The Gift of Illusion

Chapter Two





1





Elmwood Police Department.

“Winters,” called Police Chief Donald Stevens from across the building.

Isaac grabbed a cup of coffee and made his way to the other end of the precinct. Stevens sat down behind his desk as Isaac arrived at the doorway.

“Take a seat,” said the husky black man with a thick, boisterous mustache.

Isaac sat down in a red leather chair at the other end of the desk and watched the chief gnaw at the eraser end of a pencil, scanning a manila folder.

Stevens slid the folder across the desk. “I have something I want you to see.”

Inside the folder were a half a dozen black and white photographs. Isaac perused the photos and then looked up at his superior. “Okay. What's the deal?”

“The deal?” the chief repeated. “Doesn’t this look strange to you?”

Isaac flipped through the photos again. He couldn’t tell if anything was strange or not, most of the photos were almost entirely blackened and seemed a touch out of focus.

Stevens slid another photo across the desk. It was of a young girl, perhaps ten or eleven years old. A school photo. "This is Lori Ackerman. In those photos is what's left of her."

“That black smudge is a little girl?”

"Yes."

"She burned to death. That's horrible."

“Notice the outside edges of the bed are still in pretty good shape and almost nothing else in the room was even mildly damaged.”

Isaac couldn’t believe his eyes. If Stevens was correct, all that remained of the little girl was just ashes on a bed. How does the famous nursery rhyme go again: ashes, ashes, we all fall down?

“Is that a foot draping off the bed?”

Stevens leaned over the desk and glanced at the bottom of the present photo. “Yes,” he said, then reclined back in his chair.

Isaac rubbed at the two-day stubble on his chin and shook his head with an uncommon case of disbelief.

“Let me ask you something.”

“Shoot,” said Isaac.

“What kind of fire could do something like this?” The chief raised his eyebrows with a half excited, half suspicious look on his face.

Isaac didn’t answer. He had no idea.

“A controlled one, perhaps?”

Isaac finally looked up from the photos. “No accident, huh?”

“Maybe. Maybe not,” Stevens said, scratching at the roof of his forehead. “All I know is what I see in those photos. And it looks pretty damn hard to believe.”

“Well, yeah,” Isaac said, trying not to seem too surprised, if there were such a feeling. After twenty years in law enforcement and numerous investigations little surprised him anymore. This morning, however, these strange photos, reminded him of the old days. Days better left forgotten.

“So far any reasonable source from which the fire could’ve evolved hasn’t been found, and I find that even harder to believe.”

Isaac set the photographs down on the desk and took a small sip of coffee.

“Who’s covering the investigation?”

Stevens smiled, his black mustache widened. “You are,” he said, pointing his finger across the desk.

Isaac sighed. This was not what he wanted. Today he had planned a busy schedule of sitting around and pretending he was on vacation, like usual.

“Take the folder with you. I want you to start right away, you know, while the dust is still fresh.”

“Anything else?”

“Yeah, the parents are staying at the Goodnight motel off Fairway. Do what you do best. You never know.”

As Isaac was leaving the office, Stevens yelled, “Oh, and take Simmons with you.”





2





Isaac didn’t care much for the idea of toting all two hundred and fifty sweating pounds of Daniel Simmons around with him, while being constantly bombarded with every goddamn obnoxious question Simmons could think to ask. He had no idea how Simmons became a detective, but he hadn’t been one for long. One day, like the pesky itch at the bottom of your foot that only comes after you’ve put on your shoe, the fat man just appeared. At first nobody questioned Simmons’s ability as an investigator, it was only after they worked with him a couple of times that something started to smell fishy, and it wasn’t just the white undershirt slapped over his back.

Daniel Simmons was forty-two years old, only four years younger than Isaac, and yet seemed to have no experience in the field. He knew nothing of how to search for clues or properly contain evidence, which was mighty peculiar since he carried the same badge as the most decorated men on the force.

All of this was a big deal to most, but Isaac really didn’t care. Big deal if Simmons didn’t know the first damn thing about being a detective. Ever since Linda’s death, Isaac cared less and less about doing the noble work, about being the world's shit pickeruper. The only problem Isaac had with Simmons was the excessive diarrhea from his mouth.

“So what are we doing?” Simmons asked from the passenger seat of the black Dodge Charger.

“We’re going to 2420 Maria Avenue.”

Simmons wiped a hand down his dark brown mustache then glanced over at Isaac. A puzzled grin rose on his face. “Well, I know, but—”

“Look, I know what you mean. And I don’t know exactly what we’re doing either. I’m in the dark as much as you. I guess we’ll both find out when we get there. Did you see the photographs?”

“Photographs?” Simmons repeated with the half assed, puzzled grin on his face. The grin was a Simmons trademark, one hundred percent his own.

“You didn’t see them?” Isaac asked again, glancing over at Simmons.

The heavy man still wore the ridiculous Muppet grin.

“No. I guess I’m a little more in the dark.”

“Well, you can’t tell much from the photos anyway.”

“I'd still like to see them.”

What made the photos horrifying was not what you saw, but what you didn’t see, and in this case, what you didn’t see was the young girl’s body. The ash leftover of eleven-year-old Lori Ackerman rested inside a large hole where the fire had burned through the mattress. A space about six inches around the bed appeared untouched, still white, and other than the half melted lampshade from the nightstand, everything else looked fine, at least in the photographs.

“They’re in the back seat in the folder.”

Simmons reached back and snagged the folder between his middle and index finger. Then he removed the six black and white photographs and sorted through them.

“Damn,” he said almost immediately. “Is that a foot?”

“Yeah, that’s a foot.” Isaac didn’t even have to look. Yes, he remembered a foot, just one. The right foot he had thought.

He watched Simmons flip through and examine each of the photos. He wondered if the look of disbelief on Simmons’s face was the same look he had given Chief Stevens back at the precinct.

“What happened?”

“A fire happened.”

“When?”

“Last night. About midnight, I think. Those photos were taken very early this morning.”

“Who was it? In the photos, I mean,” said Simmons, sliding the photos back into the folder.

“An eleven-year-old girl.”

“Really?” said Simmons, genuinely surprised. He tossed the folder into the back seat. “A little girl? That’s horrible.”

"That's what I said."

“Did anyone else get hurt or killed?”

“No, just the girl as far as I know.”

“How did the fire start?”

“Don’t know. That’s what we’re supposed to find out. Stevens thinks the parents may have had something to do with it. Or so he led on.”

“Why would someone do that to their child?”

“I don’t know. But it seems to happen more and more."

Isaac turned left on Fairway Boulevard. Both detectives sat quietly for a moment and watched a fire truck scream by with sirens blazing on the opposite side of the road.

How ironic.

“Have you talked to the parents yet?”

“No,” said Isaac. “But they were notified that we would like to speak with them.”

“Are they staying at the house?”

“They’re not allowed. I believe they’re staying at a motel not too far from here. Later we’ll stroll on down there and say hello.”

Isaac pulled the black Charger up to the Ackerman house on the side of Maria Avenue behind a row of police cars. Hordes of local television news vans were parked on the opposite side of the street. “I guess they found a story,” he said, glancing over at the reporters.

A few of the reporters bustled toward the car clutching microphones and followed by cameramen.

“What should we say?” Simmons asked.

“Nothing. Don’t say a word to any idiot with a camera.”

The two detectives sprung from the car and headed toward the front door of the Ackerman house. The black, burly cameras followed closely on their heels.

“Detectives, do you have any information on how the fire was started?” A female reporter asked. She was a fairly attractive brunette, maybe in her mid-thirties, dressed in one of those bright colored, sharply trimmed women’s suits that have become all too trendy these days.

Neither of the detectives responded and continued up the cement walkway.

“Do you know if any negligence on the part of the girl’s parents had anything to do with her death?” A different reporter asked, this one a man.

What do you think we’re here to find out?

Isaac opened the door and allowed Simmons to go in ahead of him, then turned toward the crowd of reporters gathered in the front lawn.

“There will be no comment at this time,” he said, trying to project his voice over the crowd. “Now back up. I don’t want to see anyone without a badge within fifteen feet of the house.”

He turned to go inside when the pretty brunette spoke again.

“How long will it be before an autopsy is performed on the young girl’s body?”

Autopsy? Sorry, but not even the most prestigious pathologist could perform an autopsy under these circumstances.

Isaac turned back around and stared the brunette reporter right in her bright, anxious eyes. “I said no comment at this time. How hard is that to understand?”

From the first step inside the house, Isaac could smell a strange odor unlike anything he had ever smelled before, and he’d been witness to many awkward scents over the years with the Elmwood P.D. The scent was fresh, almost sweet, and it crawled all over his skin.

A half dozen policemen roamed about the house, going upstairs, back down, and then back up again like working ants revolving in a steady circle. Simmons chatted with one of the blue and white uniformed officers in the kitchen. Isaac headed over, but before he could take two steps from the front door, another policeman snuck up from behind him.

“Sir,” said the officer. “I’m assuming you’re Detective Winters.”

Isaac turned around and faced the policeman; a young kid, maybe twenty-five, probably new to the force. He had a big black cowboy hat on his head.

“We’ve been waiting for you. Would you like me to lead you upstairs?”

Isaac glanced up the staircase and saw the open doorway with the yellow police ribbon around it. “No, I think I can find my way.”

He walked past the officer then turned back at the foot of the stairs.

“Hey, what’s your name?”

“Deputy Christopher Howers.”

Isaac nodded. “Nice to meet you.”

The officer nodded back.

“Simmons, come."

Isaac peeled back the yellow police tape and stepped underneath. Simmons followed behind. The sweet scent Isaac had first smelled when he entered the house had grown tenfold. He could feel it tickling at the back of his throat, making him want to sneeze, or cough up his lungs, whichever would make the tingling sensation go away quickest.

He stood in the doorway of the room and peered over at what used to be a little girl and her bed. The scene looked far worse than the pictures could have ever shown. As he inched closer to the bed, he noticed the foot, hanging lonesome, about to fall into the black hole in the mattress. When he looked into the hole, he saw the other foot, the left one, smothered amongst the black ash.

“There’s number two.”

Isaac walked around the side of the bed and began examining the surrounding objects in the room. Simmons couldn’t take his eyes off the ash and the lonesome feet. His eyes told the tale of a man who knew he was way out of his league. In his short time as a detective, he had never come across anything even remotely as horrifying as this. The worst he had seen was a man killed from multiple gunshot wounds in the chest, nothing in comparison to this dread.

“Honestly,” Simmons said, not letting his eyes drift from the bed of ash. “Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

Isaac looked over. “Well." He paused to let his mind wander off, searching through hell’s database. “No,” he finally said, shaking his head. “Not like this.” He turned toward the open window and looked outside at the house next door. “I wonder,” he said, running his hand across the windowsill. “I wonder if this window was open all night. And if not, when was it opened, and who opened it?”

“You think somebody could have come in through the window?” Simmons asked.

Isaac thought to himself, random, jumbled thoughts that led nowhere, and finally said: “We need to talk to the neighbors.”

He turned from the window and leaned down next to the bed. If he sneezed now the ashes would scatter all over the room, and his face. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a latex glove. Then he snapped the glove on his hand and touched a small pile of the ash with his index finger. The black ash collapsed smoothly from within and ran down the sides of the hill. He picked up some of the ash and ran it through his fingers.

“The ash is really fine.”

“Huh.”

Isaac picked up another hand full and repeated the process. “You see how easily it breaks apart.”

Simmons nodded.

“The particles are very fine and compact. Not like your average fire where the ash tends to be clumpy.”

“What does that mean?”

Isaac stood up. “Just means this isn’t your average fire. But I guess we already knew that, right?” He pressed his hand against the wall next to the open window, a grimy soot slide between his fingers. He removed a line of the grease with his index finger. “Care to write your name in it?”

The detectives circled the room looking closely for anything else that looked unusual. They both turned back to the bed, if by instinct.

“I don’t see how a fire could burn so steadily in one place for a long enough time to char through bones. How could any fire do this kind of damage in such little time?”

“You don’t believe it’s possible?” Simmons asked.

“With a little help, anything’s possible.”

“The parents?”

“Maybe. But we won’t know until we talk to them.”

Isaac ran his hand across the top of the dresser, and then searched the floor around it.

“Wait a minute.”

“What is it?”

Isaac peered down the crack behind the dresser, scanning the two-inch floor space separating the back of the dresser from the wall. Nothing but a little ash lay there, probably scattered by the wind from the open window. “Something’s missing.”

“What?”

“I don’t know.” He pulled open each of the four drawers and rummaged through them. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Go out to the car and bring me the photos. I need to see something.”

Simmons carefully butted through the mass of media, ignoring any questions on his way to the car. He opened the passenger door and snatched the manila folder lying on the back seat.

Upstairs, Isaac stood at the side of the small bed, examined the fine gray ash below, and tried hard to shake the intoxicating perfume from his senses.

A small portion of the ash (not more than two or three spoonfuls) was already in the hands of forensics for analysis and would be placed under a number of tests, the most effective test being Gas Chromatography, which could detect even small amounts of accelerants present in the ash. First the sample would be heated in a glass vial to vaporize any accelerants. A special syringe is then used to extract a small sum of air from the vial. The air is then injected into the gas chromatograph, and by comparing that graph to the graph of known substances, such as gasoline, paraffin, or fuel oil, the examiner could determine which accelerant may be attributed to the fire. These sorts of tests could go a long way in discovering whether the fire was accidental or intentional, thus making Isaac’s job of finger pointing a little easier.

As Simmons charged back up the stairs with the manila folder, Isaac’s cell rang. He removed it from his belt and glanced down at the incoming number. It was Chief Stevens.

Simmons ducked under the police tape and stormed into the room with folder in hand. “I got the photos,” he said, holding the folder out in front of him.

Isaac had his phone up to his ear, listening.

Simmons opened up the folder and looked through the photos again, searching for any minor differences in the room. He found none. Everything looked the same as in the photographs.

“We’ll head right over,” said Isaac, and hung up the phone.

He snatched the manila folder from Simmons and flipped through the photos until he came to the one he had been searching for. In this particular photograph, most of the horror was not apparent, but what it did show was a clear view of the windowsill and the dresser.

Simmons stepped closer as Isaac pointed to a small object lying on top of the dresser.

“What in the hell is that?”

Simmons narrowed his eyes. “It looks like some kind of small figurine.”

Isaac turned and pointed at the dresser. “How come it’s not here now?”

Simmons was amazed that Isaac could remember something that small was missing from the room, so small he had overlooked it just moments before.

“Maybe somebody moved it.”

“Moved it?”

Simmons said nothing.

“Well, it’s probably not important anyway. We’ve got to go. There’s been an incident.”

Simmons raised his eyebrows. “An incident?”

“Yeah, with the parents,” said Isaac, placing the photographs back into the folder. “At the motel.”





3





A couple of fire trucks were in the parking lot of the Goodnight Motel on the corner of Harbor and Fairway when the detectives arrived. The motel was only a single story and had sixty rooms in total. One of the cheapest lodgings in town, and it showed. Parts of the roof looked to be falling inward, gutters hung loosely at the lip, and the piss yellow paint had blotches of green fungus growing up the wall along the walkway. Unless you were incredibly impoverished, dealing drugs, doing drugs, or banging a hooker behind your wife’s back, you’d be better off staying away from the Goodnight Motel.

Isaac pulled into the lot and parked the Charger near the motel offi . . . well, I guess you could call it an office. The office consisted of a small booth enclosed by a double layer of glass and two filthy green plastic chairs sitting outside the door. A sticky note was taped to the front glass with words scribbled on it in black marker: Knock hard, if asleep. What a nice place to throw your feet up, read a dirty magazine, and check in the drunken scumbags.

Isaac walked over to one of the firemen standing just outside room number 38. With Isaac’s permission, Simmons headed into the musky room.

“By the time we got here there was no fire left to put out,” said the fireman.

Isaac watched Simmons carefully walk into the room like he was afraid of stepping in an ant bed. “So, how bad is it?”

The fireman shook his head. “Pretty bad.”

He didn’t look proud to say it either.

“I figured. Any idea on what may have started the fire?”

“Haven’t a clue. We didn’t find any gasoline or matches. And neither the man nor his wife smoke.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because that’s what Mr. Ackerman told us.”

“Mr. Ackerman? And where is he now?”

“He left.”

“What do you mean he left?” It wasn’t so much a question as it was a statement.

"He said he had to go and get his daughter."

"No. His daughter's dead. Did you happen to notice what kind of car he was driving?"

"I believe it was a blue Escort."

"Thank you."

When Isaac entered the hotel room, he was quickly reminded of the sweet, fresh smell from back at the Ackerman house. The smell was even stronger here, given the small size of the motel room. Simmons hovered over the silhouette of ash spread out under the floor to ceiling window. The charred body of Carol Ackerman was almost identical to that of her daughter’s, except for in this case the legs were only burned down to the calves, instead of the feet. The air conditioning unit on the floor next to the window looked like it had started to melt at some point during the fire. The black knobs that used to adjust the temperature of the room had melted completely and formed one large black plastic pancake. Isaac placed his hand over the vent and felt a light amount of cold air blow out.

“Well.” Simmons paused to catch his breath. “Do you think it was him?”

Isaac smirked. “It had to be, but right now we have zero evidence to charge him of shit. We need to look harder. I feel like we’re missing something, like we’re gazing too hard at what’s on top and forgetting to look at what’s underneath. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” Simmons said, not looking like he did.

Isaac headed to the bathroom. Once inside, he ran his palm across the counter and then held his hand up to the light looking for any drug residue. After searching the cabinets and sorting out the one-cup coffee packets from the hot cocoa, he left the bathroom.

“Okay, listen. We need to find Mr. Ackerman. He may be driving a blue Escort. It's not much to go on, but call it in anyway. I want you to stay here and wrap things up while I shoot back to the Ackerman house.”

“Why? You don’t think he would go back there, do you?”

“No. There should still be officers at the house. He can't be far though. I want to talk with the next-door neighbor. You have your cell phone on you, don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Good, I might need to call you.”

Isaac dashed to the Charger.

Simmons watched the car loop out of the motel parking lot just as several television news vans were pulling in. “Christ, they got here fast,” he said, forgetting that most were only minutes away.





4





Isaac parked the Charger out in front of the Ackerman's house. All of the news vans were gone, and all but a few police cruisers remained. He stepped out of the car and looked over at the neighbor’s house on the left. An older woman, probably in her mid-sixties, was standing on the front porch, hands on her hips, eyes focused on the Ackerman house.

“Excuse me,” said Isaac, flashing his badge, well aware that from this distance she would never be able to see it. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

The woman turned her head Isaac's direction, but didn’t answer.

“It’s important.”

“Sure,” she finally said.

Isaac strolled up the lawn still holding the badge in his hand. Once he reached the front porch, he realized the woman was probably closer to seventy-five. She had the faraway look. The farther away you get, the better she looked.

"You with the police?"

"Yes ma'am. I'm a detective."

“Would you like to come inside?”

"Thanks. I'd love to."

Isaac entered the house and sat down on a light brown love seat. He stretched out his legs. The woman sat down in a recliner across from him.

“My name is Brenda Mills."

“Isaac Winters.”

“I guess you’re here because of the fire next door.”

“Yes, ma’am. How well did you know the little girl?”

"Lori. I knew her pretty well. She was such a sweet girl. I watched her sometimes after school. She helped me plant some beautiful flowers out front. Did you see them?”

Isaac nodded. He really hadn’t. Admiring the old woman’s gardening skills was the last thing on his mind walking up. “How well would you say you knew her parents?”

“I’d say we had your typical neighborly relationship. We talked now and then.”

“About?” Isaac inquired.

“Carol used to talk about her job a lot.”

“Where did she work?”

“She works at the public library a few blocks down Fairway. Actually, I think she just volunteers. But I check out a lot of books so I would see her there helping out.”

“And where does James work?”

“James works at a used car lot in town. Franks, I believe.”

“How often did you talk with him?”

“Not quite as much as Carol. He worked a lot and wasn’t home often. But we chatted sometimes. He’s a real nice man and was a good father to Lori.”

Yeah, he was just terrific. Burned his little girl to death, the standard for which all good fathers should be judged.

“Has anyone come and talked with you yet?”

“No. You’re the first one.”

“Do you have a husband?”

“I did. He passed away last year.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” Isaac paused for a minute to catch his breath. “Did you notice anything strange or unusual yesterday evening?”

“Strange? No, not really. I was supposed to watch Lori after school but she never came by. I figured there must have been a change of plans.”

“You didn’t hear anything later that night? Shouting? Crying?”

Mrs. Mills shook her head. “No, I went to bed early. Probably around nine. Then I woke around twelve thirty when the fire trucks arrived. I watched from my porch as the firefighters ran into the house and I got really worried.”

“Could you see the fire?”

“No, I never saw the fire. I never even saw any smoke."

“So how did you hear about Lori’s death?”

“This morning on the local news. I had stayed up the rest of the night. I couldn't get back to sleep. It's so sad. I mean, like I said, she was such a sweet girl.”

“So as far as you know the Ackerman’s had a perfectly normal family life?”

“Absolutely. You don’t believe James or Carol had anything to do with the fire, do you?”

“It's looking that way.”

“I’m certain that neither of them would do anything to hurt their daughter. I hope you’re not considering them as suspects.”

“Not them,” Isaac corrected. “Just him. His wife is dead.”

The old woman gasped. “What do you mean? Carol.”

“I mean Mrs. Ackerman burned in a motel just up the road.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“And James is missing. So what do you think?”

"I'm just in shock. I'm sorry. I really am. I don't know what else to say."

“You don't have to say anything. You've said enough. It wasn't my intention to upset you. But I really appreciate your help." Isaac rose from the love seat and extended his hand. "It was nice meeting you."

Mrs. Mills escorted Isaac to the front door and led him back on to the porch. Right as she was about to shut the door, she stopped Isaac and ran back inside. When she returned, she handed him a painting all torn in shreds.

“I found it scattered on the sidewalk outside my house. I think it might have been Lori’s.”

Isaac didn’t know what to make of it.

“I just thought you might want it.”





5





The gold plaque on the door read: Chief of Police Donald Stevens.

Isaac sat down across from the chief and quickly spilled the daily news.

Yes, James Ackerman is a murderer. No, we don't know where he's at.

Then he moved on to other topics of interest, like, “How did Simmons become a detective?”

Stevens was taken aback by the question. He almost looked ready to crack a smile, a small one. “Well, I imagine the same way you did, Isaac.”

“Bullshit.”

“Do you have a problem with Simmons?”

“No, but a lot of people do.”

“How would you know that?”

“How long have I been here?”

“Good point.”

“Personally, I like the guy. But he’s clearly short on experience.”

“He’s still learning.”

“That’s it?” Isaac inquired.

Stevens leaned over the desk.

“Okay, look, if I tell you, you have to promise you won’t go spreading it around to the others.”

“Are you kidding? How long have you known me?”

“Almost twenty years, but you still have to promise. Trust me, we don’t want any trouble.”

“That serious, huh?”

“Semi-serious,” Stevens said. “Now do you promise?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Okay, remember when he transferred from Jacksonville and I told everyone how he had been a detective with the Jacksonville Police Department.”

“He wasn’t really from Jacksonville?”

“No, he really did transfer from the Jacksonville P.D, but he wasn’t a detective. He didn’t become a detective until right before he transferred. Before then, he was just your average policeman working the night shift like so many others. I looked into it and he had only been an officer for two years with the Jacksonville P.D, with no other prior experience in law enforcement.”

“So how did he make the jump so soon?”

Stevens leaned further over the desk. “That’s the messy part. I had my suspicions about him also. So I dug even further and discovered that he is the cousin of Larry Colvin.”

“The Jacksonville chief of police?”

“That’s him.”

“His cousin hooked him up?”

Stevens nodded. “And that’s why he was transferred here.”

“So things wouldn’t look suspicious?”

“Right, but I figured why not give him a chance.”

“And so you stuck him with me. You thought if he followed me around, he might catch on quicker. Am I right?”

“Talk about catching on quick.”

Isaac smirked. “I guess I can live with that.”

Stevens picked up a mess of papers on the desk and neatly piled them in a corner. “Look, why don’t you go on home for now. See your daughter. Get some rest. Whatever. There’s no point in hanging around here all night. If we locate Mr. Ackerman, trust me, you’ll be the first one to know.”