CHAPTER 7

Matt stepped off of the elevator the next morning and started on in to the office to make a pot of coffee, only to find that it had already been done by his Uncle Roy who was sitting at the bar looking extremely happy. "Well good morning. You're here bright and early." Matt walked on in, poured himself a cup, and sat down at the bar with his uncle. "And looking particularly happy. Did you find a new girlfriend?" Roy never seemed to be hurting for female companionship. He had even dated Vince Novelli's mother, Rosa.

"You know that bid I had in for the security systems for the jewelry chain?" He smiled even bigger. "Got it." He and Matt toasted each other.

"Well congratulations!" Matt was impressed. He knew that Roy had spent a lot of extra time working on the deal.

"Know how much each installation is going to cost them?" He was still smiling.

"I would be afraid to guess. How much?"

"$150,000." Roy was grinning like the mouse that got the cheese out of the trap.

"You're pretty slick, old man." Matt stuck out his hand and they shook. "So how many stores are we talking about?"

"Right now, twenty." The former CIA agent was still smiling.

"Uncle Roy, you do realize that's $3,000,000 don't you?" Matt was astounded.

"Yup."

"Ya done good, Uncle Roy. So when do all of these installations take place?"

"Well that's why I'm here early. I needed to talk to the boss," Roy indicated Matt, "about hiring some temporary help to do it. I've got a couple of folks in mind."

"Oh, who is that?" Matt had swiveled back around to face the bar.

"First I want to run something by you. How much do you think the installer should get? Not talking about me, because I'm on salary."

"Well, I'm going to assume that you trust these people without a doubt and can vouch for their honesty. Am I right?"

"Yep."

"And I'm going to assume that we're paying for accommodations and such for the installers."

"Yep."

"Do you plan on having more than one installer per job? It might work best if it was a two-person team."

"That was my thinking as well."

"Okay, so are we talking flat rate for all of the stores or on a store by store basis?"

"I'm thinking store by store. I know that's what I would prefer."

"And how long should each installation take?"

"About four twelve-hour days."

"$10,000 sounds fair to me. What did you have in mind?"

"That's pretty much what I thought."

"Okay, so who are we talking about?"

"Your cousin Will and Vince Novelli."

Matt considered that for a minute. "Have you talked to Vince?"

"No, I haven't. But I've got a feeling he'll say yes. The only down side for him would be staying away from home for a while and they would be short-handed at the restaurant, but a big paycheck like that would sure help them out."

"You're not kidding there. Have you talked to Will?"

"No, but I believe he would hop on it."

"How about you call Will and we'll call Vince a little later on – give him time to wake up good?" Matt didn't have any doubts about either man's honesty. But he wasn't sure Vince would want to be gone from home for that long – or that his wife Isabella would be happy about it.

"Alright." Roy pulled out his cell phone and dialed his son's number. "Hey Will. I've got a little proposition for you." He winked at Matt and then went on to explain to his son what the job was and what it would entail. "Uh huh. Okay, I'll call you back later. 'Bye." He hung up. "He's all for it."

"Good." Matt looked at his watch. It was almost 8:00am. "Let's give Vince another couple of hours."

"Chris told me yesterday about the wedding chapel and your offer of the ranch. That's a nice thing you're doing, Mattlock." Roy poured another cup of coffee.

"Well, I'm just a wonderful person." Matt smirked. "Boy she was sure upset yesterday morning. Passed out in fact." He looked over at his uncle. "And Madre Rosa is happy because now she gets something else to mother-hen." Both men cracked up.

"Speaking of mother hen, how are CJ and my great niece?" He began smiling as Matt pulled out his phone to pull up the latest picture.

"Here ya go, see for yourself." He handed the phone over and Roy's smile got even bigger.

"She's beautiful, Matt." He handed it back.

"We had a little talk last night. CJ and me, not Catey." Matt grinned again. "We're thinking at least four kids."

"Good. I like the "at least" part." Roy chuckled. "You know Bill sure would have been proud, boy."

"Yeah." Looking down into his coffee cup, Matt's expression became more serious. "You know, that's my biggest regret in life. That I didn't get with CJ sooner."

"Well you finally wised up, that's the main thing." Roy patted him on the back. They both heard the elevator and then heard Chris and CJ talking as they stepped out. Both men walked over to the door. "And there's my girl now." Uncle Roy was beaming as CJ handed over Catey Rose to him. He immediately started talking to her and walked over to the couch and sat down.

"And to think I was vain enough to think he meant me." CJ rolled her eyes.

"Well I'm glad to see you." Matt gave her a kiss and put his arm around her.

Chris answered the phone. "Houston, Michael is on line one."

Matt sighed and gave CJ one more small kiss before walking back over to the bar and picking up the phone. "Hey, what's going on?"

"I thought you might want to meet me at the wedding chapel. Captain Holt of Station 92 just called me. He's been doing a little looking around down there on his day off and says he's got something." Hoyt was headed down to the parking garage.

"Okay, I'll be right there." Matt found CJ in her office and told her what was going on. "See you later. Love you." He gave her another kiss.

"Be careful, sweetie. Love you." She pulled him back for one more kiss.

Matt arrived at the chapel about twenty minutes later. Hoyt was standing at the edge of the burnt out building talking to the fire captain. "How ya doin'?" Matt shook hands with the fireman.

"Well I was doing good but I got over it." Rich Holt grinned at Matt. "I've been seriously thinking about what you said the other day, about the job of fire marshal? So I decided to come down here and take a look around. And guess what I found?" He led the two detectives over to the other side of the building. "I figure that the person who set this blaze used this side of the building for their entrance and exit. Not a door, but a window." He indicated what was left of a very low window sill.

Matt looked at what the man was talking about. The edge of the building was about a foot from a six foot fence. "Not much room back here and lots of cover. Okay, I can see where that would be an advantage."

"And a disadvantage – it looks like our firebug got caught on the fence." He showed Matt a piece of material that was stuck on a splinter of wood protruding from the fence.

"Did you call out the CSI's?" Matt looked over at Hoyt who nodded.

"But wait – there's more." Capt. Holt was really enjoying the tour. "Look at this." He stepped back around the end of the building so that they could enter the burnt out shell. "I did some nosing around on the internet last night and found a picture of what this place looked like. All of the doors were on the three other sides of the building – obviously they wouldn't have put one where there was only a foot of space to work with over there." He indicated where they had just come from. "Now back here on the east side, there was a delivery door – you know, like a garage door. The door on the front was snazzy – so the brides could have the fancy pictures – stained glass, you know how women love that stuff." Matt and Hoyt nodded their agreement. "And the door over there on the west side was just your average door." He turned and pointed to the area where the body had been found the day before, which had been near the delivery door. "Now here's where I had a little help. My wife is a florist and makes deliveries here all the time. This area right here was where the coolers were – you know, for the flowers. And over here," he pointed to an area right next to the burnt coolers, "was a work table. My wife says that they kept a bunch of potted plants around the place and there is some spray that they use to make the leaves all shiny. That stuff has ethyl alcohol, white mineral oil, petroleum distillate, and liquefied petroleum gas in it."

"They put that stuff on plants? And it doesn't kill them?" Matt and Hoyt exchanged a look.

"Evidently not, or so says my wife. But it sure as hell is flammable." He led them around the edge of the room. "Now you see this line here? That's where accelerant was put – and I'll bet my bottom dollar it was the plant spray – because I'm sure they didn't leave a can of the stuff here." He walked through the burnt out shell of a building and pointed to what was left of two of the spray cans that according to the badly burnt print on the label, had held the plant spray.

Matt looked around them. "And if I'm not mistaken, this is the actual chapel, right?"

"Yup, it was." Capt. Holt stood and looked around. "Now here's something else: the fire marshal is saying "unknown accelerant" in his report. If I can walk in here and find this stuff, and he supposedly has been doing this for years, why in the hell didn't he find it?"

Hoyt looked stunned. "That's a very good question, Captain."

Matt surveyed the carnage. "I believe our fire marshal is a firebug, boys." Cheryl Crawford pulled into the parking lot and got out of her van. "We need to keep this quiet, Hoyt."

Michael nodded and the three men walked out into the parking lot and started explaining to the CSI what had been found.

"I'll be dipped…that little…wow!" She was stunned. "Okay, Michael, how do you want to work this?"

"Top secret, that's how. Nobody else learns about this until we're one hundred percent certain and have undeniable proof."

"Okay, I can sure work on getting that. I'll test the areas that Capt. Holt has pointed out and get these spray cans as well. Man this ticks me off! He hovered over me when I was working in here yesterday – but then he always does. And he sure didn't lead me to this stuff." Cheryl was hot.

"Alright Hoyt, I'm going to go back to the office and see what I can dig up on Fields. Talk to you in a while." He shook hands with Holt again. "Captain, I think you would make a great replacement for fire marshal. You sure as hell have my vote." Matt walked on back over to his truck and headed back to the office.