Tinderbox by Robert W. Fieseler

Author:Robert W. Fieseler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Liveright
Published: 2018-08-10T16:00:00+00:00

OTHER EVENTS, QUITE pertinent to the case, were transpiring in New Orleans, where investigators from the Louisiana Office of the State Fire Marshal, not the city’s police force, finally located Roger Dale Nunez. Acting on the false lead fed to police by the nineteen-year-old hustler Mark Allen Guidry, Deputy State Fire Marshals Edward Hyde and John Fischer canvassed Esplanade Avenue for several days seeking the “Gerry or Johnny,” identified by Guidry as the patron violently ejected by Buddy Rasmussen prior to the blaze. Unsurprisingly, the pair came up empty-handed. So Hyde and Fischer circled back to Iberville on Monday, July 2, to seek out Mark Allen Guidry. Finding him, they demanded that he come with them to Esplanade Avenue. Guidry broke down and confessed. “He told us that the subject’s name was not Jerry [sic] or Johnny, but was one Roger Nunez and that he lived in the 600 block of Iberville St,” the deputy marshals reported.6

In the company of the young hustler, Hyde and Fischer headed to Cee Cee Savant’s apartment. There, they found Roger Dale Nunez sleeping on the sofa. The marshals observed immediately that Roger fit the profile of a “pathological firesetter” as determined by major studies of the time: a white male between the age of sixteen and twenty-eight with physical injury and a criminal record. “This subject was questioned about a swelling that he had on his jaw,” reported the deputy marshals, “and he stated that he had had a fight with three Negroes on Iberville Street the night before who took his wallet and knocked him down.”7

The investigators asked Roger about the Up Stairs Lounge, and he admitted to having been present in the bar “prior to the fire during the Beer Bust and that he did not have any trouble in the lounge prior to leaving.” The marshals already possessed testimony about a fight inside the Up Stairs Lounge, which challenged this account.8 Roger was likely misstating how he hurt his jaw—blaming black attackers instead of a fellow patron—and the circumstances of his expulsion. The marshals must have sensed they had a man who could spontaneously weave a tale and distort a violent incident to portray himself with pathos.

Hyde and Fischer asked Roger Nunez to come with them to make an official statement. Once Roger agreed, he started dressing. Meanwhile, the marshals phoned their NOPD counterparts, Charles Schlosser and Sam Gebbia, who were still assigned to investigate the case. When the detectives turned up, they observed the “white male subject, 25–26 years old, 5'8" tall, medium build with black medium length hair which appeared to be dirty.” The deputy fire marshals were excited. Standing before them was the most viable suspect since David Dubose, the drunken teenager, had confessed and recanted on June 25.9

Schlosser and Gebbia gleaned from the marshals that the suspect had just experienced an epileptic seizure, with limbs and arms akimbo. Then something occurred with police in the room, and at whirlwind speed. Roger Dale Nunez, detectives determined, needed urgent

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