Touched by Fire (17 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Merrick was en route to ATF headquarters when he called Jason and apologized for blowing the algebra lesson. “Think you can hang in there till the weekend?”

“The weekend? What about Wednesday? There’s no school. It’s Veteran’s Day.”

“I don’t know. I was talking to Dr. Graham about it. Turns out she’s a math whiz, but she may not—”

“She’s going to tutor me?” Jason interjected, his voice rising with excitement.

“What she said.”

“So then, she
is
your girlfriend . . .”

“No, but if you play your cards right, something tells me she could be yours.”

Merrick found Logan and Fletcher in the commissary. The old-timer was nursing a cup of black coffee, the young A.I. draining a bottle of Snapple. “I thought you guys were busting your ass on this case?”

“Yeah, I just got a nasty pain in mine.”

“Me too,” Fletcher chimed in.

“Take two aspirins, then call Passport Control and have them run a guy named Jack Palmquist. He’s supposed to be in Sweden. Find out if he made any calls to this area on
the nights the boxes went boom, then put out a bulletin on Eagleton.”

“Eagleton?” Fletcher echoed, bemused.

“Don’t gloat, Billy-boy,” Merrick cautioned, “it’s not what you think. Any action on the calls Fiona Schaefer made from Santa Barbara?”

“Phone company’s working on it. By the way, a few more people on her list got back to me. Two of ’em swore Dr. Schaefer left the workshop before it was over.”

Merrick’s eyes brightened in triumph. “I knew she was lying. They say when?”

“Six-thirty, quarter of seven.”

“Perfect timing too.”

“What’s it matter?” Fletcher prompted. “That’s either her beeper or it isn’t; she either called it or she didn’t, right?”

“Right, neither of which we can prove.”

“Yet,” Fletcher corrected.

“What if it turns out we can’t? What if she made the call from a colleague’s cellphone or a public booth? Then the key to breaking her is going to be catching her in a lie.” Merrick shifted his look to Logan. “What’s the story on the beeper?”

“No prints on the case. Interior was clean. So were the guts. Tattoo is trying to come up with who it’s registered to.”

“She show you her other tatt yet?” Merrick teased.

Logan flicked a look in Fletcher’s direction. “You know what, Danny-boy? I think you need to get laid.”

“That’s what my kid said.”

“Smart,” Logan grunted. “Took him to that bacon and egg joint again, huh?”

Merrick nodded.

“No, no,
Starbucks,”
Fletcher advised, in a tone that
suggested he was dispensing profound wisdom. “You want to meet women, you hang out at Starbucks.”

Merrick groaned. “I’d probably run into Joyce and her Lethal Weapon live-in.”

“Then again,” Logan surmised mischievously, “you might run into somebody like . . . Tattoo.”

“Yeah,” Fletcher said with a grin. “The rumor mill says she takes her electric guitar to bed. Think about it: She’s straddling you with her Stratocaster. You’re plugged in to her amplifier with a bird’s-eye view of both tatts. She starts ripping off some twangy licks, gets the wah-wah pedal and whammy bar working—”

“You guys are sick,” Merrick said with a lurid cackle. “Come to think of it, I need to talk to her.”

“Man doesn’t waste a minute, does he?” Logan said.

“Mention the word
wah-wah
and he’s gone.”

In the Computer Imaging lab, Pam Dyer was doing an electronic postmortem on the beeper. Her back was to the door, and her bottom, sheathed in stretch denim, balanced on the stool like a piece of ripe fruit in a still life. Merrick stood in the doorway admiring it, wondering if she thought
his
hard drive would crash if she showed him that other tattoo. “Making any headway?”

“Oh, hi,” Pam chirped. The jeans were topped by a scoop-neck blouse that revealed the word
WIRED
tattooed on her breast in computer-style letters just below the tan line. “Pretty slow going. It’s a digital Motorola. A vibrator, not a beeper. Very popular model.”

“Registered to who?”

“Won’t know until I come up with the cap code.”

“The what?”

“The cap code. It’s a number. Not the one people use to
beep you. The one that IDs you at the paging center. See, if your beeper crashes or something, its cap code is canceled; then when you get a new one,
its
cap code is assigned the same number people have been calling to beep you. That way you don’t have to—”

“Give everyone on the planet your new number,” Merrick interjected with a thoughtful drag of his cigarette. “If we had
that
number . . . you could come up with who it’s registered to, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

He gestured to the components. “Can’t you get it from that?”

“I’m trying, but the chip got a little fried and the data starts breaking down when I try to extract it. So . . .” She paused and hissed in frustration.

“Sometimes it helps to get away from it,” Merrick philosophized, producing the surveillance video. “Need your opinion on this.” He inserted the cassette into a VCR and began fast-forwarding the tape in search of the section with the obscure figure and ponytail.

Pam watched the image streaking across the monitor. “I hear you live in Manhattan Beach.”

Merrick grunted.

“You ever go Rollerblading on the bike path?”

“Not in this life,” he replied, making her laugh. “I think maybe hanging out at, you know . . . Starbucks is more my speed.”

“All those wanna-bes working on their screenplays? You want to loosen up, try the Sandpiper.” She leaned against the table, thumbs hooked in her jeans, like a Calvin Klein kiddie porn ad. “My boyfriend’s band does gigs there. I play guitar sometimes.”

Merrick swept his eyes over her, making a decision. “I hear it’s your favorite sleep toy.”

“Who told you that?”

“Nobody. I just picked it up . . .” “Fletcher,” she guessed smartly, eliciting a boyish smile from Merrick that confirmed it. “Married guys in their twenties are the horniest. I don’t get it.”

Merrick was about to explain that divorced arson investigators have been known to come down with the same affliction when the obscure figure appeared on the monitor. He advanced the image frame by frame and froze it. “See that thing that looks like a ponytail?”

Pam nodded.

“Any chance we can enhance it enough to identify that—that man? That woman? That Martian?”

Pam waggled a hand. “Iffy. Give it my best shot.”

“Shall I wait?” Merrick asked.

“Not unless you brought
your
sleep toys.”

Merrick smiled thinly. “How long?”

“Hard to say. Coupla days, with luck.”

“Coupla days?” Merrick echoed with a groan. “Come on, Tattoo, I’ve got a victim out there who’s terrified. She damn near lost it today.”

“Well, it’d go faster if I could get my hands on some snapshots of the suspects. I mean, then I could do topographic scans and computer-compare them to the image on the tape.”

“You got ’em,” Merrick said, making a mental list: Fiona Schaefer, followed by Jack Palmquist, Marge Graham, James Eagleton, Serena Chen, and Paul Schaefer. “Pedal to the metal, soon as you have ’em, okay? The doc’s feeling the heat, but she’s not a crispy critter yet. We have to nail this weirdo before he turns her into one.”

Pam winced at the thought and nodded.

Merrick headed for the door. “Call me soon as that ponytail has a face or that beeper has a name.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Sunlight streamed through the blinds of Doug Graham’s den, sending a pattern of bold stripes across the wall of citations and awards. He stubbed out a cigarette and leaned back in the recliner as Lilah slipped her stethoscope inside his warm-up suit.

Marge stood nearby, eyeing a glass of orange juice on his tray table. “Drink your juice, Doug,” she ordered the instant Lilah finished.

Doug’s eyes widened with apprehension.

“No, I’m not taking blood today, Daddy,” Lilah said reassuringly. “He’s not due for weeks, Mom. I thought I’d give him a quick once-over while I was here.”

“That has nothing to do with it,” Marge retorted. “He still needs his vitamin C, and
D
, for that matter. Remember, you’re supposed to get some sun this morning.”

Doug eyed her with suspicion, fingering the soiled slipcover on his recliner. “You’re going to put this in the wash, aren’t you?” he said, winking at Merrick, who was off to one side watching with veiled amusement.

“Oh, Doug,” Marge admonished. “Why don’t you and the lieutenant go out back and let me get on with this?” She undid the zipper that ran up the back, revealing a slice of the flowery upholstery beneath.

The sound of the zipper cut through Lilah like a knife. “
Mom.
Mom, he likes it that way.”

“But it’s grimy and smells like old socks. God knows the last time it was—”

Doug thumbed his remote as if trying to shut her off and broke into a mischievous cackle that sent her scurrying into the kitchen. “We’ve been through a lot together,” he said, referring to the recliner. “Sort of like . . . like . . .” He sighed, unable to find the metaphor.

“An old sweater,” Merrick offered.

Doug nodded emphatically. “See? Told you he was my kind of guy.”

“I think it’s time I left you two smoke-eaters to your war stories,” Lilah said.

Doug raised his arms. “Give us a hug, princess.” She embraced the bag of bones in the warm-up suit and kissed his prickly cheek. “You’re my girl, Lilah.”

“I know I am, Daddy.” She circled behind the recliner to fetch her briefcase, deftly zipping the slipcover en route. “Call me later, okay?” she said to Merrick as she strode off.

Her mother came from the kitchen and hurried after her. “So . . .” Marge began coyly as she caught up.

“No, nothing’s going on in my love life,” Lilah said, before Marge could ask. “Yes, I did it again. No, I don’t know why I park there; and I wish you wouldn’t make such a fuss over his chair.”

“Me? The slipcover was your idea, as I recall.”

“That was then, this is now. He’s lived in it for thirty years, and . . .” Lilah paused and lowered her voice. “If he wants to die in a recliner with a dirty slipcover, he has the right.”

Doug Graham didn’t hear that, though he chuckled with glee at all that preceded it; then his eyes narrowed and
found Merrick’s. “You gonna catch the bastard who’s trying to hurt my little girl?”

“Do my damnedest,” Merrick replied, lighting a cigarette. “You might be able to help.”

“I’ll die trying,” the old fellow said with a bold gesture, ticking the recliner with his cigarette. A tiny shower of ashes and sparks fell on the upholstery and into the folds of his warm-up suit.

“Want to meet the local engine company up close and personal?” Merrick scolded in a gentle tone.

The old guy smiled sheepishly, then sighed and settled back in the chair. Merrick saw the signs of fatigue and wasted no time explaining his theory that the pyro might have targeted Lilah to get at
him.
He asked about the men he’d worked with, about notorious fires, angry victims, and arsonists he might have identified or apprehended. He poked and prodded and did whatever he could to jog Doug Graham’s waning memory, but neither enemy nor vengeance seeker came to mind.

“You’ll get him, son,” the old fellow said, seeing Merrick’s frustration. “Just like you got those guys out of that canyon. Hell, they owe you the keys to the city for that one.”

“Don’t hold your breath. My name’s permanently engraved at the top of Decker’s shit list.” He saw Doug’s puzzled look, and added, “He’s the county B.C.”

“What’s his problem?”

“His brother. Senior A.I. Thirty years on the job. Made the mistake of starting half the burns he was working. I made the mistake of busting him.”

Doug Graham smiled in grudging admiration. “Not easy to blow the whistle on one of your own. I spent my years on the job in the same firehouse with the same crew.
We were close, real close. If somebody screwed up, the rest of us stood behind him.” He exhaled a massive volume of smoke; then, in a raspy whisper that came from within the cloud that concealed him, he said, “Every house has its secrets. That’s what we used to say.” He sighed in reflection, then exclaimed, “Well, they didn’t give you an award for that one, did they?”

“Looks like you collected a few in your day,” Merrick observed, crossing to where the old fellow’s citations and awards were displayed along with the sports trophies and photographs of Doug with his buddies in the firehouse. Photos of birthday parties. Photos of Christmas. Of him playing Santa.

Merrick was reflecting on the years he’d spent growing up in a firehouse when he noticed the wide-eyed little girl with the freckles and carrot-red hair sitting on Santa’s knee. It was obviously Lilah, and, to Merrick’s surprise, so was the little girl perched on Santa’s other knee. Trick photography? A mirror? Two little Lilahs? He thought about it for a moment, then, thinking aloud, asked, “Lilah . . . Lilah’s a twin?”

“Uh-huh,” Doug Graham grunted tersely. “Marge? Marge!” he called out, bringing her from the kitchen. “Show the lieutenant the pictures of the girls.”

Marge showed Merrick into the living room. It was sparsely furnished and had an almost antiseptic quality. Photographs spanning four decades were displayed on the mantel: pictures of Lilah the valedictorian, of Lilah addressing the Rotary, of Lilah at Disneyland, of Lilah in the high school play, Lilah through every age and phase until, suddenly, there were photos of two infants, two toddlers, two little girls in identical starched dresses, two identical
little girls who, sometimes, even their parents couldn’t tell apart.

“Lilah never mentioned she had a twin, did she?” Marge prompted, seeing Merrick’s reaction.

He shook his head no, analyzing a piece of the puzzle he hadn’t seen before. “Did you say
had
?”

“Yes,” Marge sighed, eyes glistening with emotion. “Her name was Laura. She died when they were seven. It’s very hard to lose a child.”

“I know this is difficult for you, Mrs. Graham,” Merrick said gently. “But can you tell me if it was the result of a fire?”

Marge smiled thinly. “Leukemia. It was a death sentence in those days. I’ve always thought it inspired Lilah to become a doctor.”

Not what she said when
I
asked her, Merrick thought. “If I may, where is Laura buried?”

“In the local cemetery. It’s just up the street from my office. I go almost every morning.”

“That wouldn’t be Woodlawn, would it?”

“Why, yes. Yes, it would,” Marge replied, surprised he knew. “I thought you said Lilah never mentioned it.”

“She didn’t. Whoever sent the fire bombs has been using it as a return address.”

Marge looked shocked. “You told that to Lilah, and she didn’t say anything?”

“Not a word. You’re sure Lilah knows she’s buried there?”

“Of course,” Marge sighed. “But she refuses to go with me. I can’t even get her to talk about it.”

“
I
won’t take no for an answer,” Merrick said, eyeing the beeper clipped to Marge’s waistband. “By the way, how long have you had that?”

“Oh, since the summer,” she replied, brightening the way she did when she had a story to tell. “You see, our church does a lot of work with inner-city kids. Wouldn’t you know, the day we go to Magic Mountain is the day Doug takes a fall. When I called to check on him, the phone just rang and rang. As you can imagine, I was just beside myself. I called Lilah right away and she drove over, but . . .”

Merrick listened, thinking Doug Graham had to be a saint to cope with this for forty years. “May I see your beeper?” he finally interrupted.

“Oh, I was prattling, wasn’t I?” Marge said with an embarrassed smile as she handed it to him.

Merrick thought it was very similar to the one used to detonate the incendiaries, if not the same model. “This your idea?”

“No, it was Lilah’s. Why?”

Merrick was suddenly and deeply preoccupied with her response, and didn’t reply. His mind had made a quantum leap—the kind born of raw intelligence and years of experience—that had him giving serious consideration to adding a new and altogether unlikely suspect to the list. Though Fiona Schaefer’s profile of motive, means, and opportunity had made her his prime suspect, and several other suspects satisfied at least one or more of the three criteria, he still had no proof that any of them had tried to turn Lilah Graham into a french fry; and despite the controversial nature of her work, not a single zealot, protestor, or activist group had picketed her lab, and not a single threatening call or letter had come her way. Everybody’s a suspect until it’s over, Merrick thought, purposely reminding himself of the axiom; and it was far from over.

Marge Graham sensed the sudden change in Merrick’s
demeanor, but she had no idea that a beeper had been used as a detonator, and didn’t know what to think.

Merrick was thinking the unthinkable.