Flashover

by T. Alan Codder

  He didn’t believe it was Barns, despite what Clicks said, but at the same time, he couldn’t figure out why it would be anyone but him. From what he could tell, nobody had anything to gain from burning the buildings down, except maybe for Barns, but having him go ahead with construction after the fires didn’t make any sense if that was the case.

  When his officers couldn’t locate Clicks, he’d put out a BOLO—a Be On the Look-Out—for the surrounding towns. There were still some things he didn’t understand, but he figured he owed it to Barns to give the investigation his best shot. He was finishing up the time sheets when his phone rang.

  “Chief McGhee.”

  “Chief, this is officer Marcy Daulb, Faulkner PD. You put a BOLO out for Richard Cowler, aka Clicks, address unknown?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think we have your man. We picked him up for panhandling. We’re not going to prosecute him, but we’ll hold him until you can come pick him up.”

  Sean grinned. “Thank you, officer. I’ll send a car for him right now.”

  “Our pleasure, chief.”

  Sean hung up and dialed the dispatcher’s office.

  “Yes sir?” Michelle asked.

  “As soon as a unit is available, have him go to Faulkner and pick up Richard Cowler,” Sean said, spelling Click’s last name. “He’s being held at Faulkner PD.”

  “I’ll get right on it.”

  He hung up his phone and turned to his computer. He had a few things to do before Clicks arrived.

  -oOo-

  Clicks stared at Sean with hard eyes as Sean entered the interrogation room.

  “Hello, Clicks,” Sean said as he sat down across the table from him.

  While Paul was gone, there’d been a wreck on the interstate and County was directing cars off the exit to bypass the accident. Paul dropped Clicks off and then left him locked in the interrogation room to return to the scene and help with traffic.

  Procedures stated that there should be two officers in the interrogation room when the detainee was being questioned, but he didn’t want to wait for someone to get freed up.

  Clicks twitched and made his clucking noise. “I d-d-didn’t do nothin’! Why are you always fucking with me?”

  “Just a few more questions. I spoke to Wallace Barns. Funny thing, he said he didn’t do it and he’s moving forward with the construction. That kind of makes it look like you weren’t straight with me. I thought we had an agreement. You tell me what you know and I let you go. But lying to me,” Sean shook his head sadly, “that wasn’t part of the deal.”

  Clicks shrugged and twitched but said nothing. Sean slid a picture of a man in front of him.

  “That Barns?”

  Ricky looked at the picture but said nothing.

  “Clicks, let me make something very clear to you. If you don’t give me something you’re going to do the time for arson.”

  Clicks twitched and jerked more violently than before. His tell when he was under stress or lying was unmistakable.

  “Why should I c-care? I’ll be off the streets, sleeping in a bed, and g-g-getting three meals a d-day.”

  Sean smiled at him, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “That’s right. And you’ll be sharing a cell with someone who might fancy guys. Not only that, but you won’t be able to go where you want, when you want. Is that the life you prefer? If it is, keep stonewalling me.”

  Clicks shrugged again.

  “You don’t owe this guy anything. It’s been almost a month since you started the first fire. He paid you yet?”

  Another shrug along with some twitches.

  “You know you’re never going to see the other eight hundred, don’t you? Why are you willing to go to jail for this guy? He stiffed you and left you take the fall. You don’t owe him anything.”

  “So, what if I t-t-talk? It still d-doesn’t help me.”

  “It’ll keep you out of jail.”

  “R-Right.”

  Sean propped his elbows on the table and leaned in closer, forcing his face to remain neutral. Clicks didn’t smell any better this time than he had the last.

  “Clicks, let me tell you something. If I wanted you in jail you’d be there already. You admitted to the arson after all. But as I told you before, I don’t want you, I want the guy who hired you.” He leaned back before he reached across the table and waggled the picture slightly. “That the guy you talked to?”

  Clicks looked at it. “No,” he mumbled.

  Sean swapped the picture for another man he’d found on the internet that looked similar to Barns. “How about this one?”

  “No.”

  The picture was replaced with another. “Is this the guy?”

  Ricky barely glanced at it. “No.”

  Sean pulled the picture back and placed the picture of Barns in front of Clicks. “This guy?”

  “No.”

  The final picture, another businessman from the internet, was slid in front of Clicks. “What about him?”

  Clicks spent a long moment looking at the photo. “Maybe.” He continued to look at the picture then shook his head. “No, that’s not him.”

  Sean sighed to himself as he pulled back the last photo. The lack of Clicks’ tell reinforced the idea he hadn’t recognized any of the men.

  “None of these were the man who hired you? Do you want to see them again?”

  “No. I t-t-told you, the man who hired me was thinner, kind of like that last guy, and d-didn’t have as much hair as those guys did.”

  “You said he was wearing a ball cap?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How do you know he didn’t have much hair?”

  “I didn’t see any under the c-cap.”

  “How did he find you?”

  “He came into the building one day. I was the only one there. He asked me if I wanted to earn a qu-quick thousand bucks. What would you say?”

  “And he said his name was Wally or Wallace Barns?”

  Clicks shrugged. “That’s what he said.”

  “And he was driving a blue Chevy pickup?” Sean asked to see if Clicks would correct him.

  “It was white.”

  Sean twisted his lips to the side and squeezed them tight as he thought. He couldn’t think of anything else to ask. Barns was off the hook, but that left him with nothing else to pursue except perhaps throwing Clicks in jail, which would accomplish nothing. He stood.

  “You’re free to go. Officer Limbrose will take you back to Faulkner.”

  Clicks jerked but didn’t rise. “J-j-just like that? No sorry? No nothing? You’re just g-going to fuck me around?”

  “I’ll remind you, Mr. Cowler, you committed a felony. Don’t test my patience or my good will.”

  “So, you’re just g-going to k-k-keep fuckin’ me around?”

  “Don’t give me a reason to ‘fuck you around’ and you won’t have any trouble from me. My suggestion is to not let me catch you in Brunswick or Tilley again. That’s good advice. You should follow it,” Sean said, his voice as cold and hard as frozen diamonds.

  Clicks glared at him. “Fine! Fuck you very much!”

  “Officer Limbrose will be here shortly,” Sean said as he closed the door. He walked down the hall and stuck his head into the dispatch office. “Michelle, have Paul come get this guy and drop him off wherever he wants in Faulkner as soon as he can get free.”

  Michelle, a woman who was trending toward fat, with a Romanesque nose and dirty-blonde hair worn shoulder length, nodded.

  “You got it,” she said, her voice slightly coarse from too many years of smoking.

  He gave her a quick nod in thanks then returned to his desk. The office install on the three computers was done. Using the passwords he’d collected from his officers, he logged their computers in and completed the setup of the machines.

  While the officer’s emails downloaded, he looked through his case file, smiling to himself when he found what he was looking for. Having all the case information available o
nly a few keystrokes or clicks away was a wonderful thing. Reading from the screen he dialed his phone.

  “Dynamic Properties, how may I direct your call?” the pleasant female voice asked.

  “Wallace Barns.”

  “May I ask who’s calling?”

  “Sean McGhee, Brunswick Chief of Police.”

  “Just a moment, sir,” the woman said an instant before the on-hold music began playing.

  He wasn’t above using his title to reduce the run-around. As he waited, he checked on the email downloads.

  “Chief McGhee, how may I help you?” Wallace said a moment later.

  “Two things. First, you’ll be glad to know the guy who set the fires couldn’t pick your photo out of several I showed him. I think that’s pretty conclusive that someone was using your name to throw off any questions or to set you up.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  “Which brings me to the second question. We’ve already been over this, but now that you’ve had time to think about it, do you have any thoughts on who might want to put the screws to you? Competitors? Disgruntled employees? Anyone like that?”

  Wallace paused. “I’ll be honest with you, chief, I’m sure there are people out there who are less than happy with me. We’ve had to evict more than one person over the years for failing to pay their rent. We’ve also had a few employees leave with a less than amicable parting. And of course, there’s always winners and losers in business. I’ve lost my fair share of business deals, but I don’t feel the need to go around burning peoples’ property down. So, no, I don’t know of anyone who I think would do something like this. How would they know it was our deal? For that matter, how would they know a deal had even been made?”

  “It was in the local newspaper.”

  “The Brunswick paper has a large subscriber base, does it?”

  Sean chuckled. “Okay, point taken. The guy who was impersonating you was described as thinner with less hair. Ring any bells.”

  “That describes half the people I know.”

  Sean sighed. “I’ll leave the case open, but I don’t think there’s much more I can do with it.”

  “What about this other outfit, the one you said was sniffing around? Could they have done it?”

  “At this point, I can’t say one way or the other. As you said, until they put money on the table, it doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Then I’ve got nothing, chief. Sorry.”

  Sean drummed his fingers. “Okay. I’ll talk to Mayor Klinger and try to find out who this other firm was. If that doesn’t go anywhere, then I don’t think we’re going to find out who or why.”

  “You saying that doesn’t make me feel better. What if they, whoever they are, try again? The added expense from the fire has made this investment, let’s call it, ‘less attractive.’ We were already marginal on our return. Brunswick isn’t Raleigh, and while the property was cheaper, the rents will be too. People aren’t going to be willing to pay the same rent in Brunswick as they would in Raleigh because of the commute. I have to keep my costs down because the low rent was what I was going to use to market the property. If it costs me so much to refurbish the place that I can’t make a profit without setting rents beyond what people will be willing to pay, then I have no reason to go forward. If anything else like this happens, I’m going to have to really look at the numbers and see if the project is still viable.”

  “I understand your concerns, but I think it highly unlikely anything else will happen. The security fence and guard should see to that.”

  “It’s a big piece of property, chief, and that’s what you said after the first fire.”

  Sean winced slightly at the accusation. “Yes, I know I did. But whoever is pulling the strings is either concerned about being caught or is trying to set you up, otherwise he wouldn’t be deliberately leaving a false trail. My officers are still driving by occasionally, but I think your property is reasonably safe now. Surely you must have insurance if something happens?”

  “I do, but arson is a bad deal, chief. Insurance companies frown on that sort of stuff. How am I going to explain to them I didn’t do it, especially when there’s someone out there saying the opposite? I don’t think my insurance will be quite as willing to give me the benefit of the doubt as you are.”

  “We’ll do what we can, Mr. Barns. You just need to understand, while I’ll follow the thread as far as it goes, once it ends, it ends, and without something else to go on, there is little more we can do.”

  “Do what you can, chief. That’s all I ask.”

  Sean hung up and stared at his phone. The key to successful police work was to keep chipping away at the problem until something breaks. He had one more thing to check. He picked his phone up and dialed Rudy.

  “Mayor Klinger’s office.”

  “Janet, Sean McGhee. I need to speak to Rudy.”

  “I’m sorry, Sean, but Rudy is out of the office and won’t be back until tomorrow,” Janet, his receptionist, secretary, and assistant, said. “You want me to leave him a message?”

  “No, that’s okay. I’ll… wait, maybe you’ll know. Do you remember the name of the company that was looking at the old North State Textiles property? The company other than Dynamic Properties?”

  There was a short pause. “I can’t remember the name off the top of my head. I can probably find it for you.”

  “If you could do that, and give me the name and number of whoever the contact is, that’ll be great. Thanks.”

  “I’ll get it over to you as soon as I find it. It might take a little digging though.”

  “No real rush, but if I could have it by mid-day tomorrow?”

  “I can probably find it by then.”

  “Thanks, Janet.”

  “You’re welcome. Anything else?”

  “No, I think that’ll do.”

  Twenty-One

  Sean threw his laptop into the car. He was hosting tonight, but the last thing he felt like doing was cooking. Janet hadn’t called him back with the information he wanted and he was frustrated over the arson case.

  He appreciated, and understood, Barns’ position, but the only thing he had to go on was the testimony of a homeless man, testimony which had wrongly implicated Barns.

  As he pulled onto the street he dialed Maggie’s cell.

  “You better not be calling me to bail again,” she teased when she answered. “I want to watch The Invisible Guest tonight. It’s getting great reviews.”

  “No. In fact, I was going to take you out. I don’t feel like cooking.”

  “Want to come here?”

  “No, that’s okay. How’s La Parrilla sound?” he asked, naming one of the better Mexican restaurants in town.

  “Sounds great.”

  “Want me to come get you?”

  “Only if you want to spend the night here.”

  “Your call.”

  “I’ll just come there.”

  “Okay. See you in a bit,” he said, and again had to bite off the ‘love you’ that tried to pop out.

  He went directly home, and while he waited on Maggie, he fed Marmalade and grabbed a quick shower. He hated feeling itchy from sweating. Not for the first time he wondered what he was thinking moving to the sunny south. Winter was great but summer sucked big time.

  He was still drying off when he heard the rap on the door. He quickly pulled on the pants he was wearing before his shower and hurried to the door.

  “Bow-wow, grrr, meow,” Maggie said when he opened the door. “Maybe we should just stay in.”

  He grinned as he shut the door and then gave her a brief kiss. “Sorry. You’re quicker than I expected.”

  “No problem, no problem at all,” she drawled as she gave him a comically exaggerated look up and down. “I think you should answer the door like that every time.”

  “Flirt.”

  “Hey, I’m not the one answering the door wearing nothing but a pair of pants.”

  “I just need
to get dressed then I’ll be ready,” he said as he led her back to the bedroom.

  “Not that I’m complaining, but is something wrong?”

  “About?” he asked as he peeled out of his pants and tossed them back into the dirty clothes hamper.

  “Going out.”

  He began dressing, starting with underwear and socks. “No. Just didn’t feel like cooking. If you’d like to go somewhere else…?”

  “No, La Parrilla is fine.”

  He retrieved a pale-yellow button-down and a pair of jeans from his closet and began to tug his clothes on as they chatted about their day, slipping his feet into a pair of loafers as he tucked his shirt in.

  “Ta-da!” he said with a grin, holding his hands out in front of him palms up. “Let me brush my hair and we can go.”

  He quickly ran a brush through his hair then put his keys, wallet, badge and side arm in their various pockets and positions.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “If you are. Be good, Marmalade,” she added as they passed through the living room.

  When they arrived at La Parrilla the parking lot was full and there was a steady stream of cars arriving. Because of its quick service, reasonable prices, and good food, La Parrilla was one of the more popular restaurants in town. They had a short five-minute wait but then they were escorted to a table.

  La Parrilla had gone full-on Mexican stereotype. There was mariachi music playing over speakers and the Mexican flag was hanging on several walls intermixed with dozens of festive sombreros. The faux styling of dark wood beams, stucco, and tile, wouldn’t look out of place in a Sergio Leone spaghetti western, but the shtick didn’t detract from the quality of the food or good service.

  They didn’t even bother with a menu. Maggie ordered the Especial de la Cocina—the special of the kitchen—a chicken, steak, and shrimp dish with grilled peppers, onions and mushrooms, topped with cheese dip and served over a mountain of Mexican rice. It was her normal go-to dish because she could eat half now and take the rest home for lunch the next day. Sean selected the chicken Fajita Quesadilla, a plate size tortilla loaded with all the fixings of chicken fajitas and a cheese quesadilla. Two Negra Modelos to quench their thirst completed the order.