The security guards turned without speaking and headed back toward the building.

  Ronzoni got in behind the wheel then swiveled to face me in the back seat. “Didn’t I tell you last night not to go off half-cocked? These are serious people with serious power, Jones. You can’t go accusing them of stuff without proof.”

  “I have proof.”

  “Tell me what you think you have.”

  “I have video, from two sources. Both showing the same car coming onto Singer Island and then down my street right before the fire was called in. The video shows a Town Car registered to this law firm with plates belonging to a state senator.”

  “Do you see them light the fire in this video?”

  “No. But it places him at the scene. Circumstantial evidence is a thing, you know?”

  “You don’t need to explain the law to me, Jones. But I clearly need to explain it to you. Video of a car driving along a public road is no evidence of anything. It might work against some poor soul dealing with the public defender, but it won’t work with the kind of legal firepower these people have. It’s no kind of proof, and it’s no excuse for the scene you just caused.”

  I could feel my blood pressure about to blow the top of my head off. I got the sense that Ronzoni could see it too.

  He put his palms out to me. “Just cool it, will you? What you have isn’t enough. It isn’t even close to enough. But I’m not telling you it’s nothing. You need to take your evidence to the investigating officer. He’s the one who will build the case.”

  “You heard him last night. He’s not going to build a case. He’s gonna whitewash the whole thing. Career suicide, remember?”

  “It’s career suicide if you get it wrong.” Ronzoni turned back to the wheel and shook his head. Then he glanced back at me: “Stay put.” A rhetorical statement.

  He exited the car and engaged the locks. As soon as he disappeared inside the building, I punched the back of the seat in front of me. It was softer than a brick wall, but only just. I must have connected with the framework under the vinyl because it hurt like hell.

  I rubbed my knuckles, the one place on my body that had yet to be bruised. But the pain took the sting out of my rage. I started to think about what Danielle was going to say, and how she surely wouldn’t agree about the level of stupidity of what I had done.

  It was a good fifteen minutes before Ronzoni reappeared. He strode around the front of his car and got in. As before, he half turned to me in the rear.

  “Okay, I’ve spoken with the senator. He says he’s not going to press any charges, not right now. If I take you directly off the island and he never sees you again, he’ll let the whole thing slide.”

  I went to say something about letting his act of arson slide, but Ronzoni didn’t let me.

  “Shut it,” he said. “Do you know what a trespass charge and a court order against you would do for your little PI business? You need to cool your jets, Jones. Understand that you’ve gotten off lightly.”

  “So you gonna drive me to the county limits and kick me to the curb? What is this, a western?”

  “This is how things are done. And the sooner you understand that, the better for you. These people can squash you like a bug. And you keep running out into the middle of the kitchen floor just looking for a shoe.”

  I was impressed by Ronzoni’s turn of phrase. Glib repartee was not his strong suit.

  “So you’re gonna let him fob you off. Are you forgetting about the video? His car?”

  “The senator has an alibi. He went home after the hockey game, and his wife can vouch for him.”

  “I’m sure she can. And you buy that?”

  “Doesn’t matter what I can buy or what I can’t buy. It matters what I can prove. And so far, he has an alibi and you don’t.”

  “How does he explain his car being on Singer Island?”

  “He admits to sending a car to follow you from the arena last night.”

  “He admits it? Seriously?”

  “Oh, he’s very serious. He said that you accosted him in front of dozens of people and that he was fearful for not only his own safety, but for the safety of his constituents. The word he used was deranged. He had his driver tail you to make sure you didn’t try to follow him home.”

  “I didn’t go anywhere near his home.”

  “That’s what he said. He said his driver followed you to Singer Island, and they lost sight of you as they crossed the bridge, but they did a drive-by and saw the vehicle at your house, so they returned home.”

  “And you believe that?”

  “Like I told you, it only matters what I can prove. And so far, all the proof is on his side. It’s his story that stacks up, not yours. So we need more.”

  “What do you mean we?”

  “I need to remove you from the island, so that’s what I’m going to do. I’m taking you to the Riviera PD. You’re going to give them everything you’ve got.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  I told Ronzoni that my car was parked at Ron and Cassandra’s apartment nearby, so he drove me around the corner and sat outside until I emerged from the underground parking lot. Like the marshal who rides the bad guy out of town, he followed me all the way off the island. I thought he might stop at the bridge and watch me drive off into the sunset, but instead he stayed right on my tail all the way to the Riviera Beach Police Department.

  We stopped at the front desk of the station house. Ronzoni flashed his badge and said he was there to see Detective Brookes. I had no doubt this was going to expedite things. Cops didn’t tend to make other cops wait unnecessarily. It was a fraternity kind of thing. I, on the other hand, might have wilted like a Twinkie in the sun waiting for Brookes to see me.

  Brookes appeared, waved us through, and led us into a small meeting room with a round table and utilitarian plastic chairs.

  I told Brookes about the two videos showing the senator’s car in the vicinity of my house shortly before it burned to the ground. As soon as I uttered the word senator, Brookes groaned, and the further I got into my story, the further his eyes rolled back in his head. When I finished, I glanced at Ronzoni and waited for Brookes to follow up.

  “Do you have homeowner’s insurance?” he asked.

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Because I suggest you take the hint. A car doing a drive-by is not enough, as I’m sure detective Ronzoni here has told you. And the senator’s explanation is not only completely plausible, it’s totally understandable. You can’t go around poking the bear, Jones. Eventually you’ll get the horns.”

  I was going to question his mixed metaphors, but he didn’t look in any kind of mood for an English lesson.

  “So why don’t you do everybody a favor and take your insurance money and go build your new McMansion, and I’ll forget all about pursuing you for insurance fraud,” said Brookes.

  “Insurance fraud? Are you insane? Why would I burn down my own house only to use the insurance money to rebuild the same house? What’s the upside?” It felt like the hockey arena all over again. People seemed awfully worried about claiming insurance on things that were a zero-sum game.

  “Sure, Jones. You’re going to build the same old dump you had before, not a brand-new two-story waterfront mansion. Why don’t you go tell your tale to someone more gullible. You’re gonna make out like a bandit in this deal. Look, do yourself a favor and read the writing on the wall. I can prove it was arson. This place burned from the outside in, using a gasoline accelerant. Right around the house, the car too. It was a thorough job, and it took more than the three minutes between your videos of the senator’s car to set up. So don’t make me follow this up, because none of it looks good for you.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and it wasn’t just the clichés. Not only was I supposed to have burned down my own house just to rebuild it, but now I was supposed to live in one of the unsightly faux Tuscan monstrosities that dotted the Florida coastline. But I could see that Detective Brookes had already moved into covering-his-backside mode. He wasn’t interested in the fact that I liked the house as it was. But there was one thing he couldn’t skirt. One fact he couldn’t conveniently dismiss.

  “What about the guy in the house? You gonna sweep his body under the carpet too?”

  “You’re one lucky son of a gun,” he said. “There was nobody in the house. If there was, right now I’d be charging you with homicide. But it looks like all your Christmases have come at once. We did the final sweep and found nobody in the rubble. So I made a few calls. I just spoke to the man an hour ago, at work, in Pittsburgh. Oh, by the way, your tenant says he’s not paying rent this month. And you can consider your rental agreement terminated. He said he’d send you the bill for the clothes and the bottle of scotch he had there.”

  “What about the car in the driveway?”

  “It’s a lease. He gets a cab to the airport because it’s cheaper than parking for a week or two at a time.”

  “So nobody died?”

  “You got it, pal. You’re all caught up. So listen to what I’m telling you. I don’t need the aggravation of getting into the business of a state senator, and I don’t have to work a case to prove insurance fraud against you if you don’t make me. You know what they say: no autopsy, no foul.”

  After that I had nothing more to say, and Brookes had nothing more he wanted to hear, so I left without speaking another word. I assumed that Ronzoni took care of the pleasantries, because he took a good minute longer to appear out on the steps of the station house.

  “All’s well that ends well,” he said.

  I frowned at him, wondering if there was some kind of quote-a-day calendar that sat on the desk of every cop in the state.

  Ronzoni told me to take the win and keep my head down for a while. Then he left.

  I went and sat in my car but didn’t start it. Something about what Detective Brookes had said was gnawing at me. No witnesses had come forward, beyond the one who called in the fire. And the fact was, in a sleepy part of town like where my house used to be, someone slowly cruising around in a Town Car would have been strange. The detective was right. It wasn’t someone driving by with a Molotov cocktail. The Town Car had followed me, then, having lost me, continued into my neighborhood. But Mrs. W.’s video showed that the car had promptly left, in and out within minutes. Detective Brookes had suggested that the professional nature of the arson would have taken a little longer to set up. Certainly whoever did it wouldn’t have brought out picnic tables and had a tailgate, but the more I thought about it, the less the time frame fit.

  I started to wonder if there was some truth to Senator Vargas’s statement that he had sent his driver out of an abundance of caution to simply follow me. I was sure that elected officials dealt with their fair share of angry constituents, but I wasn’t sure if that hardened them or made them more cautious.

  Either way, it was starting to feel less likely that they could have started such a comprehensive burn so quickly. But the fact remained that someone had. And they had taken long enough to make sure that the fire department would not be able to put it out fast. They knew what they were doing. And they were able to do it hiding in plain sight, without any witnesses, dog walkers, or other insomniacs noticing anything unusual.

  I started my car, pulled out of the lot, and headed back to Blue Heron Boulevard. Because someone might be good enough to hide in plain sight, and they might be smart enough to set a fire to thoroughly burn a house, and they might have been lucky enough to operate in a quiet suburban town in the dead of night. Regardless, one fact remained inescapable: in order to do it all, they had to get there first.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  I parked in front of Mrs. W.’s once again and avoided looking down the street at the burned-out shell. I just didn’t want to see it. It was already occupying way too much space in my brain.

  I rang the doorbell and smiled at the video camera and waited an eternity for the old lady to unlock the front door.

  Two visits in one day was almost too much for her—I thought she might go into cardiac arrest from all the excitement. But she was a hardy old bird, and she invited me in, explaining she was just about to prepare a late lunch. I had things to do elsewhere, but I took Danielle’s words on board and allowed Mrs. W to enjoy the visit. Perhaps there would be a day in the future when I didn’t have so many people around me, when I would crave human interaction instead of finding it so wearisome.

  This time we stayed in the kitchen. I sat at her small Formica table as she made yet more coffee and prepared some sandwiches: pickle and ham on Wonder Bread, one side with mayonnaise and the other with Dijon mustard. I wouldn’t have come up with that combination if I had only those five ingredients in front of me and a month of Sundays, but it was surprisingly tasty.

  After we had enjoyed our sandwiches and had a bellyful of caffeine, I asked Mrs. W. if I could take a second look at the videos on her computer.

  “Help yourself, dear. I’ll just take care of the washing up.”

  I waited for the old computer to start up again then found the list of videos triggered by the motion sensor. I could see a bunch more had been triggered since my last visit, probably cops and rubberneckers and someone from the local paper checking out what remained of my house. Videos I viewed earlier were now grayed out. I didn’t look for anything earlier; I was fairly confident that if the senator’s driver wasn’t the bad guy, then he would have called in a fire had he seen one. Instead, I moved down the list looking for any videos closer to the time the fire was reported. I found one listed at 12:04 a.m., while I had been asleep on the beach. One that I hadn’t bothered to open previously, once I had seen the senator’s car in the neighborhood.

  I clicked on it.

  In the grainy black and white of the night vision, I saw a flash of white. Then nothing. I rewound the video and played it again, hitting Pause almost instantly.

  What I saw was a truck. It was blurry, but I could make out that it was a worker’s pickup, the kind a utility company technician might drive. I had no way of seeing who was inside, but a candidate came to mind.

  It got me thinking. The cops had canvassed the area. No one saw anything. Not even the dog walker who had called 911. What kind of vehicle doesn’t belong but is rarely paid any attention? A utility company vehicle—gas, phone, electric. They could park anywhere at any time and hide in plain sight.

  I checked the list of videos to see if there was a shot of the repair truck leaving the scene. There wasn’t. Clearly, the utility vehicle had left by driving the loop around past my house and to the north, then out to North Ocean Drive via one of the other streets that led in and out of my subdivision.

  I leaned back and looked at the frozen image one more time. The white of the truck contrasted with the darkness around it, causing the picture to flare. While it was the kind of truck that Neil Yeow drove for a living, it was impossible to see the serial number on the side, or even the FPL logo. I had to believe that Detective Brookes and his team had been fairly thorough in their canvas of the area. He wasn’t eager to investigate an elected official, and at that point he had to be thinking I was suspect number one and that I was blowing smoke at him about the senator. If his canvas had revealed no witnesses, then I was unlikely to find anyone who could tell me more about the truck.

  Except that one of Danielle’s lines was stuck in my head. When describing the police canvassing the area, she said that when the police had asked if anyone had seen anything, they would have asked about video footage, especially where they saw surveillance cameras.

  But I knew there were two kinds of surveillance cameras. Those that were made obvious as a deterrent—like Mrs. W.’s—and those that you didn’t know were there at all, and owners might not even admit having, like the one right next door to my house.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  I had the jitters from all the caffeine by the time I left Mrs. W’s. I left the car parked where it was and walked down the street toward the intracoastal. Instead of dead-ending at the water, the road turned to the right and ran north with one block of houses on the waterfront side for those lucky few with million-dollar ocean views.

  I had been one of those lucky few, although my view was worth more than my house. I had been fortunate to pick it up for a song as a fixer-upper during a downturn in the market thanks to Sal’s connections and financial help. It was one of the many reasons I hadn’t hesitated to help Keisha, my new hairdressing protégé. Most of the role models I had in my life had shared one common trait, something that they rarely discussed but always did.

  Pay it forward.

  Some of them had done it for me, some of them had done it for others in my presence, and some in my stead. I never really thought about it too hard, but it seemed like the tattoos that were imprinted boldest on our souls were the ones not inked with pressure but with consistency.

  I was buzzing like an out-of-tune AM radio as I walked down the street. I couldn’t have ingested more caffeine if I had mainlined it. As I reached the point where the street turned a hard right, I stopped and took my first look at the rubble in the cold light of day. Most of the basic framework was actually still standing, but great portions of the roof were gone, and the little I could see inside remained a black hole, devoid of life or memory.

  I shifted my view from the burned ranch house to the double-story monstrosity next door. It was one of those new-build McMansions that people felt the need to erect with absolutely no consideration for the environment around them, in as ostentatious a style as was humanly possible. To me it just looked like a great big Greek wedding cake. I had nothing against Greek wedding cakes per se. I just didn’t really want to live with one that overlooked my backyard.

  I stopped outside the tall gray concrete wall that surrounded the mini compound. There was an intercom box built into a niche in the wall and a heavy steel gate painted to look like wood.