Chapter Fifteen
Reid
The insistent chirp of something foreign wakes me out of a deep sleep. Believing it’s my alarm clock, I stretch my arm to the night table and smack it hard. It’s my goddamned Blackberry, which I usually have on vibrate. I snatch it up and look at the number.
It’s Jared.
Calling at seven in the morning?
The concept of Jared doing anything before ten a.m. is unheard of. This has to be important. Given that Leo has assigned some of my regular responsibilities to him, I can’t avoid his call.
“What?” I grumble.
“Wake the fuck up, son,” Jared tells me. “We’ve got business.”
“Go ahead.”
“Not this time. Come and answer your goddamned front door.”
“Why the hell are you here?”
“Are you losing your hearing in your old age? I just said. Business is calling. Chop chop.”
“I’ll be right there,” I tell him, rolling quietly out of bed so that I don’t wake up Robin. She’s resting soundly, and that’s a good thing. I drag on the closest pair of sweatpants and head down the hall to answer the door.
“What the hell is this about?” I demand.
“You wouldn’t be asking me that if you checked the last three emails Geoff sent to us last night.”
“What are they about?”
“Did you at least put on some coffee?” He asks with one raised eyebrow. “What the hell kind of host are you, ya wily bastard?”
“Keep your voice down.” I lead him to the kitchen and point to a chair at the table. “Have a seat. Fill me in on the emails.”
I start the coffee machine and sit opposite him at the table.
“Those HR people at Mason Industries sent over a list of seventeen names. It’s not the shortlist we were hoping for, but I think Geoff was able to whittle it down to six names based on a few criteria. I thought I’d run it by you.”
“What were the criteria?”
“We started off with the senior managers with access to the Mason farm. Everyone unaffected by the last two years of workforce changes was immediately dropped from the list. Ditto for those affected where HR and the executive approved for their requested transfers. That left seventeen managers. We cut that down some more by looking at location analysis.”
“What do you mean?”
“Comparing the recent incident dates and times with their workstation computer active usage times. If they were active at their desk computers at the time of the incidents, we took them off the list. Then we dropped a few more based on the distance between their office locations and the incident sites.”
“Good,” I agree with a nod. “If it’s impossible for them to get from one location to the next, you dropped them.”
“Exactly. That gets us down to six names.”
“How many of them are female?”
“Three.”
“Drop them from the shortlist for now.”
“Just like that?”
“Did the person in the baseball cap look like a woman?”
“No.”
“Drop them. Besides, the stats don’t lie. Less than twenty percent of convicted arsonist are female.”
“Maybe women firebugs are just better at not getting convicted,” he grins out.
“Focus, kid. Did HR send over the entire employee files?”
“Not yet. It’ll be couriered over tomorrow.”
“Make sure they send over photo and staff ID information.”
“Will do.”
I tap on the tabletop. “Wait. What are the names of the three men?”
He checks his Blackberry and scrolls through a file while I get us two steaming cups of coffee. “Wendell Morrison, Davison Walters and Larry Claiborne.”
“Ages?”
“Hang on…fifty-four, twenty-seven, and thirty-eight.”
“Drop the old one.”
He takes a sip of coffee from his mug and stares at me as he does it. “Seriously? You got something against young people?”
“Do you see a fifty-four-year-old kicking up a stink over a shitty lateral transfer or demotion? He’d be so close to retirement that he’s more likely to toe the line, not raise hell.”
“Maybe.”
“Okay. Get their pictures, and when you do, let me know what you think. And be sure to compare them all to the composites Geoff got from the video feeds.”
“Will do.”
I tap on the tabletop. “Anything else?”
“Just the question of anticipated targets and likelihoods if the arsonist is planning to strike again.”
“Go on.”
“There’s a list of potential events, landmarks, and sites,” he tells me.
“How many?”
“Forty-seven.”
“That’s way too many. Sort them by event date, their latest physical security threat-risk assessment results, and by any high-value assets on site. You should be able to get that list down to one or two possible sites per day, if that many. But check the timeframe between each of the prior incidents. Let me know if there’s any pattern.”
“Okay. I can do that.”
“And give me a call during business hours. Save the early morning house calls for emergencies.”
Jared smiles. “There you go, knocking a dude for enthusiasm.”
“Save it. We both know you just came by to see Robin.”
“Bullshit,” he grins. “Well maybe. So, where’s the pretty little singer who knocked you down a few pegs the other night?”
“Mind your own damn business.”
He raises his Blackberry to his lips. “Why why why Hero,” he sings out in falsetto, eyes closed as he mimics Robin’s song from that first night I saw her.
“Get the fuck out of my place,” I tell him. I can’t encourage this kid because I won’t hear the end of it.
He drains his cup of coffee and puts the mug in the sink. “I’ll be back.”
“No, you ain’t invited.”
“Stop busting my balls, son,” he tells me as he heads back to the front door. “Tell Robin howdy for me.”
“Just keep me posted. Get those photos to me ASAP.”
“Will do. Later.”