“That follows, yes.” She scooted closer to get a better look at the screen. “So, what are we looking at here?” “The first of the arsons was reported at 2:31 a.m. on the morning of April 22, 2008.” I pointed to one of the obituaries. “And look. An unidentified woman was found dead that night on Euclid Avenue, within a block of the fire.”
“And that proves what?”
“Nothing. But let’s see if there’s a pattern.” I surfed to the obituaries for the date of the next fire, the one in Chula Vista. “Obits for suicides and natural deaths won’t necessarily list location, but they should list the time of death… And here we are…” I read it off: ” ‘May 17, an unidentified man died of natural causes sometime between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m.,’ that’s one hour before that night’s fire was reported.”
I scrolled to the date of the next fire. “And here, on June 16, Rene Gonzalez died at approximately 11:00 p.m., two hours before a fire was suppressed on the same street. And…” I surfed to another date. “Here we have a Jane Doe on August 1 at 1:00 a.m., ninety minutes before the fire-”
“You memorized the dates, times, and locations for all the fires?”
“It’s easier that way, then I don’t have to keep looking things up. So, see?” I kept scrolling. “Here’s a suicide, within three blocks of the fire.”
Now that I knew what I was looking for, it went faster, so I whipped through the remaining obituary pages, summarizing as I went. “Another stroke… two suicides… and two more unidentified deaths.” I finished scrolling through the dates of the fires and then said, “It doesn’t happen at every fire, but there are enough incidents to establish a high correlation.”
Lien-hua’s voice fell into a soft lament and she said the words I was thinking, the words I hoped couldn’t possibly be true: “They were testing the device on the homeless population.”
“Yes, I think they were.”