“I have some papers in the freezer.”
Reimer didn’t look up. “Next time, invest in a fire-proof safe.”
“Okay… do you think we could see whether they survived?”
“When I get there.”
Reimer wasn’t in any particular hurry. His doggedness probably made him a good arson investigator. Single-minded, not easily shaken from the trail. Zachary was starting to get cold. The building kept out the chilly wind, but he needed somewhere with a furnace or heater to get warmed back up again. He’d been gradually losing heat all afternoon.
After a long time in the living room, the epicenter of the damage, Reimer finally moved on. He looked into the bedroom, where the damage was not as bad.
“Where were you sleeping? In here?”
“No. In the living room.”
Reimer stared off into space. Zachary tried to read his expression and figure out what he was thinking. Eventually, Reimer spoke. “That’s one audacious arsonist. Lighting a fire with you in the room? Arsonists normally stay far away from people. They light buildings on fire. Not people. Normally unoccupied buildings, but occasionally they will be bold enough to set a building they know is occupied on fire. When they do, they light the far end, furthest from the occupants. Not in the same room.”
He stared off into space some more.
“What does that mean?” Zachary asked finally. “What does that tell you?”
“Most arsonists are firebugs first and murderers second. I think this arsonist is the opposite. I think he was a murderer who took the opportunity to light a fire to achieve his ends. I don’t think we’re going to find a serial arsonist involved here. This may be his first arson, which means that he’s more likely to have made mistakes and left evidence.”
Zachary nodded. “That makes sense, since he didn’t put a bomb or incendiary device in the car. He cut the brake lines.”
“Right,” Reimer agreed curtly.
Zachary waited while Reimer made his way around the bedroom. When he was done, he looked up. “You wanted to look in the freezer.”
“Yes.”
Reimer went to the kitchen, and again surveyed the area as a whole rather than going directly to the fridge. He played the light on the floor and the counters, moving slowly and deliberately. Finally, he made his way to the fridge and opened the freezer door with a gloved finger.
As Lawson had suggested, everything was melted and starting to go bad. A foul, sour smell crept out into the apartment, and murky water dripped down the front of the fridge. Reimer shone his flashlight around the interior of the freezer.
“Where were these papers?”
“They might be under something. They were in a plastic zip-bag.” Zachary craned his neck to see over Reimer’s shoulders and around his head. “Check… under that pizza box.”
The box was, of course, sopping wet and tore when Reimer attempted to move it out of the way. He moved the few items in Zachary’s freezer around, and both of them could see that there was no plastic bag in the freezer.
“You’re sure you left them in here?” Reimer asked. “You didn’t change your mind and put them in a safe deposit box? Or give them to a friend to hold? Those are far safer methods than keeping important documents in your freezer.”
Zachary felt the sting of criticism. “Yes, I’m sure. I don’t have a safe deposit box or a fireproof safe, or anyone that I could have left the papers with. I put them in a zip bag in the freezer.”
Reimer shook his head. “Not there now. What papers?”
“My birth certificate. Copies of my credit cards. Important phone numbers if my wallet was stolen. Or burnt to a crisp.”
“They’re not here.”
“Can I look?”
Reimer stepped back and allowed Zachary to step in. He didn’t have any gloves on, and the frigid water immediately made his fingers numb. He pushed the thawed goods around the freezer, sure that the bag must just have gotten wedged between them, or crumpled up in the back of the freezer, but the whole time he was looking, his heart sank. They weren’t there. Whoever had come into his apartment had not only stolen or burned all the papers on his desk, but they had also taken the documents from the freezer.
“Why would anyone take those? They aren’t of any use to anyone except me!”
“Identity theft?” Reimer suggested.
“But what would be the point of that? You don’t go into someone’s apartment while they’re sleeping and steal their identity and set their apartment on fire! If all you wanted to do was steal their identity, you wouldn’t want to alert them to that fact by setting the apartment on fire. If it wasn’t for the fire, it might have been months before I realized that those papers weren’t in the freezer anymore.”
Reimer grunted. “Maybe it has been months. Maybe they were taken out of there a long time ago. You don’t have any evidence that it was during the fire.”
“No… it hasn’t been that long… I’ve seen them the last couple of weeks. They were stolen during the fire!”
“You want motives, talk to a psychologist. I can help with basic arsonist psychological profiles, but this guy wasn’t a firebug. This was something else. He wanted…” Reimer considered, shaking his head, brows drawn down. “This guy wanted to erase you. I don’t know. Talk to a psychologist. You’re sure there wasn’t anything in those papers that was connected with one of the cases you were on? The case that the perp keeps telling you to drop?”
Zachary thought about the contents of the bag and shook his head. It wouldn’t be of any use to anyone, except to assume his identity. His identity didn’t have anything to do with any of the cases he was investigating. He wasn’t an important feature in any of the cases. They were all about other people. It was professional. Not personal.
Zachary called Kenzie from Reimer’s phone. She was getting off work and agreed to pick him up at the apartment building. He still didn’t know what he was
