Chapter 71
SCI WAS STANDING at the tall desk in his office, transparent flex screens forming a semicircular shield in front of him. He was engrossed in the new info about the car bombs—the death of teen star Maeve Wilkinson had finally ignited the LAPD.
Sci understood the value of reciprocity. He had made friends and acquired contacts during his six years at the city’s lab, and now, he and the city shared information selectively.
Ten minutes ago, Kelli Preston, head of the city lab’s arson division, forwarded him reports on a firebombed Dodge Charger that might be connected to Jack’s Lamborghini as well as to the Aston Martin and the other five cars.
Preston thought that the Charger was very likely the first in the series, possibly the learning model.
The photo on Sci’s center screen showed the blackened Charger chassis with its signature split-crosshair grille that had somehow survived incineration. The scene was a Ralphs supermarket parking lot, and the time of the explosion was 2:23 in the a.m.
The city’s deputy arson investigator had concluded that the fire was started under the left front side of the undercarriage and that there was a chemical explosive in the gas tank, a substance that the LAPD database didn’t recognize.
Preston’s note to Sci said Off the record, the LAPD closed the case on this because it was random and no one was hurt. The owner of the vehicle collected his insurance payout, and Allstate didn’t raise any questions.
Preston told Sci that the LAPD investigated the next four firebombs, but it had been a back-burner case until Maeve Wilkinson died.
Preston wrote, Let me know if you find anything that could help us, Sci. I’ll do the same for you.
Sci sent Preston a reply, then looked again at the report from the chemical screen of the Charger’s gas tank. He knew that the explosive was the same unnamed chemical he’d found in Jack’s Lambo. The vehicle had been registered to Peter Tong, a science teacher at a very tony private school: Our Lady of the Pacific.
Sci fed Tong’s name into his browser and got a hit on RateMyTeacher.com. This was a website students used to flame their teachers and occasionally praise them.
Peter Tong had about twenty reviews, and most of them were vile, defamatory, and anonymous.
Tong was described as a “diabolical hard-ass who liked to flunk kids just because.” Another student complained that Tong was “a sadist who did unnecessary experiments on lab animals and insects. In fact, he calls us ‘the insect population.’”
Sci knew that arsonists had various motivations: rage, revenge, the thrill, and, of course, the insurance money. He organized the Tong data into a single file and included it in his note to Justine.
Justine, see attached. Also, Tong collected ten grand in insurance money. We could be looking at a killer. Be careful.