Selma Collins

Concept: Arsonist for hire

AKA: As will become apparent below, Selma once became a woman named Emily Coleman

Desc:  Selma is about 5’8 with shoulder length brunette hair. For fitness, she runs and swims. She has eyes that seem to take in everything.  She’s also got a bit of “Resting Bitch Face”. When under stress, she tends to hum to herself.  If you listen long enough, you can eventually identify the song she’s humming as “Sunny Came Home” by Shawn Colvin. She is not aware that she does this.

History: Pyromania is a form of pathology that is essentially about stress relief. Selma as a young child was one of those few children who went through the sociopath troika. (I.e: Bedwetting, Cruelty to animals, fascination with fire.)  Both of the other phases were short, but the fascination with fire lingered.

It was the strangest thing. Her old home town was simply PLAGUED with fires.  Any place that was old and looked deserted. Houses of kids in her neighborhood that she didn’t like much.  Uncle Lou’s house. The Junior high (once)  and even the high school (3 times).   Most of the time, nobody ever looked twice at Selma.  It’s fairly rare for women to express as pyromaniacal and she was able to keep her mouth shut. So naturally the community thought it was a boy, or boys, who were setting these fires. No one ever put it together that Selma was the one common element at each of these fires.

Selma is Off the Chart Smart.  And like many teens who go through a period of lawbreaking without getting caught, she had to determine whether or not to continue until she set a fire so big that she would HAVE to be caught. Was that what she was planning for herself?  Setting herself up to fail in the biggest way possible. It didn’t feel that way really. It’s just that setting fires was such a deep release for her.

So, she reasoned, If I can’t really stop. I’ll have to find a way to do it professionally. Taking some money she’d saved from birthday savings bonds and such, she bought herself a decent fake ID and got herself a job. Convinced her clueless parents that she’d gotten a job as a secretary in an office.  Which was technically true.

What she didn’t tell them, was that she’d gotten hired as a secretary in the Fire Marshall’s office. She spent all day and many nights surrounded by all the information she could ever want about how to set fires, what sorts of chemical residue would be found at the scene and the kind of decision-making process during investigations to determine whether a fire had started via natural misadventure or arson. Like many budding young sociopaths, she would use her youthful body to deflect attention and to allow her to be close to the office so she could keep learning more. Sure, she’s almost completely asexual. It’s only the fire that arouses her really. Although, if a person caught her in just the right mood on a night when she’d set a fire...That person might be in for a wild ride. Pathologies can be complicated.

Then, at the point when it was clear, she couldn’t really ask any more questions without tipping her hand, and she’d learned all she could from reading the reports, she simply disappeared.

A year later she turned up here. She put her out shingle out as an arsonist for hire.  Naturally, it’s a bit of a specialty in criminal circles, and hard for unknown people to break into.  So she had to set a few fires in order to stymie the local Fire Department and get her name into the hands of the right sorts of criminals. When she began to work, she bought a new identity and went back to school to get a degree in chemistry.  Granted, she’s double majoring in psychology because she’s interested in understanding this problem in her mind... But as long as she can keep setting fires and getting paid for it. She isn’t necessarily wanting to cure herself.

Attitude: “No one can exactly accuse me of being a sensualist. But we all have a sensual relationship with the elements. The feel of the wind, how our skin reacts to water and earth. I tend to have an affinity for fire. The way the heat feels on your skin and in your bones. The smell of it. The way that a large fire will drive the moisture out of the air. the snap and crackle of it. There is something about it that feel like coming home...Like touching the face of an angry god...I don’t know how to describe it properly...”

Skills: A dot or two of athletics and a single dot in Firearms. Several dots in Science, with specs in fire science, chemistry, and psychology, and some dots in crafts for making home-made explosives and detonators. Also some dots in Investigation with a spec in Arson. Some social acumen, mostly in persuasion. 

Gear: Owns a mini-van. Normally keeps her fire-making materials in a bundle in a stroller. No one looks at her twice coming into someplace, but they might notice she hasn’t brought the stroller out.  On her person, she keeps a flaregun, (which has come in handy more than once.) a tiny multi-channel radio detonator, and a stun gun.  She also carries picks, (which she’s not very good with) and a set of bump keys, (which don’t require much skill at all.)  For certain gigs, she’ll wear a Nomex suit and a respirator, but those are rare. Normally, the gaff with her is to set up a fire to go off at a certain time and be elsewhere when it occurs. She dislikes clock timers though and prefers timed chemical reactions.  She got a lot of mileage out filling the bottom of an envelope with a certain type of discontinued hair crème and sprinkling pool chlorine on it, sealing the envelope and then walking away.  The chemical fire caused by that is very very hot and doesn’t leave much in the way of trace residue for accelerants. Has a smartphone and leaves it in her glove box when she’s “Working”

Home: Bought herself a nice place with a large concrete reinforced basement/attached garage. Manages to keep the usage of her own personal fireplace down to about once a week  in the spring and fall. And she seems to do a lot of grilling out in the summer months. Funny.

Circle: Doesn’t have anyone she holds particularly dear. She’s gotten herself a new job working in an insurance office.  Occasionally, it puts her wise to investigations, it points up other arsonists (pro and amateur) and suggests clients to her (which she might approach through a proxy.) Pretends to be BFF’s with the other girls in the office. Can’t help but fantasize about burning the place down.  To be clear, Selma does NOT actually need the job. But she uses it to her advantage.  

Story Uses:

 “Don’t worry, the chemical reaction won’t happen until the aluminum triiodide dries out completely. We’ll be long gone by then.”

Selma prides herself on being a pro. Sure, there is a whole other side to it for her, she’s not just in it for the money, but she CAN be patient and wait if it’s necessary. She’s the sort of criminal specialist that many different types of people would like to have in their Rolodex..or in their back pocket.

“They told me about people like you. I must be something like your worst nightmare...”

Fire cleanses. Selma might be a problem for the sort of PC that fire is bad for.  Worse thought, what if Selma developed Pyrokinesis?  I mean, even if she was only able to kindle a fire with her mind, her knowledge of chemicals and accelerants would make her super dangerous on ground she had prepared ahead of time.

Connections:

* Psych department usually being small, she's met both Dr. Paul Pickford and Collette Reeves. Both have pegged her as Asexual, but they figure she's on the autism spectrum somewhere. She comes off as a bit of a cold fish around the department.  She tends to save her "Friendly" act for the insurance office. It's too draining otherwise.

* John Patmos has turned up at a number of fires that she's caused. Occasionally, if she can manage it, she likes to watch the fire she's set and take video footage if she can.  She's seen this man more than once.  He seems to have an appreciative look on his face when he looks at the fire. Could be a fellow arsonist or a fellow pyromaniac. Selma is wary of both because of the one's she's met, she has better impulse control than any of them.  But this one is strangely intriguing.

* Once got hired by Lorna Crane in another city a few years ago.  Doubt they would recognize one another, though.

* Don Pentangelli has hired her in the past. sometimes, a good bust out scheme needs a blow-off or a business partner needs an insurance windfall to finance a do-over. When this occurs, The Don calls Selma.  The Don is perhaps one of the few people on earth that Selma thinks might be as smart as her.

She's not afraid. That would require greater emotional sensitivity than she is capable of. But she IS respectful.

*While Selma is smart, she doesn't have all the time in the world being a part time employee and a part time student.  As a result, she's found that it's good to do some digital recon and the best person for that is T.C. Mitnick.

* Told Clavo Hernandez a cock and bull story about working as an accountant for the mob and needing to get out of sight. He didn't buy it entirely, but he took her money and gave her good paper. He also liked her look and sketched her, but she wasn't into him. Must just not like fat guys or something.

*Is in the Rolodex of Alejandro Dean of Holmes, Gillis, Baker, Savage, North, and Dean. Occasionally it's handy if a place burns down right before a trial. I'm not saying that's happened...Wink wink nudge nudge.