7th Heaven

The man in the car was an arson investigator, John Leonard Orr, a captain of the Glendale Fire Department.

Orr was well known and respected. He toured the state giving lectures to firefighters, helping law enforcement read the clues and understand the pathology of arsonists. And while he was traveling, John Orr set fires. He set the fire that had killed those four people. And because of his pattern of setting fires in towns where he was attending fire conferences, he was eventually caught.

He was tried, convicted, and stashed in a small cell at Lompoc for the rest of his life, without possibility of parole.

“Did you see this book?” Conklin asked Jimenez.

Jimenez shook his head no, said, “What? We’re looking for books?”

“I found it in the master bathroom between the sink and the toilet,” Conklin said to me.

The pages of the book were damp and warped, but it was intact. Incredibly, books rarely burn, because of their density and because the oxygen the fire needs for combustion can’t get between the pages. Still holding the book by the edges, Rich opened the cover and showed me the block letters printed with a ballpoint pen on the title page.

I sucked in my breath.

This was the link that tied the homicides together.

The Latin phrase was the killer’s signature, but why did he leave it? What was he trying to tell us?

“Ha

I muttered, “Got me,” and focused on the handwritten words on the flyleaf, Sobria inebrietas. Even I could translate this one: “sober intoxication.”

But what the hell did it mean?

Chapter 58

CONKLIN AND I had never had a serious fight, but we bickered during the entire two-hour drive back to the Hall. Rich insisted it was significant that a pro like Ha

I liked Chuck Ha

I saw that Chuck Ha

Jacobi waved us into his small office, and Conklin leaned against the wall inside the door. I took a side chair next to Ha

“I was telling Jacobi, the Chu fire looks like the work of the same sick asshole who set the others,” Ha

I was looking at Ha

“It’s like this, Lindsay,” he’d said over beer at MacBain’s. “Biggish guy is drinking beer and smoking cigarettes in his La-Z-Boy. Falls asleep. The cigarette drops between the cushions and catches fire. Biggish guy’s fat is saturated with alcohol. The chair catches fire and so does the guy, like a freakin’ torch.

“After they’ve been incinerated, the fire extinguishes itself. Nothing else catches, so all that’s left is the metal frame of the chair and the guy’s charred remains.

“There’s your so-called spontaneous human combustion.”

I had said “Ewwww,” laughed, and bought the next round.

Now Conklin said from behind me, “Chuck, you were at the Chu scene and you didn’t let us know about it. What’s up with that?”

“You think I was keeping something from you?” Ha

Conklin took the paperback book from his inside jacket pocket. He reached over me, placed the book, now enclosed in a plastic evidence bag, on top of the pile of junk on Jacobi’s desktop.

“This was inside the Chu house,” Conklin said, his voice matter-of-fact, but there was nothing i

Ha

Jacobi said, “Where’d you find it, Rich?”

“In a bathroom, Lieutenant. In plain sight.”

Jacobi looked at Ha

Chapter 59

CHUCK HANNI’S CHAIR scraped the floor as he pushed back from Jacobi’s desk. He’d been caught off guard and was now indignant. “What? You think I’m like that Orr prick? Setting fires so I can be a hero?… Oh, and I planted that book to point suspicion at myself? Look! I gave the ATF a standing ovation when they brought John Orr down.”

Conklin smiled, shrugged.

I felt sweat beading up at my hairline. Ha

“Why didn’t you tell us about the Christiansen fire?” Conklin said, calmly. “Two wealthy people died. Their stuff was stolen -”

“Christ,” Ha

“But the MO was the same,” Conklin insisted. “And so I’m wondering if the killer can’t kick the habit. Maybe he’s still at it, and now he’s leaving clues at the crime scene. Like a book inscribed with a few words of Latin.”

I watched Chuck’s expression, expecting him to bolt, or punch out at Rich, or break down.

Instead he frowned, said, “What do you mean, the killer can’t kick the habit? Matt Waters confessed to the Christiansen fire two years ago. He’s doing time at the Q. Check it out, Conklin, before you start slinging accusations around.”

My face got hot.

Had Cindy gotten this wrong? The Christiansen fire had happened far from San Francisco, but still, I should have double-checked Cindy’s research.

Jacobi’s intercom had buzzed a few times during this meeting, but he hadn’t picked up. Now Brenda Fregosi, our squad assistant, barged into the office, ripped a pink square of paper from a pad, handed it to Jacobi, saying, “What’s the matter, Lieutenant? You didn’t hear me ring?”

Brenda turned and, swinging her hips, walked back across the gray linoleum to her desk. Jacobi read the note.

“Molly Chu is responding to the hospital shrink,” he told us. “She might be ready to talk.”

Chuck got out of his chair, but Jacobi stopped him.

“Let’s talk, Chuck. Just you and me.”

Chapter 60

MY HEART LURCHED when I saw the little girl. Her hair was singed to an inch of frizzed, black fuzz sticking out from her scalp. Her eyebrows and lashes were gone, and her skin looked painfully pink. We approached her bed, which seemed to float under a bower of shiny helium balloons.

Molly didn’t look at me or Conklin, but two Chinese women moved aside and a white-haired woman in her seventies with rounded features and sapphire blue eyes stood up and introduced herself as Molly’s psychiatrist, Dr. Olga Matlaga.

The shrink spoke to the little girl, saying, “Some police officers are here to see you, sweetheart.”

Molly turned toward me when I said her name, but her eyes were dull, as if the life had been sucked out of her, leaving only a stick-figure representation of a child.

“Have you found Graybeard?” she asked me, her voice whispery and slowed by painkillers.

I cast a questioning look at Dr. Matlaga, who explained, “Her dog, Graybeard, is missing.”

I told Molly that we would put out an APB for Graybeard and told her what that meant. She nodded soberly and I asked, “Can you tell us what happened in your house?”