She wasn’t ready for this. It was too soon.
Yuki dipped her head, avoided Twilly’s eyes as he reached out and tucked a glossy fall of her hair behind her ear.
Then, as if nothing had happened, he said, “The judge ruled the letter Joey wrote to her best friend inadmissible as hearsay, because a defendant, in this case Luke Flynn, had a right to confront his accuser.”
“Who was, unfortunately, dead,” Yuki said.
“Correct. But he allowed the testimony of Joey’s hairdresser. Luke’s lawyer put up a fight. Said the hairdresser’s testimony was also hearsay. The evidence went in anyway, and Luke was convicted.”
“That’s kind of amazing.”
“Bingo,” Jason said. “Luke’s lawyer appealed to the Tennessee State Supreme Court, and eight months later the conviction was overturned. As we speak, Luke Flynn is living in Louisville with his new wife and kids, making custom kitchen cabinets,” Twilly said. “As if Joey Flynn never happened.”
“So let me guess: the story fizzled out. And you had to either write the book or give back the advance,” Yuki said, starting to breathe normally again.
“Exactly. So I wrote Blue Northern, naming it after Joey’s song, and it bombed. But Malvo was a hit, and so was Rings on Her Fingers. And this book, the shocking story of the life and death of Michael Campion as told through the voice of the bewitching — oh, God, Yuki . . .”
Jason pulled Yuki to him and kissed her again, and when she resisted, when she said, “No, I can’t,” he held her tighter, until Yuki jumped up and pushed him away, putting the coffee table between them again.
Twilly’s face darkened. He was angry, and she understood: he’d read her libido, but not how much he was scaring her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just not —”
“Don’t be a sorry mouse, be a happy Jappy,” Twilly said, interrupting her. His lopsided smile was forced, and he stood, followed her into the middle of the room, reached for her again as she backed away.
Happy Jappy? What was wrong with him?
Yuki walked across the pale green carpet to the door, opened it, and said, “Good night, Jason.”
But Jason Twilly didn’t move.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he shouted. “You flirt with me, invite me back to your place, now — hey! Listen to me,” he said, advancing on Yuki, gripping her chin hard with his thumb and forefinger, wrenching her face toward him.
“I said no,” Yuki said, pulling out of his grip. “Now get out or I’m calling the police.”
“Crazy bitch,” he said, and smiling coldly, he dropped his hands to his sides.
Yuki’s heart galloped as Twilly walked slowly out of her apartment. She slammed the door shut behind him, bolted the lock, and leaned against the inside of her door until she heard the elevator door open and close at the end of the hallway. She went to the window and watched as Twilly stalked out of the Crest Royal and got into his car.
His tires squealed as his black Mercedes shot down Jones Street.
Chapter 54
AFTER A GENUINE PSYCHO KILLER had been arrested in her building, Cindy had thought of adopting a dog for protection. Pit bulls were outlawed in San Francisco, and Cindy didn’t want an attack dog or a lap dog, and so her pursuit of the perfect watchdog had ended at Seth on Sixth, the pet store around the corner.
Seth had said, “Take him. His name is Horndog.”
Horndog was a peach-and-white Moluccan cockatoo, a relative of the bird Robert Blake used to have in his TV series Baretta. But Horndog was no movie star. He sulked in his cage plucking feathers from his breast, lifting his head to squawk whenever the door to the pet shop opened.
“He’s depressed,” Seth said. “He needs a home. Anybody comes into your house, Horndog will let you know.”
So Horndog had been renamed Peaches, and now that he was living with Cindy he was no longer depressed. Visibly happier, he now perched on Cindy’s shoulder, chewing a pencil into wood chips and softly chuffing to himself. It took a week or two for Cindy to finally translate that muffled mutter; Peaches was saying, repeatedly, “Kill the bitch. Kill the bitch.”
“Pretty bird, pretty bird,” Cindy answered distractedly, sure that if she said it enough times, she could reprogram her bird.
Tonight Peaches and Cindy were at her computer in her home office. Cindy typed a series of key words into a search engine: “home fires fatalities,” “home fires fatalities Bay Area,” “home fires cause unknown.” But each time she pressed the enter key, too much information flooded her screen.
Cindy scratched the bird under its chin, refreshed her tea with hot water from the kettle, and went back to her desk. The clock icon in the bottom corner of her screen read 10:32 and she was still nowhere. She refined her search, typed “home fire wealthy couple.”
“It’s unreal, Peaches,” she said, as dozens of links appeared on her screen. “Too much information!”
Nearly all of the links led to the same fire, a house outside San Francisco that had been torched four years before. As Cindy scanned the articles, she remembered the story of the victims, Emil and Rosanne Christiansen, who had died before she was assigned to the crime desk.
Emil Christiansen had been the CFO of an office machine company that had been bought out by a computer company. The Christiansens had become instant multimillionaires. They’d moved out of the city to a woodsy setting up the coast. According to the articles, the house had burned down before firefighters could reach it, and the Christiansens had died.
The fire had been classified accidental by the firefighters at the scene, but when the couple’s son did an inventory of the remaining property, he reported that his father’s coin collection was missing and that his mother’s large emerald ring and a sapphire-and-diamond bracelet that was alone worth fifty thousand dollars were gone.
At the bottom of the last article was a quote from the arson investigator, who had told the reporter, “A candle tipped over, papers caught fire, the curtains went up, and so went the house. I haven’t found any trace of fire accelerant, so right now I can’t say if the fire was accidental or intentional.”
Cindy typed, clicked, followed the links, found the medical examiner’s report on the Christiansens. The ME had given the cause of death as smoke inhalation and the manner of death “undetermined based upon the fire marshal’s report.”
“Hey, Peaches. What about the missing jewels? Hmmmm?”
“Kill the bitch. Kill the bitch.”
Cindy’s mind churned with questions. The Christiansens had been robbed, so why, she wondered, had the arson investigator said he didn’t know if the fire was accidental or intentional? And here was a thought: Was it a coincidence that the arson investigator who worked the Christiansen fire was also working on both the Malone and Meacham homicides?
Cindy knew the investigator’s name because Lindsay had talked about him. His name was Chuck Hanni.
She put Peaches back into his cage and covered it. Then she got busy on the phone. First she called her editor.
Then she called Lindsay.
Chapter 55
THE GIRL WAS HEAVY.
She was sitting at the picnic table on campus, right outside the Jamba Juice Bar, facing White Plaza, sipping her Strawberry Whirl through a straw. She was wearing tent clothes: a long prairie skirt and a big red sweatshirt. Her skin was rough and her hair was mousy, and she was, in fact, perfect.
Hawk lifted an eyebrow in her direction. Pidge nodded. They walked over to the picnic table and took seats, Hawk sitting next to the girl, Pidge sitting opposite.
Hawk made a phone with his thumb and pinkie.
“Ba-rinnng,” he said, making a telephone ring tone.
“Hal-lo,” Pidge said, answering the call with his own thumb-and-pinkie phone.
“Pidge. You get outta here, man. I saw her first.”
“But I like her better, dude. I told you how much I like this woman.”
The girl looked up, puzzl
ed by the conversation going on around her. She looked at Hawk, sitting to her left, turned her head, and looked at Pidge. Then she dropped her gaze back to her laptop, where she was blogging an entry in MySpace.
“I don’t think she likes either of us, dude,” Hawk said into his phone. “You think she’s a snob?”
“Let me talk to her,” Pidge said. He put his “receiver” down on the table, said to the girl, “Hi. I’m Pidge. I’m a senior. Computer sciences.” He pointed to the Gates Building. “My buddy wants to ask you out, but I was telling him that even though he saw you first, I like you better.”
“Yeah, yeah,” the girl said. “I’m sure you’re not just playing me. Some kind of goof you’re doing with each other.”
Hawk reached out, touched the girl’s forearm. “Ow, that really hurts. You’ve got us wrong,” Hawk said. “I saw you in the library, don’t you remember? I’m not that good at meeting a girl by myself.”
“That’s the truth,” Pidge said. “Hawk’s shy. I’m just helping out as his wingman. But when I saw you just now, I thought — and this is the truth now — you’re more my type than his.”
“What kind of type is that?” the girl asked, warming now to the attention. Herds of bikes whizzed by. The smell of bread baking at Subway floated over the plaza. The sun warmed the top of her head. It was a beautiful day, and now it had gotten better.
“You’re creative, right? I have a feeling that you must be creative. You’re a writer, I’ll bet.”
“I’m in hum bio.”
“Human biology? Cool,” said Hawk. “Actually, I’m a writer. What’s your name?”
“Kara. Kara Lynch.”
“I’m Hawk, Kara Lynch. This is my friend Pidge.”
“What do you write?” she asked Hawk.
“Pidge and I are working together on a novel,” said Hawk. “May I get you another one of those?” he asked. “Strawberry Whirl?”
“Yes. Thanks, Hawk,” Kara said, smiling.
When Hawk left, Pidge leaned across the table, said to the girl, “Seriously, Kara. He’s not your type. Sure, he’s a fuzzy, but I’m a computer genius. Top of my class. If I told you my real name, you’d recognize it. But look, when Hawk gets back, you’ve got to be ready to choose. Either you’ve got to step up and ask Hawk out. Or you’ve got to ask me.
“It’s got to be one or the other, so that the two of us don’t fight. That wouldn’t be good. That would be cruel.”
Kara shifted her eyes to Hawk as he came back to the table with the smoothie. Kara thanked him, then said, “I was thinking, Hawk, maybe we could hang out sometime.”
Hawk smiled. “Oh, wow, Kara. And I was just thinking you’re much more Pidge’s type than mine. He’s famous at Gates. You’d never forgive yourself if you turned him down.”
Kara turned dubiously to Pidge. He rewarded her with a blinding smile. “You have to step up, Kara,” he said.
“Uh-huh. Kiss my ass,” she said, blushing, putting her eyes back on her laptop.
Pidge said, “I can’t do that, Kara. Hawk saw you first.” He laughed.
“Ba-rinnng,” Hawk said.
“Hal-lo?”
“Like either one of us would go out with a fat slob like her,” Hawk said, making sure he said it loud so that Kara and the students at the other picnic tables could hear him. The two boys laughed, made a big deal of holding their sides, falling off the benches to the ground.
Pidge recovered first. He stood and tousled Kara’s hair playfully. “Mea culpa, Kara mia,” he said. “Better luck next time.”
He took a bow as tears slid down her cheeks.
Chapter 56
CONKLIN PARKED OUR CAR on the narrow, tree-lined road in Monterey, a small coastal town two hours south of San Francisco. On my right, one wing of the three-story, wood-frame house remained untouched, while the center of the house had burned out to the framing timbers, the roof open to the blue sky like a silent scream.
Conklin and I pushed through the clumps of sidewalk gawkers, ducked under the barricade tape, and loped up the walk.
The arson investigator was waiting for us outside the front door. He was in his early thirties, over six feet tall, jangling the keys and change in his pocket. He introduced himself as Ramon Jimenez and gave me his card with his cell phone number printed on the back. Jimenez opened the fire department lock on the front door so we could enter the center of the house, and as the front door swung open we were hit with the smell of apples and cinnamon.
“Air freshener explosion,” Jimenez said. “The crispy critters were found in the den.”
As we followed Jimenez into the fire-ravaged shell, I thought about how some cops and firefighters use jargon to show that they’re tough — when in fact they’re horrified. Others do it because they get off on it. What kind of guy was Jimenez?
“Was the front door locked?” I asked him.
“No, and a neighbor called the fire in. Lots of people don’t bother to set their alarms around here.”
Broken glass crunched under my shoes and water lapped over the tops of them as I slogged through the open space, trying to get a sense of the victims’ lives from the remains and residue of their home. But my knack for fitting puzzle pieces together was blunted by the extent of the destruction. First the fire, then the water and the mop-up, left the worst kind of crime scene.
If there had been fingerprints, they were gone. Hair, fiber, blood spatter, footprints, receipts, notes — forget all of that. Unless a bomb trigger or trace of an accelerant was found, we couldn’t even be sure that this fire and the others we were investigating had been set by the same person.
The most conclusive evidence we had was the similarity of the circumstances surrounding this fire and those at the Malones’ and Meachams’ homes.
“The vics were a married couple, George and Nancy Chu,” Jimenez told us. “She was a middle school teacher. He was some kind of financial planner. They paid their taxes, were law-abiding, good neighbors, and so forth. No known connections with any bad guys. I can fax you the detectives’ notes from the canvass of the neighborhood.”
“What about the ME’s report?” I asked.
Conklin was splashing through the ruins behind me. He started up the skeletal staircase that still clung to the rear wall.
“The ME wasn’t called. Uh, the chief ruled the fire accidental. Nancy Chu’s sister had the funeral home pick up the bodies, ASAP.”
“The chief didn’t see cause to call the ME?” I shouted. “We’re looking at a string of fire-related, probable homicides in San Francisco.”
“Like I told you,” Jimenez said, staring me down with his dark eyes. “I wasn’t called either. By the time I got here, the bodies were gone and the house was boarded up. Now everyone’s yelling at me.”
“Who else is yelling?”
“You know him. Chuck Hanni.”
“Chuck was here?”
“This morning. We called him in to consult. He said you were working a couple of similar cases. And before you say I didn’t tell you, we might have a witness.”
Had I heard Jimenez right? There was a witness? I stared up at Jimenez and pinned some hope on the thought of a break in the case.
“Firefighters found the Chus’ daughter unconscious out on the lawn. She’s at St. Anne’s Children’s Hospital with an admitting carbon monoxide of seventeen percent.”
“She’s going to make it?”
Jimenez nodded, said, “She’s conscious now, but pretty traumatized. So far she hasn’t said a word.”
Chapter 57
A TELEPHONE RANG repeatedly in some corner of the second floor of George and Nancy Chu’s house. I waited out the sad, echoing bell tones before asking Jimenez the name and age of the Chus’ daughter.
“Molly Chu. She’s ten.”
I scribbled in my notebook, stepped around a mound of water-soaked rubble, and headed for the stairs. I called out to Rich, who was already starting down. Before I could tell him about Molly Chu, he showed
me a paperback book that he held by the charred edges.
Enough of the book cover remained so that I could read the title: Fire Lover, by Joseph Wambaugh.
I knew the book.
This was a nonfiction account of a serial arsonist who’d terrorized the state of California in the 1980s and ’90s. The blurb on the back cover recounted a scene of horror, a fire that had demolished a huge home improvement center, killing four people, including a little boy of two. While the fire burned, a man sat in his car, videotaping the images in his rearview mirror — the rigs pulling up, the firefighters boiling out, trying to do the dangerous and impossible, to knock down the inferno even as two other suspicious fires burned only blocks away.
The man in the car was an arson investigator, John Leonard Orr, a captain of the Glendale Fire Department.
Orr was well known and respected. He toured the state giving lectures to firefighters, helping law enforcement read the clues and understand the pathology of arsonists. And while he was traveling, John Orr set fires. He set the fire that had killed those four people. And because of his pattern of setting fires in towns where he was attending fire conferences, he was eventually caught.
He was tried, convicted, and stashed in a small cell at Lompoc for the rest of his life, without possibility of parole.
“Did you see this book?” Conklin asked Jimenez.
Jimenez shook his head no, said, “What? We’re looking for books?”
“I found it in the master bathroom between the sink and the toilet,” Conklin said to me.
The pages of the book were damp and warped, but it was intact. Incredibly, books rarely burn, because of their density and because the oxygen the fire needs for combustion can’t get between the pages. Still holding the book by the edges, Rich opened the cover and showed me the block letters printed with a ballpoint pen on the title page.