“What? Excuse me, Columbo, but how do you know he doused the carpet?”
“I pulled some of it up and guess what I saw?”
“A stain that looks like Jesus on a tricycle?”
“No, I found char patterns.”
“Char patterns,” she said.
“When you pour a liquid accelerant on carpet, it soaks into the fibers. When it burns, it makes concentrated char patterns on the sub-floor.”
Kathleen frowned, still unconvinced. “What was all that with the neighbor guy and the color of the smoke?”
“The color of the smoke and flames tells you what’s making it burn. Wood makes a yellow flame, or a red one, with gray or brown smoke.”
“So what’s the problem? The neighbor guy said he saw a yellow flame.”
“Right, but he also said black smoke.”
“So?”
“Black smoke means gasoline.”
The waiter brought our orders and set them on the table. I tore into my omelet, but Kathleen just stared at me. Her face had turned serious.
“Donovan, all these details, this isn’t your first rodeo,” she said. “You obviously know a lot about arson. You said this guy tried to hire you a couple years ago.”
“So?”
“To kill people.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I waited for her to speak. She gave me a look like she wanted to ask me something but wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.
When my daughter Kimberly was eight, she started to ask me about Santa Claus. Before she voiced her question, I looked her in the eye and said, “Don’t ever ask me anything unless you’re ready to hear the truth.” Kimberly decided not to ask. Kathleen, on the other hand, had to know.
“Have you ever done this to someone?” she asked. “Set their house on fire?”
“You should eat,” I said. “That sandwich looks terrific.”
She didn’t respond, so I looked up and saw her eyes burning a hole into my soul. “Have you?” she repeated.
I signaled the waiter and handed him a twenty. “Before you do anything else,” I said to him, “I need a roll of duct tape or sealing tape.” He nodded, took the bill, and moved double-time toward the kitchen. To Kathleen, I said, “I’ve done some terrible things. Things I hope I never have to tell you about, and yes, I’ve been trained to set fires. But no, I’ve never done it.”
“You swear?”
I swore. Happily, it was the truth. Still, I decided not to tell her how close I’d come a few times. And I was well aware that by swearing on the past I hadn’t ruled out the future.
She stared at me awhile before nodding slowly. “I believe you,” she said. “Look, I’m sure you’re a world-class shit heel. It wouldn’t even surprise me if you’d killed people for the CIA years ago, and God help me, I might even be able to live with that, depending on the circumstances. But since I started working with the kids at the burn center… well, you know.”
