Don Winslow - California Fire And Life

He starts doing more and more coke. It makes him feel better. He buys art he can't sell and can't afford to keep, because it makes him feel better and it keeps up appearances. He spends cash on women who six months ago would have balled him for free. He gives them coke, he gives them art. They get him hard and he feels powerful again for a few minutes.

All the while his own wife is drinking like a fish, taking pills, and causing scenes at parties. ("How many people here have fucked my husband? A show of hands, please.") They get into fights, he knocks her around. His kids start looking at him like he's some sort of monster. He hits them once or twice. ("Don't you ever open your mouth to me.") He spends more and more nights away from home.

None of this escapes the attention of Tratchev, Rubinsky, and Schaller.

You listen closely at night, you can hear the wolves circling.

Pam goes to rehab and comes back a raving bitch.

Sober, and the first time Nicky lays a mitt on her she goes to the authorities and lays a TRO on him.

Gets his name in the court system.

I have stolen millions of dollars in this country, Nicky thinks. I have robbed and killed and stolen millions and this is the first time my name appears in court. And my wife does that to me.

My own wife.

Not for long.

Pam files for divorce.

"I told you I would kill you," Nicky says. "I mean it."

"I don't care," Pam says. "I can't live this way."

"If you leave, you leave the way you came. With nothing but some cheap dress on your ass."

"I don't think so," Pam says. "I'll take the children and the house and half of everything. I'll even take your precious furniture, Nicky."

It could happen, Nicky thinks. In this godforsaken country where a man has no rights. They'll give the drunken bitch the kids, they'll give her the house, they'll launch a fishing expedition through my finances that could prove not only costly but dangerous.

It would endanger the plan.

A plan of such simple elegance, such balanced design, such perfect symmetry that it only confirms in him his own sense of genius.

Crime as artful construction.

A plan that, if it works, will achieve his goal of the turnaround in one generation.

And Pamela could stop it.

Take his dream and his identity with it.

In a particularly cruel argument one night she snaps, "My son will not be a gangster."

No, he will not, Nicky thinks.

In despair, he goes to Mother.

Goes into her room in the small hours of the morning, sits on her bed and says, "Mother, I could lose — we could lose — everything."

"You have to do something, Daziatnik."

"What?"

"You know, Daziatnik," she says. She takes his face into her hands. "You know what you have to do."

Yes, I know, Nicky thinks as he lies back.

I know what I have to do.

Take back control of my organization.

Protect my family.

He's at home, taking a walk on the lawn when it hits him. He's looking down at Dana Strands, he's thinking about Great Sunsets, and the idea comes to him.

The perfect symmetry of it.

The beautiful balance.

Perfectly structured poetry, like the finest furniture.

Everything, all, in a master stroke.

He watches the sun set over Dana Strands.

More likely than not.

Is the phrase that's running through Jack's head as he sits in his cubicle.

More likely than not.

"More likely than not" is the phrase that applies to the standard of proof in civil cases. In criminal cases the standard of proof is "beyond a reasonable doubt" and the distinction is important to Jack's consideration of the Vale file.

If I deny the claim, Jack thinks, we will — far more likely than not — get sued. At the end of the trial the judge will instruct the jury as to the burden of proof, and he'll tell the jury that the critical question is, "Is it more likely than not that Mr. Vale either set the fire or caused the fire to be set?"

That's the way the law reads.

In reality it's far more complicated.

The civil burden of proof is "more likely than not," so technically, if it's even 51 percent to 49 percent that your guy did it, the jury should come back and find for the insurance company. That's the way it's supposed to work, but Jack knows that's not the way it does work.

How it does work is that the jury is perfectly aware that arson is a crime. No matter what the judge instructs them, they are not going to apply the civil standard, "more likely than not," as the burden of proof. They're going to apply the criminal standard — "beyond a reasonable doubt."

So Jack knows that if you're going to deny a claim based on arson you had better be damn sure that you can persuade a jury that your insured set the fire or caused it to be set… beyond a reasonable doubt.

So Jack asks himself, Is it more likely than not that Vale set the fire or caused it to be set?

Yes, it is more likely than not.

Beyond a reasonable doubt?

Jack takes out a piece of legal paper and a ruler and draws two straight lines down the paper, creating three columns. At the top of the columns he writes: INCENDIARY ORIGIN, MOTIVE, OPPORTUNITY.

Nicky's up to his ears in debt. He's about to lose the house. He has a balloon payment coming up and no apparent resources to pay it. He owes money to the feds and to the state. His companies are in trouble, too. He sells his beloved boat at a loss to try to get some cash. He has a bundle sunk into antique furniture, and, according to Vince Marlowe, he can't sell the furniture he wants to sell. But he doesn't even try to sell the pieces he's attached to. His wife is about to divorce him and that would split his meager resources at least in half.

Motive, Jack thinks, is a dead solid lock.

So motive is a win, opportunity is a push, incendiary origin is a comer.

Unless Accidentally Bentley hangs in with his cig-in-the-vodka theory.

Jack draws a dotted line down the center of each column, then alternates plus and minus signs so that each category of proof is divided into pros and cons.

When he finishes the chart, it looks like this:

INCENDIARY

ORIGIN

MOTIVE

OPPORTUNITY

+

–

+

–

+

— accelerant

Bentley mortgage doors locked alibi pour pattern cig/vodka balloon windows locked points of origin fuel load taxes distance to house

low income

dog outside

alligator char

annealed bed

divorce reconcile seen at 4:45 a.m. lied in statement hole in roof pebbled glass red flame contents?

Jack thinks about the chart for a few minutes, then draws a horizontal line across the bottom, subtitles the new section MURDER and starts again.

INCENDIARY ORIGIN

MOTIVE

OPPORTUNITY

+

–

+

–

+

— all above plus: no smoke in Lungs carboxyhemo-globin pugilistic cig/vodka alcohol + CO location of body all above plus hatred? all above alibi no witness

Okay, Jack tells himself. Take the arson first. Start with incendiary origin. What are your three strongest points? ("The Rule of Three," Billy says. "Always try to present your evidence in sets of three. It's the way juries like to hear it. It's always a minister, a priest, and a rabbi in the rowboat")

So what are my three strongest points? Well, the positive char samples make bullshit of Bentley's cigarette-in-the-vodka hypothesis. So that would be number one. Number two? The pour pattern — there's no way to reconcile that with an accidental fire. Number three? Multiple points of origin. Again, inconsistent with an accidental fire.

Now, what are the points against?

The counterargument is that certain contents in the room might have burned "hot," leaving an erroneous implication of multiple points of origin. And Bentley's point about the fuel load is correct as far as it goes. There was a lot of stuff in the bedroom, and it's possible that the heavy fuel load burn could explain away the other indicators of an accelerated fire.