Thad didn’t take the list, just watched me across the expanse of his desk. “Do I need a lawyer, Nell? Black man with an officer of the law in his office?”
“Oh.” I dropped my hand and let a breath go in shock. “Mr. Thad, I would never come to you’un—to you—my friend, with you as a suspect in anything. First of all, I would know you hadn’t done whatever crime it is. Second, I’d be standing with you, shotgun in hand to defend you and yours. And last, you do not need a lawyer unless you tell me you can start fire with your mind.”
Mr. Thad threw back his head and laughed, accepted the sheet of paper, and asked, “What can I do for you on these fires?”
“Did you see anything odd? Smell anything odd? Have any thoughts about a guilty party? Did any of your fellow firefighters act strange at these fires? Any orange flames with purple tips?”
“No, no, no, and no, to the first four questions. Everything was pretty normal. As to the color of the flames, you see all sorts of colors as houses burn, what with all the synthetics and man-made furnishings. So I see orange flames all the time. That’s the most common color of fire, you know.” His eyes dropped to the sheet and scanned up and down, his brow creased as he thought.
“Yeah. I know that. The purple flames?”
“Over the years, I’ve seen green, purple, a strange metal-flake blue, an iridescent rainbow color, though nothing I can recall at any of these fires.”
I deflated and accepted the list back. “If you think of anything odd you might have noticed, will you give me a call?” I handed him my card. “I have a cell phone now.” I waggled my cell at him, showing it off.
“Well, would you look at that. It’s good to see you joining the world, Nell. It’s real good. You coming to church soon?”
“As soon as this case is closed,” I said.
“We’re having dinner on the grounds every Sunday this month. We’re smoking a whole hog each week, with all the trimmings. Raising money for the Baker girl, the one with leukemia.”
“I’ll make a donation even if I can’t come,” I said.
“The Lord’s work is never done.”
I went around the desk and hugged him, which seemed to freeze Mr. Thad solid for a moment before he hugged me back. I had never taken the initiative with him. I wasn’t sure I had ever been the hugging originator with anyone except family. It felt good. “Later, Mr. Thad.”
? ? ?
I was only a few minutes late to work. Dusk was the usual time for the EOD—end-of-day meeting—and current case summary, but with us all off for twelve hours, it was more like SOB—start of business. I slid into my seat at the conference room table only moments before Soul took her place. The smell of eggnog and sugar cookies rode on the air. The little tree’s lights were on.
JoJo opened without preamble. “Clementine. Note date and time. Present are all members of PsyLED Unit Eighteen and the assistant director. As of seventeen minutes ago, we have discovered Justin Tolliver’s biological father. His name is Charles Healy.”
I sat up straight. Soul looked surprised. She had been on duty and she clearly didn’t know about Healy, so JoJo must have been working from home instead of sleeping.
“In 1973,” JoJo said, “Healy was incarcerated on weapons charges, for selling stolen military weaponry to third-world companies through contacts he made in the Vietnam War. An undercover ATF officer died in the takedown, and when the ammo was traced to Healy’s weapon, the feds threw the book at him and he was convicted on all charges. He should be eighty years old and still in federal prison, but he disappeared during a prisoner transfer eleven years ago.”
“Where?” I asked.
“United States Penitentiary in Beaumont, Texas.”
Occam winced. I guessed that meant it was a particularly bad prison.
“Interesting,” T. Laine said, her fingers flying over her keyboard. “Yeah. I thought I remembered this. The Tolliver family has connections to a weapons factory. Did the stolen weapons come from the family factory?”
“Ask for the old court records,” Soul ordered. “Did Healy have a steady cellmate in federal prison?”
“Yeah,” JoJo said, clicking and swiping, working on three electronic devices at once. “Guy called Bradley ‘Boom Boom’ Richards. He’s still there, serving twenty to life.”
Soul said, “PsyLED doesn’t have a unit stationed in Texas. The closest is Mobile. Or maybe Arizona, with Special Agent Ayatas FireWind.” She frowned, thinking. “I don’t think we can make either one work. Dyson and Kent?” she commanded, addressing Tandy and T. Laine. “Fly out to meet with prison officials and talk with Mr. Boom Boom. See if you can interview the guards who lost Healy on the transfer.”
T. Laine said, “Whoot! Our first official flight! Overnight?”
Nose in her tablet, her earrings swinging, JoJo said, “It’ll have to be. There’s a flight out of McGhee Tyson Airport to Jefferson County, Texas, in two hours but no flight back from Jack Brooks Regional Airport until tomorrow. Booking now. If you run lights and sirens you can get there in time to make it through security.”
The two disappeared down the hallway, and we could hear them shouting back and forth about supplies, gear, electronic devices, and timing. JoJo’s face was tight, and I realized that her boyfriend . . . lover? some better title? . . . was leaving town with her best friend. She wasn’t jealous. She just wanted to be the one to go away with Tandy on an investigatory jaunt.
“You’ll have to check your weapons in your baggage,” Soul called to them.
“You booking us a hotel too?” T. Laine yelled back.
“Done!” JoJo shouted. “Confirmations for flight and hotel sent to your cells.”
And then they were gone. Soul and Rick exchanged a look that was full of something almost parental, as if to say, Aren’t the little ones cute at this stage? She slid her wide flashing black eyes to me. “Nell. It will be fully dark out soon. Would you feel up to reading the land near the DNAKeys research facility?”
My instant mental reaction was, NO! but my mouth said, “I thought we had ruled out DNAKeys as part of the problem. What do you have in mind?”
Soul shook her head. “I don’t know exactly. Everything about the case changed when we discovered that some of the Tollivers were pyros. We still don’t know why a pyro shot up the Holloways’ party and the Old City restaurant. We could have more than one thing going on and I don’t want to drop any strands just yet. I want to keep everything in the weave.”
“But the adult Tolliver males smell human. It’s the wives who smell nonhuman. None of this makes sense yet.”