American Arson

Chapter Six

The frantic environment outside Chief Lawson's office was nearly mute. Lewis was walking towards the corner where he left his briefcase. He picked it up and ran out the door. The frantic environment exploded again and all of the hubbub originating from the endless mass of law enforcement officials rang his ears.

He jogged towards his office, frantically closing the door to avoid any contact before he was able to take a seat. He rolled his whiteboard across the room and in front of his desk. He grabbed a marker.

He laid out the contents of his briefcase on his desk, pushing anything unrelated to the case aside. The files were organized, sitting in a few piles. He had two folders, meaning one for each fire. One for every three victims.

Opening the folders, he was greeted by an array of photos of the victims.

Then he was interrupted.

An officer walked into the door. "Detective, the Chief wants to move you into a bigger space." He said. Lewis looked down at the contents on his desk. "Well, he could've fucking told me earlier!" He said, stressed.

The officer simply nodded, and left the room. Looking out the glass, Lewis saw him disappear to another hall. Lewis frantically gathered the contents of his briefcase and ran out the door. He jogged down to Chief Lawson's office, opening the door. "Chief, where you want me?" He asked. Chief Lawson pointed out the window to the conference room without looking up from his desk, which was scattered with files.

Lewis wasted no time.

He nearly broke into a sprint as he ran towards the conference room, which as full with investigators waiting on him. He opened the door and looked around. There were a few detectives standing around. He saw Investigator Daniels leaning against the wall.

Lewis dropped his suitcase on the table, once against scattering the contents out. He looked up.

All eyes were on him.

Daniels was the first to speak. "Detective, this is your case. Fill us in." He said. Lewis nodded. He looked at one of the officers sitting at the table and snapped at the whiteboard. The officer got the message and rolled it over.

"I wan't every single asshole in this town with a prior for Arson on this board." He demanded, confidently. At first, nobody moved. They looked at him, confused. Lewis knew he was coming in a little hot to launch the investigation, but coming in too cold wasn't an option.

"You heard the man, let's get it done!" Daniels yelled, clapping three times. Everybody jumped up and into action, running out of the room to fetch as many files as possible. Daniels began to follow, but Lewis stopped him.

"Daniels, stay in here." He said. At that point the room was empty. Daniels walked over.

He looked at him sternly. "There were six people in this room, not including me and you." He looked at the pictures of the burnt corpses.

"One for each seat."

Daniels looked up at him like he was crazy, but he reached for the pictures anyways. He quickly placed the pictures at each of the seats, leaving the two seats that belonged to him and Lewis without one. They waited patiently for everyone to return.

After a few minutes, a detective walked in. His name was Detective Jake Robertson. He dropped three files on the table, and looked at the picture.

He froze.

"Robertson, what do you have?" Lewis asked after a few seconds of silence. He seemed to snap out of it. He opened the files and slid them over to Lewis, who waited at the opposite end of the table. Lewis trapped them with his hand when they reached his end. He looked at them, and back up at Robertson.

There were two files. The first one was for a man named Harry Belling, and another for Victor Bernz. Lewis studied them closely.

"Belling was arrested in 2003 for setting fire to his neighbors car. Bernz was arrested for setting fire to a dumpster near a gas station." Robertson said.

"Where do they work?" Daniels asked.

"Bernz worked at the gas station, Belling worked at the Bojangles." He said.

Lewis looked up from the files abruptly. Two more officers had walked in, carrying files. "What do you have?" He asked. They walked over to him, dropping about six files total. "Well, I can tell you J.J. Jacobs was arrested when he was a kid for setting fire to a wheat field behind his house." One of them said.

J.J. Jacobs was famous among the town. He owned a burger joint called "Triple J's Burgers and Fries". He was good friends with him, but he had no idea he was arrested as a kid. Everybody looked around at each other, knowing how bad it was for his name to be on one of the files. Lewis took the picture and hung it up on the board.

Everybody was dead silent.

Every picture that they would hang up was a familiar face. More files came in. The board stood in the middle of the room, showing off it's array of pictures and names. Twelve photos. Twelve suspects.

Twelve familiar faces.