Incendiary Designs

by Michael Allen Dymmoch

  Irene hung up the phone and hurried across the room, picking up the abandoned toys as she passed. “I’m sorry,” she said again. She started herding the boys toward the couch.

  “It’s quite all right.” He remembered the other visitor and turned to find Martin Morgan watching him. He felt an odd shock with the recognition, though after last night’s events, not surprise. He forced himself to cross the room and offer Morgan his hand, as if nothing untoward had ever happened, and to suppress his involuntary shiver when the doctor took it.

  Morgan blushed, seeming at a loss. After a pause, he said. “Thank you.” There were bags under his beautiful eyes, and his face seemed to have aged fifteen years since Caleb had first seen him. Hangover.

  Caleb said, “You’re welcome.” He glanced at Irene, too occupied with the children to notice them.

  After a long, awkward pause, Morgan said, “I wonder—I know it’s an imposition but—could I have a word with you?”

  “I’m with someone right now.”

  “How thoughtless of me—”

  “I’ll be free in half an hour. You’re welcome to wait. Or come back later.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll wait.”

  Caleb felt the same disconcerting thrill he’d felt in their previous encounters—purely physical, but unsettling. It’d been many years since he’d felt the sensation—not since he’d fallen for Christopher Margolis. So long that he’d forgotten…

  Looking for signs that Morgan realized the effect he was having, Caleb nodded. The man was too immersed in his own troubles to notice Caleb’s. “Make yourself at home in the meantime.” He recrossed the room and reentered his office. He told the young woman who was waiting patiently, “I apologize for the interruption.”

  When he escorted the patient out through the waiting room, he was pleased to see the Katzenjammer kids still settled quietly on the couch, on either side of Irene. Across the room, Dr. Morgan also seemed to be listening intently. Caleb didn’t believe in love at first sight, but he could appreciate instant infatuation—lust at first sight, intended by nature to overcome our ingrained xenophobia. But Morgan was straight, so there was no point in even fantasizing. Caleb sighed inwardly and said, “Doctor, will you come into my office?”

  “I don’t know how to thank you.” Morgan was wearing the same clothes as last night. Thanks to the valet service they were pressed and fresh. Morgan wasn’t. “I can’t think what came over me,” he said. “I haven’t lost control like that since high school.”

  “Think nothing of it. You mentioned you were having marital trouble. People react strongly to that as a rule.” He didn’t add that he’d seen far more bizarre behavior.

  “I’m seeing one of the counselors you recommended, but I don’t feel I’m progressing very fast. My wife and I are separated, did I say?”

  “Not specifically. I gathered…”

  “My wife’s in love—not with me, of course.” He dropped his eyes and blushed as he added, “She’s having an affair, and the sight of me drives her into rages.”

  “A man?”

  If Morgan found the question odd, he didn’t show it. “Yes. I’ve filed for divorce.”

  “Do you know his name?”

  “No. I don’t want to know.”

  “Guilt?”

  Martin nodded. “It’s my fault, really. For years she’s accused me of being cold and unfeeling, of not loving her.” He studied Caleb’s face for a moment. “I’ve tried to be a good husband, but some things—like nonexistent passion—can’t be faked. And she won’t settle for support, fidelity, and affection.” He looked to see Caleb’s reaction. Caleb kept his face neutral. “She’s become a—a shrew—due to frustrated needs, I’m sure, but it’s alienated me to the point that I no longer like her, also not something I can fake. I’ve loved her as much as I was able. But I’m realizing—therapy’s helping me to see—that she’s right. I haven’t loved her as she wanted. I…I can’t. And she’s become like a mad woman. As her passion for this man increases, her hatred for me becomes more passionate.”

  Hatred. Not the opposite of love, its dark side. It wasn’t over until indifference replaced the hatred, or—if you were lucky—friendship did. Mrs. Morgan didn’t sound indifferent, but Morgan seemed resigned. If he were Caleb’s patient, Caleb would have asked about it. There was in his narrative a suggestion of the understanding that precedes forgiveness. But Morgan wasn’t a patient, so Caleb only listened.

  “This isn’t going to be a War of the Roses—we’d never fight about money—but there’re similar elements. Did you ever wake up one day and suddenly notice someone you’d admired was all warts and clay feet?”

  Caleb gave him a noncommittal gesture. In truth, except for the years with Chris—which hadn’t lasted long enough to get old—he’d never lived with anyone long enough to become bored.He quoted the first five lines from John Fowles’ poem, “Against the Picts."

  “That’s it!” Martin said. “Is it even possible to live with someone without getting bored?”

  Caleb wondered how much of what we perceive as boredom or loathing for another or his habits, is clinical depression, or sublimated anger, or projected self-loathing? “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this,” Morgan said. “I’ve always been suspicious of instant intimacy—the slobbery drunk who bares his soul, then doesn’t remember your name the next day. I’ve been with Helen for twenty years and I don’t feel I know her. I know she doesn’t know me.”

  “What makes you feel she doesn’t know you?”

  “Don’t do that shrink thing with me.”

  “Sorry. When I first graduated from medical school, I was full of advice and encouraging feedback. I’ve had to train myself to just listen. It’s become a habit.”

  “What I want is advice.”

  Caleb shrugged and twisted his mouth to express the irony he perceived. “I’d stay in therapy. And give yourself time. It took you how many years to establish this habit of withholding? You’re not going to change overnight. It sounds as if you have a lifelong habit of non-self-disclosure to overcome. Put your house in order with respect to your wife. And be patient.”

  Thirty-Three

  The DB’s name was Dino Ori; the autopsy was the next afternoon. Thinnes and Oster didn’t bother to attend. Late the following morning, they stopped by the morgue on their way to lunch.

  “What brings you here today, Detectives?” Dr. Cutler only looked up for a second from the body he was dissecting.

  Thinnes could see his point. Unless there was evidence of foul play, detectives didn’t have to attend the autopsies of heat victims, and Thinnes couldn’t think of a single dick who’d come in to watch a PM for fun.

  “Maggot Man.”

  The usual smell of the morgue—meat and bleach—had been overpowered by the odor of putrefaction. Cutler didn’t seem to notice. “You could’ve hosed him off before you shipped him.”

  “What, and wash away all that valuable trace evidence?”

  “Spare me.”

  “So, what did he die of?” Oster said.

  “God knows. Maybe.”

  “You’re supposed to be God around here.”

  “Well, there’s no sign it wasn’t natural—no gunshot or stab wounds, no bruises or contusions; hyoid bone’s intact. He had a bad heart, but there’s no clear evidence of infarct. He might have suffocated. But if your cooler was really airtight, he probably wouldn’t have been found yet. Officially, I’m going to go with undetermined, but my best guess is he froze to death.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  Cutler shook his head.

  “Fuckin’ hottest summer in the history of the world and this SOB froze to death!”

  “That’s about it.”

  “Can’t you just see the press gettin’ hold of it? Christ, Doc! I’m glad you’re calling it undetermined.”

  Thirty-Four

  By the time Thinnes was nearly through proofing his r
eport on Maggot Man, the heat and exhaustion had started to catch up with him. The report blurred; he began nodding off. He came wide awake as Swann, who was sitting at the next table, elbowed him.

  “Thinnes, wake up.” He pointed toward Evanger’s office.

  Evanger filled up his doorway. “Thinnes.”

  Thinnes couldn’t tell from his tone whether he was happy or pissed. But then, neither could anyone else in the squad room. Thinnes didn’t borrow trouble by worrying about it. “Yeah, Lou?”

  “Guy named Fuego, Bomb and Arson, is holding for you. They got a fire over on Division Street—looks like arson.

  Thinnes said, “Thanks, Lou,” and picked up the phone. “Thinnes, Area Three.” He stifled a yawn.

  “Art Fuego.” His voice sounded far away—cell phone. “We just found a crispy critter that might interest you.”

  “Anyone I know?” Thinnes said. He was suddenly wide awake.

  “Could be. He had Banks’s piece.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Don’t bother. We’re almost done here and there’s nothing left that would interest a layman. Why don’t you meet me at the morgue, bright ’n’ early? And see if you can locate Wiley Fahey’s dental records in the meantime. With luck, we can close the Banks case and some of these old arsons.”

  It took two hours and sixteen phone calls, but Thinnes managed to save himself a trip to Stateville Prison, the last place Wiley was known to have had his teeth looked at. Two sheriff’s deputies were bringing a prisoner to Twenty-sixth and Cal, to testify in an upcoming trial. One of them agreed to bring Wiley’s dental records along, too. When he signed the receipt for them, Thinnes didn’t forget to ask what the deputy liked to drink. And he made a note to pick up a fifth of Glenfiddich after the autopsy.

  The postmortem was almost over by the time Thinnes handed the dental records over to the forensic dentist. He was the one dentist none of the cops minded going to see, which was why they called him Painless. He didn’t look anything like John Shuck and had probably been in grade school when MASH came out. He was already set up for the comparison. He took the X rays out of the envelope and put them up on the viewer, below films made earlier of the arson victim.

  “Looks like we’ve got a match here, Detective.” He stared at the films half a minute longer, then looked at Thinnes. “I should have my report ready sometime this afternoon.”

  Down in the autopsy room, there were a lot of jokes going around about barbecues. Nothing Thinnes hadn’t heard. The black humor never got old because the subject never got less serious. The roast—Thinnes winced at the pun—was more savage today because “the victim cooked his own goose.” There was a crack about “burned on the outside, raw on the inside,” and Fuego said, “What’d you expect when the cook’s a turkey?”

  They kept up a steady banter until the AME announced the cause of death—“smoke inhalation”—and showed them the victim’s blackened, cooked airway. When he got to Wiley’s heart, Fuego said, “Sure he didn’t die of a heart attack, Doc? His MO was a no-brainer, even for him. He should been home in bed by the time there was enough smoke to inhale.”

  They went to a place near the morgue for lunch that had decent AC and a quiet booth in the back. While they ate, they confined their remarks to Fuego’s salad and Thinnes’s and Oster’s steaks. They didn’t talk shop until the waitress had cleared away the plates.

  “So,” Fuego said, “where’s this turkey been roosting all these months?”

  “More to the point,” Thinnes said, “why does he conveniently turn up dead when he finally turns up.

  “And who’s been payin’ him to torch these places?”

  Oster said, “If it was him.”

  Fuego shook his head. “I’d say no question of that. The only question is, did he work alone?”

  Oster wiped his face. “And for who?”

  “I got something,” Fuego said. “Wiley had a buddy in Stateville by the name of Terry Koslowski.”

  “Where’ve we heard that name before?” Oster asked.

  “Fahey’s sister’s Koslowski,” Thinnes told him.

  “Bingo,” said Fuego. “Both of ’em listed her as next of kin. I was reading Koslowski’s rap sheet; it gets better.”

  “He blows things up for the movies?”

  “No. He’s a licensed electrician. He got nailed for rigging the wiring to torch a building for a contractor who ran out of money before he ran out of project. They let Koslowski plead out in return for testifying against his boss. He’s been keeping out of sight since he discharged his parole.”

  “Let’s see if he still belongs to the union,” Thinnes said. “They may have a current address. I take it the one his PO gave you is bogus.”

  “He moved the week after his parole was up.”

  “Figures,” Oster said.

  “He’s got no directory listing,” Fuego added. “No vehicle registered with the DMV, which has him at his old address. No water billing. And he doesn’t own property in Cook County.”

  “Well, If I remember correctly,” Thinnes said, “there wasn’t any love lost between him and his ex. She might know where to point us.”

  “If he’s still in the city, we’ll get him,” Oster said.

  “Yeah.” said Fuego. “If it’s not him, it has to be someone else Fahey hung with.”

  Thinnes said, “We still need a motive. What about the financial status of the property owners?”

  “We’re still working on that. Preliminary indications are ones in Chapter 11, the rest vary from shaky to very well fixed. Ronzani may have even been holding paper for someone else.”

  “That could be your motive.”

  “Did you locate Ronzani’s sister?” Fuego asked.

  “You gotta be kidding,” Oster said. “You got any idea?…Naw, you couldn’t. Let’s just leave it at I got fliers out for a woman born Ronzani at all the parishes that had a lot of Italians come in during the late forties to midfifties. One lady told me she’ll announce that we’re lookin’ for this woman at the next bingo game.”

  “What we know for sure,” Fuego said, “is that out of nine fires we have eight different owners; six different insurance companies; three zoned commercial, two multi-family, and four single family; and six different mortgage lenders in three different neighborhoods. Apart from the MO, there’s nothing to connect them.”

  “Any of ’em connected with the Conflagration Church?” Thinnes asked

  Oster answered. “No. That still up and running? I thought all the movers and shakers were dead or locked up. And you didn’t think their substitute preacher was gonna hold it together.”

  “According to the CAPS cops, they been holding weekly services.”

  “I’ll be damned.”

  Thirty-Five

  Bennigan’s was crowded for two o’clock in the afternoon and seemed freezing compared to outside. Thinnes and Oster both put their suit jackets on while they waited for a table. The hostess finally showed them to a small one in a window bay facing Michigan Avenue, where they could watch the sweaty crowds parade past. Across the street, tourists swarmed between the bronze lions on the steps of the Art Institute. Everything looked faded in the hazy sunlight.

  Oster said, “Thinnes.” When Thinnes brought his attention back from across the boulevard, Oster jerked his head toward their waitress.

  “Would you like something to drink, sir?”

  Thinnes had missed her canned greeting. He said, “Iced tea.”

  “Would you like to order now?”

  A cold beer and a game on TV, he thought. Any game. He said, “Maybe in a couple minutes. We’re expecting someone else.”

  Smiling brightly, she nodded and departed.

  Their chairs backed up to the partitions between the window bays so that they faced each other across the table, with the window on one side, the room on the other. They sat and stared past each other, not talking except to thank the waitress when she brought their drinks. By the time Caleb arri
ved, they were ready for refills. He borrowed an empty chair from a nearby table and sat down. It didn’t seem to bother him to have his back to the room. When the waitress had come and gone again, he said, “What can I do for you?”

  “We found Brian Fahey,” Thinnes said. “What’s left of him. And the States Attorney let Sister Serena cop a plea. Officially the case is closed.”

  “You could’ve said that on the phone.”

  “This case is driving me nuts,” Thinnes admitted. “I thought you might be able to help us sort it out. There’s got to be more to it than just a bunch of losers getting stoned out of their heads and killing a cop, but I can’t figure out what. As far as we can tell, none of ’em had anything to do with Banks or Nolan before the day they killed Banks.”

  “What do you know?”

  Thinnes told him what they’d found out about the Conflagration Church and its founder, finishing with, “You saw the tape. The guy was a con, but there was something there.”

  “He was charismatic. And he had self confidence. You can scarcely overestimate how seductive that is to the uncertain.”

  “Okay,” Oster said. “That might explain Brother John and his Jesus freaks, but where do Fahey and the rest come in?”

  “Criminals are opportunists. They probably saw a way to exploit the situation.”

  “But a little storefront church with, at most, two dozen members,” Thinnes said. “What’s to exploit?”

  “You’re the one who said there was a connection.”

  “Looks like Wiley Fahey set a bunch of fires,” Oster said, “besides Nolan’s car.” He told Caleb about the cases Fuego had brought them. “It’d look like do-it-yourself land clearance if any one party was benefiting, but…” He shrugged. “And how do you connect a cult with excons and arson?”

  “Jim Jones,” Thinnes said.

  “The asshole that took nine hundred people with him when he checked out?” Oster didn’t look convinced. “Brother John was a deadbeat, but nothin’ like that.”