7th Heaven

Grayson turned his fury on Jacobi. “You can’t talk to my son unless I’m with him. I know the law.”

“Save it, Mr. Grayson,” Jacobi growled. “Your imbecile son is under arrest for using and dealing, and I haven’t talked to him about the drugs at all.”

The lawyer’s name was Sam Farber, and from his business card I gathered that he had a one-man practice doing wills and real estate closings.

“I’m telling you and you and you,” Jacobi said, pointing his finger at the kid, his father, and the lawyer in turn. “I’ll lobby the DA on Ronald’s behalf if he helps us with the fire. That’s our only interest in him right now.”

“My client is a good Samaritan,” Farber said, dragging up a chair, squaring his leather briefcase with the edge of the table before opening it. “His father was with him when he made the call to 911. That’s all he had to do with it, end of story.”

“Mr. Farber, we all know that the person who calls in the fire has to be cleared of setting it,” I said. “But Ronald hasn’t convinced us that he had nothing to do with it.”

“Go ahead, Ron,” said Farber.

Ron Grayson’s eyes slid across mine and up to the camera in the corner of the room. He mumbled, “I was in the car with my dad. I smelled smoke. I told Dad which way to drive. Then I saw the fire coming out of that house. I dialed 911 on my cell and reported it. That’s all.”

“What time was this?”

“It was ten thirty.”

“Mr. Grayson, I asked your son.”

“Look. My son was sitting next to me in the car! The guy at the gas station can vouch for Ronnie. They cleaned the windshields together.”

“Ronnie, did you know the Malones?” I asked.

“Who?”

“The people who lived in the house.”

“Never heard of them.”

“Did you see anyone leaving the house?”

“No.”

“Ever been to Palo Alto?”

“I’ve never been anywhere in Mexico.”

“Do you have enough, Inspectors?” Farber said. “My client has cooperated fully.”

“I want to take a look at his room,” I said.

Chapter 24

SHRINKS SAY THAT ARSON is a masculine sexual metaphor; that setting the fire is the arousal phase, the blaze itself is the consummation, and the hoses putting out the blaze are the release. It may be true, because almost all arsonists are male, and half of them are teenage boys.

Jacobi and I left young Ronnie Grayson in lockup and returned to the Grayson house with Ron’s father. We parked again in the driveway of the small house, wiped our feet on the welcome mat, and said hello to Grayson’s mother, who looked frightened and eager to please. We turned down an offer of coffee, then excused ourselves so that we could thoroughly search Ronald Grayson’s bedroom.

I had a few objects in mind, specifically a reel of fishing line, fire accelerant, and anything that looked like it had belonged to the Malones.

Ronnie’s dresser was of the hand-me-down Salvation Army kind: chipped wood, four big drawers and two small ones. There was a lamp on the top surface, some peanut jars full of coins, a pile of scratched-off lottery tickets, a car magazine, and a red plastic box holding the kid’s orthodontic retainer. There was a night-light in the socket near the door.

Jacobi grunted as he tipped the mattress over, then took the drawers from the dresser and systematically dumped them onto the box springs of Ronnie’s bed. The search resulted in a half-dozen girlie magazines, a small bag of pot, and a crusty pipe. Then we opened his closet and upended his hamper of dirty laundry.

We examined it all, the tighty-whiteys, the jeans, and the dirty socks, all smelling of sweat and youth, but not of gasoline or smoke. I looked up to see that Vincent Grayson was now watching from the doorway.

“We’re almost done here, Mr. Grayson,” I said, smiling. “We just need a sample of Ronnie’s handwriting.”

“Here,” Grayson said, picking up a spiral notebook from the stack of books on the night table.

I opened the notebook and could see without having to turn it over for handwriting analysis that Ron Grayson’s elaborate, artsy lettering was not a match for the Latin inscription I’d seen on the flyleaf of the book of poetry left on the Malones’ stairs. Ron Grayson had a solid alibi, and I had to reluctantly accept that he’d told us the truth. But what bothered me about this boy, more than his being a smart-ass punk with a drug habit, was that he hadn’t asked about the Malones.

Was it because he’d lied about knowing them?

Or because he just didn’t care?

“What about my son?”

“He’s all yours,” said Jacobi over his shoulder just before he slammed the screen door on his march out of the house.

I said to Grayson, “Ron will be in your custody until he’s arraigned on the coke charge, and we’ll speak to the DA on his behalf like we said we’d do.

“But I’d ground Ronnie, if I were you, Mr. Grayson. He’s breaking the law and doing business with criminals. If he were my son, I wouldn’t let him out of my sight for a minute.”

Chapter 25

FOR THE NEXT FOUR HOURS, Jacobi and I rang doorbells in the Malones’ neighborhood, badging the rich and richer, scaring them brainless with the questions we asked. Rachel Savino, for instance, lived next door to the Malones in a sprawling Mediterranean-style house. She was an attractive brunette of about forty, wearing tight slacks, a tighter blouse, the break in the tan line on her ring finger telling me she was a recent divorcee.

She wouldn’t let us inside her door.

Savino eyed my dusty blue trousers, man-tailored shirt, and blazer, and did a double take when she noticed my shoulder holster. She barely acknowledged Jacobi. I guess we didn’t look like residents of Presidio Heights. So Jacobi and I stood on her terra-cotta steps while her pack of corgis jumped and yelped around us.

“Have you ever seen this young man?” I asked, showing her a Polaroid of Ronald Grayson.

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Have you seen anyone hanging around or driving by who may have seemed out of place in the neighborhood?” asked Jacobi.

“ Darwin! Shut up! I don’t think so, no.”

“Any kids or cars that don’t belong here? Anyone ring your bell who seemed out of place? Any suspicious phone calls or deliveries?”

No. No. No.

And now she was asking questions. What about the fire at the Malones’? Was it an accident as she had assumed? Were we suggesting that it was deliberately set?

Had the Malones been murdered?

Jacobi said, “We’re just doing an investigation, Ms. Savino. No need to get your bowels in an -”

I cut him off. “What about your dogs?” I asked. “Did they set up any kind of an uproar last night at around ten thirty?”