Fireproof (26 page)

She reached up so quickly to tap
STOP
that she knocked over her coffee cup.

What in the world was
he
doing there?

Maggie listened while Dr. Ling went over all the same information with Racine. The detective, however, didn’t appear all that interested. Maggie knew Julia Racine well enough to know something was up. She was patient and polite but she asked few questions. Dr. Ling started talking about the skull found inside the burned building. Then Racine became a bit agitated.

“But you can’t be sure he was killed in the same way or even with the same weapon?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m simply speculating. Although the fractures to the top and to the side of the cranium look similar, you’re correct, they are not conclusive.”

“Is it possible he fell during the fire and bashed in his own head?”

“No.” Dr. Ling smiled before she added, “He would also have had to decapitate himself.”

“Stan told us that pressure builds up inside the head during a fire. You know, from the blood and brain starting to boil.” Racine looked from Dr. Ling to Maggie and back to Dr. Ling like she was asking for backup. “And that pressure could literally blow a head off a body. That’s what Stan said.”

“It’s possible,” Dr. Ling said. “But not in this case.”

Ling went over to another counter. On her way she changed out her purple latex gloves for a fresh pair. Then she carefully picked up the skull from a deep tray that Maggie thought looked too much like an ordinary baking pan. Ling brought the skull over to Maggie and Racine.

“I’ve cleaned it as best as I could.” She flipped the skull upside down. It still had a muddy brown color to it, but the fracture lines were visible. Ling pointed to the base. “Do you see the cuts and scratches in the bone here? Right at the base? This one is what I call a hesitation mark. He started cutting and stopped. Perhaps whatever he was using didn’t work as well as he wanted. Here and here.”

She turned the skull as her finger traced the scratches.

“The fire dulled the effect a bit. These are chops, not cut marks.”

“Guess no chance of an accident, then.” Racine appeared visibly disappointed. “So what the hell did he use?”

“Anytime you chop, the instrument must be heavy and big enough to contribute to the impact. My early guess is some kind of large bladed weapon. Perhaps a machete.”

Maggie watched Racine. Clearly all of this had blown one of her theories.

“You mentioned earlier that Gloria Dobson’s murderer did
not
change weapons in between blows,” Maggie said. “Is it possible this victim may have been killed by someone else? Maybe even another time or another place?”

“The bashed-in skull is quite similar to Mrs. Dobson’s.”

“But she wasn’t decapitated.” Racine sounded hopeful again.

“True enough.” And Dr. Ling nodded, but allowed a smile
when she added, “However, you could say he tried very hard to knock her head off.”

“Dr. Ling?” A tall young man called to her from the door. “That delivery you’ve been waiting for has just arrived.”

“Thanks, Calvin. I’ll be right there.” She returned the skull to its tray. “Will you both excuse me? I’ll be only five or ten minutes.”

“No problem.”

Ling had barely cleared the door when, like a mother with a child, Maggie pulled Racine’s elbow away right before she poked one of the bones with brain tissue still sticking to it.

“What? I just wondered what it felt like.”

“You know something new?”

But Racine wasn’t ready to talk about whatever it was and tried to change the subject. “That interview last night with your mother—that was brutal.”

“It must have been. She’s been leaving voice messages for me all morning wanting to explain. Quit changing the subject. Tell me what you found out.”

Racine got quiet. She was still eyeing the bone Ling had left on the tray.

“I thought I had it figured out,” she finally said. “I talked to Gloria Dobson’s husband last night. A male colleague was supposed to be making the trip with her. He said it made him feel better that she wouldn’t be driving the eleven hundred miles alone. He liked the kid. Said he was a good guy.”

She pulled a small notebook from her jacket pocket and flipped pages.

“Zach Lester, twenty-eight, five nine, a hundred and fifty pounds, light brown hair, blue eyes. Mr. Lester didn’t show up
at the sales conference either. I put out a BOLO for him and for Dobson’s silver 2007 Toyota Highlander.”

“You think Lester killed her and took her vehicle?”

“Sometimes the simplest explanation is the correct one.”

“When did Mr. Dobson talk to his wife last?”

“Three days ago. She and Lester were on their last leg of the trip, almost to Baltimore. He said it wasn’t that unusual that he hadn’t heard from her since. The sales conferences were busy and he liked her to feel like she didn’t need to check in, give her a break from him and the kids.”

“What motive would Lester have for killing her?”

“Coworkers, road trip away from everyone. Maybe there was a thing between them. Maybe he hit her on the head when she rejected him.”

“Would he have been mad enough to bludgeon her to death?”

Racine shrugged. “We’ve both seen people do worse for less reason. Makes more sense than a stranger. Someone bashes in another person’s face like that, it’s usually personal.”

“But the skull inside the building complicates your theory.”

“Only slightly. It could be two separate killers. You’ve been saying all along that you didn’t think the arsonist was the same guy who murdered Dobson.”

“He didn’t bother to burn her body.”

“But the victim inside was toast.”

“Dr. Ling said she didn’t find any other bones from the rest of that body.”

“Could they have burned up?”

Maggie simply shook her head, not wanting to go into Dr. Ling’s long explanation.

“Guess we’ll have to wait and ask Zach Lester what happened as soon as the Virginia State Patrol finds him and Dobson’s SUV.”

“There’s something I should probably tell you.” Maggie waited for Racine’s attention. “The other day when I went down the manhole? I think someone followed me down.”

“What do mean? Followed you down?”

“I heard footsteps in front of me. Then all of sudden there were footsteps behind me. Someone started smashing out the lightbulbs in the tunnel before you called down and scared him off.”

“And you’re only telling me this now?”

“That’s not all. That night someone was seen back behind my property checking out my backyard.”

“Could be some crazy who saw Jeffery Cole’s profile.”

“I’ve taken a lot of precautions to not be found.”

“Property taxes are all online now.”

“Mine’s not listed under my name.”

Racine raised an eyebrow but didn’t ask. She crossed her arms over her chest and Maggie waited for the lecture. None came. Instead of anger, Racine looked concerned. Very concerned. And that was more unsettling than having the detective angry with her.

Sam tried not to jump to conclusions. Seeing Wes Harper at the scene of the warehouse fires wasn’t all that incriminating. After all, he was firefighter. But why was he dressed in casual clothes and standing back with the crowd of bystanders? Did he just show up to watch? Or was he already there, waiting to witness his handiwork and watch the real firefighters try to put it out?

She spent the next hour looking up everything she could find on Harper, using the news station’s access to Internet databases. She found no criminal record except indication that there was a juvenile case that had been sealed when Harper was a teenager. But then he had admitted last night that he had been a firebug in his younger days. Youthful indiscretions hardly resulted in a repeat felony arsonist. It was probably nothing. From what she found about Braxton Protection Agency, Harper would never have been hired if there was something questionable in his past. Maybe she just wanted him to be guilty.

Sam slipped the film footage into her bag and left the station, avoiding Nadira and Jeffery, sneaking through the hallways as though she were the one who had something to hide. She made
it to the elevator bank almost home free when one of the doors opened and out came Jeffery.

“What are you doing here?”

“Just checking on something.” She brushed past him to get inside the empty elevator.

“Something I need to know about?” He held his hand over the elevator door so it wouldn’t close.

“No. It’s no big deal.” And she wondered if Nadira had tattled on her. Why was her pulse racing? She hadn’t done anything wrong. Jeffery was the one keeping secrets.

“Did you hear that O’Dell’s mother called Big Mac complaining about our interview? She’s insisting on a retraction. Says we cut and edited it to make her look bad.”

Sam didn’t have anything to do with the interview, hadn’t even seen it, but she knew how Jeffery could edit a version so that even Sam didn’t recognize an interview after she stood by and filmed it.

“Remember I said you shouldn’t mess with an FBI agent.”

Jeffery shrugged, but he was still smiling when he dropped his hand away and let the elevator door close. Controversy pleased him, excited him. And Sam could tell by his expression that he viewed Kathleen O’Dell’s complaints as accolades. She knew the profile piece was getting all kinds of attention, the exact kind that Jeffery—and even Big Mac—thrived on. Sometimes she wondered just how far Jeffery was willing to blur the line between news and sensationalism. There seemed to be nothing that couldn’t be “touched up,” “edited out,” “beefed up,” or “deleted.” No wonder she was starting to feel like a paparazzo.

Finally back home, Sam watched her son and mother making cookie dough. Her mother explained the instructions to Iggy in
English and he would repeat them back to her in Spanish. It was their way of helping each other learn. It would take them a couple of hours, rolling out the dough, using the heart-shaped cookie cutters, baking, then frosting and decorating them. Her son wanted to make enough to take to school. Sam left them downstairs to take a long bath and read in the bathtub—a rare treat.

The week had taken its toll. She immersed herself in the warm water and felt the tension start to slip away from her muscles. Without effort her mind drifted to Patrick Murphy—his soft brown eyes, the sexy dimple in his chin, his thick hair with the spiky cowlick that gave him that reckless, boyish charm.

It was ridiculous for her to be thinking this way. He was too young for her. There was no doubt about that. Barely out of college and starting his career, his life. Sam had lived a lifetime of experiences already. At thirty she felt far too old and too cynical for someone like Patrick, who was just beginning his career. Nor did she have the patience to entertain a fling. It was best to get him out of her mind.

She lay back and closed her eyes. She lost track of time and started to doze. She wanted to soak out the tension from the week, relieve her senses from the smell of smoke and the sounds of sirens and glass shattering. It would take more than a warm bath to settle the chaos that stayed with her. In fact, she could still smell the smoke as if it radiated off her body. Then she remembered what Wes Harper had said about burning flesh: “The arms and legs are the first to go.”

Something was burning. She really could smell it. It wasn’t her imagination.

She bolted upright, sending water over the edge of the tub. Something inside the house was on fire.