“Fuck.” Murphy’s hands shook as he ran his hands through his hair. “Just… give me a minute.”
They waited. Darger wanted to look over at Luck, to see what he made of this, but she was afraid to take her eyes off of Murphy even for a second. They were finally getting somewhere.
“God he’s going to hate me for this,” Murphy said, his voice barely a whisper.
“Who?” Darger asked.
Murphy took a deep breath and looked her square in the eye.
“I’ve been to The Blue Handkerchief before,” he said. “But I didn’t start the fire.”
“You can’t expect us to believe you ended up there by accident. It’s a gay bar.”
“I know. I’m gay.”
Neither Darger nor Luck spoke. She thought he was probably just as dumbstruck as she was.
It was Murphy who broke the silence.
“The witness said I was acting suspicious?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s because I was nervous as hell. In case you couldn’t tell, I’m not exactly out.”
Darger chewed on this.
“Why lie about being with Camacho, then? You just figured he’d cover for you?”
Murphy let out a mammoth sigh.
“It wasn’t a lie. I stayed the night at Miguel’s last night,” he said, his tone pointed.
It was a moment before the full realization hit her.
“Oh.”
And now it all made sense. Murphy had been telling the truth all along about being with Camacho. Camacho had been the one who was lying. Covering up the fact that he was sleeping with his partner.
“Everyone’s going to know now, aren’t they?” Murphy said, shaking his head. “Jesus, this isn’t how I imagined coming out.”
“No.” Darger tapped the pad of paper. “It doesn’t have to be. Give us those alibis, for the other fires. We’re going to need them to clear all of this up.”
“What about Miguel?”
“We have to get him to corroborate it.”
Murphy slumped in his chair.
“He’s never going to forgive me.”
Chapter 48
Camacho’s lawyer was in the interview room when they entered this time. He got to his feet and stood so that he blocked the way into the room.
“I’m curious, Agents. Are you planning on rounding up and interrogating every able-bodied man in Los Angeles?”
“Excuse me?”
“My client tells me that just today you’ve suspected three different people of being the arsonist. It sounds to me like you’re playing eenie-meanie-miney-moe, blindly accusing any innocent person that crosses your path, and hoping something sticks. It’s nothing short of harassment, and let me tell you, the DA is not going to—”
Darger pushed past the windbag lawyer with his shiny shoes and shinier hair and focused on Camacho.
“Miguel, Murphy said he was with you earlier today.”
“Yeah, and I told you he’s telling the truth.”
“Mr. Camacho, I would advise you not to say anything,” the lawyer said.
Darger ignored him.
“He also said you were together last night.”
There was a long pause. Camacho’s jaw clenched and unclenched. His eyes fell to the tabletop.
“He told you?”
“Yes,” Darger said. “It’s true?”
Camacho nodded, still not making eye contact.
“Why hide it?” Luck asked. “It’s not like we’re in some backwoods place. And it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
Camacho’s head snapped up, eyes burning.
“Ashamed? Fuck you, Luck! I’m not ashamed of anything. Just because I’m not out there waving a fucking rainbow flag doesn’t mean I’m ashamed of who I am. It’s my fucking choice. My fucking life. Who are you to tell me how to be?” He jabbed a thick finger at his own chest. “I control my identity. Not you. Not anyone.”
Luck held up his hands defensively.
“Fair enough, man. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Camacho made a disgusted sound.
“Does this mean I can go?”
“We’re still confirming Murphy’s alibis for the other fires. But yes. You can go.”
He was on his feet and halfway out the door before Darger could think to say something.
“I’m sorry, Miguel,” she said, knowing a mere apology was woefully inadequate.
Before disappearing through the doorway, he scoffed and said, “Murphy’s the one you should be apologizing to.”
And apologize they did, once they saw the security footage of Murphy at the department firing range on the day of the church fire. Unless he was able to be in two places at once, he was not their arsonist.
After releasing Murphy and reporting to Chief Macklin, they took the elevator down to the parking level.
“So,” Luck said, letting the silence hang there for a moment. “That was rough.”
“Yep. That sucked.”
Darger propped herself up in the corner of the elevator, letting her head loll back against the wall.
“We should have asked for alibis for all of the fires before we did anything else,” she said. “We could have saved everyone the headache.”
Frowning, Luck shook his head.
“No. We did this right. If we’d asked about the other fires, he would have spooked. Probably would have lawyered up like Camacho. We were wrong in the end, but we made all the right moves.”
The elevator dinged, and the doors swished open. They filed out, footsteps echoing across the vast concrete chamber of the parking garage. Darger spotted Murphy and Camacho at the far end despite the dim lighting. The two men looked their direction, and Darger held her breath, thinking they might be in for some sort of confrontation. But Camacho only turned away, and then Murphy followed suit. So it’d be the cold shoulder instead.
Once inside Luck’s vehicle, Darger settled into the passenger seat.
“OK,” she said. “I’ll admit it. This seat is pretty comfortable.”
He smiled.
“That’s it? You’re not going to gloat?”
“I’m too tired to gloat.”
She sighed.
“I hear that.”
As they drove, Darger thought back to the first interview she’d ever conducted with Luck. It was her first case with the BAU, and she was in Ohio hunting a man who’d killed and dismembered four women. When they spoke with the fourth victim’s mother, she’d been more concerned with a piece of jewelry her daughter had been wearing at the time of her death than about making funeral arrangements. Luck had invited her out for a drink afterward, perhaps sensing and sharing Darger’s raw emotional state after the encounter.
She wanted him to do that now. Wanted to go somewhere loud and dark, where they could hide in the corner and take the edge off with a drink or two. Most of all, she desperately did not want to be alone, regardless of the hour.
They rolled through the streets of L.A., the dark silhouettes of palm trees outlined against the streetlights. Why not just ask Luck herself? She was a grown-ass woman, after all. But what stopped her was that he had a family waiting for him at home. She didn’t want to keep him from his daughter. Not when that was where he probably wanted to be.
When they reached her hotel, Luck pulled alongside the lobby doors and put the car in park. Her eyes traveled up the side of the building, imagining her stark little room. She really couldn’t stand the idea of going up there just now. As tired as she was, she had a feeling she wouldn’t be able to sleep. The idea of lying on the rock hard mattress, numbing her mind with vapid TV made her want to scream.
Fuck it. They were going to go get a drink, damn it. And she’d do the asking.
Her lips parted. She was about to speak when Luck suddenly threw his head back and swore.
“What is it?”
“I was supposed to pick up cleats for Jill,” he said. “She’s starting soccer next week, and I keep forgetting to g
et the damn cleats.”
Darger couldn’t help but take this as a sign from the universe that a drink with Luck was not in the cards for her tonight.
“Ah well… there are 24-hour places for such things,” Darger said. “You still have time.”
Luck glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard and nodded.
“That’s true. Somewhere will still have cleats.”
Darger unbuckled her seatbelt and started to slide out of the car.
“Thanks for the ride,” she said.
“Hey,” Luck said, stopped her. “Were you about to say something a minute ago? It looked like you had something on your mind.”
“Nothing important,” Darger said and closed the car door.
Chapter 49
Carl wades all the way into the bush — a gnarly dried out thing, mostly dead, surrounding an abandoned church — and starts flinging gas around from an old bottle of Ruby Red Squirt. He backs out of the brush slowly, thoroughly coating the shrub from front to back as he moves. Jim has to admire his initiative in being so thorough.
Crack truly is the mother of ingenuity.
The gasoline glistens on the twisted branches, the wetness seeming to imply life in the jerky movements of the bush as Carl pushes his way back through it, the knotty places looking more and more like knuckles flexing and grasping and trying to grip. Jim feels the slightest ripple of goose bumps just where his neck meets his spine.
“There,” the homeless man says, now standing outside the foliage but still detaching prickly stuff from his shirt and pants, the plant reluctant to let him go. “That good enough?”
“Oh, I reckon that’ll work.”
Jim stalks close to the dying plant and kneels, close enough now to see the gas drizzling down everywhere, beads pattering at the dry dirt below. The stench of the gas hits then, makes his head a little light, an electric tingle tremoring in his skull, but subtly so. Mild. Almost reminds him of the nicotine buzz he got the first time he smoked a cigarette behind the tennis courts in 7th grade.
He flicks his lighter. Holds it close to the wet bush.
Let there be light.
The blaze flares. Fire reaching up into the night. Lifting the darkness. Attacking it.
So bright it makes Jim’s eyes water. Everything smeared and blurry. But the raw energy is still there to be felt even in that first fraction of a second. Undeniable.
He stumbles back from the rush of heat, a violent gust of air that seems hell-bent on pushing him down.
And then they’re off. Scurrying away. Two rodents partially hunched as they flee across the grass toward the street. Jim watches their crooked shadows running alongside, and the word scoundrels pops into his head.
Giddiness overcomes both men as they climb into the SUV and speed away from the scene. Some thrill of victory mixing with something else. The giggles erupt, infectious as always, though in the panic and rushing about, Jim can’t recall who started laughing first. Could it have been Carl? Is that possible?
“That was great,” Carl says. “Didn’t think it would be so fun, I guess.”
“Yep. Told you, didn’t I?”
“So that’s it? That’ll scare your, uh, whoever, then, I take it?”
Jim’s laugh comes out in an uneven cackle. He sounds a little unhinged even in his own ears.
“Oh, lord no,” he says, giving Carl the sunglasses stare down. “That was just the opening act, my friend. The real deal is just up here.”
Carl’s brow wrinkles. He tilts his head to the side. Is he trying to puzzle this out, or is he angry that he’s still a step away from his beloved crack rock?
“So the bush back there,” he says, his voice softer now. “That was like a decoy?”
Now it’s Jim’s turn to nod and smile.
“You’re sending all the firemen and cops down that way to handle the burning bush, so they won’t get back this way fast enough to do anything about… well, whatever you’ve got up next.”
“See? I told you, you have potential. You cracked that shit like Sherlock Holmes.”
“Yeah. Guess I did.”
Carl falls quiet after that, a thoughtful expression occupying his face, neither suspicious nor not suspicious, from what Jim can tell.
Carl. A mystery wrapped in a riddle.
They drive in silence for a couple blocks, and then Jim takes a right.
“It’s just up here,” he says, his voice hushed as though someone might hear.
Betsy’s apartment building takes shape before them. The image zooming in, growing larger and larger on their windshield screen.
But something is wrong.
The dumpster still sits there on the alley side of the big Victorian house, and that blackness still pocks the wall above it. The melted siding now holds still, crispy blackened folds of it, no longer the molten, malleable stuff it was when Jim last laid eyes on it.
Police tape cordons off this little area. A rectangular perimeter of yellow encasing the dumpster, flapping a little in the breeze.
The rest of the building looks mostly the same as last time. All dark on the ground floor, the old fogeys who live there in bed for hours now, most likely. A few lights on upstairs, but nothing crazy.
It’s the police cruiser in the driveway that takes Jim’s breath away, renders him mute. They should all be en route to the burning bush by now. Putting the window down, he can even hear the sirens warbling in the distance.
And then he sees it. The downfall of tonight’s festivities. No fun for anyone.
An officer stands near Betsy’s window, jotting something in a little notepad. They’re here. Now. Working this goddamn case at this hour? Probably asking her to talk about anyone she had a conflict with.
Pain. Rage. The same core emotion somehow coming out in two different ways. He felt both of them now like a pair of blades jammed into his gut.
He says nothing. Just grits his teeth and drives on. Leaves it behind, for now and for always.
For just a second, he gets those dual flashes again. Naked Betsy pressing against him flashing straight to her gas-drenched hair going up in flames at his lighter’s touch.
It’s never to be now. Never ever ever.
“There a problem?” the homeless man says, interrupting Jim’s internal monologue.
“So much for the strong, silent type, eh, Carl?” Jim says. His voice sounds sharp, more angry than he intended.
“Sorry,” Carl says. “Just… you seemed upset. And you’re speeding. Seems like something changed.”
“Well, something did change, Sherlock. We’re off for tonight, I’m afraid. I’ll take you back now. Drop you off.”
“Damn. I don’t know. I was kinda lookin’ forward to it, I guess.”
“Weren’t we all?”
Again a quiet comes to them, intent on riding along with them. But even in his frustration, he finds this silence to lack that awkwardness he might experience with another. Carl is all right.
Jim pulls the foil from his left pocket. Tosses it to Carl who looks like a little kid getting a new toy.
Carl doesn’t go to smoke it right away, though. He holds the packet in his open hand, and his eyes seek out the sunglasses, trying for the third time to look through the dark lenses and see who lives behind them.
“So you’re him, huh?” Carl says.
Jim holds his breath for a few heartbeats. There was something in the tone of the man’s voice to be read, but he’s not sure how to take it. A threat? Mere intrigue?
“What?” Jim says after the silence grows too long to bear.
Carl turns away. Looks out the window.
“Nothing,” he says. “Forget it.”
Jim wants to. He wants to forget it, but he doesn’t think he can.
Chapter 50
The first thing Darger did upon entering her hotel room was to strip off her smoke-drenched clothes and take a shower. She dressed in fresh clothes and milled around for a few minutes before the leftover frustration from
the day built to a peak. First the failure with Sablatsky and then again with Murphy and Camacho. It seemed like they were running down dead end after dead end.
She tried to remember the relief she’d felt after learning no one had died at The Blue Handkerchief, but that had faded now. What remained wasn’t nearly enough to erase the guilt she felt over accusing two members of the task force, being wrong, and then outing them in the process. It was the cherry on top of a shit sundae of a day.
She grabbed her bag and room key and headed downstairs. There was a restaurant down the street with a neon sign outside that said “Open Late.” She found an empty stool at the bar and ordered a drink. Scotch. Neat.
Darger downed the first drink and set the glass back on the bar for another.
“That kind of night?” the bartender asked.
She was young, with long black hair that was buzzed on the sides. Her smile was accented by a double lip piercing that Darger had heard someone refer to as “snake bites” at some point.
“Pretty much.”
The girl nodded and refilled her drink. Darger took it slower this time. Now that the warmth and numbness from the first drink had spread a little, she’d just maintain for a while.
“Want anything from the kitchen?” the bartender asked, sliding a menu across the bar.
Something about standing in all that smoke earlier had zapped her appetite, but it’d been hours since she’d eaten.
“I’ll take an order of fries,” Darger said, handing the menu back.
Her thoughts turned naturally to Luck. She wondered if he’d made it to the store to get the cleats for his daughter. She’d made the right call, she decided. He should be with his kid.
Her phone buzzed then, and Darger couldn’t help but hope it was Luck. He’d psychically picked up on the fact that she was in this bar and was heading over to join her.
But no. It was a text from Beck, thanking her for updating her on the outcome of bar fire.
Violet Darger (Book 6): Night On Fire Page 22
