They drove past it again and again, and Tonya kept asking why she didn’t see any flames yet. Eventually, Charlie couldn’t think of any other excuses. He had to tell her he’d lied. He hadn’t actually lit anything on fire. She didn’t seem mad, really. Just a little exasperated that she’d entrusted Charlie with a task he clearly wasn’t up to. “Never send a man to do a woman’s job,” he remembered her teasing, but almost in a friendly, flirtatious way. They went back, and they burned that house down, Charlie says, and then they burned sixty-six more after it.
