“Machismo,” Billy said.
“Comes with the territory.”
Lots of people talk about personal responsibility. When idiots do stupid things that turn out badly, those same people still cry that someone else should have stepped in and saved them. There are times I get sick of it. Billy rarely does. He sees the good in people, despite the world that has unfolded in front of him since he was a skinny projects kid toughing it out in Northwest Philly.
“I say we turn him in, Max. We give the trailer location to the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office and let them arrest him on the outstanding warrant from the chase. At least in lockup he’ll be safe,” Billy said.
“Your call, Counselor,” I said. “I’m going home.”
– 17 -
A T 7:00 A.M., I was lying next to Sherry when my cell rang. It felt like I’d been in bed for ten minutes. The last vision in my head before falling asleep was of a young girl sitting in the dark, an opened textbook in front of her, her face illuminated by a white flame.
I reached out and flipped open the phone.
“I just got a call from my contact in the sheriff’s office,” Billy announced, his voice stoic and businesslike. “Andres Carmen’s trailer caught fire at four this morning. They found three bodies. I have to go tell Luz that her brother is dead.”
“Jesus, Billy! When did you call in the loca-” But before I could finish, he hung up. I sat straight up, staring at the rippled light against the bedroom wall.
“What is it?” Sherry said. Her voice was sleepy, but as a cop she was always on alert for calls in the night.
“I’ve got to go,” I said, swinging my feet out of the bed. “I think we lost some people we shouldn’t have.”
Sherry rolled up on one elbow.
“The Carmen family?”
The woman didn’t miss much.
“The brother,” I said, standing up and grabbing for my pants, which still seemed warm. “His girlfriend, and probably her teenage son.”
Sherry was silent while I got dressed.
“You saved him once, Max,” she said just before I left, a last-minute attempt to salve my soul.
I parked in the same place I had just eight hours ago. When I opened the door to the Gran Fury, I could smell the place once again, this time differently. The odors of animal feces, cooked fish, and dry garbage were now overwhelmed by that of acidic smoke, melted plastic, and charred wood. My route was less circuitous this time. I didn’t circle and watch. Instead, I walked straight to the spot where Andres Carmen’s trailer once stood, or as closely as the cops would allow.
A couple of community service aides were keeping onlookers at a fifty-foot distance, back behind the two fire engines that were still on the scene, spinning their red lights through the thick morning air. There was one sheriff’s office patrol car parked where the driveway to the burned trailer used to be. The absence of a medical examiner’s vehicle told me the bodies had already been removed. Residents stood in small clusters, some still dressed in housecoats or hurriedly tossed-on sweatshirts and sneakers. They watched the firefighters rooting through the ashes with crowbars and shovels, turning up clumps of curled aluminum and still smoking wood, as if some survivor were going to rise from the blackness to their astonishment and applause.
I noted a uniformed official standing at the center of the mass, about where I’d stood talking with Andres and his girlfriend, Cheryl. The officer was videotaping the scene. The fire marshal, designated by his stenciled windbreaker, was at the north end, taking close-up photographs of something at his feet.
I stood and surveyed the area with my hands in my pockets. You didn’t have to be an expert to see that there had been a sizable explosion. The burn pattern radiated out in streaks, and there was charring in the trees too high and away from where flames would have risen straight up from a normal fire. Soot flash covered the facing walls of both adjacent trailers, but there was no extensive fire damage. The picnic table where Billy, Andres, and I sat two days earlier was flipped on its face, the wooden legs smoldering, but still intact. If I was guessing, ground zero would have been at the north end of the trailer where the bedrooms had been, and where the fire marshal was now. The trailer was obliterated there. What was left of the rest of the structure was peeled back like an enormous charred cigar that had been loaded with a stupid exploding tip.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a tiny knot of people off to the side. A tall, thin man dressed in black trousers and an oxford shirt and tie was bent over like a piece of angle iron, listening to a young girl. He turned his head and looked my way while the child averted her eyes and spoke quietly. I recognized her as the homework girl from my nighttime visit.
The angular man stood, nodded some sort of thank-you to the parents of the girl, and walked my way. As he approached, he took out a cell phone, made a quick call, and loosened his tie, like a guy who might have to run after something. I stood my ground even when, no, especially when, I saw the detective’s shield clipped to his belt.
“Hey, how you doin’?” he said as he met my eyes. The accent made me think ex-New York cop, or inveterate watcher of bad television.
“All right. How you doin’?” I said, mocking the accent, even though I didn’t have a reason to make my situation any worse. His eyes narrowed.
“I was ah, interviewing some neighbors. Witnesses,” he said. “Do you live here?”
“No,” I said, and then looked back at the burn. They hate it when you ignore them. I hated it when they ignored me. I wasn’t sure why I was being a jerk.
“I’m Detective Sheldon Woller from the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office. I’d still like to speak to you.”
Now the accent was gone. I looked back at him. He was younger than me by several years, had thinning brown hair, pale eyes, and dark frame glasses. He was almost my height, slim in the chest and right down through the hips-an athlete by the carriage, probably a longdistance runner or bicyclist. His shoulders weren’t broad enough for a natural swimmer.
“I’ll be glad to do so as soon as my lawyer gets here,” I said, and continued watching the fire marshal as he bent to his knees and adjusted his camera.
Detective Woller took out a pad and pen, like a reporter.
“I’m going to need your name, sir.”
“No, you won’t,” I said, continuing to look out at the marshal.
I heard the guy exhale in frustration. He stayed quiet for a few seconds, strategizing. Then, by the nature of his next question, he took a chance.
“My information is that you were in the area last night, sir,” he finally said, mustering some authority to his voice. “Witnesses said you were sneaking through the neighborhood and that you were visiting the people who lived in this trailer shortly before the fire.”
“Witnesses?” I said. “You mean a twelve-year-old who was doing her homework in the dark by candlelight while the boyfriend was beating the shit out of her mom inside?”
Given that I hadn’t turned toward him, I couldn’t see the open mouth of the detective, or the regathering of his face.
“Were you in that trailer last night, or weren’t you?” Woller said, the tone of authority changing to pissed off. “In my experience, sir, arsonists like to come back and observe their handiwork. Maybe you’d like to take a trip with me to the station, and we can talk there?”
I had to admire the guy’s persistence even in the light of the fact that I’d already mentioned my lawyer. He was questioning me without arrest or Miranda.
“In your experience? Does that mean you worked for ATF before you became a sheriff’s detective?” I said. “Because it’s ATF that investigates most incidences of arson down here. Or did you get that bit about the perp coming back to the scene of the crime from CSI Miami?”
This time, I turned and looked into Woller’s face and saw his lips go into a solid line and his left hand reach behind his back, where I assumed his belt held his handcuffs. He kept the right hand free, hovering above the clip-
