Firebreak: A Mystery

by Tricia Fields

  Josie pushed open the half door separating the waiting area from Lou’s dispatch station. Lou sat behind her computer talking on the phone, paying no attention to the drama. Josie stretched a hand out to Billy first.

  “Thanks for coming in, Billy. We’re going to head upstairs where we can sit and talk.” Josie motioned toward the back of the office and then Billy shook her hand and tipped his head but said nothing. He walked past her and Josie stretched her hand out to Brenda. “I don’t believe we’ve met before. I’m chief of police, Josie Gray.”

  Brenda shook Josie’s hand. “Pleased to meet you.” Her tone was curt, as if she were meeting a business rival.

  Josie led them upstairs to the office where Otto was setting coffee cups in the middle of the conference table. Otto introduced himself and the group briefly discussed the long drive from Austin before settling into chairs around the table. Josie asked if they would mind if she recorded the interview. Neither of the Nixes objected, so she set up the recorder and stated the date, time, location, and people present.

  “I appreciate you coming in today,” she said. “As you know, the wildfire that swept through Arroyo County has caused a great deal of damage to Artemis. Downtown was spared but the northeastern part of the county was hit hard. The fire reached the west side and died out. Unfortunately, your house wasn’t spared. The fire chief and the fire marshal are working as fast and as carefully as they can to assess damage and get people back to their homes, but safety is first priority.”

  “Can you tell us anything about the damage?” Brenda asked.

  “I’m sorry. At this time we don’t have enough information to do that. To begin, I’d like you to start by telling us about the evacuation. When did you leave, what route did you take, and so on.”

  Billy glanced at Brenda, who spoke first, looking directly at Josie. “We’d been listening off and on to the public-radio station about the fire up north. Then Hank called Sunday afternoon and gave us an update on the evacuation. Billy and I talked it over and decided we should go ahead and leave before it got too late.”

  “Is Hank a close friend to you and Billy?” Josie asked.

  “Yes, he’s a good friend. He takes care of his musicians. He was calling everyone, the bands, regulars at the bar, just letting people know what was going on. The Hell-Bent ended up the gathering place for everyone. It was far enough out of the fire’s path that we were all hoping it would remain safe.”

  “What time did you decide to leave town?” Josie asked.

  “Hank called about noon. We finally decided to pack up at about two and left around five that evening.”

  “Did you pack many belongings?”

  Brenda glanced at Billy as if passing off the baton.

  “We mostly grabbed the instruments, the guitars and amps,” he said. “We got them and some suitcases packed for a couple days away. We were worried but I never thought it would actually come through our area. You just never figure it’ll happen to you.”

  “When you left at five, where did you go?” Josie asked.

  “We went to the Hell-Bent to pick up my guitar. She’s my favorite. An old Fender I’ve had for twenty years. I couldn’t leave without her.”

  “Who did you talk to at the bar?”

  Billy drew his eyebrows together as if questioning her motives. “Why’s that matter?”

  “We’ll get to that,” Josie said. “Right now I’m just gathering information from as many sources as I can find.”

  “For a wildfire?” Brenda asked.

  “We’ll get to that shortly. Let’s stick to the evacuation. Tell me what happened when you left the house that evening.”

  Josie glanced at Otto, who was sitting quietly across from Brenda with his hands folded on a legal pad in front of him. His expression was kind and nonjudgmental. He hadn’t picked up his pen since they sat down, signaling that it was a friendly conversation, not an interrogation.

  “We drove straight to the Hell-Bent when we left home,” Brenda said. “I saw Yvonne Ferrario and sat down to talk with her while Billy went back to the dressing room.”

  Josie looked at Billy and he continued. “I told Hank I was going to grab my guitar and he sent Angela back to unlock the door. We just talked a minute about the fire and how awful it all was. Then we left. I found Brenda talking to Yvonne and we left the bar by about six.”

  “Where did you go after that?” she asked.

  “We drove to Austin,” he said.

  “Why not stay in Presidio or somewhere closer?”

  “Billy’s been playing the bars in Austin,” Brenda said. “We had to leave home anyway, it made sense to drive on to Austin. Check in with the bar owners and book a few gigs.”

  “What hotel did you stay at?”

  “The Hampton Inn. Downtown. We stopped at Gilly’s for an hour or so to have a drink before we checked in.”

  Josie deliberately avoided asking how they paid for the bill. She would track down credit card receipts later. For now, she just wanted a basic time frame. As she requested more specific information, the Nixes would most likely feel threatened, and the details would dry up.

  “Do you know roughly what time you arrived in Austin?”

  “It was one in the morning,” Billy said. “I remember because the bars close at two. We drove by the Hampton and could tell there were rooms available. The parking lot wasn’t full so we just drove on to Gilly’s. We checked into the hotel sometime after two.”

  “Did you book any gigs while you were there?”

  “Billy talked with a couple bar owners.” Brenda glanced at him as if requesting confirmation but didn’t wait for him to speak. “He went to the Baker’s Dozen and Mick and Eddy’s yesterday. And, we both met with the owner of the Sage. We booked a few dates in November.”

  “Did you talk to anyone from Artemis before you returned my call yesterday?” Josie asked.

  Brenda looked surprised. “No.” She turned to Billy. “Did you?”

  Billy shook his head no and frowned.

  “Was anyone staying at your home when you evacuated?”

  “No, of course not,” Brenda said.

  “Do you have friends who might drop by unannounced and stay overnight without telling you?” Josie asked.

  “What are you getting at?” Brenda said.

  Josie glanced at Otto to make sure he didn’t have anything else he wanted to slip in before the bombshell. He tipped his head for her to proceed.

  “A body was found, burned to death, lying on your couch. We found it yesterday morning when we went to your house.”

  Both of the Nixes pulled back into their chairs, as if trying to distance themselves from the news. Their eyes were wide, unbelieving, confused, all expected responses upon hearing such traumatic information, but Josie had learned not to put too much faith in the initial physical reaction of a suspect. Their reactions as the questions got tougher would be more telling.

  “Who was it?” Brenda said.

  “The body hasn’t been identified. We’re hoping you might be able to help us,” Josie said.

  Brenda looked at Billy, who continued staring at Josie in apparent shock.

  “Billy, can you think of a friend, maybe a band member or a fan, who might have stopped by your house after you left? Maybe they needed a place to crash for the night?”

  He opened his mouth as if to speak but said nothing.

  “We don’t run a flophouse!” Brenda said. “And who would stay at our house in the middle of an evacuation with a wildfire raging across the county?”

  Josie kept her attention on Billy. “Can you think of anyone? Maybe someone you asked to stop by the house and check on things while you were away?”

  He cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “No, nobody. You don’t know anything about the body? A man or woman?”

  “A male. We believe he was between the ages of twenty-five and fifty.”

  Josie watched Billy struggle to swallow and clear his throat. “Do
you have a drink? Some water?” he asked.

  Brenda looked over at Billy, and Josie noted that her expression had changed slightly. She seemed irritated with him. Josie remembered Angela’s comment about Brenda calling Billy weak.

  Otto stood and retrieved a bottle of water from the small refrigerator at the back of the office. Billy removed the lid and drank half the bottle.

  Josie faced Brenda again. “If not friends, do you have family members who might have stopped by unannounced?”

  Brenda’s face flushed and she sat up straight in her seat. “I’m not sure how else to say this to you. We don’t have people stopping by to sleep on our couch. I have no idea who that person could be.”

  “The police found a dead man in your living room. We will do everything in our power to determine who that victim is. You also need to understand that you could be in danger as well. The death has been ruled a homicide.”

  “What?” She whispered the word, her expression shocked again.

  “Why would someone kill someone in our home?” Billy looked confused. “You’re saying that the man wasn’t killed in the fire? That someone killed him?”

  Brenda’s face had turned bright red and a sheen of sweat covered her forehead. “I want an attorney. We’re done talking here. This is outrageous.”

  ELEVEN

  Once the Nixes requested an attorney the interview ended. Josie had already called Manny and booked a room at his motel for the Nixes. The room had just been vacated by a family who had stayed during the evacuation but whose home was not caught in the fire. Josie wanted the Nixes close by for questioning, and fortunately, they didn’t resist. The couple had left angry and thoroughly unstrung but agreed to remain reachable via their cell phones.

  After the Nixes left, Otto and Josie drove back to the house to reexamine the scene. The Arroyo County judge had granted approval for the search warrant and Josie was anxious to get ahold of the computer and various files in the home office that might provide a glimpse into the Nixes’ personal life. Otto drove his jeep and Josie rode beside him.

  “Anything surprise you from Billy or Brenda?” Otto asked.

  “Not really. I’d hoped for more. You?”

  “Considering what we learned from the band and bar interviews, I’d say they were both predictable in their answers. Brenda struggled not to dominate the interview. She pulled back to allow Billy to talk.”

  “And he didn’t seem to want to talk.” She paused, recalling the conversation. “I kept thinking how I might feel, sitting down to learn that the police had found a burned body, dead on my couch. I realize because of my law enforcement background I’m not your normal suspect.”

  “You think?”

  She ignored the sarcasm. “But I think after the initial shock I’d be angry. I’d want to know what the police were doing. I’d want to know who was inside my house. Who the police had talked to, and what they were doing to find out who this person was. I’d want answers.”

  Otto stopped the car so Josie could get out and take down the yellow crime-scene tape at the end of the Nixes’ driveway. He pulled up the driveway, parked, and joined Josie, who was now standing on the concrete pad just outside the front of the house.

  “So, what’s your point?” he asked.

  “I know Brenda isn’t well liked, but her reaction seemed right to me. She’s mad as hell. Her house is destroyed. Some guy not only got into her home, but he was murdered there. And now the police are asking questions that make her feel like she’s a suspect.” She turned and faced Otto. “And what did Billy do?”

  “He clammed up. But doesn’t that fit his personality?”

  Josie narrowed her eyes. “It was more than that though. I thought he looked scared. He got choked up and he had to drink water before he could even talk. That’s a sign of fear, not worry.”

  “I’m still not sure what you’re getting at.”

  Josie stared at the gaping hole in the living room. “I don’t know yet. I’m just thinking out loud.”

  They spent the next hour searching through the rubble in the house for something that might explain Billy’s reaction, but they found nothing more than personal mementos, music paraphernalia, and the bills and paperwork typical of any other married couple. They retrieved several boxes of charred evidence, including a desktop computer and a file cabinet full of business and personal files, and tagged and loaded the evidence into Josie’s jeep before going back into the house.

  They stood outside for a water break, sweaty from the exertion and nauseated from the stench.

  “You took prints in the bedroom the day of the fire?” Josie asked.

  He wiped his hands on a cloth and tried to rub the black soot off of his skin. “I did. Everything’s logged.”

  “I was thinking about Billy’s question. What was the first thing he asked after he found out about the body?”

  “Remind me.”

  “He asked whether the victim was male or female.”

  Otto shrugged. “He wants to know who the victim is.”

  “But we already told him we don’t know who it is. And if Billy didn’t have any idea who was lying on his couch, then why would he care if the body was male or female?”

  “He’s wondering if the body belongs to someone he knows after all. Maybe there’s a woman he’s seeing on the side?”

  Josie nodded. “Let’s check the bedroom and bath again. Maybe it was a crime of passion. Maybe that’s where it started, and ended up with a dead body, and a married couple seven hours away in Austin.”

  Otto walked into the master bathroom to search the cabinets and countertops for something more telling than what his original search had turned up. Josie stood in the bedroom, observing the space as a place of intimacy, shared by a married couple. The room was painted white with a few department-store framed paintings of flower arrangements in vases. The furniture was a matching set from one of the discount chains. There was nothing ornate or original to distinguish it from a hundred other bedrooms. Josie figured it fit Brenda’s sensibilities. Her focus seemed to be on Billy and his career, not material possessions or fostering a homey place to live.

  The alarm clock was located on the right side of the bed, closest to the bathroom. Josie figured this was Brenda’s side. She couldn’t imagine Brenda allowing Billy to set the alarm. Next to the clock were a box of tissues and a hardback novel by C. J. Box. A small pad of sticky notes and a pen lay underneath the table lamp. Josie picked up the pad and found several notes Brenda had apparently jotted down to herself.

  The first note said, “Call L. Lester follow-up recording.”

  Underneath that she found another note with what appeared to be a phone number. She jotted the number down in her steno pad to call later from a restricted phone line that would protect her identity.

  A drawer underneath the tabletop revealed a pile of jewelry pitched haphazardly into a glass bowl and a pile of odds and ends from earrings to lip balm and pens and pencils. Underneath the drawer was a pile of paperback mysteries and romance novels. Nothing of consequence. No photos or letters.

  Billy’s side of the bed held mementos, from a CD case signed by Willie Nelson to several concert tickets signed by people Josie didn’t recognize. She found a pile of coasters from assorted restaurants. She flipped over one coaster with SAMUEL ADAMS BOSTON LAGER on the front, and on the back saw the scrawled message “Love you man.” None of the other coasters bore any writing.

  After an hour of digging turned up little of consequence, they gave up the search. They were walking back down the hallway when Josie’s eye settled on a tiny brightly colored piece of paper lying on top of the edge of the baseboard. She asked Otto for a plastic bag and tweezers from the evidence kit he was carrying. He went back into the bedroom and opened up the case on the bed. The hallway and bedrooms hadn’t been burned, but the fire in the living room had left a thick coating on the tiled floor and the hallway. Since the bedroom door had been closed, the ashfall there wasn’t nearly a
s heavy.

  Otto handed Josie the supplies, and she bent down and retrieved the piece of paper. She stood, pressing the tweezers tightly between her fingertips, holding the tiny piece of paper out for Otto to look at, a wide smile on her face. “Recognize this?”

  He studied it for a moment and then laughed. “I think we have ourselves a murder investigation.”

  TWELVE

  Josie and Otto spent a half hour sifting through the ash on the Nixes’ hallway floor with small soft brushes, looking for more of the confetti-like pieces of paper, and plotting them on a diagram to determine the starting and stopping points of their trajectory. The brightly colored pieces of paper were ejected from a certain model Zaner stun gun when fired. Each piece of paper carried a set of numbers that a law enforcement agency could use to track down owner registration for the gun. They found several dozen pieces, which made it clear they weren’t left there from a prior use. The gun had no doubt been used to stun the victim before killing him: a brutal, premeditated murder.

  On the drive back to the office Josie received a call from the coroner.

  “What do you have for us?” she asked.

  “It’s clear the man didn’t die of asphyxiation. There was no smoke damage to his lungs. He was dead before the fire burned him.”

  “Any idea yet what caused his death?”

  “I’m not finding any blunt-force trauma. My gut feeling is an overdose, but I can’t say. I was able to pull enough blood for toxicology, but that could be two weeks or longer.”

  “But what about his arms pulling up to his face? You called it the boxer’s pose. If he overdosed that wouldn’t have happened, would it?” she asked.

  “Think of it as shrink wrap. When you apply heat to shrink wrap it shrinks up. When intense heat is present, or the soft tissue burns, it causes the muscles to contract and pull in. The victim could have died of an overdose while lying on the couch. As long as rigor mortis hadn’t set in, his muscles would have contracted when the fire started.”