Victor Methos - Arsonist

Gunn was shouting something but he couldn’t hear what it was. Then he started waving his arms. Gunn cupped his hands over his mouth and Stanton could barely make him out. He was saying, “Almost there.”

Stanton braced himself but because the ground was so dark he couldn’t anticipate when he would land. By the time he realized he was just barely off the ground, he had only enough time to bend his knees and hit the ground hard. He tumbled head over heels several times and lay flat on his back, his breathing heavy and labored, as Gunn awkwardly unbuckled and rolled next to him.

They both collapsed and Gunn was yelling for some reason.

“How was it?” Gunn said. “No, don’t tell me. Words just fuck things up.”

They sat for several minutes, watching the stars, when Stanton said, “Why?”

“Her dad. He was executed in Texas for murder. They think now that maybe he was innocent. Guess what the crime he was accused of was?”

Stanton didn’t have to guess. He knew it the moment Gunn had said it: it was arson.

Stanton lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Though it was well past two in the morning, he couldn’t sleep. The rush of skydiving was still with him and he could hear the wind in his ears. His heart would start pounding again for no reason and he would get butterflies in his stomach. Also, his head and his back ached from the landing and he thought he had injured his knee.

He tried to sleep but the fatigue would only wash over him for so long before he would wake and stare at the ceiling again. He turned on some music, soft jazz, and drank a glass of warm milk.

It was eight in the morning when his cell phone woke him from a brief sleep. He was exhausted and thought about just turning it off, but decided to check. He was always worried about getting that call from his ex saying something was wrong with his boys.

The caller ID on his phone said, “NATHAN SELL.”

“This is Stanton.”

“Jon, it’s Nate, man. Get your ass up, I got something for you.”

“What is it?”

“Got a call about a homicide up here in Old Town. I was gonna work it when someone mentioned that it was similar to something you got.”

“What is it?”

“Fire.”

Stanton’s heart dropped. “Is it a family?”

“Yeah, man. Six damn kids and mom and dad. Fucking believe that?”

“What made them think homicide?”

“One of the uniforms used to be a lab tech and smelled an accelerant. He called it in. I got Benny comin’ out in a few hours.”

“I’ll be right down.”

Stanton wrote the address on his palm and then quickly put it into Google Maps on his iPhone. He got dressed without showering or shaving and was out the door in less than ten minutes.

The freeway was relatively clear and he got up to Old Town quickly. He turned music on, a classical station, but couldn’t concentrate on it so he turned it off.

The neighborhood was a mass of fire engines, police cruisers, neighbors, and several ambulances. The ME’s van was parked up on the sidewalk and there was an SUV with the words “CSI” emblazoned on the side parked behind it. Stanton came to a stop near the police tape before getting out.

Nathan Sell was tall and lean. He stood in a gray suit on the sidewalk, watching the men work the house. Homicide detectives could do little at suspected arson sites, but they had to be there supervising the work. Someone’s butt had to be on the line if something went wrong.

“You got anything?” Stanton said, walking up to him.

“Not a damn thing. The temperature got so hot most of the jewelry in the bedroom’s melted. The bodies…there’s not much left.”

“I need to see them.”

“Have at it.”

Stanton walked up the driveway. Nothing was left of the house but a few pieces of the frame and a half-melted shed in the back. He found a tech’s bag near where the front door had been and placed booties on his feet before going in.

The walls had been completely burned away and he could see the remnants of the family. Eight blackened skeletons huddled together in the living room. Nothing was surrounded them like the prior scene; nothing that indicated they had been tied together. The father, or what Stanton guessed had been the father, had his arms around the younger children, trying to protect them from the flames.

Stanton turned away and walked out.

“Well?” Nathan said.

“It’s the same. The same person did this.”

Nathan shook his head. “Some days, I wish I’d gone to business school like my mama told me to.”

A van pulled up; Channel 4 News, the NBC affiliate. A leggy blond stepped out of the passenger side and an overweight guy with a Chargers cap jumped out of the driver’s side and they met up with another man who came out of the back. They gathered some equipment, the second man held a mirror for the blond to check her make-up, and they ducked under the police tape.

“Fucking vultures,” Nathan said, stepping toward them.

“No,” Stanton said. “I want them here.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, I need to talk to them.”

“Your ass.”

Stanton walked over. He knew the blond. She had been to several crime scenes over the past six months and was aggressive. Many reporters were in your face but she went about it the right way, waiting until everyone had cleared out before hitting detectives up one-on-one with the tough questions.

“Detective Stanton,” she said, a smile on her face, “you got a quote for me other than ‘no comment’ or ‘get behind the tape’?”

“How about I want to give you an exclusive interview?”

“I’d say you want something in return. Sorry, I got a boyfriend, although you are cute,” she said, rubbing his chest with her fingers.

“What I want is much simpler: I want this to be breaking news on Channel 4 right now, and on every broadcast today.”

“I can’t do that. It’s the producer that makes-”

“Your name’s Katherine, right?”

“Yeah, Katherine Blank.”

“Katherine, we could both sit here and try to convince the other that our hands are tied on all the things we want to do and that the orders are coming down from on high, but we both know that’s garbage. This is my scene and I can do what I want with it. This is your segment and you can do what you want. The producer won’t fight you on it.”

She smiled. “I always thought you were smarter than you looked. Okay, lemme make a call.”

Stanton waited while she took out her cell phone and spoke in hushed tones with someone on the other end. He turned away from the scorched house and looked across the street. The home there had a bicycle in the driveway and several toys on the lawn. A toddler came out with her mother and the mother was forcing her to pick up her toys. It made Stanton smile and he forgot for a moment what he was doing. When the mother saw all the vehicles and the smoking ruins of her neighbor’s house, she quickly grabbed the child and went back inside.

“All right, Detective,” Katherine said. “You got a deal.”

“Okay, you ready?”

“One sec.”

They checked her make-up again and then sound and visual. The cameraman indicated he was ready and the assistant that had checked her make-up was now standing behind him, watching nervously. There was a mic in Katherine’s ear, hardly more than a clear bit of plastic, and she was nodding along to a conversation somewhere else as if everyone could hear it.

“That’s right, Christopher, I’m here at the scene right now with Detective Jonathan Stanton of the San Diego Police Department Homicide Unit and we’re looking at what was once a beautiful two story home on La Brea Drive and what, as you can see, is just ashes now.” She turned to him. “Now, Detective, it’s early in the case but the fact that the Homicide Unit has sent someone-I think we can safely assume that the police department believes this to be a homicide.”