Rogue Island Read Free Page A

least three points of origin, proof that they were not accidental.
    In two of the cases, scrapings Polecki and Roselli had sent to the state police crime lab showed no signs of an accelerant. The lab techs had worked with the two goofballs before, so they went to the scenes themselves to collect more scrapings, this time from spots below the heaviest charring. Gas chromatology tests on the new samples showed both fires were started with generous splashes of gasoline, same as the others.
    But those seven burned tenement houses were owned by five different real estate companies. They were insured by three different insurance companies. None seemed to be insured for more than its market value. I scribbled all the company names in my notepad, but I couldn’t see anything in it.
    â€œWhat do you make of it?” I asked.
    â€œWhat do you make of it?”
    â€œDoesn’t have the look of an insurance scam.”
    â€œProbably not,” McCracken said, “although you can’t rule it out entirely. In Providence, half of all fires are started by someone rubbing his mortgage and his insurance policy together.”
    He waited for a laugh, but I had heard the line before.
    â€œWell,” he said, “we’ve got seven arsons, all within a half mile of each other, all set the same way, all strictly amateur. A pro would use a timing device and be in Newport knocking back boilermakers at the White Horse Tavern before anybody smelled smoke.”
    â€œA firebug, then?”
    â€œMaybe. What’s ‘Chief Lesbo’ telling you?”
    â€œI told you before. Rosie likes guys.”
    â€œSomething you know from experience?”
    You could say that. In first grade, I pushed her on the swings. In junior high, she bent down to cry on my shoulder when some boy she liked called her “Stilts.” In high school, I took her to the prom. And the summer before college we made love, but we’d been pals for so long that it was like sleeping with my sister. Every straight man I knew would think me a fool, but Rosie and I never twisted the sheets again.
    â€œKnow where that rumor comes from?” I said. “Male recruits in her class at the Providence Fire Academy started it after she dusted them in every fitness test. She put up with it as long as she could, but when a fellow firefighter called her a dyke in the firehouse a few years back, she kissed him on the lips and then dropped him with a right cross. Six weeks later a beam fell on the jerk, and she threw him over her shoulder and lugged him out of a burning building. Today she’s the Providence Fire Department’s first woman battalion chief. Nobody calls her names anymore.”
    â€œSo,” McCracken said, “does that mean I’ve got a shot?”
    â€œSure. All you’ve got to do is grow another six inches and stop being an asshole.”
    â€œFor her, I’d get lifts. But she’s your friend, so I figure she must be okay with assholes.”
    â€œWhen I said you needed to grow six inches, I wasn’t talking about your height.”
    McCracken’s eyes narrowed. Then he grinned and fired a carefully placed left jab that whizzed past my right ear.
    We called the testosterone contest a draw and got back to business.
    â€œLook,” McCracken said. “You always think arson-for-hire first because pyromania is rare. Some psychiatrists aren’t sure it even exists. But it’s the only thing that fits the facts here. My guess is we’re dealing with a psycho who sets houses on fire and gets a hard-on watching them burn. Most likely someone who lives in the neighborhood.”
    â€œYou asked Polecki for his pictures of the spectators at the fires?”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œAnd of course there aren’t any.”
    â€œOh, but there are!” he said. “Not for the first six arsons. It took that long for Polecki and Roselli to figure out what they should be doing. But