Clevenger looks into the heap the home has been reduced to. Went fast.
“So when the neighbors called nine-one-one on this...the kid brother caught wind of it and called me.”
“What do they figure?” I ask, crushing out my Rum Coast. “It’s the kid brother’s case?”
“Yeah. I think it’s his first one.”
I rub my eyes. I look at the wife, who is only half lucid, sobbing. She holds her head like an axe is buried in it. Abigail Bellview, her life obliterated.
“Ugly shit. Very ugly shit tonight.” Clevenger takes the pack of smokes from my shirt pocket.
“Molly is going to be pissed at you.”
“Let her.”
He lights up. Coughs. Drags again. “Be a pal and make this my only one, will ya?”
“Sure,” I say. Light my own. “So, what’s he got so far?”
“He says the arsonist broke in. Damage to the structure now...probably never know where. Wife’s story is the bad guy came into the bedroom and clubbed the family while asleep. Dad first; eliminates the biggest threat. Mom next. The kid was sleeping in their bed also.”
/> “He whack the kid?”
“Yup.”
“With what?”
“Judging by the wound, something blunt. Just one strike to the head, keep ’em docile. Baseball bat maybe. Not hard enough to kill; too much of a coward for that.”
“Let the fire kill?”
“Yeah. That way the arsonist doesn’t have to see the fruits of his labor.”
“Like carpet bombing.”
“Yup.”
“What does the mom remember about the intruder?” Give me a description so I can set a fire inside his mouth.
“Nothing besides he was male. It was dark. It all happened so fast. You know.”
“Where’d he set the fire?”
“All over. Must have soaked the home. In the hallway there’s a pool of melted red plastic. Probably a standard can of gasoline.”
“And this?” I nod towards the ambulances.
“Dad came to first. Saw the flames. Probably eating the house by then. A lot. Jimmy figured he had his wits enough to know he had one trip out the door; no time to come back in for round two.”
Exhaling smoke through his nostrils, Clevenger says: “So he carried both Mom and daughter out the front fucking door.”
“No other exit?”
“Who knows what he tried or figured. Conked pretty hard on the head, flames everywhere, smoke, any infrastructure damage he might have come across, losing seconds with every thought. He went out the front.”
I nod.
“The neighbor over there said he was engulfed by the time he dropped the family on the front lawn.”