Touched by Fire (8 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The elevator door had barely opened when Lilah slipped past it and dashed into the corridor. Water squished from the carpet with each step, and the musty odor of mildew mixed with the pungent odor of smoke. She ducked beneath the yellow tape that proclaimed
POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS
, and headed for her lab.

A campus security officer stood at the entrance. “I’m sorry, this is a crime scene,” he explained, stepping in front of her. “Authorized personnel only.”

Lilah pointed to the ID badge clipped to her T-shirt. “See that? Dr. L. Graham. UCLA. Department of Human Genetics.”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Graham, I can’t let you in there. My orders are that nobody is—”

“Then you’ll have to shoot me.” Lilah lunged through the door and dashed toward her office.

Logan was standing outside the fire-ravaged cavern, taking photographs. Merrick was crawling beneath the collapsed ceiling grid in search of evidence. The twisted aluminum, charred ceiling panels, electrical cables and lighting units created an obstacle course that hampered his movement. At the moment, he was examining a piece of burnt cardboard that he’d plucked from the ashes with a
pair of tweezers. He heard the commotion and peered back over his shoulder through the labyrinth to see Lilah hurrying toward the office.

“Sorry about this, Lieutenant,” the officer said as he caught up, taking hold of Lilah’s arm.

“It’s okay,” Merrick mumbled, preoccupied with his find. He crawled out from beneath the grid and showed the blackened shard to Logan. “What do you think?”

The forensic expert’s crinkly eyes narrowed, then he shrugged. “Could be writing or something.”

Merrick nodded. “Can we enhance it?”

Logan shrugged. “Tag it, bag it, and I’ll get somebody to run it.” He turned away and resumed taking photographs.

The officer had released Lilah, and she was standing there, blinking at the strobe flashes. “Hello? Anybody home?” she called out, knocking on an imaginary door.

Merrick slipped the piece of cardboard into an evidence bag. “What can I do for you, Doc?”

“You can start with an apology.”

“For what?”

“Not returning my call.”

Merrick jotted something on the evidence bag and put it in his attaché. “You’re on my list, Doc; but the last thing I need right now is a watchdog.”

“I beg to differ, Lieutenant. This arsonist, torch, whatever you call them, has already done—”

“Pyromaniac,” Merrick corrected.

Lilah winced at the term.

“Torches are businessmen. They play for pay. Burn to earn. They’re not into homicide, and they don’t go around mailing people fire bombs.”

“Well. As I was saying, this
pyromaniac
has already
done enough damage. I don’t want you and your people making it worse.”

“We know a little about lab procedures too.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

“Whatever you say,” Merrick conceded wearily. He was operating on a couple of hours’ sleep and wasn’t up to a confrontation. “Long as you’re here, what time does the mail get delivered in this place?”

“Mid-morning. Why?”

“The fire bomb came in the mail, right?”

“To my condo.”

“Condo?” Merrick echoed with surprise. “Why didn’t you say that last night?”

“I don’t know,” Lilah replied, flustered. “I was upset. I had other things on my mind.”

Merrick let out a long breath. “What time does it get delivered to your condo?”

“Before noon. Usually,” Lilah replied, explaining that the package had arrived the previous day, remained in the receiving room until morning, and finally ended up in her office. “I spent the afternoon teaching class,” she concluded. “Then I went to the gym, had dinner with a colleague, and did a little shopping. It was after eight by the time I got here. Ten minutes later it went off.”

Merrick’s brows went up. “Almost thirty-six hours after it was delivered.” he said, suggesting this was significant. “Pete, you get a chance to check out that lump of plastic I found last night?”

“I have people working on it. Nothing definitive yet. Why?”

“Well, since it wasn’t rigged to detonate when it was opened, like most package bombs, I figure it was probably some kind of timer.”

Logan nodded patiently.

“So, why wasn’t it set to go off sooner? The pyro didn’t know the doc wouldn’t pick up her mail, or that she’d bring the package here, let alone be out of her office all day.”

“Good question,” Logan mused. “We’re either talking pure luck or detonation by remote control.”

Merrick nodded in emphatic agreement.

Logan smiled and fired the camera.

Lilah squinted at the blinding flashes. “You mean, they waited until I was here?”

“Well, yeah, that, or they got lucky. Either way, most homicides are committed by someone the victim knew. Any idea who
they
might be?”

“Well, let’s see . . . there were four—no, no five—people who knew I was here: the guard in the lobby; my junior researcher, Dr. Chen; Dr. Schaefer, over in Neuro-psy—that’s who I had dinner with—and one of my students, a kid named Kauffman. We were on the phone when it went off. Oh, and I called my mother.”

Merrick jotted down the names on a pad. “Any of them have a motive you can think of?”

“No.”

“Think some more. If I’m right about it being detonated by remote, and they’re the only ones who knew . . .” He let it trail off, implying the conclusion was obvious. “You get along with your mother okay?”

“My mother?” she echoed incredulously. “She needs my father to light the barbecue.”

“Okay. Put the guard and your mother on hold for now, and talk to me about the rest.”

“Well, for openers, there are times when Serena—Dr.
Chen—thinks I’m out to torpedo her career; but that’s normal in this business.”

“In every business. What else?”

“She’s ambitious, driven, competitive . . .”

Merrick emitted a dismissive grunt after each and scanned his notes. “What about Schaefer? You said all the shrinks hate your guts?”

“No, he’s one of the enlightened few. We’re actually working together.” Lilah paused, making a decision. “What if I said we had an affair?”

“Did you?”

The strobe flashed again before Lilah had a chance to reply. She blinked back the spots, then nodded. “I’d like some privacy if we’re going to talk about it.”

“Gonnahaveto,” Merrick grunted, running it into a single word.

Lilah led the way to an enclosed conference area, dropped her briefcase on the table, and leaned against the window ledge. “I know I should’ve mentioned it last night,” she said defensively. “But before you jump down my throat, I didn’t because Dr. Schaefer is married. He’s also a highly respected psychiatrist, and I wasn’t about to damage his reputation.”

Merrick dropped into a chair and swiveled to face her. “You said ‘had.’ That mean it’s over?”

Lilah nodded.

“How come?”

“He didn’t want to lose his wife and kids.”

“Good for him,” Merrick mumbled, feeling a little stung. “For the sake of clarity, he dumped you, not the other way around?”

Lilah waggled a hand. “It cuts both ways. He started telling me how to run my life.”

“Like how?”

“Well, he kept insisting I should see someone.”

“You mean a shrink?”

Lilah nodded.

“Why?”

Lilah ran her hands through her hair and smiled demurely. “You have no qualms about prying into a girl’s innermost secrets, do you?”

“None whatsoever. Shoot.”

“No, I don’t think so, Lieutenant. Suffice to say I didn’t take his advice.”

“He get pretty pissed off?”

“We argued about it.”

“Okay.” Merrick made a note and closed the pad. “I’ll start with him.”

“Because we had an affair?” she challenged.

“Because passion is a powerful emotion that drives other powerful emotions: anger, jealousy, revenge . . .”

Lilah nodded thoughtfully. “Then I guess you’d want to know about Kauffman too.”

Merrick’s eyes flickered with intrigue. “Good guess. That still going on?”

Lilah nodded and lit a cigarette. “It’s a new thing.”

“How’s he doing in class?”

Lilah bristled at the innuendo. “He’s very bright.”

Merrick grinned. “You’re some piece of work, Doc.”

“Piece of work?” Lilah mused, exhaling a stream of smoke. “Really, I’d have thought one of those macho firehouse metaphors, the one with the three letter word that starts with A and ends in S, for example, would be more your style.”

Merrick tilted back in the chair and swept his eyes over
her, then nodded in approval. “Yeah, that too. Now, where were we?”

“Relationships.”

“Right. Does Schaefer’s wife know he was sleeping with you?”

Lilah shrugged. “You think she might’ve done this as a revenge thing?”

“Depends.”

“On?”

“Aptitude. You said three kids. She a housewife?”

“Research scientist,” Lilah fired back with a laugh. “Biochemical engineer. One of the best.”

Merrick took a breath, digesting the implication, then glanced at his notepad. “Let’s go back to that lab tech. The one who brought the box up here.”

“Cardenas?”

“What’s his story?

“Bright. Inner city. Wants to be a doctor real bad. I’m sponsoring him.”

“Okay, we can draw a line through his name.”

Lilah nodded, then her expression darkened with concern. “Whoever it was, you think they’ll try again?”

“Depends on what triggered it. I had this pyro, once—a kindly old widow—she puttered in her garden, spoiled her grandchildren, and every year on the anniversary of her husband’s death she started a wildfire. Took me damn near six years to catch her.”

Lilah shuddered at the thought. “I don’t think I could live with this for that long, Lieutenant.”

“I won’t lie to you, Doc. There are no quick fixes in this game. Arson has the lowest arrest and conviction rate of any felony.”

“I guess that’s what you were trying to tell me last night,” she said obliquely.

“Run that by me again, will you?”

“You were the one doing the running,” she replied, trying to keep her composure. “You—you told me someone tried to kill me, and took off.”

“I’m an arson investigator, Doc, not a bodyguard.”

Lilah sagged with disappointment and turned to the window. Gritty smoke hung in the sky, casting a pall across the landscape. She was twisting a length of flame-red hair around a finger and trying to come to grips with all that had happened to her—with what was still happening to her—when she sensed Merrick’s presence and turned. The light caught his eyes at an angle that seemed to soften them.

“I can’t give you what you want, Doc.”

“You really think you know?”

“Protection. Personal attention. An A.I. who’ll drop everything until this nut is busted. That’s what I’d want. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way—”

Lilah frowned and nodded weakly.

“—but I’ll do my job.”

“And in the meantime, I live in terror, waiting for this nut to—to”—her voice faltered and broke with emotion—“to turn me into a french fry?”

Merrick’s brow furrowed with a thought. “You know, that’s been bugging me.”

“I certainly hope so,” she said softly.

“I meant, the incendiary device. Why a fire bomb? You ever thought about that? Why not a knife, a gun, a hit-and-run?”

“That’s not funny, Lieutenant.”

“I’m not trying to be funny, Doc. Maybe there’s a reason; then again, maybe there isn’t.”

“I guess I’m supposed to find that comforting, but I don’t.”

“Hey, if you’re looking for an up side, keep in mind that they took their best shot and missed. Blew the element of surprise too. That tilts the odds in our favor.” He gave her a thumbs-up and slipped his cellphone from its sheath. “And I know just the guy who can help tilt them even more.”

Odds? Lilah wondered forlornly as Merrick circled the conference table, dialing a number. I don’t want odds. Odds are what doctors give cancer patients.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“Right—a hold for X-ray stop,” Merrick barked into the phone. “Correspondence, packages, junk mail, the works. Name’s Graham, Dr. Lilah E.” He spelled it out along with both addresses. “Effective immediately.”

“Immediately . . .” the postal inspector mused. His days were long, his efforts unappreciated, but Old Glory, on the pole outside the federal building in South Pasadena, was a symbol of authority Tomas Jesus Tlahualilo knew couldn’t be denied. “Two conditions: First, since we’re talking federal law here, anything we hold,
we
X-ray; any evidence we seize,
we
analyze in our lab; and anybody we bust,
we
prosecute.”

“Come on, T.J. You said two. That’s three.”

“No no, that’s
one
,”
T.J. retorted with a self-satisfied chuckle. “Two is, the hold kicks in soon as I have her J.H. on a stop order.”

“Chrissakes,” Merrick exploded. “I don’t want her turning into a crispy critter because of some paperwork glitch. She’ll sign enough forms to wallpaper your office, but you have to do this for me now.”

“Damn, that’s gonna be a major hassle.”

“I know, T.J., I know. That’s why I’m calling you. Kings and Mighty Ducks next week. What do you say?” He and
T.J. had been making deals for years, and as Merrick expected, his offer closed this one. He and Logan spent the rest of the weekend wrapping up the field investigation, then released the crime scene to the university.

First thing Monday, Lilah gathered her staff and set them to cleaning up the lab, then made some revisions in the statement Serena had drafted. “Better?”

“Better. How do you want to handle it?”

“By the numbers,” Lilah replied, staring with disbelief at the black hole that had been her office. “Get it over to Public Affairs and let them run it up the chain of command.”

That same morning, Merrick turned his attention to questioning suspects. He caught up with Serena as she left the Health Sciences Center after delivering the press release.

“Ah, yes, Lilah’s knight in shining armor,” Serena said, eyeing Merrick’s badge. “I’m quite pleased she took my advice and sought you out.”

“Unusual for her, huh?”

“On the contrary. Lilah’s not at all timid when it comes to pursuing men.”

“I meant the advice,” Merrick said, lighting a cigarette as they exited the lobby. “Way I hear it, you two don’t get along.”

Serena leaned into the searing wind and nodded. “Quite frankly, we have been clashing as of late.”

“Over what? Money, men, career?”

“Imprisoned sex offenders,” Serena replied dryly. “We’re genotyping them. I’d worked quite diligently on the protocol, and just prior to commencement, Lilah took it over. She
seemed . . .
driven
to personally confront these felons. It was all rather strange.”

“Really pissed you off, huh?”

“You certainly have a lovely turn of phrase, Lieutenant.”

“Did it?” he persisted.

“Of course,” Serena replied bluntly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve a ten o’clock lecture.” She forced a smile and hurried in the direction of the medical school.

Merrick was right on her heels. “Were you at the lab that night when Dr. Graham got back?”

“Just leaving, actually. I reminded her to fill out a form I’d left on her desk. She seemed terribly distracted.” Serena stopped at the entrance and pointed to his cigarette. “I’m afraid you can’t go in there with that.”

Merrick took a deep drag and directed her aside. “When you were in her office, did you happen to see a large box on the table beneath the bookshelves?”

Serena nodded curiously.

Merrick arched a brow. “The fire bomb may have been detonated by remote—which suggests the pyro knew both Dr. Graham and the box were there.”

“I’m not at all amused by your insinuation,” Serena replied coolly. “The truth is, I rescued Lilah from the media, drove her home, and spent half the night cataloguing data.”

Merrick nodded thoughtfully, then slipped his notepad from a pocket and handed it to her with a pen. “Home address and phone number, if you don’t mind.”

Serena broke into a flirtatious smile. “I’m not quite sure how to take that, Lieutenant.”

“Quite seriously,” Merrick advised.

Serena frowned and printed the information in bold decisive strokes that caught Merrick’s eye. He had no way of
knowing if it matched the printing on the fire bomb, but it was a candidate.

“Thanks,” he said, concealing his reaction. “I need to get somebody out of class. Can you swing it for me?”

Minutes later, Serena had fetched Kauffman from one of the lecture halls and pointed him toward a bench outside where Merrick waited. The kid came loping over, lugging his backpack, and remained standing as Merrick brought him
up to speed. “The box you put in Dr. Graham’s car—what’d it look like?”

“Like a box,” Kauffman replied flippantly, sizing it with his
hands. “ ’Bout so big.”

“Addressed to Dr. Graham?”

“Uh-huh, real large printing. Couldn’t miss it.”

Merrick placed his thumb over Serena’s name and showed him the notepad. “Sort of like that?”

Kauffman studied it for a moment. “Yeah, sort of . . . but it was much bigger, bolder. You know, one of those markers.” He shrugged. “Hard to say for sure.”

“Did you know the doc was taking the box up to her office?”

“I guess. Why? What’re you getting at?”

“Chances are the fire bomb was remote detonated. You called her just before it went off. Whoever sent it would want to know she was there before hitting the switch.”

“That’s really lame,” Kauffman said, tossing his backpack onto the bench in protest. “If it was me, I could’ve hit the switch soon as she answered.”

“Did you?”

“No,” the kid exclaimed indignantly. “We were shooting the bull about pizza and getting into med school and stuff. Ask her.”

“I will.” Merrick’s gaze shifted to the backpack. “Can I
see one of those?” he asked, indicating the spiral-bound notebooks.

Kauffman shrugged indifferently.

Merrick removed one, swept his eyes across a page of tight, tiny scrawls, and put it back, thinking he’d have disguised his handwriting if he mailed someone a bomb. “I hear you’re scoring pretty good . . . in her class.”

Kauffman’s eyes widened in reaction. “I don’t like what you’re insinuating, Lieutenant. I was getting an A in Genetics way before we started to . . . before I ‘became involved’ with Dr. Graham.”

“In that case, I’d be worried if I were you.”

“About what?”

“That grade.” Merrick flicked the last cigarette he’d lit to the pavement and ground it out with a heel. “It’s got nowhere to go but down.” He grabbed the backpack from the bench, tucked it into Kauffman’s gut like a football, and walked away.

Overhead, a yellow-brown splotch of light marked the position of the sun. Merrick wandered the campus for a while, replaying the two conversations in his mind. He ended up at the falafel stand on Weyburn, washed down a pita bread with a diet Coke, then headed for Schaefer’s office, draining the melted ice from the container as he walked.

A secretary, working on a computer, explained the therapist was just finishing a session and suggested Merrick take a seat. He was more interested in the handwriting that filled the margins of a letter she was typing. “Those Dr. Schaefer’s notes?”

“Patient data is confidential, Lieutenant.”

“Sorry, I’ve just got this thing for penmanship,” Merrick said, eyeing the graceful script. “Is it?”

She was nodding when the intercom buzzed. The office had a rear exit to ensure departing and arriving patients wouldn’t cross paths; and it was Schaefer’s way of informing her a patient had left. He was caught off guard when she told him Merrick was there.

“Hope you haven’t been waiting long, Lieutenant,” Schaefer said, ushering him into the office. “You should’ve made an appointment.”

“I don’t know about
your
game,” Merrick said, noticing that whoever had just finished spilling their guts left a lipstick imprint on a coffee cup and wore heavy perfume. “But spontaneity usually produces the breakthroughs in mine.”

“We’re talking painstaking introspection and analysis here,” Schaefer replied with a glance at his watch. “I have ten minutes before my next patient.”

“Put me down for five. I’ve got limited coverage.”

Schaefer laughed, then fetched his remote. “I’d like to get this on tape, if you don’t mind? I always record sessions.”

“Hey, we’re picking
your
brain here, not mine.”

The therapist smiled thinly, then sat in his chair and gestured to the lounger. “Make yourself comfortable.”

Merrick remained standing. “You’re a close friend of Dr. Graham’s, that right?”

“We’re colleagues,” Schaefer replied, displeased with the defensive timbre he heard in his own voice.

Merrick rocked back on his heels and eyed him. “She used another word.”

“Lovers?” Schaefer sighed in concession, cringing at the specter of phone sex coming up. “I don’t know what Lilah told you, but
I’m
the one who ended it.”

“I’ve found it usually cuts both ways.”

“Well,
she’s
the one who has an ax to grind.”

Merrick nodded thoughtfully and picked up the photograph of Schaefer’s family: three blond, blue-eyed cherubs hugging a striking woman with intelligent eyes and hair pulled back into what Merrick imagined was a bun, maybe a ponytail. “What about your wife?” he asked, observing Schaefer’s reaction in the ornately framed mirror. “Did
she
have one? Did she find out what was going on?”

“Of course not.” Schaefer smoothed his mustache with a fingertip and swallowed. “What if she did?”

“Jealousy’s a provocative emotion. Revenge is a powerful motive. Together they make one hell of a—”

“I don’t need a lecture on psychodynamics, Lieutenant; and I resent what you’re insinuating.”

“You and everyone else. Brings another popular saying to mind: ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.’ You’ve heard that one?”

“William Congreve,
The Mourning Bride
,”
Schaefer recited, removing his glasses in a little gesture of triumph. “Often wrongly attributed to Shakespeare. My wife is neither a bride nor in mourning, Lieutenant. She didn’t know about the affair. She still doesn’t.”

“As far as you know.”

Schaefer toyed with his glasses, then pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

“You want to ask her? Or should I?”

Schaefer stiffened, then nodded resignedly. “Leave it to me.”

“Sure,” Merrick grunted, unleashing the first in a series of rapid-fire jabs to further unhinge him. “I hear she’s into chemistry, that right?”

“Yes, Dr. Fiona Sutton-Schaefer is a highly respected
professor
of biochemistry, and a scientist who—”

“Her work put her in competition with Dr. Graham?”

“No.”

“The doc told you she was going back to her office that night, didn’t she?”

“Yes, over dinner. She said she had some—”

“You tell your wife?”

Schaefer scowled. “Fiona’s been out of town at a seminar. There’s no way she could have—”

“Where?”

“Santa Barbara.”

“You call her?”

“Of course. To tell her about the fire; but she wasn’t in her room, so I beeped her.”

“She call back?”

Schaefer groaned, losing patience. “Immediately. What’s it matter? It was after the fact; and neither of us knew anything about the package, so—”

“I didn’t mention a package.”

“It’s been all over the media, Lieutenant.”

“Not last night.”

“I just said, I wasn’t aware of it that night.”

“I wouldn’t expect the nut who sent it to admit he was. Would you?”

“I resent that, Lieutenant!” Schaefer exclaimed, almost leaping to his feet. “I am not a nut and I won’t tolerate being called one!” He angrily spun the chair on its base and sent it slamming against the desk.

A bemused smile turned the corners of Merrick’s mouth. “How about a shrink with a hair-trigger temper?”

Schaefer reddened sheepishly and took a moment to settle. “I was letting off steam. It’s a normal human response under the circumstances. A healthy one, I might add. Are you finished?”

Merrick nodded.

Schaefer clicked off the recorder.

“Mind if I borrow that?”

“The tape?”

“No,” Merrick replied with a thin smile. “The remote.”