SWNOVELS Chapter 5
Charlie Drucker is a former Navy SEAL friend of ours. We did a couple of tours together, but our last mission left Charlie with a knee injury that forced him to retire and come back to Dallas FD.
They welcomed him with arms wide open. The man is an expert on anything arson related. While in the service, he successfully assisted the Military Police with a couple of investigations, saving the Navy a ton of bad publicity when one of their sailors turned out to be a serial arsonist.
“Guys, it’s gonna take a while to comb through all of this footage,” Charlie says, sitting behind his desk as he connects the portable hard drive to his work computer.
We’re in the bullpen of the Arson squad. It’s more crowded than usual but Eric and I have found ourselves a couple of guest chairs to use, sitting close to Charlie as he turns the media player on.
There’s been a spike in fires lately, according to him, most of them for insurance purposes. I wonder if that’s what happened with the diner.
“What’s the word on Rhonda Langston, the diner owner?” I ask him.
“She doesn’t have any priors. I had her financial checked, they seemed to be doing alright,” Charlie replies. “They were behind on the last quarter where the IRS is concerned, but nothing that would warrant cashing in on the fire insurance. No personal issues, either. No unexpected medical problems, nothing like that.”
“Halle mentioned that her son’s ranch was starting to pick up. Out of state visitors, paying a pretty penny for horse rides and the whole cowboy experience,” Eric says.
“So you can rule Rhonda Langston out,” I conclude, and Charlie nods in agreement.
“Without motive, it’s highly unlikely she had anything to do with it. Typically, fire insurance doesn’t cover all of the rebuilding costs. She’ll have to use personal funds. That’s what she told us during the interview, anyway.”
“But you do agree that the fire was intentionally set, right?” Eric asks.
Charlie nods again. “Your eyes never lie, buddy. You spotted the accelerant traces before the CSUs were even done with bagging and tagging everything. It’s arson, plain and simple. We just need to figure out who did it and why. I’m hoping the camera footage will give us something. Now, let’s see, what am I looking at here?”
We shift our focus to the computer screen. The video shows an angle of the diner’s parking lot, along with the building itself. I can see the lights are on in Halle’s apartment and I check the time stamp. “Parking lot. This is one of the cameras from next door. A hardware shop.”
“I got the neighbor’s footage too. The office building on 7th,” Eric says.
“Cool. A frontal view, albeit grainy as hell, given the distance,” Charlie mutters.
“It’s eight p.m.,” I say. “According to Halle, she’d already sent the kids upstairs.”
Charlie’s eyes squint, his finger on the mouse to zoom deeper into the moving image. It’s definitely low resolution but we can still make out the basics. “Right. So the kids are upstairs, Halle is in the diner with one last customer.”
“Marty, the candle dude. Your CSUs already confirmed that the fire didn’t start from the candles, if I remember correctly.”
“The starting point was at the front door,” Charlie mutters. “Man, I wish we had footage from inside the diner.”
“What about physical evidence?” I ask as we all watch the seemingly quiet evening unfold. “According to Halle, she wasn’t in the storage room for more than ten minutes, but she doesn’t remember exactly when she heard the bell chime with Marty’s exit.”
“There are approximately five to six minutes from when Marty says he left and when Halle recalls coming out of the storage room. Therefore, there’s a fifteen-to-sixteen-minute window during which time somebody poured the accelerant and set the diner on fire. The starting point was right at the front door. Someone had to have gone in.”
“The door was on an automatic lock, though,” Eric remembers. “Nobody else could get in.”
Charlie scrolls through the footage until we see Marty walking across the parking lot. A tall and lumpy shadow, but it’s definitely him. Eric points at the screen to Marty’s left. “Look here. Movement.”
We all see it.
Somebody sneaks behind Marty unnoticed. Marty goes on about his business, getting in his car and driving off. Then we see movement again. The same figure moves along the edge of the parking lot, carrying something.
“That has to be the canister,” Charlie notices first. It’s red and square.
The figure pours the fluid at the front door then continues around the diner before coming full circle and setting the fire. Flames can be seen flashing on the screen. “Motherfucker,” I mumble, realizing that this is attempted murder. “He knew she was in there.”
“Look at him run,” Eric mumbles.
He bolts away from the diner and disappears out of the frame, somewhere across the street. He’s out of sight, while the fire ravages the ground floor. “It only took a handful of minutes,” Charlie concludes. “This means he watched the place. He knew what he was dealing with. It was timed and calculated.”
“Therefore deliberate,” I add.
My brother and I exchange nervous glances while Charlie pauses the footage and looks at us. “I’ll keep looking. I’ll check every possible angle but I’m gonna reach out to my buddies with traffic, too. Maybe we can get a partial or full plate of the car. The mook had to drive himself out of there, and fast.”
“You’ll keep us posted?” Eric asks.
“Absolutely. You’ve got a personal interest in this case, don’t you?” Charlie asks with a wry smile. “That girl, Halle.”
“We’re friends,” my brother says. “Besides, it’s the kids, man. They’re five and four. It’s not just Halle. Somebody tried to burn her and her children alive. So yeah, it’s personal.”
We can all agree on that.
We leave Charlie to his business, knowing he’s got a couple of techs working on anything CCTV related. Whatever the raw footage fails to show, his guys will play with the contrast and resolution on those images until they get something better and clearer. If the DA is to build a case against the culprit, whomever that may be, it needs to be ironclad and impervious to any doubt before the jury.
Outside, my brothers and I stop to soak in the midday sun.
It’s one of those rare early summer days when it’s not too hot. Dallas can get pretty scorching as early as April, but the weather has been kind lately.
“Are we going to tell Halle about the guy we saw on camera?” I ask Eric.
He gives me a troubled look. “I don’t know,” he says. “Honestly, I’m not sure if we should. If we tell her, she’ll get scared.”
“She should be scared.”
“Yeah, but she’s also still fragile after the fire, after almost dying. Her kids need her calm and focused. How does it help if she’s constantly looking over her shoulder, expecting the worst all the time?”
I glance around, watching people as they pass us by. Normal people of different ages, varying skin color and ethnicity. Each going somewhere. Coming from somewhere. On their way to do something. How many of these people have the ability to switch off that part of their brain that deals with moral dilemmas? How many of these people are capable of setting a building on fire, knowing full well that a young woman and her two children will die screaming?
“We will have to keep an eye on her,” I warn Eric.
“There’s CCTV all over the fire station. At the house, too. We even have the backyard covered,” my brother points out, showing me his phone. “And we’re looped into all the cameras via the app. It’s covered.”
“I guess. I don’t know, man, something doesn’t feel right about all this.”
“Charlie is still investigating. It’s too early to draw any conclusions.”
He’s right. But it still irks me.
Whoever set that fire had a clear intention.
“We don’t yet know if Halle was the intended target or if she was just in the wrong place, at the wrong time,” Eric adds, as if reading my mind. We’re twins. Sometimes, I think he accidentally slides into my thoughts somehow, and mirrors what I’m pondering in that very moment. “It could be someone with a grudge against the diner, against the owner.”
“And if it involves Halle?”
“Well, she’s clearly innocent here, we can’t blame the victim.” He pauses and gives me a sour look. “What is going on with you, Chase? I’ve never seen you get so prickly about someone, especially a woman like Halle.”
“I’m just keeping my guard up until we know who exactly it is that we brought into our home.”