Pushed Too Far: A Thriller (9 page)

“Why the change? The first time, talking to you was reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition. Now you’re asking for my help?”

“I think we got off on the wrong foot.”

“You accused me of murder.”

“And I’m not certain if you’re innocent now.”

Now he really didn’t know what she was up to. He took a sip from his cup to cover up the fact that he had no idea what to say. The powdered creamer congealed on the top in clumps, making for an all-around unpleasant coffee drinking experience.

“You look confused,” she said.

“You got me there.”

“I’ve decided to be straight with you in hopes that you’ll be straight with me.”

Now that was a change. “And how does it seem to be working so far?”

“Pretty well, I think. You?”

“I don’t have a clue.”

“I have a few more questions then, if that’s all right.”

He settled back in his chair. No doubt, he should get the hell out of here while he still could. If his lawyer was present, Lund was sure that would be his advice. But he was starting to find Chief Ryker’s honesty game fascinating. He wanted to see what happened next. “Shoot.”

“Why did Kelly start seeing Dixon Hess?”

“You asked me that two years ago.”

“Checking to see if you’ve gained any insight.”

“Insight? Not me. My shrink thought she was looking for someone to treat her the way she was comfortable being treated. Going back to what she knew and all that.”

“Her father. The abuse.”

He nodded.

“And what do you think?”

Now she sounded like his shrink. “I think that seems too simple. Like something he pulled from a damn textbook.”

“When she came to see you right before she disappeared, what did she say?”

“I never told you she came to see me.”

“But she did?”

“You’re guessing, aren’t you?”

“Yes. But only because I knew you were lying about that the first time. It was one of the things that put you at the top of my suspect list.”

He couldn’t help giving a little chuckle. “Is this some sort of good cop/good cop technique you’re using on me? Or is it bad then, good now?”

“I’m being straightforward, like I promised.”

He heaved a deep breath. Now that Kelly’s body hadn’t been the one in the burning barrel, he supposed what happened that night didn’t matter. “Yeah, she came to see me.”

“Did she tell you her plans?”

“That she was going to run away? Somehow fake her death? No.”

“She didn’t ask for help?”

“Not in so many words.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“When I look back on it, I think that’s probably why she came to me, but I didn’t see it at the time.” And ever since, he’d regretted letting Kelly down.

Val rubbed her right hand for a moment, as if buying time to come up with her next question. “Were you intimate that night?”

He probably should feel offended. Two years ago, he would have. Hell, an hour ago. Now, it was part of the game. You tell me yours, I tell you mine. “Sex was the way Kelly got what she wanted. My shrink had a theory about that, too.”

Her gaze shifted, to the front of her desk, to her hands folded in her lap, seemingly anywhere but at him.

Finally he broke the silence. “Did I pass the test?”

She nodded.

“Then it’s my turn.”

“Okay.”

“Do you believe I’m a killer?”

“I don’t have any evidence that proves you are.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Do I believe it?”

“Do you?”

She scanned his eyes, but this time her scrutiny didn’t make him uncomfortable in the least.

“Well?” he prompted.

“No, I don’t. I have a few things left to sort through, but I can’t see it. I haven’t been able to for a while now.”

He had the desire to ask her to repeat what she’d just said, make sure he hadn’t imagined it. Being suspected of Kelly’s murder the first time had shaken him. It had been so foreign to his own perception of who he was, and he’d been powerless to change it.

Even with the qualifier, he felt as if Val Ryker had just given him something precious.

“You still want my help?”

She nodded.

“Then tell me what you want me to do.”

V
al pushed herself up from the chair and forced her feet to carry her to the other side of her desk. She was in trouble. If she didn’t want to realize it before, she had no choice but to face it now.

She liked David Lund far too much. What she’d told him was the truth, she believed him in spite of the fact that circumstances said she shouldn’t. Enough that she wanted to tell him about Kelly’s baby, even though until she knew more, it wouldn’t be wise. Instead she slid the folder holding the Jane Doe photos across the blotter.

He flipped it open and looked down at the charred fragments of bone they’d recovered from the farm’s burn barrel.” You know, I don’t have enough training to make more than basic observations.”

“Your basic observations are far beyond mine. And I heard you work cheap.”

“So this is a budget issue?”

“Take a look around. What do
you
think.”

He gave her a grin she felt as a flutter in her chest. “You get what you pay for. I have an understanding of fire. My grasp of the human body isn’t quite as firm.”

She wasn’t sure if he was serious or flirting, and the fact that she wanted it to be flirting bothered her even more. “If you find something that might help, I’ll find the money to consult a forensic anthropologist.”

He turned his focus back to the bones. No sign of guilt, of excitement, of anything other than studious concentration.

When he finished, she handed him the second file.

His lips tightened and brows lowered, but after the initial reaction to the mutilated and burned flesh, his face settled into the same unflappable focus he’d shown with the bones. Finally he closed the file and set both of them on her desk, side by side.

“Well?”

“I’m not sure what you want me to say.”

“You’ve compared the two. Have you noticed differences?”

“Of course. You should contact a forensic anthropologist. Maybe you can use this investigation to go through the county or the state, have them foot the bill.”

“Appreciate the suggestions, but I didn’t ask you here for budgeting advice. Explain what you see.”

“Okay. How much do you know about combustion?”

“High school science.”

“Okay, think of fire as a living thing. It needs four things to exist, and if it’s deprived of any of those things, it dies.”

“Fuel, heat, oxygen, and…what else?”

“A chemical oxidation that causes the reaction to be self-sustaining.”

She liked talking about something as defined as science. It had rules that emotion couldn’t change.

Of course, police work did, too. “Explain.”

“Okay. Fire takes two forms, flaming and smoldering.” He held up one hand, then reached into his pocket with the other, pulled out a stainless steel lighter and flipped it open. A flick of his thumb and a small yellow flame danced at the top.

“I never pegged you for a smoker.”

He gave her another grin. “I always carry one in my pocket and one on my uniform, but not for lighting up. I use it for demonstrations, at schools, that kind of thing.”

“Or for the police chief.” She pulled her gaze from his eyes and focused on the fire. “I’m sorry. Go on.”

“Notice how the flame seems to be dancing in mid air.”

“It’s burning the lighter fluid.”

“Fluid, right. It’s a liquid which must transform into a gas before it can burn. That’s why it looks like it’s floating in space. It’s burning the gas.” He held out a hand. “I need a piece of paper.”

She ripped a sheet from the legal pad in front of her and gave it to him.

He held the lighter’s flame to the corner, and the paper caught fire. “Now paper is a solid, but if you look at the flame, it never touches the edge.”

“So fire only burns fuel in gaseous form.”

“Right. And the more readily the fuel converts to gas, the hotter the fire.” He pointed through the side window of her office into the station’s main room. “Like those cubicles.”

She looked at the ratty old walls that had been around for much longer than she had. “Fabric burns hot?”

“It’s the type of fabric, plus the filler and glue. Especially glue. Something like that or that old pressed-board paneling people have in their rec rooms? A fire trap in the making.” He pinched the flame on the paper’s corner between his fingers. “Don’t want to set off the alarm.”

She eyed the sprinkler above her desk. “Thanks.”

“Flame is fuel in a gaseous state burning in the presence of oxygen. It’s a gas - gas reaction,” he explained.

“And smoldering is solid - gas?”

“You’re a star pupil. But for a solid to burn, you need oxidation of the solid fuel in direct contact with oxygen.”

“Okay, you lost me.”

“Think of a cigarette. When you suck oxygen through the tobacco, the fire gets hotter, glows brighter. More oxygen equals a hotter fire. But when the cigarette sits in the ash tray, it is still burning.”

“It’s smoldering.”

“Right. And it can only continue to burn because the structure of the burning tobacco rolled in paper is porous and rigid enough to stay that way. So oxygen is in contact with the charred surface even when the cigarette is at rest and burning at a cooler temperature.”

“How does that apply to human remains?”

“A substance that doesn’t create a rigid porous char won’t oxidize, therefore it will not smolder and won’t be self-sustaining. A good example would be thermoplastics, which melt as they burn.”

Again, she wasn’t following. “There weren’t any thermoplastics in the barrel.”

“Of course, there weren’t. But the best fuel in the human body is subcutaneous fat.”

“The fat layer under the skin.”

“Yes. Like any oil, it burns fairly efficiently, producing a flaming fire. But first it needs heat to transform it from solid to liquid to gas.”

“The fire generated by the accelerant.”

“Sure. And there was plenty of oxygen in the outside air, but it isn’t self-sustaining without one more thing.”

“A chemical oxidation. Smoldering.”

“Exactly. Namely something porous and rigid. Think of oil lamps, the fat is the oil, but it doesn’t sustain the burn without a wick.”

“Couldn’t the flesh be the wick? Or the bones?”

“It can, but the human body is mostly water. It takes time for flesh and bone to dehydrate enough to burn. The accelerant would burn off too quickly to do more than damage the skin.”

“Jane Doe’s bones burned.”

“Quite extensively, but you weren’t just asking me about Jane Doe.”

Lund stood up and flipped open the file from Nebraska. Leaning over the desk, he pointed at one of the photos. “You see this?”

His head was only inches from hers. Trying not to notice, she stared at the girl’s lower calves and ankles where muscle was charred as well as the skin. In the close up shot, she could see a clear glimpse of bone. “The damage is worst at her ankles.”

“And her wrists.” He pointed to another shot.

Val took in the damage, then looked up at him. “So something acted as a wick on her lower legs and forearms.”

“My guess? She was tied.”

Val looked down at the poor woman’s damaged face. How frightened she must have been when she realized his plan. Tied, helpless, witnessing that look in his eyes and feeling the slashes, the searing barrel of the curling iron, the fire’s heat lick her skin.

What kind of pain had she endured?

She pushed the photo to the side and returned to Jane Doe’s bones. Letting out a shuddering breath, she focused on the shards, human but not. Like studying a skeleton in science class.

A shin bone tapering to an ankle. Splinters from a forearm. Small bones from the wrist.

“There’s no damage.”

It was a ridiculous thing to say, and the sound of the words startled her for a second. Of course there was damage. All the flesh was gone. Not one bone had escaped splintering or charring. There was the most horrible kind of damage imaginable. And yet…

Where Jane Doe should have been tied, there were no marks. Not like the deep damage on the body in Nebraska.

“So she wasn’t tied.”

Hess’s words spun through her mind.

If you look hard enough at the evidence in that case—not what the cops made up—you’ll see it all doesn’t tie together like you want it to.

“Why didn’t we see this before?”