He’d watched and waited for them to leave earlier in the day and had booked off work himself to prepare the place for his performance tonight. He’d climbed into the attic and soaked down the insulation, insuring it wouldn’t burn and then he’d coated the ceiling and the wall adjacent to the rest of the house with a clear coat of intumescent paint. He’d seen how well it worked in the barn back in July and knew it would do the trick here, too. Considering the interior smelled like a combination of wet skunk and rotting garbage, neither of the pigs who called this place home would notice the scent of the fire retardant he’d applied.
As he’d expected, it was child’s play to sneak inside. The two assholes had collapsed in the living room, one on the couch, the other in the recliner. Their loud snores were enough to wake the dead. No wonder neither had married. No woman could put up with that noise night after night.
Leaving them there, he went out into the kitchen, a room added onto the house at some point, and unlocked the back door. It took three trips to get the three boxes of orange liqueur and the other supplies he’d hidden in the garage earlier inside.
Once he had everything he needed, he followed the instructions he’d gotten from Angus on how to build a chemically-based Molotov cocktail—the old bastard had even believed him when he told him he was curious because of the way they’d been used in a movie—and built his own. The guy was getting forgetful in his old age, but if he discovered the man remembered talking about this with him, he would make sure his old teacher suffered permanent memory loss. Within half an hour, he was all set for Act Two.
Leroy wasn’t a small man and lugging him from the living room to the kitchen was hard work, but any job worth doing was worth a little sweat equity. Dragging Jethro in was easier since the guy probably didn’t way a hundred and fifty pounds soaking wet.
He placed Leroy on the chair first, securing him in place with several strips of heavy-duty duct tape. Then he repeated the process with Jethro. These bastards wouldn’t be running away from their mistakes this time.
Once they were posed, two useless drunks sitting around drinking, he poured liqueur over them. This fire would really mess with Jake’s mind. He’d heard the description he’d given at Monday’s briefing. Mr. High and Mighty profiler might claim to know all about him, but he didn’t know squat. He was going to enjoy watching him spin his wheels and get nowhere. This was a puzzle he wouldn’t solve easily. Flicking his Bic, he lit the angel-shaped candle which he’d placed on the Styrofoam plate on the table between his two victims.
“Wakey, wakey, boys,” he called, pulling on the gas mask he used when tanning hides. Having a secret hobby really paid off at times. He watched as they slowly roused.
“What the hell?” Leroy said, looking around, trying to move but unable to do so. His glazed eyes grew in size when he spotted him. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m the angel from Hell come to take you boys home where you belong,” he said, quietly, moving out of the shadows so they could see him. “A man should be proud of his work and do the best job he can, but not you two. Drinking on the job made you careless, sloppy. She died because of your shoddy workmanship. Now, it’s time to pay for your sins. How about a little more to drink?”
He tossed the chemical cocktail he’d created at the wall between them and watched the contents burst into a delightful display of flame and color. Mesmerized, he followed the tongues of fire down the wall and onto the alcohol-soaked hair, skin, and clothing. As the flames caught, the two men screamed. Watching them trying to stand, trying to bat at the blue flames with hands that just made matters worse, was the most fun he’d had in years. The thick black smoke, caustic in its intensity, choked them. Their agonized screams increased as the fire licked and caressed them. He stayed inside watching the show from the doorway and basking in the satisfaction of a job well done until he heard the sirens in the distance. Saluting the blackened lumps of flesh, he went out the back door and headed over to his truck, tossing his mask onto the floor.
Chapter Four
Unwilling to leave so soon, not wanting to spoil the fun of watching the fire burn, he found a spot across the street a little behind the rest of the onlookers from which to admire his handiwork. Taking a long drag from his joint, he leaned against the trunk of the tamarack tree, the only pine to lose its needles each fall. An exception to the rule, just as he was. While most of them hadn’t fallen yet, providing some shelter from the rain, by this time next month, its branches would be as bare as the hardwoods in the area. He’d finished the joint he allowed himself and pulled out his cigarettes, relying on the tobacco for the calming effect he needed. There had to be fifty people standing there getting soaked, watching his creation. This was better than television any day.
Flames climbed high into the sky, the rain not hampering his baby in the least. He couldn’t see the moon, thanks to the heavy cloud cover, but he felt its pull, its power. If werewolves existed, he could see himself as one, ripping the throat out of his prey. Maybe, deep down, he did have those feral instincts. He could skin an animal faster than anyone and rarely ruined even the smallest of pelts, and there was nothing like the taste of warm raw liver fresh from the kill. His mouth salivated. Calf liver wasn’t as satisfying, but it might have to do.
Jake and the chief as well as a few uniformed officers for crowd control had arrived within minutes of the volunteer firefighters. No doubt the regulars from North Bay were on the way, too. Right now, the home boys were pouring hundreds of gallons of water on the attached house and the one next door, thinking the blaze would spread, but it wouldn’t. He’d seen to that. The smoke was deceiving them just as he’d planned. It was a good thing volunteer firefighters could book off every now and then. He’d noticed a couple in the bar who were three sheets to the wind by the time he’d left. No one had noticed he was cold sober, but no one should’ve noticed him at all—just one of the boys cheering on his team. Nothing to single him out. Nothing to make him memorable.
Shorty Jones, Gus Albert, and Stan Wilkes, three of the firefighters, pounded on the door of the adjoining house. Hadn’t Gus been in the bar tonight with his wife? Eventually, they broke the door down. What the hell for? The owner would be pissed. That half of the house was vacant. He’d verified that early in the week. All it would need would be a good cleaning and some cosmetic work, like a coat of paint, and the landlord could rent the rat trap out again in no time.
“What the...?” he muttered and quickly shut his mouth before one of the other spectators heard him.
The firefighters carried out three men, dangling them over their shoulders like so many sacks of potatoes. The paramedics rushed to help. Jake and the chief hurried over to the ambulance. Morgan and Hazlet waited for the firefighters to lay the men down—he thought they were men—but instead of doing something, after checking for a pulse, Morgan shook his head.
What were they doing in there? The two bastards he’d roasted should’ve been the only ones in the place. That half of the structure was supposed to be empty. Damn! Someone had screwed up, and it wasn’t him, nor was he going to take the blame for that. He would light a candle for them the next time he went to church—like that would happen in this century. He’d given up on God eight years ago, the day He’d taken the only good thing he’d ever had with a little help from the bastards he’d just sent to hell.
Tonight, he’d shared the beauty of his creation with others, but instead of enjoying it, the damn fools stood there trembling. He could smell the fear waft off those closest to him, hear the barely suppressed panic in the murmurs surrounding him. Wait until tomorrow when news got out about the other two. He smothered a giggle.
Finishing his second cigarette, he tossed the butt on the ground to join the others already there. It was time to leave. When the time came for Act Three, he would catch the show right out there with the first responders where he belonged, and no one would ever suspect him of anything. People saw what you wanted them to see. Nothing more.
“Didn’t seem to be much point getting you out to the crime scene yesterday,” Everett said, sitting on the edge of Jake’s desk. “We were both there most of Saturday night, and it was well after noon before they finally let the paramedics and forensic technicians inside. The fire chief is still pissed. Two of the volunteers failed to answer the call. They rotate through the weekends, so not everyone is on call, but Ian Scott and Cal Ketchum forgot they were. Gus Albert claimed he’d seen them partying at Stumpy’s earlier. Nobody takes volunteering seriously anymore.”
“Tell me about it,” Matt said. “When I was in Stratford, there were a few auxiliary police officers you couldn’t really count on.”
The chief nodded and continued. “There wasn’t a damn thing you could’ve done even if you’d come down there. Morgan and Hazlet have seen a hell of a lot of things in their time, and to have them both toss their cookies like that, well, it had to be bad. Since Andrew wasn’t around and Fitz is still overseas, someone from the coroner’s office in North Bay took the bodies away this morning, and they’ll deliver them to Toronto for autopsy. God alone knows what they’ll be able to do given what they’re getting.”
Jake ran his hand through his chestnut hair and reached for the coffee mug on his desk.
“You’re right,” he admitted. “I was so damn sore yesterday, I could barely move. I’ve got the old leg on today. Not much bend at the knee, but it doesn’t hurt as much either. I’ll be glad when the new one comes in. I’m heading to Ottawa midweek. I know someone in the fire marshal’s office I want to talk to. He’s helped me out a time or two with other cases.”
Ev sighed. “Well, warn him before you show him any pictures. I took one look at the photos and thought I was going to lose my breakfast, too.”
Jake turned back to his computer to scan the images one of the uniformed officers had taken of the crowd watching the fire. No one stood out, and if anything, each person looked horrified, not mesmerized, and no one seemed to be having fun. Where was he? He had to be there. Whether he was a pyromaniac or an arsonist at this point didn’t matter. He was one dangerous, unpredictable son of a bitch.
“I know he’s here—he has to be—but I can’t see him,” Jake said, suppressing his frustration as best he could. “He’s got to be in the back somewhere, maybe over near those trees, but there’ll be too much scene contamination to help us any.” He looked up at Ev once more. The chief probably hadn’t slept since Saturday night. “The firefighters say only the one room at the back of the house burned? That was a hell of a lot of smoke for one room. What burns black like that other than rubber tires, and that wasn’t what I smelled Saturday night,” Jake said, the old insecurity nagging at him.
Ev shrugged. “I don’t know.” He huffed out a breath. “I asked Lincoln Howard, the fire marshal, and he says plastics and polystyrene can produce that carbon black smoke. It’s probably as deadly as they come.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I know you blame yourself, Jake, but this isn’t on you. This guy’s a lunatic. Nothing he does makes sense, and God alone knows how we’ll catch the bastard. What kind of animal burns two men alive like that?”
Matt rubbed the back of his neck. “I want to bounce something off you. Looking at the destruction of the kitchen and seeing nothing but smoke damage elsewhere and then looking at the pictures from the barn fire back in July—do you see the similarity? Only the back of the barn burned. We thought it was because the fire department had arrived on time, but what if that was a trial run?”
Jake narrowed his eyes and examined the two sets of photographs again. He sipped his coffee. “Let’s go one step further. If the barn was a run through for this fire, then the boathouse could be a practice run for the cabin fire. See how none of the trees around either structure burned?”
He stood and limped over to the magnetic board and rearranged the pictures to put the images of the similar fires side by side.
“I spent a whole day out at the cabin, and I’ve gone over every scrap of evidence from that fire, and I’m getting nowhere. I may know how a revenge pyromaniac or arsonist thinks, but I don’t know a damn thing about fire itself and that’s going to be important in this case. I’m hoping the guys I know on the arson investigation team can give me a quick course in how fire behaves. Our man manipulates the scene to suit his purposes. He won’t have a ‘one size fits all’ method for setting his fires, but there will have to be similarities—something that will show the fire is his. He turns the fire loose and lets it do his dirty work, but how does he start it and why those particular victims?”
Everett poured himself another cup of coffee from the small carafe he’d carried into the office with him.
“You make it sound as if fire is a living entity,” he said. “That’s something Ralph Willard might say.”
Jake nodded. “He might. Has anyone verified the whereabouts of our lowly editor?”
“Yes. I called his sister,” Ev said. “He’s still in the hospital, the poor bugger’s full of cancer. He’ll be back next week. There’s no way he did this, but he may know who did. I want the name of his source.”
“Go back a minute to fire being a living thing,” Matt said. “Why say that?”
“Because he’s showing us that it is. The fire at Ed Keller’s proved it to him. He may have started it in a drum, but then it flexed its muscles. By the very definition of life, fire is alive. It breathes, eats, moves, excretes, and reproduces.”
“But it doesn’t think. It isn’t sentient,” Matt argued.
“To our killer, it is. He’s taught it to behave. It obeys him. It kills for him.”
“Well, whoever our guy is, he’s definitely got a vehicle. There’s no way he walked down the street with the stuff he needed in that fire or the one in the cabin. Have you found out what kind of car our missing men drive?” Ev asked.
“I’ve phoned Bear Lake and a woman in Montreal, but no one’s returned my calls yet,” Jake answered. “As far as this fire goes, the preliminary reports from forensic say there was broken glass all over the table, but they didn’t find any sign of turpentine, the accelerant he used before.”
Matt nodded. “I saw that. Don’t they usually use the same thing? The techs think he covered these guys in high-poof alcohol.” He shuddered. “Why the hell do that?”
“Candles,” Jake muttered. “Because this bastard wanted those guys to suffer.” His stomach threatened to return the coffee he’d just swallowed. “Ever order a cocktail like a Blue Blazer or a Flaming Sambuca? How about Crepe Suzette or Baked Alaska? Remember how the flame burns on the top until the waiter blows it out? No one blew the flame out this time, and when the alcohol burned off, the flames kept going. He flambéed those guys, burning them alive.”
“Damn,” Matt said and shook his head. “That must’ve been a nightmare. Let’s hope to hell he sedated them first. I interviewed a kid with third degree burns on his hands and arms a couple of years ago when he dropped his Flaming Dr. Pepper. Fire raced along his hand and caught on his shirt. He was lucky his buddy had a fire extinguisher close by.”
The thought that kids could be so short sighted as to put themselves in that kind of danger bothered Jake’s already queasy stomach. He’d seen people on fire in Afghanistan when bombs had gone off in crowded market places. He shuddered. Some memories would haunt him the rest of his life.
“I don’t know about pyromania, but this guy’s got to be a sociopath,” Matt said, his face saying he felt the same way Jake did. “And he’s now officially a serial killer.”
“I agree,” Jake shook his head and huffed out a breath, trying to push the memories away. “But for my money, he was already a serial killer when we had only one unidentified body. I believe we’re looking for a pyromaniac, hellbent on avenging God alone knows what, and until we discover what his beef is, we haven’t got a hope in hell of figuring out where or when he’ll strike next. And the body count has doubled.”
“What do you mean doubled?
We’ve got five dead here and one before,” Ev almost shouted. “That’s a hell of a lot more than doubled.”
“But only two of the men here were murdered. The others were collateral damage. He may not even have known they were there.”
“And that excuses it?” Matt asked, his eyebrows vanishing into his hair. He made a fist with his right hand and pounded it into his left palm. “No damn way. He doesn’t get a pass on those. Dead is dead, and that’s his fault.” He picked up his half empty coffee cup and tossed it into the garbage can.
Jake nodded, forcing his own disgust down and focusing on what he knew and could understand.
“That’s why I don’t think the man in the cabin was his first kill.” He glanced back at the screen. “The only way he could’ve been sure not to be disturbed at the cabin was if he knew there was no one to disturb him.”
“So you think he killed Nate Simmons, too?” Ev asked.
“I do. Have uniformed officers track down these people—most of them probably live in the neighborhood,” he said indicating the photographs on the screen. “Our perp blended into this crowd, but someone could’ve seen something, heard something, noticed someone who didn’t belong. He’ll make a mistake, and when he does, we’ll have him. But your guess as to where he’ll strike is as good as mine. We thought he was using isolated locations, now we know that’s not the case. Unfortunately, knowing the when and not the where or the why makes our job harder. The clock is ticking, folks.”
The office door opened. “Sorry, guys” Lynette said, “but I figured you’d want this.”
Fire Angel Page 5