Fatal Game

by Diane Capri

  “You mean like natural gas?”

  “Close, but not quite. The rep said that’s different. Apparently, they put something in natural gas called a tertbutyl—something-ithol to make it smell. The full name is in the email. Anyway, the methane in that cylinder was the stuff they use in chemical labs. Very pure. It’s colorless and odorless.”

  Jess whistled. “So the house could have been full of it. Which would explain why the fire spread so fast after the explosion, I guess?”

  “Could be. I don’t know. But the rep said you might be able to notice it in the air.”

  “Let me guess, it causes itchy eyes?”

  “Yep. And breathing gets difficult, he said.”

  Jess nodded, even though Mandy couldn’t see her. “Can they tell who bought this particular canister?”

  “I thought you’d ask that.” Mandy sounded pleased. She wanted to move up to reporting, and she was always trying to prove herself. The problem was, she was a beautiful woman and Carter seemed to doubt such a gorgeous head could also hold a fine brain. “They recycle the cylinders, I guess. So they keep good records. But they need the serial number on the bottle to trace it.”

  “Where do I find the serial number?”

  “On the bottom of the cylinder. But wait a second.” Mandy clicked a couple of keys. “Okay. The number is printed on there. The man I talked to said the numbers often don’t survive if there’s a fire.”

  Jess frowned. “You’re saying a highly flammable material is stored in a bottle with a label that burns?”

  “Yeah. I guess they didn’t expect them to burn. Or maybe they thought no one would want to know the serial number after a fire.” Mandy stopped a moment to breathe. “Whatever the reason back in the day, the rep said the new cylinders have the number engraved on the bottom.”

  “Okay. I’ll try and get the number. Maybe we’ll get lucky.” Jess hung up and went back into the station.

  She passed the time reading her email. Mandy had collected a lot of information about the gas cylinder from the manufacturer. She’d included pictures that confirmed the identification of the cylinder. And a formal looking document called a “Material Safety Data Sheet” that identified the gas, explained the dangers, and repeated side effects and other warnings.

  After thirty minutes, Jess grew tired of waiting, and the woman had returned to her desk.

  “Captain Mercer asked me to be here at seven, prompt.” She tapped her watch. “Could you check on him? If he’s going to be much longer, I’ll come back this afternoon.”

  “I’ll check.” She turned to a compact radio set on the rear wall, donned a headset, and hailed Mercer. She listened for a few moments, nodded, then switched off the radio. “Captain Mercer would like you to join him at Melissa Green’s place. I’ll get directions for you.”

  “Thanks,” Jess said on her way out the door. “I know where it is.”

  She drove within the speed limits until she reached the driveway where the gate was open. She eased the Mustang up the drive. Three police cars and a crime scene van were parked in front of the home’s charred remains. Jess parked at the end of the row.

  Mercer appeared from the woods behind the house. He pointed to the police cruiser at the front of the row, and Jess joined him there.

  “Get in,” he said, gesturing to the driver’s seat.

  She slid inside amid the odor of stale fried food. The passenger’s seat was hemmed in by a large computer mounted on a stalk, and a mass of wires that filled the foot well. An extension cord was duct-taped to the transmission tunnel with what looked like mobile phone chargers plugged into it.

  Mercer struggled into the passenger seat and stuffed a large notepad into a broad plastic bin behind the console. “I need the full story.”

  Jess frowned. “I told you. Karen Warner went missing, presumed kidnapped and murdered, and then her sister goes missing.”

  “You said your editor has a sixth sense about these things. What did you mean?”

  Jess shrugged. “Two sisters go missing within two years of each other. I mean, that’s not exactly an everyday thing.”

  Mercer scowled. “You’ve interviewed Donald Warner.”

  “I talked to him yesterday, after the fire.” She pulled her phone from her pocket and brought up her notes from the meeting. “I can send you my notes if you like?”

  Mercer held out his hand. She passed her phone, and he skimmed through the file. “Why did you go out there to talk to him?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re looking for. Two sisters went missing. One was his wife.”

  “I talked to him, too. He claims you’re working to get him released.” He returned her phone. “If you have exculpatory evidence, let’s see it.”

  She frowned. “I have nothing, and I didn’t tell him otherwise. I said I would look into the case.”

  “Why?”

  “Because this doesn’t make sense, does it? He says he’s innocent. Not likely, of course. But that could be true. People have been wrongfully convicted before.” She paused. “You surprise me, Mercer. If he didn’t kill his wife, don’t you want to know who did? Could be the same person who killed your son-in-law yesterday, couldn’t it?”

  Mercer frowned and said nothing.

  “Before I nearly died yesterday, I didn’t care that much about David Warner. Truthfully, I still don’t. But something’s going on here, Mercer.” Jess kneaded her forehead where a headache had started between her brows. “Look, I want to know. For sure. Don’t you?”

  Mercer nodded. Quietly, he said, “Yes. I do.”

  “Okay. Did you see that cylinder that was left after they put out the fire in the kitchen yesterday?” Jess waited until he nodded again. “Turns out it contained pure methane. Odorless and colorless. When I was in the house, my eyes were itching. Today, I’ve got a slight headache. Those are symptoms of exposure to methane. I think someone filled the house with the gas and set it off somehow.”

  “We agree there.” Mercer nodded, and he seemed to be slightly less hostile.

  Jess kept going. “There is a serial number on the bottom of the cylinder. We…you could trace who bought it.”

  “We did. It came from the university in Santa Irene. Stolen eighteen months ago.” Mercer paused, and then seemed to make a decision to tell her more. “There was a device on the valve that released the gas through the walls and filled the house. The kind of thing you can buy at the store to turn your lights on remotely, over the Internet.”

  Jess’s headache suddenly spiked pain into her eyes. “The place was rigged.”

  “Methane is lighter than air, so it rose to the top of the house and would have filled the place from the top down.” Mercer swallowed hard. “And the team found a large rectangular lump of metal. A transformer. It was mixed with a mess of cables. Wired up properly, it would have generated a storm of high voltage sparks when it was told to.”

  Jess sighed. “So Jackson and Ernie and…”

  Mercer gestured at the house. “And my son-in-law.”

  “Assuming the arsonist knew they were inside—” Jess’s breath caught.

  “The transformer was connected to the Internet. Same as the gas. The whole thing was remote controlled, and someone knew exactly when to trigger it all. It was cold blooded murder. Nothing less.” Mercer’s breathing was loud and rapid while he fought his feelings. He stared at the empty space where Melissa Green’s house had been.

  She gave him a few moments, letting him work through his pain until he leaned back in his seat.

  “We’ll get them, Roy. We will. We’ll find out who did this.” Jess laid a hand on his shoulder.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Tuesday, May 23

  Bear Hill, Arizona

  “I’m afraid that’s not how these things work, Jess.” Mercer glanced at the road in the distance beyond the driveway. “Santa Irene PD, Arizona State Police, the FBI, ATF, Homeland. Maybe more. They’re on the way. This isn’t my
jurisdiction. I’m filling in for now because Jackson is in the hospital. But I’m Collingwood.” He pointed with his thumb. “Ten miles down the road.”

  Jess looked down the road, too. She didn’t see anyone headed this way, but she believed him. She was a bit surprised that the feds weren’t here already.

  Warner was already on the watch lists because of his connection to The Devil Kings and their multi-state criminal activities over the past decade. Kidnapping Karen Warner for ransom was a federal offense. These days, explosions also brought out the federal agencies, as Morris had said when they talked. The way this explosion was rigged and the deaths that resulted were matters best left to the experts with the resources to do the job.

  “My daughter and granddaughter. My son-in-law. Captain Jackson. Ernie. I knew the ones who survived and the ones who didn’t.” He pressed his lips together and breathed hard through his nose. “But now, another department will take the lead.”

  “And you don’t feel you can let them do that,” Jess stated flatly.

  “In twenty-two years on the job, I’ve never led a murder investigation. Never had to.” He waved his hand at the pile of rubble that had been Melissa Green’s house. “Now, we have three murders and arson.”

  Jess gazed at the rubble and shook her head. Yesterday, when Mercer had arrived at the scene, he’d been on automatic pilot. His years of experience had kicked in. Process and procedure had kept him focused and on track. But his feelings were controlling him now, undermining his confidence and tangling his rational mind with boiling emotions.

  And then Jess realized what he’d said. “Three murders? What do you mean?”

  Mercer nodded and clicked his door open. “Come with me.”

  Jess followed Mercer around the wreckage to the trail that led into the woods and over the hill. Several electrical cables ran from the crime scene van along the trail, too.

  “Have you found out something about the Jeep?” She watched the rough ground, glad she’d worn her running shoes again.

  “You could say that.” He stopped and pointed to the dirt. “What do you see?”

  The track was nothing but two ruts on either side of some weeds. The ground was hard. The weeds were the lightest shade of green, leaves barely hanging on until the next rainfall.

  She knelt for a better look. Tire treads had marked the earth during a rain storm some time ago. The Arizona sun had baked the evidence hard in its place. The marks were worn around the high spots, although the pattern was visible and edges weren’t well defined.

  “Looks like the trail’s been used repeatedly,” she said.

  Mercer nodded as if she was a star pupil. “Do you remember what I said about this trail?”

  “Yeah.” She stood. “Not easy to find or navigate.”

  “Right. On the other side of the hill, the trail is positively dangerous. Very easy to get into a bad accident along there,” Mercer waved along the track and over the hill.

  “Who made these tracks? Melissa Green?”

  “Not likely. She didn’t own an off-road vehicle. Or a Jeep.” Mercer’s eyes scanned the area and jerked his thumb back toward the road. “And if a friend came out here to visit, why wouldn’t they take the road and use the driveway?”

  “You’re thinking either she had a boyfriend into off-roading, or this had nothing to do with her.” Jess would have mentioned the dirt bike magazines she’d seen in Melissa’s kitchen if she trusted Mercer. Which she didn’t.

  He nodded and continued making his way up the hill.

  Ahead, bright lights were hung from trees. Two uniformed police officers and several people wearing blue disposable coveralls were clustered together in the edge of the woods.

  “Crime scene techs?” Jess said.

  “Yes.”

  As she approached, Jess saw three technicians kneeling around a dark hole in the ground. Their blue coveralls were smeared with mud. Behind them, two shovels were sticking out of the ground.

  Jess sighed. “A grave? How did you find it?”

  “No idea whose yet.” Mercer nodded slowly. “I sent one of my guys up here to look for evidence that might identify that Jeep. He’s an experienced hunter, too. He found it.”

  Jess shivered. She looked around. She couldn’t see the house from here. They were enveloped in the trees. The barely marked trail continued its upward climb for another hundred feet before reaching the peak of the hill.

  The grave’s location was carefully chosen. A hidden spot in an isolated place. She shivered as she realized she’d stood not twenty feet away the night before.

  Mercer introduced Jess to the officer who had found the site. Sampson was six-six with biceps thicker than some of the surrounding trees. His ears led down a curve of solid muscle along his neck and into his shoulders.

  “How did you find the grave?” Jess watched his dark eyes.

  “There was a depression in the soil. You often get that around here. People dig something up while the ground’s dry, then when they put it back, there’s air pockets. Soon as it rains.” He made a sinking gesture with his hands. “Could have been anything buried there. People hunt out here and bury their kills if they aren’t fit to eat. I had a shovel, and it didn’t take a minute to look.”

  Mercer led her to one of the crime techs standing by a wide hole in the ground. “This is Arthur.”

  Jess shook the technician’s hand and leaned over to look in the hole.

  At the bottom, a half-covered body in a ripped floral print dress lay on its back. The flowers were darker than the background, and the dress was stained dark brown from time and the soil. The face was unrecognizably decomposed. Several items poked out of the ground that looked like the contents of a handbag. Jess identified a shiny gold lipstick case and a matching gold compact.

  Only the upper half of her body had been cleared so far. The other techs were bending into the grave, brushing the soil away and collecting it in small dustpans. They worked slowly, leaning into the grave to sweep soil, and leaning out to empty their dustpans and stretch their backs.

  “Tell us what you’ve got,” Mercer said.

  Arthur cleared his throat. “White female. Been in the ground for a while. The body has been damaged. Both arms are broken and several of the fingers. There is a lot of material evidence to process before we have cause, time, or manner of death.” He held up his hand. “And don’t get too excited by this, but we found a driver’s license in the handbag. The height, weight, and photo roughly match the deceased. The name on the license is Karen Warner.”

  Jess exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

  “Show me,” Mercer said.

  Arthur held up a clear plastic evidence bag with a mud covered plastic card inside. Mercer didn’t have gloves on, so he gestured, and Arthur turned it around to show both sides.

  Jess leaned in for a better look. The Arizona driver’s license had expired a year ago and the birth date and address matched Karen Warner. The license was too soiled to see clearly, but the picture showed a long-haired female who could have been Dr. Donald Warner’s wife. On the back, a magnetic swipe strip and a bar code were the first things Jess noticed. She read that the license had no restrictions or endorsements, which was normal.

  “Find anything else notable so far?” Mercer said.

  “Lipsticks, powder, a plastic case with some melted breath mints inside. Usual stuff.”

  “A phone? Diary? Papers?” Jess asked.

  Arthur shook his head. “Bits of paper, but nothing intelligible yet. They look like a few restaurant receipts, maybe.”

  “When will you have the full results?” Mercer said.

  “Weeks, usually, if all goes well.” Arthur nodded. “But we’ll have a preliminary postmortem tomorrow, and maybe some unconfirmed results at the end of the day.”

  “Another twenty-four hours, at least.” Mercer sighed. “We need it as quick as you can.” Mercer took out a notebook and scrawled on it. He tore the page out and han
ded it to Arthur. “And copy it to this address.” He shook his phone, “So I can get it while I’m out of the office.”

  “Okay. But if this is Karen Warner, I don’t see what the rush is.” Arthur pushed the paper into a zippered pocket in his coveralls. He gestured to the grave. “I’d better get back to it.”

  Jess walked down the hill with Mercer. “Karen Warner was abducted by a gang called The Devil Kings.”

  “Yeah. I remember.” He glanced at Jess. “The press loves those guys. Romanticizes them, if you ask me.”

  She ignored the barb and pointed toward the ashes. “Arson is one of their preferred methods of operation.”

  “Like everyone else in Arizona law enforcement, I’m aware.” Mercer pushed aside a tree branch and held it for Jess to pass. “But our town has never been bothered by The Devil Kings. Not enough money around here to attract them, I guess.”

  “The leader, who calls himself Hades, is a sociopath with grandiose ideas named Norman Kemp. He’s served time in the Arizona prison system. You have access to fingerprints and DNA.”

  Mercer gestured to the house. “There’s nothing left of that house to compare to Hades so far. Even if we had forensic evidence, Hades hasn’t been seen for a couple of years.”

  Jess ducked under another tree branch and emerged on the other side of the woods. “Maybe The Devil Kings have moved on to a different part of the country. Or maybe Hades learned some new tricks in prison and is now involved in less obvious crimes.”

  Mercer opened his mouth to speak, but a single whoop of a police siren echoed through the air. He sighed. “They’re here.”

  “Who?”

  “Santa Irene PD. When I tell them it’s Karen Warner up there, they’ll take over.”

  “You don’t think they’ll do a good job?” Jess frowned.

  “That’s not it.” He shook his head. “They’ll do a great job. They have the resources and manpower. Everything they need.”

  “Except you,” Jess said.

  “They won’t want me. My resources are limited, and I’m covering two jurisdictions until Jackson gets back to work. And I’m connected to the case. Because of Lester and the others.”