“I’ll need the tape from that,” I said, pointing to the video camera anchored in the corner of the ceiling like a red-eyed spider.
Vitale said, “That’s got a twenty-four-hour loop. He’s not on it anymore. Anyway, I dimly remember the kid, and I don’t think he was the tights-and-cape type. More of a preppy look. I think maybe I sold him some comic books one time before.”
“Can you do better than ‘preppy look’?”
“Dark hair, I think. A little on the stocky side.”
“We’ll need you to come in and look at our mug books,” I said. “Talk to a sketch artist.”
“I’m no good at faces,” said Vitale. “It’s like a disorder I have. Some kind of dyslexia. I don’t think I’d recognize you if I saw you tomorrow.”
“Bull,” Conklin snapped. “This is a homicide investigation, Vitale. Understand? If that kid comes in again, call us. Preferably while he’s still here. And make a copy of his driver’s license.”
“Okay, chief,” Vitale said. “Will do.”
“It’s something,” Conklin said to me as he started up the car. “Kelly will be glad to have something from her mom.”
“Yeah, she will,” I said.
My mind flew to my own mom’s death. I turned my head so that Conklin couldn’t see the tears that came into my eyes.
Chapter 77
CHUCK HANNI STOOD with me and Joe in the dank basement of the building where I used to live, showing us the fine points of archaic knob-and-tube wiring as water dripped on our heads. The door to the fuse box was open, and Hanni held his Mag-Lite on a fuse he wanted me to see.
“See how this penny is annealed to the back of the fuse?”
I could just make out the dull copper blob.
“The college girls on the second floor — you know them?” Hanni asked.
“Just to wave hi.”
“Okay, well, apparently they’ve been blowing fuses every other day with their hair dryers and air conditioner and irons and whatnot. And your super got tired of running over here to change the fuse, so he put this penny in here.”
“Which does what?”
Chuck explained everything that happened, how the copper penny overrode the fuse so that the circuit didn’t trip. Instead the electricity went through the penny and melted down the wiring at its weakest point. In this case, the ceiling lights on the second floor and the electric sockets in my apartment.
I visualized flames shooting out of the socket, but I still didn’t get it — so Chuck took his time explaining to me and to Joe how my building, like a lot of old buildings, had “balloon construction,” that is, the framing timbers ran from roof to ceiling without any fire stops in between.
“The fire just races up through the walls,” Hanni said. “Those spaces between the timbers act like chimneys. And so when the fire reached your apartment, it came out the sockets, set your stuff on fire, and just kept going. Took out the roof and burned itself out.”
“So you’re telling me this was an accident?”
“I was suspicious, too,” Chuck told me.
He said that he’d questioned everyone himself: the building manager, the girls downstairs, and in particular our aging handyman, Angel Fernandez, who admitted he’d put the penny behind the fuse to save himself another trip up the hill.
“If anyone had died in this fire, I’d be charging Angel Fernandez with negligent homicide,” Hanni said. “I’m calling this an accidental fire, Lindsay. You file an insurance claim and it will sail through.”
I’d been trained to read a lie in a person’s face, and all I saw was the truth in Chuck Hanni’s frankly honest features. But I was jumpy and not quite ready to let my worst suspicions go. Walking out to Joe’s car I asked for his point of view as a guy who’d spent a couple of decades in law enforcement.
“Hanni didn’t do it, honey. I think he’s suffering almost as much as you are. And I think he likes you.”
“That’s your professional opinion?”
“Yep. Hanni’s on your side.”