Thick, stifling streams of smoke climbed out of the charred and crumbled debris and clung heavily to the air. The crooked, skeletal rebar climbed out of the collapsed concrete like bones escaping flesh, and the blackened remains of wood and cloth scattered ashes into the wind.
"How many dead?"
"Three."
"Damn."
Flashing blue and red lights illuminate the night, reflecting off of the surrounding midcentury colonial houses and one pile of smoldering rubble, barely maintaining the shape of what once was a home.
"How many house fires is that this month?"
"Too many."
When the firefighters cleared the scene, one man from the fire department stayed behind, a tall, dark haired man with a splash of freckles scattered across the bridge of his nose under a thick layer of ash. He surveyed the damage, taking mental note of the burn patterns, the way the structure crumbled, the burn path. He circled the entirety of the decrepit property before entering the charred remains.
Outside, two police detectives interviewed neighbors and witnesses. One man, dressed in a posh white suit with a swirl of fashionable auburn hair and a goatee, comforted a sobbing woman gently while she described what she had seen.
"It all happened so fast, I smelled smoke from my bedroom and though my husband left something on the stove, but when I looked out the window I saw fire coming out of the neighbors house. I just… I was so stunned! I called 911 and the fire department arrived, but by then the roof had already caved in, I couldn't believe how fast a house could just burn down… and the neighbors! Oh, it's just terrible," she sobbed.
The other officer, a tall man with a tuft of yellow hair on the top of his head and lazy eyes nodded in understanding, writing down her description in his notebook.
The detectives let the woman go back into her home and turned towards the blackened rubble.
"Hard to believe that used to be a house," the white suited man said to his partner.
"Yeah."
A dust-covered man emerged from the skeletal remains of the house, brushing ash from his clothes, and approached the two men with a somber look.
"Who wears white to a house fire?" the dusty man commented.
With a chuckle, the man replied, "Name's Thatch. You must be the arson investigator."
"That's me, call me Ace," he replied, extending a dusty hand which was promptly taken by the other detective in a firm handshake, drawing his attention to the blonde, lazy-eyed man.
"Nice to meet you Ace, I'm Marco. I'll be the lead detective on this case," the blonde detective said, locking eyes with the arson investigator in an intense gaze. The intensity was stirring and Ace felt his immediate, engaging presence and found it to be energizing. The contrast of that energy to the calmness of his features was captivating.
"What did the neighbors say?" Ace asked the detectives.
"They all agreed it happened very fast. One minute they notice flames in the windows. When the fire department arrives at the scene the roof has already collapsed, and just minutes later the place is rubble," explained Marco.
"That sounds about right," the arson investigator hummed. "This wasn't an accidental fire. I've collected some samples to bring to the lab."
"Was it the same as the other fires?" Thatch asked, referring to the previous fires that month.
Ace shook his head, "No, the trouble is all the fires were started differently; different incendiaries, different accelerants. I can't link them by method." He brushed a hand through his hair, causing a drift of ash and dust to fall to his shoulders. "But I have this gut feeling, something's going on, and this isn't going to be the last fire like this we put out."
When the detectives got back into the car Thatch smirked to his partner from the passenger seat, "that arson investigator huh? He's totally your type."
"Shut it Thatch," the blonde rebuked.
"I saw the way you took that handshake, damn, you were not gonna let me touch him first."
"Come on man, people just died, show some respect and stop talking about my love life for once."
His partner shrugged, "people die every day in this line of business. But you don't run into an ass like that every day. You get his number?"
"Of course I got his number, dipshit, we're gonna be working together," Marco snapped, but he was smiling. His good natured partner took every chance to tease him but they could never stay mad at each other.
Back in his office Ace felt like one of those wild conspiracy theorists with his wall of arson evidence. The investigator was a visual person and needed his information out where he could see it to visualize the way the pieces went together. He new there were pieces missing, but he felt like he was so close to solving this thing, cracking it open. This was the third arson this month, different MO each time, yet in his gut he knew they were connected, and he knew there were more to come. And today he had met the third pair of police detective he would be working with. Couldn't they assign one guy to the arsons instead of having him running between six different people to convey his findings? He felt like he was at his wits end. At least the one blond detective seemed very serious. Perhaps they would actually make some progress on this one. Ace was working overtime, all the time, and his little brother was getting frustrated with him. He hated doing this to Luffy. Sure, the kid was fiercely independent, but Ace had moved back East for the sole purpose of spending more time with him.
He rubbed at his eyes. On top of everything, his narcoleptic ass hadn't been getting enough sleep. Leaning back in his chair, Ace felt himself floating in and out of consciousness and was about to pass out right then and there when his phone rang, jolting him out of his sleeping spell.
"This is Ace," he answered,
"Hey, it's Marco, the detective from the arson case today."
"Oh Marco, you're working late."
There was a chuckle on the other end of the line, "Did I wake you?"
Ace laughed awkwardly, "You caught me."
"My bad, sleeping beauty." Marco continued before Ace could reply to the comment, "I was thinking about what you said, about how you think these cases are connected, I'd like to hear more about that. You free for coffee some time tomorrow?"
This is something Marco liked about his work, he could casually ask people on dates without actually asking them on a date.
"Mmm, Sleeping beauty huh. You've clearly never seen me sleep," Ace laughed, "How is noon tomorrow? Not the Starbucks but that coffee shop on the corner with the couches."
"I know the one, I'll see you there at noon," Marco was grinning, he liked this Ace guy already.