That pissant Jake’s profile was a joke that would fit at least a dozen men he could name off the top of his head. A coward, a narcissist? Pock, pock, pock. He would show him who the chicken really was. The police would be swamped with false calls and idiots trying to take responsibility for his actions. He might even make a few himself, using public phones and the burners he’d bought. Talent was a wonderful thing to have.
While he’d been planning to arrange an accident for Maxine—discovering she hadn’t been at work had really pissed him off—but now it might be wiser to wait a bit. The old biddy would get what was coming to her soon enough. Hell, she might even be on hand for act five. They could cancel all the public performances they wanted. It wouldn’t make any difference to him.
But Alexis ... that high and mighty, stuck-up bitch would get hers soon. He’d tried to make friends with her during the storm. As one of that group of helpful snowmobile heroes, he’d visited the inn, collected food for those stuck in their homes without heat or power, and delivered it. He’d even brought her chocolate bonbons, and she’d placed them on the reception desk for everyone. The other day, he’d tried to talk to her and when she’d seen him approaching, she’d turned and walked away. She would pay for that snub.
Who the hell did she think she was? She’d had no right infiltrating his mind the night of the fire. The funny part was, without the fire to connect them, she couldn’t get inside his head, not even when he accidentally brushed up against her. What the hell kind of telepath was that? But he’d learned a lot on his visits to the inn.
Minette was a great conversationalist, but it had been Mia who’d proven to be a fountain of information. Five-year-olds knew no boundaries, and little ears heard far more than adults thought they did. They were quite perceptive, too.
As he’d suspected, Alexis didn’t like the dark, nor raccoons, owls, and mice. She also had an aversion to the cold. Considering she’d lived in California for so long, that wasn’t surprising, He’d chosen a special place for her, a romantic little spot for their tryst, one where she would end her days in terror, enjoying everything she feared. The storm had created problems for him, but he’d worked around them, and he was ready for the entr’acte. She wasn’t going to enjoy this little break, but he would.
He turned back to the work at hand, dismissing the briefing. This profile was of no concern to him. No one would guess he was Fire Angel from it.
“Hey, Lynette,” he called, opening the door and stepping into the station. “Is Ev around? I want to file a report.”
“He’s not back from North Bay, but I can take your information.”
He smiled. “Nothing serious. I saw that black SUV you guys have been looking for the other night. The driver had to be drunk. He hit a couple of mailboxes out on River Road. It’s amazing he hasn’t caused more accidents. I managed to write down the plate number...”
“Give me a second.” She reached for a report sheet. Probably someone doing too much pre-Christmas celebrating. What have you got?”
He smiled. Good thing he’d memorized Bandit’s plate number before sinking the van in the bog.
* * *
Half an hour later, pumped and convinced their plan would succeed, forcing Fire Angel to make a mistake, Alexis waited as Jake parked his SUV behind the cruiser and squad truck. Calls had already come into the station. No doubt most of them would be dead ends, but all they needed was one lead.
Alexis scanned the area. The semi-detached house, not as well-maintained as the other homes in the neighborhood, was sadly out of place. Jake had mentioned it was a rental property. Perhaps the owner didn’t know what state the house was in. While he went over to talk to Pierre, she walked up to Sam.
“Good morning,” Sam said, carrying an extra fire helmet. “Nice to finally see the sun again. Jackson and I have been through the building, and it’s sound enough, but the kitchen ceiling is weak. The roof leaked quite a bit where we cut holes in it to vent the fire. They’ve blocked off the stairway to the attic. Given the amount of freezing rain and snow we’ve had, the ceiling over the kitchen is in even worse shape than it was. You could easily fall right through it. It won’t take much for it to come crashing down. That part of the house will have to be torn down and rebuilt, but the rest of the structure is sound enough. Unless you absolutely need to get up there, I would give it a pass.”
“Thanks. I can get what I need at this level,” she said and smiled. “Were there any holes cut into the ceiling before you cut yours?”
“I don’t know. The smoke was so thick and black. There are several holes in it now, a couple of which go through to the roof. We nailed plastic overtop when we could but that was after a fair amount of rain had fallen. The roof itself was a mess. From the condition of the interior, even without fire damage, the place was a pig sty.”
“Judging from the outside, that’s not too surprising. Are you coming inside with me?”
“No, Jackson will. I’m waiting for a call from my captain, but I’ll take you through Providence House next week.”
“Okay.”
She made a notation in the file she carried, and walked back to where Jake stood with Pierre, his face grim. Whatever he’d been told wasn’t good news.
Jake smiled as she approached. It looked like her questions would have to wait until later.
“All set to go inside?”
“Almost,” she said, pulling on a new coverall. “Jackson’s coming inside with me.”
“I’m coming in, too,” he said, his voice firm.
She frowned. “The fewer people around, the easier it’ll be for me to learn things. What about your leg?”
“It’s fine,” he insisted. “I’m your partner, and I’ll watch your back. The guys will wait out here and watch us. There’s another cruiser parked behind the house on the next street. If he heard that briefing, then he’s got to be furious. No one’s going to sneak up on us.” The muscle in his jaw jumped.
“Then, you’ll need a helmet. Sam says we need to wear them. I wasn’t judging your fitness for the task,” she said. “I was just pointing out what Minette said.”
“Minette worries too much,” he said. “This is my job. Where I go and what I do is my business not hers. Now, are you coming or not?”
He stormed off towards the truck to get a helmet, then headed to the house where Jackson waited on the veranda.
With Jackson in the lead, herself in the middle, and Jake bringing up the rear, they entered the house. Beyond the typical smoke and water damage one would expect, this part of the house was relatively unscathed, but when she stepped into the kitchen, it was a different story.
“Wow. It’s as if we’ve stepped from one dimension into another,” she said, fastening her chin strap. “This was definitely a controlled burn, like Providence House and that barn you mentioned. Let me get some wall scrapings. I’ll bet he used fire-retardant paint on them.”
“That’s what we thought,” Jake agreed, “although we haven’t been able to figure out exactly how or when he managed to do that. It would’ve taken time. The techs believe he was in that corner near the screen door when he threw the Molotov cocktail. You’ll know if this fire started like the others, right?”
She nodded.
Alexis took out the crime scene photos and examined the positioning of the skeletal remains. She’d scrutinized the pictures in detail, but being in the room and seeing the table, made everything seem even grislier than before. She glanced around the room again, and then returned the photos to the envelope and placed it on top of her case.
“If he started the fire with the cocktail. it probably hit the wall there between them,” she said, pulling her portable hydrocarbon detector out of her kit. “A traditional Molotov cocktail is made using a glass bottle containing a flammable substance like gasoline and motor oil, with a wick of some sort, soaked in gas or alcohol, pushed through the bottle’s stopper. The person lights the wick and throws the bottle at the target, but the chances o
f getting burned in the process are quite high. In fact, if the arsonist doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing, he could set himself on fire instead.” She frowned and examined the dial on the detector. Nothing. “The techs are right. There’s no trace of gasoline here, so his had to be a modern one—essentially sulfuric acid, sugar, and potassium chlorate together with dish soap and Styrofoam, which created the clouds of thick, black, choking smoke. None of the materials are hard to get; a high school lab would stock them.”
“You think Angus helped him with this?” Jake asked.
“I do,” she answered. There was no doubt in her mind that Angus had been murdered for his efforts, too. “Talk to the school principal and see if those chemicals are missing. If Angus supplied them, Fire Angel would definitely need to shut him up. I’ve seen science teachers do this as a controlled experiment in class. The Internet gives the directions for something called Dancing Gummy Bears. In fact, you can even learn how to make your own potassium chlorate, and most drain cleaners contain enough sulfuric acid to be used as is, with only a splash of water. Basically, when the sulfuric acid mixes with the potassium chlorate, it produces oxygen and the sugar burns. That’s why there was so much smoke and flame, but not much damage to the rest of the place.”
Styrofoam. She hadn’t focused on that, but like the candle, it had been a part of each of the fires—the polystyrene insulation at the shelter as well as coffee cups and the plates under the candles she saw in her visions. Alexis scanned the room once more.
“I’ll get started in here,” she said. “The firefighter can stay with me, but Jake, can you look around outside?” She hoped he understood that she needed him to look for a sheltered vantage point and cigarette butts, maybe even the remains of a joint. It wouldn’t be easy to find anything considering the recent weather...
“Alexis,” Jake started to argue, but stopped and nodded. “Don’t let her out of your sight,” he said to the firefighter before leaving the house.
Alexis frowned. Had something ticked?
She shook her head. God, she was imagining things. Turning to the firefighter standing beside her, she smiled.
“Jackson, were you on duty the night of the fire?”
He nodded.
She pointed to the broken window above the sink, the only window in the kitchen other than the one in the door.
“Was that window broken when you arrived?”
“No, ma’am. We punched it out as well as the one in the door when we got the go-ahead to pour water in here. The fire was really bad over in that corner.” He indicated the table.
“What color was the flame?”
“Yellow and white, oh, and blue—took a while to put out. We didn’t find any containers for the standard accelerants. There were dirty rags and stuff in the garage, but nothing in here.”
“Thank you. I’d better get to work. Can you move over there?” She indicated the living room. “This is a pretty small space, and I need to spread out.”
* * *
While he didn’t like the idea of leaving Alexis in there, short of making a scene, Jake had no choice. It wasn’t as if she was alone. Jackson was in there with her. He pulled off his helmet, setting it down on the veranda. Like the sidewalk, it had been shoveled. From the lack of snow, it had been cleaned early this morning. Who had done it? A good Samaritan? Unlikely. Probably the firefighters when they’d arrived earlier.
Knowing what to look for, he walked around the house to the back door, but the snow was undisturbed. The odds were, the perp had exited this way when he’d gotten tired of watching. Would he have left or moved around front to watch the commotion? He walked down the front walk to where the barrier would have been on the night of the fire.
He shook his head. If he were a pyromaniac, where would he stand to watch once it was literally too hot to stay in the kitchen? It would have to be fairly private where he wouldn’t attract the attention of the neighbors. He’d examined the photographs taken at the crime scene and moved farther away, closer to a bank of tamarack trees.
The area at the top of a knoll would offer the best vantage point and would be far enough away from the neighbors not to be noticed. The trees would’ve had needles then, too. Digging through the snow, then the layer of ice, down to the brown needles, he found half a dozen different cigarette butts, one that could be the remnants of a joint, and dropped them into an evidence bag. He doubted they would find anything, but maybe the techs would get lucky. It was too bad they hadn’t thought of searching for evidence after they’d left Duffy’s on Tuesday.
A few of the neighbors, no doubt tired of being cooped up by the storm, came out to see what was going on. Most of the people the police had interviewed earlier had little sympathy for the dead. All they’d wanted to know was when the house would be repaired or torn down. An eyesore like that affected property values.
An eerie feeling made Jake stop in his tracks. He looked up and down the street in front of him. Had those cars been there earlier? Had that black SUV been there? Hadn’t a black SUV sent Frank off the road the night the ice storm had started? He stopped and did a slow scan of the neighborhood. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Someone was watching him; he would stake his life on it. That black SUV looked a lot like Andrew’s. Was she wrong to dismiss him because of that note? Maybe the comment had nothing to do with her uncle. He needed to set his feelings aside and take another look at the doctor.
He walked towards his vehicle, unlocked it, and opened the door, intending to put the baggie in the SUV and collecting his cellphone. He stopped when Frank’s canteen pulled in behind his vehicle.
Pierre waved at Frank.
“Glad you got my message, Frank. It’s cold enough out here to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. I need hot coffee, fast.”
Frank laughed. “Coming right up.”
Jake shoved the evidence bag in his pants’ pocket and shut the door. Since he wanted to get back inside with Alexis, this was just the opportunity he needed. He would bring her a cup of coffee.
Sam walked up to the house, opened the front door, said something, and then closed it again. He walked toward Frank’s truck.
“Hi, Frank, nice to see you,” Jake said. “Damn, it’s cold out here.”
“So I’ve heard.” Frank chuckled, handing Pierre an extra-large coffee. “I was just over at the construction site on Dupont—close enough to answer the call without throwing off my schedule. I see you’re looking for clues. What can I get you?”
“Alexis is. How about two that size with double sugar and cream?”
“Coming right up. I heard about your speech to the media,” Frank said. “That guy sure sounds like a badass. Do you really think you’re closing in on him? I tried to think of anyone who might fill the bill, but the ones I know are either dead or in jail.” He laughed. “She still in there?”
“Yeah. Hopefully, she’ll know more when she finishes. We’re narrowing the possibilities. I expect to make an arrest before Christmas,” Jake answered, hoping that he was right. “If you do think of anything, you’ll let me know, right?”
Frank looked concerned. “I sure will. I dropped off more venison at the inn and was surprised when Randy said the inn was shutting down for an extended period.” He handed out two cardboard cups filled with coffee.
“New cups?” Jake asked.
Frank nodded. “They’re recyclable. Cost a bit more, but they’re better for the environment. So why are you closing the inn?”
“I’m sending Minette and Mia to visit my parents. I thought a visit to see those fairy tale princesses of hers would make a good Christmas present, and since everyone put in long hours because of the storm ... I’m hoping to reopen in January, maybe before. We’ll see.”
“Me and the boys will miss that roast beef, but the little one will be in seventh heaven. I was hoping on Christmas dinner, but I guess I’ll go see my mother. That’ll make her happy.” He laughed.
Jake chuckled. “I’m sure it
will. Bring back some of that Wasaga Beach beer, will you? I heard it’s pretty good.” He placed a five-dollar bill on the ledge. “Thanks.”
He hurried toward the house, surprised news of the closing was getting around so quickly, but perhaps Min was more worried than she’d let on. If anything happened to either of them, David would never forgive him.
Jackson stood just inside the doorway.
Jake looked over his shoulder. Sam was at the canteen. He must be getting the firefighter a cup, too.
* * *
Alexis checked the floor and the table for signs of wax. There it was—the same tacky, waxy residue she’d found in the cabin and on the table from Duffy’s garage—the same as the residue in the box at the shelter. She grabbed a sample jar and scraped the underside of the table where the leaves met.
She walked over to the door with her camera and started snapping pictures. If the Molotov cocktail had been thrown from here—say seven or eight feet away from the table—it would’ve hit in the right spot, leaving this as a safe place from which to watch the process. There wouldn’t be a similar area at Providence House since the fire had been set remotely.
Stepping back to the table, she removed her glove and touched one of the chairs before slowing her breathing. Closing her eyes, she prepared to do her thing and watch the horror unfold. She looked through his eyes as he prepared the scene, watched as the flames caught the alcohol, then the clothing, and finally the flesh. She saw him turn, the flames showing his profile in the window before he opened the door. She knew that face, that hooked nose, similar to the owl’s beak, but not as pronounced as it once was. Damn it! Why couldn’t she remember the full face? But she had him. She needed to look at pictures of all the suspects again, and once she did, it was game over.
When her heartbeat and breathing settled, she reached her trembling hand into her kit and took out the bottle of water she’d added this morning, putting away her camera and everything else, snapping the case shut. She tipped back the helmet and took a deep drink, trying to steady herself. Why was it so hot in here? It was freezing outside and yet she was sweat-soaked. She had to get out and get some air. As she stepped out of the kitchen, she heard a sound, a click of some sort—like a loud clock ticking. Hadn’t she heard it earlier? Was it the clock on the stove? How could it be, there was no power in the house.
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