Arsonist

by Victor Methos

  “Doctor, without any violations, is there anything else you can tell me?”

  “He’s extremely intelligent, Detective. Once I re-read his file without her sugar-coating it…look, get the court order and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

  “I’ll see you Monday then, with a court order.”

  “Very well.”

  Stanton was too wired for sleep. He stood up and paced his apartment and then went back out on the balcony and sat down. He thought about going night surfing as the waves were high, but no one else was out there and surfing alone at night wasn’t something he ever did. Instead, he lay back and began trying to decipher the entries in the journal.

  Stanton woke early on Sunday after only having slept a few hours. The journal entries had filled him with a gray weight that clung to him like heavy glue. He pushed the thoughts out of his mind by going for a jog. He ran the length of the beach in a long circle wearing trail shoes that sunk into the sand. He ran for over half an hour before sprinting as long as he could, his breath leaving him, his heart tightening in his chest. Stanton walked for a few minutes and then collapsed on the sand, staring up at the blue, cloudless sky. He sat up and brought his knees to his chest and watched the waves lap the shore until he had regained enough strength to walk to his apartment.

  After a shower and a shave, he went to his nearby church for service.

  The pews were not crowded. Outside of Utah, Nevada, and Hawaii most Mormon churches were not filled to the brim with parishioners. It created a tighter-knit community, as their numbers were limited, but it also meant that each person had more obligations in the church to keep it running smoothly.

  Stanton sat in the back, listening to a sermon given by a young woman who was preaching on how to resist temptation when the doors to the church opened and a man stood there. Stanton had never seen him before but he wore a pressed, black suit and a baseball cap and scanned the room as he entered. Stanton turned away and back to the speaker when he saw the man make his way up the aisle and sit next to him.

  “You know,” the man said without turning to him, “the thing that’s always amazed me about the faithful is that they preach everything in here but in the real world they’re no better than the rest of us. They sleep with prostitutes and they drink and have abortions. Some of them molest children or beat their wives. So they ask forgiveness. Forgiveness for things they can’t control.” He turned to him. “Your Heavenly Father must laugh himself into a coma every day. He issues us passions and then forbids us to give in to them. And these people,” he said, motioning with his hand over the pews, “they carry guilt with them and hand it off to their defenseless children. And to top it off, they give money for the privilege of subjecting themselves to this slavery. Religion is quite the racket.”

  Stanton was about to say something when his pulse began to pound. He knew who the man was. He recognized the sleek jawline and the eyes that were set just a little too close. Though the hat covered his head he guessed he was bald underneath.

  Stanton’s hand slid down to the firearm at his side.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” the man said. “You’re going to want to hear what I have to say.”

  The young lady at the podium closed her talk and the man stood up and cheered. He whistled and hollered and everyone turned to him. He shouted, “Fucking A!” and sat back down.

  “I don’t want to spatter your brains in a church,” Stanton said. “Come outside quietly and I’ll just arrest you.”

  He laughed mirthlessly. “How’s Emma doing?” Stanton didn’t respond and he kept talking. “She’s quite the fighter. When I fuck her I bet she’s going to put up—”

  Stanton had his throat and pressed him against the pew. The man tried to laugh but only a low hissing would escape his lips. Stanton pulled out his cell phone and dialed Emma’s number. It went straight to voicemail. He dialed again; straight to voicemail.

  “What did you do?” Stanton whispered.

  He tried to speak but nothing would come out as he began to turn red. Stanton let go of the man’s throat and sat back, his hand on his firearm.

  “She’s fine,” he said, coughing. “Oh, man. This is fun. I’m glad we did this.”

  “Tell me where she is.”

  “I’ll do better. I’ll take you there. But you can’t call anyone. Just me and you. Two buddies.”

  Stanton shook his head. “No way. I’m hauling you in.”

  “You’ll never find her and she’ll starve to death.” He held out his hands as if in surrender. “I don’t have weapons. You can keep your gun, I don’t care. I promise you, I’ll take you to her.”

  After a couple moments of thought Stanton spit out, “Stand up and walk outside. If you run I’ll shoot you in the back.”

  “Spoken like a true disciple of Christ.”

  The man stood up and they headed out the double doors. Stanton walked behind him with his hand on the Desert Eagle at his hip. They got out into the sunlight in the parking lot and the man took in a deep breath and turned to Stanton.

  “Let’s take your car, Jon. You probably wouldn’t trust taking mine. It’s a little bit of a drive.”

  Stanton removed his firearm and held it low so not to cause panic. He led him over to his car and the man got into the passenger seat. Stanton climbed into the driver’s seat with the gun held to the man’s chest.

  “I could shoot you right now and no one would question me.”

  “But you won’t. I did some reading up on you. Quite the Boy Scout. Sorry about your wife. Is she really marrying someone from the Chargers? Never liked football. Too much aggression. I think you’re the same way, aren’t you, Jon?”

  “Stop calling me that.”

  “It’s your name, isn’t it?”

  Stanton struck him with the weapon lightly on the head and pressed the muzzle against his temple, his head pushed against the glass of the passenger side window.

  “Did I do something to upset you, Detective?” he said with a chuckle. “It couldn’t have been those little kiddies I fried, could it?”

  Stanton took out his phone.

  “I have to urge you, Detective, not to do that. I will clam up and ask for a lawyer and she will starve to death. She’s somewhere no one ever goes. All I’m asking for is that you take a drive with me out there. After that, I will turn myself in.”

  “No you won’t.”

  “I give you my word.”

  He pulled the gun away from his head. “You don’t want to turn yourself in. You want to die.”

  The man grew quiet. “And you presume to know too much. Now are we going to go see Emma or go to the station and let her die?”

  Stanton bit his cheek. He transferred the gun to his left hand and pulled out the keys with his right before starting the car.

  “I knew you were as smart as you looked, Detective.”

  They pulled out of the church parking lot onto San Bernadisto Drive and got onto the freeway.

  “Stay in this lane,” the man said. “It’ll be about twenty minutes.” He leaned back in his seat as if on a leisurely drive. “I read that you almost died and were in the hospital for nearly a month. Your partner, what was his name? Sherman? Or whatever it was. I read they found out it was a fake name and don’t know who he is or where he is. He got away pretty free and clear, didn’t he?”

  Stanton didn’t respond.

  “Anyway, I was in a hospital for a long time too. It’s an odd place, isn’t it? Not quite prison and not quite freedom. You seem to turn in on yourself. Your mind begins to eat itself like your body does when you don’t give it nourishment. I had to read a lot to keep that from happening, but who knows? Maybe it happened and I’m just not aware of it? That’s always puzzled me, Detective. I know you have a doctorate in psychology. Tell me, how does one know when one has gone crazy? If you’re crazy, you can’t tell you’re crazy, right?”

  Stanton said nothing as a car cut him off and he slowed down.

  �
��Are you really not going to not talk to me this whole trip? It would make it quite boring, you know.”

  “How many?” Stanton said.

  “In total? I don’t know.”

  “No, you know. You keep track.”

  “I used to keep track. But after the first few, you begin to forget things. You would be amazed how mundane killing can get, Jon. How banal. It’s like anything else. If you do it enough, it gets boring.”

  “But you can’t stop.”

  “No, I can’t stop. I wouldn’t want to. It’s still fun. One day it won’t be but right now it is. Do you remember the Zodiac Killer? How they never found him and they think that he was locked up on other charges or died? I don’t think so. People don’t consider that murder just started boring him and he moved on to something else. That’ll probably happen to me as well. But you know how that is, you’ve killed a lot too.”

  “Not like you.”

  “Why? Because you did it for the ‘good’ of the public? What if someone you had killed, let’s say one of the murderers, would’ve killed someone who was going to kill others down the road. Like by being a drunk driver? Is that then an evil or good act he’s performed? If you measure it by substantive parameters, it was a good act that saved lives. There are too many variables in life, too many unknowns to say what’s good and what’s evil. Those terms have become outdated.”

  “When you equivocate good and evil, only good loses out.”

  He chuckled. “That seems to be the curse of this time, doesn’t it? I’ve been gone many years and coming back even I was shocked with what I saw on television, what was considered acceptable behavior. I can see, physically see, that society has become more Godless and corrupted. My father had predicted it, but I never believed him. He was a preacher; you and he, I think, might’ve gotten along. Except of course that he raped all the women that surrounded him.” He laughed. “I think some of the animals too. Every man has his appetites I suppose. You’re going to want to merge with this interstate.”

  Stanton swung left and they followed Interstate 15 for what was easily another half hour. They were in a low-income area and Stanton could see several government housing projects blotting the landscape. Covered in graffiti, one had an abandoned car in front that had been taken apart piece by piece.

  Getting off the freeway, they drove another few minutes. They came to a line of abandoned homes and the man pointed to one and said, “Stop in front.”

  Stanton took out his cell phone. “She’s not here,” the man said. “You may want to wait before calling it in.”

  “You said you were taking me to her.”

  “I am. Be patient, Detective.”

  He got out of the car and Stanton followed.

  CHAPTER 48

  Daniel Childs lifted over three hundred and fifteen pounds on the bench press before sitting up and taking a swig of fruit punch creatine. The gym was packed and two women in spandex were working out in front of him. He smiled to the one on the right, wearing a flower-print tube-top, and she smiled back.

  He then moved to the preacher curls and did drop-sets until exhaustion. He felt his phone vibrating in his pocket: it was his secretary.

  “Yeah, what’s up?”

  “Internal Affairs is here, Danny. They want to speak with you.”

  “Well tell ‘em I’m at the gym. They can come back later.”

  “They said it’s urgent. They wanted your cell number but I told them I would just call you.”

  “All right, gimmie thirty.”

  Danny saw the young woman glance over to him again. He wanted to go over and speak to her but was short on time. IAD would show up at his house if he didn’t meet with them at the office. He’d always had an impression of them as piranhas. Cannibal piranhas. They were necessary to prevent corruption, but the people that were corrupt usually came out of or went into IAD.

  He showered and changed into jeans and a zip-up Polo shirt, letting his badge dangle on the chain around his neck. He got into his Nissan truck and drove down the road before hopping on the interstate. Northern was buzzing with activity by the time he got there. He parked out back and walked in. Two men in suits sat inside his office.

  Childs threw his gymbag behind his desk and sat down.

  “What do you want, Matt?” he said.

  One of the men took out a piece of gum and unwrapped it. “Gum?”

  “No thanks. Now what the fuck do you want?”

  “We’ve gotten some complaints on one of your detectives.”

  “I’m sure you have. Which detective?”

  “Jon Stanton.”

  “Stanton? What was the complaint?”

  “Sexual harassment of a bar manager and assault against one of the bouncers.”

  Childs chuckled. “Have you seen Jon Stanton? I promise you he couldn’t assault no bouncer.”

  “Well that’s not what his partner said.”

  “Stephen Gunn told you Stanton assaulted a bouncer?”

  “Among other things. We’re doing this as a courtesy, Danny. We don’t need to alert the supervising officer. He can contact his union rep if he wants and come in with them but we want some time with him.”

  “Jon Stanton’s the best cop I got. I’d prefer if you sunk your teeth into someone else.”

  “Like who?”

  “How about the fucking chief of police? I heard he’s got a thing for working girls.”

  Matt grew uncomfortable and glanced to his partner. “When Stanton comes back let us know. We’ll be around.”

  He left one of his cards and Childs picked it up and tossed it in the trash.

  CHAPTER 49

  Stanton stood in front of the old house with the pointed roof and considered calling the SWAT team right now, after he’d put a bullet in each of the man’s ankles to make sure he was adequately slowed down. But he thought of Emma, tied up in some basement in the dark. Slowly starving to death over the coming weeks. The thought caused him pain, physical pain that wrenched his guts. He glanced around and said, “Let’s go.”

  They walked up the path to the home and the man used a key to get in. The house was empty except for a few beer cans and used hypodermic needles. An old, stained sleeping bag was in one corner and it had developed crisscrossing spiderwebs. The house smelled like dirt and urine and Stanton had the urge to snort to get the scent out of his nostrils.

  “The basement,” the man said.

  Stanton followed him to a door. The man opened it and revealed a long set of stairs going down into the dark. He flipped a light and a single lightbulb turned on downstairs, illuminating their way just enough that they might not fall.

  The basement was cool and humid; it was empty as well except for several cardboard boxes and two monitors in the center of the room. They were hooked up to a laptop and Stanton had difficulty seeing the images from where he was standing. He lifted his gun to the man’s back. “Keep moving,” he said.

  Coming to the center of the basement, Stanton could see the images clearly now. On one monitor was a family. A male, female, and four children. They were tied at the waist with what looked like some sort of rope and the children were crying.

  On the other screen, was Emma. She was tied and gagged.

  “Where is she?”

  “Guess.”

  “Tell me where she is, now.”

  “You have a choice. Emma and the family are both surrounded with gallons of napalm. There’s a lit fuse working its way around the space at their locations. It’s got…” He checked his watch. “It’s got twenty-five minutes before it reaches the napalm. Each of their addresses are twenty minutes away. One is north and the other is south. You can only save one of them, Jon.”

  Stanton grabbed the man and spun him around, bashing his elbow into his face. The man flew off his feet and Stanton was on him. He struck him once more in the face with his fist and pinned the man down with one hand as he put his firearm on the man’s cheek.

  “Tell me where she is.”


  “Fine,” he said, laughing as blood poured from his nose, “but then I won’t tell you where the family is. Mr. and Mrs. Westfall and their four beautiful children. Too bad, one of the kids was getting straight A’s and might’ve gotten a scholarship to college.”

  Stanton grabbed the man’s collar and lifted him up toward himself. “You’re going to tell me everything.”

  “No, I’m not. Here’s the real fun part, Jon. If you save the family, you’ll never forgive yourself. What if Emma was the one you were supposed to spend your life with and you let her fry? But if you save Emma, you can never be with her. Your relationship would be tainted. Every time she looked at you it would remind her of me. Eventually, the sight of you would fill her with dread.”

  Stanton knew it was true and it sickened him. He sat up and gripped his Desert Eagle with both hands, steadying them.

  “Yes,” the man whispered, “do it. Do it.”

  Stanton’s hands began to shake.

  “Do it, do it do it do it,” the man hissed.

  Images flashed through his mind. Images of the men he had killed in the line of duty. Evil men that couldn’t be stopped any other way. It was war, and in war killing was inevitable. It always had been. But this wasn’t war. The man was lying helpless on the ground, blood pooling around his head from a broken nose.

  “No, I won’t kill you,” Stanton said.

  The man spit a glob of bloody phlegm and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “You still have to choose. Tick tock tick tock.”

  Stanton looked to the screens. He saw the faces contorted in pain and anguish. It tore his heart out to see tears streaming down the cheeks of the children and the parents that were helpless to comfort him. Emma was hunched over, defeated. Her hair stuck to her face from tears or blood or both. She looked to the camera and then away. Her eyes were already dead; her hope had been taken from her.

  “No,” Stanton whispered.

  “What?”

  “No. I won’t choose. I won’t play games with you.”