Arsonist

Detective Jorge keeps the puzzled expression he has been trying to hide even when he steps through the front door of the suspect’s detached house. His partner Cheryl Matthews sighs as she follows him. They find that the homicide unit and fire experts were already looking around for any evidence of what he might have used to cause a sophisticated fire, despite none of them thinking the suspect was capable.

Jorge picks up an object from the dining table across the kitchen and turns to his partner and good friend, brother of Cheryl, Tim Matthews and imagines a scenario: “This is it, I know how it happened.”

A Puzzled Tim replies, “what is that? A candle holder?”

Jorge carries on, “a flammable candle holder.” The team both look at each other, in a here-we-go-again manner. “See I think the suspect went into the victim’s house and placed one of these on top of something that would start the fire. Victim lights the candle, goes to bed, then the house burns by the early hours of the morning.”

In complete disbelief Cheryl lets out her biggest sigh yet and disagrees, “then why would you be finding one of these things here? Why wouldn’t her ex-husband hide it?”

Jorge puts the candle holder down and walks towards her excitedly. “Exactly.” He says, before leaving the home.

Cheryl and her brother look at each other, before she walks to the candle holder and inspects the material. “It’s painted red but it’s made of metal.” So to her, it obviously isn’t flammable.

Her brother says, “well don’t look at me, you’re his partner.” Before moving away to catch up with his homicide team.

Jorge, outside on the porch, has his right hand squeezing his left, like he was close to solving a puzzle. Cheryl half squints her eyes as she moves towards the sunny porch.

“So do you have something for me? Because what you did there made no sense.”

Without turning Jorge sits down and offers a space beside him for Cheryl. When she sits, he opens up, “I feel like we’re missing something. You see the way the Ms. Jordan spoke was just weird enough that it’s making me think. I mean, she really doesn’t think her ex-husband did it.”

“Well yeah, I guess, considering they still seem to love each other and he doesn’t appear to be a pyromaniac. Fire reports told us it was probably an accident,  so why keep this angle?”

“People involved in accidents where they set their own homes on fire, don’t usually get reports that tell us the cause is unknown. Victims can also at least give us an idea of what might have happened, but everything she has said just seems too scripted to me.”

“So, you’re telling me you think she did it?”

“Yep.”

Cheryl lets out her biggest sigh yet. “But why? Insurance? You remember running me through the fact that she cancelled her home insurance about a week before the crime right?”

Jorge, as always when he expects Cheryl to be on the same page as him, puts his arm over her shoulder. This sort of thing usually happens when she doesn’t know, but she keeps quiet hoping the detective doesn’t figure that out. Unfortunately the awkward silence went on too long so she had to ask. “So, you think she forgot about the insurance?”

“All I know is that she hates this investigation and wants us all to drop it. She was the one who made us aware of having no insurance, and this fire has cleared away far too much evidence for us to know anything. I think she may have played with our assumptions here. Like how I managed to get you asking a question we couldn’t possibly know the answer to, when the most important one was overlooked. There aren’t any flammable candle holders… I hope.”

Cheryl, finally on the same page, nods. “I’ll keep the secret, but I still don’t see what she could have gained from burning down her house.”

Jorge takes his arm off his partner and stands up. “Or rather, what she could have hidden.”