I needed to ask Otto about it, but Teri had specifically told me not to discuss it with him. Did this mean I needed to tell Teri what Jolie had just told me?
My lungs felt constricted. Of course I had to tell her. Otherwise I was breaking the law. Obstructing justice and withholding a witness statement.
Fuck.
“Dammit, Jolie,” I said, standing up. “I’m going to have to report this. Don’t talk to her anymore about it, okay? There’s a nice woman named Teri who’s going to want to ask her some questions. We’ll both be there with her when she does. But until then, try not to discuss it.”
“You don’t think Otto set the fire, do you?”
“Of course not,” I snapped. I scraped my top lip with my teeth. “Sorry, Jolie. I’m just… this is just a strange situation. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
Jolie reached out to take my hand in hers, twining our fingers together as if we were a couple. I’d held her hand like that a million times over the years, but this was the first time I noticed how small and delicate it was. I almost felt like I could crush it by accident.
“Your parents came over this morning to check on Tisha, and your dad was talking about an article he’d read that said sometimes firefighters start fires so they can be the big strong hero who saves people. It’s called firefighter arson. You don’t think Otto—”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “He would never do such a thing.”
But the following day, I learned he’d been accused of doing it once before.
On a submarine of all places.
We were in my office to allow Teri to question Tisha, when Chief Paige pulled me aside. It seemed like his intention was to reassure me, but the result was the complete opposite.
“You’re not worried about what happened on his last deployment, are you?”
“What?” I asked, surprised as hell Otto would have talked to Evan Paige about something he still hadn’t talked to me about.
“The fire on board the Poseyville. That doesn’t necessarily have any bearing on what happened here. You shouldn’t worry.”
“What fire? What’s the Poseyville?” I felt like I was in some kind of movie where I was the stupid character always a step behind everyone else.
“The reason Otto left the navy, or at least I assume it was the reason. There was a fire on board the submarine he was on, the Poseyville, and he was the sailor originally blamed for it.”
“You’re kidding?”
Evan shook his head. “No. He hasn’t told you about this?”
“No. When did he tell you?”
“He didn’t. He gave me the name of a commanding officer he served under as a reference, and that guy told me the whole story.”
“What was the story?”
“Someone used Otto’s personal belongings to start a fire in Otto’s rack. When Otto’s shipmates were able to put out the fire, they discovered Otto practically catatonic in a small space behind the blaze. He’d been trapped, and the suspicion was immediately on him for setting the fire. He was unable to answer questions or defend himself when they questioned him, so the suspicion remained on him for setting it or at least letting it start through some kind of negligence since it was in his rack with his personal belongings.”
Picturing Otto stuck on a submarine was bad enough, but stuck in a small space during a fire on a sub? God, what that must have done to him.
“How did they determine he didn’t do it?” I asked.
“They didn’t, at first. They sent him to a nearby ship that had medical facilities to evaluate him. And while he was off the boat, another fire was started, similar to the first. They determined it was another sailor who was deliberately trying to find a way to get off the boat even though the kid maintained it was Otto who set the first fire. The point is, Otto was exonerated and given the option to return to his duty station or get an honorable discharge. He chose the discharge.”
“Jesus,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. It felt like I was carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. Despite what Evan had said about this not having any bearing on Otto’s guilt for the Hobie fires, I knew if anyone found evidence to support actual charges of arson, the suspected arson on the boat would come back up. “Does Teri know all this?”
“I don’t know, but if she doesn’t yet, she will. At least, I’m sure she’ll discover it if she finds any evidence linking him to the fire at his parents’ place.”
“There can’t be any. He didn’t do it,” I said for what felt like the millionth time.
But if he hadn’t done it, who had? And what the hell had he been doing there earlier that evening?