Darger thought of the burned turkey now as she looked down into the dumpster. Because that’s what the body looked like to her. A charred piece of meat.
“We’re sure the person was alive when they were set on fire?” she asked.
They hadn’t determined a sex yet. It was that bad.
Luck pointed to some outlines in the soot and charred areas inside the dumpster.
“The fire investigator said you can tell by the burn patterns here and here that he was moving around while he burned. Probably trying to climb out.”
“Jesus,” Darger said, her stomach feeling sour.
“The medical examiner will be able to confirm it once the autopsy is done, of course. If there’s smoke in the lungs, then we’ll be sure.”
She’d been to scenes with burned bodies, but in those cases, the person had already been dead before they were burned. The idea of someone being set on fire while alive was just… unimaginable.
Luck helped her climb down from the scaffolding the LAPD crime scene techs had erected outside of the dumpster. Two assistants from the medical examiner’s office waited nearby to assist with moving the body. They’d brought along a hydraulic lift, the kind hospitals used to move patients who lacked full mobility.
“How do you think he got them in there? The victim, I mean,” Darger asked, her gaze focused on the coroner’s assistant who was now climbing over the edge of the dumpster. There was a loud metallic thud as the man let himself drop to the bottom.
“Good question,” Luck said. “I would say he had them incapacitated and threw them in, but it’s too tall for even that.”
“If he has a pickup truck, he could have put the victim in the bed and backed up to the dumpster,” Darger mused, gauging the height of the metal container. “I bet he could have thrown them in that way. Or he had a weapon and forced them in.”
Luck shook his head.
“Can you imagine? Being forced to climb into that thing? And then this psycho starts pouring gas over you?”
Darger left the question unanswered. She watched one of the techs bagging the soda bottle the killer had left behind. Again. Wanting to claim this dark deed as his own.
To set a living, breathing person on fire, to watch them die so horribly and violently in front of you… that was quite a progression from setting a house fire. If he hadn’t technically been a serial killer when this all started, he surely was now. No doubt about that.
Chief Macklin stood a few yards away, phone pressed to his ear. Judging by the drawn expression on his face, whatever the person on the other end of the line was saying wasn’t good. He ended the call and beckoned the two agents.
“That was Chief Rubio with L.A. Fire. They’ve got a brush fire out in one of the canyons north of here.”
Darger’s already dark mood went a shade blacker. She closed her eyes and asked the inevitable question.
“Do they think it was set intentionally?”
“They traced the point of origin to a shed on an abandoned property. Not far from there, on the side of the road, they recovered a plastic bottle with gasoline residue.”
“Sure seems like he’s going on a tear,” Luck said, gesturing to the soot-smeared dumpster. “First this, now a brush fire?”
Darger rubbed her temple.
“It’s probably because everyone got out of The Blue Handkerchief alive. The fire isn’t enough anymore for him. He wants blood and death now.”
Eyes fixed on the body being hoisted from the dumpster via the hydraulic lift, the three of them spent a few seconds digesting that. What lengths would he go to now to ensure a body count? Darger wondered.
She turned away from the scene to face Chief Macklin.
“How bad is the brush fire?”
“They’ve got it under control for now. They’re lucky, really. It’s been a pretty still day. With something like this, the wind is what really wreaks havoc.” He wiped a hand across his brow. “I’ve scheduled another meeting for 1600 hours so we can present the latest details to the task force. The M.E. has promised to expedite the autopsy. I’m hopeful we’ll have an official cause of death and possibly an ID by then. And I’d like the task force to hear from you as well, Agent Darger.”
With a single nod of her head, she said, “I’ll be ready.”
* * *
Hours passed as they watched the scene being processed. The techs bustled about in their protective booties and gloves, bagging the evidence from in and around the dumpster.
“I hate this part,” Darger said, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “It feels like I’m just standing here, doing nothing.”
From behind his aviator sunglasses, Luck looked over at her.
“That’s because you are doing nothing.”
“Yeah well, I don’t like waiting.” She shook her head. “I mean, I get that this is how it has to work. The techs have to move carefully and methodically. And I’d rather they be slow than sloppy. But I wish I could wave a magic wand and have the scene fully processed. All the evidence bagged, logged, and ready to be analyzed.”
She felt Luck’s eyes on her.
“I’m whining, I know.” She nudged a pebbled with her toe. “I’ll shut up now.”
“What about your other two wishes?”
“What?”
“You wished for a magic wand that would process crime scenes in an instant. Pretty sure you get two more.”
Darger laughed.
“OK. Well, while I’m at it, I’d like a second wand that gets all our evidence through the lab at the blink of an eye.”
“Double-fisting the magic wands. A bold move.” Luck nodded, looking impressed. “And your third wish?”
She answered without hesitation.
“A pet unicorn,” she said. “Duh.”
Chapter 55
Darger spent the early afternoon helping canvas for witnesses with Luck. Unfortunately, the fire had taken place late at night, and this wasn’t an area known for its nightlife.
Which is why he’d chosen it, Darger thought bitterly.
The dumpster in question belonged to a floral supply warehouse, which closed at 4:30 PM. All of the employees were gone by five, hours before the fire had taken place.
The business next door to the floral supply was a designer jeans outlet store. Across the street, two wholesale fabric suppliers and a tailor. All of them closed by 6 PM. None of the workers they talked to had seen anything, because they simply hadn’t been there when there was anything to see.
To make matters worse, all of the businesses on the block had security cameras, but they were mainly located inside the buildings, with the exception of a single camera focused on the front entrance. The dumpster and the alley leading to it were well out of sight of any of the cameras.
The tailor had a TV on in his shop, and Darger couldn’t help but notice the local news snippet about the brush fire. Back outside, she searched for updates on her phone. She found a live L.A. newscast online and played the video.
“Reports from earlier today were all good news. The fire crews made excellent progress and believed they had the blaze firmly under control. Unfortunately, that all changed over the past two hours. Channel 2 News is getting word now that strong winds have moved into the area, feeding the fire and threatening that progress.”
A bird’s eye view of the fire showed a steep green hillside ablaze. The camera panned right, showing rows of houses clustered along a nearby ridge. A helicopter swung into view, dumping a load of water on one end of the flaming ravine.
“As of this moment, there have been no injuries reported, nor have any homes been lost. However, the Los Angeles County Fire Department has issued a tentative warning to residents of the Whitney Canyon area that they should be ready to evacuate their homes at a moment’s notice, should things take a turn for the worse.”
“That’s not good,” Luck said.
“No. Definitely not.”
By the time they’d finished canvassing t
he neighboring businesses, a large truck had arrived to pick up the dumpster. Darger spotted Captain Beck amongst a group of LAPD officers clustered not far from the dumpster-loading activity.
Seeing Beck reminded Darger of what the Captain had told her on the surveillance detail, about finding a string of old fires in the San Bernardino valley that fit the pattern. God, was that only yesterday? It felt like days had passed since then.
Darger made a mental note to address this at the task force meeting. The task force had been looking for more fires that fit the pattern, but they’d only been looking at the past five years. Beck had uncovered something by expanding the net, and they should do the same for all the localities. Because if he was setting fires as far back as eleven years ago, he hadn’t stopped in the interim. Darger was certain of it.
Waiting for a break in traffic, Darger and Luck crossed the street to join the group near the loading truck.
“I can’t believe they’re taking the whole kit and caboodle to the crime lab,” Beck said.
“Seems like overkill to me,” one of the unis said. “I figure he torched the guy and got the hell out of here. How much trace evidence could he leave behind?”
The mechanical winch on the back of the truck roared to life, whining as it cranked the chain that pulled the dumpster inch by inch onto the truck bed.
Luck crossed his arms.
“With a case this massive, I’m guessing the LAPD wants no stone left unturned.”
The breeze ran its fingers through Darger’s hair, blowing a strand across her mouth. She reached up and plucked it away, turning toward Beck.
“I didn’t expect to see you until the task force meeting.”
Beck hooked her thumbs into her gun belt.
“Well, I figured I ought to come down a little early and check out the new scene,” she said, eyes on the dumpster. “I have to admit, when you texted me last night to let me know there were no casualties in the bar fire, I’d thought we’d gotten off easy.”
“Me too,” Darger said. “You heard about the brush fire in Whitney Canyon?”
“Caught some of it on the news on the ride over. Is it our guy?”
“From the sound of it, yes.”
Beck shook her head.
“Shoot. I was worried we’d end up with something like this eventually. This time of year, you can’t ignite a spark without worrying it’ll turn into a beast of a wildfire. I guess it was only a matter of time.”
The dumpster landed on the back of the truck with a clang. The driver of the truck moved around the sides now, affixing a tarp over the top. The crime scene techs began breaking down their tent and packing up their kits.
Luck glanced at the watch on his wrist.
“We’ve got some time before the meeting. You guys want to grab some food?”
Darger realized she hadn’t eaten anything since the Egg McMuffin she scarfed on the drive to the scene this morning. Her stomach rumbled at the thought of food.
“I’m in,” Beck said.
“Me too.”
And then every phone in the vicinity seemed to go off at once. A cacophony of digital chimes and chirps. A burst of activity from the police radios added to the din.
Before Darger could get her phone out of her pocket, Luck was reading the text he’d received.
“Task force meeting canceled. All personnel should report immediately to Whitney Medical Center to assist with emergency evacuation efforts.”
Chapter 56
The Lexus rocketed down the winding canyon road — a tiny speck ripping along that gash of asphalt mankind had carved into the hills. Engine roaring. Speed climbing. Floor and dashboard vibrating along with the rising RPMs.
Rocky slopes stretched up on both sides at sharp angles. Steep and tufted here and there with chaparral. The scrub almost seemed to flicker like a strobe light as they tore past, branches flashing into view one second and gone the next. There and gone, and there and gone. Behind them in a blink. Forgotten.
As they zoomed deeper into the valley, the trees thickened along the sides of the road as though they were watching a time-lapse video of a woods forming, a dense forest taking shape where once there had been nothing. Thicker and thicker like green stubble filling in on the hillsides before swelling into a haggard beard.
Darger stared out into the gnarled oaks, peeking into the gaps to steal a glimpse, but she spotted no signs of the fire yet. No glow. No flicker. As the Lexus crested a small rise, she thought she could see smoke twirling up from the place where the road met the horizon, black tendrils undulating there, climbing into the sky, but it was hard to be certain in the waning light.
She gripped the handle on the passenger door, her stomach lurching along with the car’s movements — that strange weightless feeling in the center of her torso making her gut a touch nauseous. The road seemed to be growing rougher the further they got from the city. Pocked and weathered and crooked. They rocked up and down dips. Zipped around bends. Tilted as they took long banked curves that seemed to turn the world half sideways.
Luck hunched over the wheel, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. The cords in his neck stood out, flexing and adjusting every time he swallowed. He’d barely said a word since they’d gotten the call about evacuating the hospital.
Darger couldn’t help but think of Klootey’s earlier comments about the Lexus. If Luck were truly fussy or prissy about his car, there existed no signs of it now. They hit higher and higher speeds, undaunted by the twisting curves, completely unfazed by the rough patches in the road. The obstacles only seemed to make Luck jam on the accelerator harder, some jolt of frustration expressed through the ball of his foot.
For this moment, at least, he was a man possessed with one task — getting to the hospital no matter the cost.
Darger swallowed. Tried not to picture the fire even as she scanned their surroundings for it. She didn’t know why. It felt like it’d be bad luck to picture it, a jinx of some kind. Images of orange flicked into her skull, but the flashes were so tiny she couldn’t make much of them.
A wooden bridge took shape ahead of them now, an antique-looking thing, its angular sides rising up from the road like some flourish of detail in a Bob Ross painting. It looked like it should lead directly to a barn in 1890.
They moved onto the bridge, and the road under the Lexus changed all at once — the hum of the asphalt shifting to a lower pitch as they drove directly over beams of wood as thick as railroad ties. Darger could hear the tread of the tires abrading the different texture of road here, almost like the buzzing of electric shears. The vibration of it shook them in their seats.
And for a moment, the woods around them parted. Out on the bridge, a strange openness surrounded the Lexus, an endless abyss of sky held back only by the wooden frame of the bridge.
They rumbled over the bridge, jostling like crazy. Darger gripped the handhold on the door even tighter, knuckles quivering, and then the smooth ride came back as the normal road resumed beneath them. The sudden lack of vibration shocked at first, felt wrong.
Darger took a deep breath, realizing only afterward that she’d held it as they crossed the bridge. As she inhaled, she smelled it for the first time: smoke.
She looked at Luck, found him still locked in the same hunched position, eyebrows as creased as ever. Focused. Driven. Whatever happened from here, it felt good to have him at her side.
Again she gazed into the hills, trying to see something — anything — in the openings and finding nothing out of the ordinary. They had to be getting close if she could smell smoke.
The Lexus whined as they climbed another steep rise. Darger’s stomach sank as the car went up and up and up, the changing pressure somehow too much for her digestive system. It felt like something solid inside was weighing her down.
When the car finally reached the top of the ridge, she saw it.
The fire.
Flames raged on both sides of the road ahead — hateful orange overtaking this stretch o
f land. Ravaging brush. Devouring pine and oak and sycamore indiscriminately. Climbing the branches of even the tallest trees, some 100 feet or so off the ground.
Twirling. Flickering. Insane.
The fire would consume all that it touched here. Right away that was plain to see.
Luck grunted in the driver’s seat, and the sound brought Darger back to herself, back to the car. She turned to face him, expecting him to do the same, make some kind of eye contact with her, but he didn’t. His shoulders remained squared toward the road, eyes locked on the burning landscape up ahead.
The smoke enveloped them then, as dense as a thick fog. It darkened the sky, blotting out the last vestiges of daylight remaining in the day.
Darger had an urge to reach for Luck. To grasp his arm or take his hand in hers. It seemed embarrassing, like something a little kid would do.
The walls of orange grew closer, brighter, taller. The Lexus once again seemed to pick up speed, racing toward the place where the dark on the sides of the road gave way to the flare of burning.
She had to force herself to breathe, kept finding that she was instinctively holding her breath every time she stared into the flames, chest frozen, eyelids fluttering. She concentrated.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
It seemed so wrong. This much fire. This much loss. And to drive straight into it? Madness. But there was no other way. No choice.
At last, they crossed the threshold, the Lexus racing into the fire, into the gleam.
Immediately, Darger could feel the heat surrounding the car, something suffocating about it even with the asphalt keeping it at arm’s length for now. The fire made noise, too — an endless rumbling hiss, as though the fire let out one continuous breath.
Violet Darger (Book 6): Night On Fire Page 24