Page 70 of Dead Serious with Benefits
“Mr. Reddington?” the officer who had greeted us at the door said softly.
“I’m mentally present and accounted for,” Ward said softly. “Emotionally a little blown onto my back, but...yes, what?”
“I need to ask you a few questions. I’m sure you’ll have plenty of people asking you questions throughout the day, so I’ll try to make this as quick and painless as possible,” he promised.
“Of course,” Ward said, and I watchedsomethingslide into place behind his eyes as he gave the officer a wide smile. “What questions can I answer?”
“I need to confirm your whereabouts in the past twenty-four hours,” he said with a little smile that I knew was meant to make us feel better, but there wasn’t much that would make Ward feel better.
“You mean, you need to confirm that I wasn’t here to make this happen?” Ward said with a sigh, running a hand through his hair and fixing a smile on his face. Now I could see what had changed; he had slid into a persona practically made of Teflon. “Well, I was at my mother’s charity function until about nine. Afterward, you’ll be able to pull up the documentation, I was involved in a minor car accident. They haven’t determined why, but there was a failure in the brake lines of the limousine I was in. Afterward, we were checked out by medical personnel. Weleft in an Uber and returned to Arlo’s house, where I remained until the doorman called me.”
“That would be you?” the officer asked me.
“Correct,” I said, knowing it was pretty much standard procedure after an incident, but mildly irritated by it. I couldn’t even begin to imagine the point of him burning his penthouse. “I couldn’t say what time we left, but if you’d like, I can check on the app, and it will confirm what time we arrived. We stayed in all night and into the morning. My brother has been staying with me for the past couple of weeks, and he can confirm.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” the officer said. “We’re not investigating anything suspicious about you, Mr. Reddington.”
“I appreciate the attempt to comfort me,” Ward said with a flash of a smile that I didn’t believe but seemed to work fine on the officer. “Not strictly necessary because I wasn’t worried about myself. I’m more concerned about how this happened.”
“There will be an investigation,” the officer said, giving Ward a wince. “And I know what you just said, but there will be some digging into you as well.”
“Again, I’m not concerned,” Ward said, and I could see a flash in his jaw that was there and gone in the blink of an eye. “It’ll be obvious to anyone digging that I have no cause to do something like this. Bluntly, I have more than enough money to cover the damages without needing the insurance payout. Not to mention, I would have been slightly less obvious than this.”
“Of course,” the officer said, but I couldn’t tell if he was persuaded by Ward’s argument or just going through the motions, agreeing with Ward to put him at ease. “I’m sure someone will be in contact shortly. But they have informed me they don’t want anyone but designated people to go into your home.”
“Understandable,” Ward said with a soft smile. “There’s bound to be damage that could be dangerous to someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, as well as evidence.”
“Exactly, thank you for your understanding, sir,” he said.
“Don’t thank me, if anything, thank you for being so patient when I know I’m not exhibiting the best behavior at the moment,” Ward said as if he weren’t being the epitome of a tightly controlled, but perfectly reasonable, even friendly person at the moment, despite the circumstances.
“Oh, no, sir. I wouldn’t worry about that,” the cop assured him quickly, eyes going wide. “I’ve done my fair share of interviewing over the years, and I can promise you, many people are not nearly as good about things as you have been. Thank you for your time, there will probably be a follow-up...or several.”
“Of course,” Ward said, shaking the man’s hand before the officer walked off.
“They’re certainly going to be investigating you,” I said softly as we retreated toward the elevator, since there was nowhere else to go.
Ward stared into the penthouse, his brow a pinched line. It was hard to see the extent of the damage since we weren’t allowed in, but we’d been told the fire had started and had been centralized somewhere near the bedroom. From the looks of the floor and walls, it didn’t look like it had startedinthe bedroom, but near it. The bedroom was the only place in the entire penthouse with carpeting, so it wouldn’t have been difficult to spread along the floor quickly if it had started just outside.
Yet we couldn’t have missed seeing in his bedroom, just how black the walls and floors were. A wind strong enough to blow through the whole penthouse was another sign that a lot of damage had been done, but we had seen the missing windows from the outside, where workers had been sweeping up the shards. The building manager was waiting anxiously forus downstairs, but Ward wasn’t interested in speaking to him or assuaging his worries.
“I’m fully aware that they’re going to be investigating me,” he said in a tight voice. “A waste of time, but they don’t know that. Even after they realize I wasn’t here, they’re going to start looking to see if I hired someone, again, a waste of time. As I told him, I would never be this sloppy if I wanted to cause damage to my own home.”
“Is it sloppy?” I wondered.
“You didn’t smell that?”
“The smoke?”
“No, whoever did this used some form of accelerant. Perhaps gas, but it could be anything. If you’re trying to commit arson for fraud, the first thing you do is to make it not look like it was arson. Whoever did this didn’t use much of whatever started the fire, but I could smell it anyway, so you can bet their investigation will also find it. No, you make it look like an accident.”
“Kind of like loose wiring that almost killed one of us?”
“Exactly. It makes no sense for me to have the perfect setup for an accidental fire, then turn around and use...whatever was used to start this fire. Tch, my mother would hang me out to dry for being that sloppy before she did for me being a criminal,” he said with a snort as he jammed the call button for the elevator. “Which reminds me, I will need to call her soon; undoubtedly, she wants to know what I think is going on.”
“You’ve made it seem as though she doesn’t particularly care about what you do or don’t think,” I said as we stepped into the elevator.
“Not my emotions or thoughts, but she’ll want to hear my explanation. That way she’ll ‘know’ if she needs to cover my ass or just remind me of some failing while I deal with this on my own,” he grumbled, leaning against the back wall of the cab.
