“Ann said you’re welcome to have dinner at her place,” Gideon said. “Does that work for you?”
“Yeah, sure. Can I spend the night?”
“The plan is for me to pick you up, but this case might keep me late.”
Kyle shrugged, already adapting to his dad’s busy schedule. “I’m hungry now.”
“What do you want?”
“Take-out pizza.”
“Done.”
“And can we eat it at the station with Joan?”
“What makes you ask that?” Gideon asked.
Kyle shrugged. “Just did.”
“I don’t know, pal.” Gideon did not want his kid falling for Joan Mason. Once her demons were exorcised, she would be on her way.
“Why not? She seems lonely.”
Sharing a pizza with Joan would not kill him. Besides, Kyle was asking, and he rarely asked for much. “Sure, why not.”
When they pulled up to the Pizza Shack, he ordered two large pizzas. One cheese and pepperoni for Kyle and the other with mushrooms and onions for Joan. Jesus, ten years and he still remembered how she liked her pizza.
When they pushed through the back door of the police station, he was not surprised to find her still hunched over an open file with a picture of her freshly burned hands. He remembered the cop at the hospital taking the picture as she’d sat on the gurney in the emergency room.
When she looked up, her hair looked as if she had been running her fingers through it. She quickly closed the file and carefully tucked it back in the box. “Do I need to clear out? Do you guys need the room?”
“We brought you pizza,” Kyle said.
“Pizza?”
“Mine is cheese and yours has mushrooms and onions.” Kyle made a face. “I hate onions.”
Joan’s gaze shifted to Gideon. “You remembered. Thank you.”
Gideon set the pizzas on the conference table while Joan removed the file boxes to a corner on the floor. She grabbed a handful of napkins from the credenza. He and Kyle took their seats while Joan passed out napkins. He flipped open both boxes, and the aroma of pizza filled the room.
Joan reached for a large slice, folded the piece in on itself, and took a big bite. “Delicious, guys. Thanks.”
“You can thank Kyle,” Gideon said. “It was his idea.”
“Well, thank you, sir.”
Kyle shrugged but pursed his lips, as he did when he was trying not to smile. “Sure.”
The three ate in silence for several minutes, until Gideon headed off the coming lull. “Find anything in the files?” he asked.
She finished chewing and swallowed. She looked at Kyle before she nodded. “A very similar device was used to set both the College and salon incidents.”
“You can say fire,” Kyle said.
Joan raised a brow. “I’m going to have to work harder to talk over your head.”
Gideon grinned. “A PG-13 explanation is okay.”
“Somewhere between X-Men and Harry Potter?” Joan asked.
“Or Last Jedi and Black Panther,” Gideon said.
“Haven’t seen either of those,” she said with mock exasperation.
“But you know Harry Potter?” Gideon asked.
“Stupid movie,” Kyle grumbled as he shook his head. “Magic is not real.”
“My partner has an eight-year-old granddaughter,” Joan said. “She just had a birthday, and Hermione appears to be her idol.”
“Silly,” Kyle said.
Gideon could not picture Joan being attached to anything as fanciful as a fantasy character. But he also had never guessed she would return to Montana. “Tell me what you’ve learned, and I’ll let you know if it’s too much.”
“Understood. The investigating officer at the time, Henry Jefferson, initially theorized that the fire was random. He found no connection between Ann or me to Elijah Weston, other than I had been a teaching assistant for one of his professors. Elijah never made any threats either in person or in writing to Ann, me, or anyone else. And then the DNA test came back linking Elijah to the device.”
“Jefferson later hypothesized that Elijah was targeting the trash can near your window,” Gideon said. “We had Elijah’s DNA on file as a result of earlier arson episodes targeting rubbish piles.”
“He was fixated on overflowing, rat-infested trash cans. Ours was neat and had been dumped the day before.”
“One of those early trash fires nearly burned down a trailer.”
“The photos of me they found in his house were taken the night we were watching the rodeo finals at the campus bar.”
“I remember the night.” He and Joan had made love twice that night.
“Do you remember seeing Elijah at the bar?” she asked.
He cleared his throat. “No.”
Her lips flattened as she shook her head. If they had been alone, she would have fired back a salty rebuttal. “The College Fire devices were placed in the crawl space, an odd place if trash was the target.”
“You said the College and beauty shop devices were similar.”
“Very similar,” she said. “The 2010 versions were a bit cruder, a first generation. Only one of the three survived for testing, which was where Elijah’s DNA was found.”
“We’ve had no other fires with similar delivery mechanisms. And Elijah has been in prison.”
She wiped the pizza crumbs from her hands and leaned forward. Kyle paid close attention as he chewed his pizza. “Assume, for a moment, Elijah did not set the College Fire.”
“What?” Gideon froze, the next bite inches from his mouth.
“I know it sounds crazy, but hear me out.”
“Okay.”
“He filed a police report the week prior and claimed his backpack had been stolen. His sweatshirt could have been taken from that pack.”
“Or he was building an alibi.” He set his pizza down and carefully wiped off his fingers as he struggled to check a surge of jealousy.
“Say the arsonist used Elijah’s sweatshirt to throw off the police. Say he has been practicing for the last decade. And has improved. There have been a half dozen brush fires near town in the last few months while Elijah was incarcerated.”
Gideon quickly rebutted. “What if Elijah recruited an accomplice to set the brush fires and to help him gather supplies for the salon fire? You weren’t his only pen pal while he was in prison. He had a group of women called the Fireflies who followed his case closely.” He leaned toward her. “What if he grooms people to help him set fires?”
“What if we’re dealing with someone we’ve never considered? Someone who’s been lurking around on the periphery and setting fires in other jurisdictions for years.”
Marcie Cash had theorized that Lana was seeing either a married or incarcerated man. If Lana had been seeing Elijah, then that would fit Marcie’s theory. He knew that prisons kept records of correspondence and visits. But if Lana had been seeing Joan’s mystery arsonist, then that would explain why he did not want to be seen with her publicly. Tracking him would be more difficult.
An unsettled feeling burrowed into the pit of his belly. He sat back, regarding her and then Kyle, who was still riveted.
“We’re batting around a lot of what-ifs, Joan.”
“Make some calls, Dad,” Kyle said. “That’s what you do when you’re on a case.”
“I could reach out to Clarke,” Gideon said. “He’s tapped into the firefighting community.”
“I would keep the circle small, Gideon,” she suggested. “No one should get wind that you’re looking into the College Fire case.”
“I’ll make a few calls. And I’ll keep everyone out of the loop for now. Kyle, can you keep a secret?”
The boy grinned, clearly pleased to be included in his dad’s new circle. “I sure can! I won’t even tell Nate!”
Joan left the police station feeling as if the answer were only inches out of reach. She parked in front of Elijah’s home. She had been speaking off the top of her head to Gideon, but maybe, and that was a big maybe, he really had not set the College Fire.
Out of her car, she crossed the sidewalk and climbed the front porch steps. She rang the bell and out of habit stood to the side of the door. The door opened to Elijah.
He was holding a psychology textbook and a highlighter. He wore thick black-framed glasses that magnified gray eyes that softened when he saw her. “Joan. What a pleasant surprise. What brings you by?”
“Questions about the College Fire,” she said.
He opened the door. “I love your honesty. Another cop might have devised some thin pretense to attempt to worm information out of me, but not you. Cut to the chase. Love it. Come in. You know I’m an open book for you.”
She stepped inside the house and noted that two of the residents were sitting on the threadbare rose chintz sofa watching a movie. Both sported a few days’ growth of beard, and their shirts and pants were worn and stained. They glanced in her direction, and their gazes lingered while they checked her out.
“Back to the movie, boys,” Elijah said, closing his book with a hard snap. “Let’s go in the kitchen, Joan. I can make you coffee. I remember how much you love my coffee.”