Neighing with Fire: A Mystery (Colleen McCabe Series) (7 page)

She eyed the smoke engulfing the neighboring house and yelled, “Jimmy, evacuate the house next door.”

Jimmy nodded to Chip, who sprinted to the neighboring house and helped evacuate the residents to a safe distance across the street. Moments later, flames shot through a window of Pinky’s building, raced up the side of the house, and stretched toward the house next door, just out of reach.

“Did you get the man out?” the attractive woman in her thirties asked Chip as he helped her and her son.

“What man?” Chip asked.

“The one that was in that house,” the woman said, indicating the burning building.

Colleen’s heart skipped a beat. Someone was inside. “Send rescue in,” she called, and Jimmy signaled Chip and Kenny, who were already positioning their oxygen masks over their faces. They grabbed their tools, a thermal imaging camera, and rushed to the burning structure.

“Give ’em some help, fellas,” Jimmy said to Bobby and the guys on the hoses.

Her men opened up the nozzle and aimed the water toward the flames as their comrades entered the house. Colleen bit the inside of her lip. It was a nervous habit she had whenever her men were in danger and wouldn’t go away until they were all out safely.

The wooden dwelling was burning fast, and because much of it was still under construction and open to the elements the flames were getting plenty of oxygen. Colleen scanned the crowd for the woman who had reported seeing a man inside.

“You said you saw someone inside?” she asked the woman. “Are you sure?”

The woman nodded. “He was talking with another man not too long ago.”

“He was yelling at the funny-looking man,” interjected the woman’s child.

“There were two men?” Colleen asked.

The woman gestured for her son to be quiet and said, “The other man left.”

“Thank you,” she said and joined Jimmy.

“How are they doing in there?” she asked with concern.

“They haven’t found anyone,” Jimmy said.

The walkie-talkies buzzed with static. “It’s getting pretty hot in here, Chief,” she and Jimmy heard Chip say.

Chip wasn’t known to show concern about his own safety, especially when he thought someone was inside. The fact that he was mentioning the heat told her he was worried. She hated pulling her guys out but it was preferable to going to one of their funerals.

“Time to get out, Chip,” she said into the walkie-talkie.

“On our way.”

“They’re coming out,” Jimmy called to the rehab team, the crew responsible for tending to the health issues of the firefighters.

Bobby and the other guys on the hose were winning the battle with the fire on the side of the house. The house next door would be spared. Chip and Kenny emerged from the front of the house, dashed down the steps, removed their oxygen masks, and took bottles of water from the rehab team. Chip was exhausted and, Colleen knew, disappointed that he hadn’t come out with anyone alive. She made eye contact with Jimmy, who was talking with Chip and Kenny. Jimmy gave her a thumbs-up that they were okay.

It took her men about an hour to extinguish the fire completely, after which they went inside to check for any rekindle and to open up walls. With the ground saturated from the tropical storm, it hadn’t taken long for the water from the hoses to transform the street into a two-inch-deep river. The house would need to be torn down, but she was proud that her men had managed to save enough of it that evidence as to what started the blaze might still be present.

“Hey, Chief,” Bobby called from the doorway of the house.

“What is it?” she asked, gazing up at him.

He held his arm at his side, pointed his index finger toward the ground, and waved the hand two times. The hair on her neck stood on end. This was a signal that her firefighters had created for occasions when talking might be difficult or undesirable, and one that none of them ever wanted to use or see. It meant Bobby had found something … or rather someone.

“I’m gonna take a look inside,” she said to Jimmy.

Jimmy crossed to Rodney Warren, Bill’s deputy, who was talking to vacationers standing across the street, tapped Rodney on the shoulder, whispered in his ear, and nodded toward Colleen. Rodney scrambled across the street to join her.

“Mind accompanying me inside?” she said, trying to appear casual and keep her voice low.

“Not at all,” Rodney said, and trailed her up the front steps.

“It’s toward the back,” Bobby said when they reached the threshold. He pointed to the right near where the kitchen would have been.

Colleen crept toward the area. She noticed a trail of charred wood. “Streamers,” she said, more to herself than to Rodney.

“What?” he asked.

She indicated the narrow trails. “Someone set this fire. Probably with gasoline or kerosene. Helps it spread from one area to another. Those trails are what arson investigators call streamers.”

She tracked the streamers, keeping her eye out for any sign of an accelerant. The smell of wet, burned wood filled her nostrils and permeated her clothing and hair, and the moisture in the air felt heavy on her skin. She reached the back of the house, peered around the corner into the kitchen, and discovered a scorched body.

“Oh geez,” Rodney said, and turned away.

Her heart sank. She had been hoping that the woman and boy had been wrong about someone being inside. She inched her way into the room and twisted so as to inspect the body straight on. The body was on its back with its feet facing the door and its arms out at its sides. From the size, Colleen could tell it was a man, but beyond that the fire had made the person impossible to identify. She sighed and removed her cell phone from her pocket. Time to call Special Agent Morgan … and the ME. She was about to dial when something familiar caught her eye. She leaned over the body and focused on the midsection.

“What is it?” Rodney asked, keeping his focus up in an attempt to avoid seeing too closely the burned body.

Though it had been discolored by the fire, the object at the middle of the figure was unmistakable … a smiling Porky Pig belt buckle.

She looked at Rodney lingering in the kitchen doorway. “I think we found Denny Custis.”

Chapter 5

The scorched beach house
teemed with investigators—some from the medical examiner’s office and some from Special Agent Morgan’s arson investigation unit. Colleen remained with Kenny and Bobby from her engine crew to keep watch for any rekindle while the rest of her men had returned with Jimmy to the station for future calls.

Bill and Rodney were busy keeping visitors and the press outside the perimeter. They had blocked off access to Sandcastle Drive from Route 12 to prevent a bottleneck, but the press had parked their satellite trucks on the shoulder of Ocean Trail and trudged across the median to report on the fire and the discovery of a victim inside. She and Bill had only had time to exchange quick hellos.

“Chief McCabe, Agent Morgan would like to speak with you,” called a man from the arson investigation unit.

Colleen strode toward the house. Agent Morgan’s appearance was every bit like she had imagined from the phone conversations—tall, with graying hair, a moustache, glasses, and a modest navy suit. She had also observed him to be thoughtful, confident, and serious. But that’s where the accuracy of her predictions had ended. She had had an initial meeting with the arson investigator when he had first arrived on scene to go over her observations and had discovered him to be a bit quirky. After conversing with her briefly, he had abruptly turned and entered the house with his team to investigate and collect evidence.

She entered the house. The body had been removed and was on its way to the medical examiner’s lab to confirm its identity and determine cause of death. But Colleen didn’t need verification of the victim’s identity. The belt buckle was good enough for her. She had shared with the ME’s team what the neighbor had said about an argument with another man, and the medical examiner dictated a note to himself on a recorder to look for signs of a struggle. Everyone involved knew this was a major event. If the arsonist from the mainland had struck again, then he had added homicide to his criminal repertoire.

“Chief McCabe’s here,” the man said as they reached Agent Morgan. He retreated to continue evidence collection.

Agent Morgan stood completely still with his back to her. She waited, not wishing to interrupt whatever it was he was doing. The silence continued. She glanced at the members of the arson investigation team to see if anyone else found the behavior unusual. Nobody did. They were too preoccupied with putting pieces from the flooring into sealed metal containers, photographing the streamers, and searching the grounds for an igniter or an object that had contained the accelerant.

“Chief McCabe,” Morgan finally said without turning around.

“Yes,” she said, carefully stepping forward.

“Your thoughts?”

She wondered what more she could tell him about what she had observed. Her hesitation got his attention and he rotated to look at her.

“Not about the evidence,” he said. “What are your thoughts about this scene?”

“I’m not sure what you’re asking,” she said.

He sighed, unaccustomed to having to explain himself. “Your gut, McCabe. I’d like to know what your gut is telling you.”

Her brows raised in surprise. She had heard Morgan was a guy who firmly believed that the evidence, not speculation, was what mattered. Maybe she had heard wrong. “My gut tells me that it’s arson and that—”

“No no,” he interrupted, frustrated. “Do you think this is our guy from the mainland?”

“What? Oh. I don’t know. You’d know best.”

“Never mind,” he said, and walked away into the kitchen where Denny’s body had been discovered.

Her cheeks flushed with irritation at the tone he had taken and his sudden exit. She peeked at Morgan’s team. If they had been surprised by the conversation she was having with their boss, they didn’t let on.

“Excuse me,” she said, pursuing Morgan into the kitchen. “You want to know if I think it’s your guy. No. I don’t. It’s all wrong.”

“What is?” he asked, any crossness now gone.

“The place, the MO, the fact that there’s a victim.”

He smiled slightly and nodded. “It’s a different shark.”

Why was he mentioning sharks?

“Jaws,” he said. “You know the movie. They catch a shark, but it’s the wrong one.”

Agent Morgan may be a brilliant arson investigator, she thought, but he was proving to be one odd fellow. “Yeah,” she said. “I guess I think he’s a different shark.”

“Good. Thank you. That is most helpful.”

“Are you saying we have two arsonists?” she asked.

“Or a shark that’s changed his eating habits.”

She waited for him to say more, and then realized that that was the end of the conversation. “Thank you for driving over and adding this to your caseload,” she said.

“It’s what I do.”

She had never considered herself a poor conversationalist, but around Morgan she felt at a loss as to how to respond. She quietly left the eccentric investigator with his thoughts.

“Let me by,” Colleen heard someone say with urgency as she emerged from the house. She recognized the voice, squinted into the sea of emergency vehicles, satellite trucks, and spectators, and saw Pinky pushing against Rodney’s outstretched arm.

She scurried down the steps, squeezed through the crowd, and paused upon reaching Bobby.

“It reminds me of when I saw mother’s house in flames,” Bobby said, observing Pinky with Rodney. Last summer, Myrtle’s house had caught on fire after a gas explosion. “I feel for him.”

“I know you do,” she said. She patted Bobby’s arm and proceeded toward Pinky and Rodney.

Colleen eyed the reporter from WAVE television doing her stand-up on the other side of the caution tape. Having overheard Pinky’s outburst, the newswoman had stopped her report and crossed toward Pinky. Uh oh, Colleen thought, and maneuvered her way through the emergency vehicles in Pinky’s direction.

“Sir,” the reporter said to Pinky. “Did I hear correctly? You’re the owner of this house?”

“Yes,” Pinky said, letting go of Rodney to talk to the reporter.

“Could I have your name?”

“Antonio Salvatore.”

Colleen stepped between Pinky and the reporter. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I need to speak with Mr. Salvatore.” She took Pinky by the arm and pulled him away from the reporter and toward the house.

“Chief McCabe! Do you think the arsonist has struck again?” called the reporter.

“They think this is arson?” Pinky asked Colleen.

“Keep moving,” she said. “Can you get Bill?” she asked Rodney as she passed by with Pinky.

“On it,” Rodney said and made his way to where Bill was busy protecting the scene.

“Would someone tell me what’s going on?” Pinky said as she guided him to the dunes at the side of the house.

She turned to Pinky and looked him in the eye. “I need to ask you a question and I need you to be straight with me.”

“I’ve never been anything but.”

She hesitated, not sure how to ask Pinky without upsetting him.

“What is it?” he asked with concern.

“When was the last time you were at this property?”

“Yesterday.”

“You haven’t been by here at all today?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I think I’d know whether or not I’d been here,” he said, slightly indignant. “Wait. You don’t think I set this fire, do you?”

There was no way Pinky would destroy something he took so much pride in. “No,” she said. “I don’t.”

“Did some of your men get hurt?” he asked, concerned.

“No.”

“Then would you care to explain why you’ve dragged me into the dunes with that serious expression on your face?”

“You haven’t heard anything about what’s happened here?” she asked.

“I’ve been attending to other matters. I didn’t know what was going on until I heard a woman at the gas station talking about a house fire on Sandcastle. That’s when I drove up.”

Pinky’s story didn’t seem complete, but she believed that he hadn’t known about his house being on fire.