Forcing her thoughts back to the task at hand, she frowned. This grass, while it had been trampled almost to dirt close to the building, was proof that the fire hadn’t extended much beyond the cabin. While the sand here would’ve stopped it, why hadn’t it burned to the north, east, or south? The grass there was as tall as hay in a farmer’s field.
Continuing around the north side toward the back of the cabin, the least damaged section of the structure, she smiled. Except for a few animal tracks, the area was undisturbed. She stood at the edge of the clearing with her back to the woods and studied the scene. Using her camera, she snapped several pictures, and then slowly examined the large propane tank next to the outhouse. It had been capped, the lines disconnected and bled. Who had done that?
Slowly, watching the grass in front of her feet, she walked from the outhouse toward the cabin, stopping about six feet away from it and staring down at the shorter, greener grass in front of her. As she moved onto it, she realized the earth beneath her feet was lumpy and uneven, a contrast to what she’d already covered. Reaching down, shoving the blades aside to see the ground itself, she noted white sand—not like the one on the beach, but the kind you might find in a child’s sandbox—mixed with the darker earth. Someone had used a shovel and turned the sod over, dumping sand along the edges of it, creating a natural firebreak about two feet wide. She took several more pictures and followed the grassy verge around to the south side of the cabin until she was in front of the shack once more.
“That’s how you did it,” she mumbled to herself, nodding and smiling. “You would’ve needed at least sixty pounds of sand for this and using bags rather than digging out the bank meant no one would notice it. You had to plan this well in advance. What other secrets are you going to share with me? By the time I’m through here, I’ll know exactly how you did this. I may even know why.”
Going back to the rear of the cabin once more, she stopped moving when the hairs on the back of her neck rose. She turned around in time to see a flash of light coming from the trees on her right, about thirty feet up the slope. Shielding her eyes, she looked up. There was nothing there.
“Now, I’m imagining things,” she grumbled. “You’ve got me spooked.” She turned back to the cabin and climbed the back steps. “Okay, Fire Angel, it’s you and me. Let’s get it on.”
Crossing the veranda, amazingly intact compared to the one at the front, she opened the door and walked into the building, the back wall still firmly in place. The interior of the cabin was almost gutted. On her right, the gas fridge and stove were charred and blackened. The remnants of cupboards hung off the walls, and the metal legs of a table and two chairs stood in place, reminding her that this burned-out shell had once been someone’s home. On her left, the blackened springs and legs were all that was left of a sofa and chair. In the center of the south wall, a fieldstone chimney rose majestically into the sky, the black walls on each side of it reduced to less than half their height. In front of it, several boards had burned straight through, leaving a gaping hole in their stead. Around the hole, the other planks were probably rotted thanks to the collapsed roof and the autumn rain.
The front of the cottage to the left of what must’ve been the door, was badly burned, but on the right toward the north wall where the rusted cot sat, partially covered by galvanized tin sheets, the area was almost intact.
Why had the back of the cabin not burned? For that matter why was there still so much of it here? As she left the solid area near the door, she carefully tested each board before putting her weight on it and walked deeper inside.
Using her portable hydrocarbon vapor detector, she mapped the path of the accelerant. Had the turpentine not had a high percentage of coal tar in it, it would’ve been undetectable, but maybe Fire Angel didn’t know that. Here, near the door, the residue was non-existent, but it increased steadily as she moved closer to the fireplace until it peaked near what remained of the metal cot. Going back to the hearth, she pulled her penlight out of her pocket and flashed it on the stones. An unusually shiny residue caught her attention. Most people might not even have noticed it, but she’d seen something like that before in a house fire that had claimed an elderly couple. It was candle wax.
“Now, why would an elderly man be burning candles on the edge of his fireplace? That’s rather New Age for a senior citizen.”
She set down her fire kit, opened it, and removed two clear plastic specimen bags. Using a small blade, she scraped as much of the residue as she could get off the stones and dropped it and the blade into one of the bags. Reaching for another blade, she repeated the process on what was left of the wooden floor in front of the fireplace.
Standing once more, detector in hand, she moved toward the front corner of the cabin where the cot was, examining the floor as she walked, looking for signs that the liquid accelerant might have seeped between the planks into the sub-floor. Considering its location and primitive condition, the log cabin had been well-built, no doubt insulated for the winter, too.
Using the small crowbar from her pack, she lifted a few planks until she found the joists between what remained of the bats of fiberglass insulation which had melted where the floor had burned. She searched for the char pattern which would indicate that the accelerant had been poured onto the floor and had pooled in this area. Judging by what she saw, thanks to the lay of the land, the floor tilted towards the river.
She examined what was left of the cot. No matter how hot a fire burned, steel springs rarely melted. Alexis smiled as she shifted the sheets of galvanized tin out of her way and leaned them against the wall. When the roof had collapsed, these metal sheets had smothered the flames, preserving enough of the body for autopsy to allow Jake to connect the fires. Without the Rohypnol, this could easily have passed for an accident. That ceiling proved Fire Angel hadn’t thought of everything. If he’d overlooked this possibility, then he’d overlooked something else.
Returning to the fireplace, she got down on her hands and knees and used her flashlight to examine the dirt beneath the cabin. There it was. The same waxy residue she’d found on the stones. Candle wax didn’t burn right away. It liquified first and then the liquid wax was drawn into the flame and turned into gas, essentially making the candle disappear. For a candle to leave this much residue, it had to be a specialty candle of some sort, most likely made of paraffin, that burned unevenly. Some of the liquid wax had seeped through the floor boards and landed in the sand. Alexis scraped up some of the wax and placed it in another bag.
Why use a candle to start the fire? She would have to look and see if there was evidence of candles at the other sites. Jake hadn’t mentioned them, but no one might have thought anything about it. Lots of people had candles around these days.
Now that she had garnered her information from the evidence, it was time to use her gift.
Until the night of the fire eighteen years ago, she hadn’t realized she had this ability, but because she did, she’d been able to identify the man who’d killed her friends and had almost taken her life as well.
Inhaling deeply to center herself, she exhaled, removed the glove on her right hand, and sat down on the floor close to the burned-out area. She slowed her breathing and touched the floor, feeling the pull of the past as she entered the arsonist’s mind and the evidence she’d discovered pieced itself into a cohesive whole. Relying on her sixth sense, she became the Fire Psychic.
Looking through his eyes, she watched as he prepared the scene, adjusting everything, making sure nothing would go wrong. Beginning on the edge of the hearth, he placed logs on the floor in front of the fireplace, covered them with turpentine, and then added small sticks and other tinder. He set a shaped candle in the center of it all.
Bandit—he’d known his name—was lying wrapped in a sheet on the cot. Grunting from the effort of getting him up there, he tucked the sheet around the drug dealer, leaving an end dangling down to the floor. Humor bubbled inside him and he laughed. The unexpected t
hought blared loud in her mind. The bastard looks like a giant doobie.
He reached for the two large cans of turpentine and poured one over the bed, and then emptied the rest of it and the other can onto the floor, backing toward the fireplace, stopping at the edge of the twigs and tinder.
Turning to the body, he said something about killing a dog before pulling a book of matches out of his pocket. He struck one match, inhaled the sulfur from it, and bent to light the candle. When the flame caught, he blew out the match and dropped it next to the candle. Stepping back, he tossed the book of matches onto the sticks and moved to stand near the back door. He watched the candle burn down, smiled when the plate and the tinder caught fire, and then watched as the book of matches blazed, setting the rest of the sticks on fire. As soon as it looked as if the accelerant-soaked logs would catch, he opened the door, looked up at the full moon, an edge of it being consumed by dark clouds, and stepped outside, carrying the empty turpentine cans with him. The vision ended.
She exhaled heavily and opened her eyes, realizing she was covered in sweat as she’d expected. Reliving the fire was always an exhausting experience, this one even more so since the murder had been calculated and deliberate, but the motive confused her. He’d murdered the man because of a dog. That had to be the trigger for everything that had happened, but how was she going to explain that to Jake?
Now that she knew what to look for at the other fire scenes, she’d find a way to piece it together for Jake. As always, since she’d looked through Fire Angel’s eyes, she hadn’t seen his face, but she would identify him soon. This man was definitely a pyromaniac. He’d nursed and nurtured this fire, but he’d controlled it. She stood, slightly dizzy.
“What the hell?” That was new, just as clearly hearing his thoughts had been, but then she couldn’t expect to crawl inside a sick mind like his and not be tainted.
There’d been a full moon that night, as she knew, the blue moon, the second full moon within a month, which made it an auspicious date on which to begin his killing spree. He’d counted on the heavy rains that night to keep the fire controlled, but he hadn’t expected the tin on the roof. Prepared and yet not.
Satisfied that she had everything she could hope to get from the cabin, she packed up her kit and headed back outside to the vehicle.
Jake had opened two lawn chairs and placed a folding table between them. On it sat a small picnic basket.
“It’s too awkward for me to try and get up off the ground,” he said. “I carry the lawn chairs wherever I go. I thought you might be hungry. I asked Minette to put a lunch together for us before I met you for breakfast. What were you doing in there sitting on the floor? From here, it looked like you were in some kind of trance.” He shook his head. “Do you realize how long we’ve been here?” He opened the basket, removed two red metal cups, a thermos, a pile of sandwiches, and a small plastic container of cookies. “I hope you like ham salad. We also have chocolate chip cookies and coffee in the thermos, sugar and cream already added.”
“I always need a little while to pull it all together,” she said, removing her yellow suit and grabbing her jacket from the car before dropping into the chair beside him.
Glancing up, she saw that the sun was gone. The sky had clouded over, promising rain and an early dusk.
“This is great. I’m starving. I’m sorry I took so long. I lost track of time, but I have evidence and answers.”
“That’s good news. We should have time to eat before the rain starts,” he said.
Alexis poured coffee for them both and handed him a cup. She noticed an open note, a picture drawn by a child of a man and a little girl. Carefully printed under the smaller figure was the name Mia.
“An admirer?” she asked.
“I suppose you could say that. She loves to draw, and I seem to be one of her favorite subjects, after unicorns. Mia gave me a drawing for my office, and I made the mistake of asking for another one. If I hung every picture she gave me, we’d soon run out of wall space. You should see the stuff she brings home from school.” He chuckled. “Minette has made it clear that the fridge can only hold so many pictures. She gets to pick her best one each day for viewing. We’ve made this little frame, and she gets to put her daily pick in it. I’m sure she’ll want to regale you with her entire portfolio when you meet her,” he finished, biting into his sandwich.
“Is she your daughter?” she asked, a stab of jealousy surprising her.
“I think she thinks so, but Mia’s Minette’s daughter. Her father was a friend of my brother David’s. Luke was killed in a roadside bombing in Afghanistan,” he replied, sorrow heavy in his voice. “She never got to meet her daddy.”
Alexis nodded, her heart going out to the little fatherless girl. It made sense for the manager of the inn to live there. Like Jake, she probably had her own private quarters.
After cleaning her hands with sanitizer, Alexis reached for one of the sandwiches Jake had unwrapped.
“These are delicious,” she said, savoring the spicy ham mix spread over homemade wheat bread. “If I keep eating like this, I’ll gain a ton. Did you find anything?”
Jake pointed to half a dozen small, airtight containers on top of a red tool kit.
“Wow! That’s amazing,” she commented and grinned.
“Don’t be so shocked. I know how to collect evidence. I do have police and forensic training, remember?”
“I didn’t mean that,” she said, putting her hand out in a placating gesture. “I’m just surprised there was that much to find, more specifically that no one else found it. He isn’t as careful as we thought he was, and that’s how we’ll catch him.”
Three vials held the remains of cigarette butts. The others were filled with various colors of dirt.
“I found the butts over there, near where someone had parked a vehicle. They were really ground into the dirt, but that’s probably what protected them. One is just bits of paper, so that could be a joint—makes sense since the victim was a dealer. The other two are cigarette butts, but they’re in pretty bad shape. They were under some leaves. Since there aren’t any trees here in the clearing they must’ve blown down the mountain and that could’ve happened at any time. Nate Simmons didn’t smoke—he was some sort of die-hard environmentalist and naturalist. That’s another reason why I question his death was accidental. He was found next to a particularly nasty trap. I don’t think his grandson smokes either. They could belong to a visitor or someone who came to look at the place when it was for sale, or even some guy who came off the river for a leak. They may not mean anything. I’m not an expert, but I would guess they’re the cheap ones that you can buy tax-free on Bear Island. If they are from there, then our killer could be Temagami since they aren’t supposed to sell cigarettes to non-natives. Every now and then a carton or two gets by, but we can’t ignore that possibility. This may narrow the list of suspects.”
He finished his second sandwich and washed it down with coffee. He took a cookie and bit into it, chewed, and swallowed.
“I also found traces of what might be motor oil or some other kind of engine fluid. It discolored the dirt and the grass. I’ll check with the grandson to make sure his engine isn’t leaking. What did you discover?”
Alexis sat up straighter and smiled. “A lot, starting with the fact he used the cheapest turpentine available. I’m convinced this is a male pyromaniac, Jake. Besides, the notes themselves aren’t likely to have come from a woman.”
Knowing she had to be careful about the way she revealed the information, she took him step by step through the physical evidence she’d found, explaining where the fire had been set and how it had behaved. She mentioned the safe spot and the fact he’d most likely watched inside as long as he could.
“Using a candle to start the fire gives him time to enjoy its growth.” She took another bite of her sandwich, washing it down with a mouthful of coffee. “At a guess, I would say it’s paraffin since it’s been known to stain surfaces and i
t’s cheap. Lots of decorative candles are made with it. The lab can analyze it and figure that out for sure. It’s something to look for at the other scenes.” She gestured with her coffee cup. “He stayed inside the cabin up close to the fire as long as he could, but he wasn’t as smart as he thought he was. He probably saw the roof collapse but didn’t realize there were plates of tin covering it.”
“I was pretty sure our perp was male. If he built a firebreak, then he’s got camping experience—most people around here do—but it’s another point to add to the profile.” Jake nodded. “You say it would’ve taken about sixty bags of white sand? That would fill one hell of a sandbox. We should be able to trace an order that size.” He grinned. “You’re good. That’s way more than the technicians got. I wondered about the propane myself. Didn’t think to look to see it had been capped. Using a sand and dirt firebreak may point to his being Temagami since that’s one of the skills they use to build fires just about anywhere. Considering that and the cigarettes, this could be the reverse of a hate crime—a First Nations individual getting even with the white men who screwed him. He’d certainly have years of grievances to work with, including the residential schools which could explain why Father Martin might’ve been a target. I’ll go back over that fire on Bear Island. Maybe the thing wasn’t an accident after all. Let’s pack up. We’ll be lucky if we get to the station before the skies open.”
Fire Angel Page 15