CHAPTER 4
They arrived at the scene of the fire. The only thing left of what had once been a large two-story house were two exterior walls and a large heap of ash. There was one fire truck still at the scene, and three firefighters were talking to a reporter from Channel Nine.
Lassiter put on his sunglasses. "You four stay here." He pointed to the reporters, Gus and McNab. Quickly walking over to the firefighters, Lassiter looked around for any other uniformed officers. If one of the other cops recognized McNab, their charade was done for.
Thankfully, it was just like dispatch had said on the phone and there was no one else on the case.
The reporter from Channel Nine hurried over to Lassiter and O'Hara when she recognized them as police. "Detectives! What does you being brought on the scene mean? Is this more then an accidental fire?"
Lassiter scowled at the blond haired reporter. She had been on the beach the day Spencer had gotten him dubbed 'Detective Dipstick'.
"We are not at liberty to discuss details of the fire right now." O'Hara came to her partner's rescue. She grabbed Lassiter's arm and pulled him in the direction of the remains of the house.
Gus watched as the Lassiter and O'Hara evaded the girl from channel nine. He tugged on McNab's sleeve. "Now's the time when Shawn and I usually head into the crime scene," he whispered to the rookie cop.
McNab gave Gus a worried look. "We can't go in there yet," he whispered back. "Detective Lassiter told us to wait here."
Gus punched McNab in the arm. "Now is not the time to be nice to Lassiter. Now is the time to be Shawn." He glanced back and gave the reporters a smile.
Catie gave him a smile, waving from where she and Savannah were waiting by their vehicle. Gus hesitantly waved back. "This should be good." Catie told Savannah. "Robberies are interesting, but fires make better pictures." She pulled out her camera and started snapping pictures of the empty shell that had been a house just twelve hours before.
"The house was fully engulfed when we got here," the fireman was telling Lassiter and O'Hara as Gus and McNab snuck up behind them. "We extinguished the blaze, and that's when we found this." He showed the detectives an area of the kitchen where McNab could see a clear point of origin. Scattered around the area were charred bottles and half burned towels.
Gus quickly held out his cell phone and snapped a picture. Lassiter whipped around to see what the noise was and Gus had to pretend to be stretching to avoid being caught. Once the detective was looking the other way, Gus sent the picture to Shawn. He felt bad about hiding things from Lassiter, but the detectives couldn't know that Shawn needed a visual to "divine" a clue
A few moments later, Juliet's phone rang. She retrieved it from her pocket and a look of relief passed over her face after a glancing at the display screen. "Shawn, what do you have?"
"I'm getting a vibe about the scene you're investigating," he told her.
Juliet could hear the hoarseness of his voice, and she realized Gus had been telling the truth when he said Shawn was super sick. "Really, already? That's great."
"Yeah, well, the spirits must feel sorry for me being sick," he joked. "It's not easy, being confined to the indoors when you're out there, fighting crime, hair blowing in the breeze and smelling-"
She cut him off. "Shawn, what did you call to tell me?"
"It was horrible, Jules! The heat, the pain ... it's horrible, the flames."
"Pain?" Juliet asked, slightly concerned until he mentioned flames. "Shawn, is this like the last arson investigation? Because if you tell me the culprit is Senor Pantalones del Fuego I am hanging up this phone." She glanced over to where Lassiter was still talking through the scene with the firemen.
McNab and Gus had joined them, as well as the two reporters. Catie was busily snapping pictures, while Savannah was furiously taking notes on everything that was going on.
Shawn's voice came through the phone again. "You shouldn't mock the spirits, Jules." He coughed. "But no, I'm not sensing an arsnurderer... marsonist... murderer slash arsonist this time around. The home owners are on vacation; they've been gone for the past three or four days."
"O'Hara!" Lassiter had put on some latex gloves and was sifting through some of the rubble. "I hope that isn't a personal call because you'll need to cut it short."
Juliet rolled her eyes. "Shawn, Lassiter's itching to close this case as soon as possible, just let me know if you get anything else." With that she closed her phone and joined the others.
"Pressing call?" Lassiter asked sarcastically,
"My sick cousin who loves 80's trivia." Juliet gave Lassiter a meaningful look.
Gus could hear Shawn's voice in his head, objecting that he was more than a cousin to Juliet.
Rolling his eyes, Lassiter turned back to his task. Gus spoke up then. "Maybe you guys should get some pictures of Detective Lassiter doing traditional police work? That way you can compare them to Shawn's new innovations."
"I heard that," Lassiter growled under his breath.
Catie and Savannah gave Lassiter unsure smiles but did what Gus had suggested. When the two girls had stepped away, Juliet turned to McNab.
"Shawn just called. He said this was an arson and that the owners have been out of town for the past few days, which checks out with the statements the neighbors gave," she whispered to him.
"I knew it was an arson," McNab started to point out, but the look on Juliet's face made him stop and let her continue.
"What is the motive behind the fire? Did Shawn say anything about that?" Gus wanted to know.
Juliet shook her head, "Lassiter cut me off before I could ask him that."
"I'm sure he'll call one of us when he gets another vision," McNab assured her.
As if McNab really were psychic, Gus' phone began to ring.
"Dude, Juliet hung up on me!" Shawn's complaining voice filled Gus' ears as he answered his phone. Gus wandered to the edge of the crime scene to avoid the bat-like hearing of Lassiter and the pressuring questions of O'Hara.
"Worry about your feelings later," Gus snapped. "We need to solve this case quickly."
"Such impatience," Shawn chided. "Fine. Whatever. I think the arsonist didn't do it on purpose ... Dude, does that still make them an arsonist?" he asked confusedly. "By the way you never told me about the reporters; are they cute? Did you hit the jackal switch without me?"
"Focus, Shawn, this is really important," Gus reiterated. His eyes went wide as he saw Catie and Savannah heading for him. "The keys are in the bottom drawer, and you'll need to feed her twice a day."
"The keys?" Shawn's voice was even more confused than before. "Dude, what are you talking about?"
"And Mrs. Pickles is really picky, so be sure she eats at least two good meals," Gus continued.
"Oh! I get it ..." Shawn coughed again, then continued. "The reporters are there, aren't they?"
"Of course." Gus shot a glance in their direction. They smiled politely, waiting for him to finish his call. He moved the phone away from his mouth. "Sorry about this; it's my cat, Mrs. Pickles, she's having kittens today."
"Dude! That's my line I was saving for the next time I needed to pull you out of work!" Shawn complained through the phone.
"How many kittens have you seen so far?" Gus went back to talking to Shawn. He was hoping Shawn would know that by kittens Gus meant clues.
There was a reason Shawn was Gus' best friend, and as if he actually were reading Gus' thoughts, Shawn caught the hint. "Okay, I rewatched the news footage after I saw that picture you sent. There's a family that lives nearby with a couple of teenagers. They seemed really fidgety in the footage, and all the bottles around the point of origin were from different alcohols. You know what teens and alcohol means. They were probably partying it up."
"I knew I smelled tobacco!" Gus shouted into the phone, startling the reporters. "I think my vet smoked in my house," he covered before turning so his back was to them. "Shawn," he whispered furiously into his phone, "do you think that has something to do with the case?"
"Of course it does. Why else would all the teens getting interviewed seem that nervous? I'm thinking ..." Shawn trailed off.
"Just hurry up," Gus demanded, shaking his own head. "We need to get working on the case."
"Gus, this whole time my phone has been on speaker, and I just realized that my hands are on my temples." Shawn sounded a little distraught. "What is in this cold medicine?"
"It's just children's Tylenol," Gus reminded him and then hung up the phone. The reporters were waiting for him as soon as he turned back around.
Catie smiled. "You have a cat?"
"More than one now." Gus motioned for them to follow him back to where Lassiter and O'Hara were watching McNab walk through the crime scene. McNab's hands were outstretched, and to Gus he looked like a caricature of Frankenstein's monster.
"You know this reminds me of that fire three weeks ago," Lassiter slowly said. Gus knew the head detective was about to spout off a ridiculous theory. "Then there was that fire at the mini-mart."
"What do those fires have to do with anything?" O'Hara didn't see where partner was going with this.
"We may be facing a serial arsonist," Lassiter stated grimly.
"I do like Count Chocula," McNab added. Lassiter scowled at the remark.
Before McNab could say anything further, Gus pulled him to the side. Lassiter was still going through the details of his theory, and Catie and Savannah were watching him with the same fascination people had with car crashes.
Satisfied they weren't paying attention to him. Gus got Buzz up to speed on the case. "Buzz, Shawn told me who did this. It was the neighbor family's teens. There are liquor bottles at the point of origin."
"How did Shawn see the point of origin?" McNab looked puzzled.
"Visions." Gus tapped his own temple then continued. "He read the guilt off their TV presence. They must have had to leave in a hurry and didn't take the time to completely extinguish their cigarettes before leaving."
McNab nodded. "Just some kids playing around. That makes sense."
Gus pushed McNab back towards the group. "C'mon, now's the time when Shawn has a vision."
McNab took a deep breath before shouting out, "Teenage hooligans!" The detectives and reporters both turned to stare at him. He also attracted the attention of the news crew and neighbors on the other side of the crime scene tape; thankfully the firemen had left after handing over control of the scene to the police. McNab's face went three shades of red as he realized that he had an audience.
He glanced at Gus, who gave him a look of encouragement. Swallowing, he proceeded. "General Mills is not to blame in this fire. Lucky Charms are good for a party, but alcohol and tobacco products are not."
"M- Spencer," Lassiter caught himself. "What do you mean party?"
"Just because you were in the crossing guard club in high school doesn't mean that you should be uneducated about parties," McNab said seriously. "They're places where people go to have fun and spend some time with friends."
"I know what a party is." Lassiter looked furious at McNab's flippant tone when talking about a superior officer. He didn't care if the rookie cop was playing a role. "What does that have to do with the scene?"
Pressing his hands to his temples, McNab squinted his eyes and surveyed the remains of the room. "I'm getting the feeling that something big was happening here - not the plot of an arsonist, but the accidental fire-starting power of a scared teenager."
The dots connected in O'Hara's head and she spoke up. "There were a bunch of teenagers behind the crime tape when we got here."
"Their neighbors were gone, and they figured they had the perfect place to do everything they couldn't at home." McNab explained. He knew he wasn't being as flashy or dramatic as Shawn, but he couldn't bring himself to body-slam Detective Lassiter. The detective had been restrained for the most part, but McNab knew if he ended up in Lassiter's lap, he would also find himself in the hospital from a gunshot wound.
"And so they snuck over here?" Gus asked, trying to act like he normally did when Shawn was having a 'vision'.
"Yes!" McNab strode over to the point of origin and flung a hand to point at the charred remains of the festivities. He paused, momentarily blinded by the camera flash as Catie snapped several pictures. "But someone was coming and they couldn't be caught trespassing, so they hid the smoking, incriminating evidence and left."
"Not realizing that alcohol is the perfect accelerant for a blaze," Gus put in.
"Exactly," McNab agreed with him. "Cigarettes are hard to extinguish completely, especially when you're scared and running away, hoping you don't get grounded for the rest of your life."
"So, this had nothing to do with the other fires?" Lassiter wasn't happy with his theory being shot down so fast.
"Or arson at all?" Savannah asked. Lassiter glared in her direction.
McNab shook his head. "Sadly, those are both exciting solutions, but they are both also wrong. All we have is a case of teenage shenanigans."
"If you want to see some actual police work," Lassiter addressed the reporters. "you can follow me when I question the parents."
"Why not the teens themselves?" Savannah wanted to know.
McNab threw an arm around Lassiter's shoulders. "Because Detective Lassiter has suppressed childhood issues with teenagers. Come to think of it, suppressed adult issues as well."
Lassiter quickly ducked underneath McNab's arm, gave the taller man a threatening glare, and stalked off to the crime scene tape. Catie and Savannah followed on his heels.
The group gathered near the tape perked up as they noticed the head detective's purposeful strides toward them. The reporter from Channel Nine began calling questions to him as soon as he came within a few yards.
"Detective, what did you find? Are you planning to charge someone with arson? Was this a crime of revenge or an accident?"
Brushing her off, Lassiter turned to the couple he had seen with the teenagers when they first arrived. "Excuse me; I'm going to need to talk with you two privately."
Their eyes widened slightly, and they shot nervous glances at the other neighbors.
"What's wrong?" the husband asked. "You don't think we had anything to do with this, do you?"
"I really can't say right now," Lassiter replied. He glanced at the channel nine reporter, who was nearly salivating over the possibility of a juicy scoop, then turned back to the couple. "Is there somewhere we can talk privately?"
"Um, well, our house is right next door," the woman told him, gesturing towards their home.
Lassiter turned to see a curtain falling back into place. "That will be fine," he acknowledged. If he were lucky, he could nail the kids when they walked in.
Juliet had been right behind him as he cornered the parents. Now she was explaining to the reporters that since this was an interview they would need to stay outside.
Lassiter looked around the entryway of the house. Lining the wall were family pictures and a whole series of those awful looking school photographs, ranging from what looked like first grade through tenth. It was the same kid in all the pictures, and Lassiter caught a glimpse of him as he poked his head around the doorway that led back to the kitchen.
"Is this about what happened at the Michaels' house?" the mother spoke up.
"Yes ma'am; we believe that the blaze was caused by some teenagers who broke into the house." Lassiter tried to be polite, but he really wanted to lecture this woman on keeping a better eye on her child.
"Teenagers?" This time it was the father who spoke. "You think Robbie had something to do with this?" He was indignant.
"We just want to speak to your son." O'Hara tried to appease them.
"Robbie? Get out here, young man."
Lassiter inwardly winced as the mother called her son. He'd been on the receiving end of that tone of voice a lot when he was younger.A kid in a blue polo shirt shuffled out of the kitchen. Lassiter could tell he was nervous about something.
"Robbie, tell the officers where you were last night. You told us you were at the Simons'."
Robbie gave his mother a slightly panicked look. "I w-w-was at the Simons'."
Lassiter took a step forward and used his height to his advantage. He towered over the kid by a good three or four inches. "Listen kid, tell us what you know and we'll see about going easy on you. I can't make promises, but if you learn your lesson you might get to go to college before you turn thirty." The kid looked terrified and Lassiter took great satisfaction in that. He opened his mouth to make another threat against the kid, when his cell phone rang. He wanted to ignore it, but Spencer's name on the caller ID made him pause.
He excused himself for a second and went across the room to take the call. "Yes Spencer?"
"Lassie! I missed your grumbly voice, so I thought I'd call you with the next clue. I had this vision while I was trying to find more tissues."
"Spencer, I don't care if you had it while you were jumping off the top of the Eiffel Tower, tell me now or I hang up this phone."
"I'm pretty sure it's illegal to bungee jump off of international icons. But, anyway, I grabbed this new box of Kleenex and it had snowmen on it. I know you're asking who has snowmen on their Kleenex boxes in August, but one of the snowmen was wearing this red scarf and then I had this intense vision of a kid in red shirt. Red shirt and black hair, like Scotty in the original Star Trek."
Lassiter pinched the bridge of his nose as Shawn rambled on and on. "Spencer ..." he warned, his patience growing thin.
"I know, I know you want to get back to terrifying small children with your policeman skills so just ask this kid about a kid in a red shirt." With that Shawn hung up the phone.
Sighing in frustration, Lassiter turned back to rejoin the others. Juliet looked up from where she had been speaking to the family, rolling her eyes like she did every time Lassiter got carried away during an investigation.
"We aren't accusing you of anything," She turned back to family and reassured them. "We just want to get to the bottom of this."
"What do you know about a kid in a red shirt with black hair?" Lassiter asked seemingly out of the blue.
Robbie did a double take. "Kurt was wearing a red shirt this morning."
His mother nodded in agreement. "Kurt lives down the street. I haven't let Robbie play with him since high school started. Kurt got involved with the wrong crowd."
O'Hara grabbed Lassiter's arm and dragged him towards the door. "I am so sorry for taking up your time and I'm sure Detective Lassiter would like to extend his own apology to your son." She shoved her elbow into Lassiter's ribs.
"Yes, well," he cleared his throat. "I apologize for thinking you were an arsonist." At a second nudge from his partner, he continued, pointing his finger at Robbie. "Just remember to say 'no' to drugs, or I will be back for you."
O'Hara apologized again and then made a quick exit. Gus, McNab and the reporters were waiting for them at the end of the driveway.
"Why didn't you make an arrest?" Savannah asked as Catie snapped a few pictures of the detectives.
"Spencer gave us a tip about a different kid. One that the kid at this house confirmed," Lassiter explained, forgetting completely that the reporters had been standing with 'Spencer' the entire time.
"Shawn never called you," Catie observed confusedly.
Lassiter ignored her and headed for the crime scene tape where he could clearly see a teenager in a red shirt hovering near the news crew. He should have known that morbid curiosity would keep the real perp near the scene. Lassiter reminded himself to point out to Spencer that he had been wrong; this kid looked nothing like Scotty from Star Trek.
"Detective Lassiter." The reporter from Channel Nine was in his face as soon as he got with in reach of the microphone. "What can you tell us about the people you questioned?"
Lassiter pushed past her. "Kurt!" He yelled at the red shirted kid when he was a few feet away.
Kurt's eyes went wide and he bolted. He almost knocked over the news reporter as he ducked under the crime scene tape and sprinted across the yard towards the alley that ran behind the houses.
Lassiter gave chase, narrowly missing a garbage can as he turned the corner into the alley. He didn't see the kid anywhere. The rattle of a chain link fence caught his attention, and he turned his head just in time to see a flash of red disappear into one of the adjoining yards. Cutting through a non-fenced in yard, Lassiter reached the front of the house just in time to see McNab grab the kid's collar.
"I would've caught him," Lassiter wheezed out as he bent forward, hands on his knees, to catch his breath.
McNab looked at him doubtfully as Catie and Savannah ran up, followed by Gus and Juliet.
"That was awesome, Shawn!" Catie was looking through her camera display. "I think this one should go in the article," she said, showing the group a picture of McNab leaping over a flowerbed to catch up with Kurt.
"Kurt, we know you snuck into the Michaels' house." Juliet brought the attention back to the case. Judging from the rate his face paled, she knew they had nailed it.
"You can't prove anything," Kurt tried to argue.
"We can get DNA and fingerprints off of the bottles and cigarettes," Lassiter snapped. "O'Hara, take him to the car." Lassiter had caught his breath by that point but was clutching the stitch in his side. "I'll go get his parents."