In a building sitting on the edge of town, sat a house with single sign “Private Detective for hire” and an officer was standing in front of the door. “Mr. Vans, are you here?”. The door was slightly opened and out came a man unshaven and bags under his eyes.

“Well if it isn’t my old friend, Jacob. How is your day? Finally left the cop seen and moved up to a detective, a spot did just opened up, didn’t it?”

“No, Mr. Vans, I am still just a cop. I came here to hire you for a job, you see, you're our best detective, and we have a case with no leads.”

“Asking your best detective for help after you people just threw him out. Wow you got guts. We were partners, so I will listen to what you have to say.” 

“I do feel sorry for that, but if we don’t catch the guy, then the town will be up in flames.”

“An arsonist? This is the third building this week and you still haven't caught him?”

“Well his attacks are random, it was first an office, then a hospital and a house of an elderly couple. Luckily no one died.”

“You should know that nothing is ever random. You just haven't figured out how it’s all connected. The first fire was on a thursday, the second on a wednesday and today on a tuesday. Come on even a kid would know that on monday there will be another building on fire.”

“So will you help us catch the guy Mr. Vans? It’s Saturday already and we couldn’t find a solid lead yet. The closest we got is someone who worked for the family who could have burned it.”

“I was born in this town, I know every single name in this area, so I will help. I do expect a check, justice is not free. Now let's move on to the crime scene.”

“Umm sir, you aren’t wearing any pants.”

“Well, you just woke me up, so give me a darn second.”

In the site of destroyed building Mr. Vans and Jacob were walking around it. Mr. Vans was searching the area while Jacob was for other people.

“So you guys looked through this whole area?”

“We couldn’t find any clues and any clues that could have been here, was lost to the fire.”

“They are making a statement. We have three burning building and no deaths.”

“They could also just like fire.”

Mr. Vans started to walk into the area and started to search. After an hour in the rubble there was a pocket watch hidden deep in the soil, it had the design of a hammer in front of a castle on the back. As Mr. Vans inspected it, he noticed the watch didn’t work anymore. He looked to checking if Jacob was looking away and then hid it away in his pocket.

“Mr. Vans, we should hurry up before we’re caught, I could lose by badge for this.”

“Who owns this house again, Jacob?”

“This belonged to the Nutter family. They are on vacation. They had a servant working here in the past, but they were fired a while back leaving this place empty.”

“Where is the servant anyway?”

“They were our first suspect. They were hard to find, almost couldn’t, but I heard they got  them this morning. They’re currently sitting at the station”

“Welp, looks like they didn’t even bother to check this area. They must have quickly went through it, not caring to look for evidence since they already have a suspect in mind. It’s now your job to get them back on the street, so I can get information from them. Knowing the cops, they’re going to try to get them to confess. Stop that before they imprison an innocent.”

“Yes, sir!”

Jacob drove back to his office, and walked as fast as possible to the interrogation room. Before he could reach it, he was stopped by a detective walking out of the interrogation room.

“Hey hold up buddy, we don’t want you near the suspect. We are getting very close to getting a confession.”
“Sorry, but I have reason to suspect they had nothing to do with the fire.”

“You’re just a cop, while I’m the detective. I do the solving and you do the finding. Anyway, this is just a classic case of someone getting revenge for getting fired.”
“I understand, I’ll head back to my desk.”

As Jacob was doing paperwork in his desk, he watches the detective until he left his post, heading to the bathroom. Quickly he goes inside the interrogation room, seeing a person looking down whispering to themselves “I didn’t do it”. He sat next to them and started talking to himself out loud.

“It’s quite funny how little people know about interrogation. The best way to get out of this is to stay silent. Us cops can’t force you talk and we also can’t keep you in for longer than 8 hours. How long has it been? About 7 hours?”

Jacob walked out and waited at his desk doing his paperwork. After a while, the detective left the room enraged and later the suspect quickly left the building. Outside in a clothing store on the other side of the street, Mr. Vans got a text from Jacob. He then sees a person leaving the building. He quickly walked up to them.

“I do apologize, but I am a private detective hired by the Nutter family. I need to ask a couple questions to you.”

“I have nothing to say to you.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t believe you did it. I just need information about this.”

He pulls out the back of the pocket watch with the design on it. They saw it and just started back at them. They moved closer and grabbed it out of his hand.

“This is the symbol of Nutter’s family greatest accomplishment. This pocket watch has the symbol of the company Mr.Nutter started in his late 20, the Kingdom Builders. It was later bought out by another company, but they built a couple of the buildings in this town.”

“Well, thank you. The information you gave is just the lead I was looking for. This gets us closer to the culprit.”

The next day Mr. Vans and Jacob were walking into an office In the center of the room was a large T and in front of them sat a man in a white suit. He was a tall man, and no matter what happened, he kept staring at his computer.

“How long has it been, Mr. Vans. I thought you were removed after sticking your nose in places it had no right to be.”

“I don’t like you and you don’t like me. I still don’t trust what your doing with your company. We just need information about a company you bought a long time ago. Kingdom Builders, so what you can you say?”

“I can’t say I remember much about them, they were gaining momentum, so we thought it was a good idea to buy it from the duo. I may be friendly to all cops, even past cops, but of course you’re going to need a warrant to gain information about the company.”

“Yes, I guess me and Jacob will be heading out. Thank you for hearing us out.”

Jacob could not help but look confused. They walked out of the building and started to drive away. Mr. Vans was driving the car and he wasn’t even focused on the road. 

“So what do we do know Mr. Vans? We have no leads and I don’t think we would get a warrant for Teriform. They basically pay all the judges in this state.”

“You see Jacob, we are just one step away from getting our culprit, I just need to get one more piece of information.”

Once he finishes the sentence, they were back at the police station.

“I need you to get on your computer and find everything on the co-founders of Kingdom builder.”

“What do you mean by co-founder? What will you be doing?”

“You will soon find out tomorrow. I will text you about it later.”

With that being said, Jacob left the car and Mr. Vans drove away. He started driving to his house and he grabbed pictures of the building. He made a few calls and started hanging the pictures on a map. He called the landlord of the office and asked who rented the building the people who built it. He started hanging the picture of an office which was the first fire. From there he found the next closest building that Kingdom Builder built, the hospital that was now in ruins. From there he has reached the Nutter family. From there he reached a second house, untouched by the culprit. He then called jacob.

On the night of monday, an empty house was being watched by undercover cops hidden within the neighborhood. The owners have left to go to a relative's house to stay out of the danger. Everything was planned to keep it unknown to the public. A figure was walking near the house and walked up to the house to ring the doorbell multiple times. After that he went to the side of the house and grabbed a bottle from his jacket from his pocket and spread the liquid along the wall. The cops ran from their position to surrounding the person. Without any chance of escape, they had no choice but to surrender. Out came Mr. Vans surprising everyone.

“Please, don’t be alarmed, I’m just a hired private detective. I know I’m not supposed to be here, but please hear me out.”

The officers kept on staring and let him speak.

“This man here is the co-founder of Kingdom Builders. Welp he worked with Mr. Nutter, but they had a failing out for some reason. So for revenge, he started to destroy everything that they built. First was the office they worked in. They rented it before they were bought out. From there the closest building was the hospital. Their greatest success was burned to the ground. Mr. Nutter built his own house, making it the next house to go up in flames. Now this was the one after it. We managed to stop him before this became the next victim. He never wanted to hurt anyone, but to only get his sweet revenge. Now tell us Jacob, why?”

“ Yes, his name is Tylar Chant. He had been taken out of the business for stealing money out of the business. Charges were not taken against him and from there he left town.”

“Now officers, I’ll take my leave. Have fun with the criminal.”

In the morning, Mr. Vans was sitting on his porch reading the weekly news. The heading of this week's paper was “Pyromaniac captured, all thanks to our officers”. Up came Jacob and started directly at Mr. Vans.

“Sorry you didn’t get any credit.”

“Don’t be sorry, it was never your decision. Just be happy we got the criminal.”

“You’re our best detective, I expect nothing less.”

“There you go again, best detective, what is it this time?”

“Just small case. Robbery of a couple cars. All of them happen to have been owned by the same guy at the same time each year.”

“Sounds like a real mystery. Sure to piss off the department if solved. Welp let’s go.”

“Yes sir!”