Incendiary Designs

by Michael Allen Dymmoch

  The living room was small and tidy, with barely enough room for the sofa, a chair, and a television. There was a starving-artist painting of flowers on the wall behind the sofa and a crucifix on the TV. Beyond the living room, they could see a small dining room with an open door to the kitchen.

  They sat on either end of the sofa. She plopped onto the armchair across from it and leaned forward, putting her forearms together on her lap and cupping one upturned hand in the other. Oster pulled out his notebook.

  Thinnes asked, “When was the last time you saw your brother?”

  She thought about it. “Before Christmas he stopped by with two of his deadbeat friends—I’m not sure why. Anyway, when they started talking nasty, I told ’em to leave.”

  “What were their names?”

  “Ah…” She chewed the inside of her cheek while she considered. “Ah…cough drops…” She raised and lowered her cupped hands. “Smith Brothers. Smith. I don’t know their first names, but their last name is Smith. And they’re brothers. And cons.” They waited. She added, “Most of Brian’s friends are cons. He’s been—pardon my French—a fuckup since he was a kid.”

  “Why, exactly did you throw him out the last time he was here?”

  “They were BS-ing about a girlfriend of one of them—Rosie, a mutual acquaintance. And one of these jerks says he was livin’ with Rosie and she threw him out. He says he’s gonna get back at her by settin’ her on fire. Anyway, I said I wouldn’t have that kind of talk in my house and he could leave. And I told them if anything was to happen to my house, they could count on some major trouble. I told ’em nothing better happen to Rosie, either. I think they were just blowin’ smoke, though. But they left.”

  “Your brother ever set any fires?”

  “Not that I heard of. Well, once. But not since he was a kid. And the old man whipped him within an inch of his life.”

  “So he didn’t set any fires after that?”

  “No. Funny. I’d forgotten about that. He kept whalin’ on ’im, kept asking did he want to end up like his sister.”

  “What did he mean by that?”

  “Our oldest sister died in a fire. Brian was only two or four, so he wouldn’t remember. But he grew up hearing about it. Anyway, after my father whipped him, he didn’t play with matches again.”

  “Your father beat him a lot?”

  She thought about it. “Well, I guess he’d be locked up for it now, but then everybody beat their kids. Even the nuns at school’d haul off and crack us if we got out of line.”

  “Did your brother get singled out?”

  “He got in more trouble than the others. And Pa never hit us girls. But he’d sometimes hit Brian if we did something wrong. He never hit my ma—he didn’t have the guts.”

  “What kind of trouble did your brother get into?”

  “Just the usual—cutting school, joy riding, shoplifting, like that. Like most kids. Only he didn’t grow out of it.”

  “What did he go to prison for?”

  “He got caught with a gun.”

  “Do you have any idea where he might be?” She shook her head. “Any idea who might hide him?”

  Her eyes widened. “He’s in that much trouble?”

  “He tried to kill a police officer.”

  “Oh, Lord. He’s done it this time.”

  “So it seems.”

  Twenty

  There was a deputy superintendent sitting in Evanger’s office across from the lieutenant. Hiding out. Otherwise he’d have been downstairs in the district commander’s office, or out front talking to the press. He didn’t look happy.

  Thinnes wasn’t happy either. It was late Monday afternoon, and he’d had three hours sleep since Sunday morning. The anger that had acted on him like speed earlier had worn off, leaving him strung out, and fighting the sandman had left his eyes feeling gritty. He stifled a yawn. Outside Evanger’s window, gray clouds hung above the acre or so of blue-and-white squad cars in the north parking lot. It had been raining off and on all day.

  There was a Sun-Times on the desk, and the headline jumped up at him: “Arrest in Cop’s Murder!”

  The deputy pointed to it. “Where’s the woman now?”

  “We sent her to Ravenswood for a psych evaluation,” Thinnes said. He repeated the details of Maria Cecci’s arrest.

  “How’re we doing on getting Fahey?” the deputy asked.

  “Pretty close to nailed down,” Evanger said.

  “We have an arrest warrant,” Thinnes said. “And we searched his last known address.” They’d also put out an all-call, interviewed every friend and relative he had—even cousins who’d never heard of him—and put his father’s house under surveillance. “We’re following up on his known associates and fellow church members. It’s just a matter of time.”

  “Were any of these people black?” the deputy asked.

  Evanger answered. “Not that we’re aware of. Why?”

  “What’s with this chant they were spouting—‘the fire next time’? Isn’t that from some black agitator?”

  “James Baldwin,” Thinnes said, “a writer.” He wouldn’t have remembered it himself, but Caleb had mentioned it.

  Evanger continued, “As nearly as we can tell, it was lifted—along with a lot of other catchy phrases—by their crazy leader, Lewis English, aka Brother John. Seems he got religion, literally, during his last stay in Joliet. Did one of those mail-order conversions and was born again as a reverend.”

  The deputy nodded. “Go on.”

  Thinnes took up the story. “English spent time in stir polishing his act. The prison librarian said he read all the stuff they had on preachers and televangelists. And according to a guard I talked to, he had stuff sent to him on a bunch of others, including Billy Graham and Martin Luther King.”

  “So?”

  “When he got out, he set himself up with a storefront mission down on Western and started practicing his fire-and-brimstone bullshit on anybody who’d stop and listen. He’d bought his own building and collected a bunch of lost kids and hard-core losers, including our torch, at the time of his death.”

  “Which was when?”

  “A month ago.”

  “Cause?” Thinnes thought he detected alarm in the deputy’s tone.

  “Natural,” Evanger said. “But we think some of his goofier followers blame the police, and Banks was retaliation.”

  “Christ!”

  “Yeah.”

  “Guy from Bomb and Arson has another theory,” Thinnes said.

  The deputy frowned. “What’s that?”

  “He thinks some of these deadbeats may be using the church as a front for an arson-for-profit scheme.”

  The deputy looked skeptical. Why not? It was a stretch.

  “Some of the surrounding business owners complained to the guys doing the canvass that the church has a very aggressive policy of soliciting funds. And there’ve been three suspicious fires in the area since the church opened. Also ten of the church regulars have extensive rap sheets. Two of those are so drunk most of the time, they don’t know what state they’re in, and another has an IQ of sixty-nine. But Fahey, and his best buddies—Ron Hughes, Lawrence Mackie, and John and Abel Smith—have all done time for arson or extortion.”

  “So?”

  “Say the church is a front for something else,” Thinnes said. “Whoever’s behind this gets the church to solicit contributions from nearby property owners. Maybe they hint that having God on the payroll would be good insurance. Maybe they’re also sounding out the owners about how convenient or profitable a little fire would be. Then they got this bunch of crazies stirred up to set fires…” He shrugged. “If anyone finds out it was arson, the owner claims he was extorted and refused to pay. The church leaders claim they were misunderstood and can’t be held responsible for all their loony followers. The crazies take the rap if they’re caught.”

  “But if you’re selling fires,” the deputy said, “why call attention to yourself
with all this publicity?”

  “Advertising? Look, nobody said these guys were playing with a full deck.”

  Evanger shook his head. “Well, it’s moot until we get the rest of them in custody.”

  “How’re we doing on that?”

  “We have Hughes,” Thinnes told them.

  They looked surprised. Evanger said, “Since when?” His tone implied, Why wasn’t I told?

  “About six hours after we found Banks,” Thinnes said. “I just got word. He tried to rob a convenience store up in Twenty-four Sunday night, and was nailed by an off duty copper who’d stopped in to get smokes. Hughes gave the arresting officers a phony name, so we didn’t connect him to Banks until he was booked and we ran his prints.”

  “I guess it’s just as well,” Evanger said. He didn’t have to add what some of Chicago’s finest would have done to Hughes if they’ gotten their hands on him.

  “What about the rest of the scum?” the deputy asked.

  Thinnes said, “We’ve pretty much ruled out the sidewalk inspectors and the retard. And one of the others has an alibi.”

  “If my math hasn’t failed me, with the woman that makes exactly the number that were in on torching the squad car.”

  Thinnes nodded.

  “You talked to Hughes, yet?” Evanger asked.

  “He’s keeping quiet on the advice of his lawyer. The other three must’ve crawled into the same hole as Fahey, but we’ll get the slugs if we have to turn over every rock in the city.”

  Twenty-One

  “Things drift, really.”

  It was Tuesday morning. The young man sitting across the desk from Caleb paused. Caleb waited until the man continued. “Life seems to be going along on course, so you stop paying attention. Then you notice things going…” He shrugged. “Two years ago I had the best job in the world, the best boss. Then my boss got a new boss, and he’s driving my boss crazy. And, you know, with gravity…” An oblique reference to the old chestnut: Shit runs downhill.

  Caleb nodded.

  “The job’s not fun any more. I guess it’s natural. Over time, things just drift.”

  “Even continents,” Caleb agreed. “What did you hope to get from therapy?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” He was relaxed and betrayed none of the discrepancies between verbal and body language that signaled prevarication. “A course correction.”

  Caleb was going over the record of his last client for the day when, over the intercom, Mrs. Sleighton announced another visitor, “A Mrs. Noguerra.”

  Caleb’s sister. Rosemary.

  “Send her in.”

  The door opened before he could get to it. She entered and paused, obviously as uncertain as he about what to do next.

  She’d been ten when he left for Vietnam. He’d been fond and protective of her while they were growing up, but he’d lost touch when he moved out of his father’s house. And he’d transferred his affection to his friend Anita, he realized as he thought about it. The pretty woman standing before him was a virtual stranger.

  Then they grinned in unison and hugged. “My God, Jack!”

  “Ditto. Let me take your coat.” He helped her off with it and was hit with the observation that she was very pregnant. Again. Her first child must be six by now.

  “Congratulations,” he said. “When?” He draped her coat over the back of the couch by the window.

  She beamed. “Some time after Easter. We hope.”

  He gestured toward the couch. “Sit down. Can I get you coffee?”

  She sat. “Thanks, but no. I’m making enough pit stops as it is.”

  Caleb took the chair next to the couch. “How are Victor and Jesse?”

  “They’re fine. Victor’s…I was so lucky to find him.”

  “Are you sure it was luck? As I remember, you dated a number of unsuitable individuals before you met Victor.”

  “You mean before he decided I was ready for him? He’s very logical. He told me he’d checked out all the available women and decided—on purely logical terms—that I was the best prospect.”

  “Victor seems to have unsuspected depths.”

  Victor also had money. Not that he’d had anything but a degree from Stanford when he married Rosemary. But sometime during graduate school he’d come up with a device computer companies now thought they couldn’t live without. By age twenty-seven, he was wealthy enough to retire. Now he worked as a consultant—when he felt like it—and volunteered for things like Project Literacy and Habitat for Humanity.

  She smiled. “He does.” She took his hand. “I was going to call, but I was downtown and decided to stop and ask you in person. Victor and I would like you to come for Easter.”

  Caleb’s felt a gladness bordering on giddiness. Then a sudden chill. “Will Robert be there?”

  The joy vanished from her expression like sunlight when the day clouds over. “What is it you two fell out about? He’s never told me. He used to worship you when we were kids.”

  “It was more of a falling off. He had me on a pedestal as high as the Sears Tower and he can’t forgive me for failing to live up to his fantasy.”

  “Because you’re gay?”

  “Umhumm.”

  “What—horsefeathers!”

  Caleb laughed.

  “Who told him?”

  “I did. I got tired of the when’re-you-going-to-marry-and-settle-down business, so I told him. He didn’t take it well.”

  Rosemary shook her head. “Well, he won’t be coming. They’ve been invited to Marsha’s parents’. But even if they were coming, you’d be welcome. Always. And if Robert doesn’t like that, he can stay home.”

  “Is Victor of the same opinion?”

  “Of course. I wouldn’t marry a bigot.”

  “Then I accept. What shall I bring?”

  “Bring a friend.”

  “Thank you. I’ll see. What can I bring?”

  “You don’t have to…” She laughed and shrugged. They’d been well brought up—one didn’t go empty handed. “Whatever you like. Dinner’s at seven, but come early and visit.”

  She stood up and he stood, too. He gave her a hand with her coat. She gave him a him a quick, heartfelt hug. She was still nervous.

  Caleb marveled. How had they become so estranged?

  He rang up his friend Anita immediately, to ask if she’d like to go.

  “Thanks,” she said. But if I’m going to go through any heavy family stuff, I think it ought to be with my own family. I haven’t spoken to most of them since I divorced Vincent. They may be ready to forgive me. I think I’ll just go east and watch how the cattle fare.”

  “If you come back with any bruises, call.”

  “Thanks.”

  “What best friends are for—ice and liniment.”

  The frenetic activity he’d observed the last time he was at Western and Belmont had lessened, Caleb noted as he made his way up to the Area Three squad room. He’d read about Maria Cecci’s arrest and that a second individual—already in custody—was being questioned in connection with the case. It didn’t seem enough, though. He knew they hadn’t arrested the ringleader, Brian Fahey, or they’d have asked him to come in and identify him in a lineup.

  Thinnes was at his desk. Caleb walked up and didn’t beat around the bush—“I want to help.”

  “Forget it, Doc.” Thinnes was trying to annoy him. He knew Caleb hated Doc. “You’re a witness in this case, and even an incompetent defense attorney would use that to get any evidence you helped collect thrown out.”

  “There must be something—”

  Thinnes shook his head. “And don’t get any ideas about snooping around on your own. You’re also a department consultant. That brings the exclusionary rule into play. The best thing you can do is just go about your business and be ready to testify when we get these creeps in court.”

  Twenty-Two

  The room was utilitarian—acoustical tile ceiling with standard fluorescent lights; semiglossed concrete
-block walls; no windows; polished linoleum floor; metal wastebasket; electric wall clock—four minutes fast. Metal and plastic stacking chairs surrounded a wood-look Formica table.

  The public defender sitting across from the assistant state’s attorney was so short her head barely showed above the pile of legal folders in front of her—five-two and under a hundred pounds, dark-haired and brown eyed. She was wearing a public defender uniform, female version—suit, unrevealing blouse, unflashy jewelry, and matching heels. Attractive, but not a knockout. Four of the five men present, in their suits and ties, were sweating in the steam heat. Sitting to his lawyer’s left, Ron Hughes shivered in his Department of Corrections uniform—tan short-sleeved shirt and pants. He was white, five-eleven, and sallow complected, with red patches over his cheeks that made him look like he’d been drinking. He had high cheekbones and forehead, blue eyes, and a prominent Adam’s apple. His whiny, high-pitched voice sounded to Thinnes like fingernails on a blackboard. Fortunately, he was letting his lawyer do the talking.

  “Here’s the deal,” she said. “My client pleads to murder-two and tells you what you want to know. If you get this other guy, he’ll testify.”

  Thinnes lurched forward in his seat. “No way!”

  On either side of him he could see Oster and Fuego copy his move. Fuego growled caramba; Oster muttered, “Christ!” Hughes put a finger in his mouth and started gnawing on the cuticle. He seemed to shrink into his shirt.

  Across from the PD, the ASA didn’t turn a hair. “Not acceptable, counselor. Your client killed a police officer. We’ll accept murder-one and forgo the death penalty.”

  “We’ll take our chances with a jury.”

  “So will we. And by the time this case comes to trial, we’ll have a pile of physical evidence and a roster of witnesses that’ll make that circus in California look like a kids’ puppet show.”

  “With the bereaved family sitting front row center,” Oster added. He’d been watching too much of the O.J. trial himself.