Fireproof

by Alex Kava

  Tully was quiet for a moment, looking around. “Maybe no one else notices them because they blend in.”

  She turned to examine the paths below and take another look at the travelers going in and out of the restrooms. That’s when the birds caught her eye.

  She hadn’t noticed them before. The angle of the setting sun transformed their circle above the trees into a halo, the tips of their black wings highlighted by brilliant yellows and oranges. She heard Tully’s intake of breath and she knew Tully saw them, too. And he was thinking exactly what she was.

  Without a word or a glance they started down across the parking lot, across the brown lawn, not even using the sidewalks. There were dirt paths going into the woods. They took the closest one. It narrowed immediately but Maggie kept going, ducking tree limbs and ignoring the dried brush that scraped her arms.

  Several hundred yards into the trees she could smell it. Rotting meat. Several days old. Not the pungent coppery smell of a fresh kill. Whatever had captured the birds’ attention had been dead for a few days.

  She looked up to the birds for direction. She slowed her pace so she wouldn’t lose her footing. Inside the canopy of trees the shadows of dusk threw off her depth perception. She looked for the birds, but what she saw stopped her dead in her tracks. Tully bumped into her.

  “What is it?”

  She pointed up into the branches of a huge maple that stood about seventy-five feet in front of them.

  This time she could hear Tully gasp, “Dear God.”

  Though they were dried now, Maggie could still recognize the streamers that decorated the lower branches. She wondered if she would have recognized them as easily without seeing the gutted body that lay at the base of the trunk.

  “What sick bastard have we found?”

  Immediately Maggie saw that the body didn’t include a head.

  “I think we may have found Zach Lester,” she said.

  CHAPTER 67

  Mutilations always caught Tully off guard. It didn’t matter how many he saw. He stood back and tried to make his lungs inhale despite the stink that already permeated the lining of his nostrils. He knew there was an initial shock, as if his eyes had to convince his brain that, yes, indeed, there were no limits to evil.

  Maggie moved forward already examining, analyzing, shifting smoothly into gear. She swatted blowflies, swarms so slow and unwilling to leave their treasure that she could knock them to the ground with a simple wave of her hand.

  Tully didn’t see any of the hesitation in her, none of the fear he had witnessed the other night at the warehouse fires. He kidded her once about becoming a specialist in dismembered bodies. The parts seemed to appear on cases she was assigned, whether in take-out containers, Mason jars, or fishing coolers.

  “Should we call the State Patrol guys to come back?”

  She squatted down about three feet away from the corpse, careful not to touch and even more careful where she stepped. She seemed so intent he didn’t think she had heard him. He looked down at the pine needles and soggy maple leaves, some embedded in the mud. He moved closer, keeping to the same path Maggie had used.

  “He crossed state lines,” she finally said. “And the interstate is federal property. Are the rest areas?”

  Tully had no idea.

  “Technically it’s our jurisdiction,” she said.

  He closed his eyes and let out a breath. Too many times law enforcement agencies fought over jurisdiction. He never understood it. Opening his eyes and following the trail of what was once Zach Lester’s intestines, Tully found himself wishing they could hand this off to someone, anyone, else.

  “The state of Virginia’s crime lab is top-notch,” he said, giving it another try.

  “One of the best,” Maggie agreed.

  He saw her glance at her watch as he pulled his cell phone from his jacket pocket.

  “Ganza should be able to get a unit out here in forty, forty-five minutes,” she said.

  Ganza. Tully bit back a response, not surprised that she’d choose to hand it over to their FBI crime lab. And it was probably a smart choice, even the correct choice. But it meant they’d be out here, stranded, until almost every last piece of evidence had been collected.

  Still, Tully made the phone call without question or comment.

  The whole time he talked to Ganza he watched Maggie. She had started taking pictures with her smartphone. A good move, considering there would be little sunlight by the time Ganza and his team made it to the scene.

  He slipped his phone back into his pocket, his fingers lingering. He wanted to call Gwen, the urge something fierce. Even though and maybe because she wasn’t expecting a call.

  Maggie stopped and Tully watched her slowly turn, taking in the surroundings as if for the first time really seeing them.

  “Do you think he killed Gloria Dobson here, too?”

  Tully listened now that his breathing had returned to normal and his heartbeat had settled. He couldn’t hear the interstate traffic. He couldn’t hear any traffic or car doors being slammed or voices calling to each other back at the parking lots. A breeze rustled branches overhead. The birds cawed and squawked at each other. If the killer had timed it right and no one had been at the rest area, these woods would have absorbed the victims’ screams.

  “Ganza should be able to figure that out,” Tully said.

  But as he looked around he wondered how difficult a job it would be. Outdoor crime scenes were always challenging and this one was days old, contaminated by the birds and other predators. Pools of blood that seeped into the ground would need to be dug up. Leaves and debris would have matted on top. The wind may have blown away fabric and hair.

  Tully remembered Gloria Dobson’s face—or rather what was left of it—in that dark alley. If pieces of her had been splattered and left here on the tree bark or stuck to blades of grass, Keith Ganza and his technicians would find it.

  “I don’t think he killed her here,” Maggie said. “It’d be too far to drag her body back. He had to take her someplace where he could bring a vehicle close.”

  “Maybe she didn’t make it this far into the woods.”

  He tried to imagine a pursuit and found himself looking for broken branches, skid marks in the mud, a drag line. He remembered it had rained the other night, not hard but enough to disrupt evidence. Did it rain here, too?

  He glanced at Maggie and saw she was thinking along the same lines. She was scanning the path they had taken.

  “Why would he take on two? And how was he able to do it? Did he plan it or was it an impulse that got terribly out of hand?”

  “Either way, we’re dealing with one sick bastard.”

  Maggie stared up at the streamers of intestines. Ripped and ravished by the birds, they still looked to Tully too much like human guts. The large intestine retained its dark red color, the small a grayish purple.

  “The average small intestine is twenty feet long,” Maggie said, and he knew she wasn’t spouting off trivia. Then she added exactly what Tully was thinking. “He’s done this before.”

  Tully took three steps for a closer look. He agreed. The streamers were intertwined on the low branches of the maple tree like someone would hang a strand of lights on a Christmas tree. It took some time and effort and expertise. This wasn’t the chaotic frenzy of a madman, ripping and tossing.

  Maggie’s phone started ringing. She glanced at the caller ID and answered, saying, “You’re not going to believe what we found.”

  But the person interrupted her and Maggie went quiet, listening, her eyes darting around before settling on Tully.

  After a few seconds she whispered, “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  CHAPTER 68

  Cornell had talked them into holding him another night in jail. He insisted he had some valuable information for Agent Tully. Only problem was that Agent Tully, he was told, was out of town and couldn’t talk to him until Monday morning.

  What a shame. What a lucky s
hame.

  The wafer-thin cot was softer than the pavement and a blanket—hell, he didn’t even need a blanket it was so much warmer in the holding cell. He tried his best to not let them know that this inconvenience was like a vacation. Although not quite a vacation. He missed not having a shot or two of whiskey. And the headache was not a picnic, but the food was lukewarm and he even got a couple rec hours in the TV room.

  It had been so long since he’d watched TV he didn’t recognize any of the celebrities or pundits. Though Cornell had never been much interested. Reality shows—what a bore.

  Tonight a thin, washed-out druggie had control of the remote and Cornell knew not to challenge the man. Glassy-eyed and leather-skinned, this guy looked like he had climbed out of a Zombies-R-Us ad. And for some reason the guy appeared fascinated by cable news. No channel surfing, no checking sports scores or weather.

  The next show was supposed to have a feature on the fires and that caught Cornell’s attention. So he sat patiently. What else did he have to do? Oh, that was another thing—the drug zombie kept the volume to a whisper, so Cornell spent most of his time reading the crap at the bottom of the screen.

  He pulled up the chair closer to the TV just as an interview started. Two men were identified at the bottom of the screen as Jeffery Cole, journalist, and Wes Harper, private firefighter for Braxton Protection Agency. Cornell was so busy reading, it took him a minute to look at the two guys and when he did he couldn’t believe it. Without a doubt he recognized the guy from the alley. The guy who had poured the gasoline.

  CHAPTER 69

  Maggie had turned down Tully’s offer to drive her to the hospital. Someone needed to wait and secure the crime scene until Ganza’s crew got there. Besides, it wasn’t the first time her mother had attempted suicide. In fact, Maggie had lost track of how many times Kathleen O’Dell had tried to kill herself.

  The first time it was sleeping pills. Then pills and alcohol. Five years ago when Maggie was in Nebraska, working a case, Kathleen decided to use a razor blade for a change of pace. Her therapist at the time called the cuts hesitation marks. After all, if she was really serious she would have cut vertically, slicing the veins open instead of across.

  It had been three years since her last attempt. Julia Racine had been there that time, too. At a restroom sink in a Cleveland park, just before a rally for a religious organization.

  Later Maggie asked Racine what it was that she said to convince her mother to stop. Racine told her, “I said I was already in a shitload of trouble with her daughter and maybe she could give me a break.” Of course Kathleen had laughed at that. She could relate. For the last twenty years she had felt like she was in a shitload of trouble with Maggie, too, because she had constantly let her down.

  Maggie realized that ever since her father’s death, her mother had exchanged and swapped out her addictions like they were fashion trends, from Johnnie Walker to Valium to sex, then religion and health food and back to Johnnie Walker. The other day when Maggie walked in on her mother trying to get rid of Patrick, she recognized the signs that her mother was drinking again without needing to smell it on her breath.

  When Maggie finally got to the hospital, a nurse in the ER directed her to intensive care. In intensive care a unit secretary told her she’d need to wait for the doctor and pointed out a lounge at the end of the hall. In the lounge, Maggie found Julia Racine.

  Her sweatshirt had so much blood on it that Maggie thought Racine had been injured, too. Even when she realized it all belonged to her mother, when Racine looked up, Maggie asked, “Are you okay?”

  It was the first time she had caught Racine speechless. The younger woman simply nodded and ran her fingers through her hair, leaving it more spiked than usual.

  She shrugged and said, “I hate hospitals.”

  CHAPTER 70

  Sam knew she had done the right thing, telling Agent O’Dell and Patrick about Wes Harper. After Jeffery’s fit in her driveway last night something still nagged at her. Especially after she listened to a couple of his voice messages. The time stamps with him asking her to meet him at the shop fires last night were long before Sam heard the sirens while at the restaurant. How did Jeffery always know so far in advance?

  After her mother and Iggy were in bed, Sam had plugged in the tape from the warehouse fires and started reviewing the footage, wanting to make sure it was Wes Harper in the crowd. That’s when it all seemed to come together. Harper was the firefly, and somehow he’d been getting messages to Jeffery. Maybe Jeffery didn’t even know it was Harper. Whatever was going on between the two of them, Sam was glad she’d shared the film footage with Agent O’Dell.

  She wasn’t sure why she didn’t tell Jeffery about Harper. Even when he called her, excited—saying they were “back in the saddle,” was how he put it. He had managed to get an exclusive interview with someone who Jeffery said had intimate details about the fires.

  This “someone” wanted to meet Jeffery in a remote place, “a safe house” was what Jeffery called it. And he was willing to go on camera, but only with Jeffery and Sam present. No one else. Jeffery said he wouldn’t even give him the address until they arrived at the location where he insisted they leave their cars.

  Sam was certain Jeffery’s “someone” was Wes Harper. And as she drove and started seeing familiar territory, she wasn’t surprised at his choice of meeting place.

  Although she arrived early, Jeffery was already parked exactly where he’d instructed her. When she pulled her car up behind his SUV, he had the liftgate up but he was in the backseat. It looked like he was changing his shoes. He was in shirtsleeves, rolling them down and buttoning his collar.

  As she got out of her car, he stuck a hand out the door to wave his acknowledgment. She pulled out her shoulder bag and waited at the front of her car. When he stepped out of his vehicle, he still didn’t even have a tie on yet and she saw him unzipping a garment bag. Why had he waited to get dressed out here?

  With the SUV parked right under a lamppost and with the liftgate open, she could see the mess inside. It looked like he had, at least, put down black trash bags to line the inside of the trunk space. Evidently he had spent the weekend doing some yard work, gathering up his recyclables, and washing his SUV. He had several stacks of newspapers, aluminum canisters, the jug of pool cleaner Sam had noticed the other day, a pile of old rags, and a red five-gallon can of gasoline.

  Funny, she hadn’t thought of Jeffery as doing those kinds of household chores, but it made sense. The man was so picky he’d never find anyone to do the job to his satisfaction.

  “I’ve got the address,” he told her, holding up a piece of paper. “It’s only about two blocks from here.”

  The day had been sunny but the night was crisp. The walk would be no problem but Jeffery seemed out of breath already. As they got closer to the meeting house, Sam realized why Wes Harper had picked this spot. Patrick had said Harper had asked about his sister. Now Sam realized it had probably been more than a casual inquiry. Was Harper the man in the ball cap Sam had seen stalking Agent O’Dell’s house that night in the rain?

  The homes in this neighborhood were on one- to two-acre lots, treed lots with huge pines that offered enough privacy that Sam couldn’t really see O’Dell’s house, though she knew it was right next door.

  CHAPTER 71

  Maggie sat on the sofa next to Racine, leaning forward, elbows on her knees, her body tense, nerves twisted, head pounding.

  “Hospitals remind you of your mother,” Maggie said, and Racine nodded again, staring at the muted television in the opposite corner.

  Maggie tried to remember what kind of cancer had taken Julia’s mother from her when she was nine or ten. She did remember that the woman had died in a hospital.

  “I don’t understand why she called me,” Racine said, almost in a whisper, all the typical smart-ass wisecracks tucked away. This was Racine raw, unguarded, her defense barrier destroyed by exhaustion and perhaps a bit of shock, though Ma
ggie knew she’d never admit it.

  “Because she knew you’d call me” was Maggie’s only response.

  She wasn’t sure she understood why her mother did what she did, let alone could she explain it to someone else.

  “There was so much blood.” Again a quiet, calm tone. “I beat the frickin’ ambulance there. I tried to clamp her wrists with my hands. Then I tried to use hand towels as tourniquets.”

  Racine was staring at her hands like she could still see the blood, though it had obviously been washed off. Maggie understood the shock of it—someone you know. Her blood still warm and splattered on your skin, your clothes. Both she and Racine had witnessed countless bloody murder scenes, and yet nothing prepared you for finding someone you knew—a colleague, a friend, a family member. Nothing prepared you for that moment, that helpless feeling.

  “I remember the first time I found her,” Maggie said, elbows still on each knee, but now her chin rested in her hands, her pounding head suddenly heavy. “She had just taken a bunch of pills and washed them down with vodka. I didn’t know what was wrong with her. She was unconscious on her bed. One side of her face was caked with vomit. I’m not sure how I even knew to call 911.”

  With little coaxing that night could come back to her as vivid as if it were last week, and Maggie didn’t want to revisit it just now. Nor did she want to tell Racine all the details. Like the fact that it wasn’t her mother’s first attempt and she wasn’t alone. One of her male friends practically knocked Maggie over trying to leave their apartment. He hadn’t called 911 or considered the fact that Maggie was only fourteen. Some things were better left hidden in the dark corners where they belonged.