'Everything all right?' the guard asked. His eyes scanned the room to find Jeremy smiling calmly, me against the wall soaked in sweat.
I yelled, 'Keep that window closed!'
The slat closed slowly and I went to the sink and splashed cold water over my face. Jeremy sat on his bed and smiled. 'Now that we have the opening ceremony out of the way, what do you want to talk about, Carson? Let me guess… the recent incidents in good oP Mobile? I knew you'd need a little advice when the answers wouldn't come. Did you bring the photos and files for me to diddle over for a day or two?
Oh, and a lighter?'
It was midnight when I crossed to Dauphin Island. A heavy storm approached from the south with low exhalations of thunder, lightning diffused through clouds. I hoped Ava was asleep, that I could drag myself to bed, tumble into the black I craved. When I turned the corner and saw Harry's Volvo in my drive, I jammed on the brakes and stared at his car. What could he want at this hour? I felt my head listing and eased ahead and parked. It was difficult to walk up the steps, as though the space between them had doubled.
Harry and Ava were as still as marble. Harry was a statue in a chair;
Ava a statue on the couch, a cup of tea poised between breasts and lips. Someone tossed hot paraffin over me as I moved through the doorway; the wax slowing my motions as it hardened.
'Why are you here tomorrow?' I asked the Ava statue, hearing the words twist out wrong, trying to remember what I had meant to say. I tried again and got, 'I mean there Harry late…'
While I waited for my tongue to clear, the floor shivered, as though lightning had struck soundlessly at the foundation. It ignited the pilings because the far end of my house began to founder and sink. The pilings are failing, said a calm voice in my head. But why isn't the furniture sliding down? I watched in fascination, my house had never done this before.
'Thar she blows,' I said.
I heard cold strands of harp music. The statues levitated from their seats and flitted to me like butterflies.
'Hold it just like that. Out a bit more. That's it.'
Ava's voice was on dry and failing recording tape, a constant hissing and crackling behind her voice.
'How bad is it?' I heard Harry say, recorded on the same tape.
'Second degree. Looks worse than it is. Infection's the first concern.'
Sounds resolved. Another strike of thunder, distant and muffled. The hissing was hard rain on my roof. I opened my eyes, swimming from deep water toward surface sparkles. I tried to sit up but Harry's hand blocked my chest. 'Don't move, bro,' he said. I felt stinging beneath my bicep. My shirt was off and I lay on the couch. Ava smoothed on a medicated cream that smelled like paint made from spoiled cabbage.
Harry held my arm tight as I winced and jerked.
'Where you been tonight, Cars?' he asked.
'Camp meeting,' I said, the room creeping into focus. Ava wrapped me lightly in gauze from shoulder to elbow. Harry gently lifted me to sitting position as Ava plumped pillows to brace my arm. She went to the kitchen.
Harry leaned close. 'Was Jeremy at that meeting, Carson?'
My breath froze; Harry knew. I closed my eyes. 'I talked about him while I was out, didn't I?'
'You didn't say a word.'
'Then how '
'I know about Jeremy, bro. I've known for a year.'
My mouth didn't form the question but my eyes did. He said, 'I'm a detective, I detect.' Ava returned with a glass of scotch in her hand.
She knelt beside me and brought it to my lips. 'Stuff's bad for you,'
I mustered.
'Bad for me, good for you. Drink.'
The warmth hit my stomach and spread. Lightning flashed outside and the lights flickered momentarily. Thunder echoed. Harry scooted a chair over and sat by my head. The pain beneath my arm started to subside and with it my sense of disconnect.
'You followed me to the hospital last year?' I asked Harry.
'Back then you couldn't see a tail pinned to your forehead; I almost tailgated you to the door. And if that's a hospital, Fort Knox is an ATM.'
'You couldn't let it go. Not your style.'
Harry said, 'Did I do some digging? Hell, yes. I'm still not sure what I found. I know Jeremy Ridgecliff is your brother. Were you going to him for advice about Adrian?'
I couldn't meet his eyes. 'I wasn't sure if what I was doing was right, Harry.'
Ava said, 'Could one of you please tell me what's going on?'
I looked away. Harry scooched his chair to face Ava. 'A year ago a patrol officer followed some crack heads into a rat-infested sewer beneath the city. He tripped over a girl from the projects, twelve-year-old Tessa Ramirez. Her eyes, face, were horribly burned.
Forensics determined silk had been placed over her eyes and ignited.
She was alive when it was lit.'
His words sparked unwanted pictures in my head: Tessa Ramirez, sprawled face-up among the rats and broken glass, her eyes dark cinders burning into my soul. Help me, she cried, though she'd been dead a week.
Ava said, 'My God.'
Harry said, 'A month later an old wino was found the same way.'
'Nothing to go on?'
'Zippo, nada. Then, from nowhere, a street officer tells me the burning silk pads might be a bonding mechanism between killer and victims. This cop also suggests the victims were chosen by a 'bonding fire' before the killings. I thought he was mouth-foaming nuts, but we checked both vies had been at arson scenes in the previous six month, gawkers. We told the brass. But the department had called in the feebs FBI and their profile types were saying the fires were a form of hiding, the bonding-fire idea was lunatic ranting.'
'What about the arsons?'
'Coincidence, the brass said. The fires were big an old apartment building downtown, a ramshackle farm near Saraland. Hundreds of onlookers. The patrolman and I got our asses chewed ragged for interfering.'
Ava looked at me. 'You were the patrol officer.'
I nodded reluctantly and was glad a rolling surge of thunder prohibited speaking. Harry poured another glass of Glenlivet and continued.
'Cynthia Porter and her twenty-year-old daughter were found slain, eyes burned to cinders. Ms. Porter's husband was a well-known auto dealer.
He contributed heavily to both political parties. Unlike the previous instances the family was upper-income white. Everything went into uproar mode. The department created a parallel investigation, giving me and Cars a little room to pursue the bonding theory. Not believing it, natch, but wanting to cover all bases for PR reasons.'
Ava said, 'Had the Porters been… selected… by a previous fire?'
'Selected? Good word. A month prior they'd been at the scene of a mysterious blaze at a strip center. Out shopping, saw the smoke, stopped to gawk. Carson figured we had to hit fire scenes, especially those that might be arson. He told me there was a good chance the perp used the fire to smoke out his victims, so to speak.'
She looked at me. 'You were right, weren't you?'
A blast of wind shivered the house and I waited it out before speaking.
'There was a major fire in an abandoned warehouse by the state docks. I was following the fire department frequency and got there fast. I scanned the crowd and saw a guy more interested in gawkers than the fire. I snuck behind him and watched him yank out hunks of hair with his fingers, not flinching. It's called trichollomania and a trichollomaniac '
The MD in Ava jumped in, nodding. 'Pulls hair for pleasure and a tension release. I've read about it. Rare in adults, one of the impulse control disorders, like compulsive gambling, explosive anger, kleptomania and…' She paused, raised her eyebrows.
'Right,' I said, 'pyromania. I watched Joel Adrian pull a notebook from his pocket and walk to a dockworker.
