CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Four men in the room at the Fire Investigation building stared at the whiteboard containing every detail they could cram on it about the fires Noah had been investigating. After hours of discussion and argument, they had zilch. The tension had already spilled over twice into shouting matches. Now the room hummed with the buzz of overhead lighting and frustration.
Eight hours had passed without any sight or sign of Carly. They were monitoring dispatches about every fire in the county. There’d been a kitchen fire in a bucket-of-chicken type place just after midnight. An apartment blaze started when a child decided to make a volcano for school, without informing her parents first. And a collapsed building on the north side. Nothing, so far, that sounded like the work of an arsonist.
No one dared say what they all wondered. Was Carly Harrington-Reese dead?
“No reason to think so,” Durvan had said repeatedly at the beginning of the gathering. “Maybe a hostage situation.” The photos in Cody’s house had finally convinced Durvan that Noah could be right about Cody being a suspect in his arson case. “Arson is one thing. But this Cody person has to know there’s no going back from murder.”
The last time he said it, Noah had slammed out of the room and was gone an hour. The discussion had not come up since he’d returned.
Durvan came into the room now, brisk and businesslike. “Been on the phone with the police. The BOLO out on both Cody’s CowTown van and the truck registered in his name haven’t yielded anything yet. Neither vehicle has been sighted.”
“J.W.’s probably gone to ground until he decides what to do.” Jack Burnett, the arson investigator on call overnight, had joined Noah, Mark, and Durvan in their search for Cody.
“Or, he could be halfway to Mexico.”
All three men glanced in Noah’s direction, but he seemed not to be listening to them.
Mark shook his head as Durvan was about to head over to Noah. “While you were checking that, I called Cody’s boss to ask where he’s supposed to be working come daylight. He wasn’t on emergency night shift tonight. The job Cody’s scheduled to work today doesn’t start until eight.”
It was a little before seven. Sunrise no more than a pale promise on the eastern horizon.
“I’ll ask that they have an officer there to see if he shows up.”
“There’s got to be something we missed in those other fires.” Mark smacked his desktop. “We’re looking at old clues in light of new information. Why can’t we come up with something?”
“There’s only so much the FWPD is willing to do for us. Or the DA’s office. As far as we know officially, Cody hasn’t done a thing wrong. Not being at home isn’t a crime. Neither is collecting newspaper articles, or even taking pictures in public places.” He glanced in Noah’s direction. “Carly isn’t missing as much as not accounted for, since we have no proof otherwise.”
“Wish we could get a warrant to search J.W.’s house. Those pictures would be enough to make Carly’s absence a high priority.”
Durvan grimaced. “We can’t know about them because it would add breaking and entering to Glover’s list of crimes. Move on.”
Mark glanced up at the board. “Isn’t there always a pattern for an arsonist? That’s what you teach us. We know the methods change for arsonists as they get better. But the motivation stays the same. What’s motivating Cody?”
Durvan shrugged. “We don’t have time right now to go through Cody’s life to see if he was having a bad day or can account for his location each of the days we caught those suspect fires.”
Mark nodded. “There might even be some we missed. Still listed as undetermined because none of them were high-risk or high-cost fires.”
“Until the homeless man.” Durvan stroked his mustache. “Could have been an accident. But Cody doesn’t strike me as the kind of arsonist to make mistakes. My bet is on it being intentional, but why? It was out of character. What set him off? Good news? Bad news?”
“The need to be recognized? Vanity?”
Noah’s voice came from the back of the room where he’d been hunkered down listening and evaluating. But it had taken every bit of his firefighter training to sit and go methodically through this drill.
He was by nature even-tempered, not easily rattled. The best firefighters had the ability to maintain their composure while multitasking, thinking on their feet in the face of life-and-death emergencies. But his skill set was being tested to the max as the hours ticked by and nothing could be found of either Carly or J.W.