by Lyle Howard
“What did he mean by that?” the rookie persisted. Ortiz’s face had turned cherry red and her eyes were bloated and glassy from gagging on air. With a wave of her hand and a patting of her stomach, she pleaded for Muller to drop the subject before he and his shirt both regretted it.
Lance pulled out a chair and put his arm around Felicia’s shoulder. “Are you going to be okay?”
Ortiz drew in a long slow breath and tried to keep her convulsions restrained. “God, Lance, you really shouldn’t have done that to me. I thought I was going to pee my pants!”
Muller sneered. “I really wish someone would tell me what he meant by that!”
Lance reached across the table to shake Muller’s hand.
“It’s a private joke, Brandon. Forget about it.”
Muller extended his hand and the two men’s grips interlocked. The rookie had never felt a grasp like Cutter’s. It was a bear trap.
Lance unbuttoned his shirt pocket and pulled out a small note-pad and pen. “I’m gonna take some notes. Is that okay?”
Muller rubbed his aching hand. “I don’t care.”
“Fine by me,” Ortiz added. Julie smiled like a schoolgirl with her first crush.
“The call from central came in at what time?” Lance began.
“Don’t you have that in the logs?” Muller asked.
Lance glared at the rookie. “Does it look like I’m carrying the log books around with me?”
“Around lunchtime,” Ortiz said.
“It was right after lunch,” Julie corrected her.
“Oh yeah, we had just finished cleaning up in here. About ten of one.”
Lance jotted down the time. “So what were your first impressions when you arrived on the scene?”
“When we arrived,” Ortiz elaborated, “the corpse was still smoldering. One of the bank employees had already doused the flames with a fire extinguisher.”
“He was burned to a crisp.” Chapman added. “As a matter of fact,” Muller said, “it wasn’t until the bank president said something to us that we realized that there was also a small animal involved.”
Lance looked up from his note-pad. “The burned animal is still a big question in the investigation.”
Muller made a painful face. “Burned? Are you kidding me? I couldn’t tell where the dog ended and the victim started! Their bodies had melded together into one smoking, charred mass of epidermis and bones. Am I right, girls?”
Julie put down her fork and Ortiz pushed her fruit salad away from her. Suddenly, the thought of eating repulsed them.
Lance sat thoughtfully, trying to imagine the carnage. “What about the smoke? Your report said someone passed out from it?”
Julie nodded. “One of the tellers who attempted to put out the fire passed out from the fumes. I think the toxic vapors came from the victim’s chair. The batting inside the seat was the culprit that generated the poisonous fumes. It happens all the time to people who fall asleep on their sofas and leave cigarettes burning. The fumes usually get to them before the fire does.”
Lance concurred with that appraisal of the smoke. All too often the victims of a fire are overcome by noxious vapors before the actual flames ever have a chance to become deadly. “Did any of you find a trigger for the fire? Anything that might have started it?”
Ortiz shook her head. “I don’t even think there was an ashtray on the victim’s desk. Do either of you remember seeing anything?”
Muller scratched the back of his neck. “The bank president said that the victim was a model employee. He never drank or smoked.”
Chapman chimed in. “But one of the tellers said the guy was a loner and that no one at the bank really cared for him.”
Lance underlined that comment after he wrote it down. “So the victim came back from lunch, sat down at his desk, put a puppy on his lap, and burst into flames.” Lance shook his head incredulously. “How is that possible?”
Muller’s eyes narrowed and he pointed his finger at Lance. “I knew this was coming.”
Lance looked at him. “Knew what was coming?”
Muller leaned forward so that his voice wouldn’t carry beyond the immediate company. “You think that these people ignited spontaneously, don’t you?”
Lance glanced over at Julie who was waiting for his reaction. “It’s a possible hypothesis.”
Muller leaned back in his chair and tossed his fork at his plate of half-eaten fruit. “Oh, come on now! That’s bullshit! There’s no proof that it can happen to human beings! Paint rags, maybe … but not people. You’ll never get me to believe it!”
Lance turned to Julie but she averted his gaze. “Well, then, let me hear your ideas, Brandon!”
Muller picked up his fork and began tapping the handle on the edge of the table. “What about the pet carriers? Have you checked them out for flammable liquids?”
Lance looked annoyed. “What do you think? That was the first thing we checked. All we found in both carriers was a towel that was drenched in ordinary tap water. Nothing incendiary. So what’s your next big idea, rookie?”
Ortiz jumped in to calm the growing tension at the table. “How about the animals themselves?”
Lance looked at Felicia curiously. “The bank victim’s secretary said that the carrier arrived during the lunch break. No one saw who delivered it because lunchtime is the busiest part of the day in any bank.”
Ortiz was thinking of a different angle. “No, I meant that maybe it was something inside the animals.”
Julie made a sour face. “You think that someone’s making firebombs out of cuddly little puppies and cats? That’s sick!”
Ortiz held up her hands in submission. “I didn’t say that. Heck, I don’t even know if it’s possible. Maybe you should speak to someone at Animal Control.”
Lance squirmed in his chair at the abhorrent concept of exploding pets. “The thought crossed our minds, too, but after we performed an autopsy on the dog and cat in question, we found nothing internally that could have caused the fire.”
Chapman pouted. “This is so bizarre!”
Lance closed his notebook. “Once might be bizarre, but we think that twice is homicide.”
“If it is murder,” Ortiz asked, “how are they doing it, and what would be the possible motivation? Both victims are so unrelated that it’s staggering!”
Lance clicked his pen shut and slid it back into his pocket. “I have to agree with you that both victims are like night and day. The only common factor was the animals and pet carriers that each received moments before they went up in flames.”
Brandon Muller looked at his watch and then pushed away from the table and stood up to leave. “Well, I hate to depart this enlightening discussion, but it seems to me that nothing is getting accomplished here.”
Lance stood as well and held out his hand in a gesture of friendship. One look at the inspector’s mechanism of torture and Muller slipped his hand securely into his pants’ pocket.
“If you think of any thing… anything at all, will you contact me?” Lance asked.
Muller nodded. “Sure thing, Inspector.” Then he smiled at Chapman and Ortiz. “Thanks for the grub, Felicia. I’ll see you both on Friday?”
His fellow workers waved goodbye. Lance sat back down and watched as Muller walked away.
“I’m not keeping either of you, am I?”
“He’s not keeping me, Julie, is he keeping you?” Felicia said playfully.
Chapman blushed until her face turned the same color as her hair.
“That Brandon is one tough cookie, isn’t he?” Lance observed.
Ortiz leaned back in her chair and slipped the last slice of mango into her mouth. “Marriage jitters. Have you ever had them, Inspector?”
Lance swallowed uncomfortably at the question. “Can’t say that I have.”
Felicia smiled across the table at Julie who shot her a dirty stare for prying. “Inquiring minds want to know,” Ortiz said, wiggling her eyebrows.
Lance st
raightened up in his chair and tried to look at ease, although he was obviously flustered by Julie’s constant gawking and Felicia’s interrogation into his personal life. “Do either of you have anything to add to my investigation?”
Julie rested her elbows on the table and placed her chin in the palm of her hand. “Do we know how the pet carrier got into the Smythe home?”
Lance let his eyes lock on Julie’s, and suddenly Felicia felt like an outsider. “A good question.”
Felicia rolled her eyes. She had a feeling that anything Julie would have said would have been taken as a pearl of wisdom.
“There is a security guard who was in the room at the time the old woman died. He said just before it happened, he noticed that one of the doors leading to the beach outside was unlocked.”
“Is that unusual?” Felicia asked.
Lance answered her but never took his gaze off of Julie. “The guard said that the room was never used and that the door should have been locked.”
“Any…” Felicia tapped Lance on the arm to get his attention. “Any fingerprints?”
“What?” Lance asked as he finally recovered from his distraction. “Oh, sorry. No, there were no fingerprints on the window or the plastic carrying case.”
“So where does that leave you?” Chapman wondered aloud.
“Well, there’s a few more people that I think can help me out.”
Manny Garcia walked over and pulled up a seat. “How’s it going over here? Any progress?”
Felicia took her napkin from her lap and tossed it onto her seed-filled Styrofoam plate. “I don’t think we helped very much.”
Lance frowned. “Aw, don’t say that, Felicia. On the contrary, you’ve all been a great deal of help. You’ve narrowed down my options.”
“How’s that?” Garcia asked.
“Well, I was just about to say I think I have a few more angles to pursue now. The bodyguard at the Smythe house told me that he had returned the cat to Broward County Animal Control only a few days earlier. He was more than just surprised to see that the animal was back in the house.”
“Why did he take the cat to Animal Control?” Lance didn’t have to check his note-pad to remember the ridiculous excuse.
“It seems that Ms. Smythe was a bit of an eccentric. She said the cat didn’t match the new decor she was planning for the house.”
Julie scowled. “You’re kidding, right?”
Lance shook his head. “Nope.”
The lieutenant exhaled deeply. “And just when I thought I had heard it all.”
“Regardless of the reason,” Lance went on, “the cat made its way back to the house.”
Garcia tapped his fingers on the table. “Let me ask you another question then … Did the dog that ignited in the bank belong to the victim, too?”
Lance shook his head again. “No, unfortunately, that’s where any correlation between the two deaths falls apart. The victim, Mr. Kirby, never owned any pets. In all likelihood, he had never laid eyes on that particular dog until it was too late.”
Although her stomach was filled to capacity, Felicia felt empty inside. The thought of someone’s beloved pet unexpectedly erupting into white-hot flames without warning made her bones chill. Who wouldn’t be at risk, if all of a sudden this started happening all over the city? “So you’re going to talk to the people at Animal Control?”
“Yes. After I pay a visit to a shrewd old friend down at the forensics lab in Miami.”
“You mean Toby Bilston?” Garcia asked.
“Don’t you think that he could shed some light onto this for us?” Lance asked, enthusiastically.
The lieutenant approved wholeheartedly. Anyone in public service in Dade or Broward County knew of Toby Bilston’s forensics expertise. His exploits in crime-solving were almost legendary. “If anyone can help you, it would have to be Toby,” Garcia agreed. “Send him my regards while you’re down there.”
Lance assured the lieutenant that he would. “I have a few tissue samples left, so I want to see what his technical know-how comes up with.”
Garcia smiled. “Toby’s helped us out more than a few times up here in Broward. It’s a smart move, talking to him.”
Lance lifted up his wrist and checked his watch, then he gave Garcia the signal by winking at him. “Well, I’d better be going if I want to keep my four o’clock appointment. Toby won’t stay in the lab past five. I hear his wife Harriet is pretty strict when it comes to him working overtime nowadays.”
Garcia waved off the comment with the back of his hand. “Don’t you believe it! I met Harriet at a dinner party once, and she’s one of the most charming women you’d ever want to meet.”
Lance stood up and pushed his chair back under the table. “I’m just telling you what Toby told me.”
Garcia giggled. “Personally, I think that the poor guy’s scared shitless of her. Aggressive women can do that to a man.” Garcia made a gesture like he was breaking something between his fists. “They take your spirit and snap, break it, just like that. Then for the rest of your natural days it’s, ‘Yes dear, and I’m taking the garbage out right away, sweetness!’”
Chapman and Ortiz both turned and looked at their lieutenant like they had been branded with hot irons. Felicia’s mouth fell open in stunned outrage while Chapman’s wrathful gaze couldn’t conceal her disgust of Garcia’s chauvinistic commentary. “Do you actually believe all that swill you’re spouting?”
This was the first time that anyone had spoken to the two women in such a condescending manner, and Felicia Ortiz was about to go ballistic. Both of her hands had clenched into fists under the lunch table.
Garcia smiled and winked at the two of them. “No, but I knew it would probably get a rise out of you!”
Lance rolled his head back and laughed. “You are too much, Manny! You really had them going there for a minute!”
Felicia hung her head in submission. When she had joined the department, she vowed that no man would belittle her. A few had shown the balls to attempt it, but they all were quickly mentally castrated. Manny Garcia had waited until they least expected it and knew just the right buttons to push.
“Both of you had this planned ever since you walked in here. That’s what you were whispering about when you came into the lunchroom, wasn’t it?” Ortiz asked.
Julie couldn’t help laughing at her own stupidity. She should have known the lieutenant was only yanking her chain. He had demonstrated his trust in her long ago out on the streets where it counted the most. She waggled her finger in Garcia’s direction, “Payback is a bitch, Lieutenant. We aggressive women don’t get mad, we get even, remember that!”
Garcia’s eyes grew large. “Ooooo, I’m just shakin’ in my boots!”
Lance wrung his hands nervously. “Well, thanks for the floor show, Lieutenant, but I’ve really got to be going now.”
Then he looked pensively across the table at Julie Chapman. “I’d like to apologize for this little prank in some way. How about if you walk with me out to my car and we can discuss my punishment on the way?”
Julie looked over at Felicia, who motioned with her head. “Go ahead, girl. Don’t just sit there!”
Julie slid her chair away from the table. “This is a very serious breach of good taste, Inspector. You’re gonna have a lot of apologizing to do before you’re absolved. I hope your new job has made you a bit more affluent than the rest of us fire jockeys!”
Lance grabbed the rear pocket of his trousers. “Ah, a woman after my own wallet! Just like old times, who could ask for anything more?”
FOUR
Crystal Barnes turned right on the coastal thoroughfare known as Route A1A, pointing the nose of her red Corvette south toward North Miami Beach. The condominium and hotel-lined beaches that Crystal drove past no longer represented the glamour and opulence of a bygone era to most native Floridians, but rather a more seedy and neglected monument to the glorification of pastel colors and crime by television shows
like Miami Vice.
The beach’s undesirable reputation couldn’t have bothered Crystal Barnes less. All of her sheltered life, she dreamt of living in a place where silken white sand sifted up to her doorstep, and the sound of crashing waves supplied background noise for one of her celebrated dinner or cocktail parties. While the seventh floor of the Atlantic Dunes Condominium wouldn’t quite fulfill her lifelong aspirations of having sand at her back door, a quick elevator ride to the condo’s beach level would place her only a few yards from half a mile of private shore. Crystal had wanted to live in the penthouse, and her father would have gladly bought it for his only daughter’s wedding present, but Brandon refused to live higher than the seventh floor. Spouting statistics from one of his fire department manuals, he claimed it wasn’t safe.
If Crystal had been granted her wedding wish, then the white sandy beaches of the French Riviera would have been welcoming the two new residents instead of the tan grit of Miami Beach, but it was a sore point in their relationship and Brandon would have left her if she ever broached the subject again. Crystal didn’t know what her fiancé had against living in France, but if staying in town was the only way he would marry her, then the move to France would have to be put on the back burner, for now.
Brandon Muller was the first man she had brought home that her overindulgent father ever approved of. He labeled all the rest as “polo-playing, credit-card-toting imbeciles.” He also called Brandon “down to earth,” and thought he could provide the stability that Crystal desperately needed in her life. But Crystal couldn’t have cared less about her father’s opinion. All of her friends were getting married, and so she needed to get married, too. Anyway, she knew that if she didn’t like the wedded lifestyle in six months, then she’d just kick Brandon out.
As the afternoon sun beat steadily down on the back of Crystal’s delicate neck, she began to regret the fact that she was driving a convertible. Her father had bought it for her on a whim, and although she had really wanted a black Porsche, there was no reason to disappoint Daddy.
Stopping at a red light just south of the Broward County line, Crystal watched as a handful of German tourists, their pale skin scorched from too much sun, scurrying across the street. They were all conversing with one another in what, to Crystal, sounded like the most irritating language in the world. In order to drown out the barrage of guttural sounds, Crystal cranked up the volume on her Bose sound system until the tourists were literally having to shout to hear each other speak.