Chapter 9

The coffee had gone cold and bitter and the usually comfortable driver's side seat had started to cut off the circulation in his legs.  Bryan set the latest book down onto the growing done pile.  He only had three more to scan and note before he was finished, but, with all the information from the research swirling in his mind, he needed a break.

He flipped to the top page of his notebook.  The next item on his list was to check the homeless shelters.  If he got lucky, he'd find William Adams at a shelter and all the research would be nothing but a day's mental diversion.  But he found himself hoping that it wouldn't be that easy.  He glanced at the list of shelters.  Eighteen, which he'd organized late last night by their proximity to Jessica's apartment.  He decided to start at the top.

Bryan started the car and pulled it into gear.

 *

Two hours and six shelters later, Bryan pulled up to the Sheltering Light Mission and swung his legs out of the car.  The first group of shelters hadn't seen William at all, and as Bryan got further away from Jessica's apartment, he suspected he'd have even less chance of finding William this way.  The man had to be staying somewhere nearby.  Bryan was sure the motivation behind William's escape from the institution was tied to Jessica.  The two had been engaged, and he was sure that Adams wanted to see her.  Whether that was for good or bad reasons, Bryan didn't know yet.  Adams had saved a woman from rape and murder last night, but had killed a man in the process.  Did he see Jessica as a threat, or someone to be protected?

Bryan still had no explanation for why William had attacked Dr. Westen.  There was something more going on there that she was trying to hide.  Bryan already had a pretty good idea of what her worldview was, and he could easily imagine someone wanting to strangle her.

Up near the front doors of the shelter, small crowds of people milled about.  A woman, who looked to Bryan to be in her early fifties, strode from one group to the next.  He caught her voice as he neared.  "Not yet!  Come back at five.  Five p.m.  That's thirty more minutes.  Half an hour."  He noticed the shift in her posture when she saw him walking toward her.  That moment of exasperation, not too quickly hidden.  She obviously had him pegged as police already.  "Can I help you?"  At least her voice hid some of her annoyance.

Bryan brought out the badge as a formality, along with William's picture.  "Have you seen this man at the shelter?"

She turned to survey the milling homeless.  A few had dispersed after her last announcement, but more were gathering.  She barely glanced at the photo and only sneered at his badge.  "No.  I still haven't seen him."

Bryan replayed the sentence in his head.  "Still?"

She turned back to him, her impatience far from hidden.  "Yes, still.  I hadn't seen him this morning and I still haven't seen him."

"Someone else was looking for him?"

"What did I just say?"  One of the homeless trudged up the steps and rattled the locked door.  The woman turned from Bryan.  "Thirty more minutes!"

Bryan tucked the badge and photo away.  Had his lieutenant put someone else on the case?  Did he find out it was William who killed the thug the night before?  If he had, Bryan probably wouldn't still be walking the streets.  There was one more option and Bryan played his hunch.  "Was it a woman?  Red hair, big cast on her right hand?"

The woman snorted.  "That one was like Frankenstein and Dracula all rolled into one, she was.  Or maybe the mummy with that hand all wrapped up.  Didn't act much like a cop, though.  Not that she listened any better than you all."

As she glared at the growing crowd of homeless, Bryan looked around.  The crowd was especially large.  Obviously too large for this shelter.

He turned back and found the woman staring at him.  The news of Westen's ongoing personal investigation annoyed him.  Bryan could almost feel the limbic area of his brain surge with neurotransmitters that would make rational thinking more difficult.  But this woman had said something else, another small clue that forced him to keep his mood in check.  "The police haven't listened about what?"

She hooked a thumb back at the crowd.  "Could have saved a lot of lives if you all paid any attention to them, listened to us telling you why they're moving."

Bryan didn't quite have it.  She was talking about this group of people, but what would she have told the police about their movements?  He looked again at the milling homeless.  The woman turned, stood by his side for a moment.  She pointed to a new group that walked toward them.  "I recognize a few of them.  From way over on the east side.  Those Klan bastards are gonna start a fire there soon."

As the woman watched the group come closer, Bryan looked from them to her.  It made sense, what she was saying.  The homeless would be the first to see changes in the neighborhood, would see new people, predators, scoping out an area, would pass word to each other about what these things meant, what was to come.  A feedback network on the city's streets.

The woman nodded.  "Even the ones that can barely function know when to run.  Every one of these fires the last two months, we see the homeless move out of the area.  But you all don't listen."

Bryan could only stare at the crowds.  The implications of what she had said nearly put him down on the pavement.  She was talking about the fires started by the white supremacists, the ones that were clearing out neighborhoods.  Those were the small ones, not like his fire.  But it was a place to start, a place the other detectives didn't know about.  And there might be a connection.  These people knew when something was going to happen because they lived on the streets.  They would see strangers come into the area, scoping out potential targets.  They would know when to run while others, like the police, had no idea.  They were a warning system, like canaries in a coal mine, or chemical signals within the body of the city that warned of impending threats.

With this new information, he could find out where the next fires would be, maybe even get a good idea when.  And though he still thought the two types of fires were started by different arsonists, there might be a connection that he hadn't thought of.  If he could find one, he might find the other.  He might find who killed Claire and the baby.

This was a piece of it all, he felt that without doubt.  He turned to the woman.  "I'm listening."

 (Author's note: Holy cow!  Bryan may not have found William, but he sure did get a huge clue that could help him with the arsons!  Do you think that clue might have an impact on his search for William???  And do you remember the bad guy, Jared?  Watch out for him in the next chapter...where he meets someone in a very violent way.  Until then, thank you so much for the votes and comments! Please keep them coming!  Also, please spread the word to your friends, Wattpaders and otherwise!  And drop by my website... www.bruce-elgin.com  Talk to you soon!  Read on!)