by Elaine Viets
Greiman’s already tainted the ME’s investigation, Angela thought, before he sees my report. “You going to the autopsy?”
“No need,” Greiman said. He wouldn’t admit autopsies made him queasy.
“No question she’s guilty,” Doug said. “Besides these trailer marks, a firefighter found a partially melted gasoline container by the door.”
“If she poured gas on him up in the bedroom, why would she carry it downstairs and leave it by the door? Why not leave it in the room where it would burn up?” Angela asked.
“Because she couldn’t be sure the gasoline can would burn up,” Doug said. “You’d be surprised what survives a fire.”
He’s determined to make sure Kendra is guilty, she thought. “Any gas in it?”
He glared at Angela. “No, sweetie. She poured it all over Luther. I just showed you the burn patterns.”
“My title is death investigator, Captain Hachette.” She caught him rolling his eyes at Greiman and suspected the detective had already complained about her.
“There was no gasoline in the container, Ms. Death Investigator.” Doug made her title sound like a joke. “But we didn’t expect to find any.”
“Because it was empty to begin with.”
“Because she emptied it on Luther.” Doug’s voice was a sharp reprimand. “Then she escaped out the front door, screaming hysterically, and paraded around in a sexy outfit to distract the firefighters and hinder the investigation. Her clothes are being analyzed for accelerant. And we’ve got witnesses who say her father fought with Luther on his doorstep shortly before the fire. Luther had already given her two million dollars, so she didn’t need him anymore. I heard he’d embarrassed her at Gringo Daze last night, where he was drunk and grabbing her ass.”
“You just told me Luther had a history of careless smoking,” Angela said. “The fire department was here at least twice, and four days ago, the dining room chair caught on fire.”
“Based on what I’ve seen today,” Doug said, “I believe those were test fires set by her to see how long it would take the fire department to respond. She knew she could escape before we got here, but it would be too late for Luther.”
Angela wasn’t going to let him go so easily. “If Kendra set this fire the way you say, were any art or valuables removed before the fire?”
“You seem to be quite the arson expert, Ms. Richman, for someone who hasn’t worked many fires. No, nothing appeared to be removed from this house before the fire. But when I was here before, the art was mostly cheap crap, the kind of shit people buy because it’s pretty or matches the couch.”
“So nothing of value was taken out before the fire started,” she repeated. Greiman was glaring at her, but she didn’t care.
“Not that we’re able to tell at this time. But our investigation isn’t complete.”
“What’s on the other side of that door?” she asked.
“The master bath. That door was closed at the time of the fire, and none of the plastics melted, so the heat in the bathroom wasn’t too high.”
“What about Kendra’s engagement ring? Did you find it? A neighbor said she had it on when she came home last night, but I don’t remember her wearing it after she escaped the burning house.”
“I guess women notice things like that,” Greiman answered. Angela ignored the jab. “We recovered her ring on top of the toilet tank in the master bath.”
“So she wasn’t planning the fire,” Angela said. “She didn’t wear her ring.”
“Diamonds don’t burn in most house fires, Ms. Death Investigator. She shut the bathroom door to keep out the intense heat. She knew her ring would be safe. And with two million dollars, she has enough money to buy another one.”
CHAPTER 8
Day one
“You’ve got a problem here, Greiman,” said fire investigator Doug Hachette. “I get along with Mexicans. You have to in this job. But the bleeding hearts are gonna say you’ve railroaded a poor little Mexican slut. I mean, facts are facts, right? She’s hooked up with some famous old geezer fifty years older than her. The media’s gonna be on this case like flies on shit.”
“That’s why I’m waiting for the evidence to come back,” Greiman said. “As soon as I get Luther’s autopsy and the lab report on her whore suit, I’m throwing her ass in jail. We about finished here?”
Her. She. Mexican slut. Neither investigator would say Kendra’s name, Angela thought. The two men had been poking through the blackened rubble in Luther’s bedroom while Angela worked on her investigation, taking notes on her iPad.
“Did you swab her hands for gasoline?” Doug asked.
“Tried to,” Greiman said. “But the ER had cleaned her up. Any results could be messed up by the alcohol cleaning swabs.”
“You’re sure she’s guilty,” Doug said. It was a statement, not a question.
There he goes again, she thought. He refuses to use Kendra’s name. But that’s a smart question.
“Aren’t you?” Greiman laughed, and so did Doug.
“What about Priscilla and Eve?” Angela knew that was a risky question: it could damage the small bit of working relationship she had with Greiman. But she couldn’t let him railroad Kendra when there were other possible suspects.
The two men looked at her as if she were a talking chair. “What about Luther’s wife and daughter?” Greiman asked. Angela heard his belligerence but didn’t back off.
“Both women had good reasons to want Luther dead,” she said. “He’d given a big chunk of the family fortune to Kendra, and he was going to give her more. Priscilla and Eve were both in the neighborhood last night about the time the fire started. Ann Burris said Priscilla was at a Friends of the Library cocktail party until someone told her Luther had been ‘misbehaving’ with Kendra at Gringo Daze. Around nine o’clock, Priscilla said she didn’t feel well and was going home. Meanwhile, Eve was hanging out with her friends at a poolside barbecue. She left about nine—again, about the time the fire started. She came back later, after the firefighters had removed Luther’s body, and Eve said she was glad her father was dead.”
“Can’t blame Eve for that,” Greiman said. “I’m sure his wife is relieved he’s dead, too. Why wouldn’t she be?”
“But Eve was laughing about it. She was glad her father was dead.”
“So? That tells me she’s not guilty. I’d be suspicious if she’d made a big scene, weeping for dear old daddy.”
“So you didn’t interview either one.” Angela fought to keep her voice neutral.
“No, and I’m not going to. I’m not bothering two prominent citizens because they didn’t cry for a man who turned on his family and took up with a nasty little greedhead.”
Doug nodded agreement.
“Last I checked, you’re not in charge of this investigation,” Greiman said. “It will be run with respect for the suffering family. Luther’s wife and daughter have been through enough without the police badgering them.”
Well, I tried, Angela thought. My job is to gather the facts and deliver them to the ME, and that’s what I did. She turned off her iPad and stashed it in her DI kit, then used her cane to stand up. Angela dusted damp ashes off her pantsuit legs. Her work here was done.
“Ready to roll?” Doug asked. “I’ll take your suitcase down to your car.”
“We’re going to the Burger Den for lunch,” Greiman said. “Want to join us?” Angela wished she could take this olive branch, but she couldn’t stomach the smell of frying meat in the Den’s smoky atmosphere. She wasn’t sure she could keep any food down right now.
“Thanks.” She smiled at them both. “I’ll have to take a rain check. I’m a wuss and feeling kinda queasy right now. I have to write my report at the office.”
Greiman seemed pleased with her admission of weakness. They made their way carefully down the stairs. Doug stashed her DI suitcase in the Charger’s trunk. Angela said good-bye and then called Katie from her car.
“I’m finishe
d at the fire scene and coming into the office,” Angela said. “Wanna do lunch?”
“Can’t. I’m getting ready to post the Rhinehart case, the one you caught yesterday. How about an early dinner?”
“Deal, but no meat.”
“I’ll bring some salads. And hurry up with your report. Evarts can’t wait to post Luther and get the glory. I’ll stop by about six with the food.”
Most death investigators reported to an office at the medical examiner’s and stayed for their shift. Thanks to Evarts, Angela’s arrangement was a little different. Evarts had heaps of Chouteau County money to spend on his office, but it still wasn’t enough for his grand plans. He wanted an executive suite with a Swedish shower, and he needed more space. Angela’s cubicle became a lavish marble-tiled shower with a zillion showerheads. She got a desk barely big enough for a preschooler, a chair, and an ancient beige computer she never used. She also got her freedom. Angela didn’t clock in. She usually worked from home and showed up for meetings and to write the occasional report. This was fine with her, and, like many Forest deals, it was unspoken. Today seemed like a good time to show up at the office.
Angela opened the iPad and wrote her report—she was an amazingly fast two-finger typist—then sent it to Evarts and knocked on his office door.
“Come in,” he called.
Angela’s feet sank into the soft, dark-green broadloom. Evarts’s office looked like a corner of the Chouteau Forest Country Club, right down to the hobnailed leather chairs and comic golf prints on the plaid-papered walls. A tall bookcase hid a small kidney-shaped putting green, and a putter was propped against the wall.
Evarts, dressed in a polo shirt and khakis, looked like he wished he was on the links. His white hair was perfectly barbered, his pink face smooth and clean shaven, his small blue eyes shrewd.
“Angela! Did you finish your report?”
“You took the words out of my mouth.”
“Good, good. I won’t ask you to sit down. I’m in a hurry to read your report and post poor Luther. Such a shame. He was one of our finest citizens. Such a horrible death.”
“I’m afraid it was,” Angela said.
“Well, you can still enjoy this beautiful day. If we need you, we’ll call you, but I hope we don’t. Our community has had enough sorrow.”
“It has indeed,” Angela said.
She headed for home, knowing exactly how she’d kill the time until she saw Katie. She parked in her driveway and admired the last yellow daffodils lining the drive, a legacy from her gardening mother. Soon she’d see her mother’s trees in bloom—white-and-pink dogwoods and delicate purple clouds of redbud.
She unlocked the door to her two-story white-stone home. She stripped in the laundry room, threw her smoke-saturated clothes into the washer, and left her work boots by the dryer. She’d clean them later. In the kitchen, Angela slapped down place mats, silverware, and napkins, setting the table for dinner with Katie, then fixed herself a quick peanut-butter sandwich. She had to eat something.
Upstairs, she showered away the smoke smell and changed into a blue chambray shirt, skinny jeans, and knee-high boots. She grabbed a bag of peppermints and headed over the hill to the stables at the Du Pres’s horse farm.
Angela could see the stables and the horses from her upstairs bedroom window. During her recovery from the strokes and brain surgery, she’d taken long walks on the Du Pres’s protected property, trying to tire herself out enough to sleep. She began spending more time at the stables, comforted by the horses’ company. She liked talking to old Bud, who’d known her parents. Somewhere in his sixties, Bud was a thin, tanned strip of rawhide, straightforward and comfortable as an old boot. He wasn’t much of a talker, unless the subject was horses, and that was fine with Angela: he didn’t offer advice or sympathy or ask how she was. She didn’t like his tobacco-chewing habit, but she knew smoking was forbidden in the stables. Bud carried around a soda can as a spittoon.
Old Reggie’s horse barn was a showcase built in 1902 for the Du Pres carriage horses, and those animals lived in style: Their polished mahogany stalls were bigger and grander than the average Toonerville apartment. Each stall had a brass plate for the horse’s name, and the barn had stained-glass windows. Old Reggie was tight with a buck, but he spared no expense on his stables, and a small army kept the stalls painted, polished, and mucked out. Bud lived behind the tack room, near the stables’ back exit.
The Forest dwellers no longer kept carriage horses. Instead, they adopted retired racehorses—OTTBs, or Off the Track Thoroughbreds. “Retired racehorses make great pets and riding horses,” Bud had told Angela. “Plus, Reggie enjoys the prestige: He knows all their triumphs and makes sure everyone else does, too. He’ll spout the stats for his OTTBs—how many races, how much money they won, and who owned them. Owning a retired racehorse is sort of like dating Elizabeth Taylor in her later years: still beautiful, still a Thoroughbred, with a great past.”
“The Forest dwellers are obsessed with pedigrees and the past,” Angela had said.
Bud spit into the soda can. “Rich people are like potatoes. The best part is underground. All they care about are their ancestors. At least they treat the horses well. They live in more style than they ever did at the track. And the old man caters to them like they’re babies. He gets them pets, if he thinks they’re lonely: a cat, a goat, even a pony if they want one. Hell, he loved getting that pony, Snickers, for American Hero. Told everyone Seabiscuit had a pet pony. They never lived like this on the track, where the stalls are falling apart and their pets are mice. Lots of cats at barns for that reason.”
Last August, when she first started walking past the stables, Angela had admired the horses from a distance, fascinated by their powerful beauty. She loved their shiny coats, rippling muscles, and slender legs. Their liquid-brown eyes were bright with intelligence. She’d leaned against the white-painted paddock fence, and the horses would come up to greet her. Angela was afraid to touch them, but Bud had encouraged her. He taught her that the horses had unique personalities. He introduced her to a racehorse that was almost black with an unusual white blaze.
“Meet American Hero,” Bud had said. “He loves to have his blaze rubbed. Just touch the long white part on his face. He won’t hurt you. Now, scratch him under the chin.”
“That’s a lot of chin,” Angela said as she scratched.
“You’ve got it,” Bud said. “Aw, he wants a hug.”
Angela wrapped her arms around the horse’s powerful neck and head. Hero felt warm and muscular, his dark hair slightly stiff. The horse nuzzled her and very gently blew air out his nose at her.
“You’ve made a conquest,” Bud said. “You’re supposed to breathe back into his nose. Some folks say those are horse kisses. He’s asking if you can be trusted. He likes you.”
“If he likes me so much, why’s he sticking his tongue out?” Angela said.
“You’re supposed to shake it, like you’re shaking hands. Go ahead. He’ll never hurt you.”
Angela reluctantly grabbed the thick, wet tongue surrounded by those huge yellow teeth and gingerly touched it, then shook it. American Hero tossed his long, black mane.
“You oughta ride him,” Bud had said, patting Hero’s shoulder. “He’s gentle as a lamb.”
Angela held up her cane. “I need to walk before I can ride.”
American Hero was now one of Angela’s favorite racehorses, along with the other OTTB, East Coast Express, a dark bay (brown) horse with a tiny star on her forehead. Angela called her Eecie. She had a pet, too. A pygmy goat named Little Bit liked to hang out in Eecie’s stall. The retired racehorse had a sly sense of humor. If Angela wore a hat on a chilly morning, she’d try to pull it off.
Angela came by as often as she could to feed the horses candy, carrots, and other treats, especially after bad DI investigations. Both horses liked peppermint candy.
This afternoon, Eecie was asleep in her stall, lying on her side and snoring gently. “It’
s hard to believe any creature that big could sound like a tiny kitten, Bud.”
“She’s a party animal. She was partying with Hero last night, and now she’s tired.”
Eecie’s ears twitched, and her legs moved slightly. “She’s dreaming,” Angela said. “Do you think racehorses dream about winning?”
“I think people dream about winning. Horses like to run, but many don’t like that metal starting gate at the track. It’s noisy and frightening. If Eecie’s dreaming about running, she’s out on the prairie like her ancestors, running wild and free.”
Angela heard a snort from the next stall and went over to see American Hero. She hugged and kissed the dark giant, shook his tongue, and began feeding him peppermints.
“You’re here in the middle of the day,” Bud said. “You catch old Luther’s case?”
“It was horrible.”
“Fire always is,” Bud said. “You think Kendra killed Luther, or was it the Forest arsonist?”
“That’s arsonists, plural,” Angela said. “The Forest thinks Kendra’s running some kind of Mexican gang. Ann Burris says bored kids are setting the fires. Forest kids—not Toonerville teens.”
“Ann marches to her own drummer. I bet that idea got a few folks hot under the collar. From what I hear, most people think Kendra did it. Say she’s greedy.”
“I guess you’d have to be greedy to hang around with a geezer like Luther, but she already had two million dollars from the old man. I can’t see her setting him on fire.”
“Me, either. I know her parents, and they brought her up right. I heard she got hurt bad by one of the snotty rich boys, but never knew the whole story. Girl has spirit. She might set one of those boys on fire. But she could walk away from Luther anytime, and that’s what she’d do. I want those arsonists caught. I’ve put extra precautions in the barn—video cameras, so I can watch the grounds and stalls from my room, and smoke detectors. Security watches all that, too, but horses go crazy in a fire. Even if you get them out in time, they’ll run right back to the place where they feel safe—their burning stall. I’ll keep them safe if it’s the last thing I do.”