L
Livid Lies
Guest
Original poster
High-profit low-profile locations having been going up in flames and a single detective might be the only one who realizes an arsonist is involved.
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This was the fifth job in a month. Usually business was slower than a caterpillar in the pupa, but Regal Condos was an old client changing hands to someone more ambitious than the previous owner. Technically it was the same employer, but his older brother had been the boss back then and was still oblivious to the crime that had been committed. Now? Well, it wasn't part of Tammy's job description to keep track of who knew about what, so long as she wasn't implicated if the cops showed up.
There were two things important to Tammy when it came to business. The first was something she had to learn when she'd decided to start her career, and it was motive. The motive here was to get her client the supreme real estate they wanted. They gave her a packet of information with pictures, an address, and a load of details about the construction. For instance, the biggest flaw of tonight's mark was an overgrowth of vegetation from the ground all the way up to the highest balcony. Most of it was dry and stiff, and the weather had been particularly arid lately.
The first step was to collect the maintenance man's used cigarettes and scatter them across the back of the building with some straw for kindle. She lit up a pack of his favorite brand and tossed them in. While they sat there, glowing, she opened up a bottle of wine from the estate owner's secret date the night before and spilled it over the carpeting. His wife had a habit of following him on her days off and spying with a camera, so Tammy bought a couple of six packs of the lady's choice of beer and broke them all over the room, down the hall, and on the wall outside where the glass and alcohol soaked and sparkled into the vines.
There were accelerants more exciting than leftover alcohol and dead plants, of course, but that was passion. This had to be incompetence, coincidence, and a manifestation of people's bad choices. If the owner refused to sell badly burned estate, then there had to be reasonable doubt in his ability to care for his property. If an investigation was opened, clues had to be planted that would lead to certain facts. And the most crucial element of the crime was the art of making sure that the fire department couldn't say it was arson.
The best part about tonight was that this was one of those rare cases where the entire block was empty of people, so there was time for Tammy to climb up a fire escape from across the street and sit on the roof to watch the place burn. This was where the second most important thing about Tammy's business came in. She had to take pleasure. She even had a mic in her hand, long and thin like a baton and aimed directly at the fire so she could listen to the way the wallpaper curled, paint crackled, and wood cracked under the heavy heat. There was a sway to the rhythm of flame-induced disintegration, and her bones melted into that quiet bliss. After awhile she even forgot that someone was bound to call in the cavalry once the flames burned high enough and the smoke started spreading.
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This was the fifth job in a month. Usually business was slower than a caterpillar in the pupa, but Regal Condos was an old client changing hands to someone more ambitious than the previous owner. Technically it was the same employer, but his older brother had been the boss back then and was still oblivious to the crime that had been committed. Now? Well, it wasn't part of Tammy's job description to keep track of who knew about what, so long as she wasn't implicated if the cops showed up.
There were two things important to Tammy when it came to business. The first was something she had to learn when she'd decided to start her career, and it was motive. The motive here was to get her client the supreme real estate they wanted. They gave her a packet of information with pictures, an address, and a load of details about the construction. For instance, the biggest flaw of tonight's mark was an overgrowth of vegetation from the ground all the way up to the highest balcony. Most of it was dry and stiff, and the weather had been particularly arid lately.
The first step was to collect the maintenance man's used cigarettes and scatter them across the back of the building with some straw for kindle. She lit up a pack of his favorite brand and tossed them in. While they sat there, glowing, she opened up a bottle of wine from the estate owner's secret date the night before and spilled it over the carpeting. His wife had a habit of following him on her days off and spying with a camera, so Tammy bought a couple of six packs of the lady's choice of beer and broke them all over the room, down the hall, and on the wall outside where the glass and alcohol soaked and sparkled into the vines.
There were accelerants more exciting than leftover alcohol and dead plants, of course, but that was passion. This had to be incompetence, coincidence, and a manifestation of people's bad choices. If the owner refused to sell badly burned estate, then there had to be reasonable doubt in his ability to care for his property. If an investigation was opened, clues had to be planted that would lead to certain facts. And the most crucial element of the crime was the art of making sure that the fire department couldn't say it was arson.
The best part about tonight was that this was one of those rare cases where the entire block was empty of people, so there was time for Tammy to climb up a fire escape from across the street and sit on the roof to watch the place burn. This was where the second most important thing about Tammy's business came in. She had to take pleasure. She even had a mic in her hand, long and thin like a baton and aimed directly at the fire so she could listen to the way the wallpaper curled, paint crackled, and wood cracked under the heavy heat. There was a sway to the rhythm of flame-induced disintegration, and her bones melted into that quiet bliss. After awhile she even forgot that someone was bound to call in the cavalry once the flames burned high enough and the smoke started spreading.
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