Fireproof (20 page)

Everything Cornell Stamoran had left in the world was in that red backpack. Why the hell did he toss it at that guy?

Instinct had taken over—fight or flight—and of all the things he had done or been in his life Cornell was
not
a fighter. But he was good at running away.

Since the fire, all he had thought about was running. He maneuvered his way through the underbelly of the city, back and forth, memorizing pipes and valves while wading through crappy water. He didn’t mind the smell. You couldn’t live on the streets if you couldn’t stand the smell. Even his body odor no longer repulsed him.

What bothered Cornell were the noises. The echoes freaked him out. So did the clanks, the drips and hisses, the whines and hums. He couldn’t tell what the hell was happening around him, if he heard footsteps chasing him or if it was just his imagination. Except he was fairly certain that someone was following him.

At first he worried it was the man he’d seen pouring gasoline in the alley. He couldn’t forget the look on that guy’s face when he saw Cornell slipping and rolling in the trail of fuel. That twisted
grin when he lit the match. If Cornell hadn’t scrambled and found the manhole when he did, he would have been toast.

But that wasn’t the man following him.

Then Cornell thought it might be a coincidence. He saw the same man in different places, and only at a distance, but the guy was always watching him. Cornell had no clue why the man would bother to follow him.

That’s when he started to vary his exits and entrances to the underground. From below he could look up through the grates or holes and almost always determine when it was safe to come up. Ironically it was best at the busiest times and at some of the most crowded intersections, where people hurried by and couldn’t be bothered with someone crawling out of a manhole.

Of course, it helped that Cornell had found an abandoned city maintenance vest and hard hat—both fluorescent orange. Instead of attracting attention they seemed to make him invisible. The vest and hard hat quickly became his most valuable possessions. They not only gained him unfettered access to the city’s underworld but also bought him a surprising amount of leverage and respect on the streets. When he finally remembered he had more than thirty dollars in his buttoned cargo pocket he treated himself to a bowl of soup and a sandwich at the same diner where he’d eaten the night of the fire.

The same waitress took his order. She was the one who had looked at him suspiciously the other night and then grudgingly given him change back as he requested, in one-dollar bills. Only this time she smiled when she set his plate in front of him. Refilled his coffee. Even asked, “How’s it going?”

And he knew he smelled worse today than he had that first time he’d been in. Although he had tried to clean his jacket and
the vomit and gasoline fumes had finally aired out a bit, he knew he couldn’t travel through the sewer and not have the stink cling to him.

But put on a fluorescent orange vest and hard hat and it all became acceptable.

He ate at the diner’s counter again and watched out the window. He still couldn’t believe he had tossed his backpack. He had gone back to the alley to see if he could retrieve anything from his Maytag box. He thought all the cops had left. At least the alley. Once the body was gone he had seen the remaining investigators pack up and then either leave or focus on the rubble inside.

He should have waited longer. Even after he tossed his backpack and took out the tall guy, that broad had kept coming after him. He couldn’t shake her, couldn’t outrun her. But he knew how to drop out of sight. That threw her off but it didn’t lose the bastard who kept finding him.

If he wasn’t the man who started the fire, who the hell was this guy?

He didn’t think he looked like a cop or a fed. He wore blue jeans, a nice pair of work boots, a ball cap, and brown suede jacket. Hell, he looked pretty ordinary, nothing menacing about him except that he was always there. Cornell would see him leaning against a lamppost or sitting on a bench. Once at a Metro bus stop. Buses came and went but the guy stayed. Sometimes he saw the man downtown, but then hours later he’d see him walking back by the same warehouses where the fires had been. There was no reason that he could think of for this guy to be in these two very different places in the city unless he was following Cornell.

A couple of times when Cornell traveled underground he could swear he’d seen the shadow of someone behind him. Lighting was
crap down there. Long stretches were pitch black. He tried to avoid those. Even the best stretches were limited to a bare lightbulb tucked into the maze of pipes.

The first time he noticed the man was right before he tossed his backpack. Though he didn’t look like a cop, Cornell had thought maybe he was part of the investigating team, but only because the guy was inside the barrier of yellow tape. He had been leaning against one of the vehicles, watching and smoking a cigarette.

Maybe he knew the dead woman. A shiver slid down Cornell’s back and a sudden bout of nausea made him put down his spoon. He sipped his water, waited for it to pass. He didn’t like thinking about the dead woman. Didn’t like remembering that battered face, pounded and ripped like ground beef.

Cornell grabbed the little package of saltine crackers. His fingers shook and he struggled to tear the plastic, suddenly desperate to get at them. He crunched a piece out and quickly put it in his mouth, holding it on his tongue and sucking off the salt, waiting for the nausea to pass. It didn’t seem to be working.

He stuck another piece in his mouth. Weren’t saltines supposed to help? Probably not if you had wrestled a dead body with your bare hands. He still couldn’t believe he’d touched it.

When Cornell looked back up, the man in the brown suede jacket was standing just outside the diner window. And he was staring directly at Cornell.

By the time Maggie arrived, the cross at the top of the steeple blazed against a smoke-filled sky. She could see a second black plume several blocks away.

She showed her badge at the first barricade, a half block from the fire. The uniformed officer lifted the yellow tape for her and pointed out Detective Racine. Here across the river, Racine would be out of her jurisdiction. That was the only reason she stood back and tolerated the man beside her. Maggie recognized Brad Ivan, the ATF fire investigator.

“Were there any church services being held?” Maggie asked as she joined them. There were three ambulances parked at odd angles. One had driven onto the church lawn.

“No services,” Racine told her, “but there was an altar society meeting in the basement of this one.”

“Fatalities?”

Racine didn’t answer, looked instead to Ivan. Technically ATF would be the point agency now that the fires had moved out of the District.

“We don’t know yet. They’re still inside,” Ivan said as he
hitched his trousers up, then stopped almost abruptly and kept the belt just below his waist.

Maggie guessed the gesture was an old habit but that a new paunch still surprised him. Ivan looked like a man who had kept himself in shape until recently. Maybe a change of schedule or, Maggie speculated, a change in living routine, perhaps a separation or divorce. Curious to prove her theory, she glanced at his left hand and saw a subtle streak of lighter skin where a ring had been.

Maggie waited for Ivan to continue filling her in, but there was nothing after the pants hitch. She couldn’t see his eyes behind the mirrored aviator sunglasses. Odd that he’d need sunglasses, since the smoke blocked out the sun.

“The middle of the afternoon goes against his MO,” she said. “How do we know this is the same guy?”

“It would be nice if we had some kind of a profile.”

His sarcasm surprised Maggie. She didn’t think the man had it in him to muster up something as complex as sarcasm. Racine raised an eyebrow. Looked like he’d surprised her as well.

“The murders at the last scene throw off any typical profile of a serial arsonist.” Maggie told him this as a matter of fact. “If you remove the two victims from the equation, he becomes a repeat nuisance offender.”

“Yeah, under twenty-five, male, white, history of family dysfunction, father abusive or absent, blue-collar job if he has a job, low self-esteem, low IQ, social misfit, yadda yadda. I’ve seen these profiles before. They don’t tell us jack-shit.”

“Sounds like you already have your own profile,” Racine said, but Maggie could see Racine’s sarcasm was lost on Ivan. She even thought she saw the detective take a step forward as if in Maggie’s
defense. Maybe she could hear the throbbing in Maggie’s head. It had started as soon as she’d left Ganza.

“I think he’s older,” Maggie said when she knew Ivan wasn’t expecting her to say anything. Maybe that’s why she continued, “The fire chief’s report mentioned a chemical reaction being the starting point.”

“That’s right. The fires have been too quick and the heat too intense. There haven’t been any other accelerants used.”

“But it smelled like gasoline was poured in the alley.”

“That’s the exception. Incidentally, he didn’t start the fire on that side of the building. He uses materials he finds at the site. But he brings whatever the hell he’s using to start the chemical reaction.”

“No timing device?”

“Haven’t found one yet. But all that fits a pyromaniac’s profile, right?” Ivan said with a smirk, as if goading Maggie. “Goes along with an impulse disorder. He gathers whatever he finds to start the fire—rags, newspapers, garbage. Doesn’t really think about it or plan it. Just needs to satisfy his impulse, relieve his sexual tension and his desire for the thrill.”

Maggie suppressed a sigh of frustration. Was he serious or simply having fun with her? She studied his face and decided he was making fun of her and of profiling. “Pyromania” was a term psychiatrists and defense attorneys loved to use. In reality, few arsons on this scale had been blamed on an uncontrollable impulse or an irresistible urge to start fires to “relieve sexual tension,” as Ivan put it.

“But you said he has to bring the chemicals,” she pointed out. “Hardly impulsive if he’s toting around whatever it takes to create such a combustion.”

Ivan shrugged. “So what’s your profile?”

He looked pleased to put her on the spot, shifting his weight and crossing his arms. Behind them sirens wailed along the streets. Police whistles directed traffic. Overhead, they could hear a helicopter, still too far away to tell if it was a life flight or cable news crew.

“He’s educated,” Maggie said. “A chemical reaction that includes that sort of timing, as well as the correct proportions, is not something he learned in the Boy Scouts or surfing the Internet. I’d guess it was part of his job at one time. Maybe it still is. He’s someone who doesn’t attract attention. He can blend in. He looks like he belongs.”

“Right. And what kind of job combines chemicals to start fires?” Ivan was skeptical.

This time Maggie shrugged. She wasn’t the arson expert. She wanted to say that perhaps someone with the ATF—perhaps a fire investigator like himself—should be able to examine and determine that part of the puzzle.

“So what does he drive?”

She almost rolled her eyes. They were always so hung up on a vehicle that they could stop by throwing up blockades. Maggie shook her head. “It won’t matter because I think he parks away from the site and walks several blocks.”

“Humph. You’re not giving me anything.”

“Okay, here’s something. Have you checked the surrounding ERs?”

“Emergency rooms?”

“Check for chemical burns. Whatever he’s using might burn his skin or even discolor it.”

“Great. So we look for a guy older than twenty-five who’s educated, in good enough shape to walk several blocks, and maybe has—what, like purple fingers or something? That’s supposed to help me?”

“Hey,” Racine said. “It’s more than we had an hour ago.”

“Except these two fires change things a bit,” Maggie continued.

“What are you talking about?”

“Churches instead of warehouses. And in the middle of the day. If he knew there were people inside he’s no longer a nuisance offender who likes to stand back and watch the chaos or read the headlines the next day. The fact that there were people inside changes his motive.”

“What about the victims in the last fire?” Ivan asked.

“He may not have known about the person inside.” Although Maggie knew that if the skull was bashed in the way the woman’s face was in the alley, then chances were the victim inside the building was not an accident.

“We still haven’t figured out who the woman was,” Racine added. “She definitely wasn’t killed there. Her murder may have had nothing to do with the fires.”

“Interesting,” Ivan said, shifting his feet again and practically stomping them. “But you still haven’t given me a solid description of this guy.”

“What exactly do you expect?” Maggie asked. “That I tell you he wears double-breasted suits and talks with a stutter? That he walks with a limp and drives a white paneled van?” She purposely mixed several famous profiles. First, the Mad Bomber of the 1940s. Second, the vehicle that was supposed to lead them to the Beltway sniper.