Point of Origin

'Lucy,' I said as she finished her gyro pita. 'I think we're all in agreement that the MO of this crime is distinctive.'

'Definitely.'

'Let's just suppose,' I went on, 'for the sake of argument, that something similar has happened before, somewhere else. That Warrenton is simply part of a pattern of fires used to disguise homicides that are being committed by the same individual.'

'It's certainly possible,' Lucy said. 'Anything is.'

'Can we do a search?' I then asked. 'Is there any database that might connect similar MOs in fires?'

She got up and threw food containers in a large trash bag in the kitchen.

'You want to, we can,' she said. 'With the Arson Incident System, or AXIS.'

I was well acquainted with it and the new supersonic ATF wide area computer network called ESA, which was an acronym for Enterprise System Architecture, the result of ATF being mandated by Congress to create a national arson and explosive repository. Two hundred and twenty sites were hooked up to ESA, and any agent, no matter where he was, could access the central database, could pipe himself into AXIS with his laptop as long as he had a modem or a secure cellular line. This included my niece.

She led us back to her tiny bedroom, which was now depressingly bare save for cobwebs in corners and dust balls on the scuffed hardwood floor. The box springs were empty, the mattress still made with wrinkled peach sheets and upended against a wall, and rolled up in a corner was the colorful silk rug that I had given her for her last birthday. Empty dresser drawers were stacked on the floor. Her office was a Panasonic laptop on top of a cardboard box. The portable computer was in a shark-gray steel and magnesium case that met military specifications for being ruggedized, meaning it was vapor-proof and dust-proof and everything-proof and supposedly could be dropped and run over by a Humvee.

Lucy sat before it on the floor, Indian style, as if she were about to worship the great god of technology. She hit the enter key to turn the screen saver off, and ESA lit up rows of pixels at a time in electric blue, flashing a map of the United States on the next vivid screen. At a prompt, she typed in her user name and password, answered other secure prompts to work her way into the system, invisibly cruising through secret gateways on the Web, passing through one level at a time. When she had logged on to the case repository, she motioned for me to sit next to her.

'I can get you a chair if you want,' she said.

'No, this is fine.'

'The floor was hard and unkind to my lower lumbar spine. But I was a good sport. A prompt asked her to enter a word or words or phrases that she wished the system to search for throughout the database.

'Don't worry about the format,' Lucy said. 'The text search engines can handle complete stream of consciousness. We can try everything from the size of the fire hose used to the materials the house was made of - all that fire safety info and stuff that's in your set forms fire departments fill out. Or you can go with your own key queries.'

'Let's try death, homicide, suspected arson,' I said.

'Female,' Marino added. 'And wealth.'

'Cut, incision, hemorrhage, fast, hot,' I continued thinking.

'What about unidentified,' Lucy said as she typed.

'Good,' I said. 'And bathroom, I suppose.'

'Hell, put horses in there,' Marino said.

'Let's go ahead and give it a shot,' Lucy proposed. 'We can always try more words as we think of them.'

She executed a search and then stretched her legs out and rolled her neck. I could hear Janet in the kitchen washing dishes, and in less than a minute, the computer came back with 11,873 records searched and 453 keywords found.

'That's since 1988,' Lucy let us know. 'And it also includes any cases from overseas in which ATF was called in to assist.'

'Can we print out the four hundred and fifty-three records?' I asked.

'You know, the printer's packed, Aunt Kay.' Lucy looked up apologetically at me.

'Then how about downloading the records to my computer,' I said.

She looked uncertain.

'I guess that's all right,' she said, 'as long as you make sure… Oh, never mind.'

'Don't worry, I'm used to confidential information. I'll make sure no one else gets hold of them.'

I knew it was stupid when I said it. Lucy stared longingly into the computer screen.

'This whole thing's UMX-based SQL.' She seemed to be talking to no one. 'Makes me crazy.'

'Well, if they had a brain in their head, they'd have you here doing their computer shit,' Marino said.

'I haven't made an issue of it,' Lucy replied. 'I'm trying to pay my dues. I'll ship those files to you, Aunt Kay.'

She walked out of the room. We followed her into the kitchen, where Janet was rolling glasses in newspaper and carefully packing them into a Stor-All box.

'Before I head out,' I said to my niece, 'could we maybe go for a walk around the block or something? And just catch up?'

She gave me a look that was something less than trustful.

'What?' she said.

'I may not see you again for a while,' I said.

'We can sit out on the porch.'

'That would be fine.'

We chose white plastic chairs in the open air above the street, and I shut the sliders behind us and watched crowds come alive at night. Taxis were not stopping, and the fireplace in the window of The Flame danced behind glass while men drank in the dark with each other.

'I just want to know how you are,' I said to her. 'I don't feel like you talk to me much.'

'Ditto.'

She stared out with a wry smile, her profile striking and strong.

'I'm all right, Lucy. As all right as I ever am, I guess. Too much work. What else has changed?'

'You always worry about me.'

'I have since you were born.'

'Why?'

'Because somebody should.'

'Did I tell you Mother's getting a facelift?'

Just the thought of my only sibling made my heart turn hard.

'She had half her teeth crowned last year, now this,' Lucy went on. 'Her current boyfriend, Bo, has hung in there for almost a year and a half. How 'bout that? How many times can you screw before you need something else nipped and tucked?'

'Lucy.'

'Oh, don't be self-righteous, Aunt Kay. You feel the same way about her that I do. How did I end up with such a piece of shit for a mother?'

'This isn't helping you in the least,' I said quietly. 'Don't hate her, Lucy.'

'She hasn't said one fucking word about my moving to Philadelphia. She never asks about Janet, or you, for that matter. I'm getting a beer. Do you want one?'

'Help yourself.'

I waited for her in the growing dark, watching the shapes of people flow by, some loud and holding on to each other, while others moved alone with purpose. I wanted to ask Lucy about what Janet had told me, but I was afraid to bring it up. Lucy should tell me on her own, I reminded myself, as my physician's voice ordered that I should take control. Lucy popped open a bottle of Miller Lite as she returned to the balcony.

'So let's talk about Carrie just long enough for you to put your mind at ease,' Lucy matter-of-factly stated, taking a swallow. 'I have a Browning High-Power, and my Sig from ATF, and a shotgun - twelve gauge, seven rounds. You name it, I can get it. But you know? I think my bare hands would be enough if she dared to come around. I've had enough, you know?'

She lifted the bottle again. 'Eventually you just make a decision and move on.'

'What sort of decision?' I asked.

She shrugged.

'You decide you can't give someone any more power than you already have. You can't spend your days in fear of them or hating them,' she explained her mindset. 'So you give it up, in a sense. You go about your business, knowing that if the monster ever steps into your path, she'd better be ready for life or death.'

'I think that's a pretty good attitude,' I said. 'Maybe the only attitude. I'm just not sure you really feel that way, but I hope so.'