“Uh-huh.” He then shook hands with Trent, though he barely gave him a glance.
Amanda studied the firefighter. He was in his mid-to-late twenties. “Is your mother Emma Blair, a crime scene investigator, by chance?”
“The one and only.” Spencer kept his gaze locked on her, and it would seem he had some sort of issue with her, just like his mother did. Her interactions with Amanda were always curt and cool.
“Small world.” Sullivan gripped Spencer’s shoulder. “Spencer here is one of the firefighters who pulled the young lady out of the house.”
“You thought she was alive?” Amanda said.
“Not my call. We see a body, we clear it from the structure, hand it over to the medic.”
Sullivan clarified, “The only reason we wouldn’t is if it was obvious the victim was dead or had been murdered. Think a knife sticking out of a chest or a body riddled with bullets.”
“Or burned very badly,” she said.
Sullivan shook his head. “We’d still remove them. That is unless it was very evident survival was impossible. In the case of an obvious murder, we’d do our best to defend the area… That just means we’d preserve it or protect it from the fire.”
Amanda nodded and turned to Spencer. “Sullivan told us she was found on a mattress. Did she have any personal belongings with her?”
Spencer raked a hand through his hair, looked around. “Not that I saw, but my focus was on clearing the house of victims—and keeping myself safe.” He glanced away from her to look at another fireman who was gesturing for him. Spencer turned to the marshal. “I gave you my statement already, so I’m not sure what else you could want.”
“I’d like to walk through the scene with you again.” Sullivan’s voice was firm.
“Well, I’ll be over there.” He joined his colleague, and they engaged in a spirited conversation that had Spencer’s arms gesturing wildly.
“Gave you his statement?” Amanda asked Sullivan.
“Standard procedure. Everyone who had contact with the victim needs to help me rebuild what happened. How the fire looked at the time, where the body was found, how it was positioned, etcetera. In an empty house, we’re at least not dealing with the possibility of furniture being moved around, but still the conditions change due to the fire.”
She could appreciate all of what the marshal had said. “We’ll want to read those statements.”
“Of course. I’ll get them to you. I’ll also get you sketches and photos of the interior and where the body was found.” Sullivan knocked on the back of the medic’s van, and the doors swung open.
The smell of gasoline wafted out of the vehicle and had Amanda taking a few steps back.
“I’m not too late, I hope,” a man’s voice said behind her.
Amanda turned to find Hans Rideout. He was one of her favorite medical examiners. He was in his late forties and had a passion for working with the dead—as wrong as that might sound. But he never let his macabre job darken his spirits. More the opposite. He was quick with light humor and possessed a contagious smile. Rideout flashed one now and accompanied it with a small salute.
“Oh no, not you.” The medic, a forty-something man himself, groaned, but his expression quickly gave way to a large smile.
“You son of bitch,” Rideout countered, and the medic jumped out of the vehicle and gave the ME a huge hug. “How have you been?”
“Good, good. You?” Back pats and shoulder squeezes.
“Doing good.”
Amanda glanced at Trent, then Sullivan. It would seem the medic and Rideout were longtime friends who hadn’t seen each other in a while.
“Something tells me you’re acquainted,” she said, smiling.
“Very astute, Detective.” Rideout grinned at her. “Jimmy Wood and I go back to childhood. He married my high-school sweetheart.”
“And you’re still talking to him?” Sullivan asked. “Better man than me.”
Rideout laughed. “Turns out he did me a favor.”
Jimmy nudged Rideout in the arm and hopped back into the vehicle.
Rideout went in after him, then Amanda and Trent. It was a tight squeeze, but they made it work. The ME and medic were on the victim’s right, Amanda and Trent on her left. Sullivan stayed outside and left the back doors open.
The deceased was on a stretcher, and Amanda’s chest ached at the sight of how young she looked. Was she even eighteen?
She had a round, cherubic face, and her hair was long and blond and fanned around her head like a halo. Her skin was a bluish gray from decomposition, but she’d had a fair complexion that would have stood in contrast to her black eye makeup. She didn’t appear to have even been touched by the fire.
She was clothed in a black, short-sleeved shirt with a crew neck, blue jeans, and a matching jean jacket. On its collar was a dragonfly pin. It was gold, about an inch and a half in height and two inches wide, and its wings were iridescent teals and purples. It seemed like quite a nice piece of jewelry for a person her age and contradicted the gold stud in her nostril.
Rideout leaned over the girl, angling his head left and right.
“Something you’re noticing?” Amanda asked him.
“She was doused with gasoline.” He paused his inspection and looked at Amanda with a sardonic smile. “I’m sure you can smell that.”
“Yes.”
“No evidence she was stabbed or shot that I can see. There is petechiae in her eyes.” He snapped on some gloves, pulled a camera from his bag, and took some pictures of her. Afterward, he returned the camera to the sack and grabbed a flashlight. He opened her mouth and shined the beam inside. “Some petechiae on her gums too. She was deprived of oxygen. What time was the fire believed to have been started?”
Amanda glanced over a shoulder at the marshal but answered for him. “We were told in the neighborhood of five thirty.”
Rideout studied the girl and looked at his wristwatch. “It’s eleven thirty now, and based on the amount of rigor present, and that it’s beginning in her face, I’d say somewhere between five and seven hours ago. Factoring in the estimated time that the fire began, I’d say she died anytime between four and five thirty this morning.”
“So before the fire?” Amanda couldn’t help but think that was a small mercy compared to being alive and suffering the excruciating pain of flames snacking on her flesh.
Rideout nodded. “Absolutely. I’m not seeing anything to make me assume she died due to the fire or from smoke inhalation.” He proceeded to lower the collar of her shirt and pointed to light bruising on her neck. “And I’m quite sure I just found out how she was starved of oxygen.”
“She was strangled to death,” Trent said.
“Well, at the very least, someone squeezed her neck pretty hard and cut off her air for a while.” Rideout turned off his flashlight and tucked it into a pocket.
She recalled how Sullivan had said that she and Trent were wired to think murder first, and he’d been correct. But the evidence in this case—coincidental or otherwise—was indeed stacking up in support of homicide. An abandoned house set on fire, this girl, presumably a runaway, doused with gasoline, bruising on her neck indicative of a chokehold… “So what is your initial response here? Are we looking at murder?”
Rideout glanced once more at the girl. “I’d say it’s quite likely given the circumstances, but before I rule manner and cause of death, I want her on an autopsy table.”
Trent tapped his pen against his notepad, and everyone looked at him.
Rideout arched his brows. “Penny for your thoughts?”
“Often fire is used to destroy the body and evidence…” Trent was starting to get a good rhythm going, mapping out his own musical beat. She put her hand over his to still his movements.
“Sorry,” he said.
“Don’t be, but what else? I have a feeling you have more to say…”
“Well, if that was the point here, why pour accelerant on her and then start the
fire elsewhere? Why not ensure that her body was destroyed?”
“Setting the fire where they had would have allowed the person time to get out.” It was Sullivan who suggested this; he must have overheard Trent’s question. “Remember I said it’s looking like a trail was leading straight to the stairs, likely to the room she was in, though I have yet to confirm that latter bit. But the person who set this fire might not have expected that we would arrive so quickly. Probably figured the fire had time to reach her. They might not have known that old houses burn slower. Also gasoline doesn’t burn as fast as people believe.”
Amanda turned her attention back to the medic and Rideout. “Is there any ID on her?”
Jimmy shook his head and responded. “No, I checked all her pockets after I pronounced. Sad, too, because the poor girl can’t be much more than sixteen.”
Amanda’s gaze fell upon the adolescent Jane Doe, her heart aching. Who are you, sweetheart?
Three
Amanda and Trent left Rideout and Jimmy. She took some deep breaths as she stepped out of the van. The outdoor air was still tainted with the smell of smoke, but it was a welcome relief from the gas fumes she’d been inhaling inside the vehicle for the last while.
She headed down the driveway and stepped through the gate into the backyard. A six-foot-tall privacy fence lined the property. The seclusion would make it easy for trespassers to go unnoticed.
“Sixteen,” Sullivan mumbled from behind her. She turned, and he appeared like he’d spent time in a boxing ring and had the wind knocked out of him.
“It’s always worse when it’s a kid.” Amanda’s own statement drilled an ache in her chest as her thoughts first went to her sweet, beautiful Lindsey, then to the young girls she’d rescued recently from a sex-trafficking ring.
“You’ve had cases like this before?” Sullivan asked.
Amanda glanced at Trent, back at Sullivan. Three months ago, she and her family’s tragedy had been regurgitated publicly—as well as the fact she’d saved those girls. It had made front-page news in the Prince William Times. She was surprised he hadn’t heard. Usually word got around in a small town.
“I have,” she eventually said, her throat tight and her mouth suddenly dry. The flashbacks were attempting to align into focus with color and clarity, but she refused to allow them to take hold. She squeezed the memories from mind; it was best they remain fuzzy. “Well, not exactly like this, but…”
“With young people?”
“Yeah.”
Trent cleared his throat and prompted Sullivan, “You said you had the info on the person who called nine-one-one.”
“Yeah, let me get that for you. It’s in my truck.”
They followed Sullivan to an SUV. He ducked in the passenger door and pulled a notebook out of the glove box. He flipped pages and said, “Shannon Fox.”
“Address?” Amanda asked.
“Six-oh-two.” He nudged his head, drawing their attention across the street and down a few houses.
They’d pay Fox a visit, but Amanda would prefer to hear the call first. “Thanks,” she told Sullivan and pulled out her business card and handed it to him. “Everything’s on there. Phone, email…”
Sullivan smiled and gave her his card from the front of his notebook. “I’ll get everything over once I get it compiled, Detective.”
“Thank you.” She started toward the sidewalk, turned, and shrugged. “Actually, if you wanted to send it in chunks that would work for me.”
He held up her card as if to show he’d heard her but didn’t make any promises.
She proceeded to take out her phone and, with it, captured pictures of the crowd across the street as discreetly as possible. She knew Sullivan had taken photos, too, but there could never be enough. “Sullivan mentioned there were a few mattresses upstairs. Sounds like more than Doe was squatting there—and that’s assuming she was.”
“You don’t think she was?”
“Too early to say yet. What I do want to know is where the other squatters are now.” She flicked a finger toward the gawkers. “Maybe one of them will know.”
“There has to be thirty people or so.”
“You have something better to do?” she deadpanned. His complexion was pale, and his mouth opened, shut, opened, shut. She smiled. “I’ll call in for backup to help, but we need to get started.”
“Sure.”
She motioned for him to get moving while she called Malone. “Hey, we need unis down here for canvassing and to question onlookers.”
“I’ll get on it.”
“Thanks, Sarge. Oh, could you also get me the recording of the nine-one-one call?”
“Consider it done.”
She thanked him again, hung up, pocketed her phone, and set off across the street. Trent was talking to an older man, but it was a man in his twenties who caught her eye. He was wearing a navy-blue hoodie and avoiding eye contact. She held up her badge. “Prince William County PD, Detective Steele.”
He was twitchy and kept looking at the ground. He was either high or nervous—maybe both.
“What’s your name?” She pulled her notepad from a back pocket. She often went back and forth between using an app on her phone to the old-school method of pen and paper.
“Simon.”
“Well, Simon, how long have you been standing here?” She pulled the pen out of the book’s coils.
“Dunno.”
“Since the fire started?”
He met her eyes now. “After I heard the sirens.”
“So since early this morning?”
“Yeah.” He glanced away again.
He must not have a job to get to during the day. “Do you live along here?” She pointed down the street with her pen.
“Next block over.” He pushed back his hoodie and revealed spiky, teal-colored hair. “I’m a light sleeper.”
“Can anyone confirm that you were at home and in bed before coming here?”
“My girlfriend, Cindy.” He looked around the crowd. “She just went to get us coffee.”
Amanda nodded. It would seem neither of them held a day job. “So why have you been here all this time? Do you like watching fires?” The comment Sullivan had made about firebugs loving to watch their creations wasn’t far from her mind.
“Not particularly. Suppose I’m still here because… well, someone died in there, right?” He swallowed roughly, his Adam’s apple heaving. “I watched the medic get the body from the firefighters, and now you’re here asking all these questions. Was the person murdered?”
“It’s an open investigation.” She was about to ask if he’d seen anyone around the house, particularly any squatters, when a woman called out Simon’s name.
She looked to be about the same age as Simon. She wore large dark-lensed sunglasses, and her hair was blond with teal highlights. To match her boyfriend’s hair? She stepped through the crowd holding two coffee cups. She handed one to Simon and, with a bit of a scowl, faced Amanda. “Who are you?”
“Detective Steele with Prince William County Police. And you are?”
“Cindy.”
“Where do you live?” Amanda asked.
Simon’s brow scrunched up. “I told you—”
Amanda held up a hand. “If Cindy could answer…”
“Just a block over.” Cindy slurped back some coffee.
“An address?”
Simon rattled it off, and Amanda noted it in her book, then looked at Cindy. “Where were you when you heard the sirens?”
“I just—”
Amanda leveled a glare at Simon, and he stopped talking. She wanted to hear Cindy’s response.
“In bed.” Cindy nestled into Simon’s side, and he put an arm around her.
“Are you familiar with the house at all, maybe the people who squatted here?” Amanda flicked a finger toward 532.
“Not really,” Cindy replied and put her lips to her coffee cup.
“You ever see anyone go into the house or aro
und it?”
She shook her head. “No reason. I mean, we don’t live on this street.”
“And you, Simon?”
“Nope.”
“All right, then. Before I leave, I’ll just need your full names and a number to reach you in case I have any more questions.”
“Sure.” Cindy provided the information, and Amanda recorded it in her notepad.
She left the young couple and went on to interview several more in the crowd. Most weren’t that interesting. Everyone was curious. One or two waxed philosophical on how all humankind was connected and thereby affected by the loss of anyone—stranger, friend, or foe.
When two uniformed officers arrived to assume responsibility for interviewing those in the crowd, Trent came over to her.
“I want to go speak with the immediate neighbors,” she said to him. “I want to hear firsthand if any of them witnessed any activity around that house.”
“You got it.”
She led the way to number 534, the house next to their crime scene, and knocked on the door.
“Hey!” a man called out.
Amanda and Trent turned, and a forty-something man with a bad comb-over was headed toward them. They held up their badges, and the man groaned.
“Detectives Steele and Stenson with the Prince William County PD,” Amanda said. “And you are?”
“Ted Dixon.”
“You live here, Mr. Dixon?” She jacked a thumb over her shoulder.
“Uh-huh.” He chewed on his bottom lip, and she expected to see blood drawn.
He was clearly uncomfortable, and she’d get to the root of why that was, but first she had some procedural questions to ask. “How long have you lived here?”
“Ah, five years.”
“Did you know your neighbors next door?”
“Not by name. But they’ve been gone a while now.”
Between the boarded windows and now this, she was really leaning toward the likelihood the bank had repossessed the property. “Was it a family or a couple or…?”
“Just a couple. Say, in their forties. No kids that I saw.”
“And when did they leave?”
Stolen Daughters Page 2