Burned houses remind me of dead bodies. There?s the same feeling of senseless waste, of life extinguished. Family homes are the worst. Stumbling over a charred doll or a half-burned photo album always brings a sharp pang of sadness, the knowledge that apart from life itself, talismans of the past are our true treasures.
Ben Li?s house is not like that. A modest wood-frame structure on Park Place, near Duncan Park, it burned nearly to the ground before the fire department arrived. According to Chief Logan, the fire chief has no doubt that it was arson. The house must have been filled with accelerants to have gone up so fast.
In the hazy blue light of dawn, smoke still rises from the charred wood beneath the brick piers that once supported the house. It?s 6:15 a.m., but the older people in the neighborhood are already up and moving, getting their papers or walking their dogs. A few have strolled up to the house to stare at the ruin, as people do. One guy even picked through the wreckage as though hunting for souvenirs, until I chased him away.
I'm here because sometime during the night, in that semicomatose state between sleep and wakefulness, the one true epiphany of this case came to me. I don'?t know why I didn't think of it sooner?probably because I was so focused on the stolen USB drive?but perhaps also because the tension generated by Caitlin?s kidnapping
was blocking me. But after her return last night, some tightly wrapped coil of stress must have let go, for a chain of logical thought rose out of my subconscious as effortlessly as a string of bubbles seeking the surface of a lake.
Jonathan Sands hired Ben Li because he was a computer expert. Tim Jessup believed that Li had maintained some sort of ?insurance? to protect himself from his employers, probably sensitive data. When I first heard Tim say this?in the voice memo he made before he died?I assumed that Li would have hidden whatever data he had on some remote digital server, accessible only by himself or someone with the password. I also assumed that Li?s instruction to ?ask the birds? about this somehow related to such a password, and that if Ben Li kept cockatoos, maybe they could speak the required phrase or numbers. Sands and Quinn almost certainly made the same assumption. But if the birds could speak the password, they did not do so for Sands. If they had, he would not have felt the need to burn down Ben Li?s house.
More to the point, last night, during Caitlin?s periods of fitful sleep, she told me something of her captivity with Linda Church. Through the rapes and abuse Linda suffered, Quinn had kept after her about one subject: Ben Li?s birds. While torturing Li in the interrogation room in the bowels of the
Sands and Quinn had asked him about anything incriminating he might have stored off the boat. Li had still been under the influence of whatever drugs Tim had given him, and was half-delirious, but in that state he had babbled something to the effect of ?The birds know! Ask the birds!?
I haven'?t come to Ben Li?s house because I?'ve figured out his password. I?'ve come because I believe there
no password. There never was. A computer wizard like Li would know that every movement through cyberspace leaves digital footprints as surely as a man walking through snow. And Li couldn'?t be sure that he was the only computer wizard working for Sands. If Ben Li wanted to keep sensitive data to protect himself from his criminal employers, he would have wanted it close to hand, where he could reassure himself it was safe any time he felt nervous, and probably to add to it as more incriminating data fell within his grasp. As a prosecutor, I saw this kind of behavior all the time. Hoarding secrets is a primal human instinct.
Jonathan Sands obviously came to the same conclusion sometime yesterday and, being unable to locate the data, decided on a scorched-earth policy. But why did he assume that Li?s insurance would be inside the house? Li might have buried it, not knowing that water finds its way into even the most tightly sealed containers left underground. I can?t even recall all the ruined caches of contraband I saw as an ADA: documents, photographs, cash, drugs, bloody clothing, body parts?literally everything imaginable.
And so?as the sun rose, I stood here in the smoking ruins, trying to open myself to inspiration. I?'ve searched the yard and found no sign of recent digging, as Kelly predicted, having already done the same himself. The only trees in the backyard have high limbs, and Ben Li seems to have had no ladder.
I'm about ready to surrender and walk back to my car when a vaguely familiar man in his early fifties approaches me from the adjoining yard. He smiles as he walks toward me, holding up a hand to show he doesn?'t mean to bother me.
?Mayor Cage?? he says. ?Bobby DeWitt.?
I hesitate for a moment, trying to place the name, but the man does look familiar. ?I played ball at the public school,? he says, ?about eight years ahead of you. I saw some of your games out at St. Stephen?s. Y?all had a good team.?
Now I remember him?a tight end.
?So did you guys,? I tell him, shaking his hand firmly. ?State championship, right??
?Yeah, we won the Shrimp Bowl, but that was a long time ago.?
DeWitt looks over at the ruined house. ?Terrible, ain?t it? For a while we thought it might spread to our place, but we were lucky. I wet our roof down with my pressure washer, and that saved us, I reckon.?
?That'?s good. Did you know the kid who lived here at all??
?Ben? Naw. He kept to hisself most of the time. Hardly ever left the house. For a long time, I didn't even know what he did for a living. Wasn?t hardly no furniture in that place. Just some glass tables with computers on ?em. A big old beanbag chair, and one of them futon things in the back. And the birdcages, of course. He had them two parrots.?
?You?d been inside the house, then??
?Oh, yeah, I fixed a busted pipe for him one time. He was a nice kid. Real quiet. Might?ve been into drugs a little. I thought I smelled some pot a couple of times. But, hey, that?s his business. He wasn'?t hurtin? nobody.?
I look back at the pipes sticking out of the soggy ground, wondering if broken pipes could somehow be a clue to Ben Li?s hiding place.
?Did you ever hear the parrots talk??
DeWitt laughs. ?Shit, they talked all the time.?
?What did they say??
?Lines from old movies, mostly. Humphrey Bogart?type stuff. One of ?em always said, ?I'?ll be back,? like in
?
?Really,? I say, trying to guess if this might have some meaning.
?Yeah,? DeWitt says in a reflective tone. ?Ben was shy all right. About the only person he ever talked to was old Mrs. Bassett, who lives in that house yonder. Widow woman.?
?Which one?? I ask.
?Back behind that fence there.? DeWitt points to a weathered board fence shrouded by overhanging limbs.
?What did those two have in common, I wonder??
DeWitt laughs. ?Don?t know. I think they just got to talkin? by the fence one day and took a shine to each other. Mrs. Bassett?s about half-blind, and she has arthritis so bad, she can?t hardly do for herself no more. I think Ben felt sorry for her. He used to go over there and help take care of her bird feeders and stuff.?
Two seconds after the word
leaves DeWitt?s lips, my mouth goes dry. ?What bird feeders? Like hummingbird feeders??
?Well, yeah. She?s got all kinds of birdbaths and feeders and stuff over there. Ben even climbed up in that tree back there and fixed her birdhouse for her. A martin house, you know? He brought it down to his place, fixed it, hand-painted it?the whole works. Then he remounted it on the pole for her.?
I'm trying to remain calm, but even DeWitt can see my excitement. ?How did he get up there? I don'?t see a ladder.?
?He borrowed my extension ladder.?
?Would you mind if I borrowed it for a minute??
?Hell, no. I'?ll get it for you. You want to look at that birdhouse?? He looks puzzled, but not particularly bothered,
