Touched by Fire

by Greg Dinallo

  “She’s fine, Mrs. Graham,” Merrick said, suddenly aware of his soot-smudged appearance, which explained the doorman’s reaction when they entered the hotel. “And I’m making sure she stays that way.”

  Lilah smiled, heartened by his unabashed chivalry. “We decided it’d be a good idea if I spent a few nights away from the condo.”

  “Oh! You’re so extravagant,” Marge exclaimed, her anxious eyes darting about the plush interior. “What’s wrong with your room at home? Your father’d love to have you, and it’d give me some time to—” She stopped abruptly in reaction to her beeper, which had just begun vibrating. “Oh my,” she exclaimed, suddenly flustered. “He probably woke up and is wondering where I am.” She hugged Lilah, turned on a heel, and hurried through the lobby toward the exit.

  Lilah watched her go, then took the phone from her briefcase and called her father. After assuring him her mother was on her way, she went to the desk and asked for a room.

  “High floor, no deliveries,” Merrick added smartly.

  The clerk scowled as if he were a piece of litter that had blown in from the street, then noticed the badge in Merrick’s palm. Moments later a bellman took Lilah’s bag and showed them to a room. It had the same elegance of fine fabrics and antique furnishing as the lobby, and a view of the campus. Merrick tipped him, then gave the place a once-over, making certain the door to the adjoining room was locked. “Should be okay . . . ”

  “Thanks,” Lilah said with a smile. “And thanks again for the game.” She struck a match and lit his cigarette, then her own. “You don’t really get off on the violence, you know,” she offered in that omniscient tone doctors employ when debunking imaginary illnesses. “I watched you. I can tell.”

  “Sure I do,” Merrick protested, as if offended. “It’s great therapy. I scream my lungs out and sleep like a rock. Speaking of which . . .” He let it trail off and turned to leave.

  “Sleep? No way I could crash now,” Lilah said with a frantic drag on her cigarette. Between the prison, the hockey game, and the fire bomb, it had been a long, nerve-racking day, and she was still wired. Her eyes went to the minibar. “There’s got to be a couple of brews in there. Stick around. Have one with me.”

  Merrick cocked his head, deciding, then yawned and fell onto the sofa, sinking deep into the cushions. “So how’d you get into this medicine game?”

  “By playing doctor with the little boy next door.”

  “Seriously.”

  “Seriously?” she echoed, fetching the beers. “I always knew what I wanted to do. My parents encouraged me. Especially my father. He’s very ill. I’ve sort of-been caring for him as of late.”

  “You saying you’re your father’s doctor?” Merrick asked, uncomfortable with the idea.

  “Of course not,” Lilah replied, bemused. “We’ve had the same general prac for years; but if having his daughter check him out once a month and tell him he’s doing great makes him feel better, why not? He was the best father a girl could have. A wonderful, decent, and supportive man. I’d do anything for him.” She sat cross-legged on the floor, then, setting Merrick up, added, “Saved a few lives in his day.”

  “Ah, so, you’re following in his footsteps,” Merrick said, making the obvious assumption.

  She broke into that little Doug Graham grin and delivered the punch line. “He was a fireman.”

  Merrick arched a skeptical brow. “A fireman? You’re putting me on . . .”

  “No, really.”

  He sighed in amazement, too fatigued to recognize the significance of the little bell that had just gone off in his head. “So was mine.”

  “Figures. Fire fighting’s a family thing. My dad put in forty years in Santa Monica.”

  “Thirty-five, L.A. County,” Merrick reflected. “I spent more holidays at the station than I did at home. My mom used to say our lives were touched by fire. I mean, it just kinda gets in your blood and—”

  “Well, we haven’t identified that gene yet,” Lilah said girlishly.

  “You really think there is one?”

  “Wouldn’t be surprised. You know, we saw you on TV after you rescued those guys. My dad took one look and said, ‘My kind of guy.’” She raised her arms with a dancer’s grace and sensuously ran her hands along the side of her neck up into her hair, her slender fingers gathering it into a flaming column; then, as she began arranging it into a perfect chignon, she glanced up at Merrick, with soft, deep blue eyes, and said, “I always thought he was a great judge of character.”

  Merrick took a long swallow of beer, studying her from behind the bottle. “You wouldn’t be making one of your famous medical advances here, would you, Doc?”

  “Hey, don’t take it personally, I’m bound by oath and training to make as many as I can.”

  Merrick feigned being crushed. “And I thought it was because I reminded you of Daddy.”

  “Well, you do smoke the same brand of cigarettes—like chimneys.”

  “Look who’s talking. I mean, if anybody should know better, it’d be you, no?”

  Lilah nodded. “You think I’d be indulging a two-pack-a- day habit if I didn’t?”

  Merrick looked puzzled. “What am I missing here?”

  “Information,” Lilah replied, intensifying his curiosity. She got to her feet, fetched a vacutainer kit from her briefcase, and sat next to him. “Roll up a sleeve,” she commanded as she peeled off the wrapper.

  Merrick shrunk back deeper into the cushions and yawned. “Not that violence thing again.”

  “No, I’d have to screen your X chromosome for that. The tweak I’m looking for rears its ugly head on fifteen.”

  “Tweak? What tweak?”

  “The FHIT marker. It’s a genetic defect that turns the compounds in cigarette smoke into carcinogens.”

  Merrick broke into a knowing smile as the pieces fell into place. “Tested yourself, haven’t you?”

  Lilah smiled, exhaling through her nose and mouth as she continued. “You just might be one of the lucky ninety-three out of a hundred who don’t have the marker.”

  “Which means?” Merrick asked, stifling a yawn.

  “You can smoke your fool head off without worrying about lung cancer . . . just emphysema and heart disease.”

  “Only seven out of a hundred have it, huh?”

  Lilah nodded, then swabbed the bend in his arm and readied the needle. “Make a fist.”

  “I’ll probably be one of the unlucky seven,” Merrick said as the vacutainer began filling.

  “Then you’ll have to make one of those nitty-gritty decisions,” she replied in a sassy tone. “You could quit cold turkey and spend a lot of time sucking your thumb. You could keep smoking and worry your ass off. You could wait until you get the big C and put in for a lung transplant, if it hasn’t already spread to your nodes. Then again, you could run around with one of those metal clips on your ear. You don’t exactly strike me as the earring type, but I know several people who tried it and broke the habit.”

  She finished filling the container, then extracted the needle, and was surprised when she looked up to see that he’d dozed off. An amused smile, infused with traces of affection and relief, broke across her face. Until tonight, he would barely give her the time of day, let alone eight cubic centimeters of his blood. Now, their playful sparring and sharing of childhood experiences had rekindled her earlier feelings that she’d gotten his attention. He was interested in her, not just her case. And whether he had intended it or not, she felt safer, felt he had become her protector, and would soon consciously make that commitment if he hadn’t.

  Merrick’s eyes were closed and his breathing was steady, but he was still in the netherworld of semiconscious thought, his mind flitting from one thing to another.

  Why had the pyro changed his M.O. and used a different delivery system? Why had the second fire bomb detonated in the receiving room, instead of after Lilah had taken possession of it, like the first one? He thought, too, of Lilah’s r
evelation that her father had been a fireman. Merrick’s mind was plunging from twilight into total darkness when that little bell started ringing again. This time it set off a flicker of insight about motive, an insight that could explain why an incendiary device, rather than a more common method, had been used. He tried to hold on to it, tried valiantly to store it for later retrieval, but the cerebral shutter slammed shut, obscuring it in trancelike slumber.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Merrick awakened with a start. His mind was blank, his eyes gritty, and his neck stiff from the sofa. He squinted across the hotel room where Lilah slept beneath sumptuous bed covers. The digital clock read 6:27. He stumbled into the bathroom, threw some cold water on his face, and was combing his hair with his fingers when a vague feeling that he’d had an insight about the case came over him. He racked his brain to find it, but the elusive thought defied recall.

  Lilah was still asleep when Merrick left. The freeway was empty at this hour on Saturdays. He made it home in record time, showered, changed clothes, and drove to the Manhattan Beach Coffee Shop, a short-order joint that smelled of buttered toast and bacon. Jason’s mountain bike was chained to a signpost out front.

  “Dad! Dad, they won!” the youngster exclaimed as his father slid into the booth opposite him. He was still wearing the blood-spattered Kings jersey. “It was super. You missed the neatest goal.”

  “Yeah,” Merrick grunted, lighting a cigarette. “Story of my life . . .”

  “Come on, Dad, okay?”

  “Sorry. I get a little cranky when I’m hungry.”

  The waitress came gliding up to the table with her Silex pot and winked at Jason as she filled Merrick’s cup. “Maybe I can do something about that?”

  “Don’t get your hopes up, Faye.”

  “Hey, I must be doing something right. You keep coming back for more,” she said suggestively. Her face had lost its surfer-girl freshness, but she still had her shape, and thrived on the banter. “The usual for cranky guy, here, and . . .?” She nodded at Jason, took his order, and winked at him as she moved off.

  “So, Dad,” Jason said, affecting a casual air. “She your new girlfriend?”

  Merrick cocked a thumb after the waitress. “Faye?”

  “No, you know . . . last night.”

  “Dr. Graham? Not a chance. Why?”

  “Well, me and my friend Mark at school? We were talking. I mean, about our parents . . . you know, being divorced and stuff?”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Yeah, well, we were saying how our dads get kinda weird sometimes? And Mark goes, his dad got over it as soon as he . . . you know"—Jason hesitated, then leaned across the table and whispered—"got laid.”

  Merrick damn near gagged on his coffee. “Hey,” he scolded, unable to suppress his laughter. “Your mother hears you talk like that, she’ll crucify me. Besides, Dr. Graham’s a little too . . . brainy for me.”

  “I kinda liked her.”

  “Hey, go for it. By the way, I have to put that algebra lesson on hold till this afternoon. Okay?”

  “Sure. Steve’s been tutoring me, but there’s still some stuff I don’t get.”

  “Don’t worry,” Merrick said with a relieved smile as their food arrived. “We’ll figure it out together.”

  After breakfast, Merrick headed north to Santa Monica. Police headquarters was on Main Street about a block from the ocean. Last night, after taking Eagleton into custody, Fletcher turned him over to the SMPD officers who responded to his backup call. Eagleton spent the night in the city’s lockup, and in the morning was taken to an interrogation room where Merrick, Logan, and Fletcher were waiting.

  “I didn’t do it,” Eagleton blurted as he entered. “I didn’t, and I’m really pissed off that you—”

  “Hold it,” Merrick interrupted. “You have counsel?”

  “I called one last night, but had to leave a message.” He paused in bitter reflection, then added, “He’s a friend. Did some estate planning for me once.”

  “Shit,” Merrick grunted, flicking the ashes from a cigarette onto the floor. “Better bring in a P.D. No sense trying to wring a statement out of him without—”

  Someone rapped on the door. An athletic man in his mid-forties, wearing shorts, polo shirt, and tennis shoes entered. “Dick Fallon. Apologies for the getup. I was halfway to the club before I checked my service.” He removed his sunglasses and glanced at the gaunt figure in the threadbare clothes. “Jim?” he wondered, unable to hide the surprise in his voice.

  “ ’Fraid so,” Eagleton said with an embarrassed smile. “Thanks for coming.”

  The two men stepped aside and huddled in whispered conversation until Fallon was up to speed, then returned to the table. “You have evidence to support the charges against Mr. Eagleton?”

  Merrick smiled and signaled Fletcher with a nod.

  The young A.I. emptied the contents of an envelope on the table. Among Eagleton’s personal effects were several matchbooks from Alice’s, a legendary restaurant on the Malibu Pier that served up a panoramic view of the ocean along with trendy California cuisine.

  “I didn’t know Alice’s had a homeless special,” Merrick cracked, intending to unsettle him.

  “I wasn’t always homeless,” Eagleton protested. “My wife and I used to go with friends.” He looked to Fallon, who was nodding in confirmation. “And I still do. I go in the kitchen door now. I usually grab some matchbooks from the storeroom when I leave.”

  “Only takes one!” Merrick erupted. “You didn’t happen to hitch down to Laguna last night, did you?”

  “Laguna? I was in Santa Monica all day—and all night, thanks to you. Why?”

  “Somebody torched the whole damn canyon, couple of hours before you were picked up. Plenty of time to hitch back for spareribs at Madame Wu’s.” He tore the filter from his cigarette, slipped the unlit end into one of the matchbooks, and closed the cover. “Familiar?”

  “No, dammit. I never torched any canyon.”

  Merrick set the igniter aside. “Come on, you’re an angry, bitter guy. You wanted to take it out on somebody. Your former neighbors were handy, so—”

  “No,” Eagleton interrupted forcefully. “No, those people were my friends.”

  “Evidence,” Fallon prompted. “I asked for evidence, Lieutenant. I still haven’t seen any.”

  Merrick glanced at Logan. “Pete . . .”

  Logan placed a photo blowup of a charred matchbook on the table in front of Eagleton. “The igniter that started the fire.” He set another blowup next to it. “Your thumbprint—found on the igniter.”

  “Counselor?” Merrick taunted. “Your client ready to make a statement now?”

  Eagleton’s eyes darted from Merrick to the photos and back. “Yeah, I’ll make a statement,” he blurted angrily. “Las Flores was my home when I owned a house there. It still is. I use matches to make campfires. I must’ve—” He was interrupted by an explosive whoosh from the matchbook igniter, which was spitting flame.

  “Familiar now?” Merrick prompted.

  “No,” Eagleton replied, pointing to the photo of the matchbook. “That may be mine—I mean, I must’ve discarded hundreds of ’em up in Las Flores—but I didn’t start any wildfire in that canyon or any other.”

  “What say we flutter this guy?” Logan suggested in an ominous growl.

  “Flutter?” Eagleton echoed apprehensively.

  “A lie detector test,” Fallon explained. “You don’t have to take it. You can refuse.”

  “No way,” Eagleton said indignantly. “No, no, I’m innocent. I want out of here.”

  Merrick challenged him with a look that Eagleton held unblinkingly. Merrick broke it off and offered him his pack of Marlboros. “Smoke?”

  “Thanks. Never use ’em.”

  Merrick nodded, noting the absence of the telltale nicotine stain on his fingers, then directed the others aside. “There’s a chance this guy’s telling the truth.”

  Logan
waggled a hand. “A chance.”

  “You’re going to cut this guy loose?” Fletcher exclaimed in an incredulous whisper. “We got prints, we got an igniter, we got matchbooks . . .”

  “It’s all circumstantial, Billy,” Merrick explained patiently. “Not enough to hold him.”

  “But it still might be him, right?”

  Merrick and Logan nodded grudgingly.

  “Suppose he goes out there and does it again? Why not keep him on ice for a while? I mean, what’s wrong with a little guilty until proven innocent? We’re the guys who represent the victims, right?”

  “It ain’t easy, Billy,” Logan counseled. “But there are times when you just have to let go.”

  Merrick nodded with finality. “You found him once, you can find him again.” He crossed to Eagleton and, his voice devoid of apology, said, “You’re free to go.” Merrick glanced at Fallon and forced a smile, then headed for the door.

  “Next stop, Westwood,” Merrick announced, leading Logan and Fletcher down the corridor.

  “Which reminds me, boss,” Fletcher said, a little too eagerly. “You’re gonna have to find yourself another prime.”

  “What?” Merrick exclaimed in disbelief. “Fiona what’s her-face’s alibi checked out?”

  The young A.I. nodded smugly.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. I got hold of three guys on that list last night. They’re all pretty sure she was at the workshop when the box went boom.”

  Merrick looked crestfallen. “She was lying about that from the get-go,” he said, unwilling to accept it. “I know she was.”