“I guess I’ll have to take your word for it, that these are really swell people.”
He grinned with his gold tooth. “I guess they weren’t real friendly, Mr. Payne. I’m sorry. Maybe if you could spend a little more time with ’em—”
He held up a manila envelope.
“What’ve you got?” I said.
“Photos from the crime scene. I was going over them this morning and I found something. Captain Davidson said you were going to be here the next few days consulting on the case so I thought you might want to ride along with me this afternoon. I’ll tell you about it on the way.”
“Fine.”
3
Wimmers handed me a manila folder while we sat at a traffic light. He was a fast, savvy and aggressive driver. At one point he’d grinned and said, “You want to wear a crash helmet, fine with me.”
I’d said, “And I want to make sure my insurance is paid up.”
“I grew up in Chicago. My old man was a cabbie. He taught me how to drive.”
I’d spent three years working out of the Chicago FBI bureau — before going private as a profiler and investigator— so he didn’t need to say any more.
Just as the traffic light changed, I said, “Same guy.”
“Same guy at all three fires. Just standing around watching things.”
We were off. Wimmers wanted to be in the right-hand lane so we could get on the Interstate that cut through the city. God help anybody in his way.
“How many people you killed in your lifetime?” I said.
“Killed? You kidding, Payne? Hell, I’ve never even drawn my gun.”
“Not with your gun. Your car. You didn’t even notice that you ran over a couple of nuns back there.”
“Yeah?” he smiled. “Serves them right for wearing black. They should wear brighter colors.”
I decided to give up on my subtle drive-safely messages.
He said, “I know who the guy is.”
“In the pictures?”
“Yeah. Matt Shea. Country club set. Runs his own brokerage. Lots of money, lots of clout. Reporter on the Gazette I know happened to notice Shea when he was filing the photos. He sent them over to me.”
“Maybe Shea just likes to look at fires.”
“Maybe. But what’s he doing out so late, pillar of the community, family man, all that happy horseshit? The earliest any of those fires were set was 1:00 A.M.”
“Good point. So where we going?”
“His brokerage.”
“God, can it really be this easy?”
“Seems wrong, don’t it?” he said.
“You see a guy in some photos—”
“—and you drive over to where he works—”
“—and you ask him some questions and—”
“—case is closed. And you got your man.”
“I’ve never even heard of it happening like this.”
“Well,” he said, wheeling the police car into the parking lot of a new six-story steel-and-glass building, “there’s always a first time.”
The decor was designed to do one thing: intimidate you with its quiet good taste, right down to the quiet, gold-framed Rembrandt reproductions and the quiet DeBussy on the office music system. The receptionist complemented her setting perfectly, lovely in a slightly fussy and disapproving way, the only hint of earthiness or carnality found in the oddly erotic sag of her bottom inside the discreet gray Armani upscale fifty-year-olds were wearing this year.
Matt Shea did not fit quite so well into his hallowed surroundings. There was a rough-neck quality to his movements that no high-tone suit, no $125 haircut, no $25 manicure could quite disguise. It wasn’t a class thing, it was a testosterone thing. He’d look rough-neck in a tutu.
He said, “Sit down, sit down.”
Old-firm law school office was the motif in this particular room, cherry wood wainscoting, built-in bookcases packed with tomes bound in leather for theatrical effect. The small fireplace snapped and popped with autumnal balm, the wood smell sweet and melancholy.
“Police, huh?” Shea said. “Wow, now this is a surprise.” Despite his linebacker size and his big-man poise, he sounded nervous.
I didn’t like him in the way you abruptly do or don’t like somebody you’ve just met. He was too much obvious cunning and too much obvious after-shave. The perpetual overachiever who was not without a certain frantic sweaty sadness.
After we were all seated, he said, “So how can I help you?”
“Those fires,” Wimmers said. He was the man here.
“Fires?”
“Dance club fires?”
“The dance club fires in the papers.”
“Right.”
He looked at me and shrugged his shoulders and smiled his practiced cunning smile. “Hey, I’m a family man.” He winked at Wimmers and smiled. “You can ask my rabbi.” He wasn’t, of course, Jewish. He was just a lounge act. “I don’t even go into places like those.”
Wimmers carefully set the manila envelope on the desk and pushed it across to Shea. “How about looking inside?”
The smile again. He couldn’t sustain it for much longer than two seconds. “You going to be reading me my rights or something?”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d just look inside the envelope, Mr. Shea.”
“Sure. Be glad to.”
He looked inside and then pulled the photos out one at a time. When he’d seen all three, he said, “Wow. I can see why you wanted to talk to me.” He held his arms up in the air. He was still doing stand-up. “I’ll come along peacefully, officer, sir.”
“This isn’t funny, Mr. Shea. Two people died in those fires. Another one is clinging to life.”
“I was coming home. Just saw the fire trucks and stopped by.”
“I see. All three times?”
“Working late. Honest. As innocent as that.”
“The fires took place in different parts of the city, Mr. Shea. You take different ways home every night?”
“Fuck.” Shea looked grim. He shook his head, as if chiding himself. The way you do when you’ve done something really dumb.
“Pardon me?”
“I said fuck,” Shea snapped. “I take it you’ve heard the word before.”
Ugly, awkward silence. Shea stared down at the two big fists he’d planted on his desk. “I didn’t set those fires,” he said after a while.
“I didn’t say you did.”
“No? You just came out here to show me these three photos but not to make any accusations?”
“I’m trying to figure out who did set the fires. You being there doesn’t necessarily means it was you.”
“It doesn’t, huh?”
“No. But it may mean that you know something I should maybe know.”
Shea looked at me. Fellow member of the white race. “You probably think I’m one of those candy-asses.”
“Which candy-asses would those be, Mr. Shea?”
“You know. Inherited wealth. The right schools. You know something? I grew up on the west side of this city — and in those days, you told people you were from the west side, they started treating you just like you were some inferior species.” He looked back at Wimmers. “Something you’re probably familiar with, Detective Wimmers.”
Wimmers smiled sadly. “I’ve heard rumors about some human beings treating other human beings that way.”
“You know damned well what I’m talking about. Well, that’s just how it was when you were from the west side. No Choate. No Wharton School of Business. That’s where my two best friends at the club went — Choate first then Wharton. But not me. I went to the community college here before I could afford the University in Iowa City. I bussed dishes there at the frat houses. All the rich fraternity boys.” To me, he said, “I’ve worked for every dime. Every dime. And now my pathetic fucking brother goes and spoils it.”