At the burning roof.
Then at the phone.
“No.”
Rufus went quiet.
Malcolm’s voice stayed calm.
“The scene stays open.”
He ended the call.
His house was burning.
The recording was preserved.
The mayor had demanded silence.
And Lieutenant Evan Cole had just turned a neighborhood redevelopment fight into evidence of something much larger.
By seven-thirty, the flames were under control.
There was almost nothing left to save.
The fire had gutted the front rooms.
The study was blackened to the frame.
Rain from thousands of gallons of hose water ran down the marble front steps carrying ash, insulation, and pieces of photographs into the street.
Malcolm stood behind the tape.
His suit was gray now.
A firefighter approached.
“You the owner?”
“Yes.”
The man looked uncomfortable.
“We found multiple points of origin.”
Malcolm’s eyes lifted.
“How many?”
“Can’t say officially.”
“Unofficially?”
The firefighter glanced toward the police.
Then lowered his voice.
“More than one.”
Malcolm understood.
Accidental fires usually began somewhere.
This one appeared to have begun everywhere.
Before the smoke had cleared, the case became a jurisdictional problem.
Inside the district attorney’s office, Malcolm’s staff received an emergency assignment from Prosecutor General Norman Vance.
Review the police operation.
Preserve all related records.
Determine whether official misconduct had occurred.
Identify which agency had lawful authority over any criminal investigation.
Malcolm read the order once.
Then placed it beside the emergency dispatch log.
An assistant stood near his desk.
“Sir.”
Malcolm looked up.
“Your house.”
“I know.”
“You can’t investigate this yourself.”
“I’m not investigating myself.”
“You’re the victim.”
“Yes.”
“That’s going to become a problem.”
Malcolm looked toward the first photographs arriving from the scene.
The home was recognizable only by its stone foundation and a section of chimney.
His mother’s dining table was gone.
His personal files were burned.
The suit he had worn to his father’s funeral had been in an upstairs closet.
None of that mattered legally.
All of it mattered personally.
Three rival prosecutors arrived before nine.
They did not waste time.
“Your office cannot review this.”
Malcolm looked at them.
One opened a folder.
“You have an unavoidable conflict.”
Another spoke.
“If you stay involved, every decision looks retaliatory.”
The third leaned forward.
“You need to recuse immediately.”
Malcolm listened.
Their language was careful.
Professional.
Almost reasonable.
But the timing mattered.
His house had stopped burning less than two hours earlier.
No investigator had yet authenticated the warrant.
No fire marshal had formally identified the cause.
No one had collected the officers’ body-camera footage.
Yet three prosecutors were already more concerned about removing Malcolm than preserving evidence.
“Recusal is a legal remedy,” Malcolm said.
Nobody answered.
“It is not a shortcut around inconvenient facts.”
The prosecutors exchanged a glance.
Malcolm noticed.
Their pressure had failed to move him.
But it had revealed the shape of the trap.
If Malcolm stayed involved, they could call him biased.
If he stepped aside immediately, agencies under scrutiny could control the evidence before an independent process existed.
Judicial administrator Hiram Bell entered carrying a sealed administrative notice.
He confirmed that the matter had temporarily been assigned to Malcolm’s office because it crossed municipal, prosecutorial, and civil-rights jurisdictions.
The assignment was official.
So was the conflict.
Malcolm answered with procedure.
“Freeze every original record.”