Vertical Burn - Earl Emerson [93]
“Not for about a year.”
“How about a movie the night before Riverside Drive?”
“I was with you that night.”
“After we spoke you went to a flick. One of those artsy-fartsy theaters in the U District. We have the stub.”
“I haven’t been to any movies.”
After several beats, G. A. continued, “You want me to explain to your friend here the significance of this?”
“The significance is that you’re a liar. I know what you’re doing. You’re going to introduce the jacket in court. I’ll say it was stolen from my station locker and you’ll say it couldn’t have been because I was wearing it the night before.”
“We can prove to the jury you were wearing it the night before.”
“If I wanted to torch that house, why would I tell you it was set up for arson the night before I did it?”
“A man who plays with fire knows how it starts, but not how it ends. You assumed Engine Twenty-six would be first in and you could run upstairs and save the old woman and get yourself a medal. You weren’t counting on catching that aid run just before the fire was called in.”
G. A. and Finney stared at each other. They both knew he hadn’t been to a movie. It was bad enough that incriminating details were piling up against him by accident and that somebody had tried to frame him.
“I don’t understand why you feel the need to falsify evidence,” Finney said.
“Be careful, or I’ll sue you for slander while you’re away getting your education. Don’t think I won’t do it either. And don’t forget, when that old woman dies, and she will die, we’re going to call you back and tag you with murder. My advice is to make it easy on yourself. Cop to a plea, and we won’t press for the death penalty.”
The death penalty? It hadn’t even occurred to Finney. Was this guy nuts? He had to know Finney hadn’t set that fire. Or had he convinced himself Finney had gone off his nut? The death penalty! This was all just too . . . bizarre. It all came into focus now. G. A. was part of the group setting the fires. Of course he’d investigated Leary Way himself. He’d probably set it himself, too.
“Hell, I can think of a million reasons you didn’t mean for anything to happen,” G. A. continued. “You told me about the house, said it was ready for arson, but you knew I didn’t believe you, so you decided to cross the line. I bet you didn’t even know that old woman was around. That wouldn’t be murder; that would be an accident. Lighting a match is a pretty small act in itself. You’ve been under duress. I think we’ll be able to convince a sympathetic judge to be lenient. Keep denying this and we’re going to end up throwing the book at you.”
“What did you and Bill talk about the day before he died?”
Nothing Finney had said until now had fazed G. A., but this seemed to stop him like a .300 Magnum slug hitting a bull elephant. Or maybe it was just the fact that it was a non sequitur. “What are you talking about?”
“We worked on the eighth of June. Bill died early the morning of the ninth. He called you from home on the seventh, didn’t he?” He was stabbing in the dark. Finney was guessing that because Bill Cordifis had written down those three phone numbers he’d called them. Maybe he had. Maybe he hadn’t. He certainly hadn’t called Finney. Maybe he’d phoned his father. He was flailing, but right now flailing was all he could do.
“We talked all the time.”
“Emily had some notes he’d written. There was a list of phone numbers. One of them was yours. On that same piece of paper was the address of Leary Way. Why did he have the address of a fire that hadn’t happened yet? And why call you about it?”
“I didn’t say he called me. And Emily never told me this.”
“She doesn’t know.”
“She doesn’t know? That’s convenient. Who knows? Just you? Of course, just you. Anybody can get a pen and write some crap on a piece of paper. You did that yourself. Man, you’re really stretching here. You’re just . . . pathetic.”
G. A. gave Finney a long look, swiveled around on his heel, and strode up the dock past Robert Kub and Chief Reese. Maybe that was what Finney should have done