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As we followed Jiht about how soh — when in fact they’re horrified Others do it because they get off on it What kind of guy was Jimenez?

“Was the front door locked?” I asked him

“No, and a neighbor called the fire in Lots of people don’t bother to set their alarms around here”

Broken glass crunched under ed through the open space, trying to get a sense of the victims’ lives from the re puzzle pieces together was blunted by the extent of the destruction First the fire, then the water and the mop-up, left the worst kind of crime scene

If there had been fingerprints, they were gone Hair, fiber, blood spatter, footprints, receipts, notes — forget all of that Unless a boer or trace of an accelerant was found, we couldn’t even be sure that this fire and the others ere investigating had been set by the same person

The most conclusive evidence we had was the si this fire and those at the Malones’ and Meachams’ homes

“The vics were a e and Nancy Chu,” Jimenez told us “She was a middle school teacher He was some kind of financial planner They paid their taxes, were law-abiding, good neighbors, and so forth No known connections with any bad guys I can fax you the detectives’ notes frohborhood”

“What about the ME’s report?” I asked

Conklin was splashing through the ruins behindto the rear wall

“The ME wasn’t called Uh, the chief ruled the fire accidental Nancy Chu’s sister had the funeral home pick up the bodies, ASAP”

“The chief didn’t see cause to call the ME?” I shouted “We’re looking at a string of fire-related, probable homicides in San Francisco”

“Like I told you,” Ji me doith his dark eyes “I wasn’t called either By the tione and the house was boarded up Now everyone’s yelling at me”

“Who else is yelling?”

“You know him Chuck Hanni”

“Chuck was here?”