Rarities Unlimited 03 - Die in Plain Sight

rubbed his bloodshot eyes. “Don’t think so.” He fixed Rory with pale blue eyes. “This is all very preliminary. We’ve barely even begun a proper investigation of the one last night.”
    “I hear you. I’m not making any reports. I’m just damned curious. If the asshole comes calling in Moreno County, I want to know what his act looks like.”
    “Okay. What we have is a cold, windy night, an alley with small businesses on both sides, two old houses that are shops on the first floor and owner’s quarters above.”
    Rory had figured that out from the police reports, but didn’t say a word.
    “We have a few resident homeless, a couple old ladies. Then a couple of drifters looking for a place to piss and sleep out of the wind.” Merlerubbed his eyes and poured more coffee. “Nobody else around but the shop owners who were asleep in the two old houses.”
    “Did the street people see anything?”
    “What do you think?”
    “I think they all slept the sleep of fortified wine.”
    “Yeah. Didn’t see, didn’t hear, didn’t know shit until the sirens woke ’em up.”
    The server came and put breakfast platters in front of the men. Rory was eating toast, fruit, and scrambled eggs. Merle was eating everything but the hand that fed him—eggs, pancakes, steak, potatoes, toast, biscuits and gravy, a side of ham, and two glasses of milk.
    “More butter, please,” Merle said to the server. “And jam.”
    “Man, you’re something,” Rory said. “I’ve known you for years and you never gain an ounce.”
    “Clean living, constant prayer, and twenty-hour workdays.” He shoveled in the first of the food, chewed, and said, “So the boys questioned the bums—excuse me, the domicile-challenged—and found out nothing.”
    Rory chuckled and shook his head. “If your job depended on votes, you’d be mopping floors.”
    Merle chewed and didn’t disagree. His impatience with politics of all kinds was an article of personal faith. “My men found indications of petroleum products, which was hardly a shocker—it’s an alley and people park cars there and change oil there and take out their household garbage and such. Plastics are made with petroleum, you know. They also found a plastic trash can that was pretty well slagged.”
    “Fire source?”
    “Yeah.” Merle cleansed his palate of pancakes and syrup with one glass of milk and went to work on the salty part of the meal. “There was enough trash around to burn down half the city. No surprise that the wind tipped over the can and the fire spread. I’m guessing the drifters that started out warming their hands over the barrel ended up running down the alley with their asses on fire.”
    “So it wasn’t your arsonist?” Rory asked.
    Merle swallowed coffee and went back to steak, talking and chewing with startling efficiency. “Buildings were inhabited, not empty. No cigarette butts stubbed out while he stood back and waited for it all to getgoing. No empty rainbow package of birthday candles left to taunt us. Nope, not our boy.”
    Rory settled back and got to the part of the conversation that interested him, or rather, Ward.
    “What about a Louie the Torch?” Rory asked, referring to a contract arson purchased to collect insurance on a losing business.
    “Possible, I suppose. Didn’t look like anything much in the place where the woman died. How much are crystals and bogus vitamins worth to an adjuster? Besides, so far there’s no sign of any insurance on that one.”
    “What about the other place?”
    “The artist’s business?” Merle shrugged, swallowed the last of the steak and eggs, and concentrated on the biscuits and gravy. “Insured. Kept the policy in a bank safe deposit along with some other papers.”
    “How much?”
    “Dunno, but she said business had been good enough to pay the rent and then some, and the insurance wouldn’t be worth more than that. We’re checking on it.”
    “What about the merchandise itself?” Rory asked. “Was it worth burning down the place to collect on insurance?”
    “She had some old movie posters that apparently were worth something, and some stuff that was too old to be junk but not old enough to be antiques. Nothing big. Anyway, she said she got the most valuable things out before it burned.”
    “What was that?”
    “Three old paintings.”
    Smiling, Rory nudged his plate over toward Merle. “Have some more breakfast.”

Savoy Hotel
    Friday morning
32
    F or the past hour,