Burned Too Hot: A Thriller (Val Ryker series Book 2)

by Ann Voss Peterson

  “But what if he decides to set our house on fire? Or the barn?”

  “Two days, Grace.”

  “But the horses…”

  “I’ll have officers drive by hourly. Okay? And I’m sure Oneida’s friend will come over to feed, or Oneida knows a place where we can board them, if that makes you feel better.”

  “You’d really pay to board them?”

  “Whatever puts your mind at ease, honey. It’s only two days.”

  “That’s his sentencing.” Grace brought her hand to her cheek, her fingers tracing the scar. “This has something to do with him? The fires are about him, too?”

  Val wanted to talk about this even less than the multiple sclerosis. “It might be nothing, Grace. I’m being cautious here.”

  “But? That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it? But what?”

  “There have been threats.”

  “From him?”

  “No. From letters sent to him.” Val paused, not sure how much she should say.

  “I should stay here, then. Help you.”

  “The letters had pictures of you in them, Grace. You’re the target. Not the horses. Not me.”

  “The letters from who?” Grace’s bottom lip quivered. Her hand rose to her cheek.

  “We don’t know. But we won’t let anything happen to you honey. That’s why I think it’s a good idea for you to go away for a little while.”

  Grace nodded as tears pooled in her eyes.

  Val hated scaring her like this. But Grace was a strong headed girl, and making light of a situation that might hold real danger hadn’t worked out very well in the past.

  “What about the fires? Do they have something to do with him, too?”

  “We don’t know yet.”

  “But there’s something, isn’t there? That’s why all these fires are happening now, right before he goes to prison.”

  Maybe if Val had more experience as a parent, she would be able to handle this better. But all she could do was try her best. “The toddler who disappeared from the house fire, Ethan Tiedemann, he’s Dixon Hess’s biological son.”

  Grace looked down at the hay-littered concrete. “Someone took him to give him to…”

  “We don’t know.”

  “What else could it be?”

  “There’s also a chance whoever took him might want to hurt Hess.”

  Grace’s eyes flared. “But why would they want me then?”

  “I don’t know. There were a lot of questionable letters, a lot of people who are after different things. Some want to help him, some to hurt him. The thing we have to figure out is which ones, if any, should be taken seriously.”

  “So there might be more than one person doing all this?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  Grace turned her face to the side, chest heaving. She was crying hard now, and Val knew she was trying to hide her tears.

  Val closed the distance between them and wrapped her niece in her arms. She breathed in the scent of Grace’s skin, her hair. She felt so thin and slight, like one squeeze would crush her. But Val knew the truth. Between the two of them, Grace was the brave one. The one who had never run from anything, no matter how frightened she was, not in her entire life. “You’ll do this for me?”

  Grace nodded.

  They stood there for a long while, Mark’s car pulling into the driveway before Val found the strength to let go.

  Val

  The coroner’s office was housed in a building resembling a steel pole barn right next to the jail, and Val couldn’t help glancing at the austere concrete and brick exterior of the cell block area, thinking of yesterday’s encounter with Dixon Hess.

  Ever since she’d first arrested him for the murder of Kelly Ann Lund, she’d been trying to undo her mistake, but despite her efforts, her error kept compounding. First Hess had lashed back, killing five in the process. And now? Either someone who wanted revenge against him, or Hess himself was still terrorizing the town.

  Her original sin was spreading like fire in a drought-stricken forest.

  She found Harlan Runk sitting in the autopsy theater eating as usual, cornflakes this time, soggy from the looks of it. And if it weren’t for the inappropriate meal setting, she might not have recognized him.

  “Harlan, you’re so… so…”

  “Sexy? He said, wiggling eyebrows that used to be as overgrown as a clump of garlic mustard in the forest.

  “Trimmed.”

  In all of Lake Loyal, Val had never seen a more unkempt man than Harlan Runk. Brilliant and more than a little delusional, the county coroner always looked as if he belonged in a deer stand or an ice fishing shanty, away from civilization, even when he was testifying in court.

  Now not only were his unruly eyebrows trimmed, so was the forest reaching out of his nose and the wiry gray hair springing in every direction on his head. Even his clothing looked as if he hadn’t slept in it.

  “I’m a regular metrosexual, or whatever. You should smell me, sweet cheeks. Come close.”

  She didn’t have to step close to know he’d overdone it a little on the cologne. Even from her spot in the doorway, the musky tang blended with undertones of disinfectant and the sweet, fleshy odor of human decay. “So who talked you into… this?”

  “Taking a weed whacker to my face?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “It’s the new me.”

  “Nice.”

  “You really like it?” He stood and did a little pirouette, still gripping the cereal bowl.

  “Sure,” she said, bracing for the customary next move in their familiar game, which would be him asking her out and her coming up with a friendly way to say no.

  “Oh, what a relief. And you’re from Chicago, too. I mean, men do this kind of thing in the city, right?”

  “You mean groom themselves?”

  “Groom? Isn’t that a thing you do to horses?”

  Val shook her head. Harlan really knew how to snatch hopelessness out of the jaws of getting somewhere. “You look great, Harlan. Really. Younger.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yes.” And a little less crazy.

  He held up his spoon in an awkward toasting motion. “Here’s hoping she will, too.”

  “She?”

  He stuffed the spoon into his mouth and munched his cornflakes.

  “She, Harlan? Are you seeing someone?”

  “Well, we haven’t gone out yet. But I plan to change that soon.”

  “Wow.” She coaxed a smile to her lips. She was happy for Harlan, thrilled really, but she couldn’t help feeling like she was fast becoming the only single person in the whole county. “So who is this lucky woman?”

  “She volunteers at the jail.”

  As a woman who’d spent her career in law enforcement, Val shouldn’t make snap judgments, but she thought it might be more likely the woman was visiting someone behind bars rather than volunteering.

  “You don’t believe a woman could be interested in me?”

  “Of course, I do. I’m just a little jealous.”

  “Don’t worry. If it doesn’t work out, I have your number. Besides, we’ll always have our quality time.” He grinned and gave her a wink. “Now what do you say we get together and cut up a dead guy?”

  After dealing with all manner of horrors during her stint in the Chicago PD, Val was used to gallows humor. People who dealt with tragedy every day needed a way to cope, even if it crossed the line into insensitive and tasteless. But she still couldn’t help being grateful Carla wasn’t present for her husband’s autopsy. “Bring him on, Harlan.”

  She grabbed the paper shoe covers, gown, and hair cover, and put them on, not that they did much good. When she left today for her next meeting, her skin and hair and even the inside of her nose would smell like the dead no matter how covered she was. It didn’t seem to bother Harlan. Nothing bothered him, but she’d never gotten used to it and doubted she ever would.

  Already dec
ked out in fashionable autopsy wear, the coroner took a few more bites of cornflakes then set down his bowl. Whistling some sort of music-less tune, he opened the cooler door and disappeared inside. A second later, he wheeled a stainless steel gurney to the long sink, bringing a wave of stomach churning smell with him. Decay mixed with smoke.

  Ever since moving to Wisconsin, Val had loved the smell of leaves burning in the fall or wood fire in the winter, but this smoke smell was different. Denser. More black. Wood yes, but with an undercurrent of plastics and carpet and glue that transformed it into something wholly unpleasant. She finished tucking her hair under the cap, and forced her feet to carry her closer to the body.

  “I did all the preliminary stuff. Fingerprints, photos, all that.”

  “Did you already take fluid from his eye?” Val had witnessed Harlan using a needle to withdraw fluid once before, an experience she wasn’t eager to repeat.

  “Yep, all done. I just have something to show you before I start cutting.”

  He uncovered the body. Totally naked, Scott Tiedemann was a big man, not rotund, but certainly soft. His skin shown pink under the cold lights.

  “That color…”

  “Carbon monoxide poisoning.”

  “Is that what you wanted to show me?”

  “Patience, honey buns.” He took hold of the man’s right arm and tipped the body slightly to his left side. “Right here.”

  Val leaned closer, focusing on the pink skin of one fleshy arm. “What am I supposed to be seeing, Harlan?”

  He sighed, as if disappointed in her. “Needle mark. Fresh.”

  Val had scanned Scott Tiedemann’s medical information before making her trek to the morgue, but too many details jumbled her mind. “Was he given something at the hospital?”

  Another sigh. “No mention on his chart.”

  “But he was injected with something. What?”

  “We’ll open him up, but we likely won’t know until we can get a tox screen done.”

  “That’ll take time.” Time they didn’t have.

  “Yeah. But I have a guy. He owes me. And we’ll narrow it down. I’m going to have them look for signs of a sedative. We’ll know more when we see inside, but judging from the look of his outsides, and the prelim report on the fire, there has to be some reason this man was just lying there, waiting to burn.”

  Chapter

  Fourteen

  Lund

  The only thing worse than sitting helpless in a hospital bed was lying in a box buried six feet under. At least that was what Lund imagined. Never having been dead, it was merely speculation.

  “That vein has to be here somewhere.”

  Pain shooting from fingertips to bicep, Lund watched the nurse go back into his forearm, digging with the needle one more time. He wasn’t sure if she was trying to take his mind off his throbbing head and the ringing in his ears or if she was just a plain old sadist.

  The fourth try had to be a charm. Didn’t it?

  “I don’t know why the first IV stopped working.” She frowned at him. “And I’ve never had a patient who made starting another so difficult.”

  Since Lund hadn’t moved throughout the entire ordeal, he had no idea how this was his fault, but he figured it wasn’t wise to argue with a woman bearing a weapon.

  The nurse mumbled something else, too quiet for Lund to hear over the residual noise in his ears. Staring at the bright lights overhead, he tried to think of something else.

  The fire. The explosion. The doctor who’d been there when he came to, the guy Dempsey introduced as an old friend of Val’s.

  Seemed like a good guy.

  Lund hated him immediately.

  The woman took a jab, a dig, and another jab. “There it is,” she announced, beaming at him. “See? That didn’t hurt at all.”

  Sadistic. Definitely sadistic. From now on, Lund would think of her as Nurse Sadie. At least that made him feel a little better. “When can I get out of here?”

  “Now that’s up to the doctor, not you.”

  “Then can you ask the doctor?”

  “He’ll be in later.”

  “And in the meantime, can you ask?”

  “We’ll see.” She flashed him another one of those overly bright smiles. “You should really tell your visitors not to come in so late.”

  “Huh? Who visited?”

  “Some pretty blonde. Anyone with a brain would have known three-thirty in the morning was unspeakably late for a hospital visit. The overnight nurse told me to pass on the message.”

  Val. Lund was sorry he’d missed her, but he couldn’t help smiling a little at the fact she’d made the effort, especially at that ungodly hour. “I’ll tell her you’re displeased.”

  “You do that.”

  “Or you could call her yourself.”

  “That’s not necess—”

  “Just dial the Lake Loyal Police Department. She’s the chief of police.”

  The smile fell off Nurse Sadie’s lips. She turned and marched from the room.

  Lund had about a half a moment of satisfied silence when a rap sounded on the door.

  “The lengths people go to get out of work.” Dempsey walked in without hesitating.

  After a morning with Nurse Sadie, Lund was relieved to see him. “What? No flowers? Not even a potted plant?”

  Dempsey grinned and glanced over his own shoulder.

  Johnson stepped into the room, holding a pink Tyvek helium balloon with Get Well written out in cartoonish flowers. “Don’t say we never get you anything.”

  Lund shook his head as much as he could without aggravating his headache too much. “Nice.”

  “It was either this or Hello Kitty.”

  “You give that one to the chief?” Lund asked.

  “You guessed it.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  “Don’t know. Maribeth was there with him, so we left the balloon at the nurses’ station. Doesn’t look good, though.”

  Johnson tied the flower balloon to the back of a chair near Lund’s bed, then the men stood there, arms dangling at their sides, as if without work to do, cards to be played, or beer to drink, no one had any idea what to say.

  Including Lund. “So, uh, any news?” he finally pulled out of the air.

  “You want to tell him?” Dempsey asked, eyeing Johnson.

  Bix shot him an expression somewhere between weepy and constipated.

  “That good, huh?”

  “It’s Blaski.”

  “Blaski?”

  “He’s gone to the Commission, lodged a complaint.”

  Lund searched his mind for anything the kid might have reason to complain about but came up empty. “He got hurt? He wasn’t near the explosion.”

  “Not about that, Johnson continued. “It’s the Tiedemann place. He says you delayed getting Scott Tiedemann out of the building.”

  “I was looking for the little boy.”

  “Yeah, we know. But he says he told you the boy wasn’t there, and you still wouldn’t leave. Course, now that we know the boy wasn’t there, he looks like a genius.”

  “That one?” Dempsey scoffed. “He’s just trying to cover his ass.”

  “Am I suspended?”

  “Since you’re not going anywhere for a while with that bum head anyway, I talked the commission into putting that decision off.”

  “Appreciate it.”

  “But with Fruehauf laid up, they need to appoint an interim chief. Usually that would be you.”

  “But because of this, it’s not?”

  Johnson looked away.

  “It’s you, Bix?”

  “I’m the next in line, simple as that.”

  Lund nodded. Johnson was the logical choice. The only other option would be Dempsey, and with his full time mechanic job and current dedication to spending time with his wife and grandkids, Lund doubted the grizzly old firefighter would be interested in the position anyway. Johnson, on the other hand, was in need of a job and a pe
rsonal life. “Congrats, Bix.”

  “Thanks, man.” He clapped Lund on the arm, sending a jolt of pain through his neck and shoulders. “And don’t worry about this Blaski business. We’ll talk to the kid, explain how we need to have each other’s backs. He’ll come around.”

  “I didn’t delay getting Tiedemann out of there.”

  “Right.”

  “I had to make sure Ethan wasn’t in the bathroom.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Lund. There are ways to smooth things like this over. I got it.”

  “Nothing needs to be smoothed over.”

  Johnson waved his protest away like a bad smell. “I got it. Now I’d better get back to the station. Got work to do. Dempsey?”

  The older firefighter looked at Lund. “Need anything, call.”

  “Take care of yourself, buddy,” Johnson said, and the two men left Lund alone.

  His solitude didn’t last long.

  “Your friends left already?” Nurse Sadie bustled in.

  Lund rested his head back against his pillow.

  “Guess I didn’t have to fix your IV after all. The doctor has you scheduled for release this afternoon.”

  “Can I have some kind of pain medication?”

  “Tylenol is all you get.”

  The day just kept getting better and better. “Okay, you have any Tylenol?”

  “That’ll take a while. You’re not my only patient, you know.”

  Val

  “So how’d it go?” Olson closed Val’s office door behind him with a clunk.

  Having spent the morning in Baraboo at the morgue followed by a meeting with ADA Stengel and Hess’s defense attorney Michael Asher, Val would have liked a moment to collect herself. Unfortunately that seemed to be as out of her reach as answers in this case.

  Leaning on her desk, she pretended to read one of the many reports scattered on the blotter while she rifled through her purse for her prescription. So far, no one but Oneida had noticed the hesitation in her gait, and Val had dismissed it as a simple twist of her ankle.

  She popped another prednisone, forcing it down without water. As long as things didn’t get worse, she’d be okay.