The Definitive Albert J. Sterne (38 page)

There was a fair amount of applause, which was good for these self-conscious times. Most people were nodding and smiling, some shrugging as if to shake off the spell and regain their cynical outlook. Fletcher, supposedly an apolitical FBI agent, contented himself with smiling, then swallowed the last of his coffee and threw the paper cup in the nearest bin.

Lachance looked around, acknowledging the crowd’s goodwill, again meeting Fletch’s gaze among others. This time, Xavier Lachance returned Fletcher’s smile with a grin.

“I have to go take care of business,” Lachance said, his voice still pitched to carry. He squeezed Amy’s hand and let her go with a kind look. “Someone took my words seriously and acted now - they set fire to my office last night. Any help anyone can give us in setting up again would be appreciated. Thank you all for your time today, thank you all for listening.”

And, with that, Lachance led the way towards the parking lot, his retinue and a few last well-wishers tagging along behind.

Fletcher followed quickly, and caught up with the party by the curb just as their minibus pulled up. “Mr Lachance, I’m Special Agent Fletcher Ash, Federal Bureau of Investigation.” He offered his credentials, which the nearest member of the retinue peered at.

Lachance grinned. “Yes, Agent Ash, we were expecting you. In fact, I  wondered if that was you.”

A pause, while the other people piled into the bus. Only one woman stayed on the pavement, eyes roving. In contrast, Fletcher and Lachance were still and their gazes remained on each other. Fletch was happy enough to let the moment last, comfortable under the scrutiny, but he figured Lachance no doubt had places to be.

Before Fletch could speak, however, Lachance said, “I’m off to inspect the temporary offices my people have set up - incredibly quick work, don’t you think? I’ll have to thank them accordingly. You’re welcome to come along, if you like, but I probably won’t have time to talk to you at any length until this evening.”

“Then I’ll inspect the old offices this afternoon,” Fletch suggested, “and talk to the police.”

“Are you busy tonight? Come and have dinner with us at my place and we can discuss this sad business. Will that be convenient for you?”

“Sure.”

“Sorry about the odd hours but no doubt you often find yourself in a similar predicament - there’s not enough hours in the day for everything that needs to be done. You have my home address on file, yes?” That was said with an impudent smile Fletcher couldn’t help but respond to with a smile of his own. “Good. I’ll see you around seven.”

“All right. Thank you, Mr Lachance.” Fletch nodded a farewell as Lachance slid into the bus, watched as the woman followed suit, and then the entourage drove away. He shook his head, waiting to resume normal transmission. If it were possible for someone to overwhelm his or her way into public office, then Francis Xavier Lachance was set for a very successful political career.

Xavier Lachance’s old rooms were at the end of a long, one storey string of offices hired by service professionals: architects and graphic designers, solicitors, doctors and accountants were all represented. The overall look was upwardly mobile, classy in a modern pastel-and-palms way, though if Fletcher remembered correctly, the building’s structure had originally housed a warehouse of some sort. The whole looked onto a paved walkway, made pleasant with wooden seats, budding trees and early flowering plants. Lachance had chosen an attractive but businesslike location.

The pastels were interrupted by water and smoke stains, then gaping broken windows exposing nothing but charred and blackened ruin. A  handful of fire fighters and police officers were peeling the steel roof back from the adjoining offices, and taking photos of where the flames had reached. Most members of the public who walked past lingered to stare; workers from the other offices brought their coffee and cigarettes outside into the weak spring sunshine to participate in whatever gossip there was to be had.

A man in police uniform knelt just inside where the doors hung askew, conferring with another man in a suit and tie, who used his pen to indicate something along the skirting boards. “Hey, Hogan,” Fletch called from outside the crime scene tape. “Permission to come aboard?”

The police officer looked up, then beckoned him across. “Permission granted.”

Fletcher ducked under the tape and walked over to join them. “Did a thorough job, didn’t they?” he observed, casting a look around the shell of the offices.

Hogan stood and said, “You G-men stick your noses into everything, don’t you?”

“This time we were invited,” Fletch replied with a smile and a shrug.

“So you figured you’d come down and tell me how to do my job.”

“No way, Hogan, you’re far better at this than me. I’m nothing but a glorified accountant, remember?” That earned him a chuckle. “I  do a nice little sideline in serial killers,” Fletch continued, looking around curiously, “but fires aren’t my specialty.”

“So why did they send you?”

“To keep Mr Lachance happy. And I can help you with interviews, Hogan. I’ll talk to his people, if you like  -”

“We’ve done the preliminary interviews.”

“-  or I can do the follow-up with them. I’ll try to sort out if there’s anything to the theory that there’s all these right wing, heterosexual, Caucasian pyromaniacs who don’t want this guy elected, or whether Lachance is crying wolf. That’s the boring work, right? Meanwhile, I’d appreciate you letting me know what’s going on, that’s all.”

Hogan was nodding in a way that indicated he would suffer this arrangement, though under protest. “Well, at least they sent you,” he said grudgingly. “I  wouldn’t let most of your people audit my taxes, let alone investigate a real crime.”

“Yeah, but you only like me because I buy you a beer at the end of a case.”

“And don’t you forget it.” Hogan grimaced in his equivalent of a grin, then beckoned Fletcher further inside. “This is our working hypothesis, right? Nothing to get excited about yet but we should have it sorted by tomorrow evening once we get the chemical tests done. The fire spread from here,” and he indicated a spot low on an internal wall. “That mess of plastic used to be an electrical outlet. These walls are treated with fire retardant, so it probably wouldn’t have caused much damage by itself before setting the smoke detectors off. The problem being a stack of cardboard boxes full of mail-outs right by the outlet - his people told us that’s what this pile of ashes used to be - and these shelves beside that, which were full of pamphlets and posters and some stationery. There doesn’t appear to be any surprises in how it spread, so we aren’t anticipating finding any flammable liquids tossed around, but we’ll check of course.”

“So what caused it? Faulty wiring?”

“Could be,” Hogan allowed. “This place used to be a warehouse, with a shopfront up by the street. When they renovated it into separate offices, it looks like there were a few corners cut, especially with the interior fittings, though nothing major. You know how it is.”

“If they think they can get away with it  -”

“-  they will.”

“You’re a cynic, Hogan.”

“Aren’t you?” The man cast Fletcher a long look. “You’re getting there at last,” he observed.

“Thanks a lot. Any other theories?”

“Being a cynic, I’m not ruling out the possibility that the wiring was tampered with. We haven’t dismantled this part of the wall yet, though. I’ll let you know if we find anything that shouldn’t be there.”

“Being a cynic in embryo, I might reflect on the fact all that paper was rather
conveniently
close to the source of the flames.”

Hogan almost smiled. “It was, wasn’t it?”

“All right,” Fletcher said, “so what was destroyed?”

“That’s a smart question for a glorified accountant. And the answer is pretty much everything. The only room in the suite that didn’t suffer much damage is through here.” Hogan led the way, stepping carefully around all the debris, any of which may yield vital evidence.

There was a large table and a few chairs located in the next room. The wall adjoining the rest of the office was burnt almost to the point of collapse, though the other damage here was mainly smoke and water. “What’s this - a conference room?”

“Yeah, meetings and press conferences and coping with groups of visitors. Nothing of value, except the furniture and fittings.”

“So what was of value in the other rooms?”

“Furniture and fittings, of course; office equipment, including state of the art computers and a photocopier; glossy publicity stuff, which costs a small fortune to print; and most of his records, financial and otherwise.”

“Financial records,” Fletch repeated, considering. “What about the building and contents? Were they insured?”

“Yes, but for fairly conservative amounts. And, between you and me, this guy is rolling in campaign donations. You can probably find out more detail on that through your lot. Anyway, I  don’t figure he needs the insurance money.”

“And he’s popular, too.”

“So he doesn’t need the publicity,” Hogan concluded.

Fletcher nodded absent acknowledgment, deep in thought. “Hang onto copies of the preliminary reports for me, would you? I’ll come collect them tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, I’m spending the evening with Lachance and his people. I’ll let you know what we talk about, all right?”

“Fine with me,” Hogan said before leading the way out again. “And you’ll give me copies of your reports?”

“Heavily edited, maybe,” Fletcher said, smiling. “You know how it is.”

“Yeah, I know how it is.” But the police officer sent Fletch on his way with a friendly wave.

Dinner was a casual, chaotic affair. There were nine or ten people at Lachance’s home, all scurrying around answering phones and making calls, drafting speeches and letters and press releases, seeking his approval of various papers and issues, catching up with the TV news and current affairs shows, and scattering the day’s newspapers across any available space. A hive of industry, bearable because they all seemed to be having an intent kind of fun. The food was available on the kitchen table: bowls and platters of salads and breads and meats that everyone helped themselves to before returning with laden plates to whatever they’d been doing.

Somewhere in the middle of this whirlwind, Fletcher sat on a chair near Xavier Lachance, and ate a hearty meal, while trying to make sense of the group’s conversations, most of which seemed to be in their own verbal shorthand. He followed the talk of points and polls easily enough and guessed that
demogs
were demographics and
ops
were photo opportunities, but when the group began talking in acronyms like DSG and RMs, Fletch lost track, though he guessed what BS was. Lachance was apparently referred to as XL, and
Excel!
seemed to be the unofficial group motto: Fletcher only sorted that out when both terms were used within one quick sentence.

“I’m sorry for all this,” Lachance said as they finished eating. He collected Fletch’s plate and cutlery, and led the way out to the kitchen. “It must seem like utter confusion.”

Fletcher laughed. “Yes, but it’s fascinating.”

“We’re not usually this crazy, the fire has thrown us out of kilter. But it’s good to do this at home sometimes, rather than down the office, we can pretend to relax a little. And I wouldn’t see home otherwise, let alone a homemade meal. Now, would you like a cup of coffee before we get started?”

“You just said the magic word.”

Lachance filled a jug and plugged it in, then turned around with his arms crossed. “I  shouldn’t waste any more of your time, Agent Ash. You want to talk about the fire.”

“Yes,” Fletcher said, and hesitated a moment. “Perhaps my first interest is why you asked for FBI involvement.”

“I spoke to the special agent in charge about this.”

“As the agent assigned, I’d like to hear it from you. I’m sure you’ve already found that investigations like this inevitably involve everyone repeating themselves twenty times.”

Smiling, Xavier acquiesced. “My campaign headquarters is destroyed by fire. It’s located in a fairly new office building, there are no obvious fire hazards, my staff aren’t careless people. I  therefore suspect the fire was deliberate rather than accidental. Being a high profile and popular candidate for mayor, I  am automatically a target. As I am also black and gay, I  am even more of a target for certain groups of people who would not want to see me elected. I  therefore suspect a crime against me that could become an important civil rights issue. I  therefore invite your early participation.”

Fletcher nodded thoughtfully. “If people try to hurt you, whether it’s politically or personally, do you always tend to see that as a reaction against you being black and gay?”