Exposed (14 page)

“I remember reading that.”

“Then you probably read the rest, too. Exactly a month after the abduction, Heidi was found in a ditch off Interstate 35, south of San Antonio. She’d been bound and gagged. She’d been tortured, too.” He paused, remembering the hammer marks in that bathroom where Jolene Murphy had been kept. “One of her hands was crushed, and her fingernails had been pulled out.”

She drew back. That hadn’t been in the paper. “If she’d been dead that long, how could they—”

“She’d been kept alive,” he said. “Probably for at least three weeks.”

Maddie closed her eyes.

“That last part’s confidential,” he added. “Certain details are being kept out of the press.”

She nodded. “How is this connected to the doctor you’re investigating?”

“That’s where Jolene Murphy comes in,” he said. “When she first came to us, it was through our tip line. She dropped Mladovic’s name, said she had information about illegal activities. The agent heading up the task force tossed this to Sam and me. It wasn’t until she showed up that she started talking about Heidi Beckles.
Turns out, both Heidi and Jolene were friends with Mladovic’s daughter, Katya.”

“He has a daughter? Did you interview her?”

He shook his head. “She OD’d more than a year ago. It was listed as a suicide, but of course, after we talked to Jolene, we went and looked at the case. The ME insists he got the manner of death right, but Sam and I both think there’s room for doubt, especially with Jolene missing.”

“You think he killed his own child? And now her friends?”

“Honestly? We don’t know what the hell to think of some of this. This case has gone sideways on us. It started out as tax fraud, then got into drug trafficking. Now we’re looking at possible murder for hire.”

“His own
daughter
?” She looked incredulous.

“We don’t know that he killed her. We don’t know that he killed any of them. We just know his daughter is dead. One of her friends is dead. And now another friend of hers has been kidnapped.”

“What about Gillian in Los Angeles?”

Brian blew out a breath, frustrated. “That’s another big question mark. She’s around the same age as the others, but the crime happened fourteen hundred miles away.”

“Did she ever live here?”

“Grew up in California,” he said. “We spent the evening on the phone with the investigator out there. They’ve got her phone records, her e-mails. No connection to Heidi, or Katya Mladovic, or Jolene. She’s never even been to Texas, as far as we can tell.”

“Maybe it was an unrelated murder. Maybe the guy who works for Mladovic hires out to other people, too.”

Brian nodded. “It’s possible. Volansky definitely has some shady connections. He’s been arrested half a dozen times—drugs, weapons, assault—but so far, he’s managed to beat the charges.”

Maddie gazed across the room looking pensive and also . . . sad, he realized. She shifted her gaze to him.

“I’m surprised you’re telling me this.”

“You said you wanted to know. I’m telling you what I know.”

She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees. “Yes, but why?”

Because I want you to take me seriously, to understand that I’m on this investigation, and I have just as much right to be here as Sam or anyone else
. But he didn’t tell her that. He told her the other reason.

“I want you to be careful,” he said. “These people are dangerous.”

“Obviously.” She sat up straighter. “But why would they care about me? I’m not in Katya’s circle of friends. I don’t have information about her father. The only thing I
had
was on my camera, and they already took that.”

“The only thing
you
think you had. Who knows what they think?” Brian glanced at his watch and stood up. “I have to get back.”

She looked up at him. “But—what are you telling me?”

“I’m telling you to be careful.”

A typical weekend job would be a car accident, but the call that dragged Maddie out of bed in the wee hours this Saturday morning was a fire.

She squished across the saturated lawn, rubbing her hands together for warmth as she searched for her favorite Clarke County firefighter in the glare of the portable klieg lights. She spotted him stripping out of his coat beside the ladder truck. Perfect.

“Hi, Nick.”

He turned around and immediately looked sorry to see her. “I know what you want, Maddie, and the answer’s no.”

“Please? I’ll be quick, I promise.”

Nick sighed heavily and rested his hands on his hips. His face was covered in soot, making the whites of his eyes stand out, and she noticed—not for the first time—that beneath all the grime, he was an attractive man. Of course, like most men his age, he had a wife at home and a baby on the way.

“You guys are like flies, you know that?”

She smiled. “That’s why you love us. We buzz around making your job easier.”

“Hey!” he shouted across the yard at someone. “Get these barricades outta here so I can move the truck for Maddie.”

A young man leaped into action and got busy moving barricades. She beamed Nick a smile.

“Thanks. I just need about five minutes. Right by that oak tree over there should be the perfect spot.”

“Stand on the curb,” he said sternly. “And what kind
of soles you got on those boots? Last thing we need’s an injury.”

“Don’t worry about me. I came prepared.” She lifted her foot to show him the heavy rubber tread on her shoe, and then she stepped back so he could move the truck. He skillfully positioned the rig on the southwest corner of the lot where Clarke County Fire Rescue had spent the past two hours putting out a house fire.

Maddie gripped the cold metal rails and climbed the ladder, taking care not to slip and take a three-story header onto the lawn. When she reached the top, she braced her body against the rungs and composed her shots.

Now that the flames were gone, the crime scene consisted of the charred shell of what had once been a ranch-style home in a suburban pocket of Clarke County. When she’d first arrived on the scene, Maddie had surveyed the emergency vehicles, looking for Kelsey Quinn’s Suburban, and she’d been glad not to see it. The forensic anthropologist’s presence at a fire typically meant someone had died.

But the family who lived at this address wasn’t here tonight, and Maddie felt a sense of relief as she snapped pictures of what had once been their home. The house was destroyed, yes, but at least they still had one another.

Maddie’s eyes stung from the smoke, and she dabbed the corners with the back of her hand. As a rule, working conditions at fire scenes sucked. The locations were hot, wet, and littered with safety hazards. Steam or smoke obscured some of the shots she needed. To add to the challenge, many scenes were dark, because either
the blaze knocked out electrical systems, or the firefighters shut them down when they arrived. Every time Maddie worked a fire scene, she felt she was earning her paycheck.

She clicked a few more photos. Although the kitchen and the garage had been reduced to a blackened skeleton, the living room and the bedrooms were still somewhat intact. Maybe a few sentimental items could be salvaged, but everything inside would reek of smoke. She took a few different angles of the yard, noting the red plastic wagon and the Big Wheel.

After finishing the bird’s-eye-view pictures, she scanned the area. Despite the hour, dozens of neighbors in bathrobes and warmup suits still milled around, watching the action. The kids in the vicinity wore jackets hastily buttoned over pajamas. A man in a blue skullcap stood off to the side, talking on his phone. He reached out and snagged a kid by the collar, right as the boy was about to climb onto the running board of the fire truck. The kid’s mom grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away.

Maddie scanned the other side of the street, looking at faces and subtly snapping pictures. Based on what she’d heard, this wasn’t an incendiary fire, but it never hurt to check people out. Arsonists were known to hang around afterward and enjoy the spectacle they’d created.

Finally, she climbed down from the ladder and joined a cluster of firefighters beside the truck.

“Think we’re ready for you inside,” the fire chief said, motioning her toward the front sidewalk.

Maddie picked her way over the soggy lawn, stopping
twice for mid-range shots. Then she followed him through the front door, which had been hacked open with an ax. When she’d arrived, the house itself had still been burning, and only now was it cooling down enough to walk through.

Maddie glanced around and then adjusted her shutter speed. The klieg lights cast long, eerie shadows over the remains of what had once been a living room. She surveyed the area, making a mental list of all the angles she needed to get. The roof was still mostly intact, and she would need to lie on her back amid the debris to get a shot of the burn pattern on the ceiling.

“Third time this month,” the chief said from across the room. “Think we got ourselves a firebug.”

Maddie turned and framed up the singed sofa. “Third time?”
Click
.

“The hardware store, the house on Belmont,” he said. “Now this.”

“I thought the hardware store was looking like insurance fraud?”

“We did, too. But now I’m thinking we got a serial torcher. Come get a shot of this.”

He led her across the room to a burned-out hallway. On the Sheetrock, Maddie saw the telltale black V pattern that often pointed straight to the place where the fire originated. The door to a closet stood open, revealing a hot-water heater.

“You don’t think it was a faulty heater?” she asked.

He knelt down. “You’d think that, wouldn’t you, based on this point of origin? But that’s the thing.” He looked up at her. “All three cases, we’ve got a fire that starts right near what seems like a logical
point of origin for an accidental fire. But in all three cases, it doesn’t add up.” He pointed to the sodden carpet. “Dollars to doughnuts, we’ll find traces of an accelerant on this carpet.”

Maddie crouched beside him and took a few pictures of the carpet, the closet, the Sheetrock.

“Our lab could tell you,” she said. “Want me to cut a sample?”

He nodded gravely, and she wondered which made him unhappier, a serial arsonist operating in his county or the bill he was going to get from the Delphi Center for the lab work.

“I’ll go get my kit,” she said, and left him with his morose thoughts.

Maddie tromped across the lawn to her car and popped the cargo door. She rummaged through her gear until she found her utility knife and several small unused paint cans that could transport carpet samples. Accelerants had to be stored in airtight containers so the chemicals wouldn’t evaporate.

She glanced at the neighbors nearby. Some of the older ones had trickled back to bed, but the younger ones were still out in full force. A knot of dads stood talking, while the women tried to keep their kids from venturing too close. Maddie noticed the skullcap guy again. He was looking straight at her.

“Hey, Maddie. What’s the word in there?”

She glanced over her shoulder to see Sheriff Bracewell crossing the street. His cruiser was parked behind an orange barricade.

“Inconclusive,” she said as he stopped beside her.

He peered down at her from beneath the brim of
his hat and gave her a look that said,
Don’t bullshit a bullshitter
. And fair enough—she wasn’t exactly talking to the news media. He’d get the info soon enough, anyway, and his deputies were already on the scene, interviewing witnesses.

“The fire chief thinks maybe arson,” she said.

His gaze went to the house. “Again? What’s he got, multiple points of origin?”

“Just one, I think.”

Bracewell frowned. “He find pour trails?”

“Not that I’ve seen, but I’m about to cut some carpet samples to test for accelerants.”

He cursed under his breath as she loaded the pint-size cans into her bag.

“The murder on Cottonwood. Now this.” He shook his head. “Not even March, and my budget’s shot to hell. Every man I got’s putting in for overtime.” He glanced at her as she hitched the bag onto her shoulder. “Need me to carry that?”

“Thanks, I got it.”

“Why don’t you lead the way in? You can show me where it started.”

“Actually, you should go on ahead.” She glanced at the crowd again, searching for the skullcap guy. “I need to stay out here and get a few more shots.”