Rogue Island

60

Three TV news vans were double-parked in front of the station, and a welcoming committee of cameras and microphones waited on the front steps. Reporters started shouting questions the moment I was yanked from the prowl car. Logan Bedford pushed his way to the front of the pack and hollered:

“Why did you do it?”

Do what?

The uniforms pulled me by the arms into the station, bulled me into an elevator, and dragged me to a second-floor interrogation room. I was in too much pain to tell them how much pain I was in. A cop put his hands on my shoulders and shoved me down onto a straight metal chair. Then they left, slamming the door on the way out. Through a little window in the door, I could see that one of them had stayed behind to stand guard. Apparently I was an escape risk.

By the pattern of cigarette burns on the table, I could tell this was the same room where I had told Polecki about the little thug. I’d been sitting there in handcuffs for nearly an hour, savoring the aroma of old sweat and stale cigarettes, when Polecki and Roselli walked in grinning like idiots. My ribs ached and my arms were numb from elbows to fingertips.

“How about taking these things off?”

“Nah,” Polecki said. “You ought to wear steel more often. Looks good on you.”

“Yeah,” Roselli said, “and you’re gonna look even better in stripes.”

“They don’t wear stripes at the state prison no more,” Polecki said.

“Maybe Mulligan could be a trendsetter and bring them back,” Roselli said.

“Are you done,” I said, “or have you got some fresh material about bending over for the soap?”

“I’m done,” Polecki said. He turned to his dumber half. “You?”

“I got nothin’.”

“So, Mulligan,” Polecki said, “You doing drugs now?”

He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a plastic evidence bag, and tossed it on the table. My vial of pills was inside.

“Read the label, asshole. It’s a prescription.”

“Yeah?” Polecki said. “Then you won’t mind if we call this Doctor Brian Israel, make sure it’s all on the up- and-up.”

“This is why you dragged me in here?”

“Oh, no,” Polecki said. “There’s more.”

“Let me tell him,” Roselli said.

“We’ll take turns,” Polecki said. “Why don’t you start by reading him his rights?”

Roselli pulled a well-thumbed card from his pocket and started the spiel. Watch a few TV police dramas and you can recite Miranda backwards, but Roselli still needed that card.

“Now, then,” Polecki said, “I’m so glad you could come in for this little chat.”

“Yeah,” Roselli said. “Good of you to drop by.”

“Anything you want to confess before we get started?” Polecki said.

“Save us all a lot of time,” Roselli said.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I have fornicated a thousand times since my last confession.”

“In the old days,” Polecki said, “this would be the part where I slug you with a phone book.”

“But we don’t do that so much anymore,” Roselli said.

Both took a moment now to sip coffee from paper cups. They didn’t offer me any.

“You know what a criminal profile is, Mulligan?” Polecki said.

I didn’t say anything.

“The FBI’s real good at them,” Roselli said. “You give them the details of a crime, and they come back with a description of the perp, right down to the size of his dick.”

“So last week,” Polecki said, “the boys and girls at Quantico took a few hours off from chasing ragheads to work up a profile of our serial arsonist.”

He pulled something out of his jacket pocket and slapped it on the table—a few typewritten sheets of paper stapled together. It had to be notes he’d taken talking to an agent on the phone. The bureau never puts its profiles in writing. They don’t want defense lawyers using them as exculpatory evidence if they turn out to be wrong.

“Perhaps you’d like to look it over,” Polecki said. “Oh, wait. With your hands cuffed behind your back, how are you going to turn the pages?”

“That is a problem,” Roselli said.

“We could uncuff him,” Polecki said.

“Let’s not,” Roselli said.

“I know,” Polecki said. “Why don’t we summarize it for him?”

“I’ll start,” Roselli said. “According to the FBI, our arsonist is in his late twenties to late thirties.”

“You’re thirty-nine, right, Mulligan?” Polecki said.

“He lives alone,” Roselli said.

“Like Mulligan,” Polecki said.

“He drives an old, beat up SUV,” Roselli said, “probably a Chevy Blazer or a Ford Bronco.”

“Mulligan’s Bronco is a piece of shit,” Polecki said.

“He’s in pretty good physical condition,” Roselli said.

“Sort of like Mulligan,” Polecki said.

“Otherwise,” Roselli said, “he wouldn’t be able to lug five-gallon gasoline cans around and slip in and out of cellar windows.”

“But he’s got some kind of nagging illness,” Polecki said. “Didn’t we hear that Mulligan has an ulcer?”

“The fires are meticulously planned, with little evidence left behind,” Roselli said, “so we’re looking for an organized killer with a high IQ.”

“You’re a smart guy, right, Mulligan?” Polecki said.

“He has an unhealthy attitude toward authority figures,” Roselli said.

“Might even stoop to calling them names, like ‘Dumb and Dumber,’ ” Polecki said.

“He likes to cruise around at night in his Blazer or Bronco scouting for opportunities to set more fires,” Roselli said.

“Hey,” Polecki said. “Didn’t we hear something about Eddie pulling Mulligan over in Mount Hope late one night?”

“After he sets the fires, he likes to stand around and watch them burn,” Roselli said. “But he’s smart, so he’ll have a plausible excuse for why he’s there.”

“Like, say, reporting for the newspaper,” Polecki said.

“He’ll find a way to insinuate himself into the police investigation,” Roselli said.

“Maybe even implicate an innocent person like Wu Chiang or invent a phony suspect like a little thug to throw us off the track,” Polecki said.

“He has difficulty maintaining relationships with the opposite sex,” Roselli said.

“Say, how is Dorcas, anyway?” Polecki said.

And he’s fascinated by fire, I thought, remembering a snippet from my nighttime reading. But there was no way Polecki and Roselli could know that about me.

“And he’s fascinated by fire,” Roselli said.

“Yeah,” Polecki said. “What was it that Dorcas told us this morning?”

“That Mulligan is a fucking bastard.”

“I meant the other thing.”

“That he’s been mesmerized by fire ever since he watched the Capron Knitting Mill burn down fifteen years ago,” Roselli said.

Thank you, Dorcas, for finding another way to punish me.

Polecki lit a stogie with a paper match, held the flame in front of my face a moment, and then flicked it at me.

“So, Mulligan,” he said, “does this profile sound like anyone you know?”