Chapter 8: The Charges
Reyes called on a Thursday.
I was in Marcus's office — a small room above a dry cleaner on Halsted Street, the office he had kept after the department let him go, the office where three years of files about the Mercer fire had lived in stacked boxes along the far wall.
We had been going through them together, piece by piece, building the civil case alongside the crjminal one.
"They've formally charged her," Reyes said.
"Fraud.
Forgery.
Insurance fraud.
And arson."
I set down the file I was holding.
"Arson," I said.
"The second fire investigator's report confirms two points of origin.
The accelerant traces match a compound that was purchased — we have the purchase record — eleven days before the fire.
The account used for the purchase was a subsidiary account under Juliette's name." Reyes paused.
"She set the fire, Caroline."
Marcus had gone very still across the desk.
"She tried to kjll me," I said.
"The charge is arson with intent to cause serious bodily harm.
The DA considered attempted murd3r but the evidentiary standard is higher.
Arson with intent carries a sentence of eight to twenty years." Another pause.
"With the fraud and forgery stacked on top, her attorney is already talking about a plea."
"What kind of plea?"
"Twelve years minimum.
No early release consideration for the first eight." Reyes's voice was level and professional, but underneath it was something that had been waiting a long time to be said.
"She won't be walking out of this, Caroline."
I looked at the wall of boxes.
Three years of Marcus's work.
Three years of a retired detective paying for storage and coffee and long drives to Florida to talk to a fire investigator who had kept a copy of a report he was told to destroy.
"Marcus," I said.
He looked at me.
"Twelve years minimum."
He nodded once.
Slowly.
"Is she going to take the plea?" I asked Reyes.
"Her attorney is advising her to.
The evidence is too strong to fight at trial.
Pell's testimony alone would be enough, and she knows it." A brief pause.
"She asked about you."
"What did she ask?"
"Whether you would make a statement at sentencing."
I looked out the window.
The street below was ordinary — people walking, a bus pulling away from the curb, a woman pushing a stroller.
"Tell her I'll be there," I said.
Reyes said she would.
We ended the call.
Marcus stood up and walked to the window.
He stood with his back to me for a moment, hands in his pockets.
"It's not everything," he said.
"No."
"The years you lost.
Daniel growing up without you.
The scars." He turned around.
"Twelve years doesn't cover that."
"Nothing covers that," I said.
"But it's what the law can do.
And the law doing something is better than the law doing nothing."
He looked at me for a long moment.
Then he crossed to the corner of the room and picked up one of the file boxes — the first one, the oldest one, the one labeled MERCER / FIRE / INITIAL with a date from three years ago.
He carried it to the center of the room and set it on the floor.
"Help me move these out," he said.
"I want the wall clear."
I stood up.
We moved every box.
It took forty minutes.
When the wall was empty, Marcus stood back and looked at it.
"I've been looking at those boxes for three years," he said.
"I know."
"I kept thinking — if I just found one more thing — "
"You found enough," I said.
"You found everything."
He was quiet for a moment.
Then he said, "What are you going to do now?"
It was the question I had been carrying since the morning I walked into the Saint Aurelia Ballroom.
I had spent so long focused on the destination that I had not thought carefully about what came after it.
"I'm going to get Daniel enrolled in school," I said.
"A real school, with his real name." I paused.
"And I'm going to find an attorney who can start the estate reversal process."
"And after that?"
"After that," I said, "I'm going to figure out what I want."
Marcus smiled.
May you like
It was a small smile, but it was real.
"That sounds right," he said.
