Slow Burn

by Andrew Welsh-Huggins

  “Book and shirt,” I said, headed into the house. “Got it.”

  Peirce was gone when I rushed out a minute later. Just as well. I’m terrible at small talk.

  47

  Columbus has five major hospital systems, and until that night I’d been in all but one of them. Sometimes for myself, sometimes for a friend, sometimes for an enemy. Twice for a birth, one per ex-wife. All of them, that is, except, for some inexplicable reason, St. Clare Sisters Health System on the northeast side. The same outfit that sponsored Lucy and Roy’s expeditions into homeless camps. As they say, first time for everything.

  Turns out Joe’s hand was sprained, not broken, which possibly saved me a trip back in front of a judge on a child custody hearing in the near future. Sprained, not by anything to do with wall climbing, which was run by such a safety-conscious business it appeared to me closer to wall hoisting, but by the mandatory roughhousing in the parking lot at the pizza place afterward involving Joe, Mike, and two other boys.

  It was nearly 11:30 by the time I got Joe back to his mother’s house, Mike back to his mother’s house, and myself back to German Village. I found a place to park—miraculously, in front of my house for a change—pushed Hopalong into the backyard, opened a Black Label, sat down at my kitchen table, and plugged Samantha’s phone in.

  After it came to life and I’d found the photos folder, I saw right away that Samantha had taken a lot of pictures. It took several minutes of swiping the screen back and forth until I found the video I was looking for. I sat back and pressed the “Play” arrow. After so long investigating Dorothy Custer’s tip about her grandson, it was surreal to watch the event unfold. Surreal, and yet heartbreaking, since there was no mystery about the outcome.

  The first few seconds were just of the house, with nothing happening. Twigs and leaves kept jutting in and out of the screen. Samantha must have hidden behind the bushes on the lawn across the street, as I’d surmised. Then a figure skulked into view. Skinny, dark clothes. Baseball cap. Columbus Red Birds. Just like his grandmother had said. Aaron. Had Samantha hidden from him, mistaking him for one of the louts she said she’d followed up High Street after the camp was rousted?

  As I watched, my heart starting to race, Aaron half walked, half stumbled up the steps from the sidewalk to the yard, the plastic jug of gasoline in his left hand. He approached the steps of the house, stopped, then looked up at the porch, almost as if he were waiting for someone to open the door. He swayed once, then walked the rest of the way up. Once on the porch, he twisted the lid off the jug, swayed again, then splashed the gas onto the porch. He turned to the couch as if seeing it for the first time, and soaked it. He swayed more, then opened the unlocked door, half disappeared inside, poured some more. The coup de grâce, I thought. The fuel that helped the fire shoot up the stairs like flames up a chimney. He backed out of the house. Went down the steps. Stood on the lawn. Swayed again. Poured the rest out on the grass. Seemed to hesitate. Collected himself. Then he carefully tightened the lid back onto the empty jug, dropped it on the ground, and pulled something out of the pocket of his sweatshirt. The lighter.

  Then something I hadn’t expected. As if Aaron’s head had suddenly cleared, as if he were emerging from the fog of drink he’d spent the past few hours in. The past few years. He straightened himself. Looked around. Seemed to realize for the first time what he was doing. Backed away from the house. Started to put the lighter back in his pocket. He was having second thoughts. More than that. Giving it up. I was just taking in the significance of this moment, that he might really be innocent, that the baseball cap and Eddie Miller and the witness might all have been legitimate, when his head cocked. He heard something. Looked around. Looked at the house. Then, faster than I would have predicted, he stepped back, looked around again, dropped the lighter into the yard, and started to run.

  The camera followed Aaron up the street, then moved back to the house. Nothing happened for almost a minute. I found myself admiring Samantha’s concentration. Most others, including myself, would have stopped recording. Then, to my surprise, a figure emerged onto the porch from inside. I squinted, trying to make him out. Nothing, at first. Then—yes. Jacob Dunning. He looked around, then down, shaking his head. Reacting to the gasoline. He made as if to go back inside.

  Then he stopped. A sound from the sidewalk. Someone approaching from the right. Man wearing a hoodie. Run-Run. He came up the steps to the lawn. Stopped, seeing Dunning. It was obvious he hadn’t expected him. But also obvious he recognized him. Words were exchanged. Shouting, back and forth. Almost a minute’s worth, the conversation angry but indistinct. At one point the guy with the hoodie looked as if he might make for Dunning. But then, gazing around, he saw the milk jug. He kicked it. Then he looked at Dunning again. And with the briefest of movements, so quick I almost missed it, pulled something from his mouth. A cigarette, unlit. His hand reached into his pocket, reemerged, a flame flickered, and then the tip of the cigarette glowed. And then, with a swift, practiced movement, he flicked it toward the porch, right toward Dunning. Flames erupted. Dunning stumbled, fell on the couch, stood up, clothes ablaze. The video image suddenly shook, as if an earthquake had hit and Samantha couldn’t keep her balance. I thought of what Roy had told me. Her two little girls. What it must have been like for her to watch this. Then the picture stabilized, and for just a moment it seemed that Jacob might fall then and there. Instead he turned and stumbled back into the house. I thought back to what I’d learned at the coroner’s office. Dunning would only make it a few feet before collapsing for good, too badly injured to warn anyone, his demise giving the couch time to erupt in full roar, sending its flames into the soffits above and from there into the interior walls. Meanwhile, the fire was already pushing into the house and up the stairway. I realized Dunning went to his death thinking that this gang member, Run-Run Ryan, had poured the gasoline. He never knew it was Aaron.

  For his part, the man in the hoodie leaped clear to safety, taking the steps to the sidewalk in two bounds. He turned, looked once at the flames, then turned back. And just for a moment stared into the camera. I reached out and tapped the video to stop it. I took a close look. Wasn’t sure I was seeing right. Looked again, and realized I was. It wasn’t a guy named Run-Run or Ryder or Ian or anything close.

  It was D. B. Chambers. The guy who’d called the fire in.

  48

  The first thing I did was something I knew I should have done days ago. I got online and tried to look up Chambers’s case in Franklin County court. Little dealing. Stupid shit, he had said. But nothing turned up, nothing for a D. B. Because the court system didn’t do initials. And there were several screens of Chamberses just for Davids and Derricks and Dustins. I looked at my watch. Nearly midnight. I thought about calling Whitestone or Fielding, but the thought of persuading them this was of crisis proportion at that time of night exhausted me. But a sense of urgency was starting to overtake me, though I couldn’t have said why, exactly. Something beyond the fact I had unmasked the real Orton Avenue arsonist. I puzzled it out unsuccessfully, then gave up and made another decision. I called Suzanne’s cell phone, letting it ring until voice mail picked up. I tried again, and then a third time. Nothing. I scrolled through my phone until I found Murphy’s number. No answer the first time, but he answered after four rings the second time around.

  “I need to talk to Suzanne. Is she there?”

  “Do you know what time it is?”

  “It’s important. She won’t pick up.”

  “She doesn’t want to talk to you.”

  “Please,” I said.

  “You’re a pain in the ass, you know that, Hayes?”

  “You’ve pointed that out previously.”

  The line went silent. I thought he had hung up. Then, a moment later, Suzanne’s voice.

  “What the hell.”

  “Listen,” I said. I explained what I had just seen. Suzanne might have been the most justifiably aggrieved ex-girlfriend in histor
y, but I knew she was also a reporter at heart.

  “Christ,” she said. “You’re sure?”

  “I need you to do me a favor,” I said. “I need to know what Chambers’s initials stand for.”

  “It’s not online?”

  I told her about the docket.

  “Could you check?” I said.

  “Check?”

  “The witness statements. You have them all, right? His name’s gotta be on there. His full name.”

  “I guess. I’m supposed to be off tomorrow, but I could swing by the station. Look at the file.”

  “Now,” I said. “Can you check now?”

  A few seconds of silence.

  “Now?” she said.

  “We need to know.”

  “We?”

  “You heard me,” I said.

  A few more seconds of silence.

  “Give me an hour,” she said. And hung up.

  While I waited I downloaded the video onto my laptop. Then I put it on a flash drive and locked that in my safe. I went back and watched it again. And again. Noticed that Chambers had sprinted up the street afterward. Toward Aaron? Thinking maybe he’d seen him?

  I thought about Chambers. How he’d played it. Gone along with my questions. Pried me for information as I’d pried him. Remembered the question he’d asked me the first time we talked. How’s that one girl doing. Chinese girl. I tried to put it together in my mind. Dunning starting to sell heroin. Chambers, connected with the Fourth Street Posse, trails him to the party. Warns him. Maybe returns to warn him again, but this time more seriously. But then that same question. Why was Dunning at the house to begin with? Why would he go to Matt’s party, knowing how Matt felt about him? The only thing that connected them was Gridley, the very person whose relationship with Dunning set Matt against him.

  Was Chambers the one who’d beat up Aaron? Worried he’d seen him?

  But either way, why had Chambers called the fire in?

  My phone rang. Suzanne.

  “I’m at the station. I’ve got the files.”

  “Anything in there? About Chambers?”

  “Looking now.”

  I pictured her there in the mostly abandoned newsroom, lights dimmed or off. Banks of TVs on the walls, muted, flickering images illuminating the room. I’d been there once, years earlier, when she’d shown me around. Shown me off.

  “Got it,” she said.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Dwayne,” she said.

  “Dwayne?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Middle name?”

  “Hang on.”

  I hung on.

  “Brian,” she said a minute later. “Dwayne Brian Chambers.”

  “Brian,” I said.

  “Brian.”

  We said it almost simultaneously: “Ryan.”

  “Brian, Ryan,” Suzanne said. “Could that be it?”

  “Tina overheard it, loud party, maybe didn’t completely make it out. Has to be. It’s him on the video. That part’s for sure.”

  “What now?”

  Something. Something nagging.

  I said, “You’re at the station?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going to bring you the video.”

  “Now?”

  “Why not? I promised it.”

  “Can’t you e-mail it?”

  “I don’t think so. It’s too big. I’ve got it on a thumb drive. Easier that way.”

  “I won’t turn it down.”

  How’s that one girl doing. Chinese girl.

  “How long do you think it’ll take you to get here?”

  “What?” I said.

  “How long will you be? I should let Glen know what’s going on.”

  “That ain’t brave. That’s stupid. She’s living on Orton?”

  “Andy?”

  “Woodruff,” I had said. “One down from the corner.”

  “Oh, shit,” I said.

  “What?”

  My conversation with Chambers from earlier today came back to me. I looked at the time on my computer. Yesterday. Our conversation yesterday.

  “Brave girl,” I’d said. “Living around the corner from the fire.”

  “That ain’t brave. That’s stupid. She’s living on Orton?”

  “Woodruff. One down from the corner.”

  Chambers knew where Helen Chen lived. The one person Chambers, who didn’t know about the video, thought could link him to the fire. Could potentially put him in the house.

  “I’ve got to make a call,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry. I just figured something out.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll call you right back.”

  “The video,” she said. “You promised.”

  “One minute,” I said.

  I hung up and scrolled through my contacts. Found Helen’s number. Called, my heart beating fast. No answer. Nothing to worry about, I told myself. Maybe she was asleep. Maybe she was burning the midnight oil in a study carrel. Maybe she was just out late someplace—she was a college student, after all. No biggie.

  That must have been what Chambers was up to all along, once I contacted him. Trying to see if Helen remembered seeing him. His role as the guy who called the fire in hadn’t mattered at the time, not with Aaron in custody two days later and confessing almost immediately. But now, thanks to the late Eddie Miller, things were different. And Chambers knew that. Knew there was a witness he needed to take care of.

  “Shit,” he had said. “That’s amazing she recovered like that.”

  I tried Helen again. No answer. And again. Then, thinking about it, I called Lori. Same luck. Left a message. Did it mean anything? It was approaching 1 a.m. Time was I’d be catching a second wind right around then myself. College kids. No big deal.

  I wasn’t fooling anyone. I put my phone in my pocket, grabbed my coat and keys. I would just drive there, despite the hour. Worst that could happen was I would wake them up. We could decide what to do at that point. But at least I would know Helen was safe. I would call Suzanne on the way, arrange to drop off the thumb drive. Or she could meet me at Helen and Lori’s. Or even the doughnut shop around the corner. Why not?

  I walked through my living room and into the hall and threw open the front door. And stopped.

  Standing in front of me was Appletree Energy’s director of corporate security.

  “Where the hell you think you’re going?” Peirce said, as he stepped forward and pushed something small and hard into my chest. Too late, I heard a sound like a mosquito hitting a bug zapper.

  Except the bug being zapped was me.

  49

  “Stand up,” a voice said.

  I opened my eyes. Looked around. Looked up. Peirce was standing over me, stun gun in his hand. I tried to move, re-alized my hands and feet were tied. And a rope was around my neck. I struggled, tried to get up. As I did, Peirce reached forward and pulled on the rope, and I felt myself rising up, choking, as he lifted. I was standing in front of my closet door. He stepped to his left, looped the rope over the door, then tied it off on the knob on the other side.

  “You fuck around, I hit you with this”—the stun gun, raised in his hand—“your legs buckle and you’re going to strangle yourself. Takes a long time, what I’m told. Where’s the Knox No. 5 log?”

  “You tased me,” I said.

  “And I’ll do it again, like I said, and I might stay just long enough to see if what they say is true and people strangling get an involuntary hard on. It’s called angel lust. Read it in a book. Answer the question.”

  “I, E,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I’m thinking of your last name right now in my mind. Spelling it ‘I, E.’”

  The punch was quick, practiced, hard. To the right kidney. I gasped, bright lights bursting before my eyes.

  “The log,” he said.

  Recovering, breathing deeply, I said, “Where’d you learn t
o hit like that? Interrogation room, up at the station?”

  Another punch, just as quick, just as practiced. More stars and jolting, agonizing pain.

  “Your knees are shaking a little,” he said. “Rubbery. They go, you go. I just want the log.”

  “I don’t have it.”

  Third punch, this time to the right kidney again. This time I blacked out from the pain. Then came to, a couple seconds later, awakened by the rope digging into my neck. Lucky—I’d been able to regain my footing. Still had use of my legs. For now.

  “You had your chance,” Peirce said.

  “Like hell.”

  “At the Hilton. The other day. Earlier this evening. Plenty of opportunities.”

  “Raw deal,” I said.

  A kick to the groin. Hard, black shoes. Shit-kicking shoes. The pain bad enough that I sagged involuntarily, sweat pouring off my face, knees like water. Barely able to stand up in time.

  “Log,” Peirce said.

  I didn’t respond. Because it was slowly dawning on me. They don’t know what’s on it. They don’t realize the log puts them in the clear. Dickinson in all his wisdom thinks it proves No. 5 caused the quake. Why they were still trying to get it.

  “Don’t have it,” I said. “Don’t know where it is.”

  This time, a shot to the ribs. As I struggled to stand, I could tell if he hadn’t broken something, he’d gotten close. I didn’t have that kind of tolerance for pain. I almost told him then and there, pointed him to the document in my safe in my bedroom. But I knew Helen still had the original. And of course I’d shown it to Glen Murphy. I wasn’t going to put those two in danger. Either of them—Helen for what she’d been through, Murphy for what I’d put him through with his sister and nephew and Suzanne. Not if I could help it.