Playing With Fire (32 page)

Erin’s eyes were wide, wild with fear. The gag in her mouth
had cut gashes on her pale cheeks where she tried to remove it. He gently
unstrapped the gag and she collapsed against him. He saw in an instant that the
cord binding her to the plumbing was too strong to break without hurting her.
With no knife, he grabbed at the thirty-year-old faucet and yanked it from the
wall. With the faucet in one hand and Erin under his arm he headed for the
bathroom window, thanking Christ that the workmen hadn’t put in the poly
carbonate barrier he’d ordered. Using the broken pipes to smash the glass, he
threw Erin out the window and followed after her, covering her body with his.
There was a hideous bang and the building behind them exploded into flames. He
sheltered her as best he could. Knowing that she was drenched with alcohol, he
rushed for the relative safety of the trees. Yelling for help, he turned a
corner to see a white-faced Connor running toward them, followed by Dan and at
least five firefighters in full gear.

“She’s covered with rubbing alcohol! It’ll blow! Help me get
her out of these clothes. Don’t let a spark
near
her. Somebody give me a
knife! Get this fucking cord off her.”

His voice was hoarse through his smoke-ravaged throat. The
words weren’t out of his mouth when a gloved hand came out of nowhere and cut
though the bindings. A red haze covered Nate’s eyes when he saw the blood on
her wrists.

Behind Dan, Nate saw Chief Roberts, and on his heels Chief
Halloran. Both men’s faces were grey with worry. By the time he got to the
ambulance Erin was naked, wrapped only in his jacket. Mercifully, Pete Marshall
and Fred Mason were inside waiting for her. In what seemed like seconds, Fred
had an IV connected and an oxygen mask over her nose.

“She’s breathing, Nate. But her pulse is thready. We’ve got
to get some fluid in her. She’s in shock.”

“Yeah and he drugged her. From what we can tell it’s
rophenol.”

Fred was crisp.

“Stand back, Nate. Let us work. She’s gonna be okay. She’s
fighting us now.”

Nate leaned against a strong body, and felt Connor’s arm
around his shoulders.

“Hang in there, man. She’s okay. Look. She’s trying to fight
them off, even now.”

For the next several minutes Nate did his best to stay back,
to let the EMT’s work. He refused to give into the terror just below the
surface, threatening to level him. He watched the monitors thanking a God he
didn’t know existed when the blips showed her heart was beating normally.

Dan came to the door of the ambulance. His eyes were side,
incredulous.

“You’re not gonna believe who returned to the scene of the
crime, Nate.”

Nate looked over Dan’s shoulder out into the crowd. He could
make out Ettie Mae surrounded by neighbors, tears streaming down her face.
Behind the crowd, a good twenty feet to the side, stood Crenshaw. He was
standing calmly as though at an exhibition, not a burning house and likely
death scene.

A numb calm flooded Nate. The sounds of the sirens, the
screams and wails of the crowd, the shouts of the firefighters receded, as an
unearthly quiet settled over him. The crowd parted to let him through. Nate
could only imagine what he looked like; his arms were covered with soot, his
jeans torn. He saw but didn’t feel the cuts on his hands from when he dove
through the broken window.

He circled around, and eventually stood behind the short,
slender man, and let him feel his presence.

Crenshaw turned, and instantly blanched.

“Sightseeing, counselor? I’ve always heard that firebugs
like to watch.”

As if he’d turned on a switch, Crenshaw went into action.

“Oh my God, Stryker, tell me what happened. What’s going on?
Please God! Oh God, please! Please tell me Erin’s not in there!!”

Nate stared at him, then said quietly, “She’s not in there.”

Crenshaw buried his head in his hands.

“Oh thank God. Thank God!”

Nate’s voice calmed further.

“But she was. Kenneth.”

It took a good ten seconds for the full realization to fill
the man’s eyes. He looked behind Nate and startled, seeing the cordon of
stern-faced uniformed men glaring at him.

Nate nodded to Dan.

“He’s all yours, Dan.”

As he walked toward the ambulance, he heard Pete Maze’s flat
intonation.

“Kenneth Crenshaw, you have the right to remain silent, the
right….”

“Nice lookin’ duds, counselor. That color is interesting on
you. I’m accustomed to seeing you in more sophisticated clothes. I guess it
doesn’t hurt to liven up your look. But hell, bright orange?”

Nate eyeballed the man sitting at the table. Kenneth’s eyes
were dark with disdain. His lip curled in scorn. Nate chuckled. You’d think the
little prick was running the interrogation, not sitting in the hard plastic
chair, his hands and feet shackled. To his expert eye, Nate saw a glimmer of
fear in Crenshaw’s eyes, but it was quickly replaced with hatred.

Nate knew that feeling. In the past there were many times
he’d been consumed with hate. He could easily call up the hideous sights he’d
seen. Sights that filled him with fury. In Iraq, at crime scenes, battered
women, abused frightened children. But that fury had been at the situation. The
unfairness of life. His inability to do anything about it. His fury at an uncaring
God who refused to get involved.

But what he felt for Kenneth P. Crenshaw the 3rd was
visceral, primitive. Strangely, given his predilections, he didn’t feel the
need to take down the odious man physically. That would be too easy. Not nearly
violent enough. No, he would take him down on his own turf. By outsmarting him,
humiliating him, and crushing him with the very legal system that Kenneth had
abused to lie, cheat, and kill.

Nate eased into the chair across from Kenneth, and leaned
back. He felt like an eagle peering down from the sky, sighting a rat. Not a
mouse or a squirrel, or a chipmunk. But a rat accustomed to hiding in the
bushes then preening in the sun after he had eaten his unsuspecting prey. The
satisfaction Nate felt came from knowing as the eagle did, that he could take
his time, move at his own pace. There was no way that this evil creature could
escape his wrath. He glanced at his spiral notepad.

“I see that you refused a lawyer? Yes? Nobody quite as smart
as you, right, Kenny?”

“My name is Kenneth.”

“Is that so? I’ll try to remember that. Kenny.”

Crenshaw sniffed, his loathing apparent.

“In answer to your question, Stryker, I have no need for a
lawyer. Not only because I am the best that there is, but because you have
nothing against me. Nothing that will hold up in court. Even in this pisswater
town.”

“Good to hear that you are confident of that, Kenny. It will
make taking you down even sweeter.”

Crenshaw’s sneer widened.

“You think you are so fucking smart, Stryker. You’re nothing
but a backwater overgrown hick amped up on testosterone. But you have nothing
on me. You’re just too dumb to know it.”

Nate shrugged.

“Yeah I’ve heard that before. From other men sitting in that
same chair. Men even smarter than you, Kenny.”

Kenneth snorted. “You arrogant asshole. You’ve met your
match and you just don’t know it. You can drag innocent people off the street
and attempt to terrorize them with your brawn, your guns, and your arrogance.
But the courtroom is my turf, Stryker. I rule it.”

Nate held him in his gaze. His voice was silky soft.

“Yeah. Kenny. And, that’s the turf you and I are gonna
tangle on.”

Settling comfortably in his chair, he looked back at his
note pad.

Crenshaw barked out a contemptuous laugh.

“You fucker. You know you don’t have a damn thing written on
that notepad. Did you learn that little gimmick in big bad ‘poleeceman school?’
A little trick to make your victims think you have something on them?”

His sneer broadened.

“You don’t have a thing on me, Stryker. You can’t prove a damn
thing. I can document every place I was when any of these ‘incidents’ took
place.”

“Incidents? Is that lawyer-speak for murders?”

Crenshaw gave a derisive shrug.

“Call them what you wish. They have nothing to do with me.”

Nate leaned back in his chair and contemplated the abhorrent
man. The glimmer of fear he’d seen before was gone. In its place was contempt.
Nate marveled. The fucker truly did think he was going to slither his way out
of this. Ah, well. It made it all the better.

“I dunno, Kenny. You got a train of bodies in your wake.
Sure you got all your bases covered?”

He scrubbed at his chin and glanced down at his notepad.

“Let’s see. We have Dylan. And Camilla. That’s two. And then
poor Simon. That makes three. Oh yeah, and then there is Blake Richards. Who,
as it turns out, was a nice guy. The real Blake Richards might have given me
some genuine competition for Erin. Yeah, Blake is a single guy, runs a nice
solo legal practice in Seattle that focuses on Indian Affairs. Gotta give it to
you, Kenny. You do figure out the details. When I checked up on you three weeks
ago, the head of our Department of Indian Affairs confirmed that he’d been
working with Blake Richards for four years. What we didn’t know was that this
was the first time he’d worked with him in person. Impressive research, Kenny.
Unfortunately, the real Richards hasn’t been seen for over a month now. His
friends are surprised. He emailed them that he was taking a well-deserved
vacation but no one expected him to be gone this long. I imagine once they know
what they are looking for, our friends in the Seattle PD will turn up a body —
if they haven’t already.”

Crenshaw sneered again.

“No one will be able to pin anything that happened in
Seattle in the last month on me. In the event that it escaped your notice,
Stryker, I’ve been right here in this backwater town for nearly six weeks.”

“Yes, you have, Kenny. But that doesn’t mean everyone
critical to this case has been here.”

Crenshaw flinched. “What do you mean by that?”

Nate flipped over first one photograph then another, placing
two mug shots in front of Crenshaw. He felt a surge of satisfaction at the
nervous tic that vibrated by Crenshaw’s eye. Not that he needed any
affirmation. But he did want the asshole to know he was going down.

“Well, let’s see what we have here. We know this guy
happened to be in Seattle on September 24th. Oh, and this unsavory-looking
fellow confirmed he spent October 15th in the comfortably dry heat of Phoenix.
Where he met up with none other than Simon Bergner. Not a pleasant meeting for
Simon as it turns out.…”

Nate turned the mug shot toward himself as though he didn’t
know the name.

“Oh yeah, this one is Ralph Martin. The other equally
unpleasant-looking man is William Strunk, better known in some circles as Willie
the Skunk. Colorful fellows, both. With colorful, quite well-documented pasts.
Both of them have spent hard time in prison and aren’t excited about a return
visit. And before you tell me their testimony won’t hold up in court — I mean
on ‘your’ turf, you may have slipped up, Kenny. We have two $50,000 payments
wired from your private account to Willy and three to Ralph. Hmm, makes me
wonder if there might be another body or two lying around that we haven’t
uncovered — yet.”

Nate nodded pleasantly.

“The problem, Kenny, is that as disreputable as these two
fellows are, there is some truth to that old saw, ‘honor among thieves.’
Neither one of these guys will ‘out’ the other, but they don’t mind identifying
the supercilious hotshot who hired them. In fact they are downright eager to do
so.”

Nate smiled.

“And for the record, counselor, that would be you.”

The tic by Crenshaw’s eye flickered unbidden.

“Ever been in a lineup, Kenny? No? Don’t fret. It’s like
shooting fish in a barrel. Only this time,
you’re
the fish.”

Nate was gratified at the slight sheen of sweat hovering on
Crenshaw’s lip. Wouldn’t be long before that unconscious reaction to fear would
stain the fucker’s armpits. Too bad, Nate wouldn’t be around to smell his fear.
He’d had about as much as he could take, being in the same room with this
vermin.

“Oh and Kenny. In addition to the lineup we also have this.”

He took out Erin’s phone and put it on the table.

“Seems Erin makes better use of her iPhone than I do. Uses
it to record her findings when she’s on site at a fire scene. Yep, apparently
you just have to speak into the microphone and every word you say — or, as in
this case, what the other person says, is recorded for posterity.”

He flipped it on and gazed at Crenshaw though half-lidded
eyes. The other man couldn’t contain an involuntary start when his voice echoed
throughout the room. Nate let it play through a particularly incriminating
passage where Crenshaw bragged about shooting Dylan. Nate turned it off in
mid-sentence.

“That’s enough. You know the rest, Kenny. And now so do we.”

Kenneth stammered, his words faltering.

“It’ll… that will never hold up in court.”

“We’ll see. It was in Erin’s pocket. We’ll add it to the
rophenol you drugged her with, that was still in her bloodstream when I hauled
her bound body out of that burning shack. At least to a Northwoods cop like me,
that’s damn convincing evidence. But as I said, we’ll see. “

He studied Crenshaw for a long moment.

“You called Erin a slut, Kenny. At least three times on this
recording. And an ignorant one at that. Hmm, even drugged and bound, Erin was
smart enough to hit record on this little device. And she managed to send the
recording when she was gagged and tied to the plumbing in a house that was
about to blow. Can you imagine the presence of mind that took? The courage?
Interesting that a woman you had so little respect for, is who will take you
down.”