Mitch just nodded. “Okay.”
I told them about sneaking in to grab the extinguisher and about how I’d thought about going for my Glock instead to try to shoot the guy before he threw the flames through the window. “I’m not sure what broke the glass or how the flame got to my table. Everything’s kind of a blur once the glass broke.”
Mitch spoke up, “I did a preliminary inspection of the crime scene.”
I pursed my lips to keep myself from correcting him. Damnit, it was my home, not a crime scene.
“He used a mason jar filled with accelerant—” He interrupted himself to clarify a point to Kate, “I can’t be sure, but I’m ninety-five percent positive it’s the same accelerant as the other fires. He stuffed cloth into the mouth of the jar, which he lit. Alex saw two colors because one of the cloths was linen, which burns a bright yellow, and the other was probably some type of wool, which burns orange. We’ve never had any cloth leftover in the other Coward fires, so this is a good break. It’s very unusual for an arsonist to use either material as a wick for a Molotov cocktail. Usually, they just use an old cotton t-shirt or something.”
I listened closely because this type of forensics fascinated me. “So, where’d the blue come from? Assuming I did actually see blue. I’m not really sure on that point.”
He nodded, “That’s actually a critical observation and why I’m extremely glad you decided to grab the extinguisher and immediately douse the flame. Usually, unless you have a gas fire, the flames will go from a dull red to orange and then to a bright yellow as the fire heats up. The fact that you saw blue means he put something in the accelerant that burns very hot, very fast. Anyway, I didn’t mean to hijack your story, Alex. Go ahead.”
“So, the mason jar broke the middle panes but not the lower ones. Thank God because Tessa was scratching at the lower ones to make me open the door so she could chase him. When the jar broke the pane, she panicked and ran through my legs. That’s why I tripped. I guess I fell over the chair, although I don’t remember doing that. I got up and doused the flames. Then the dogs and I chased after the guy.”
I looked at Kate. “Babe was right; the guy does kind of run with a limp. Not super pronounced, but…” I shrugged.
Both Kate and Casey wrote that down in their notebooks. Kate asked, “Did you get a look at his face? Commo said he covered his license plate?”
“No, he didn’t cover it. He’d taken it off. And he was wearing a ski mask. He probably didn’t wear a mask with Mrs. Holloway because he didn’t intend for her to live long enough to identify him.”
Casey shook her head, “No. Didn’t Babe tell you he’d put a paper bag over Mrs. Holloway’s head?”
Kate tapped her notebook with the end of her pen. “My guess is that was more to terrify his victim than to keep his anonymity. I went back to the hospital to talk with Mrs. Holloway before I went home last night. One of the first things the suspect did when he snuck up behind her was to hit her in the back of the head, so her glasses went flying. Without them, she’s practically blind. Again, he intended to kill her, and there was no need to hide his identity from her. He knew that only being able to see blurry impressions would terrify her. Then, to increase that terror, he took that bit of control away with the paper bag over the head.”
“Oh!” Talking about anonymity and identification reminded me of Newton’s photo stick. “Newton downloaded video from his security camera onto this.” I grabbed the envelope off my credenza and took it to the coffee table where I’d left my laptop. I moved the computer to the countertop between the living room and kitchen, plugged the stick into the USB, and we all gathered around to watch.
First, a dark sedan parked across the street from Newton’s house. Unfortunately, the guy already had his ski mask on when he exited the car. He opened the trunk and grabbed the mason jar and another container. He set one jar on the pavement and poured liquid into it from the second jar.
Mitch leaned forward, “Hold on. Can you zoom into that other container? Can anyone tell what it’s made of?”
I zoomed in on the hand but ended up going too close because everything blurred. I backed the zoom out a bit, and we all joined Mitch, who had his nose inches from the computer screen.
Casey said, “It looks like another mason jar to me. Why didn’t he just take the lid off and stuff the rags down into that one?”
Mitch said, “He probably had too much in the original jar and couldn’t risk spilling any on himself as he walked. The chemicals he uses for the accelerant aren’t forgiving for a careless person, and we know this guy is anything but careless.”
The man’s limp wasn’t visible when he walked, only when he tried to run or hurry. I wasn’t sure what type of injury that pointed to, but it was another line of investigation. I stopped the video and pointed to Casey’s notebook. “Can you write down that he doesn’t have a limp when he walks, only when he runs?”
Casey nodded and did as I asked.
There wasn’t much else to see except the guy walking around the corner of my house to my back yard, and then him run-limping as he returned to his car. It wasn’t long before Tessa and Jynx came around the corner after him, and I followed soon after. I watched myself standing in the middle of the street yelling for the dogs.
Then something occurred to me. I rewound the video a bit and watched again as the man walked beneath the limb of my mesquite tree. “Look at that. He ducked just a little bit. I can easily walk beneath that branch, and he had to duck. I think Babe’s impression of him being short was possibly colored by the fact that he was bending over the victim. After that, she only saw him running away. He could have been hunched over then, too. I’m five-foot-six and don’t have to duck beneath that branch at all. That makes him a bit taller than me.”
The way Kate rewound the video and watched it again told me she agreed. “Good catch, Alex. We need to update the description we put out to the media.” She paused on me standing in the middle of the road, aiming my Glock at his retreating car. “I know why you didn’t shoot, but I almost wish this was one of those times you disobeyed the rules.”
I raised my eyebrows, “I didn’t shoot because the dogs were in the way. If they hadn’t been there…” I let them fill in the blank. Shooting at a fleeing car is generally frowned upon since it’s too easy for the bullet to hit anything but the vehicle.
Kate started for the kitchen. “Okay, Mitch, you and I can look at the crime scene. Alex, get some shoes on, and you and Casey go outside and look to see if he dropped anything in his hurry to leave.” She stopped and looked at me. “By the way. How did he know where you live? Did he follow you without you knowing?”
“Absolutely not. I was careful last night when I drove home. I took a lot of unnecessary turns so I could see if there was anyone on my tail. I even parked a couple of times and drove with my lights off to see if anybody followed. I’m absolutely positive no one followed me.”
Kate got a far-off look in her eyes. “That presents a whole new can of worms, doesn’t it?”
When I realized what she meant, I nodded slowly. If no one had followed me home, then how did the Coward know where I lived? Did we have a mole somewhere, and if so, who? I was pretty sure Babe didn’t know where I lived. But what about Steve and George? I knew Steve had been to the house because I’d caught him standing in the shadows on the other side of the street.
And I was pretty sure George could have easily followed me without me seeing him if I wasn’t aware of who he was, plus it was a given Steve would have told him my address. I turned those thoughts over in my mind while putting my shoes on and joining Casey out in the front yard.
I found her squatting by the side of the house. “You were barefooted, so it’s a good bet these are his shoe prints. We need to make a cast and get it to the forensic folks to see what they can come up with. Good catch on the guy’s height, by the way.” She swiveled around on the balls of her feet to look at the tree. “Kind of reminds me of the way old Mrs. Highland described her husband’s height a few years ago, remember? She said he had to duck beneath that light on the porch.”
I remembered all right. Mrs. Highland was well into her nineties, now, and was still just as sharp as the day I’d met her. “Have you seen her lately?”
Casey nodded. “As a matter of fact, Terri and I took her one of Terri’s salmon dishes a few weeks ago. She and Reina, and Lupe are doing great. You ought to go visit sometime.”
“I had to fix Mrs. Highland’s cooler about two months ago, but yeah, I should go more often.” I went to her trunk and brought all the tools and ingredients we’d need to cast a couple of the better prints. “Looks like a sneaker to me. That’s odd. He’s never left prints before. Do you think he’s getting careless?”
“Yeah, or he’s taunting us. You know, I don’t think he just started doing this here in Tucson. He seems to know exactly what he’s doing, starting from the very first case we investigated.” She poured some dental stone into a pitcher, which I carried over to my hose.
I added about ten ounces of water and stirred the mixture for a good five minutes.
In the meantime, Casey placed a measuring stick next to the impressions and took several pictures from different angles.
When the mixture gelled the correct amount, I poured it around the outside perimeter of the prints and made sure the mixture completely filled the impression.
Kate came around the corner with her head down, following the prints from the kitchen.
Casey called out, “Watch it, Boss.”
When she saw what we were doing, Kate stopped and carefully made her way over to where we squatted next to the drying dental powder. “He left prints?”
Casey nodded. “Yeah. We thought that was kind of strange, too. You think he’s getting cocky?”
Kate raised her eyebrows. “I certainly hope so. Cocky means mistakes, like this one. If he keeps screwing up, we’ll catch the S.O.B.” She motioned back the way she’d come. “Mitch is picking up the rest of the broken mason jar. It’d be nice if we found prints on the glass, but I doubt it. The guy isn’t that cocky.”
Unless he’d touched the mason jar before he came. From the video, we knew for a fact he’d worn gloves when he’d poured the accelerant from one jar to the other and when he’d carried the Molotov Cocktail to my door.
Kate continued, “We’re almost done here, Alex. I’ll help you clean up the rest of the glass and the powder from the extinguisher. Do you have a second one around in case he returns?”
“I have the one in my work car. I’ll bring it inside, but I doubt I’m gonna get much sleep. Do you think he’ll come back?”
“Honestly? No, I don’t. He obviously didn’t know you had dogs because, judging by the panicked way he was running and looking over his shoulder, they scared him more than you did. I think you’ll be all right. I also think your dogs will be listening for anything out of the ordinary now and will wake you instead of just going to the kitchen and listening.”
It took the four of us about an hour to clean up and another half hour to pull the back off an old bookcase, which we used to cover the broken window on the kitchen door. It was three o’clock by the time I watched them drive away.
I was too awake to go back to bed, so I stretched out on the sofa, grabbed my Kindle, and forgot my worries in a good book.
Chapter 12
On my way to work the following day, I took Tessa and Jynx over to Megan's place because I didn't want to take the chance of the Coward returning and setting my house on fire with them inside. Don’t get me wrong. Having my house burned down would be bad; having my dogs inside while it happened was something I didn't even want to consider.
Megan was all too happy to take the dogs and promised they'd have a wonderful time and maybe learn something new in the process.
I had a lot of paperwork to catch up on, so I went into the office and plowed through my inbox, and made a few phone calls. By the time 10 o'clock rolled around, I was ready for a break. Since the main library isn't that far from the police station, I walked the few blocks there and was glad to see Steve waiting for me near the library's front doors.
It just so happened that Kelly was the person who unlocked the doors, and she greeted us with a wide smile. “Hi, Alex. This must be the friend you were talking about. She held out her hand to Steve. “Hi. I'm Kelly.”
Steve slipped the box under one arm and then returned the handshake. “Steve. I'm really looking forward to working with you. Alex says you’re a research expert? So am I, and I think we’re gonna have a lot of fun with all this.” He lifted the box to indicate what “all this” meant.
The eagerness was evident in Kelly’s eyes. “Well, helping people with their research is a big part of what I do all day. I love working on Alex's cases. In fact, I've gotten permission to work with you for the first half of the day so we can get set up.” She led us upstairs and into one of the conference rooms.
The room was longer than wide, making the rectangular table in the middle an excellent place to spread out paperwork. Smaller tables were set up in two corners. One held a desktop computer, which Kelly immediately turned on. “You can set the yearbooks on either side of this main table. We'll have plenty of room to spread out once we get started.”
Steve set the box on the table and pulled out eight yearbooks. “I decided to bring all of my brother’s yearbooks and added my own, too. You know how people come and go, and I thought it would be better to have more than less.”
Smiling, Kelly pulled the first book out of the box. “I like the way you think.”
I explained to Kelly the bare-bones of what we were trying to do because I didn't want to influence their research. They were the intelligence-gathering experts, not me. They didn't even notice when I finally left about a half-hour later. They had their noses glued to the computer screen, setting up their databases and talking about exactly what data they wanted to capture.
The main library has a front patio that takes up almost as much real estate as the building itself. There’s an extensive area of red brick with long, thin cement lines running through it. The architects had also incorporated good-sized, grassy areas where people can bring their books outside to lounge about and enjoy the Arizona sunshine. A bright red, abstract, metal sculpture sits in the middle of the area. It’s maybe fifteen feet tall and ten feet wide, and it represents the artist’s version of the Sonoran Desert. Honestly, I’ve never been able to figure it out, but that’s just me.
I sat on one of the cement retaining walls next to the sculpture and called George to let him know I hadn't heard from the hospital yet.
He surprised me by saying, “Yeah, I came to the hospital to get a feeling for the layout and see how long it will be before Mrs. Holloway is released.”
“You what?” I didn’t like him ad-libbing on his own. “What if the Coward is watching her too? I don’t want him to realize that you’re involved in any way.”
“You haven't done much U.C. work, have you, Alex?”
“Well, no, not exactly.”
“Listen, I'm very good at what I do. There's no way that anyone would know that I'm interested in the victim. That young woman, Babe, you told me about, and her cousin arrived about an hour ago. They're waiting for the doctor to come around and release her. If you want to be here when they get out, you might head this way.”
I stood and began walking back to the station where my car was still parked. “You didn’t make contact with either of them, did you?”
He was quiet a moment before saying, “Alex, you’re gonna have to trust me that I know what I’m doing, okay?”
I thought back to the conversation I’d had with his ex-partner. The guy had told me George was excellent at undercover work, so I guess I needed to trust him. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m on my way back to the police station now. I'll grab my car and be waiting for the call.”
It took about fifteen minutes to reach the station. Instead of going back to the office, I went directly to the underground garage, got my car, and called Kate. “I'm heading over to the hospital. They’re waiting for the doc to come check out Mrs. Holloway. They’re confident she’ll be released this morning, and I want to be sure to be there when they leave with her.”
“Sounds good. I have Casey following up on a few leads, and everybody else is out on other cases. I don’t have anyone to help you follow them home. You’re on your own.”
I almost reminded her about George but then decided the less said, the better.
As usual, I underestimated her power of recall and the spooky way she had of reading my mind. “I haven’t forgotten about George Ogilvie, Alex. I spoke to a commander at the L.A.P.D., who George used to work under. He assured me the guy was an excellent detective, and I’ve cleared it with Chief Sepe as far as him helping. I’m still worried about how The Coward found your house, though. I doubt it’s this guy, George, but don’t let your guard down completely, okay?”
“I won’t, but I’m with you; my gut tells me it’s not him. I’ll call when we have the three of them settled in at Babe’s cousin's house.” I hung up and drove to the hospital, where I parked outside to wait. Normally I’d take more care not to be seen, but not this time. If we could draw the Coward out, we might catch another break. Sometimes, when criminals realize they’re making mistakes, they begin to decompensate. All too often, they go underground for months or even years, and we lose track of them. I didn't want that to happen this time. I wanted to push him enough to keep him around, but not enough that he struck again or went silent.
