Flashover

by T. Alan Codder

  Sean thought about it. The timing made sense. Both fires happened about meal time, probably so Sally wouldn’t be in the building. He nodded. The pieces were starting to fit together.

  “If you knew who it was, you’d tell me?” Sean asked.

  “Fuck yeah! Burn my house down and cause the pigs to start hasslin’ me? Yeah, I’d tell you.”

  He believed her. He looked at Chips. “Where’d you pick her up?”

  “McDonalds. She hangs around there and digs through the trash for scraps.”

  He nodded and pulled his wallet out. “Buy her a burger or something and then drop her off,” he said, handing Chips a ten.

  He took the bill and nodded. “Come on Sally. You’ve done this enough times you know the drill, but this time you get a Happy Meal out of it.”

  She rose. “You’re still a fucking pig. Both of you.”

  Sean couldn’t help but smile at her calling him a pig. Sally didn’t smell as bad as Toejam, but she wasn’t exactly roses and honeysuckle either. He was going to have to spray the place with air freshener again, and he probably should wipe down her chair just to be safe.

  After disinfecting the room, he returned to his desk and finished entering his case information into PISTOL, including what he’d just learned from Sally. One case down, seven big file cabinets to go.

  The last task he wanted to finish, before he started the grind of setting up all the other laptops and entering his officers’ personnel information, was to configure their evidence camera and computer.

  He spent the next hour unpacking and setting up the three by three by three-foot light box and remote camera in the evidence room. The computer controlled camera allowed the person taking the photo to see exactly what the picture would look like before it was taken, and the built-in illumination of the light box would assure even lighting with no shadows and a plain white background. Using the box, his department could get crystal clear, high-resolution, close-up photos of anything that would fit in the box. It was probably overkill for Brunswick, but compared to the price of the hardware and software, it was a bargain, and it made things so much easier and faster. If the evidence wouldn’t fit in the box, they could still do what they were doing now and place the evidence on a table with a white table cloth. At least now they had a decent camera and a tripod to make even that task easier.

  After he finished configuring the setup, he tested the computer and camera using his side arm and his apartment key. It worked perfectly, automatically saving the pictures to a folder on the network. The photos were of such high quality he could easily read the serial number off his weapon and see the wear on the key.

  As he worked his key back onto his ring, he smiled to himself. The light box would probably be used more by his officers for items they were selling on eBay than evidence, but even if that was true, it cost the department nothing and would help them remember how to use the device when they needed it for work.

  “I’m going to lunch,” Sean said, sticking his head into the dispatcher’s office.

  “Going for your walk?” Terri asked.

  “Yeah. I must be nuts.”

  She grinned. “It’s only ninety-one out there.”

  He rolled his eyes. “No, you’re right, I’m definitely nuts.”

  “I love it! You’ll get used to it.”

  “Uh-huh,” he grunted.

  Terri Landers was thirty-three and looked like a strong gust of wind would blow her away. Tall and waif thin, with short brown hair and stylish glasses, she reminded him of a cross between one of those too thin supermodels and a kindergarten teacher. Probably because of a combination of her size, and growing up in the area, she complained bitterly about the cold all winter. She usually wore a sweater in the office and was probably enjoying watching him suffer with the heat as she had with the cold.

  He ambled through the downtown area, thankful for the awnings to blunt the intensity of the sun. The station was two blocks off Main street, about middle way down. He always followed the same path, up to Main, make a left, walk to the end of the downtown area before crossing over and walking the length of downtown on the other side. He would then cross the road again and walk back until he made another left to return to the station.

  He greeted passersby and wandered into a few of the businesses to enjoy a moment of air conditioning, greet the owners and the help, and nod to customers. He wanted to give the impression he was in no hurry so if someone wanted to talk to him they wouldn’t feel like they were interrupting. Since he’d taken over as chief, he’d stopped in every store at least once.

  He reached the end of the ten-block downtown area and crossed the street to begin working his way down the other side. About midway, he decided he’d stop in at Pop’s Place. Pop’s Place and the Big Belly Deli were his normal stops for lunch when he was on his weekly walkabout.

  They were swamped, as usual. Pop’s was known for their burgers and was open from ten to three, daily. There were no tables available so he took a stool at the old-fashioned counter.

  “Hey, chief! The usual?” Linda, the short, smiling, overweight server asked as she filled a water glass for him.

  If she were wearing a pink and white uniform instead of a Pop’s Place t-shirt and jeans, and started chomping on a stick of gum, Linda would be the complete waitress stereotype.

  He couldn’t help but grin. When he’d moved to Brunswick he’d wondered how well he’d adjust to small-town life. Now that he was here, he couldn’t imagine ever returning to a big city. The town’s-folk had adopted him as one of their own and he was enjoying the hell out of their friendly, southern hospitality. None of the restaurants he frequented in Boston ever remembered his ‘usual.’

  “That’ll be perfect, Linda. Thanks.”

  Less than five minutes later his bacon cheeseburger with extra pickle and a side of seasoned fries slid to a stop in front of him.

  “There you go, sugar. Need anything else?”

  “No. I think this’ll do,” he said as she topped off his water glass.

  He smiled again. It was a good thing he didn’t need anything because Linda was moving away to ring out a customer before he’d even answered.

  He ate his burger, watching the coming and goings of the lunch crowd. Pop’s was squeezed into a narrow but deep building between Rich Spangler’s office and a mom & pop store that sold leather goods, some of it custom made on site. The restaurant looked like something right out of the forties or fifties with its black and white tiled floor, backless stools at the counter, and Formica everything, but the burgers were inexpensive and much tastier than their price suggested they would be.

  Finished with lunch, he paid his $5.49, leaving another couple of dollars for the tip, and stepped out into the heat to finish his tour.

  A man stepped out of a store that sold locally made pottery. “Hey, chief, can I talk to you a minute?” he called.

  Sean was about halfway across a side street when he heard the man call. He turned and returned to the man. “Sure, Mr…?”

  The man extended his hand. “Stan. Stan Lifsey.”

  Sean shook his hand. Stan was a small man with thinning brown hair, a pinched face, and small frameless glasses. He wouldn’t look out of place playing a shopkeeper in a western.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Lifsey?”

  “It’s about the stop sign, there,” Stan said, jerking his thumb at the red octagon. “People aren’t stopping, and they’re not yielding for people in the crosswalk. Someone is going to get run over. Another problem is when someone is trying to make a left, other drivers sometimes pass on the right. You can see where the curb has been broken down over the years from them trying to squeeze by. I had a customer nearly get run over a couple days ago. I was carrying a box full of cups to a woman’s car for her. We were halfway across the intersection when this guy made a left off Main and drove right past us. Scared the bejeebers out of her and me both.”

  Sean nodded. “Thanks for letting me know. I’ll
have an officer keep an eye on it. We’ll have a few educational moments about right of way in a crosswalk.”

  Stan chuckled. “Thanks, chief. I appreciate it.”

  “No problem. Anything else I can do for you?”

  Stan smiled. “No. That’ll be plenty, thanks.”

  Sean gave the man a nod and then continued on his way. This was the first time someone had stopped him on his walk to bring a problem to his attention. He was starting to wonder if he was wasting his time, but if he prevented even one accident, then his weekly walks would be worth it.

  His shirt was just starting to stick to his back when he stepped back into the station, sighing in relief as the coolness washed over him. They were approaching the hottest part of the year. If he could survive another few weeks it should start cooling off.

  Terri buzzed him into the station and he smiled to himself that she was wearing a sweater again. He didn’t consider seventy-two degrees chilly, but obviously she did.

  “Terri, make a note in the duty logs that I want to increase the patrols downtown, paying special attention to pedestrian safety. Someone was nearly run down in a crosswalk a few days ago.”

  “I’ll put the word out.”

  “Thanks. Have a unit park near Earth & Fire today, the corner of Main and Greer, and watch the intersection there for a little while. I want Stan Lifsey to know I took his concerns seriously so he can spread the word.”

  “You got it. Anything else?”

  “No, that’s it.”

  He heard her asking for an available unit as he stepped out of the office. He stopped in the conference room and unpacked another laptop. He was going to start setting the machine up, letting it grind away on the Microsoft Office365 install and email download while he entered the first of Brunswick’s police officers, Patrick Ambly, into PISTOL.

  He’d scanned all the documents in Ambly’s file, but was still pounding away, entering the information, when Will stopped in his door, rapping softly to get his attention.

  “Sean?”

  Sean looked up and waved Will into his office. “What can I help you with?”

  “I’ve got a live one,” Donner said, taking a step into the office. “I picked up this guy, he calls himself Clicks, at the Sheetz. He swears he doesn’t know anything about the fires but you can tell he’s hiding something.”

  “He’s in interrogation?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, let’s go see what Mr. Clicks has to say,” Sean said as he rose from behind his desk.

  Sixteen

  “They call you Clicks?” Sean asked as he and Will stepped into the interrogation room.

  The man was in his early- to mid-forties, with coal black hair going grey and worn as a wild mop. His beard was long, as full and wild as his hair, though unlike his hair, it was almost totally grey. He was painfully thin, his clothes hanging on him like a tent, his arms little more than sticks, and his face was sunken and wrinkled with heavy bags under his eyes. Like all the recent visitors to this room, Clicks had a noticeable odor of stale sweat.

  The man made several clicks, his head moving erratically as his face twisted, his eyes squinting and his lips curling into an involuntary sneer.

  “That’s what they c-c-call me,” he said, his head bobbing as he made several more clicks.

  “What’s your legal name?”

  Again the man clicked and twitched before answering. “Ricky. Ricky C-C-Cowler.”

  “Okay, Ricky, know anything about the fires at the North State Textiles building?”

  “No,” Ricky said after another round of clicks and jerks.

  Right away Sean could tell the man was hiding something. He thought for a moment then decided to stretch the truth a little.

  “I think you do. One of your buddies said they saw you do it.”

  Ricky’s jerks became more pronounced, his face twisting in ways that looked painful, and he clicked longer and louder before he answered.

  “C-C-C-Couldn’t have.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I d-didn’t d-do it.”

  “I think you did,” Sean said, sitting down across from Ricky. “I think you set both fires.”

  “N-No I d-d-didn’t,” Ricky said, but he couldn’t meet Sean’s eyes and he couldn’t seem to stop his jerks.

  “Why’d you do it?”

  Ricky began to click louder still and his twitching moved from just his head to the rest of his body. “I d-d-d-didn’t!”

  “Did someone pay you?”

  “N-N-No!”

  Sean stared at Ricky a moment. “You’re going to do time for this unless you give me something. You know that, right?”

  “D-D-Don’t you have to read me my rights or something?”

  “No. Don’t believe everything you see on television.”

  “I want to see a la-la-lawyer.”

  “Why? We’re not charging you with anything. This is just a friendly conversation.”

  “You can’t qu-qu-question me like this!”

  “Of course we can. This is just a detention.”

  “Wh-Wh-What does that mean?”

  “It means we’re going to ask you some questions. If we think you’re lying, we’re going to take you into custody.”

  “I d-d-d-didn’t d-d-do nothin’!”

  Sean nodded. “We’ll see about that. Officer Donner, help me setup the lie detector.”

  Sean nodded toward the door when Will stared at him in confusion.

  “We’ll let him stew a few minutes,” Sean said after they stepped into the hall and closed the door. He led Will down the hall. “I want you to wheel the copy machine in there, and if you think he’s lying, or I look at you, I want you to press the copy button, okay? Just let me print something out before you unplug it.”

  “What are you doing?”

  Sean grinned. “Making a lie detector.”

  Sean hurried to his office, quickly opened his word processor, typed two words as large as a single page would hold, and then hit print. By the time he stepped into the dispatcher’s office, where the copier lived, Will was already unplugging the cables.

  He looked at the page then placed the paper on the glass before he wheeled the machine down the hall and into the interrogation room. He silently plugged it in and flipped it on.

  “Know what that is?” Sean asked as the machine clicked and chattered to itself.

  “It’s a c-c-copier,” Ricky said as he looked at the machine, his head twisting and jerking.

  “Nope. It kind of looks like one, but it’s actually a new type of lie detector. It can read your blood pressure, breathing, the stress patterns in your voice, dozens of little indicators that signal when someone is lying.” Sean smiled at Ricky. “As soon as it finishes warming up, I’ll show you.”

  It took another minute or so before the machine became quiet. “I’m Sean McGhee,” Sean said to the room then waited a moment. “I’m ninety years old,” he continued.

  Will was standing with his hands behind his back, using his body to block the copy button. The machine whirred and a piece of paper slid into the output bin. He picked it up and handed it to Sean.

  Sean looked at it and then turned it so Ricky could see it. He’s Lying was printed on the page in giant letters. He forced himself to not smile as Ricky’s eyes opened wide.

  “See? Now, let’s test it on you. State your name.”

  “Ricky C-Cowler.”

  The machine whirred and a piece of paper appeared. Will frowned and picked it up and turned it toward Ricky.

  Sean hummed as if thinking. “Is that your real name?”

  “Yes! Well, n-n-no. It’s Richard.”

  “Try it again,” Sean suggested. “What’s your name?”

  “R-Richard Wesley C-Cowler.”

  The machine remained quiet.

  “Okay. Did you set the fires at the North State Textiles building?”

  “N-N-N-No!” The machine whirred and Clicks began to jerk so hard Sean w
as afraid he was going to fall out of the chair or hurt himself. “I d-d-didn’t!” The machine whirred again. Ricky looked around, like he was trapped, his arms, torso, and head in constant motion.

  “Ricky, just tell us the truth. We know you set the fires, but we also know someone put you up to it. That’s who we want, not you. Just tell us what you know and you can walk out of here right now. Now, did you set the fires?”

  Ricky stared at the machine, clicking as his face twisted and his body jerked.

  “Yes,” he said, his voice almost too soft to here.

  “Who put you up to it?”

  “I don’t know.” The machine whirred. “I d-d-don’t know! I swear! I’ve never heard of the g-g-guy!”

  “He give you a name?”

  “Wally B-Barns.”

  Sean made sure he didn’t look at Will. “Officer Donner. I want you to place Mr. Cowler into custody and read him his rights.”

  “You said I could g-g-go!” Ricky said after a long moment of clicking and jerking.

  “We’re not charging you. Yet. I’m going to have the fire chief come down here and I want you to tell him how you set the fires. If you come clean with us, we won’t charge you and you can go, understand?” He glanced at Donner. “After you place him into custody, put the lie detector back. I don’t think we’ll need it anymore.”

  Donner nodded and Sean could tell he was working hard to not smile. “Right away, chief.”

  It took twenty minutes for Pete to arrive. Terri called Sean when Pete pulled into the parking lot and he met him in the lobby, holding the inner door open so it wouldn’t lock.

  “I’ve got a guy in the interrogation room who admitted to setting the fires. He’s going to tell us how he did it. I want you to tell me if what he says would work or if he’s feeding me a line.”

  “Why would he do that?” Pete asked.

  “I don’t think he’s entirely all there. He fingered Barns so I want to be sure he’s not lying to me for some reason.”

  “You’re kidding me!”

  “It’s what he said. I’m still trying to find a picture of Barns on the internet to see if he can identify him.” They paused by the interrogation room door. “You ready?”