Burners (8 page)

That explained why I’d missed the story the first time around, and why it never made it above the fold on page three. There were two follow-up stories in the next four days. Much of what was there I already knew, but there were items in each that interested me. In the second story, there was a mention about this being the fourth such fire in Birch Grove in the past sixteen months, just as Jerry Rossiter had told me. In the third story, there was a reference by the police commissioner to the growing gang problem in the area. The commissioner also suggested that there may be a connection between the gang activity and the arsons.

All three of the stories were written by veteran reporter Jim Chakowski, a mentor and the closest thing I had to a friend at the paper. I thanked Kevin and returned home to call Jim.

  
 

T
he B&B where I was staying, known as the Weatherby House after the man who built it in 1905, was perfect in every way except for one—the owners were nuts.

So to get the beautifully decorated bedroom with the huge cast-iron bathtub and the ceiling-high stone fireplace, I had to put up with a few minutes of insane prattle every time I encountered one of them.

They were in their fifties, always smiling and offering pleasantries, and at first encounter you would take them to be charming.

But the more you talked to them, the more you realized their toolbox was missing most of its screws.

“Good evening, Miss Daniels.” Greta Hauppdorf greeted me at the front door, opening it before I had a chance to use the key. Like she’d been standing there, waiting for me to show up. She wore a dress straight out of
Little House on the Prairie
, and her gray hair was done up in a bun. It was probably in a bun when she came out of the womb.

“Good evening, Mrs. Hauppdorf.”

“Did you know there were 17,030 murders in the United States last year?”

“I did not know that,” I said, having to step around her to get inside.

“I wonder how many of them were asking for it.”

“Excuse me?”

“You know. Some folks deserve it. Don’t you think so, Father?”

She looked to her left, where the tall figure of Arnold Hauppdorf had somehow materialized in the kitchen doorway.

“I do, Mother. Stupid people, especially. A lot of stupid people in the world.”

Don’t engage
, I told myself. But my mouth was open before I could stop it.

“So you’re saying that if people were smarter, they would have been able to outsmart their attacker?” I asked.

“Heavens, no,” Greta said. “We mean they were murdered because they were stupid. Which is a good thing. There are too many stupid people, and they’re having babies faster than the smart people are.”

“The average IQ of the country is dropping,” Arnold added. “At this rate, by the year 2030, our nation will be twenty-five percent stupider than it is now. Clearly the government needs to take action.”

“By rounding up all the stupid people and killing them?” I asked.

Both the Hauppdorfs chuckled.

“Oh, my dear, nothing that drastic,” said Greta. “We should just ship all the stupid people to some other country.”

Arnold nodded. “Ship them to a smart country, like Japan or Germany. That will lower their national IQ, and help the U.S. better compete in a global market.”

“What if they don’t want to go?” I asked, wondering why I even bothered.

“They’re stupid. They can be tricked. Like those stings where fugitives are told they won a free television, and they show up and get arrested.”

“Exactly,” added Greta. “The stupids could get free tickets to Germany, saying they won a free vacation, and when they arrive they can be denied re-entry into the U.S.”

“A wonderful idea, Mother. I’m going to go write letters to our state senators right now.”

“I’ll join you, Father. Good night, Miss Daniels. Breakfast will be at eight a.m. I’m making blueberry pancakes.”

I went into my gorgeous bedroom, with the gorgeous fireplace and bathtub, and locked the door behind me so the crazies couldn’t get in.

After a bath and a phone call to my fiancée, I curled up in the enormous bed and buried myself in an Ed McBain novel until I was too tired to keep my eyes open.

  
 

J
im Chakowski answered on the second ring.

“So you managed to get out of jury duty.”

“Not exactly.”

Silence. Followed by more silence. Then, “Oh hell. Alex, please tell me you’re calling to bullshit about the Cubs’ lousy season.”

“I need to ask you a couple of questions about the Birch Grove fires.”

I heard him sigh. “You know you’re not supposed to be doing this, right?”

“And now you’ve warned me, and we both know damned well you’d be doing the same thing if our roles were reversed.”

He thought about it for a moment.

“True. So what do you need to know?”

I asked him what he knew about the other fires.

“Just some general background, those weren’t my stories. If I remember correctly, those were covered by a couple of new guys. Those stories weren’t that big of a deal.”

“Until the Laserquick fire.”

“Right. Nobody died until the print shop went up. Maybe they’re all linked, maybe not. I never found a connection. There are a lot of old buildings in Birch Grove, and I can tell you not all of them are up to code.”

“But that’s true about any of the old towns in the area.”

“Yes, it is. I did a story on that once.”

“I remember.”

“A good one.”

“They all are, Jim.”

I heard his familiar laugh at the other end.

“Have there been any similar fires in Birch Grove since?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“What about gangs? You mentioned that in one of your stories.”

 ”In passing, if memory serves.”

“That’s right.”

“You know why, don’t you?”

I did. I’d been taught well. “Because you had a reliable quote, but not enough to hang much more on, and you sensed there was still something else to the story and wanted to get ahead of it.”

“You might have a future in this business, Alex. Yeah, the gang thing. It’s not kids from Birch Grove as much as from some of the neighboring towns. Larkin has an issue with gangs, Aurora, and Elgin, too.”

“Even Oakton.”