Ken’s return distracted me before I could get back to the first article. “Forgot something,” he said, grabbing a report from his desk.
A faint memory popped above the surface and sucker punched me. “Wait.”
“I have to get back to-”
“Wait,” I repeated as he started out the door.
He stopped, arching a brow at me. “The mayor’s going to be ticked.”
“Listen. The night of the dance, when I was talking with Rich McPherson, he started talking pretty crazy.”
“He was drunk, Janelle.”
I waved him to silence. “He said something about there being more than seven. That those are just the ones we count and the others are way worse.”
Ken glared, waving a hand in a go on gesture.
“At the time, yeah, I just figure it was a drunk man raving. But what if it was sins he was talking about? As in seven deadly?”
A flicker of interest in Ken’s eyes. “That’s a pretty slim link.”
“Don’t you think it’s worth going down and having a word with him?”
Ken tapped the report folder against his fingers. “I’ll need ten minutes.”
While he was gone, I tried to get back to the Daily Press website to set up an account. Just my luck, the site was down. I checked the site status every minute or so while I waited, but never got past the site unavailable message.
* * * *
We zipped back to Main Street. Ken straddled two parking places in front of Greenville Electronics. A half-hour past opening time, the store sign read “closed,” the door was locked, the lights off.
Ken rattled the glass front door. “McPherson! Are you in there?”
As we peered inside, Sadie emerged from the Greenville Gazette office across the street. “What’s the ruckus, Ken?” she called out.
“Have you seen McPherson?” Ken asked.
“Not yet. You need to get in? Hang on.” She disappeared inside the gazette office, emerging moments later with a ring of keys heavy enough to anchor a cruise ship.
Sadie started across the street. “Joe Templeton gave me the key two years ago when the creek flooded his store. For emergencies.”
“You’re not required to let me in,” Ken told her, taking care of the legal necessities.
“Joe won’t mind.” Shaking out the proper key, she unlocked the door with a twist of her skinny wrist, then pushed it open.
Sadie retreated back to the Gazette while Ken and I went inside the electronics store. We headed for the back, Ken toward the storage room on the left, me toward the bathroom on the right.
Everything was tidy in the bathroom, seat down, toilet flushed. As I quickly scanned the TP-stacked shelves of an open cabinet, Ken called out, “Take a look at this.”
At the back end of the storage room, overstocked crowded metal shelves. In the front, a flat screen monitor shared desk space with file folders and used paper coffee cups.
Ken gestured at the file folders. “Check out the names on the tabs.”
Without touching them, I angled my head to read the ones that were visible. Peter McKay. William Markowitz. Sadie Parker. Jill Westfield.
Ken pulled a latex glove from his shirt pocket. Using it as a fingerprint shield, he fanned the folders on the desk, revealing a file for the Jacobys and Elvin Hughes, the caretaker.
A definitive link between McPherson and the fires.
The clatter of the back door lock pulled us both from the storage room. McPherson entered, newspaper under his arm and coffee in his hand. He froze a moment, then dropped the coffee and the newspaper and took off out the door again.
“Shit,” Ken muttered as he ran for the door. He turned to toss me his keys. “Bring the truck around.”
I made my version of a mad dash out the front of the store. In the Explorer, I gunned up Main Street and made two sharp right turns, ending up in the alley behind the storefronts. The row of buildings stretched along to the right, a steep bank leading down to Deer Creek on the left.
I spotted McPherson, nearly to the end of the block of buildings. He looked back over his shoulder at Ken in close pursuit and put on speed. When he reached the end of the alley, instead of turning back onto Main Street, he dove down the embankment toward the creek. Ken scrambled after him.
I slid out of the Explorer, hopping around the front of the truck before I decided Ken was doing a great job on his own. He caught up to McPherson before Rich slogged through the creek, took a moment to catch his breath, then strong-armed Rich back up the bank.
Ken muscled Rich around the Explorer and spread-eagled him against the side. After a quick search, Ken cuffed him. “Let’s go back inside,” Ken said between gasps.
While Ken escorted Rich, I parked the Explorer behind the store. I followed them inside and into the storage room.
Rich’s eyes got big when he saw the folders spread out on his desk. Ken dumped him into the desk chair. “I think we’ve figured this all out, Rich. We just need you to fill in a few details.”
Alarm blared in McPherson’s clear, sober eyes. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“We know about the fires,” I said.
I saw a hint of relief in his face. I didn’t like it. What was I missing?
He bowed his head, evading Ken’s gaze. “I didn’t set any fires.”
I pulled a scarred wooden chair over, then sat facing him. I took both his hands in mine. “You tried to tell me the night of the party, but I didn’t listen.”
“I was drunk.” He tried to tug his hands free, but I held them tight.
“I think you’re a good man, Rich. You want to do the right thing.” I tipped my head to one side so I could meet McPherson’s gaze. “You didn’t set the fires, but you know something, don’t you?”
He shook his head, but I saw the sheen of tears in his eyes. I let him have one hand free so he could dip his head and swipe at his nose.
Then I captured his hands again, gave them a gentle squeeze. “You want to get it off your chest, don’t you, Rich?”
He gulped in a breath, a sob catching in his throat. “Yeah.”
“Who started the fires?” I asked.
He gulped a couple of times, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Then he gasped out, “My wife.”
His wife. A female arsonist. Not unheard of, but unusual. The why of it blared at me, demanding an answer.
“Where is she?” Ken asked, voice as gentle as mine.
“I don’t know.” Rich twitched his shoulders. “She never came home last night.”
That did not sound good. I didn’t like the idea of this pyromaniac at large. “But you knew she was setting the fires.”
Rich shrugged. “The nights I don’t have too much to drink, she takes the truck after I get home. But she’s always back by dawn.”
Ken leaned in closer. “What happened this morning, Rich?”
“I waited for her, but when she didn’t show up by eight, I walked to a neighbor’s place a few miles away. He drove me into town.”
“I’ll need the make, model and year on your truck.”
Rich gave him the info, and Ken radioed a BOLO to dispatch, then he returned his focus to Rich. “Let’s talk about the fires.”
Rich squirmed in his chair. “The cuffs hurt.”
“I’ll take them off if you promise to stay put,” Ken said.
I put a hand on his shoulder. “And tell us what you know.”
Rich bobbed his head in agreement. Ken unlocked the cuffs nodding at me to continue.
“How many fires has she set?” I asked.
“I don’t know how many here.”
How many here. “So she’s set fires elsewhere,” I prompted.
Rich wouldn’t look at me. “She can’t help it. After what happened with her daddy, then when the-” He bit the words off. “Burning things makes her feel better.”
That sent a shiver down my back. I’d convinced myself of the same thing, although I limited the destruction to my own hide.
“What happened to her daddy?” I asked.
“When she was seven... she was with her daddy while he was burning leaves. Kerosene splashed on him somehow and he caught fire. Burned him bad.”
“These files,” Ken said, gesturing toward the desk. “Did you tell her where to burn?”
Rich seemed to collapse in on himself. Tears spilled down his cheeks. “She wanted to know who I talked to during the day. She’d ask me about them.”
“To learn about their sins?” I asked.
He slumped further in the chair. “She idolized her daddy. When he preached, she sat in the front row, and her eyes never left him. Even with the scars the fire left.”
“So he taught her about sin,” I said.
“He was a good man,” Rich said. “She just got it a little mixed up.”
So mixed up, she felt a compulsion to burn, again and again.
Rich lifted his wrist, checking the time. “I have to make sure she got back okay.”
“We’ll be heading out there, soon,” Ken said. “Where’s the cabin?”
“South county,” Rich said. “I can show you on a map, on the computer.”
Rich moved his chair aside, making room for me to use the keyboard. I brought up a map of Greenville County. With Rich looking on, I zoomed in until he said stop, then he pointed to the screen. “Here. It’s built up against a huge boulder, maybe twenty feet tall.”
“I’ll need directions,” Ken said.
Rich gave Ken a sidelong look. “It’d be easier to show you.”
“You can show us,” Ken said, “but you’ll stay in the car.”
It crossed my mind that I could finish the Google search I’d started earlier, read the complete article from the Daily Press. Something kept nudging me to lay my hands back on that keyboard. Wisps of dreams, filled with fire and sin, momentarily fogged my mind.
“How about you talk to Ken now, Rich,” I said. “I need to look for something on the internet.”
“Sure. Okay.” McPherson wiped away tears with the heel of his hand.
Ken continued my line of inquiry. “Tell us about the other fires. The ones that weren’t set here.”
“There were trash fires in the dumpster out behind our apartment. I tried to tell myself it was just kids.” Rich glanced over at the screen as I set up an account at the Daily Press. I positioned myself to block his view.
“Where was this apartment?” Ken asked.
He looked at me, then away. “San Francisco.”
A prickling danced up my spine, pulled me from the opening paragraphs of the article. “Where in San Francisco?”
He whispered, so softly I had to strain to hear. “Jones, near Golden Gate.”
I locked gazes with Ken. He gave me a nod of encouragement. “What else did she burn there?” I asked. “Besides dumpsters?”
“A dry cleaner,” Rich said, still trying to see the computer screen. I planted myself firmly in his way. “A church.”
A roaring started up in my ears. “Was there a baby at the church?”
I might as well have struck McPherson with a sledgehammer. His mouth dropped open and he swayed in his chair. The waterworks turned on again, tears gushing down his cheeks.
My own knees trembled. Turning like an automaton, I scrolled down the page displaying the article and read about Glenn and Michelle Cresswell and the family they lost.
“Ken. Listen to this.”
My stomach churned as I traced a finger down the third paragraph. “Killed in the fire were Lydia Cresswell, ten months old. Sean, Thomas and Glenn Junior, ages four, eight and ten.”
Still caught up in Rich’s admissions about the fires, Ken didn’t get it at first. “I don’t follow you.”
I turned the screen toward him. “They’re the same genders, nearly the same ages as James, Enrique, Brandon and the baby.”
I scrolled down further, to the photograph of the family that accompanied the article. I clicked on it to enlarge it.
There were the five children with Mom and Dad, all of the young ones lost in the fire. The woman I didn’t recognize, but the man’s shaggy head of hair and full, bushy beard set off a rocket in my brain.
“It’s Glenn,” I blurted out.
“Who’s Glenn?” Ken rose to better see the screen.
I stepped back to give him room. “The man Sadie Parker said traded his Volvo for her truck. The same man Andros over at Emil’s Cafe and the girl at the McDonald’s saw. Glenn who had James and the baby.”
As Ken stared intently at the photograph, Rich covered his face with his hands. Ken knocked them away, compared the face on the screen with the man sitting in the chair.
“Oh my God,” Ken said. “Rich is Glenn.”
Now I could see it. The eyes were the same, never mind that the beard and hair obscured everything else.
I looked up at Ken, ramifications thundering down on me. “He has the kids. All of them.”
Rich—Glenn—shook his head so hard, I half expected it to unscrew from his neck. Ken dragged his chair around and sat knee to knee with Glenn again. “Where are they?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He wouldn’t look at us, tears reddening his eyes, snot seeping from his nose.
“Those missing kids,” Ken said. “We’ve got witnesses who saw them with you.”
He shook his head some more, snot flying. “They’re mistaken.”
I dropped my hands on his shoulders, bending close to his ear. “Come on, Glenn. We know it all. About Michelle finding the baby at the church. Taking James from the Arco. And Enrique...”
Glenn slumped, elbows on knees, head bowed. I could almost feel his emotional meltdown through my hands, knew the moment his barriers shattered.
“At the cabin,” he whispered hoarsely. “She keeps them at the cabin.”
“Where?” Ken asked. “Are they safe?”
“They’re in the basement.” Cresswell sniffed, a wet, pitiful sound. “But they’re all okay, I swear to you.”
“She hasn’t hurt them?” Ken asked, his fingers tightening.
Glenn swiped snot onto his arm. “I wouldn’t let her hurt them.”
I grabbed a handful of tissues from the desk and stuffed them in his hand. “But you left the kids alone this morning.”
“Because I knew she’d be back,” Glenn said. “I had to come in to work.”
“But you’re sure those kids are okay,” I said. “You checked on them before you left?”
Glenn snorted into a tissue. “Junior would’ve yelled if there was a problem.”
That was no damn answer. Ken pulled Glenn to his feet. “We’d better get out there, now. Hopefully before Michelle returns.”
Ken stowed Glenn in the Explorer’s cage. As he pulled out onto Main Street, he called Sadie at the Gazette to ask her to lock up the store. Then he radioed for backup to meet us at mile marker thirty-five where we’d be turning off the highway.
In my mind’s eye, I saw Tommy Phillips in the back seat beside Glenn, directing his accusing stare at someone other than me for once.
“Tell us how it happened, Glenn,” I said.
Now that the walls had broken down, Glenn seemed eager to talk. “When she found Lydia in San Francisco, I thought it would help.”
Ken gunned up the entrance to Highway 50. “Why not take the baby to the authorities?”
“That girl didn’t want her. What was the harm in Michelle keeping her?” Glenn asked. “I thought then maybe she’d stop...”
“Setting fires?” I asked. “But it didn’t work out that way, did it? And now all those kids are at risk.”
Cresswell swiped his snotty nose. “Michelle wouldn’t hurt any of those kids. Not after what happened to her own.”
What happened to her own. Had seeing her father badly burned when she was a child set a time bomb ticking inside Michelle? An emotional nuke that exploded when she lost all five of her children in a fire?
Either one might have bee
n enough of a trigger to create Michelle Cresswell’s fascination with burning. Combined, they would have been more than sufficient to pull the pin. Just as Lucy had become unhinged by the death of her baby.
Insight suddenly burst into my brain. “You took Norberto. Dropped him off at Lucy’s.”
He muttered his affirmative response so softly, I barely heard him.
“But why?” Ken asked.
I answered for Glenn. “To distract us. He’d heard the story about Lucy’s baby, knew from his own wife how far into the deep end a woman could plunge after losing her kids.”
“What about Enrique?” Ken asked.
For a moment, Glenn looked at me blankly. Then he said, “I never knew his real name. Michelle always called him Sean.”
“How’d she find him?” I asked.
“His mother, Felicia, lived upstairs from us. Sometimes Michelle would take care of the boy when Felicia went out.”
To get high, no doubt.
“Michelle would pretend he was our four-year-old. Sometimes she’d end up keeping him a week at a time.” Glenn wrapped his arms around himself. “Then she found Felicia dead. She ran and got me, all excited, saying we had Sean back.”
Ken threw on his wig-wags to nudge traffic out of the Explorer’s way. “So you just took him.”
“I knew Michelle would take good care of him. She always took good care of the kids.”
Except I still had an uneasy feeling about a woman who played with fire. My own dark urges toward self-abuse might have morphed into a compulsion to burn my own kids if I’d had young innocents under my control.
Ken slowed behind a slow moving truck, waiting with ill-concealed impatience for the driver to move aside. “How’d you get hold of James?”
“We stopped at a gas station to change the baby. I’d gone into the store for some juice for Sean. Somehow Michelle got James into the car, hid him under a blanket in the back seat. I didn’t know he was there until we were nearly to Fairfield.”
James had probably still been steamed at his stepdad, enough to get into the car, anyway. Later, when he’d changed his mind, it was too late. “He tried to bolt at the McDonalds?”
Clean Burn Page 23
