Firebreak: A Mystery

by Tricia Fields

  Isolated trails of smoke drifted up from charred pieces of siding and smoldering furniture inside the house. Otto pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket and placed it over his mouth and nose. Josie heard him mumble something into his hand. The smell of burnt wood and fiber and man-made belongings was overpowering and Josie felt her stomach cramping.

  From where Josie stood on the concrete pad, she could see the layout of the living room: square in shape, modestly furnished with a couch and loveseat. To the left of the hole, the front door opened up into a small tiled entryway with a coat closet and a hallway, most likely leading to bedrooms. The hallway appeared largely undamaged by the fire.

  The furniture faced an entertainment center on the wall opposite where Josie stood looking through the hole. The center held a large flat-screen TV and a great deal of electronic stereo equipment. The shapes were still visible, but the equipment was severely burned and melted.

  To the left of the entertainment center was a wide doorway that led from the living room into what appeared to be a dining room. That room had been burned, but the walls were still intact and structurally it was in slightly better shape than the living room, but that wasn’t saying much.

  “It’s a complete loss,” Otto said, still talking into the handkerchief.

  Josie stepped gingerly into the living room, testing the floor to make sure it would hold her weight.

  “I don’t think you ought to go in there until Doug takes a look.”

  “I just want to get down the hallway if I can. Make sure there’s no one inside. If the floor feels soft I won’t go on.”

  Now that she was inside, Josie turned to check out the living room one last time. She had a better view of the couch now and took a deep breath, stunned at what she saw.

  SIX

  Dell stood at the end of his bed and laid a pair of dark slacks on the blanket. They were navy blue with a crease down the middle of each leg. He’d not had a crease in a pair of pants in thirty years. He didn’t even think pants had creases in them anymore. It seemed like a ludicrous waste of time.

  He walked to his closet and opened the sliding door. Three new button-down shirts hung on hangers, still stiff from the plastic packaging he’d unwrapped them from. He sighed, pulled one out, and laid it on the bed, too. He dug around in the hall closet until he found an iron he kept in its original box. He ironed the fold creases out of the shirt and moved on to his cowboy boots. It had been a while since he’d cleaned them, and they were showing their wear. He found the saddle oil to rub out the dirt, and then conditioned them.

  After a quick shower, he stood in front of the steamy bathroom mirror to shave, something he typically did about once a week—once a month when he forgot. This was the third time this week he’d shaved, and it was grating on his nerves. By the time he’d dressed and was ready to go, the entire process had taken almost an hour. This is what females did to men, he thought. They turned them into sissies.

  Dell drove his pickup thirty minutes to Presidio and parked in front of Lou Ellen Macey’s house, located behind the mammoth stained-glass-clad Our Lady of the Angels Catholic church. Dell walked past the brick rectory to the little house behind it that Lou Ellen rented from the Church. Apparently that gave the priest, a man in his early thirties, the right to snoop around in her private life, or Lou Ellen just freely gave away her private life to the priest—either way it made Dell uncomfortable. He didn’t share his business with anyone. He had lifted his hand to ring her doorbell when he heard his name being called from behind him. He turned to find Father Paul standing in a bed of thorny red roses, watering them with a garden hose. He waved cheerfully, and Dell tipped his hat.

  Lou Ellen opened the door wearing a flowered skirt and a light pink blouse. He had to admit, she was a fine-looking woman, slim and smelling like soap and vanilla, with her white hair fixed and her teeth shiny. He’d met her a few weeks ago at the Texas Tractor Implements store where she worked as a clerk. She’d had to help him order a part for his tractor. It had taken three visits to the store before he finally got the part he actually needed. On the last visit she offered to buy him a cup of coffee for all the trouble he’d been through. He’d been so shocked that he’d not been able to say no. He’d been even more shocked four times since when she’d suggested new outings, and he’d simply agreed to the arrangements for lack of a better response.

  This afternoon he was taking her to a musical being performed by someone she knew, or someone she wanted to know, or some such thing. He had no interest whatsoever in musicals of any sort and he’d begun to wonder what he’d gotten himself into. Except she smelled like soap and vanilla, a smell more intoxicating than he wanted to admit.

  * * *

  “Otto. We got a problem,” Josie said.

  He stepped up to the edge of the living room, but remained outside on the concrete pad. “What’s wrong?”

  Josie turned her head away from the couch, sickened. “There’s a body. Looks like a male. He’s burnt up bad.” She heard Otto exhale and saw him rub his hands over his face. There was nothing more horrendous to see than a body burned in a fire.

  “Billy Nix?”

  Josie forced herself to look again. “The face is unrecognizable.”

  “I thought we’d dodged the bullet. No fatalities.” Otto started to step inside the house and took his leg back out. “You’re sure this floor will hold my weight?”

  She peered down at the floor and bounced on her toes, checking the give in the floor. She walked slowly toward the loveseat and stood behind it, as if it provided some measure of protection from the grotesque body on the couch. “I don’t feel any give. I think it’s okay.” She glanced up at the ceiling where the rafters were burned. “The fire burned all the way through the roof. You can see daylight.”

  He frowned. “I think you’d better get out of there until we find out if it’s safe.”

  “It’s a smoldering house, Otto. We need to get details logged before we lose them.”

  “Not if it means a house falling in on us!” He beckoned with his hand for Josie to come outside. “Call Doug. Have him get the fire marshal down here to start an investigation. I’ll call the coroner.”

  Josie started toward the opening in the living room wall and stopped next to the body. She looked at Otto for a moment. “If you were in your living room, and it caught fire, what would you do?”

  He smirked, refusing to answer what appeared to be a stupid question.

  “Let’s say something inside your house exploded even, and caught your house on fire, what would you do?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’d get out.”

  “How would you get out?”

  He stared at her.

  “What do they teach every kid in school about a fire?”

  Otto finally caught on. “Stop, drop, and roll.”

  She pointed at the couch. “Billy Nix, or whoever this is, is lying on his back on the couch. His hands are curled up around his head like he’s trying to shield his face. Wouldn’t he have rolled off the couch, onto the floor, tried to crawl out?”

  “But if there was an explosion he wouldn’t have had time.”

  She shook her head. “No explosion. Something burned through this part of the house. Look at the furniture in the living room.” She walked out of the house and stood with Otto, looking back inside. “The couch, with its back facing us, is still intact. It’s burned, the fabric melted, but not like it was blown away from an exploding living room wall. And, it’s directly in front of where the outside of the house seems to have been burnt first.”

  “As if somebody put gas or an accelerant on the house and torched it,” he said. “Which would have given Billy Nix ample opportunity to get off the couch to safety.”

  “Unless he was already dead.”

  * * *

  Josie cleared the rest of the house for other possible victims. She found it odd that Billy would have stayed behind duri
ng the evacuation and his wife would have left. She thought of them as a team.

  After completing an initial sweep of each of the remaining rooms, she and Otto stood near the road where the stench wasn’t as strong in order to make their phone calls. She called Lou Hagerty, first-shift dispatcher at the PD, and asked her to begin the process of tracking down the Nixes. Josie instructed Lou to find them, but to provide no information. Josie wanted to talk with them first. Otto had also called Mitchell Cowan, the county coroner, who was on his way.

  Almost an hour after Josie left a message for Doug about the body, her phone rang again. She explained the details they had discovered and their suspicions.

  “Where did you find him again?” Doug asked.

  “He’s lying on the couch, on his back. His arms clenched up with his fists around his face. Maybe in fear?”

  “If he was afraid why wouldn’t he get out, at least try and crawl to safety?”

  “That’s just what we thought. We’re assuming he was already dead when the house burned, but Cowan’s on his way. We’ll get the autopsy started unless we need to wait for the fire marshal.”

  “No, that’s partly what took so long to call you back. I talked to him. He’s in Odessa, covered up right now with all the wildfires in the area. It’ll be at least tomorrow before he can get here. He asked if I would step in. You okay with that?”

  “Absolutely,” she said, grateful for the help. She knew very little about fire damage, and she’d never worked a fire investigation for a possible homicide. Those investigations were turned over to the state fire marshal. The local police typically had little involvement.

  “When can you get here?”

  She heard him cover the mouthpiece on his phone to talk with someone. He finally came back and said, “I’m on my way.”

  Josie received a call from Lou stating that she’d not been able to reach either of the Nixes by phone. Josie gave Lou the names of several additional people to call who might know their whereabouts, and asked Lou to text her a list of phone numbers and contacts that Josie would be needing.

  Several minutes later Josie and Otto watched the white county hearse, a converted 1978 Dodge station wagon, wind its way down the road until finally pulling into the driveway. Mitchell Cowan got out of the driver’s seat wearing brown dress pants and loafers with a plaid button-down shirt. He’d always reminded Josie of the sad-eyed donkey with the big belly from the kids’ stories. Eeyore. Shaped like a bowling pin with a broad midsection and small head, Cowan was slow and methodical, and talked only when necessary to provide relevant information. Most people considered Cowan odd, but Josie had always liked him. He worked hard and he genuinely cared.

  It took him several minutes to gather his medical bag and assorted other cases out of the back of the hearse. Josie and Otto stood behind him, filling him in on the basic information.

  “We still haven’t ID’d the body. Based on the patches of clothing I could still see and the cowboy boots, I assume this is a male, most likely the homeowner, Billy Nix. We’ve not touched the body, but I’m anxious to roll him over and see if he has identification in his pants pocket.” Josie shuddered involuntarily at the thought. “I don’t know if the fire burnt all the way through.”

  Cowan pulled two bags over his shoulder and handed a plastic briefcase to Josie. “Let’s have a look then.”

  “Nobody’s examined the house to make sure it’s structurally safe,” she said. “The fire burned through the roof. The fire chief should be here in the next fifteen minutes or so and he can check it out if you want to wait.”

  “Sounds prudent,” Cowan said.

  When they reached the opening in the house they stopped and scanned the inside of the living room as Josie described how she found the body. From where they stood, the body was hidden behind the back of the couch. “Since the body was on the couch, and not making an attempt to escape, time of death will be critical.”

  Cowan nodded. “Agreed.”

  “Can you tell if fire or asphyxiation was cause of death? Or, if he died before the fire?”

  “That’s a fairly simple matter. If the person was dead before the fire he was no longer breathing. He won’t have drawn soot down into his lungs. I’ll also do a simple blood test. If carbon monoxide was in his lungs we’ll know he was breathing during the fire.”

  “Excellent,” Josie said. “Can you get that to us today?”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

  They heard a vehicle pull into the driveway and turned to find Doug Free driving his red pickup truck, which had the Artemis Fire Department logo painted on the door. Doug parked and got out of the truck, then surveyed the yard and the surrounding land for several minutes before joining them in front of the house.

  He said hello to the group and asked if they had identified the body. Josie explained that they hadn’t gotten that far in the investigation. “We’re trying to locate the Nixes, but haven’t had any luck yet.”

  Doug sighed. “The guys will be heartbroken. We were feeling good about only a few minor injuries. I sure didn’t expect to find a fatality.”

  Doug gave an update on the status of the Harrison Ridge fire. “We’re eighty-five percent contained. It’s reached the Rio and doesn’t have enough energy to cross. Fortunately, the forecast is clear for the next two days and we’ve got minimal wind today. I think we’re out of the woods.”

  “You fellas did a heck of a job,” said Otto.

  Doug frowned and nodded. “I got a great crew. I just need more of them. Fortunately this didn’t last for days on end. Those weeklong fires, or two-week fires? People forget these guys are volunteers. They have jobs to get to, paychecks to earn.” He shrugged like he needed to get off his soapbox. “Anyway. Tell me what you have so far.”

  “We need to get Cowan inside to the body,” Josie said. “Then we need to get the body transported for autopsy. We haven’t gotten too far with the preliminary investigation because we’re worried about the roof. Can you check it out?”

  Doug retrieved a fifteen-foot stepladder from his truck and climbed up into the rafters in the living room to check for structural damage. While Doug worked, Josie called and spoke with Lou about tracking down the Nixes. Lou said she hadn’t gotten anywhere because her phone was ringing off the hook with residents wanting to know about fire damage and road closures and when they would be allowed home. Josie thanked her and told her to refer people to the sheriff’s department and to keep trying on the Nixes.

  After Doug declared the structure safe, he gathered Cowan, Josie, and Otto on the concrete patio just outside the hole in the living room wall to talk about how they should approach the scene.

  “Let’s talk about how this investigation might differ from what you’re accustomed to. With a death involved in what could possibly be arson?” Doug frowned.

  “This’ll end up at trial,” Josie said.

  Doug nodded several times and put a thumb in the air as if agreeing. “And, the insurance company, or companies”—he paused and looked at both officers as if stressing the point—“will be crawling all over us. As you know, a trial could be a year or two away. We need photographs, video, and detailed notes. The fire marshal really stressed that.” He looked at Cowan. “You play the most crucial role right now. The body will tell us all kinds of things about the fire. When it happened, maybe even if something was used to start or accelerate it.”

  “Understood.”

  “The scene is well preserved,” Josie said. “There’s been no water damage, nothing to disturb the house, as far as we can tell. The only tracks we found were a set of tire tracks, on the other side of the road. With the road closures, no one should have been coming through here, though.”

  “Don’t put too much weight on the tracks. There’s always a few Peeping Toms after a fire passes. We’re trying to do our job, and they want a first look at the disaster.”

  “What about evidence collection?” Josie asked.

  He pointed a f
inger at her. “That’s what we need to talk about. It’s completely different at the scene of a fire. I don’t want to insult your intelligence, but this is usually what the state fire marshal would take care of.”

  Josie waved his concern away and he continued.

  “Here’s my worry about you going in to take care of the body,” Doug said, tilting his head toward Cowan. “We may have evidence around the body that’s extremely fragile. Possibly unrecognizable.”

  Josie watched Cowan process the information.

  “What do you suggest?” he said.

  “I would like to limit foot traffic as much as possible.”

  Josie put a hand up to interrupt him. “My first priority is identification of the body and finding the Nixes. Can you and Otto take care of processing the scene in the living room so Cowan can get in there and hopefully find identification?”

  Doug nodded. “What are you thinking?”

  “For now, this is an unidentified body,” she said. “Lou hasn’t made contact with the Nixes. She would have let me know if they had returned her calls. I know they’re good friends with Hank Wild, the owner of the Hell-Bent. I’d like to start there first. I’ll talk to Hank about how to track them down.”

  “That makes sense,” Otto said.

  Doug faced Otto. “I’d like you and me to take the video camera and walk together. We’ll start outside the house, then through the point of origin. We can make our way back through the dining room where the fire burned out. I want very minimal foot traffic on our first walk-through. Just observations. Then you can take it slower. Just be extremely careful when you reach for anything to pick it up and catalog it. It may look solid, and then disintegrate in your hands.” He turned to Otto. “It’s critical that you check for evidence before Cowan walks around the body. It’s a different kind of investigation when everything you look at is charred gray and black and evaporates when you touch it.”