Tom met Sid, the local department’s fire investigator, at the Bluff Road property. He’d directed traffic and handled incident security in his street clothes until a deputy showed up to take charge for the county. Tom and Sid sat on the rear running board of the #5 pumper, sipped hot black coffee, and stared at the smoke, steam, and blackened rubble of Casa Cazador. A young volunteer firefighter, a senior cheerleader at James’s school, limped toward the truck, humping a roll of scorched hose line.
Sid asked, “How’d you get that limp?”
She stepped onto the running board beside them and grunted the roll up to the hose bed.
“That second floor,” she said. “We couldn’t get up there. Captain said, ‘Stand back, let it burn.’ Everything twisted when the second floor dropped, got the side of my knee. Did they tell you about the second victim?”
Both Tom and Sid stood up. “No,” Sid said. He set his coffee down. “Tell me. Weird, like the first one?”
Her long, black hair was singed at the ends that poked out from under her helmet. Tom tried to remember her name … Stephanie. Her eyes were red and swollen from the smoke and ash, and her lips quivered. She covered her mouth.
“Breathe,” Sid said. “Deep breaths.”
“She fell on me!” Stephanie blurted, then talked fast. “She wasn’t hard-skinned like the gross one downstairs. Some of her smeared on my gear. Randy hosed her off me. She was a she, all burned up with a piece of wood through her chest.”
Sid waved over an EMT from the aid car idling up the driveway. He shook Stephanie’s hand. “Good job, Rookie,” he said. “Let these guys look at the knee. They’ll take you to the ER to check you out. Department insurance covers you.”
Sid’s portable radio squawked, “Got a third crispy critter. This one in a box!”
Sid keyed his mike and in an even voice said, “Reporting party, that is a deceased person. Have some respect, asshole!”
Tom imagined applause in all living rooms in the county with scanners. He set his cold, unfinished coffee next to Sid’s. “All boxed up,” he told Sid. “How convenient. Shall we?”
Sid made a show of holstering his radio. “I’ll hear about that tomorrow.”
The EMTs had all three bodies laid out between two tarps alongside what was left of the garage. Tom recognized Daniel’s Mercedes, but he took a moment to realize that the burned-up Chevy beside it was Jean’s. His heart kicked into high gear.
Shit! he thought. “This is Jean’s car, Sid. Marie’s friend?”
“Shit!” Sid said. “Fuck!”
An EMT pulled away the top tarp, and Tom caught his breath. No way he could tell whether the woman victim was Jean or Diana.
Or someone else? he wondered. Whether the hair had been blonde-ish or reddish, it was a melted, peeling lump of black now. Sid tilted the body to reveal her back, and Tom saw the pointed end of a survey stake. He walked back up the driveway and found the scatter of stakes. He picked one up by the tip and asked a firefighter, “Could you cover these for me? They may be evidence.” He placed the stake into a plastic bag from the aid car and headed back to Sid.
Tom let Sid finish his preliminaries and tried to stay upwind. The other two bodies didn’t look real. Hard material, jagged edges like a bad plaster job, cocooned them.
“He’s a sculptor,” he called to Sid. “Are those people? Or things?”
“Things on the outside,” Sid called back. “Can’t tell about the insides.”
“I have some questions,” Tom said.
“I’ll bet you have.”
Sid folded his notebook and shot a few more pictures with his cell.
The department’s field photographer took over, and Sid joined Tom back at the truck.
Sid showed Tom his photos, starting with the woman. “Foreign object, wood, through-and-through. Must’ve been a helluva blast.” Next photo was a thing. “Also foreign object, cut off at both ends, covered with this shell.” Next photo. “Through the eye-holes, with the flash, you can see the object.”
Tom stopped him and enlarged the picture. “What was all that metal in there? What kind of blast does that?”
“Right,” Sid said. “Goes to your ‘thing’ theory. But see that and that in there? Burned tissue.”
The lumps that Sid pointed out looked like burned residue in the bottom of an oven, flecked with splinters of scorched china.
“Bone,” Sid said, anticipating a question. “Pretty sure. So, what’s your theory about the foreign objects, Mr. Spock? Spears?”
Tom shook his head and led Sid around the front of the truck to the survey stakes, now covered with clear plastic, secured at the corners with rocks.
“Spock always said ‘theory,’” Tom said. “He meant ‘hypothesis.’ I got it wrong on a science test because of him.”
“Hmm. Very short spears. Close quarters, indeed. What about the one in the box?” Sid called up the photo. “People hide in strange places in fire.”
Tom enlarged the shot and pointed to the half-burned lid, nailed at the edges. “Thing or not,” he said, “it didn’t crawl in there and nail the top down after itself.”
The wind shifted onshore and carried the oily odor of death right to their faces. Sid and Tom turned their backs, and Sid pulled two cigars from his coat pocket. He lit Tom’s, then his own. They each puffed to get them going.
Sid waved his cigar and said, “Only thing I’ve found to cut the smell.” He puff-puffed a fog of smoke around his head. “It’s gonna take some lab work for this one, maybe a week for that. X-rays we can do today. This torch knows his chemistry. Owners?”
“Brother and sister,” Tom said. His eyes watered from the cigar smoke and the pervasive stink off the tarp. “We have some missing people. Marie said Alice the landscaper’s been missing since yesterday. Now, maybe Jean.” Tom hoped he wasn’t smelling what was left of Jean but didn’t say anything. He was over being shocked and moved right into being pissed.
“Maybe it’s the sister.”
“Can’t tell, like you said. Two women missing. That’s what’s left of Jean’s car next to what’s left of her new boyfriend’s car in what’s left of the garage. I saw her last night in this driveway. I had a bad feeling about the sister. The sister’s unaccounted for until we get IDs.” Tom counted on his fingers. “Three women. Three bodies, but only one of them female. If one of the things is the brother, who’s the other? We can’t even tell for sure if bodies are in those shells. Shit.”
Sid rubbed his chin. “We’ll have to wait for DNA to find out who, or what.” He paused. “This is not a good time for friends of Marie. Maybe somebody’s after you.”
Tom turned his head, took a furtive swipe at his eyes, puffed hard on his cigar. His stomach reminded him that he didn’t smoke. He had to admit, it helped with the smell. He shook his head. “Don’t think so. Everything about this pair is a mystery.”
“Jealous ex?” Sid asked.
Tom spat a chunk of cigar off his lip and worked on his professional composure. “Who knows?” he said. “Marie says the guy’s a player. Crime lab should be here in the morning. Maybe they’ll have something.” He waved a hand at the scene. “Lots of ugly detail to sift through.”
“Got news for you, Aldrich,” Sid said. “It’s already morning. Great, there’s the coroner with body bags. Hope the two hardshells fit.”
Tom looked east where the tip of the sun topped the shoulder of Mt. Rainier and cast an inverted shadow across a patch of gray clouds at the top. He spit again and crushed the cigar out in the gravel.
“I need my preliminary typed up before they get here. Meeting’s at 0900. They’ll want your report, too.”
Sid grumped, “They’ll have it when I have it! This is a bad one. I’m not wasting anybody’s time on assumptions!”
A shout from behind: “Hey! Hey there!”
The Coroner held up the covering tarp and pointed at steam rising from the female corpse. The crusty black surface began to bubble. “Sid! Aldrich!” He uncovered the bodies completely and a flicker of flame licked a crack in the crust.
“Jesus!” Sid said. “Never seen anything like that.” He turned to the firefighters and shouted, “Get some foam on this one now! No extinguishers, we don’t know the chemistry here.”
The woman’s body continued to bubble and spilled a sheet of blue flame as the bubbles burst. The firefighters smothered the body with at least a foot of foam before the fire action settled down.
The Coroner stood back, wide-eyed and stunned. He and his assistant laid the body bags next to the tarps.
“I’m not hauling that one in my rig,” the Coroner said.
Sid took a deep breath, coughed, and said, “Bag her up. We’ll haul her in a pickup, just in case. Jesus!” He turned to Tom. “We need to find out what the hell this guy used.”
“You do that,” Tom said. “I need to find the guy.”
Already Tom was walking the driveway up to his car. He felt like shit from the cigar smoke on top of the other smoke and grit he’d been eating all night. He had no experience to process what he’d just seen. Not much scared him, but this one did.
He parked at the foot of City Dock beside the station. He stepped out of the cruiser as sunrise swept across the bay and bedazzled the wavetops at the tideline. A buzzing sound emerged from behind the station, the small engine of a sailboat making very slow time toward the Strait. A light wind flapped the station’s flag overhead.
Perfect day for sailing, Tom thought. He yawned, rubbed his face and leaned across the hood of his car. But they’re not sailing. Crawling along instead.
Tom reached into the car for his clipboard, radio, and phone. He unlocked the door to the station, closed the door, and stopped cold.
A perfect day for sailing, he thought. Jean has a liveaboard.
He threw his clipboard and notes onto the desk and yanked a bottom drawer all the way out, spilling everything onto the floor. He snatched up his binoculars and stumbled on the drawer as he raced out the door to the end of City Dock.
He swept the bay in careful passes and calmed his breathing to steady the view. A blurry image. Back. The deck of a sailboat, no one in sight. He fine-focused on a boathook from the cabin hatch below to the tiller above. He focused on the stern with the name:
“Freedom
Salish Landing WA”
in vivid pink letters.
“Shit shit shit!”
Tom pulled out his cell and speed dialed his brother. Please be gearing up today!
Mark said, “Speak, my brother! Tell me you’re fishing today!”
“Get Fishkiller to the City Dock pronto,” Tom said. “Emergency. Will fill you in.”
He hung up as soon as his brother said, “Sure, hey …” He picked up his portable and keyed the mike on his run back to the office for a rifle.
“Dispatch, 16 portable.”
“Go ahead, 16.”
“Request assistance intercepting sailing vessel Freedom heading for the Strait. Does county have their speedboat available?”
Tom was breathing hard when he reached the rifle rack.
“Negative,” Dispatch said. “Boat and dive team are in Seattle for re-cert.”
He fumbled the round security key into the lock and grabbed a rifle and two loaded clips.
“Request all-agency alert, with Coast Guard and reserves with boats.” He spoke on the run, out of breath, and hoped he didn’t move out of radio range. He clicked the portable twice for reply.
“Received, 16. Time 0745.”
His brother powered full-speed toward him a hundred yards out. Tom continued, “I’m in pursuit in yellow fishboat Fishkiller. Homicide and arson suspect on board sailboat Freedom, possible kidnapping in progress, consider armed and dangerous. 16 out.”
Mark roared in hot, swung his boat around and banged the pier as Tom leapt aboard. Mark glanced at the rifle and said, “Hunting salmon now?”
They took a pounding as Mark wound out his Chrysler Six through the chop in the channel and the wind. Tom couldn’t focus on detail through the glasses and cursed the shooting conditions. In spite of the slam slam slam of the boat, he caught a glimpse of a gloved hand and an arm heavily swathed in sailcloth maneuvering the tiller from below.