Embers of Murder (Jill Quint, MD, Forensic Pathologist Series Book 12)

by Alec Peche

  The Detective and SAC Ortiz stared at her during her explanation, and there was silence when she finished. To be fair, she knew a lot more about this case than the two of them and had time to process her reaction to Detective John Mullin.

  Finally, SAC Ortiz spoke, “You might be onto something there, Jill. I’m going to have to call up my chain of command to see if we can connect him to the military and to understand what happened to cause her to be dishonorably discharged.”

  The detective had also been thinking. “My brother is a captain in the Navy. I’ll see if he can find any information on Amanda Moore. Let me write down those dates. Since your software is so nifty, why don’t you search for her profile among some of the other dating apps?”

  “That’s a good idea. Unfortunately, that means setting up my profile on each website as that’s the fastest way to search. A court order for the website takes at least a day. If I’m not needed here, I’ll head home and begin that painful dating site search process.”

  “Sounds like we all have our next steps. I’m heading over to Agent Sanderson’s fiancée's house. Please send me any new information as soon as you get it.”

  “Remember, I have a two-hour drive in front of me, so it will be a while before you hear back from me,” Jill said. Looking at the detective, she said, “I live in the Central Valley.”

  Jill reached Nathan’s house in the early afternoon after stopping by her house to gather things for an extended stay at Nathan’s. Fortunately, there was no pressing work in her vineyard. She hoped to have this case ended in under a week, especially now that they had somewhat of an identity of the arsonist. First, she needed a nap. Getting up at three in the morning, followed by the emotion of Agent Sanderson’s death, had left her sleepy and depressed. Just before she drifted off to sleep, she had another idea on how to find the Burnt Widow.

  Chapter 27

  Nearly an hour later, she woke up from her nap, groggy because she had slept deeply, but not ready to sleep anymore. Jill had showered before she climbed into bed for her nap as she felt she was full of bad scents despite the fact she hadn’t stepped inside Agent Sanderson’s house. Falling asleep with long wet hair meant that it was still wet. She took a moment to dress and dry her hair and then checked on Trixie. Nathan had no appointments that day, which left Trixie the opportunity to run at will around his property. Arthur tended to curl up outside Nathan’s office, preventing the dog from going near the cat’s owner. She checked outside, and all was right in the animal kingdom.

  She settled onto Nathan’s sofa and began researching the dating sites. She started with the largest first. She would set up a profile entering the minimum amount of information, then she would go to work looking for Amanda Moore or for a match of her picture. Three hours later, she sent an email to SAC Ortiz and the Roseville Detective that she had not located their suspect on any dating site. She asked if there was any word on the VIN number. She was waiting for a reply when Nathan walked in with Trixie and Arthur at his heels.

  He leaned down to kiss her and then asked, “How’s the investigation going?”

  “It’s incredibly sad to perform or observe an autopsy on someone you know and like. Agent Sanderson was poisoned by carbon monoxide, which killed him, and then his house was lit on fire. Poor SAC Ortiz has to plan a law enforcement funeral with the agent’s fiancée. Glad I’m not in her shoes.”

  “Do you want me to attend the funeral with you?”

  “That’s kind of you. It’s a very sad and symbolic funeral. As we speak, he has officers guarding his remains. I will be speaking at the funeral, so I’d appreciate you coming if only to carry Kleenex for me. I’ll warn you, I’m a crier at an event like this.”

  “Really, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so overcome such that you would need a box of tissues.”

  “When I got to the ME’s office in Sacramento this morning, I had to have a quick cry in private in the stairwell before I changed into my autopsy scrubs. The honor guard was outside, and it was very sad and solemn.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, sitting next to her and hugging her.

  “Thanks.”

  Nathan sensed she was ready to move beyond thinking about the sad circumstance of the agent’s death.

  “So, what’s the latest on this case? Do you have dates set up on the Freshlove website?” he asked, looking at her computer screen.

  “No, I was just going through to make sure I deleted all the profiles I set up on all these dating sites. We identified the arsonist and . . .”

  “You did? That’s big news,” Nathan said, cutting Jill’s explanation off.

  “Yes, I suppose it is good news. We found multiple identities, and our perp served in the military where she was a munitions expert.’

  “Really? The military trained an arsonist in how to blow things up? Isn’t that a little like asking a raging alcoholic to stock the shelves of the Officers’ Club bar? Just keeping my thinking in military metaphors.”

  Jill smiled at his explanation.

  “Yes, after we identified her, I called Melissa a second time just to get her opinion of whether the job in the military could have made her an arsonist, and she said “it didn’t.” She entered the service as an arsonist. It’s not like if the military determines you would make a good sniper because of your hand and eye coordination, that you’ll be a serial killer because of the training.”

  “Okay. So, her superiors just didn’t notice that she was an arsonist before they sent her to training.”

  “Exactly. She was dishonorably discharged and changed her name. We were wondering if she did something with fire inside the military to earn her that dishonorable discharge.”

  “Maybe she harmed a fellow serviceman or woman. I think the military has its own prison system.”

  “It does. It has its own justice system. You get sent to prison after you’ve been court-martialed. I was reading up on it, and you get court-martialed for violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice. A military lawyer represents you in court, and five officers serve as a panel. A judge presides over the trial. It was only put into place after World War II, which I found surprising. I would have thought it at least dated back to the Civil War.”

  “That’s more than I know. I never served in the military, and I’m generally a law-abiding citizen. If they ever ask that question on ‘Jeopardy,’ I know the answer now.”

  Jill looked up into Nathan’s face and said, “See all the random facts you learn by dating me? In the past couple of weeks, you learned that most bodies don’t burn in wildfires and about court-martialing. On top of that, I invented a new varietal of wine.”

  “Babe, you’re a woman of infinite and weird qualities. Just put an end to this arsonist, so I don’t have to worry about your wine suddenly gaining a smoky flavor.”

  “That’s a good point. Maybe I should move my wine barrels off the property.”

  “You have a sprinkler system in your barrel room, and if you move the barrels, you’ll disturb them and potentially damage the vintage.”

  “True.”

  “Besides, didn’t you sell your property ownership to a corporation licensed off-shore?”

  “I did. The records show that the property was sold by me to a corporation. I also bought one acre in Kern County with a three-hundred square foot hunting shack on it. My name is on the title. Let someone burn down that house.”

  “I don’t recall you telling me about that.”

  “The attorney who handled the change of ownership for this land recommended that, and he found the one acre property for me. I’ve only seen a picture of it, but I’ve never been there. I think it cost me like six thousand dollars for my peace of mind. Seemed like a good idea.”

  “So what are you going to do as you become increasingly popular in the wine world? Your name and Quixotic Winery will be easily Google searchable, and people will find you.”

  “I know. I’ve been thinking about that. I was thinking for the winery business
, I should run under my middle name and last name. No mention of being a doctor, or I could do my first and middle name. So it will either be winery owner Jill Isabella or Isabella Quint. What do you think?”

  “I think you should be Jill Isabella. It’s a plausible last name, whereas Quint is unusual, and any bad criminal will assume it’s you or a relative. With the first choice, people in the wine industry will still call you by your first name. Isabella flows well with Quixotic too. Both words are Spanish in origin, I believe.”

  “All good points. Meet Jill Isabella, vineyard owner. Now I’ll have to work with you and my lawyers to cement this new name and make Jill Quint disappear.”

  Jill heard her computer ping the sound of an incoming email. She gave the screen a brief glance to see if it was from Ortiz. She confirmed that it was indeed her name that she saw in the sender line.

  Nathan patted her knee and walked to his kitchen, knowing that her attention was focused on the email and whatever findings it contained. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to cook, and he needed to stare at the ingredients he had on hand before he made his mind up. If nothing caught his interest, he would see if Jill wanted to dine out.

  Jill clicked on SAC Ortiz’s email; and it noted that the FBI supercomputer had massaged all of the potential VIN numbers matched against white Ford F-150 trucks. It came up with a match to a gray Ford F-150 truck with a particular VIN. None of the other combinations yielded the vehicle make and model in the picture. Leticia had already run the VIN number through the California DMV and got a match to a gray truck licensed to the name that Amanda used on her driver’s license—Allison Montgomery. She must have had the truck repainted at some point after she had it licensed. She was smart in that the variety of license plates that she used all related to a white truck, not gray.

  Jill thought of something else and asked if Allison Montgomery had any other vehicles licensed to her name. She asked SAC Ortiz to look that up for her and then set aside the laptop to see what Nathan was up to.

  “What’s for dinner?”

  “How do enchiladas sound?”

  “Homemade?” Jill asked, knowing that whatever Nathan cooked, it would be delicious.

  “Of course. You can help me.”

  “Awesome.”

  Jill followed his lead, and soon they had a pan of rolled-up tortillas filled with chicken, black beans, and Mexican cheese. A tasty red sauce and jack cheese were sprinkled on top, and the pan was placed into the oven to bake.

  “That was easy. I bet I could do that myself.”

  “Yes, you could. It would require that you shop for the ingredients, though.”

  “That always the sticking point, isn’t it?”

  “Face it, you are the queen of a refrigerator filled with condiments. You don’t actually have any food inside.”

  “I do that so I can enjoy your great cooking. Why shop for stuff that will rot before I can use it?”

  “You do have a point. Would you like wine with your enchiladas, or I could make margaritas.”

  “I’ll take a margarita. It’s all about getting the food—booze pairing right.”

  They settled on the couch for some mindless home improvement television while their dinner baked. Jill had an eye on her laptop and reached for it when she saw another email arrive from SAC Ortiz.

  She read the email and nodded to herself.

  “What?” asked Nathan.

  “I figured out how she is moving around the state. She pulls a recreational trailer behind the truck. That would allow her to spend days in different areas by leaving the RV in a park. Now the question is, how does she pay for that RV? Time to ask Jo to do a little work on this case.”

  “Will she be able to find anything?”

  “She might. It’s strange the amount of financial information that is posted on the internet.”

  “How about the address she has on her driver’s license? Does that mean anything?”

  Jill banged her forehead in disgust.

  “Gosh, why didn’t I think of that? What a rotten investigator I am.”

  “Don’t you think that Leticia Ortiz looked it up or the detective?”

  “Yes, they should have done that. Let me take a look at Google Earth for the address.”

  Jill used the satellite view of Google Earth and determined the address on the driver’s license was a vacant lot. She then looked up the ownership of the lot and discovered it was owned by Allison. However, as the land was empty at the moment and in the middle of nowhere in the California desert, she decided that was a dead end, and that was probably why SAC Ortiz and Detective Long hadn’t mentioned it to her.

  She sent off an email to Jo but didn’t expect an answer back that night. There was no more work she could think to do on the case that evening. It was time to focus on Nathan and the lovely night ahead of them.

  Chapter 28

  Jill awoke the next morning, thinking about what she planned to do next. They were closing in on the Burnt Widow. So far, she hadn’t had any alarms go off at her vineyard. So maybe she wasn’t on the radar of the arsonist. Jo hadn’t responded yet with any financial news. There was nothing new from the detective or SAC Ortiz either. She expected that a Be On the Lookout, or BOLO, had been issued for the truck. If the Burnt Widow was wise, she would have her truck painted again—back to its original gray. That way she would avoid any BOLO alerts.

  Jill debated where she should open one of the Cal-Trans road cameras and see if she could monitor one herself with her software. She opened the camera on Highway 80, which was the freeway next to Roseville. There were so many cars whizzing by that she concluded it was a lost cause.

  She sent Leticia and Detective Long an email asking if either had requested the highway cameras look for the white truck. She got a quick response that they couldn’t do that. There were far too many pick-up trucks on the road for highway cameras to analyze them, which confirmed her earlier decision not to watch the vehicles on I-80. Jill received an email from Jennifer Galloway with lab results for Agent Sanderson. No surprises, and all the evidence confirmed that he died from carbon monoxide.

  She saw an email from Jo. Maybe that would contain new information. She opened it and read. It had new information, but not anything that would help them find the Burnt Widow. Jo had found her name associated with a company that performed medical record coding. An Allison Montgomery was listed as one of their coders. Now they knew the source of her income and how she could work remotely. Jill mused she was a regular law-abiding citizen working hard for her wages. She might be supplementing her income from her victims, though, because none of them had been found with any cash.

  Now at least they had a picture of how she was moving around the state. She towed an RV and worked from the trailer to earn a regular income. Jill wondered what had set the woman off. Had she been starting wildfires all along and decided to add killing into the mix as a change of pace? Another reason to call Melissa and get her analysis. It was still relatively early, so she would wait until a decent hour to call her and get her opinion.

  Jill turned back to the dating sites and thought about what she wanted to do there, or was there another pattern they could follow? What if Jill looked at all the fires across the state? Could she guess which fires the Burnt Widow might have started, and would that give them a path that she was traveling? It was worth a try. She started with the Cal-Fire website as they ended up handling most of the wildfires. City fire departments also battled brushfires within their cities, but she seemed to stay out of the big cities. Perhaps there were too many people around to see her start fires, or perhaps the fire couldn’t grow into a big blaze, or perhaps she was worried that bigger cities also had many more random cameras throughout.

  Jill started with the dates that they knew the Burnt Widow was suspected of killing their victims. She looked at other fires in those areas around the dates and looked for a pattern. Two hours later, she decided she couldn’t assign any fires to their suspect. The reports w
eren’t detailed enough, and there was no single detail that she could associate with fires started by their arsonist.

  She dialed Melissa to get another consult.

  “Hey Melissa, can you chat for a few minutes?”

  “Yes, I’ve had my coffee, so I’m awake, and my tasting room won’t open for several hours. What’s up?”

  “I was thinking about our arsonist. What set her off on this killing spree? There are enough fires across the state that she could have been at work for years starting small fires. What happened that caused her to add homicide to the fire mix?”

  “That’s a good question. Since we don’t have a full profile on her and I’ve not interviewed her, I can’t vouch for my reasoning. There is mental illness that has made her an arsonist, and so her mind is working in ways beyond the usual healthy brain. I should add that since you started work on this case, I’ve done a little more research into arsonists. Throughout the past one-hundred and fifty years, arsonists have been viewed as either criminal or mentally ill. Most behaviorists believe that arsonists have a compulsion to start fires. There is some treatment for compulsive disorders. With some arsonists, psychotherapy helps; and others are tried on a course of anti-depressants. Maybe your suspect stopped therapy or ran out of medication. Sexual abuse can be a trigger, so if your arsonist had a bad date or was a victim of sexual violence, that might have set her off.”