At the City's Edge by Marcus Sakey

night, late, maybe three or four. Took us a long time to get the flames knocked down.’
    ‘Somebody set it? You’re sure?’
    He pointed to a patch where rubble had been pushed aside to reveal flooring scarred by a large spot that was darker even than
     the charcoal around it. ‘You see?’
    ‘Pour pattern?’
    He nodded. ‘When it’s that precise, it always means accelerant. Lab’ll say for certain, but I’d bet gasoline. Wrong color
     for butane or charcoal fluid.’
    Accelerant. Which made this arson. At least. ‘You find a body?’
    He nodded. ‘One adult male, well-done. On the way to the Medical Examiner now.’
    Which made it homicide. And the victim had to be Michael Palmer. Who else would be in his bar when it burned down?
    Damn it
, she thought, remembering his handshake, firm but not out to prove anything. And
damn it
again
for his son. And one last hearty
damn it
for the neighborhood. Somebody tried to do some good, this was what happened. No wonder the police were always short of witnesses.
    ‘Just called it homicide, so a detective should be here soon.’ Huff paused, looked to her right, gestured with his chin. ‘That
     one with you?’
    Cruz turned, saw a man walking down the sidewalk. ‘No.’ She moved to intercept him. ‘Sir, you see the tape?’
    He stopped, met her eyes without cruising her body first. Blonde surfer hair. Nicely built. Good-looking in a white sort of
     way. There was something in his face that was very familiar, and she figured it out just as he said it.
    ‘I’m Jason Palmer. This was my brother’s bar.’
    He’d started in with a bunch of questions, but she’d told him to hold on. Asked him to wait on the other side of the tape,
     and then gone back to Huff and given him a card. ‘Can you give me a call, let me know if you find anything else?’
    ‘It’ll all be in my report.’
    ‘This guy was a friend of mine.’ She smiled at him. ‘Do me the favor?’
    He shrugged. ‘Sure.’ Tucked the card away, pulled a pair of clean latex gloves from his pocket, and went back to work.
    She turned to find Jason Palmer at her elbow. ‘I thought I asked you to wait outside the tape.’

    He stared at her. ‘My brother. Is he… was he…’ He looked at the wasted bar, back at her.
    She opened her mouth, ready to go into her all-business rap –
sorry for your loss, but I need to ask you a few questions
– and instead found herself saying, in a soft voice, ‘I don’t know for sure. I’m afraid so.’
    He seemed to droop, something giving way in his shoulders and neck. ‘They killed him.’ His voice thin. ‘Mikey, they killed
     you.’
    Cruz looked at him sharply. ‘Who killed him, Mr. Palmer?’
    He put the back of his hand to his mouth like he was trying to keep from vomiting. ‘Those gangsters.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘I don’t know. Soul Patch. The guy from… oh, Jesus. Michael.’ His face was pale. ‘I should have been there.’ He had the faraway
     look of a man seeing ghosts.
    ‘Mr. Palmer.’ She put a hand on his arm. ‘I need you to focus.’
    He looked at her. Blinked a couple of times, shook his head. ‘Yeah. Okay.’ Blew out a breath, took another one in. ‘You were
     a friend of my brother’s?’
    She thought of sitting in Michael Palmer’s bar with Galway, she and her partner listening as Palmer said that there were things
     going on in the neighborhood that were worse than anybody guessed, that the gangs were the tip of the iceberg. Saying that
     he would have proof soon. Calm and logical, with a polite kid and a history of community service. Not seeming even a little
     crazy.

    But what she said to Jason was, ‘I knew him.’
    ‘So then you know about him and the gangs. That he was fighting them.’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Good.’ His jaw set and posture grew rigid as he came into himself. ‘Good.’
    A thought occurred to her. In the mathematics of a crime scene, if spots equaled accelerant, and accelerant equaled arson,
     then accelerant with a