At the Scene of the Crime (23 page)

“A convicted arsonist who used the same torching technique in the past,” Leopold explained. “Ever have any dealings with a man named Oslo?”

“Never heard of him.”

“I assume the building was insured.”

“Of course. We’ve got insurance on everything. I hope you’re not implying I’m a suspect in this.”

“No,” Connie told him, “but the ex-convict we’re investigating only performed arsons for hire. He wouldn’t have done it unless he was getting paid.”

“It wasn’t by me,” Kovak insisted. “You’d better get yourself a new suspect.”

“What was that warehouse used for?”

“It was empty, far as I know. My secretary tells me at one time we used it for large rolls of newsprint for the local paper, but that was years ago. They were shipped downriver by barge and stored there till the paper needed them.”

“Has your company received any recent threats, anything that might hint at a motive for the fire?”

“Nothing. I doubt if many people even knew we owned the building.”

Outside, Connie suggested she take Leopold back home. “I’ll spend the rest of the afternoon going through the arrest records for other arsonists. No need for you to be saddled with that.”

“Is that a lieutenant’s job?” he asked.

“It is when a police officer or firefighter is killed. Fletcher wants us to find this guy, whether it’s Oslo or someone else.”

 

That evening he recounted his day’s activities to Molly over dinner. It was a treat to have something to tell her. Usually their evening conversation was filled with talk of her court cases and impending trials. “Don’t overdo it,” she cautioned. “You’re not a kid anymore. I hate to think of you crawling around in burnt-out buildings.”

“I wasn’t crawling,” he assured her. “Pedley and I just walked through the place.”

“Are you finished with it?”

“I might take a ride over to that warehouse tomorrow. Don’t worry, I won’t go in there alone. I just want to look it over again.”

Leopold wasn’t sure what he was looking for, and when he pulled up to the warehouse the next morning all he saw was one of those emergency enclosure trucks with two workers boarding up the broken ground floor windows. He got out of his car and walked over to the older man who seemed to be in charge. “Bad fire here yesterday,” he said, making conversation.

The man had on jeans and a sweater, though the temperature was still around sixty. He wore a peaked cap with a football logo on it and hammered the plywood sheets over the broken windows like someone who didn’t much care for his job. “Yeah,” he replied after a moment. “This place has been a nuisance lately.”

“Were there other fires?”

“No, just break-ins. Probably kids wanting to smoke pot or make out.”

“Was this recently?”

“What’s today? Thursday? The fire was yesterday morning. I guess the first break-in was early Monday morning. They have a watchman who drives around every morning and checks on these places. He called us about a broken window, this one near the door. I boarded it up and the next morning he called again. Someone had pulled out my nails and gotten in the same way again, left a spot of blood this time. I told him if it happened again he should call the cops.”

“Could you show me the window you’re talking about?”

The man frowned at Leopold. “You a cop or something?”

“Leopold. I’m retired but helping in the investigation. And you’re . . . ?”

“Rafferty. Come on, I’ll show you the window.”

Virtually every window in the building had been smashed by the fire itself or the efforts to extinguish it. Rafferty and his assistant had boarded up the ground floor ones, and he showed Leopold one right next to the metal overhead door, apparently used by trucks. The window extended almost to the ground and once the glass was broken entry would have been easy. “No alarm system?” Leopold asked, examining the plywood that had covered it.

“The building’s been empty for three years. Nothing to steal.”

“So this window was broken Monday morning and someone broke in again Tuesday morning?”

“That’s right.”

“Did you check around inside?”

“Nope. Not my job.”

He returned to what was his job, and Leopold started back to his car. That was when he spotted a young man across the street who looked familiar. He ducked quickly into an alleyway between two warehouses as Leopold came after him. There was no chance he could have caught the youth in any sort of foot race, but he had the advantage of half a lifetime in the city’s streets. He knew where the runner had to exit and he circled
quickly around the block.

“Hello, Randy,” he called out when he spotted him again. “It is Randy, isn’t it?”

Randy Oslo trotted to a halt and stood staring at Leopold. “What do you want? I’ve done nothing.”

“I just want to talk. What are you doing over here?”

“I came to see this place where the fire was. You were questioning my dad about it.”

“Do you know something about it, Randy?”

“No, why should I?” he answered a bit too quickly.

“Your dad—”

“Am I responsible for the sins of my father?”

“Certainly not. I hope you’re not following in his path.”

“Don’t worry,” he said and turned away. Leopold let him go. There was nothing more he could say.

 

That evening Leopold went to the funeral parlor where the dead firefighter was laid out. He didn’t often attend the wakes for murder victims because he was usually busy tracking down the killer. But this one was different. Fletcher and Connie were working on it, and he’d done all that he could.

“Thank you for coming,” Janice Crandel said, shaking hands. “I still can’t believe he’s gone.” Several of his fellow firefighters were there in uniform, perhaps thinking that it could have been any of them laid out among the flowers.

“I hope to be at Saturday’s funeral too,” he told her.

“It’s all so fast. A week ago we were talking about an October vacation to Maine. Now he’s—”

It was difficult trying to comfort her and Leopold was relieved when she excused herself to greet a friend. He signed the register and was heading for his car when he encountered Marshal Pedley. “Anything new on the arson?” he asked.

“Not really. I was checking the call to nine-one-one reporting the blaze.
These things usually come in by cell phone but this was from a coin telephone at a gas station. The voice seemed muffled or disguised.”

“You think it was the arsonist?”

Pedley seemed uncertain. “Or someone who knew about it and didn‘t want the call traced. There’s something else odd. Do you have a few minutes?”

“All the time in the world.”

“Let’s sit in my car and talk.”

Leopold climbed into the SUV and the fire marshal took out his notebook. “The call came in to nine-one-one at one-o-eight a.m. Wednesday morning. Now look at this.” He lifted an evidence bag from the back seat and showed Leopold the charred remains of the timing device he’d seen at the fire scene the day before.

Leopold saw what he meant. The clock had stopped as soon as the flames engulfed it, but he could still make out the alarm hand pointed at 1:10. “Interesting,” was his only comment.

“What do you think it means?”

“That the clock was fast, and the fire had already started when the someone reported it at one-o-eight.”

Pedley nodded. “Or else the arsonist wanted to tip us off early.”

Leopold told him what he’d learned about the broken window at the arson site. “If the arsonist broke in and set his bomb to go off early Tuesday morning, why would he return before that and advance the timer?”

“Maybe he didn’t,” Pedley suggested. “Maybe someone who knew about it tried to keep the bomb from going off.”

“Like who?”

“Like Parker Oslo’s son?”

It was a possibility Leopold hadn’t considered. “But it did go off, not Tuesday morning but early Wednesday morning.”

Pedley was silent for a moment, considering another possibility. “Suppose Oslo’s son set the bomb, trying to emulate his father. Oslo discovered it and disconnected the timer. That might be more likely.”

“We still have the problem that it did go off, that the fire did start and Sam Crandel died. So what was accomplished by delaying the fire by one day?”

“I suppose the two break-ins might be only a coincidence. The window was broken by kids and the arsonist went in that way simply because the board was easier to remove.” He opened the car door. “I just wanted your opinion on this, Leopold. I don’t know that it’s getting us anywhere.”

“Wait a minute. You just said it might be more likely that the fire was started by Oslo’s son. Why is that?”

“I found the device on a shelf, right where I showed you. Professional arsonists prefer setting their bombs on the floor so the flames can spread upward from the lowest point in the room.”

“So that would rule out Parker Oslo?”

Pedley shrugged. “It would seem to. But if his son was copying his method he might not have known of this aspect.”

“Let me think about it,” Leopold said. “I may want to visit Mitch Kovak again tomorrow.”

 

He phoned Connie in the morning to alert her of his planned visit to Kovak. “That’s not interfering with your investigation, is it?”

“No, go ahead. Just make sure he understands you’re not part of the official investigation.”

Kovak was having a busy day but he finally agreed to see Leopold for a brief period in the afternoon. His greeting came straight to the point. “If it’s about that warehouse again, I can tell you the company has decided to demolish it. The fire damage plus the age of the building doesn’t make it worth rebuilding.”

“But you still get the insurance money.”

“Of course. Collecting insurance on fire damage isn’t a crime.”

“Not unless you started the fire.”

Kovak eyed him grimly. “Are you here in an official capacity, Captain?”

“I’m retired, as you know. Lieutenant Trent asked you about a convicted
arsonist named Parker Oslo.”

“And I said I never heard of him. I still say that. Good day, Mr. Leopold. I’m afraid I must cut our conversation short.”

He drove down to Connie’s office at headquarters, still trying to sort it out in his mind. He thought she might be able to help after he told her what he’d learned, but she just made things more complicated. “Don’t you see?” she asked, trying to be logical. “If Oslo—or his son—set that time bomb in the warehouse on Sunday night, or early Monday morning, and the other one came by to disconnect it, then how did the place catch on fire?”

“Maybe Randy Oslo planted the bomb and told his father about it. Parker realized he’d done something wrong and took him back for a bit of instruction in the fine art of arson. They went in together and left together, with the time bomb reconfigured to the father’s wishes.”

“Do you believe that?”

“No,” he admitted. “Marshal Pedley tells me professional arsonists usually start their blazes at floor level. If Oslo was advising or teaching his son, he’d have moved the time bomb off that shelf.”

“So where does that leave us?”

That was when he remembered something about the crime scene. It was a little thing, perhaps meaningless, but he asked if she had the police photographs handy. “Right here.” She handed him the folder.

“That’s the way I remembered it,” he said. “Connie, I want you to listen to a theory I’m developing. Just listen until I’m finished, and then tell me if I’m crazy.”

Connie Trent listened.

On Saturday morning they attended Sam Crandel’s funeral together, along with the mayor, the fire chief, and other dignitaries. The church was warm and crowded, and more than Crandel’s wife were shedding tears. Outside, an honor guard of firefighters paid their respects. It was one of the most moving experiences Leopold remembered. Later, at graveside, a piper played a final tribute to Crandel’s memory.

“That’s about it,” Leopold told Connie.

“Yeah.” She gazed across the open grave at the mourners. “Come on.”

Leopold hung back, because it was Connie’s show. She walked over to where a relative was escorting the black-clad widow back to the car. “Mrs. Crandel,” she said.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry to intrude at this time, but I have to request that you accompany me to headquarters for questioning about the death of your husband.”

“What?” Her face froze, and suddenly her eyes darted left and right as if seeking some escape. “No!” she insisted. “No no no!”

She broke away from the relative’s comforting grip, but by this time Connie had a firm hand on her. Leopold followed them to Connie’s car.

 

She asked Leopold to sit in while she read Janice Crandel her rights and opened up the questioning. He was asked to repeat what he’d explained to Connie the previous afternoon. He sat off to one side, trying to stay inconspicuous as he spoke. After all, he was retired.

“It wasn’t just one big thing,” he began as Mrs. Crandel watched him intently. “It was more like three or four little things that came together.” He counted them off on his fingers, tapping the index finger of his left hand. “First, there was the fact that someone—undoubtedly the arsonist—smashed a window and entered that empty warehouse on Sunday night or Monday morning. It seemed likely that the firebomb and timer were planted then, but an odd thing happened the following night. Someone broke in again, through the same boarded-up window. I considered several possibilities involving a convicted arsonist and his son, but then fact number two was added to the mix. The fire was reported to 9-1-1 by someone with a muffled voice about two minutes before the timer was set to go off. Sure, the clock being used might have been wrong, but maybe the arsonist wanted the firefighters to arrive before the fire got too much of a headstart.”