Schism

Chapter 22 part 2

Bryan sat in a patch of morning sun on the hallway bench outside the homicide squad room.  Inside, the rookies had been their usual noisy selves and the picture in the desk drawer was too tempting.  It was easier to think in the hallway, but it hadn't done him any good.

He looked at his notes again.  He'd worked on them all night, after his car had burned, but hadn't found the right model yet, the right analogy to help him see everything.  Not all of the pieces would fit together, and every time Bryan tried to jam all of them in to a model, the whole thing fell apart.  Every single framework that he had tried so far had collapsed.

On the notepad, he had columns down for William, Doctor, Jessica, Racists and Fires.  In the Fires column he had drawn a split between the large and small fires.

He stared at the chart.  If William had known about Jess and Bryan eating together, and the plan for the date, or whatever it was, it might have made him angry.  He had said as much to Bryan, about making the wrong man jealous. 

Under the Fires column, he wrote Pyrokinesis/Arson.  He knew he was ignoring evidence and motive, but he hoped that the fire yesterday, his car exploding, hadn't had anything to do with William.  He wanted William's help finding the people who had started the other fires, the fire that had taken Claire and the baby.  William had been there for that fire, but had saved Bryan, and there had been others who said they were saved by a man that met William's description.  But saving people didn't mean he didn't start the fire in the first place.

Bryan closed his eyes, went back through William's file in his mind.  William had been in the institution during the fires after that.  Could William start fires from a distance?  Bryan hoped not, but had no idea what the man really was, what he could do or how he did it.  He realized he didn't know anything about William, and yet he'd been bringing him dinner and asking him for help.

His one hope was that there was still some normal explanation for the fire, that his car had exploded out of sheer mechanical and electrical failure.  Or, and this worried him in other ways, it might have been a bomb.  He had just dropped the stuffed giraffe inside the car.  That could have been a bomb or someone could have hidden something in the car while he was inside with Jessica.  There had been evidence of small fire bombs at many of the fires around the city.  But that would mean that the white supremacists were trying to kill him, and he had no idea what their motive might be for that.  What he did know was that William had said that a fire was coming.

Was there going to be a fire at Jessica’s apartment?

He heard footsteps reach the top of the stairs and flipped the notebook to the next page, which held simple notes about finding the escaped mental patient.

The footsteps turned out to be Meyers, who had a white paper bag in his hand.  Bryan relaxed a bit and nodded as the other detective slowed.  Meyers had been on scene at Jessica's place only hours ago.  Maybe he was just being cautious about any possible arsons.  But Bryan wondered if it might have been personal concern.  It wasn't something he was used to in the department.

Meyers stopped.  "Hey.  You squatting?"

Bryan nodded to the squad room door.  "Dieterly and Hicks are still talking comic books."

Meyers stared at the door, then took the seat next to Bryan.  "Thanks for the warning."  He dug inside the bag.  "Got you one of those French pastries with the chocolate inside."

"Pain au chocolat?" Bryan asked. 

A groan slid from Meyers.  "Don't say it."  He handed the pastry to Bryan.  "It's impossible to speak French without sounding pompous.  We shouldn't even try."