Chase Shustack

The discovery of their fire chiefs shacked up in an abandoned lumber mill, surrounding himself with gasoline and drawing up plans for buildings all over town, came as a horrifying revelation to Siskin.

Any doubts about Green's connection to the mysterious arson spree were smothered when the evidence testing on the gloves revealed hair and skin cells belonging to Walter Green.

Even with the physical evidence, however, it was still rather hard to believe.

After all, there was no reason whatsoever for Green to, in the span of one week, suddenly drop everything and throw his life away by committing lethal arson attacks all over town.

He had no financial troubles, and at his last physical, the doctor noted his relatively decent health.

Why would a man like Green suddenly go on such a violent crime spree?

Green himself had no answer.

As he sat in the police station, still reeking of gasoline, he acted like a sleepwalker, just woken up from a dream.

He sat at the table, dazed and weary, asking the officers why he was sitting there in a blanket and in his underwear.

The last thing he remembered, he said, was reading the newspaper in his office.

And even then, that was a blur.

The past few days were nothing but a fuzzy, half-recollected daze to him.

Green couldn't explain the gas cans and diagrams in the lumber mill's office, as he had no memory of acquiring them.

The fire chief pleaded with his interrogators that he was innocent and that this was a terrible mistake.

Although such a scandal might have been the talk of the town for months afterwards, with the endless updates on the fireman turned arsonist case and the search for a new chief to replace the humiliated Mr. Green, Siskin recovered at an unusually rapid pace.

After only a day and a half since the revelation that Walter Green had been the culprit, everyone in town suddenly found the matter to be irrelevant, a sort of sensation that the story had come and gone with all questions answered.

Walter Green was released from custody and allowed to return home, having been granted an unbelievable act of either leniency or mercy with no charges brought against him.

He was welcomed back to the fire department with open arms, his crew joyfully celebrating his return with a barbecue and a couple of cold beers.

No one seemed to have any ill will, let alone any memory, that he had just a few days before been involved in some of the worst crimes the town had ever seen.

Indeed, everyone agreed that the past few days had been a terrible blur, with no one able to accurately recall anything of note from the period.