A Perfect Match

"Kimberly would be a suspect because she wouldn't have an alibi," The Kaiser says. "The killer used an accelerant that incriminates her. It's ballsy, but so is arson."

"Why kill the grandmother?" I ask.

"Because if you're trying to burn it down for profit, you can't get rid of her, without, getting rid of her. You kill her, because it becomes a murder case, not a property crime. Which means the property part of the crime becomes second priority, so aspects of that crime go overlooked."

"Here's a different angle to look from. Look for someone with a motive for arson, not murder. Because the murder..."

"...is covering up the arson. That doesn't sound as dumb anymore."

I used that as a hypothetical to get a conversation started, but after we had the discussion, it does not sound like the most ludicrous thing I have said.

"It's a different angle, that's all I wanted to give you," I say, and The Kaiser stands up, appearing rejuvenated to get back at it with gusto.

"I definitely have that, thanks man. I just needed to bounce some ideas off someone," he says, and I let him know my door is always open. At least, after you get through the secure door.

-

Wednesday - May 20, 2026

-Sheryl House-

I have woken up in bed every morning after Sunday night with Shane. I don't recall the last time I saw a guy more than once. Between spending the day at the police HQ going through boxes and bags of found material, and then spending the night with Shane, this is my favorite case of all time.

The investigator sent by the insurance company has about finished his report on the apartment, and his conclusions are interesting. What he found the most suspicious was not materials found on the first floor, but materials found on the second floor.

The carpet on the first floor had a fire-retardant treatment. As did the second floor, but here is the kicker; the living room did not. The rest of the apartment did have a fire-retardant treatment. The insurance investigator also found that the carpet nails in the living room, were newer than the carpet nails in the remainder of the apartment, which were roughly the same age as the nails on the first floor. He further found that the insulation between the first and second floor living rooms, was made from cellulose, while every where else in the entire building it was made from mineral wool. Cellulose is only mostly fire-retardant with additives, and Jill's chemical test confirmed none were added. Someone modified the floor to be more flammable.

With this information, the insurance claim the Reynolds filed will be rejected, but we've asked them to hold off on pulling that trigger.

After I get briefed by the insurance investigator and receive a written report, I go to Jill's lab where her staff is now focused on digging through materials found around the victim Micah Xavier. It is looking like the perpetrator cut into the arm rests of her chair to expose the fabric.

"I got it, I know what this is," I hear one her staff say, and turn to see Frankie holding up an item in a sealed baggy. "Bic lighter."

Frankie hands it to me, and I look at it carefully. Melted plastic that appears to have originally been yellow. A hole appears to have blown outward from the side, and I see the charred metal of the striker wheel. "Good catch. You know what this explains?"

"The explosion or gunshot like sound the occupant heard," Frankie says, and I nod to confirm that's what I was alluding to. "More like a firecracker, but that'll wake you up."

"Sure as hell will," I say, and see Jill come into the lab from her office, having just got off the phone with someone. "Anything good?"

"Entomologist identified our bug. Larva of the common Green Lacewing. Also known as Junk Bugs. Real nasty fucker," Jill says, and I hand her the lighter for her own observation. "Lighter?"

"There's that gunshot sound," I say, and she nods to agree. "You were saying about the bug."

"Real nasty bastard. Good news though, not indigenous to the city area. Would have to hitch a ride," Jill says. We're getting closer to nailing this down. "Find anything in that burnt chair material?"

"Besides burnt cotton, nothing. Just this pebble looking thing," Frankie says, and I walk over to the pebble she's referring to, and gasp. "What?"

"Do you have any idea what you might have found?" I ask, immediately putting on gloves and taking the pebble. Frankie had placed the pebble in a petri dish she enclosed a bag with a temporary label that read '?'.

"What?"

I carry the pebble to a microscope and remove it from its concealment.

"What do you think it is?" Jill asks.

"Do you know what a diatom is?" I ask her.

"I'm a semester away from having a doctorate in Bio-chem, so, yeah. Let's say I'm familiar," she replies.

"The match head, and the striking surface of a matchbook, are made partially from diatomite. Match heads needs to be tough. They need to be firm enough to not crumble when you strike them, and resistant to high temperatures. Arsonists use matches because they think the match will burn up in the fire. They think this, because they're stupid. Diatomite, is made from what?"

"Fossilized diatoms, which have a unique shell structure that are large enough to be seen with a microscope," Jill says. I pull it up on her screen attached to the device. It is indeed a diatom. "Holy shit."

"How far can we isolate that?" Frankie asks. Time to teach her something.

"To the quarry it was mined from. We can then find out which companies they sold their diatomite to, and who made matches from it. Then who they sold those matches to, like custom made match books for restaurants or hotels, then isolate that to a suspect who's patronized those locations," I say, and she's taken aback. "This isn't the tenth time I've caught someone this way."

-

Wednesday - May 20, 2026

-William Kaiser-

I decide to pay the Reynold's farm a visit during business hours. Marisa I've had the opportunity to interview separately, and I want that chance with Glenn. Marisa wasn't exaggerating when she said this place was an hour out. I'm well out of the city before I drive up a dirt road, following signs to 'Reynold's Organics'.

At first glance, it looks like he's growing short plants in straight lines in the space of about two acres. It's not large, so it is likely a startup. I see other plants on the other side with red fruit starting to bud. Probably strawberries.

I close my car door and stretch from having to sit for the last hour, then start walking toward the only building in the area. There appears to be a house further down, but it's so far, I can barely see it. He likely rents out the acres from the landowner.

"Can I help you?" a man asks me as I approach. I pull up my shield on the lanyard to eyelevel.

"Mr. Reynold's around?" I ask, and the man shout for him down the farmland. I see a head pop up into view, and the man walks toward me. "Good to see you again."

"Detective, how can I help? Did you find something else out?" he asks, and I shake my head.

"Just wanted to ask you a few questions. I tried to call," I say. I hadn't called him once.

"That happens, the reception out here comes and goes," he says. "I'm busy, but we can walk and talk."

"Sure," I say, and follow him as he resumes his work in the field. "I have a few questions I wanted to ask about your relationship with Kimberly." Glenn had referred to her as Kim.

"Kim? What about?" he asks. Informal name for Kim. Real contempt for Brent.

"You're cheating on your wife, aren't you?" I ask him point blank. He stops, and his face doesn't look like someone who's pissed. It looks like someone who was caught.

"Look, it was only one time," he says, not even trying to hide it.

"Does your wife know?" I ask.

"No. At least I don't think so," he says. "You didn't try to call, you wanted to ambush me."

"Part of my job," I say, and he starts walking again.

"I fucked the neighbor one time. Came down to her apartment to fix the sink like a good landlord, we got to talking, and then we got to more than talking. It was like a bad porn," he says, then crouches next to some squashes and starts measuring them.

"Who cut it off, you or her?" I ask.

"We both kind of did..."

"...kind of?" I ask.

"It was me," he says after hesitating. "Marisa and I were going through some stuff, and that opportunity came at a time I was vulnerable enough to go through with it. Her kid hates me anyway, he screams if I move too quickly around him. Also, her ex is an asshole. I don't want that drama. It would never work," he says, then moves to the next squash.

"Brent do something to you?" I ask.

"Yeah, he punched me in the face on my front lawn."

I suddenly feel a pinch on my hand and reflectively slap it. It felt like a bug bite.

"The hell?" I ask, then look for the bug that just bit me.

"It was probably one of our pest-control bugs. We don't use chemicals, so our pest control is a carnivorous insect," he says, and I see a bug on the ground near my shoe. "They're commonly known as Junk Bugs. They don't eat plants."

"That's interesting," I say, and squat down to the bug. I take a napkin from my back pocket and wrap the bug when he isn't looking.

"They're pretty cheap too," he says, starting to measure another squash. This one must have been ready because he harvests it and tosses it into one of the many buckets he has lined up neatly.

"You were already outside when the fire started?" I ask, and he nods.

"That's what I said earlier," he replies, and keeps doing what he's doing. "At first, I thought someone turned a light on. Maybe Kim going to the bathroom, but then I heard a pop. That's when I thought it could be a fire and went to help. They were crawling out of Jacob's window under the stairs seconds later."

"Where was your wife?" I ask.

"Asleep," he says.

This isn't making any sense. If Glenn didn't do it, someone entered the apartment and lit the fire, then left the window without him seeing. Or Kimberly did it, but why would the kid need to turn off the camera, when she could have just done it herself. Also, she has no clear motive.

My phone rings and I excuse myself to get distance before answering it.

"Kaiser," I say.

"Got something for you," I hear Jill say. "That bug we found, it's a..."

"...Junk Bug, used in biological pest control?" I say.

"You stole my thunder asshole," she says playfully. "Yup. That explosion or gunshot like sound, was the grandmother's lighter going off. The fire itself was started with a match."

"Anything on that match?" I ask.

"Not to bore you with the science, but we narrowed it down to one of three companies that purchases the material from the same quarry. Only one of them operates in this state, making custom matchbooks," she says, and I tap my breast pocket, remembering what Marisa gave me yesterday. A book of matches for a bar and grill she's the minority owner of. A place called 'Wendy's Tavern' with a busty redhead with pigtails holding beers. That's a lawsuit waiting to happen.

"Did you get a client list?" I ask.

"Sure did."

"A place called Wendy's Tavern on it?"

After a moment she says. "Do you even need me? Yup, it's here."

I have everything I need. I know who did it.

-

"Thank you for coming again on such short notice," I say to Marisa Reynold's as she arrives. I escort her to a room, leaving the door open as we sit down. "I'm so sorry for this, I needed you to sign something, but I completely forgot to ask you last time."

"Not a problem," she says, and I shuffle the paper, then hand her a sheet of pure nonsense I typed up before she arrived. It's a summery of my notes from our first discussion. "Just this?"

"Just confirm the statement," I say, and she signs after a quick read. "Thank you."

"Anything else?" she asks.

"No," I say, but before she starts to stand up, I continue. "But, we made an arrest by the way."

Marisa is taken aback at this update. Almost as if she never expected us to ever arrest anyone for it. Or surprised it's someone else.

"They're escorting him in right now," I say, and right on cue, Sergeant Ackerman leads Brent down the hall in front of the door.

"Brent?" she asks, and I nod.

"Turns out, he had a bad relationship with the grandmother, and was in violation of his parole. He'd visit his son at his window, where we know the arsonist gained entry," I say, and she seems relieved someone else is in handcuffs. Her entire posture loosens up, like she's in the clear.

"I always knew there was something about that guy," she says. That's not what she said yesterday. She's corroborating the arrest now.

"A few things just don't add up," I say, and she looks to the door, then at me again. "I was hoping you could shed some light on it."

"I'll try to help," she says.

"Brent had never been in the apartment. Micah would never have allowed that. Why would he know to turn off the cameras?" I ask, and she freezes.

"Everyone has cameras now," she says.

"Probably," I say, pretending to accept the answer. "Did you help Kimberly set up their system?"

"What?"

"You helped them set it up, right?" I ask, and she shakes her head after a few painfully quiet seconds. "You sure?" I open the file on the table I took the sheet of nonsense from and show her something that isn't nonsense. A text exchange from the warrant I received for Kimberly's phone between her and Glenn. I read it out loud to her.

Kim: Could you do me a favor, and help me set up this security system my grandma just bought, I don't understand this stuff.

Glenn: I don't either, but Marisa does, she set up ours. I'll send her down in a minute.

Kim: I was hoping you could. P -> V (winky emoji)

"P in the V? She's subtle, huh?" I ask, and Marisa starts shaking. "And a little bit later Kim says, 'All set up, tell her thanks for me!!'," I say, and now she's really shaking. "Did you know your husband was having an affair?"

"It was only one time," she says, becoming defensive.

"That you know of," I say, and she looks about ready to leave, but she miraculously doesn't. I have enough to arrest her anyway, but I want the confession to seal the deal. "Want to reconsider your answer that you didn't set up their cameras?"

"Yeah, I set it up, so what?" she says.

"I just wanted to confirm your familiarity with it. Does your husband know about your credit card debt?" I ask, and she gives a forced laugh.

"I don't have debt," she says.

"Not according to the credit report the insurance investigator gave me. Let's see..." I say, scrolling through then whistle "...seventy-nine thousand, four hundred ten dollars, and forty six cents. What do you buy with that?"

"Glenn's farm is a black hole..." she says, then I see her lower lip get sucked under the top lip. "...everyone has some debt."

"Not nearly eighty thousand," I say, and place the report in front of her. "I'm not done. Let's look at this string of purchases going back the last two months. New carpet. New insulation, but no fire proofing," I say, and now she's trembling. "You want to confess something?"

"I was upstairs, I didn't start the fire," she says.

"I believe you," I say, and she's not sure what to make of that. "You didn't start the fire, you had someone else do it. But you still knocked on the kid's window, and made him let you in. You threatened that he'd never see his father again if he didn't," I say, and she's waiting to see where I go. "You then smothered Micah to death with a pillow."

"That's insane," she says. "This whole theory you have is insane."

"Let's take a look at everything you have to gain. You get money from the insurance claim and rid yourself of a business you can't manage. Kill the worst tenant you ever had, and frame the woman who was fucking your husband to boot. That is a whole lot of motive. Best part, the only thing that mattered to you, was the arson. You committed a murder, to hide an arson."

"I didn't start the fire. I was upstairs when my husband came to get me," she says, and I'm preparing a bluff. A shot in the dark, and I hope it hits.

"How do you get back upstairs, and have the fire start when your husband is outside? Let's go over a few other things. Outside of the window, we found a bug, something your husband uses as a pest control measure. That could have just fallen off him when he used the stairs. Or you occasionally wear your husband's shirt? Either way, not the important clue. The real important piece is the size of a pebble. I learn many things on this job, but I never imagined something smaller than a pencil eraser could send someone to prison.

"The tip of a match can survive a fire. Those things, if found, are incredibly identifiable. It turns out, and this was my education earlier, that these things are made of fossilized algae called diatoms. Super specific. So much so, in fact, we know they were mined in this state, and then sold to a company called Match Made, who then sells custom made matchbooks to a little tavern called Wendy's," I say, and pull out the matches she gave me earlier, with one match removed. "I even had them compared to one of these. Perfect match. Pun not intended."

Complete bluff, I didn't have them compared. Not yet at least. I know they'll be similar. I'm not done bluffing.

"Why is this match so important? Why not just, light grandma on fire with her own lighter? She smoked after all. The answer, is that the person who started the fire, couldn't use a lighter. Because he's five," I say, and I see tears start forming in her eyes. She is close to breaking.

"You smothered his great-grandmother in front of him, then had him light her on fire after you left, so you'd be somewhere else when it started. What the fuck is wrong with you?" I ask, and she starts crying. "I want an answer to that. Who the hell does that? He's a child."

"I did everything, just like you said," she says, crying into her hands. Son of a bitch. "I just wanted to get out of the hole."

"Marisa Reynolds, you're under arrest for the murder of Micah Xavier."

-

Thursday - May 21, 2026

-Chase Kramner-

I think I have the Narcotics cases complete, so now it's time to start working on the homicide cases. The first batch I get are from Leo's cases of all people. I may need to pawn these off on Doll, just say conflict of interest. He was my partner, and my supervisor for a year after all.

A knock comes at my door, and I see The Kaiser has gotten passed the first secure door again. As long as they keep letting him in I suppose.

"I heard you made an arrest," I say, and he nods, taking a seat. "And?"

"Upstairs neighbor, insurance scam. Murder to hide an arson," he says, and I laugh. "Even when you talk out of your ass, you're smarter than me."

"The arrest is all that matters," I say, and close my files. "That it?"

"No," he says, then closes the door. The hell? "What did you find on Marlene?"

"What makes you think I did?" I ask. He figured that out faster than I thought.

"My partner is on TDY to investigate a case I can't know about. That sounds like it should be with you, but it isn't. Leo doesn't even know details. So, three people, current or formerly in homicide, can't know about a homicide case? That tells me, we have a conflict of interests. The DA doesn't want us smelling it. The only case where one of us, thus all of us, have a reason to be left in the dark, is the Amanda Hopkins case. The only person who would have kept looking for something, is you. What did you find?" he asks. He's too good. I open my desk drawer and place the picture in front of him.