Violet Darger (Book 6): Night On Fire Read online

  But then Luck blinked a few times and the corners of his mouth turned upward. He turned his face toward her.

  “When did you get so insightful?”

  Darger scoffed and watched the skyscrapers downtown seem to grow taller through the windshield as they got closer.

  “Oh, it’s easy to have all the answers when it’s someone else’s life. You just kind of point your finger and say wrong a lot.”

  Chapter 3

  From the outside, the LAPD headquarters looked like a giant mirrored cube nestled in a triangle of concrete. Luck parked down the street in a paid lot. From there they walked back to the shimmering LAPD building, passing restaurants, bars, and storefronts.

  A car horn blared. Smells wafted from a food truck set up nearby. Thin, tan, blonde people shuffled everywhere, something a little plastic about many of them.

  Darger followed Luck through a set of automatic sliding glass doors. The interior was just as modern as the outside. Everything was brushed steel, sparkling glass, polished concrete. Luck showed his badge to a uniformed officer at a desk, and then they took an elevator upstairs.

  As she’d suspected, the meeting was already underway when she and Luck finally pushed through the conference room doors. The rows of chairs were packed with uniforms, detectives, and other law enforcement personnel.

  She recognized both the room and the man behind the podium from the press conferences she’d watched related to the case. Newly appointed, Chief Macklin mostly looked the part. His neat crew cut was standard police issue. The beard, less so.

  Behind him, an American flag hung limp next to a backdrop emblazoned with the LAPD logo. From the out of context snippet of the speech Darger was hearing, it sounded like Macklin was talking about new leads.

  Luck nodded to a man in a gray suit standing near the podium, and, in turn, the man waved them up to the front. As they approached, gray suit leaned over and whispered something to Chief Macklin.

  Darger’s stomach suddenly felt like a lump of raw dough being kneaded by a dozen fists. She didn’t know if it was because she’d missed the beginning of the meeting or if it was the time she’d taken away from the FBI, but she felt even more edgy than usual.

  It seemed to take forever to reach the front of the room. She breathed in and out slowly, trying to settle her nerves.

  When they reached the podium, Chief Macklin gestured that Darger should take his place in front of the microphone.

  “And now I’ll turn things over to our profiler, on loan from our friends at the FBI. I’ll let her introduce herself and present her findings.”

  This was it. There was a laptop connected to a projector on a small cart next to the podium. Darger connected a thumb drive with some informational slides relating to her profile and stared out at the crowd of faces.

  “Good afternoon,” she said into the mic. “I’m Violet Darger from the FBI.”

  She cringed internally. The Chief had already told them she was from the FBI. Now it probably sounded like she was bragging. That or maybe like she was just an idiot.

  And even though her notes were right there in front of her, her mind went blank.

  If she’d had just five minutes to get her bearings in the room before she’d had to present her profile, a few seconds to breathe. But she’d literally walked in and been ushered on stage, and now everyone was staring. Expecting her to have all the answers.

  She remembered then what someone had once told her about public speaking.

  You are here to present your profile… to move the information from Point A — your brain — to Point B — the brains of your audience. Focus on how to do that best, and you’ll forget about everything else.

  The kindly voice of Ted Fowles echoed in her mind, and Darger knew then that she’d be fine. It was a simple task, after all. One she’d done dozens of times now. She had this.

  She swallowed the rest of her doubts and glanced down at her notes, but she barely needed them. She remembered it all now.

  “Let’s start with the basics: Most arsonists are young, white males,” she said, bringing up a chart with more detailed demographics. “In fact, about one-third of them are under the age of fifteen. In this case, however — given the severity of the crimes and the apparent escalation — it's more likely that we're looking for someone older. More experienced, if you will. The geographic spread of the crime scenes, at least, suggests the perpetrator has access to a vehicle or is somehow otherwise able to get all the way from the west side of L.A. to San Bernardino County. These circumstances, combined with the data-driven probabilities, would suggest that we’re looking for someone between the ages of 17 and 26 — possibly a little older, but the odds go down as the age goes up.”

  Her eyes wandered over to Luck, who stood off to her right, and he gave her an approving bob of the head.

  “We generally divide arsonists into categories based on three main motives.” She ticked the first two off on her fingers. “The most common are fires started for profit — usually an insurance scam. Second-most common are fires started for revenge — an angry ex-husband setting his former spouse’s home on fire, for example. In these cases, the perpetrator may or may not intend for the fire to cause bodily harm.”

  A click of the mouse revealed a graph of arson crimes in the US grouped by motive.

  “Given the fact that we have yet to find a connection between the properties or the victims, we can probably rule out the motives of profit and revenge. That leaves us with the last group: fires started for fun. In these cases the arsonist doesn’t have a motive other than loving to see the destructive power of fire in action. This type of arsonist is a true pyromaniac, one who achieves sexual pleasure from starting fires, one obsessed with all fire-related things. Matches, lighters, fire alarms, fire trucks. He sets fires because he loves it, plain and simple.”

  Darger let her eyes settle on the group of men and women in front of her.

  “If we are indeed searching for a pyromaniac, it makes our job that much harder. This is the hardest type of arsonist to catch. He can set fires anytime, anywhere. His crimes are seemingly committed at random. Erratic. Spontaneous. We can’t predict where or when he’ll strike next, because even he likely does not know.”

  The next slide she brought up showed a list of common attributes and characteristics for pyromaniacs as children.

  “Our pyromaniac would have had an unstable childhood — one or both parents absent, and there was almost certainly abuse and/or neglect by whoever was tasked with caring for him,” she said. “Pyromania has also been linked to low serotonin levels and childhood hyperactivity disorders. There’s often an incorrect assumption that pyromaniacs have a low IQ, but most studies have found them to have an overall average or above-average intelligence.”

  Darger proceeded to the next slide.

  “But no matter how smart he is, the instability in his childhood will almost certainly carry over into adulthood in terms of his ability to form and maintain relationships. He’s probably not married. He may even still live with or somehow rely on a parent or childhood guardian for support. If he is in a long term relationship, his homelife is probably rocky. Substance abuse, domestic disturbances, infidelity. Any and all of these would fit a pyromaniac.”

  Darger poured herself a glass of water from the pitcher next to the podium and took a sip before she went on.

  “Above all, his behavior is marked by impulsiveness. Emotional events and stressors trigger his outbursts. Life problems set him off. It becomes cause and effect. When he gets angry or upset, the emotions create a tension that can only be relieved by setting a fire. He feels an actual physical sense of gratification and even sexual arousal when setting a fire or viewing the damage caused by one. He finds escape from his pain only in torching something.”

  Darger thought she saw at least a handful of the audience grimace at that thought.

  “I imagine at least some of you are familiar with the John Orr case. For anyone that isn’t,
he was a fire captain and arson investigator for the Glendale Fire Department, and between the years of 1984 and 1991, it is believed that he set as many as two thousand fires. These were fires he’d set and then investigated himself. He was arrested in 1991 and convicted of four counts of murder, but it took years before anyone got suspicious enough to start piecing it all together.”

  A click of a button brought up a photograph of the convicted arsonist and murderer.

  “Orr presents as a classic pyromaniac, and he fits many of the profile characteristics to a T: a childhood fascination with fire, firefighters, and law enforcement. He actually wanted to be a police officer but failed the entrance exam. One pertinent detail is that at the time of the most devastating fire — the hardware store fire that claimed the lives of his four victims — John Orr was 35 years old.”

  Crossing her arms, Darger continued.

  “You’ll remember I gave an age range of 17-26. Most experts that have studied the John Orr crimes believe he’d almost certainly been setting fires long before the 1984 fire. So one reason I wanted to bring this up is to remind you that the age range is a suggestion based on the probabilities. It’s not gospel, not absolute. Don’t let the guidelines in the profile lead to tunnel vision.”

  She turned and glanced at the larger-than-life photograph of Orr projected on the wall.

  “The other reason I bring John Orr up is to highlight the split in his image of himself. Not only did he start the fires and then show up on the scene to put them out and then investigate. He also wrote about them. One of the main pieces of evidence against him was a novel he’d written and submitted to literary agents and publishers. Those who knew Orr and read the book said it was quite clear to them that he’d cast himself as both the hero arson investigator and also the arsonist himself — the name of the villain, Aaron Stiles, was an anagram for ‘I set L.A. arson.’ So there’s a strange dichotomy there, that he can see himself simultaneously as the hero and the villain. That in some ways, he wants to be both. It speaks to the fact that our arsonist, like many other serial offenders — be they rapists or killers — lead a double life.”

  Gripping both sides of the podium now, Darger shook her head.

  “Some of the people he worked with still refuse to discuss or acknowledge the case. I don’t think they’re able to come to terms with the fact that someone they knew and worked with could have done this right under their noses.”

  Darger hesitated there a moment, let the silence linger in the room, not sure exactly how to broach this next piece of business.

  “Chief Macklin has asked me to suggest a course of action for the investigation moving forward.”

  Darger resisted an urge to fidget. It was always uncomfortable to be the Fed who swooped in and told the local cops how to do their jobs. The fact that the Chief had specifically asked for her opinion on the topic didn’t necessarily make it any easier.

  Her next slide had a list of angles for the task force to work.

  “Chances are, the investigations into the fires to this point primarily focused on motives involving either money or revenge. You probably looked at building owners, landlords, tenants, former tenants, employees, etc. At the time, that’s what made the most sense. But knowing what we know now, it would be wise to revisit those earlier files and expand the investigation. Re-interview witnesses. Rewatch any available surveillance tape. Canvas the neighborhoods. We need to cast a wider net. If we can find a vehicle that was spotted somewhere near several crime scenes in the days leading up to the fires, or someone found lurking around during the investigation or rubbernecking at more than one fire, then we might just find our guy.”

  It occurred to Darger that the group in this room felt different than most she’d spoken to. Bigger, for one, but there was something else. Something about the quiet, the rigidity of the postures, the proliferation of crew cuts among the uniformed officers staring up at her. She’d heard the LAPD skewed a little more military than most urban police forces, both in operational tactics as well as the culture. Maybe there was something to that.

  She took another sip of her water and went on.

  “The fire itself only makes these types of investigations more difficult. It destroys evidence of all kinds. Often leaves us little to work with. Without the two-liter bottles found at each of these scenes, we wouldn’t even know we had a serial offender on our hands. To that end, I’d like to point out that there’s a good chance he’s set other fires we don’t know about. Dozens. Maybe hundreds, depending on how old he is and how prolific he’s been. I’d suggest another team start contacting the various jurisdictions in the surrounding areas to get a list of fires where gasoline was used as an accelerant. Also find out if they’ve ever found two-liter bottles or perhaps PET plastic residue at a fire scene. In many cases, the fire inspector might not have even classified the fire as arson, so be careful about whose toes you’re stepping on. We’re not looking to lay blame, we only want as much information as we can gather. If we uncover more fires our guy is responsible for, we might be able to spot a pattern.”

  She’d reached the last slide and the end of her notes, but she wasn’t quite done.

  “Does anyone have any questions?”

  An older detective in a tweed blazer raised his hand.

  “I have a question about the, uh, the plastic soda bottle filled with gasoline.”

  “Yes?”

  “The arson expert says this crude way of starting a fire — splashing gasoline and leaving the empty bottle off to the side — is odd seeing as there are incendiary devices that would be much harder to detect. Which would make it harder to definitively say it’s arson. Wouldn’t the fact that our guy is using such an obvious method to start the fires be a sign that he’s, well… not a genius?”

  “It’s possible,” Darger said. “It’s also possible that we’re dealing with a young or otherwise inexperienced perpetrator. That he’s simply ignorant about what kind of clues he’s been leaving behind. Or it could be the opposite. He might know exactly what he’s doing, and it’s meant as a taunt. These types of criminals are often cocky, aggressive, territorial types. He probably doesn’t believe we can catch him, even if he intentionally leaves breadcrumbs to mark his trail. It might be that what he truly craves is credit and attention. As soon as he started leaving a signature, the headlines started rolling in.”

  That led to the first real murmur in the crowd. The detective who asked the question thanked Darger and jotted something on a legal pad in his lap.

  Finding no more raised hands in the crowd, Darger turned things back over to Chief Macklin.

  She rejoined Luck off to the side of the room, and he gave her a thumbs up.

  “OK. You heard the lady. Cast a wider net. We’ll have a team start digging into the surveillance. There’s no surveillance set up at the church, but check out the traffic cams for all routes leading into the area. Same for the intersections around the residential fire and the abandoned lot. Another team will go back over any reports of fires for the past… five years?”

  He looked to Darger for that last bit, and she nodded her approval.

  “Detectives Stoltz and Martin, I want you on the street, head up a major operation canvassing for eyewitnesses. Anyone who might have seen something or someone out of the ordinary. We’ll see that you get all the manpower you need to do the job. And I assume our brothers and sisters in San Bernardino will be doing the same,” the Chief said.

  A woman sitting in the front row said, “Yes, sir.”

  The baseball cap she wore was embroidered with the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department logo.

  The Chief picked up his stack of papers and neatened the stack with a tap of his hand.

  “Then I think we’re finished here for the time being. This meeting is adjourned.”

  Immediately a swell in the collective murmur. Bodies rising from the chairs, crowding for the door. Wordlessly, Darger and Luck decided to wait out the scrum.

  With th
e various members of law enforcement streaming past them, Luck took out his phone. Glanced at the screen.

  “Shit. Missed a call from Jill.”

  A loud burst of laughter erupted from one corner of the room where a circle of uniformed officers were chatting.

  “If you don’t mind, I’m gonna go find somewhere quiet to call her back. You still want to get that bite to eat?”

  “Sure,” Darger said. “I’ll meet you at the car.”

  She watched him join the mass of people filing out through the double doors.

  “Hey, Agent Darger?”

  She stopped and swiveled to face him. The man was several inches taller than her, with brown hair and what she considered the classic cop mustache. The badge on his uniform said “MURPHY.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Rodney Murphy,” he said, shaking her hand while simultaneously gesturing at the man to his left. “And this is Miguel Camacho.”

  Camacho’s biceps bulged and strained against the fabric of his uniform as he reached for her hand.

  “Nice to meet you.”

  “Got a question for you,” Murphy said. “We’re supposed to be looking at old fires, trying to find a pattern, right? But I thought you said the pyros don’t really follow a pattern, that’s why they’re so hard to catch.”

  Darger nodded then pointed to Camacho.

  “You two are partners, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How long?”

  “Four years going on eternity,” Murphy joked.

  Camacho rolled his eyes.

  “Do you know what he ate for breakfast this morning?”

  “No,” Murphy said, shoulders twitching.

  “If you had to guess?”

  Without hesitation, Murphy said, “Egg white omelet with spinach and a protein shake.”

  Darger’s gaze flicked over to Camacho.

  “Is he right?”

  “Yeah, but that’s what I eat every morning.”

  “And that’s my point,” Darger said with a smile. “Pyromaniacs are still human, and humans are creatures of habit. I guarantee there’s a pattern to the fires he sets, it’s just not as clear as a fire set for the purpose of money or revenge.”