One more again for the last time: “Your wife find out about that Filipino chick you were keeping south of the river?”
“Jesus, RDB, don’t make me throw you out,” Clevenger is getting honestly pissed.
With a laugh: “Okay. My fun is over,” I say to Clevenger.
Without a laugh, as cold as I can make it: “Watch who you call a piece of shit, Volksman. Ears around here still listen to me.”
“I doubt that, RDB,” Volksman says, picking under his fingernails.
“Then answer two questions for me. Why haven’t I been tossed from this room yet?”
He pauses, looks around, but not at me. Finally: “What’s the second question?”
“Why won’t you look me in the eye?”
“What does that have to do with people on the PD still listening to you?”
“Nothing.” I lean in. Whisper, challenge: “But you’re a pussy.”
Volksman says nothing. Does nothing. I whisper, truth: “Why some sack of shit like you gets to stay on and I am labeled unserviceable is beyond me. Because we both know who was of any worth to this PD.”
Clevenger groans. Head in hands, rubbing the bridge of his nose. I love that kind of thing. Because, I used to own this department. And I’ll say the truth: I can take stabs at some worthless disgraced piece of shit like Thomas Volksman all day and no one is going to eject me from the department.
No one. No one has the balls. Not the Chief, not Captain Flemming. No one.
Rudd and Riggens just fiddle with their paper packets and whistle Dixie. Rudd has smoothed her pant skirt several times. Riggens has run his index fingers along his eyebrows. His own brand of smoothing.
I look to Clevenger.
“Would you like to begin?”
43
The dry erase board says “Delilah Boothe” in Clevenger’s trim, efficient script.
He circles her name. Looks to me. Holds out the ma
rker and says, “You do it.”
“Sure thing,” I say. Take the marker. “Delilah Boothe is the sun in our collective universe. Her old address is your case, Riggens. Her mom is your case, Rudd. Her surrogate father is your case, Volksman. Three arsons in one night all drawing lines to one woman are too coincidental to ignore. Not to mention Clevenger’s murder victim, Pierce White, is Delilah Boothe’s ex-boyfriend.”
“Three MO’s for three fires and one murder,” Volksman says dryly. As if those two words shatter reality.
“So what?” I say.
“Three MO’s points to three different firebugs. Like the one Delilah Boothe’s father bunked with in prison. You telling me he did all three?”
“I’m telling you one firebug—whoever he is—used three different MO’s,” I say. Look to Clevenger. “And the murder was just icing.”
“Ex-boyfriend?” Rudd asks.
“Yeah. They had an office romance that got them both canned and him divorced,” Clevenger says.
“There’s your firebug,” Rudd says.
“No. He’s got no history,” I say.
“Did he have a history of cheating on his wife before he did it?” she asks, eyebrow raised.