“Hey Detectives!” I was glad to see Fire Investigator Davis out of his office, even if I was annoyed at the way he was walking through a crime scene without any gloves or a coverall. “Looks like a doozy, doesn’t it?”
“Was anyone hurt?” I asked, surveying the damage. The gym had had wooden floors and wood benches that folded back. It had done double duty as an auditorium; there was a wide wood stage on one side. All of the wood was charred, half of it reduced to ash.
“Don’t think so, but they’re still checking. Our fire witch is running a little late this morning, but she’ll know for sure.”
I took a second to consider how much it would bother Davis, and then decided I didn’t care. I pulled the power into myself and flung it out, barely hearing his expletive laced shock. I felt around me, searching for death. There wasn’t much, a student or teacher who was fading but no one close. No dead bodies in this fire and nothing called to me, wanting to die. I reluctantly let the power go. I didn’t want to help anyone die, but the magic felt good.
“No dead, and no one’s dying.” I told the gape-mouthed Fire Inspector. He stood there, mouth open, clearly blown away.
“So you might as well give us the details,” Danny said.
He shook his head, but after a few seconds he was ready to talk again. “The details, right, well, no one called it in. The local fire house, they’re just up the road, smelled the smoke and headed out. They found it half gone, but the water they used didn’t seem to have any effect. Eventually they gave up and let it burn.” He waved as an official car came by, then went back to talking. “I figure fire that doesn’t go out with water, is magic, right? Anyway, looks like the expert has arrived.”
“When did someone first notice the fire?” I asked.
“I don’t know, it’s still early for me, ya know? A little more coffee and I could tell ya.” He made a face I couldn’t interpret. “I’m a bit of a zombie without caffeine.”
I’d dealt with zombies, and he didn’t look a thing like one. I was about to offer my help in introducing him to an authentic zombie when E came up. She was wearing a Fire Inspector polo shirt tucked into standard office wear khakis and a sour expression.
“How’s the best fire investigator in the office?” Davis asked.
“Pissed off that you’re ruining my crime scene,” she growled, “and even more pissed off that someone didn’t call me last night.”
“We figured you needed your beauty sleep.” His smile was condescending, and she ignored every inch of it.
“Have you talked to the crew that was here?” she asked me.
“Not yet,” I replied.
“You do that. I’m going to talk to the fire.”
“Now that’s going to be interesting to watch, since fires don’t talk,” Davis said, proving he’d never worked with a fire witch before. I was going to wring his neck if she didn’t do it for me.
“You know there’s a coffee shop two blocks down.” Danny redirected the man.
“Seriously?” Davis looked up but didn’t wait for a response. “You don’t need me right, Miller? ’Cause if I’m done here, I’ll get some coffee and head back to the office.”
“I don’t need you,” she said. After he’d left she added, “neither does anyone else.” She turned to my partner. “Thanks.”
“Not a problem,” Danny responded. “Daniel Gallagher, SIU, think this is related to our first arson?”
“E Miller,” she said. “and I hope not, but I think so.”
Danny looked at me waiting for me to introduce myself. “We’ve met,” I explained.
“Mallory’s corrupting an old friend of my family in her spare time,” E said.
“Corrupting? My partner? I don’t think she could corrupt anyone.” Danny replied, and I loved him for it.
“I’ll tell you later, for now, give me a minute alone, okay?” E asked. It wasn’t really a question. She turned away before we got a chance to say a word. We headed over to the fire crew, hoping they’d be more willing to talk.
The members of the fire crew were still on site looking tired and dirty; one of them was sitting on the bumper of the truck with a sports drink and a shocked expression on his face.
“We kept fighting it, but it wouldn’t die.” We had our badges out so he could have been opening up to the friendly looking cops. He could have been, but he wasn’t. He was looking into space not seeing anyone else around him. “Never happened before, never had a fire that wouldn’t go out. Never had one that wouldn’t die.”
“Take a minute, okay, Dennis? Take a long minute.” Another man covered in soot patted him on the back and gestured for us to leave him be. “He’s got three years on the crew, never done a magical fire before.”
“You have?” I asked, underneath the grime he was middle aged, the kind of man with a couple of kids at home, the firefighter equivalent of Danny.
“Once, a while ago,” he said. His eyes shifted as he remembered. “They’re different, like the fire is alive, like it’s a thing. I guess it’s hard to explain.”
“Take your time.” Danny had a knack for interviewing people about things that were hard to explain.
“Here, might as well…” He pulled a lighter from his pocket and flicked it open. The flame was small and orange, then he passed his other hand over it, and the fire licked up to him, growing to meet his hand. We were standing behind one of the fire engines, sheltered from the media and the crowd of onlookers, but he snapped off the lighter almost immediately. “I can’t start them. I can’t really control them, but sometimes, with the right fire, I can feel them.”
“So you’re a fire witch,” Danny pronounced with an off handed air.
“No, Lutheran.” He took off his safety helmet and ran a blackened hand through his short hair. “This thing I do, it’s a parlor trick. I mean it’s not like I go to the fire witch church or anything.” He finished speaking, and we shared an awkward silence. People say some of the most interesting things if you let the quiet go long enough. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
“Did you call this one in?” I asked, it would explain his hesitation.
He nodded. “We were grilling. With the fall weather, it seemed like a good idea. No one else would have noticed the difference in smoke, but this fire, it pulled me here. So I brought the crew along.”
“Was there anyone else here? Anyone on the edges, watching the flame?”
“We got pretty busy once we were here, so I didn’t really see anyone. You could ask the rest of the guys. They’ll all tell you it was a standard fire though; we pulled up, got out the hoses, and did what we always do. The fire fought back instead of dying like it was supposed to, then about two hours in it was like someone flipped a switch and it died.”
We went through ten people and got the same story. The interviews took a while; some of the men were experts who wanted to talk about the pattern of the fire or the way the flames went. We let them talk; this case was confusing enough that any information might come in handy eventually. At the end I was exhausted from listening, and the only one we hadn’t talked to was Dennis, the one who looked like a shock victim. We found him sitting on the edge of the fire truck. They were getting ready to go, packing things in, but he hadn’t moved.
“Can we have a minute?” I asked gently.
“Sure thing, I’m…” He blushed a bit. “I’m better now.”
“Just a few standard questions, did you see anything special? Anything out of the ordinary?”
“You mean expect for the fire that kept getting bigger no matter what we did?” His grin was rueful. “Well, there was the girl.”
“The girl?” Danny’s eye brightened at the thought.
“Yeah, at first I thought she was a student here, but then the next time I saw her she looked older. She hung back, by the lockers, and then over by the football field.” He pointed in completely opposite directions. “She kind of came in and out. I’d think she was gone, and then she’d be back.”
“Can you describe her?” I asked.
“Fair hair, probably blonde but it was dark out so hard to tell. Sort of long, like yours at the shoulders. She was thin, but not super skinny. I mean I saw her from a ways away, but she looked cute.”
“Cute?” Danny asked.
“Yeah, kinda tall, willowy, I mean she was a ways away the whole time, but she looked, I don’t know, like she wanted to come over. It happens sometimes, you know, chicks dig a uniform and all.”
He was sweet, clueless but sweet. I gave him credit for trying despite his obvious shock. We tried to ask him about the rest of it, but he kept bringing it back to the girl. The more he talked about her the less faith I had that she was real. I waited until the truck was half way down the street to voice my fears.
“Dream girl?”
“Maybe,” Danny agreed. “Or maybe something we don’t have down in the record books. There are plenty of things that feed off of suffering.”
“She could have been the fire witch Puck mentioned.”
“Could’ve been any fire witch. And if you were controlling all this why hang back? And why move around? He’s got her all over the place changing positions, watching. If you were controlling it, wouldn’t you need to hold still?”
I had no idea. I’d never channeled flame and told him as much. He admitted his own ignorance, and we went to find the woman who did know.
E knelt as if she was meditating, all around her people rushed to their jobs, but she stayed apart. I was struck by the memory of her standing in front of the first blaze unmoving. When I got closer, I saw something more extraordinary. She held her hand in front of her examining the flames engulfing her arm. The fire gathered at her elbow, a glove of living flame, and she watched it with glowing red eyes.
“Something important?” I asked after I’d watched her for a bit.
She nodded and I came closer. The ground in front of her had been wooden gym floor once, now it was blackened charcoal like everything else. The only difference was the tall looping characters burned into the surface.
“You won’t believe what this says.” Her voice was her own; it didn’t match the fire she was wearing or the flame colored eyes. The fire on her arm died away, curling into her fist until it was gone
“Help me?”
“Help me, over and over again,” she said, nodding. “If you could do all this, burn it this neatly, why would you leave a note behind asking for help?”
I wished I had an answer for her. Instead, E did her best to explain starting a fire to us. The metaphor she used was driving a stick shift car, supposedly the first time you did it the radio needed to be turned off and no one could talk, but eventually you didn’t even think of it. If the girl the shocked man had seen was the witch responsible, she was damn good at controlling fire. That seemed pretty unlikely, but there wasn’t much to go on except the vague description. We noted ‘tall, thin, long light hair’ down, said our goodbyes, and headed back to the office.
I was always stunned by how fast time passed at a crime scene. It felt like I was doing next to nothing while I was there, talking to people, walking around, then suddenly four hours had gone by. I got to sit at my desk for the first time that day at lunchtime. It felt weird to check my morning messages as I munched on a salad from downstairs. I shoved the clinic hate mail aside and worked on the reports about the second arson while it was fresh in my mind. I got up to fax a request for further information to E and nearly ran into the new guy.
“Uh, hi.” I jumped backward not wanting to be too close to a werewolf. His face fell, and I felt immediately guilty. I tried to make up for it by looking friendly. “You’ve got a ton more experience than I do, any suggestions for what to do when a case dries up?”
“Keep going, try new angles. If that doesn’t work you flip to another case, see what happens while you wait. Is it the arson or the vampire attack?” He looked happy I’d asked him about police work, and I was happy for the advice.
“Both.”
“Too bad. A new angle idea is the best idea then.” He grabbed a print out and headed back to his desk. I thanked him absentmindedly, wondering what our new angle might be. Danny was wrapping up a phone call when I sat down.
“Good news?” I asked when he hung up.
“No news. The high school Chris supposedly graduated from has no record of him, which means we don’t have any photos, or any other good information.”
“So where are we going to get some?” I asked, ready to dive head first into the case so something could develop on the arson.
“A driver’s license will have all of it, but we’re stuck begging the DMV for it. Could take a while.”
“I’ve got a better idea. Chris tried it as a professional, right?”
“Yeah, tried and failed miserably.”
“Wouldn’t your license as a professional have all of that?”
“All of that and more, those things even list blood type.” Danny’s eyes lit up. “Let’s go see if Fairy Tails is in compliance with the record keeping laws.”
****
It was later in the afternoon than it had been on my last visit. Later, but not late enough to justify how crowded the place was. There were enough people in the front room that I couldn’t count as I walked by, not that I paused. I was doing my best to keep it all business this time. The giant party in the front room made it a challenge, half naked bodies, some with wings, some glowing, all wrapped around each other. I kept my eyes looking straight ahead as we walked down the hall and into the back room.
“Well, hello Detectives, to what do we owe this honor?” Lynn had papers spread across the bar. She was the only person in the room, the stage and stereo were both quiet.
“We’d like to see a copy of Chris’ license from when he worked as a professional,” I said.
“Sure thing, I should have a copy in his file, hold on a tick.” She disappeared into the office and came out with a manila folder exactly like the ones I used to hold case reports. I flipped through the pages looking for the license.
“Sorry about the party out front. They rented out the whole place.” She sighed heavily. “Private parties screw with our routine.”
“No problem for us, we just need the paperwork,” Danny supplied.
“Which isn’t here. There’s no license.” I tipped the folder back so she could see the inside. Thanks to the paperwork she’d given us yesterday it was fairly empty; the license should have stuck out.
“It should be right…” She grabbed the folder and flipped through the pages. “Here, but it’s not, shit, hold on.” Her arm snaked over the bar, reaching out longer than a human arm could, making me question what Lynn had in her background. She picked up the phone and hit a button. “Can you send Puck to the back bar? Just for a minute, thanks.”
She turned back to me with a quick smile then fiddled with the papers in front of her. Puck came through a door on the other side of the bar in tight black jeans and an even tighter blue silk shirt. He was wearing make-up, but only a little, I had to really look to see it. The eyeliner made his eyes seem wider, more innocent, and the hint of lip gloss drew my gaze to his mouth. I guessed this was his working outfit.
“I’m on break,” he said angrily. His tone changed when he saw there were other people in the room. “Oh hi detectives, how’s it going?”
Lynn didn’t let us respond. “I know you are; I need—”
He cut her off, “In Kelly’s file behind her birth certificate. I’m taking an extra five to make up the time.” He walked through a back door into what I was sure was the break room. Lynn disappeared into the office and came out with another folder.
“Here, take it all. I doubt I’ll need it again. If Kelly was coming back, she’d be here by now.”
We thanked her and headed back to the office. On our way out, we both made a point of not looking in the front room.
****
For the rest of the afternoon, I read through everything we had on Chris an
d then everything on Kelly. My only break was to send a quick text to Jakob asking him to make me dinner. He replied back that he’d make something so good it would distract me from the world. I was grateful. The files were boring, but I pushed through. While I might not enjoy touring a brothel with my partner, not watching anyone die or, worse, helping them die was a blessing. I wished Danny good night, and he absentmindedly returned it. On the train home I daydreamed about whatever Jakob was making for me. In my mind dinner was followed by a long slow dessert upstairs in bed before he left for work. The fantasies carried me to my apartment. I shut the door behind me, taking a deep breath to enjoy all the scents. Jakob had fulfilled my dreams; the smells coming from the kitchen were divine.
“What’s all this?” I asked after we kissed our hellos.
“An incredibly distracting dinner, here.” He handed me silverware, and I dutifully set the table. By the time I was finished, he’d come behind me with a chilled salad plate. My first course was salad; I wasn’t impressed.
“I don’t know if salad, even Caesar salad, counts as distracting,” I teased.
“That proves you’ve never had the dressing made from scratch.”
“I’ll rate it as mildly interesting, what else am I having?”
“Beef Wellington, creamed spinach, and mashed potatoes.”
“I don’t know, doesn’t sound too impressive…”
“Homemade puff pastry?” he tried but I shook my head. I had to—my mouth was full of tangy Caesar salad. “Maybe the dessert will suffice, seven layer chocolate sin?”
“Chocolate sin? Oh yes, that’ll do just fine.” I nodded.
“I hope so. It combines seven different desserts and took hours.”
“The perfect distraction,” I pronounced.
Chapter Eight
The next morning I entered the office and headed straight to the coffee maker. Danny respected my need for caffeine and stayed quiet as we both went through our morning routine. Eventually, he broke the silence. “What do the high school and the clinic have in common?”
Fire in Her Blood Page 13