Count to Ten (16 page)

“He doesn’t fit the profile,” Solliday said. “Most arsonists would have killed the pets.”

“None of the neighbors mentioned a dog,” Mia said. “Why not?”

Solliday’s brows rose. “Let’s ask them.”

“I have Mr. Wright’s number.” She dialed her cell. “Mr. Wright? This is Detective Mitchell. I talked to you last night. I have a question. Did Mrs. Hill have a dog?”

“No, but her daughter did. I didn’t even think... Oh, God, that poor animal. He was a nice dog, too. Her daughter’s apartment didn’t allow dogs, so Penny kept the dog.”

“Daughter’s dog,” Mia mouthed. “What kind of dog is it, Mr. Wright?”

“Golden retriever, Great Dane mix. He was huge, but friendly. Penny would joke...”

Mia could hear him take a shuddering breath. “She would joke what?” she asked.

“That the dog was so friendly it would lead a burglar to the silver for a Milk-Bone.”

“Mr. Wright, if you see him wandering the neighborhood, can you call me? Thank you.” She hung up with a sigh. “Big dog. Dane-golden mix. That’s why he waited. The dog was big. He thought he was vicious.”

“But he didn’t shoot him when he had the chance,” -Solliday commented.

“Have you talked to the daughter?” Jack asked.

“No. I called a half dozen times and we stopped by her apartment, but the landlord said she hadn’t been home since Saturday morning. Her car’s gone.”

“You checked the inside of her place?”

“Under the circumstances we thought it was prudent,” Solliday said. “But she wasn’t there. Her answering machine was flashing with a number of calls. Mia called for a warrant, so if we don’t hear from her in a few hours, we’ll go back.”

Mia blinked, a little startled at hearing him use her first name. He’d started calling Jack by his first name, too. Apparently the lieutenant was feeling more at home. Unfortunately Mia wasn’t ready to let him settle in. She was still Abe’s partner.

But before she could reply, Solliday’s cell phone rang. “It’s Barrington,” he told them. “What do you have, Sam?” He listened for a moment. “We’ll be right down.” He flipped his phone closed, his mouth gone flat. “He’s got something.”

Tuesday, November 28, 1:35 P.M.

“He’s autopsying somebody else’s case right now,” Sam’s tech told them, motioning to the door. “You can go in and talk to him through the glass.”

“Can’t he come out here?” Mitchell asked, then squared her jaw. “I just ate, okay?”

The tech chuckled. “I’ll tell him you’re here.”

“Hill’s body is going to be worse than an autopsy,” Reed cautioned quietly.

“I know. I remember.” She closed her eyes for a second, just long enough for a shudder to shake her. “I hate to watch them cutting. I know it makes me a wuss, but—”

“It’s all right, Mia,” he interrupted.

“So we’re on a first-name basis now,” she said. “I thought you’d slipped before. You must have decided to keep me after all,” she added, her voice hard with sarcasm.

“The first time was a slip,” he admitted. “But why stand on formality now?”

“Why indeed?” she murmured, then turned as Sam emerged, pulling at the surgical mask he wore. “What do you have?” she asked.

Sam walked to a sheet-covered body. “Your vic had carbon monoxide in her lungs.”

“Whoa,” she said.

“Wait,” Reed said at the same time. “CSU found blood at the scene. We thought he’d shot her like he shot Caitlin Burnette.”

“No. X-rays show skull shattering, consistent with the pressure caused by the high temperature. No vent holes this time. She was alive when the fire started.”

Mitchell’s brows had snapped together. “How long was she alive?”

“Carbon monoxide levels indicate maybe two to five -minutes. Not much more.”

Reed was almost afraid to ask. “Was she conscious?”

“I didn’t find any evidence of pre-mortem head trauma.”

Mitchell’s face had gone a bit pale. Reed drew a breath, unable to imagine the pain the woman must have experienced if she had been conscious. Grasping at straws, he asked, “Is it possible she was drugged, Sam?”

“I’ve sent out for a tox screen to look for drugs in her system. Her bladder was essentially destroyed, so I couldn’t do a urine tox. The blood samples I took indicated a blood alcohol level of .08. That’s a lot of alcohol for a woman of her size.”

“She’d been to a party,” Mitchell murmured, then straightened her spine and strengthened her voice. “If he didn’t shoot her, then where did the blood come from?”

Carefully Barrington pulled back the sheet and Reed felt Mitchell tense beside him. “I have to be careful,” Barrington said. “The body’s very fragile. But come here.” He moved to one side, motioning them closer. “Look at her arms.”

Hill’s torso was black, but her arms and legs were blistered, the skin loose and... Reed’s stomach took a roll and beside him, Mitchell’s swallow was audible.

“God,” she murmured, then again straightened. “Her arms looked blacker before.”

“Soot. We had to swab the skin. Her torso took the greatest brunt of the fire. It’s really difficult to totally destroy an adult body in a house fire,” Barrington said, as if lecturing med school students. “The body is composed of so much water.”

“He coated her torso with the solid accelerant, but not her limbs,” Reed said quietly.

“I found ammonium nitrate on her torso. It was helpful knowing what to look for.”

“The blood, Barrington?” Mitchell bit out. “Where did the blood come from?”

Unperturbed, Sam pointed to his own inner arm, just above his elbow. “He cut her brachial artery, here. If you look closely, you can see the skin curls in around the slice.”

“He sliced her?” Mitchell shot a puzzled look up at Reed, then back at Sam, her eyes narrowed. “How long would it have taken her to bleed out?”

“Two to five minutes,” Sam said.

Mitchell’s face hardened. “Sonofabitch. He wanted her to bleed out slowly. Shooting would have been too merciful.”

Reed exhaled slowly. “He wanted her to feel the pain. He burned her alive.”

“How long would she have been conscious?” she asked between her teeth.

“Without drugs? A few minutes. It’s hard to say.”

“Her hands are intact,” Reed said. “Did you check them?”

“Yes, but I didn’t find anything. If she scratched at him, she didn’t get skin.”

“Did you check her teeth?” Mitchell asked and Sam shook his head.

“Not yet, but I will.”

Mitchell blew out a breath. “What kind of knife are we looking for?”

“Probably not serrated, but very sharp. There’s no evidence of sawing, just a slice.”

Mitchell stepped back from the body. “We’ll need to see if any knives are missing from Penny Hill’s house. -Hopefully her daughter will know what she had in her kitchen.”

Reed checked his watch. “Your clerk should have pulled Burnette’s case records by now. Let’s go by Social Services and get Hill’s records, then we can start cross-checking.”

She took one long last look at Hill’s body, her jaw tight. “Yeah. Let’s go see who hated Penny Hill enough to do this.”

Tuesday, November 28, 3:15 P.M.

Mia’s arm was throbbing, but she gritted her teeth as she held on to the box of Social Services files. Solliday carried the heavier box, his expression grimly stark as hers must also be. It was as if their moods had combined into one dark cloud. After leaving the morgue, she’d felt angrier than hell. But after leaving, she felt completely drained.

Penny Hill had been well loved. The grief at Social Services had been palpable. Phones rang and social workers moved through their daily business, but there had been a hush over the place. Like in a church before a funeral. Or at a graveside after.

The elevator slid open and Mia walked into the bullpen, counting the seconds until she could drop the heavy box, but she stopped short at the sight of her desk, piled high with more boxes. Abe’s desk, conversely, was still well-ordered and immaculately clean, with not a folder to be seen.

“God save me from pissy clerks,” she muttered. Stacy had been miffed that Mia hadn’t been more appreciative of her desk-cleaning efforts. Now Mia couldn’t see her desk at all. Without a word she marched to her desk and dropped the box on the floor. Solliday more sedately slid his box onto Abe’s desk and sank into Abe’s chair. Before she could quell the reflex, Mia’s hand stretched out, a protest rising in her throat. “No.”

Solliday’s head lifted and his eyes met hers as her cheeks heated.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “That was stupid.”

His lips curved inside his goatee. “I promise I won’t put my dirty shoes on his desk,” he said, and the wry humor in his voice made her smile as she dropped into her chair.

“I am sorry. Abe would want you comfortable. It’s just that I haven’t been so tired in a long time.”

“I know. We were up most of the night. And then... that kind of grief.” He pulled a stack of files from his box. “It drains the very life out of your soul.”

Mia blinked. “That sounded remarkably poetic, -Solliday. I mean... like a real poem. Not like my ‘bully named Bubba.’”

His eyes dropped to the files. “How do you want to handle these?” he asked and struck with curiosity, she leaned forward. His cheeks were decidedly red.

“Solliday. You’re blushing.”

He cocked his jaw to one side, stubbornly refusing to meet her eyes and Mia found herself thoroughly charmed. “Let’s go through the files Hill’s boss cherry-picked first,” he said.

“Ah, yes. The many arsonists Penny Hill tried to place in foster care. We need a system or we’re never going to find a connection. How about you write down all the names you come across in Hill’s files, I’ll do Burnette’s. In an hour we break and compare.” She frowned at the boxes. “If I can -figure out where to start.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a bottle of pain reliever. “Start with this. You make me hurt just -looking at you. You carried in that damn box like you didn’t have a hole in your shoulder.” He tossed the bottle across their desks and Mia caught it.

“Are you always such a mother?” she asked.

He looked surprised. “No, I’m a father. Why can only mothers make you take medicine?”

“Because—” She bit her tongue.
Because fathers are the reason you have to take medicine in the first place. Mothers just give you a pill and tell you not to provoke him anymore.
She grabbed the top file and started reading. “Let’s just get to work, okay?”

She could feel his eyes on her, watching, but in the end he said nothing, just settled himself into Abe’s chair and began to read.

Tuesday, November 28, 4:00 P.M.

Bart Secrest was a scary-looking man. Kind of like Mr. Clean, but mean. His office was dark and stark, without one picture or personal memento to soften his image.

Brooke took the chair he offered with a silent gesture.

“You did the right thing, Miss Adler,” he said without preamble.

“I didn’t want to cross Julian.” Who’d been livid over the search of Manny’s room.

“Julian will live,” Bart said in a tone that made Brooke think there was no love lost between them. “You were right to worry about Manny Rodriguez, Miss Adler.”

“So you found something?”

He nodded. “Lots of stories about fires.”

“Local fires, like the two articles I saw him clip?”

“No, those were the only local articles. The others were more how-to.”

“Oh Lord. He was collecting articles on how to set fires?”

“He was.” Secrest leaned back in his chair. “And we found a pack of matches hidden in one of his shoes. -Obviously smuggled in from somewhere.”

She frowned. “But we’re in lockdown. How could something get smuggled in?”

“Every castle has a bolt-hole, Miss Adler.”

She blinked at him. “Excuse me?”

His smile was brief and somehow still made him look mean. “Every institution has a supply pipeline for contraband. Even this one. But I’ll find it. That I guarantee.”

He stood and she guessed the interview was over. “Well... good night.”

His answer was a curt nod as she backed out of his door. She’d turned the corner toward the main entrance when she heard her name. Julian was standing outside his office, looking furious. “Brooke, what the hell have you done?”

Brooke straightened her spine. She’d done the right thing. Bart Secrest said so. “I reported suspicious behavior, Julian. The way you were supposed to.”

Julian came closer until he was practically standing on her toes. He leaned over her, invading her space and tickling her nose with the aroma of pipe tobacco that lingered in his jacket. “You insolent little...” He hissed a breath between his clenched teeth. “Don’t you dare tell me what I should have done. You have ruined months of progress with that boy.
Months.
Thanks to you, any trust I’d built with him is gone.”

Brooke’s heart was hammering so hard she thought he could hear it. He was big and way too close and breathing her air. Still she lifted her chin and stared up at him defiantly. “You said he wouldn’t start any fires here at the school.”