Flashpoint

by Lynn Hightower

  He was the kind of guy who watched football games, the kind of guy you’d call if you heard a noise late at night—breathtakingly normal in a world full of nuts. He and Sonora had been partners for five years.

  “Hey, Sam.”

  “’Bout time you got out here, girl.”

  “You smell like smoke.”

  “You look like hell. How is he?”

  Sonora grimaced.

  “Dead, huh?”

  She nodded. “Twenty-two-year-old college kid from Kentucky. Your neck of the woods. Probably one of your cousins. You’re all related down there, aren’t you?”

  “He talk to you?”

  “Had to do it around a respirator. Yes or no questions.”

  Sam nodded. Looking grim.

  “Killer was a woman,” Sonora said!

  “No shit?”

  “Blond, I think brown eyes, but he died on me there, so I’m not sure. Young, between twenty-five and thirty.”

  “Prostitute?”

  “Said not. If I got this straight, he met her last night. Probably in a bar. The brother said he was on his way to Gujo’s when they split.”

  Sam frowned. “Why’d they separate?”

  “Brother had to go to work early.”

  “Cujo’s, huh?”

  “Place in Mount Adams.”

  “La-di-da.”

  “Hey. Not every bar has to be full of cowboys.”

  “Don’t let your brother hear you say that.”

  Sonora gave him a half smile.

  “Here, Mickey, give her the grand tour.”

  A short man, arms thickly muscled, came out from under the blackened hood of the car. Sonora looked in the side window at the gutted interior of what used to be a Cutlass.

  “Rolling firetrap, otherwise known as an automobile.” Mickey wore a blue jacket that said ARSON on the back, heavy fire boots on his feet.

  Sonora took a speculative sniff. “Know what the accelerant was?”

  “Gasoline. We’ll test it again in the lab. I got a sample.” He pointed to a charred piece of fabric under the gas pedal that had been peeled up, exposing ridges in the metal of the floorboard. “Had some liquid accumulate, in the grooves there, so we can back it in court. Fire burned hot, and the explosion busted the windshield front and back.”

  “Explosion?”

  “Sure. Gasoline, right? Fire melted the glass. But everything inside’s plastic, which means petroleum, which means inferno. Pretty good roast.”

  “God. Is that what I smell?”

  Sam said, “Burnt flesh. Pretty distinctive.”

  Sonora thought of the frozen sirloin tip in her freezer at home. Maybe it would stay there awhile.

  Mickey moved to the front of the car, walking like it hurt. He’d been a fireman on the hose until he’d fallen in a hole fighting a fire after dark, slipping a disk in his back. Most of the firemen Sonora knew didn’t get hurt fighting the fires; they just creamed their backs lugging equipment, or falling down in the dark.

  Mickey pointed under the hood. His gloves were thick, soot stained.

  “I double-checked the fuel pump, carburetor, wiring. Pretty clear.”

  Sonora wondered what was clear.

  “Fan belt’s burned, we got melted lead from the radiator.” He looked up at her. “I see under the hood fascinates you not.”

  “It all fascinates me,” Sonora said.

  “Don’t take it personal. She looks grumpy because her tummy hurts,” Sam said.

  Mickey rubbed his eye with the back of his arm. “Still plenty of gas in the tank.”

  “Didn’t it burn in the fire?” Sonora said.

  Sam grinned. “I said the same thing.”

  “Gasoline isn’t all that flammable,” Mickey said. “It’s a stupid thing to set fires with. Volatile. Got to get the oxygen mix right or it can blow up in your face. Most of the arsonists I’ve seen who use gasoline usually blow themselves to pieces. On the other hand, you can throw a match in a puddle of gasoline and get nothing. There’s better things to use.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” Sonora said.

  “Fire didn’t really get to the tank. And unlike what you see on TV, the tank isn’t necessarily going to explode. ’Less you’re driving a Pinto or being filmed by NBC.”

  “You think the killer could have used the gas in the tank to start the fire?”

  “I’m saying it’s a good possibility. Plenty of gas there. And thing is, we got melted plastic on the ground right by the gas tank. I’m thinking tubing for a siphon.” Sonora looked at Sam.

  Mickey waved a hand. “Tell you what else. We got residue inside and ash outside of some kind of rope or clothesline.”

  “Tell me you’ve got a knot.”

  Sam shook his head. “We don’t got a knot.”

  “Looks like he used it as a wick, lit it from outside the car, had it tied somewhere on the driver’s side—”

  “Tied to Daniels,” Sam said.

  Mickey nodded. “Makes sense.” He pointed to the melted steering wheel. “Fire started there. See the bulb in the overhead light?”

  Sonora looked up. The bulb was miraculously intact. The bottom had melted to a point that aimed toward the driver’s side. She stared at it a long moment, but Mickey was impatient, directing her attention to the mangled springs on the driver’s side of the car.

  “Point of origin. Burned the longest and hottest right there. See that?”

  Two gnarled, fused loops of metal hung from the wadded steering wheel.

  “Handcuffs, carbonized now.”

  Sonora bit her lip. Thought of Mark Daniels’s hands turned to ash, the gnarled infant fist, the white of bone.

  “You sure enough to prove it to a jury?”

  “Easy. You come to the scene and see what is. I see what was.”

  “Everything on video?”

  “SOP.”

  Sonora looked at the mess of ash and foam in the front of the car. “Too bad you guys always fuck up the scene.”

  “Yeah, firefighters are such bastards. Think their job is to put the fire out.”

  Sam put a cigarette in his mouth, studying the inside of the car with a quiet focus that worked wonders in the interrogation room as well as on women.

  Sonora folded her arms, faced Mickey. “By the way. You’ve been saying he. It’s she.”

  Mickey looked at her. “A woman did this?”

  “Surprised, huh?”

  He shrugged. “As I think about it, no. I been married long enough.”

  Sam took the unlit cigarette from his mouth and rolled it between thick, callused fingers.

  “Don’t smoke in my crime scene,” Sonora said.

  “Your crime scene? I haven’t lit it, Sonora, I’m just tasting the tobacco. There’s the sergeant. Looks like you’re wanted, girl.”

  “Wait a second. Terry?”

  A woman in a jumpsuit came out of the brush, about a hundred yards from the car. She had long black hair, carelessly tied back, broad cheekbones that bespoke American Indian descent. She wore black-rimmed cat glasses and moved in the kind of preoccupied, absentminded fog that Sonora associated with college professors with research grants.

  She looked at Sonora and blinked. “Footprint.”

  Sonora felt a twinge of excitement at the base of her spine. “You have a footprint?”

  Terry pushed her glasses up on her nose, leaving a streak of dirt on her forehead. “Small though. A woman in high heels. Which is odd, out here in the woods. Was there anybody with this guy?”

  “His killer,” Sonora said.

  5

  Around the department they called Sergeant Crick the bulldog.

  He crooked his finger at Sonora, crossed hamlike arms across a barrel chest—a Buddha with attitude. He leaned against his dark blue Dodge Aries, department issue, and he didn’t look happy. He was built like a boxer gone to fat, his face seamy, red, and unpleasant enough that there was speculation that early in his career he’d been hit full in
the face with a shovel. Rumor had it he worked in his church nursery whenever he had a Sunday free. People were known to wonder if he scared the babies.

  Loosen your tie, Sonora thought. Your disposition will improve.

  “Tell me you got a deathbed ID, Blair.” Crick’s voice was deep, as expected from the look of him, surprisingly pleasant when he made the effort. In his off time, he sang in a barbershop quartet.

  Sonora leaned against Sam. “Killer was a woman, Caucasian, blond hair, maybe brown eyes. Young, twenty-five to thirty. Someone Daniels met tonight. He was last seen heading to a bar called Cujo’s, according to his brother. The brother owns the car, by the way.”

  “Has the brother’s car, but the brother doesn’t go with him? I don’t like that.”

  Sam stepped backward in mock surprise. “Come on now, Sergeant. I’ve known guys that would kill their brother, but not if it meant trashing their car.”

  Sonora continued, “Terry has a footprint. Setting it in moulage as we speak.”

  “Good.” Crick scratched the end of his nose. “Cujo’s, huh? Stupid name for a bar.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Delarosa?”

  Sam straightened. “Victim was handcuffed, naked, to the steering wheel of the car.”

  “You sure he was naked?”

  “The guys that pulled him out thought so. And I asked Mickey. No sign of burned fabric stuck to the seat. No belt buckle, grommets, or burned rubber from shoes. I don’t know where this guy’s clothes are, but it doesn’t look like they’re in the car.”

  “Interesting. Go on.”

  “Fragments of rope or clothesline outside the car. Mickey thinks she tied him up, looped the rope or whatever through the steering wheel and around Daniels, then stood outside the car and got it going. Looks like the accelerant was gasoline—it’s possible she got it from the tank of the car. He also said he found a small melted lump he thinks is a key. A small key.”

  “Safe-deposit box? Locker?”

  Sam shrugged. “Anything’s possible.”

  “Find the car keys?” Crick asked.

  “Nothing yet. But the car is still full of hot spots and slush. So they may be there, just not in the obvious place.”

  Sonora looked at Sam. “She’s not going to leave the keys in the ignition with him in the driver’s seat. Even handcuffed, he might be able to get the engine going or something.”

  Sam nodded. “Anyway, she cuffs him to the wheel, ties the rope around his waist. Douses him with gasoline. The rope is about six feet out of the car, which is where she is, otherwise she’s going to blow herself up. Windows are open, plenty of oxygen. She lights the end of the rope, so Daniels gets to sit in there and watch that fire coming at him. Then, boom, the car bursts into flame.”

  Sonora scratched her chin. “The footprint is small. Woman wearing high heels. So where did she go, in shoes like that? How fast could she move?”

  “Maybe she changed them,” Sam said.

  Sonora nodded. “I wonder if her car was parked here. We need to search the park, do a neighborhood canvass.”

  Crick was nodding. “I’ve got uniforms in the woods and officers coming in.”

  “Any witnesses?”

  “Not a one. The call that came in was anonymous, guy used the pay phone at the front entrance.”

  “Man or woman?” Sonora asked.

  “Man.” Crick looked at her, then at Sam, and pulled the lobe of his ear. “We’ll get you manpower on this. I’ll cover the canvass here. Get out to that bar, the two of you. Likely Daniels picked her up there.”

  Sonora pursed her lips. “Yeah, right. Next you’ll be telling me he wore his jeans too tight and had his shirt unbuttoned to his waist.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Who picked up who, Sergeant? She’s got handcuffs, rope, and, for my money, a getaway car. We’re not talking date rape and revenge, are we? This woman was looking for trouble. This woman was hunting him.”

  Sonora winced. The ulcer said hello with a pain that was a little like hunger pangs, with an overlay of just pangs.

  She looked at Sam. “Leave my car here and you drive.”

  Sam reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out an envelope of Red Man, and stuffed a wad of loose tobacco into his cheek.

  “You look deformed when you do that. Like there’s a tumor on your cheek.”

  Sam shifted sideways in the driver’s seat, dove back into the jacket pocket, and came up with a crumpled cylinder of paper and cellophane that had pictures of tiny strawberries on the front. He pitched the packet into Sonora’s lap.

  “Feed your ulcer.”

  “The less I eat the worse I feel, but the worse I feel the less I want.”

  “You lost me there.” Sam started the car, did a U-turn, headed out of the park.

  Sonora unpeeled the wrapper, stripped the dried fruit off the plastic, and rolled it into a tube. “Since when did you start eating fruit roll-ups?”

  “I keep them for Annie, she loves ’em. Trying to see if I can get her to pick up a little weight.”

  “I thought she’d added a pound or two, last time I saw her. That was what, two weeks ago?”

  Sam didn’t smile, but there was warmth in his eyes, as if he appreciated the effort. Annie at seven was small for her age, and thin enough to break her daddy’s heart. She’d been diagnosed with leukemia a month after she’d started kindergarten, about the time Sam had been headfirst in a special investigation he only told Sonora about on stakeouts, or after several drinks. He hadn’t played ball with somebody special, and he was going to have to like his rating exactly where it was. He’d never see another promotion. If Crick hadn’t gone to bat for him, he’d have lost his job.

  “So how is Annie?”

  “Tires too easily. Shel’s worried and so am I. She’s dropping weight she can’t afford, and her white blood count is up.” Sam spit tobacco out the window. “No little girl should have circles under her eyes like Annie does.”

  Sonora studied her partner, seeing new lines on the tired face. The last two years had been rough ones—trying to hold on to his job and his little girl.

  “She’s cranky as hell.”

  “Annie? Or Shel?”

  “Both. Eat your roll-up.”

  Sonora wadded what was left of fruit, corn syrup, and mysterious chemicals into a chewy red ball. Sam eased the car to a stop, waiting at a red light, staring moodily out the window.

  “Killer’s a woman, huh?”

  “Yeah, and it isn’t her first time,” Sonora said.

  Sam spit tobacco out the window, a stream of dirty brown juice. “The patrol car must have just missed her. I wonder if they saw anything.”

  “I talked to the guy who got there second. He didn’t see anything but the fire. And the first guy—Minner. He was trying to pull Mark Daniels out of the car. But it’s worth checking. He was still unconscious when I left the hospital.”

  Sam looked at her. “What do you mean, this isn’t her first time? The killer?”

  “Well planned, perfectly executed.”

  “We just haven’t poked in the holes.”

  “So far so good, okay? Pretty bold, pretty efficient. We’re not talking virgin killer, we’re talking pro.”

  “Like a hit?”

  “Idiot. No, not like a hit. Like loving care. Like somebody who’s enjoying what they do.”

  “Like some kind of psychopathic serial killer.”

  “Gosh, no, I think some normal person burned Daniels up.”

  “You said a woman.”

  “Women can be serial killers.”

  “Why sure, Sonora, I bet your mama raised you up to be anything you want. There are still about as many women serial killers as there are women CEOs.”

  “You think there’s some kind of glass ceiling for murderers? I’m putting it out on the system, Sam. See if there’s been something similar, another jurisdiction.”

  “I say we look at the brother and the
wife.”

  “No wife, but a girlfriend. The brother, no. I don’t think so.”

  “Okay, Sonora, consider the girlfriend. Or a prostitute. Think S and M, going a little too far.”

  “I’ll say. You know what worries me?”

  “I know three things that worry you. Car repairs, college tuition, and orthodontists.”

  “Those terrify me, I’m talking worry. About the case. I’d like it if Mickey found some melted lump and said car keys.”

  “He might.”

  “She took the clothes, she’d probably take the keys. Which means Keaton Daniels’s keys. Car keys. Probably house keys.”

  “What can she tell from a key?”

  “She could have grabbed the car registration.”

  “You might let the brother know.”

  “I might at that. While I’m at it, I can warn him to leave the tight jeans at home and keep his shirt buttoned up.”

  “I’m trying to remember if you were this bitchy before the ulcer.”

  6

  They were halfway to Mount Adams when Sonora’s cellular phone rang. “Bet Heather missed the bus,” she muttered. “Hello? Hi, Shelly. You, Sam, your wife.”

  He held his hand out.

  Sonora glanced out the window. Wondered why two teenagers were walking so close behind an old man with a briefcase, and not in school. The man turned, suddenly, and told the kids to catch up.

  Sam tromped the accelerator jerkily, then hit the brakes, barely pausing at a stop sign. “No, Shelly, I wish I could, but we caught ourselves a hot one. Can you put her on?” His shoulders were tense, his voice tired. Someone honked; he didn’t seem to notice. “I see. I’m sorry. Tell her I love her and do what you can. She’ll get through it.”

  Sam handed Sonora the phone, and she pressed the end button because he always forgot to.

  “What is it?” Sonora said.

  “Doctor wants Annie back in for some tests and she’s having hysterics. Blood work, needles, et cetera.”

  “Sorry, Sam.”

  “Shoot, last week when we drove by the hospital on the way to take her to see a movie? Honest to God, she threw up in the truck, just from the bad associations.”

  Sonora looked out the window. “You better go.”