Clean Burn (4 page)

A skinny, prematurely bald guy that was no doubt Mr Markowitz emerged from the house. A little girl, maybe six, trailed behind her father, clutching a teddy bear. Markowitz looked around him in agitation, then started toward the burned out garage.

I couldn’t help myself, my attention strayed to the ragged, charred edges of unburned siding. In my twisted mind, the only thing more enthralling than fire was its aftermath. It had taken a heap of self-discipline over the years to resist the urge to move into arson investigation. Nevertheless, I’d dabbled in it on an amateur basis over the years, buying books off Amazon, all but drooling over the photographs.

Then when someone torched the Sudsy Clean Laundromat across the street from my apartment, I’d watched avidly behind the limits of the crime tape. Once the arson investigators finished their work, I’d volunteered to help the Nguyens clean up the mess. I didn’t even bother to tell myself I was only being neighborly. I knew what impulse sent me slogging through that sodden, blackened mess.

But unlike the Nguyens’s Laundromat, where much of the rubble had already been cleared away before I could get my mitts on it, the fire in the Markowitz’s garage was newly extinguished. It would still hold a fascinating treasure trove of clues I itched to decipher.

Before I could take a step toward the ruins, Ken rounded the front of the garage, coming into view. And I completely forgot about the fire.

I had maybe a thirty second grace period before Ken noticed me. Time enough to take in the fact that in three years, he really hadn’t changed much. He’d let the buzz cut from his SFPD days grow out, his sandy hair now long enough to curl behind his ears. The khaki shirt didn’t fit as well as the blues we wore in San Francisco during our beat days, but even at 45, he looked damned good.

When he first saw me, his gaze rolled right past without recognition. Then he lasered back on me, something flickering in his face he would have killed me for if he’d known I’d seen it. An instant later, that light doused and I saw nothing but disinterest in those blue eyes.

He sidestepped Mr Markowitz and headed toward the Explorer. The riled-up homeowner started to follow, then stopped to answer the summons of his cell phone.

I moved on an intercept course, more unsettled by Ken’s dismissiveness than I wanted to admit. I pasted a cheery grin on my face. “Ken!”

As he turned toward me, a twitch in his jaw told me his self-control wasn’t quite as all-encompassing as he might want me to think. “Did you make a wrong turn somewhere?”

“Good to see you, too.” I tapped the sheriff’s badge on his chest. “So you’re already running the place. What happened to Sheriff Kelsey?”

“Heart attack.”

“Dead?”

“Retired.”

“Too bad.” There was no love lost between Kelsey and me. He and dear old Dad had been thick as thieves way back when, drinking buddies, hunting and fishing partners. Kelsey knew what my father was doing to me, had seen the marks on my arms. At best, he pretended not to notice; at worst, he thought I must have deserved the punishment.

Kid Deputy made his way over to us, oblivious to Ken’s and my little drama. He gave me a puppy dog smile. “This a friend of yours, sheriff?”

“Janelle Watkins,” Ken said, the words dragged out of him. “My former partner at SFPD.”

Kid Deputy thrust out a hand. “I’m Alex Farrell.”

I shook his hand, keeping my attention on Ken. “Pleased to meet you.”

Alex pointed at the matchstick I was chewing to shreds. “You just quit smoking or something?”

I pulled it from my mouth and shoved it in my pocket. “Or something.”

He grinned at his boss. “Didn’t she do profiles for SFPD? Maybe she could do one for us on our arsonist.”

“How do you know it was arson?” I asked. “Maybe Mr Markowitz was cooking meth in his garage.”

“Nah. It was arson,” Kid Deputy told me. “We’ve had a string of them. I bet you could figure out who.”

I risked a glance at Ken. He stared off into the middle distance, his jaw working.

“I don’t profile anymore,” I told Alex. “I’m a private investigator.”

Alex’s radio squawked and he excused himself, moving to the far side of the Explorer. Ken bent his head, lowered his voice. “We had an agreement.”

I remembered all too clearly when it had been struck, the verbal missiles we’d lobbed at one another. “It’s been three years, Ken.”

“‘Stay the hell out of my life’ didn’t have an expiration date.”

Guilt slashed me at the raw expression of pain on his face. “Can’t an old friend drop by to say hello?”

“We’re not friends, Janelle. Not since that night, anyway.”

Our first night, I wondered? Or the final night, when the truth blew up in all our faces? Or maybe the night a week later, when I abandoned all shame and called him, but Tara picked up the phone instead? He might not even know about that night.

I realized Alex had returned. He may not have heard our exchange, but he had to feel the weight of the rough silence between Ken and me. In typical small-town fashion, he no doubt hankered for all the details. I wasn’t about to add any fuel to that fascination.

I was almost relieved to see Markowitz hot-footing it over to us, oblivious to his daughter still dogging his heels. As she trotted along behind him, she used the teddy to swipe at the tears running down her face.

Markowitz blustered up to Ken. “I need a police report. The insurance company won’t process my claim without it.”

Ken shifted his attention to Markowitz. “I told you before, it’ll take a few weeks.”

“That was a cherry ragtop ’65 Mustang,” Markowitz said. “I just had it transported up from LA.”

“Tough luck,” I told him, although I couldn’t muster a whole lot of sympathy for a man who was as negligent of his kid as this one seemed to be. “What’s the problem with your daughter? Was the car a favorite of hers?”

“Her cat was locked in the garage when it burned. I told her I’d get her another one,” he said with a dismissive shrug. “She’s just a crybaby.”

I took a deep breath, squelching a number of creative possibilities that would make this man cry. “You, on the other hand, are exhibiting tremendous bravery in the face of such a catastrophic loss.”

Markowitz stared at me, wheels turning as if he was trying to figure out if I’d just insulted him. He sneered at Ken. “Get me that police report. ASAP.” He stomped off back toward his house.

“Real neighborly guy,” I commented. “I can see why you prefer Greenville over the city.”

“Sheriff tells me you’re from here,” Alex said. “Was Clement Watkins your daddy?”

I forced myself to count to five so I wouldn’t chomp Alex’s head off at the shoulders. Not his fault he’d innocently conjured the Source of All That Is Evil. “Yes.”

Ken knew a little bit about my “daddy”. “What was the call?” he asked Alex.

“Ruckus at the high school.”

Ken gave Alex a nudge toward the Crown Vic. “Get over there.”

Before Kid Deputy folded his lanky body back into the car, he grinned at me. “How long are you here for?”

“Just the night. I’ll be driving home in the morning.”

“See you later, then.” He dropped into his patrol car and cranked the engine, then roared out with youthful enthusiasm.

“You have a reason for being here?” Ken asked. “Besides stirring up the Greenville rumor mill?”

I should have whipped James and Enrique’s photos from my back pocket, asked my questions of Ken, then continued on my merry way. But here I was, just steps from a freshly suppressed fire scene, a likely arson. This wasn’t photos from a book; it was the real thing.

My feet moved of their own accord toward the garage. Ken dogged my steps. “That’s a possible crime scene, Janelle. You need to keep the hell away.”

“I’ll stay on the perimeter,” I told him, still limping toward temptation. “I just want a closer look.”

Except he knew about my history with fire. “I’m not letting you feed your damn compulsions, Janelle.”

“It’s not that.” I stopped and turned, forcing myself to meet his skepticism eye to eye. As if that would make my lie less despicable. “I have the chance to pick up a couple of new clients if I get some background in arson. You know fire investigation inside and out. Maybe you can give me a few tips.”

Ken had worked arson with the state before he joined SFPD. He’d had a scientific instinct that made fire investigation an irresistible game. I hoped that drive to solve puzzles still lurked inside him. At the same time, I prayed he wouldn’t be able to see through my bullshit.

He fixed me with his hard blue gaze and I knew he saw right through me. “You get that sick look on your face and I’m marching your ass out of here.”

Shame burned in my gut. He’d caught me more than once burning myself, knew that look of blissful agony.

Leaving me feeling knee-high to a cockroach, he turned toward the burned out shell of the garage, giving the structure a wide berth. He greeted Ed, the fire investigator, as he came around the back of the garage with his camera. Ed was in turnout gear, including helmet and boots, and was starting his documentation of the fire by photographing the exterior.

We stopped on the far side of the garage, its wall burned down to blackened stubs of two-by-fours. The leaves of the oak tree overhanging the structure, usually bright green this time of year, had faded to brown from the fire’s heat. From our vantage point, we could view the entire interior.

Seeing the destruction, familiar excitement squirmed inside me. I struggled to keep it from showing on my face. Watch Ed, I told myself. Focus on his process, not what the fire has done.

I narrowed my gaze on the investigator, imagined myself in his boots. He had to be careful not to contaminate the scene. Trace from outside the structure might confuse the investigation.

On the other hand, the amount of water dumped on the structure during suppression could wash away signs of ignition source or whatever accelerant might have been used. On top of that, a dozen firefighters likely had been tromping all through the garage. Their job was to knock down the fire, not preserve evidence for investigation. And after suppression came overhaul, where the firefighters moved or removed the contents of a structure to eliminate any hidden flames, glowing embers, or sparks to prevent the fire from rekindling.

All that aside, Ed would wash his boots before entering. Dawn dishwashing liquid was the only thing approved to clean equipment in California. He’d use a separate pair of latex gloves for each sample he took. He’d also sometimes sample where he entered and exited.

Ed had finished his photo circuit and started back toward his Expedition with the camera. I swept a hand toward the garage and asked Ken, “So what do you think happened?”

“What do you see?” Ken asked.

Everything I knew about incendiary fires, I’d learned in a book, so I had none of the practical knowledge that Ken had. I scanned the mess, tried to compare what I was seeing to the pictures from the books. “Everything inside’s pretty evenly burned,” I ventured.

“What about the interior walls, particularly down close to the floor?”

I scanned the sheetrock, soot-covered from the ragged upper edge to its junction with the concrete foundation. Rifling through my memory of the pages of
Kirk’s Fire Investigation
, a light bulb went on. “If it’s an accidental fire, you won’t see fire damage clear down to the bottom of the interior wall. There’ll be an unburned swath along the floor.”

He nodded. “You see anything else?”

I compared the destruction on the nearest side to the less-scathed opposite wall. “I’d guess the fire started over here.”

“Possible. But you don’t want to start with assumptions.”

Which I knew well enough from my work as a detective with SFPD. You start assuming things and you run the risk of trying to fit the facts to your theories instead of the other way around.

“It also may not be an incendiary fire at all,” I said.

“Maybe not. Before you think seriously in that direction–”

“–you want to find at least three signs of arson,” I finished.

Ed had entered the scene wearing latex gloves. With a trowel in one hand and a quart-sized paint can in the other, he moved through the debris, away from the location I’d guessed as the point of origin.

The point of origin might seem like the obvious place to start sampling, but I knew you generally started at the area of least fire damage. Then you work your way backwards from there.

Ed scooped up ash into the can and shut the lid, then scribbled on a tag he adhered to the can. He set the can down where he’d taken the sample, then stripped off his gloves and dropped them beside the can. He would set an identifying number beside each of his samples, then take a photo of the can, gloves and number.

“Could it have been an electrical fire?” I asked as Ed moved off to his next sampling spot.

“You heard Markowitz,” Ken said. “He wouldn’t trust his baby to anything but the best. It was a brand new garage. All the electrical was pristine and to code.”

“Could the bastard have torched it himself for insurance?”

“Possible. But as pissed as he is, I doubt it. Although...” Ken rubbed his chin, a gesture I remembered from our time together. I always teased him that that was the way he activated his brain. “Markowitz is a recent divorcee. Nasty custody dispute.”

“So this could be the ex-wife’s revenge.”

Ken’s gaze slid over towards me. “She’d know where to stick the knife.”

Like I did. The message seemed to dangle in the air between us. He turned away, retracing our path around the front of the garage. “If you have a reason for being here, get to it.”

I hurried after him the best I could, limping along on the uneven ground. “I just had a couple of questions.”

As I caught up with him at the Explorer, I reached in my back pocket for the photographs. He put out a hand to stop me. “This better not be about some damned wayward husband.”

“It’s not a divorce case.”

“Cheating spouses hit a little too close to home.”

“It’s kids. Missing kids. Two boys.”

There was a time, before we lost our grip on the grenade that destroyed our partnership, I would have had him hooked, just like that. He’d been even more of a sucker for the lost kids than I’d been. He’d actually had a heart, as opposed to the chip of ice lodged in my chest.