Into the Inferno - Earl Emerson [124]
A wave of nausea flooded my stomach. Things had made a horrible kind of sense when I thought the corpse belonged to Morgan, but what on earth had Achara been doing in my house?
Maybe Donovan was somewhere in the burned-out hulk, too. But if that were true, their black Suburban would have been outside. Besides, we’d seen Donovan minutes before the fire.
Carl Steding had told me the story of the daughter of one of the downed firefighters in Chattanooga, who’d coincidentally died in a house fire. They never caught the killer-arsonist. The assumption had been made that it had been unrelated to her investigation of the syndrome. Unrelated to the downed firefighters. But it hadn’t been. This was too damn similar. It was those two bastards from Jane’s we’d seen at the motel.
“You know her?” Shad said.
“Works as a chemist at Canyon View Systems. In Redmond.”
“You want to explain what she was doing on your living-room floor?”
“I have no idea. As far as I know, she didn’t even know where I lived.”
“Somebody knew.”
Stevenson pulled out a toothpick and put it into his mouth. “She have any reason to burn you out?”
“No, of course not.”
“What about that vehicle the neighbors saw?” Stevenson asked no one in particular.
“Talk to the neighbors.”
“What about the ladies?” Stevenson asked.
“What are you talking about?”
“I hear you like the ladies.”
“I like all sorts of people.”
“How long have you known this Achara Carpenter?” He mispronounced her first name, calling her Akra.
“Two days.”
He smirked. “From what they tell me, two days would be about all you would need.”
“He says he was with the doctor,” Shad reminded him.
“That wouldn’t stop an operator, would it, Jimbo? From what they tell me, you’re a first-class operator. How did you have it figured? You bang the doctor in the motel and then come home and pork the chemist?”
“Why don’t you go wash your mouth out with soap?”
Stevenson’s Cupid-bow mouth pursed into what some would have called a shit-eating grin. The others stared at me in the dark. Then all three stepped back and conferred with one another, glancing from time to time at the fire building, at my charred pickup truck, and at me.
I walked back over to the girls and gave Morgan a long hug. I gave Helen Neumann one, too, the first time I believe we had ever touched.
“We were scared waiting on the freeway,” Morgan said.
Karrie Haston approached the investigating team, handing a sheet of paper to Stevenson, who held it aloft and read it by the fringe light from a spotlight on a King County deputy’s car. When he was finished, he gave it to Shad.
After Shad read it, he asked Karrie a question and then all four of them looked at me. Touching my back from behind, Stephanie said, “What’s that all about?”
“No idea.”
When they reached us, Shad and Stevenson stood a little too close. Karrie kept her distance. Holgate hung back, too.
“We were just wondering what this was doing pinned to the firehouse door,” Stevenson said, stretching the sheet of paper gingerly between the index fingers and thumbs of both hands. When I reached for it, he jerked it away and said, “Uh-uh. No touchee. Just read it.”
The note was typewritten.
To whom it may concern,
I, Jim Swope, being of sound mind and clean heart do solemnly swear that I have killed myself and my family on this night of June 19. For reasons best known to myself, I’m taking Achara Carpenter with me. It is better this way. My life has come to an end and my children’s lives will never be what they should. Nobody should be an orphan or live the kind of fucked-up life I’ve led. To those behind, I apologize for any trouble I may have caused.
J. Swope
“You can see right away any fool could have written this. It’s typed. Even the signature.”
“It’s only got one fool’s name on it.”
“It could have the president’s name on it and it wouldn’t mean shit.”
“Funny coincidence, wouldn’t you say?” said Shad, stepping closer, “that this note was found the same night your house burned down.”
“There’s nothing funny about it. It’s a frame-up.”
“That woman