Chapter Two

Barn conversions were fairly common in Brandywine Valley, and Claire Whitman’s bank barn, built into a hill, so it had ground-level entrances on two floors, had probably been one of the simpler remodels. Based on the stone wall perimeter, the barn was about eight thousand square feet, four thousand on the ground floor and another four thousand in the converted loft. The exterior of the first floor was composed of large stones, still largely intact.

Skip materialized at Parrott’s side again, apparently to welcome him into the still-smoldering debris. “Be careful. You can burn yourself on some of these surfaces, so test everything before touching.” Skip tapped the top of a pile of timbers to illustrate.

“This stone stable?” Parrott shouted at Skip as they approached the structure.

“Can’t count on it. Fire melts grout. One minute it looks solid, and the next minute it starts to crumble.” The fireman shoved a gloved fist against the timbers at the top of the nearest boulder. A sheet of wall, covered in sparks and cinders, crashed to the ground, but the stone held. Can’t take anything for granted in explosions like this.”

Parrott recalled having read about a famous local explosion and fire in the early 1800s. “Wasn’t the Dupont gunpowder factory a stone building?”

“Sure was. Over in Hagley Yards. And even so, it blew up in the direction of the river, and people were killed.”

As they entered the stone perimeter, Parrott and Skip stopped shouting at each other through their masks. Other firefighters were moving about, some with hoses, some with hatchets and other equipment. There was no clear path to take. Debris littered the entire area, most objects barely recognizable after collapsing or burning to cinders.

Preserving the crime scene would be near to impossible under these circumstances. All the objects were either scattered in pieces or burned, some still too hot to touch. The roof had caved in, and timber fragments lay across objects that might have been toilets and cabinets and furniture. Parrott had investigated fire damage before, but nothing like this. At any moment, a wall could cave in, or another fire could break out. Everything in sight was coated with ash and chemical residue. The masks helped, but Parrott wondered whether they screened out all the poisons.

Parrott’s initial excitement over the new case was tempered now by thoughts of what his wife would say if she knew he was here. Tonya suffered from PTSD. Anything could trigger an attack, and lately Tonya had been harping on the dangers of Parrott’s job.

He couldn’t dwell on Tonya’s fears, though. Inside the hot protective suit, his heart pounded, and his breath came in staccato gulps. Parrott let the adrenaline do its job. He knew what to do--observe, note, question, hypothesize, and repeat. Whatever bad things had happened in this place, he would discover them. He might not be able to make them right, but he could make them better.

Skip had left Parrott’s side to help another fireman clear a path into the interior of the barn. Parrott began a methodical trailblazing of his own, as he crouched, stretched, twisted, and leaped through the debris, the beam from his tactical flashlight leading the way. He would make this first pass as quick as possible, without sacrificing thoroughness of observation. He’d search more meticulously once he had daylight on his side.

In the dark wet muck, he could make out a few objects—a brass headboard, a broken sink, a fragment of countertop. It was hard to tell which items had fallen from the second floor, although, if he had to guess, the living quarters had been there. He swiped his gloved hand over his visor to clear it of ash and soot, and he shone his light on the ground in big arcs around him, looking for whatever interesting bits of information he could glean. Bits became pieces, and pieces became stories. He wouldn’t leave until he had a picture of what had happened.

As he eased himself further into the center of the barn, Parrott hit paydirt. His flashlight caught the gleam of something shiny under what might’ve been a table. Parrott dropped to the ground and shone the light under the crushed furniture. The light illuminated a pile of hypodermic needles, maybe a gross of them, lying in a puddle of blackish-amber muck. Needles had been on the list of items most often found in meth labs in the manual Parrott had studied. So were colanders and metal strainers, both of which Parrott found next. Plastic soda bottles would have burned in the fire, but Parrott found a few bottle caps scattered among shards of glass. There was enough evidence that this barn had been a working meth lab. But who was running the operation, here in the yard of a proper dowager, and how and why had it blown up?

He wished he could take photos, but he couldn’t use his cell phone without contaminating it. Instead, he dug red sticky flags from his evidence kit. His clumsy gloves slowed him down as he marked areas of potential evidence. Parrott continued his methodical examination of the barn’s mystery, swinging his flashlight before him. In the next moment his light landed on something blue—a piece of fabric, part of a short-sleeved shirt. And inside the fabric was a man’s arm, covered in soot and blood.