Dark Arson: A Mike Angel Mystery

By David H Fears

In Dark Arson (#16) set in Portland in 1975, Mike’s neighborhood is victim to a series of mysterious arson cases, including a house he was renovating. When an old lady at the end of his block is killed in a fire, her daughter, a stunning redhead psychiatrist from Olympia, Washington, hires Mike to find the arsonist. His investigation leads to a famous bank robber of the 1930s and 40s, Eddie Bentz, who consulted on hundreds of bank robberies for various crooks and hid untold wealth in flophouses around the country. Mike teams up with Dan Ahrens, a Seattle detective and learns that past accomplices of Bentz are squeezing him to find out his hiding places. Fire chases Mike as he chases a man thought to have drowned in a 1962 escape from Alcatraz. Lots of twists and turns in this adult language and seduction situation novel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David H Fears
• Release date: Feb 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311920409

David H Fears

David was known by the handle “professor” as a boy (no doubt the thick black spectacles, Buddy Holly style), and has had a lifetime interest in Mark Twain. He has also written nearly one hundred short stories with about sixteen published, and is working on the 14th Mike Angel PI Mystery novel.Fears is a pretty handy name for horror stories, but he also has written mainstream nostalgic, literary, some fantasy/magical realism, as well as the PI novels. For the past decade he has devoted his full time to producing Mark Twain Day By Day, a four-volume annotated chronology in the life of Samuel L. Clemens. Two volumes are now available, and have been called, “The Ultimate Mark Twain Reference” by top Twain scholars. His aim for these books is “to provide a reference and starting-off place for the Twain scholar, as well as a readable book for the masses,” one that provides many “tastes” of Twain and perspective into his complex and fascinating life. He understands this is a work that will never be “finished” — in fact, he claims that no piece of writing is ever finished, only abandoned after a time. As a historian, David enjoys mixing historical aspects in his fiction.David recently taught literature and writing at DeVry University in Portland, his third college stint. His former lives enjoyed some success in real estate and computer business, sandwiched between undergraduate studies in the early 70s and his masters degree in education and composition, awarded in 2004.He was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, and has lived in New England, Southern California and Nevada. David is youthful looking and is the father of three girls, the grandfather of four and the great-grandfather of two; he’s written, “It all shows what you can do if you fool around when you’re very young.” David’s a card. How many of us think humor has a place in mystery tales or history tomes? He claims his calico cat Sophie helps him edit his stories while lying across his arm when he is composing, and sinking her claws in with any poorly drawn sentence. As a writer, a humorist, a cat lover and father of girls, he relates well to Clemens. Writing hardboiled PI novels is his way of saying "NUTS!" to politically correct fiction.UPDATE: Beloved Calico Sophie died on Apr 24, 2016 at 13 & 1/2 years. She is sorely missed.

Book preview

Chapter 1

I never wore a disguise on a case until 1975 after an overworked arsonist torched a house I was remodeling. Overworked because mine was the fourth arson in our Portland neighborhood that year. It meant something more demonic than some kid playing with matches. Loogans with firebombs put folks on edge, afraid to leave home at night. I’d barely noticed the other fires, but this one hit home. More on the disguise angle later.

I’d transplanted life with Molly Ann Bennett to a new start in Oregon after years working as a NYC cop, then seven years as a private eye in New Jersey and Chicago. We put down good roots in this soggy city in a lush landscape and even celebrated the birth of a son the year before. I didn’t deserve a dish like Molly, girl with a huge heart and faith in something she saw in me. Didn’t deserve it but after a few years of doubt I bit the bait and we were off to Oregon, a land so different from Newark I grew up in, or Chicago where Molly and I ran a busy investigative firm with Rick Anthony, retired detective in tow. Baby Markie was the cherry on top. What a world of difference a kid makes.

One spring night near midnight I was in the rear of the project house, tearing out a utility sink and some decrepit plumbing.

Swearing at the pipes I didn’t hear a car or noise of any kind, until a pop and whoosh exploded from the front, flames lighting up the street like noonday sun. I ran out the back to the street. The porch was already engulfed, flames tearing fast through the old wood porch and into the front wall.

The streets were empty. So was my water bucket.

I’d spent weeks gutting the place, the fourth project house I worked on since semi-retiring from investigations. My first thought was the dump wasn’t insured; one short cut I immediately regretted. I’d shut off the water weeks ago and had no hose anyway.

I sprinted to a corner phone booth, dialed O for Operator and gave the address of the fire. As neighbors tiptoed out to see, a firetruck pulled up and hooked hoses to a fireplug at the corner. They weren’t in a rush, setting up as if they’d done it a thousand times. Likely they had, which explained their lack of hustle. But, once the water flowed, the boys got control; the fire slowly gave in. So did the front wall. Not a total loss, but I was facing a week of hard rebuild.

Two uniform cops in a prowl car pulled up. They looked like high school was a few weeks in their rear view mirror. Why was I working on the house so late? they wanted to know.

By keeping busy I distracted myself from missing Molly, who had taken baby Markie to Chicago for show-and-tell to brother, aunts and uncles and unnamed cousins galore. She understood why I begged off going. Even though I would have got off on walking around Wrigleyville, I knew meeting the extended Bennett clan would take a week and bore the snot out of me. I had no right to keep her from going, so I took advantage to make time on the renovation. I gave the fresh-faced cops the whole setup.

The cops looked along their smooth faces like I was bonkers, but jotted down things and said an arson dick would call soon, that the fire department worked arson and handed results to their chief. A fireman came over and gave me the same spiel.

Their definition of soon worked out to be the next morning, though I wanted it to be the next hour. Results to Chief Baker meant my little arson case would be put on the back burner with four others in the same area. You’d think they would have solved these by now. No urgency from the blues? It spoke to big changes in the force since Police Chief Donald MacNamara retired. But cop politics were none of my business. Even if they caught the firebug I’d have my hands full reframing, sheetrocking and the like. It pissed me off. No man wants to redo a month-long project because some pervert likes to watch things burn.

Six a.m. the next morning I returned to the scene of the crime. I’d been told not to touch anything on the front, so went back swearing at plumbing, which I managed to rip out by the time a dark sedan with PFD emblazoned in gold showed up out front.

A pot belly gray-hair in nifty dress blues with department emblem met me on the sidewalk with his clipboard and a tool chest. Chester Wiggins. On his last few months before taking the gold watch and heading for warmer climes. I shadowed Chester as he poked through burned lumber, commenting on how easy the front wall had given in. It’s because I gutted the interior, I told him, ripping out all the old lath and plaster. He grunted and continued to poke.

Next to what was left of the porch, he pointed and pulled out a metal device resembling a mouse trap. Except it wasn’t. He pried it loose with a set of tongs from his toolbox and held it up for me to see.

What the hell is it? I asked.

Igniter. New stuff. Fired remotely with a special signal device like a garage door opener. See the gray trail leading north from where I plucked it? Hot fuse. Into accelerant of some kind. Gasoline most likely.

He held a fragment of half burned timber to his nose and grunted. Most likely.

So, the arsonist planted the gizmo and hid miles away to push a button for my grief?

You got it. Except not miles away. Two or three hundred feet at most. Would give him a safe place to watch the fun.

Motive?

He shrugged. Excitement, vandalism, revenge, concealment of another crime, profit or simply a sick mind without motive. Until we catch the firebug we can’t be sure.

This is the fourth in this area. Why haven’t you caught him?

Ask Baker’s boys. They seem to put pyromania on a low rung unless or until someone’s offed by it.

I thanked Chester and asked if I could start rebuilding the front. He had no objection, so my day was set.

***

A week later, I was putting the finishing touches on the re-do, when up drives my unfavorite gossip columnist, Nancy Bleu for the Oregon Journal, as welcome as a case of clap on a honeymoon. Splashing sensational columns about a mystery arsonist hitting the famous private eye was right up her poisonous alley.

Yeah, I had a somewhat tattered history with the broad. Besides a hand job in a dark bar up in Northwest Portland, I’d traded an hour of sex for the location of a Southern Oregon sheriff gone bad a couple years ago. Since those two missteps I’d stiff-armed the pushy broad and her bounteous chest several times. Make no mistake, it was bounteous and definitely all real. But I don’t dig a regular quid pro quo, no and double no — I don’t want regular drilling with a gossip columnist. I might as well screw the chesty scribbler on my front steps with Molly watching. The skirt still had her aim on my anatomy, for some reason. You can’t figure female animals. A collar and chain wouldn’t stop this one.

But reporters like Miss Bleu aren’t amateurs, they have multitudes of sources and almost as many methods of prying info as Interpol. If she has to use those big pillows or go down on some patsy, she will without hesitation. Sex is only another key on her typewriter, so to speak. But as I discovered, sex to her is also a cold thing even when it’s hot. Hot gossip columns make her wet. Her typewriter pours out scoops. That’s her way of getting her rocks off and she doesn’t need a dick to type.

Still, she claimed a nasty attraction for the scar on my jaw that I won bringing death and justice to my father’s killer in 1960. Or, so she says. She also spews profuse praise for what I waggle between my legs. Says she’s a-dick-ted, though that could hardly be after two brief encounters. That sort of spin’s her way of flirting and digging for dirt for her column. A serial arsonist hitting one neighborhood embraces possibilities a snatch like Nancy Bleu drools over. Here she was, banging on what was left to the doorframe of my renovated house.

Dressed in a tight navy pencil skirt and a blouse so snug those gazongas threatened to pop out in my face, Nancy looked almost decent. But the office wear didn’t fool me. Nothing Nancy touches is decent. 34, brunette, voluptuous and divorced, she’s married to her career more than any husband might allow, so single and preying on select sources of dirt is her M.O. I was select any time she could manage. If any other motives lived in her they hid beneath her black hair. Any of her hair.

The front door was ash so she ducked in around stacked lumber and sheetrock. Soot from the fire still stained sidewalls, soggy from the fire hoses. She turned her head to survey the room and then stepped up close. Something like her own brand of fire swam in her eyes. The heat from that fire rankled me, set me on edge. Suddenly I hated the broad, hated anything to do with her kind of fire.

She only got a couple words out before I grabbed her by the shoulders and yanked her up to my face. Her head lolled and her lips opened as if to welcome a kiss. But it wasn’t a kiss I had in mind. She caught me at a crummy moment. Like I said I was pissed at the redo I faced. I couldn’t take my anger out on the arsonist, so Miss Manipulative was the next best thing.

Go ahead, I dare. Hit me! she cried.

Heat from the fires from her eyes slid up my neck.

I slapped her face. Hard. Her eyes shimmered with disbelief. Blood trickled from her lips. I smeared it with my thumb. Her shoulders trembled and those admirable breasts moved spasmodically against my chest. A worm of challenge came into her eyes then. Not the fear I was looking for, but challenge to my power over her, or was it hers over me? I hit her again, harder. Her knees buckled and she pushed away.

Mike—I only wanted … interview you about the fires. Why? …

You know why, you witch. You want to spin your web on me, on my dick. Make me sit up and beg. Well, I won’t be a sap for you, for those tits of yours. Not any more.

She walked over and put her hands on my chest.

"Okay. Okay. Maybe I like it rough. And I adore you pinching my tits. They were made for a man like you. Maybe you’re rabid because you hate yourself for wanting me, for the hour or two we lit our flames. You want more. One thing I know Mister Angel — you loved it, you want —"

My hands were animals, leaving her shoulders to pull her blouse down around her waist. I clutched her ass, roughly lifting her and making for the kitchen. A cot I’d set up there took our combined weight and threatened to fold. I didn’t care. Panties ripped off, blouse stripped. The curves of her breasts pushing up with each gasp, meat enough for any man to feast on. My hands wanted to go around her neck, to squeeze until her tongue stuck out and her face turned black. But I’m not a killer, unless I have to stop someone from killing me.

She twisted and lifted her hips. She was a magnificent lioness, breathing hard and fast, daring my flimsy resistance to buckle under the power of that body. Each wonderful curve flowed into other more wonderful curves, the clear pale softness of her belly pulsing under those magnificent pillows, her face full with mature beauty, eyes and lips rich with color. I didn’t think about sex, or about Molly — though I should have — or about anything but my anger. The fire of my anger sped me on.

My erection hovered over her, larger than life, threatening, her eyes fixed on it. Low throaty sounds slid from her with whispered wishes for me to slam into her.

Here’s your interview, I said, giving her what she wanted, letting all the fiery fuel rip through me like an avenging animal with violent will.

Resentment can add a peculiar kind of power to sex. With each thrust I punished her, hated her for the control she often held over me, for uninvited visits and the way she always got what she wanted. Yet, she loved every second of the pounding. Ironically, she was in control. I wasn’t, being swept along like a leaf into rapids. If she said stop I would have, as rape’s not my style.

We fell into a place where time and distance are hidden to all but lost people. We didn’t care about the discomfort of the moldy cot or the dusty vacant house with lingering stench of arson. Two flaming appetites for a certain spicy dish met and overcame the normal limits of flesh, exploding in a grand finale of spent frustration.

Our passions satisfied, we kissed, then fell into a fit of laughter. Wacky.

She sat up and half-assedly put herself together.

You can keep the panties for a souvenir, she said. You didn’t have to rip them. They were expensive.

Put it on my tab, toots. Along with everything else. And don’t expect a curtain call.

She stood and smoothed her skirt, eyed my dick with admiration, which was still hanging out like a flagpole.

You’re amazing, she said. That thing’s huge! Do I really bring out the beast in you? I’m glad if I do. You’re a man — a real man. I could never be with anybody but — a man with a weapon like that.

I can see your column heading now: Gossip scribbler killed by schlong."

She ignored that one and said: Can we get a drink somewhere?

My place, six blocks over, if you can settle for a cold Blue Ribbon. It’s all I have.

Peachy. The wife?

In Chicago showing the kid off to relatives.

Even more peachy. I know your address. I’ll meet you there.

***

Nancy shared a list of homeowners who’d been victims of the arsonist, as well as neighbors who might have seen something suspicious before the blazes. You can have this in case you want to look into things. I have a copy at the office. You were the last to be hit and I’ve talked to some of these.

The arson cop was all but mute, gave me a Cliff Notes version on what he called ‘pyromania motivation,’ then said he’d turn his report into Baker, like the others earlier. It’s been nearly a week. No word from the blues. Why not do a column on the new police chief and how he runs the place by the book with skeleton staff causing cases to stack up for months while John and Jane Doe Public wait for answers.

Funny you’d mention that. I have a few notes on the unrest within the department since MacNamara retired. Seems this Bruce Baker believes in paring things down, even though crime’s on the rise. Any inside perspective on Baker?

Yeah. I don’t like him.

Any reason?

The day he took over he as much as told me to stop investigating in the city. Didn’t care much for the cozy cooperation I’d had with his predecessor. Said it showed the cops couldn’t do their job.

Says him.

I made a motion with my shoulders, not meaning to shrug but had nothing to say.

At the door I made an awkward try at apologizing for my rough play.

She kissed me lightly and ran a finger down the length of my jaw scar.

It’s all right. I like it rough. Even your slaps made me wet.

Her hand rested on my cheek and her eyes held strange sympathy. Sure you don’t want to take me to your bed here? It’d be a lot slower and more comfy. I have all day.

I shook my head and took her hand from my face.

I won’t do that. Not here.

Then she was gone.

Though Nancy had won, I’d let out a boatload of frustration about the fire causing me so much trouble. I was relieved nothing had happened at my home, at the place of rest and escape where I lived with my forbearing wife Molly and my one year old son Markie.

I may have messed up but I’m not a big enough rat to do it in the marriage bed. Even to a horny gumshoe, some things are sacred.

I thought of Rick’s favorite dictum: Don’t shit where you eat.

Which reminded me I’d have to call Rick in and milk his brain about all things arson.

Chapter 2

Rick Anthony, my retired partner by ’75, brought over some ancient bourbon and we downed shots of it, savoring the deep rich flavors.

You got toasted by a firebug, I hear.

Still scouring the dailies?

A man can learn a lot there. Even in the want ads.

Yeah, Pops. I got hit. Been working like a slave to rebuild the entire front of the house on Rex. I didn’t insure the dump.

Live and learn. Coverage commensurate now?

If you mean is it insured now, yeah. Rick’s speech suffered from bloated vocabulary from too many NYU classes he took during his cop days in the Big Apple. Before Molly quit our little firm after