Down.
I snagged eleven with my right arm. It’s my stronger arm, anyway.
I could feel the burn. I did as many sets as I could until my arms were blown out, and the bandage on my left forearm began to get soaked with something other than sweat. So I started my jog again.
This time I chose a path that took me along the beach.
The water beside me seemed so still, so tame in the dawning day, so different from last night. A few timid waves tiptoed across the surface, just enough to keep the ocean from becoming an endless sheet of glass.
And if I didn’t know what went on deep beneath those ripples, I probably would have felt a sense of calm. But I’d been scuba diving enough to know the truth: deep beneath the surface, in the places where the sun’s light will never reach, lies a whole different world.
Even on days like this, when the surface looked peaceful and serene, dark currents, swift and strong, were snaking endlessly through the depths. Never tiring. Never resting. Always, always on the move.
As I ran beside the paradoxical ocean, I couldn’t help but think of my walk with Tessa last night.
Both eerie and beautiful.
And then I thought of John Doe’s suicide.
It was only another mile or so to the trolley tracks where he died. I decided to cruise past the scene, see if I noticed anything different in the daylight.
As I crossed Kettner Boulevard, I could hear the Orange Line approaching, so I knew that the trolleys were running again.
Life moving on.
Soon, the people of San Diego would be listening to their mp3 players, sipping their lattes, and deciding what movie to see this weekend, as they rode the trolleys to work, oblivious to the dark stain on the tracks beneath them.
Just six more blocks. Sunlight blazing. The day had come in at full force. It would probably hit eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit today. Maybe more.
Life is a puzzle to me with its moments of inexpressible joy and its seasons of heart-wrenching pain-sunlight dancing on the surface while the deadly currents roam below.
Suffering comes crashing into our lives and then washes away and we find a way to go on. Or we don’t. Some people don’t.
I rounded the block.
It’s a balancing act. You want tragedy to hurt, you need it to hurt, because once it stops hurting, the part of you that matters most becomes hollow and numb. Part of being human is letting life hurt.
But on the other hand, if it hurts too much, if you get caught dwelling on the meaninglessness and suffering, you can drown in it.
I’ve seen people get jaded and I’ve seen them pull apart at the seams.
Either extreme, you lose. I haven’t figured out how to strike the balance in my own life yet, but I know this much-every time the dark currents rise to the surface, they take a little of my optimism back with them into the abyss.
Only three more blocks.
At two blocks I began to catch the scent of scorched wood.
At one block I saw a hazy layer of smoke hovering above the pavement.
It couldn’t be.
I came to the corner of K Street and 15th and I froze. My skin felt clammy and cool, even as the day blazed to life around me.
Gray smoke smudged the morning, curling up from the blackened shell of a charred but still structurally intact two-story home.
The house lay directly across the street from where the homeless man had appeared last night-less than one city block from where I’d parked and tried to predict the future.
I stood staring at the smoldering ruins, trying to catch my breath, trying to process what this might mean.
If a crowd had been there earlier, it had dispersed, and instead a few tired-looking firefighters lingered by their truck. Beside them, I noticed Lien-hua and Lieutenant Aina Mendez walking toward the cooling remains of the home.
After allowing myself a brief glance at a certain section of freshly scrubbed track, I jogged over to join them.
16
Based on the amount of water soaking the home’s foundation, I guessed the building had cooled sufficiently, which meant the fire had been suppressed several hours ago. And based on the limited degree of structural damage, I figured that the firefighters must have made it here almost immediately. Maybe they received a tip.
Lieutenant Mendez waved to me. “ Buenos dias, Dr. Bowers. I didn’t think you would come. I couldn’t get in touch with you.”
I gestured to my outfit. “Went for a little jog. Left my cell at the hotel. And Lieutenant Mendez, I keep telling you my friends call me Pat.”
She gave me a polite nod. “Si, Dr. Bowers.”
I’d first met Aina three weeks earlier when I came to San Diego for a day to do an initial assessment of the case. I liked her right away. She struck me as savvy, street smart, and, most impressive of all, open-minded. Too often detectives only look for evidence that confirms their suspicions or fits their “gut instincts.” Not Aina; she trusted facts above feelings. And that makes all the difference in the world.
Though it was still early in the day, Lien-hua wore dark sun-glasses. She tipped them up and eyed my soaked T-shirt. “How many did you get in?”
“A hundred forty-eight, total.”
“Slipping in your old age, huh?”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
I asked Aina for a pair of latex gloves and snapped them on. After all, evidence is evidence, even if it’s covered with soot. Then she signaled for two of the firefighters resting on the curb to lend Lien-hua and me their boots. They grudgingly obliged, and we pulled them on and followed Aina into the blackened mouth of what used to be someone’s front door.
17
“Whoever started this fire,” Aina said, “did so after the officers finished processing the scene of John Doe’s suicide. We’re guessing 2:00 a.m. as the time the first fuel was ignited.”
Detective Dunn and his team must have finished up as quickly as they could to keep the trolleys on schedule. It didn’t surprise me, though. It all seemed simple enough: a drug-crazed homeless guy throws himself in front of a trolley. Period. Except that the timing and location of the fire told me that things weren’t as simple and clear cut as they seemed.
“Any chance the fire was accidental?” I asked Aina.
“Unlikely. You’ll see when we get to the point of origin.”
“Witnesses?” Lien-hua asked.
Aina led the way through the soot-stained kitchen. “No one who’s talking, but that’s no surprise. People in this neighborhood don’t generally like talking to the police. Oh, but we did find the young man who was at the tobacco store.”
“Anything?” I asked.
“He’s a foreign exchange student from Korea. We spoke with him early this morning. He didn’t witness the suicide and was at his apartment when the fire began. I can’t see any connection. The store owner didn’t see anything, either.”
I nodded. “Lien-hua,” I said. “Talk me through your profile.
Just the highlights.”
“It pains you to say that, doesn’t it? To ask me for the profile?” “More than you know.”
Aina must have given her a questioning look because Lien-hua tightened her voice and explained, “Pat thinks profiling is a complete waste of time.”
“Not a complete waste of time,” I said. “It keeps a lot of novel-ists off welfare.”
Lien-hua stepped on one of the boards underfoot hard enough to crack it, and I wondered if the board represented anything specific to her. Probably best not to ask.
“Well,” she said. “We have no eyewitnesses, no footprints, or other incriminating physical evidence of any kind, so he’s forensi-cally aware. He’s experienced, older than most arsonists. Probably midthirties. He’s precise and exacting, takes pride in his work. Possibly admires news reports about the fires to his friends: ‘See that fire? That guy really knows what he’s doing.’ Things like that. He works alone on the fires. Lives alone. Has military experience.”