Burn You Twice

by Burton, Mary

  His phone rang, and he gratefully turned from the boxes and answered it. “Detective Bailey.”

  “There’s a Joan Mason here to see you,” the deputy said.

  “I’ll be right out.”

  He strode down the long, tiled hallway, hoping that Joan would find something in these files that would give her peace. Maybe she could leave Missoula and return to her life in Philadelphia, so he could get back to mending the life he was rebuilding for Kyle and himself.

  She stood by the front entrance with her arms crossed as she stared at a wanted poster. Energy still snapped from every sinew in her body, as if she were a rocket ready to blast off.

  “Joan,” he said.

  She turned, and her green eyes reflected a tangle of anger, trepidation, and regret. “Hey.”

  In college, whenever she’d looked at him like that, he had hugged her and reminded her she was not alone. But a hug now would not be appropriate, nor would it repair anything. “I’ve got the evidence bins in the conference room.”

  “Terrific. Thank you.”

  She followed him down the hallway to the small windowless room. Gideon flipped on the light. There was a large table, a half dozen chairs, and a coffeepot emanating a slightly burned scent. In the center of the table were the three dusty brown boxes.

  “Not much to go through,” he said.

  “I’ve seen homicide files that were thinner.” She set her purse down.

  He noticed her fingers were red from the cold. When was she going to get gloves?

  “It might take me a few hours,” she said.

  “The room is yours for the rest of the day. But you can’t take anything out of here,” he gently warned her.

  She shrugged off her jacket and draped it over a chair. “Feel free to frisk me when I leave.”

  His brain immediately flashed to his hands on her body. His groin tightened, and the annoyance tracking him since yesterday amplified.

  She rubbed her hands together, either to warm them or maybe express anticipation of the task.

  He was tempted to caution her that this material might be tough to see. She was a cop, but that did not make her immune to evidence that had directly affected her life. She always put up a good front, but he knew the person behind the facade was not so tough.

  “Don’t get all stressed out, Gideon,” she said as she removed the top of the first box. “I can handle this.”

  Christ, could she still read him with just a glance? “I know that.”

  “When you’re worried, you still purse your lips,” she said.

  He opened his mouth to relax his lips and voice a denial. “You think you know me?”

  Her gaze snared him. “I know you, and you know me more than either of us would like to admit.”

  “A lot has changed, Joan. We aren’t kids anymore.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Now, as before, she hid behind boldness and sarcasm. The fear lurking in the shadows did not surprise him, but it was troubling.

  “Remember, you can’t take the files.”

  She shifted her attention to the first box, her fingers skimming over the tabs of the folders. “I get it. Look. Don’t take.”

  He walked to the door and then paused. “Joan, what do you hope to find?”

  “I’m not really sure, Gideon.” She removed a dusty yellow-white file.

  He could not save her now, any more than he could have ten years ago. “Call out if you need me.”

  “Thanks.”

  Sighing, he left, hearing the other file box tops hit the conference room table. When he returned to his office, his phone was ringing. He snapped it up, both annoyed and grateful to have his thoughts diverted. “Detective Bailey.”

  “Becca here. I’m at the jail. Received a drunk-in-public complaint call from the manager at the Double R Bar. A fellow by the name of Ryan Davis, who is now in the drunk tank.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” He sat in his chair, leaned forward, and began to doodle the letter J on his blotter.

  “He got drunk because his girlfriend would not answer her cell or her apartment door.”

  Becca had a punch line, or she would not have bothered with the call. She paused, as if savoring her coup. “The girlfriend’s name is Lana Long. Mr. Davis’s driver’s license gives his last known address in Denver.”

  He dropped his pen. “I’ll be right there.”

  “He’s still pretty drunk.”

  “I still want to see him.”

  He grabbed his coat and Stetson and, on the way out, stopped at the front desk. “My sister is dropping off Kyle in two hours. I should be back in plenty of time to take him to his doctor’s appointment.”

  A phone rang, and as the deputy reached for it, he said, “If you’re late, we’ll look after him.”

  “He can wait in my office.”

  The deputy gave him a thumbs-up as his attention shifted to the call.

  Fifteen minutes later, Gideon was headed into the jail, removing his hat as he greeted the officer on duty. After checking his weapon in a locker, he hustled to the cell where Davis was being held.

  Becca sat across from the cell, her head tilted down toward her phone. As if she’d heard his approach, she closed a few apps and tucked the phone in her back pocket as she rose.

  “Have you spoken to Ryan Davis?” Gideon asked.

  “Right now, he’s sleeping it off, which is an improvement. At least he’s calmed down. The sobbing was pitiful. Worse than the vomiting.”

  Gideon looked through the cell door window. Ryan’s long, thin body was curled into the fetal position. His shirt and jeans were stained, his face was as pale as snow, and his mouth hung open. There was a bucket by the cot.

  “Like I said, really drunk. He’s not going to have much to say for a few hours,” Becca said.

  “What did he say in the bar?” Gideon asked.

  “He was shouting at the bartender. He seemed to know that Lana was a frequent patron through his Find My Friends app. Lana must have forgotten to disable it, or maybe she liked the idea of him tracking her. Either way, Ryan knew Lana had been at the Double R Bar.”

  The Double R was located a few blocks from the beauty shop. “You said he was crying?”

  “Like a baby.”

  Some of the guilty did cry once the heat of murder had cooled and they realized their loved one was dead or injured. He had arrested a few drunken cowboys who’d mourned the girlfriend or drinking buddy they had assaulted. “Stay here and make sure he doesn’t get sprung. Call me when he wakes up. I’m headed to the Double R.”

  Gideon crossed town in less than fifteen minutes and parked in front of what looked like a nineteenth-century saloon. Painted letters resembling twisted ropes spelled out DOUBLE R BAR across a plate-glass window. A red neon sign flashed OPEN. This time of day, the parking was easy, and the bar would be quiet. Nothing worse than shouting over music or fending off drunks during an interview.

  Hat in hand, he pushed through the front door, pausing as his eyes adjusted to the dim light. Behind the bar was a young woman with red hair gathered up in a ponytail. A blue T-shirt, sporting the bar’s logo, stretched over large breasts, then whittled down over a narrow waist and into faded jeans.

  Drying a glass tumbler, she eyed him suspiciously. “Officer, what can I do for you?”

  He reached for his badge and showed it to her. “I’m Detective Gideon Bailey.”

  “Marcie Cash.”

  “You called in a disturbance this morning.”

  “You’ll have to do better than that.” She placed the glass on the shelf and reached for another damp one in the sanitizer. “I had a couple last night.”

  “Ryan Davis. He said he was Lana Long’s boyfriend.”

  “Right. The sensitive one. Don’t get many of those. Yeah, what can I tell you?”

  “He said Lana is a regular here?”

  “She was. Liked to sit on the right side of the bar,” she said, nodding toward a trio of empty bars
tools.

  “What can you tell me about her?”

  “From Denver. Looking to find a little adventure. Had a boyfriend, and I don’t mean Ryan. She told me her new guy was local.”

  “Did he ever come in here?”

  “No. She always came in alone all dolled up, flirted a little, had her three Moscow mules, and then left by ten.”

  “Did she ever mention the boyfriend’s name?”

  “No, but she hinted once that she might be getting married. I wanted to call bullshit on that, but I keep my mouth shut. Insulting the customers hurts tips,” she said.

  “Why didn’t you believe her?”

  “The single boyfriends generally join their ladies. The married ones do not. Why all the questions about Lana? She okay?”

  He sidestepped her questions. “You think Lana’s boyfriend was married?”

  “Either married or in prison,” she said carefully, as if she saw the meaning behind his diversion. “And for the record, I’m rarely wrong.”

  Joan thumbed through the files, her fingertips skimming the manila folder tabs identified with typewritten labels trimmed in red. She removed her phone from her bag. She would not remove any physical files from the room, just as she’d promised. But Gideon had said nothing about her taking photos.

  The first file contained the crime scene images of her former house, blackened and gutted by fire. The walls remained standing, but the roof had collapsed into the interior. Her room had been on the east side, which coincidentally had sustained the most damage. Puddles from the firefighters’ water hoses dotted the scorched front lawn, the gold juniper plants along the foundation had been trampled, and the ten-foot-wide ponderosa pine by the driveway was singed beyond saving.

  The photographic evidence moved into what had been her bedroom, and her throat tightened when she saw the outline of her metal-frame bed blackened and crushed by falling beams. A red-and-white MADE IN PHILADELPHIA poster was still thumbtacked to the wall but had been burned up to the cracked Liberty Bell illustration. That poster had been a gift from Ray and one of the few mementos she had brought with her from Philadelphia.

  Beside the poster stood her secondhand dresser. The cluster of brushes, hair ties, and makeup had been swept to the floor by the spray of water, and the lone item remaining was a square Chanel No. 5 bottle, which she had purchased at a yard sale for five dollars. Though the scent had never suited her, she liked the idea of having something so fancy. All that destruction, and the perfume bottle still stood where she had placed it.

  The ceiling had caved in on her desk, burying her computer, textbooks, papers, and the blue mug she had filled with fresh coffee every morning. Ironically, she remembered feeling grateful, as she had lain on the ambulance gurney hooked up to oxygen and an IV, that she had emailed herself her exam notes. At least she could still pull up her notes on another computer and study.

  Joan shifted her attention to the door and the red-hot handle that had scorched her palms as she had desperately tried to get out. Memories crept out of the shadows, bringing with them the heat from the College Fire. For a moment it was hard for her to breathe.

  She pressed trembling fingertips to her forehead as she pushed back the rise of panic and concentrated her focus on the image. The fact that the fire crews had reached her in that holy inferno rose to the level of a miracle.

  She turned to the next image. The charred and water-soaked living room couch was now cast in sunlight from the collapsed roof. How many nights had she sat on that couch, a large bowl of popcorn cradled in her crossed legs, reading a book or watching Survivor?

  Ann’s room had been damaged, but not to the extent that Joan’s had been. The kitchen had also sustained terrible damage. The cabinets, counter, and even its wooden floor had all collapsed into a pile upon the earth foundation.

  Joan reached for a file marked Arson Report and skimmed a half dozen pages before she found the investigator’s official findings.

  Three incendiary devices were used. One by the back door leading from the kitchen, the second under the window of the back bedroom, and the third positioned in the crawl space under the same back bedroom occupied by Joan Mason. The combustible devices appeared to have been plastic bottles filled with diesel fuel. The device placed by the back door was not completely incinerated, and forensics identified pieces of a thick cotton sweatshirt that had been wadded into the vessel. The wick was likely ignited by a lighter or match, and because the cotton material was so long, the arsonist had time to clear the property before the explosions. The positions of the vessels appeared to be placed strategically to create maximum damage.

  The arson report went on to detail evidence that appeared irrefutable. That recovered strip of a sweatshirt had been tested at the lab, which identified Elijah’s DNA on the fabric. Eyewitnesses had spotted Elijah a few nights before the fire leaving their backyard, and he had also been seen walking down their street in the hours preceding the blaze.

  “Your DNA was found at the scene,” she whispered to herself. Many of the guilty professed their innocence even when faced with overwhelming evidence. But there was something in Elijah’s confident tone that rang true.

  Footsteps in the hallway had her lifting her gaze to Kyle Bailey. “Kyle?”

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Working. What’s your excuse?” She welcomed the distraction from the files and pictures chasing too many demons out of the shadows. “Don’t tell me—you’ve been arrested for telling too many bathroom jokes?”

  He tipped his lips into a slight grin while still trying to act cool. “No, I’m not in trouble.”

  “You’re not wearing handcuffs, so I guess the other officers agree.”

  “Cops don’t arrest ten-year-old kids.” He dropped his backpack in a chair and sat in the one next to it. He dug out a soda and fished a packet of Nabs from his backpack. When he opened the crackers, he offered her one. He may have looked like his mother, but he was quick to share like Gideon.

  She took an orange cracker filled with peanut butter. “Thank you.”

  Freckles were sprinkled across his nose. “You’re welcome.”

  “Seriously, what are you doing here, Kyle? Shouldn’t you be out playing soccer or football?”

  “It’s a holiday, remember? And I’m waiting on Dad. He went to the jail, and I have an appointment at the clinic.”

  The kid’s schedule was none of her business. She bit into the cracker, found she liked the Day-Glo orange and artificial peanut butter. And before she could stop herself, she asked, “Nothing serious at the doctor, I hope.”

  “I broke my arm last winter.” He said it with such authority, as if he was proud of it. “They want to x-ray it and make sure it’s growing right.” He held up his right arm and bent it in multiple directions. “It’s fine. Doctors are a waste of time.”

  She liked the kid. “I broke my arm when I was twelve. My best friend, Vincent, dared me to ride my bike down ten concrete stairs at the library. Made it almost to the bottom, but the front wheel twisted, and I went flying. Broke my arm at the elbow.” Damn thing still hurt when it rained.

  “You rode a bike down the library stairs?”

  “I wouldn’t recommend it, but yeah, I did. I’m not a person to dare. How did you break your arm?”

  “I was living with my mom in Denver. I was walking to the corner store to get her some ginger ale and was hit by a car.”

  “Damn. That had to hurt.” Joan intentionally kept her tone calm, just like she did when she rolled up on a crime scene with a hysterical witness or traumatized victim.

  “It didn’t hurt too bad at first. But it did later in the ambulance.” He again rotated his arm in a full circle. “But it’s fine now.”

  “Impressive.” She thought about Gideon getting that kind of phone call. It was at least a thirteen-hour drive between Missoula and Denver. “I bet your dad drove all night after he heard.”

  Kyle’s gaze widened with hints of surprise
. “Yeah, how did you know?”

  “I know your dad. He’s like that.” She was curious about Helen, the woman who had toyed with Gideon’s heart after Joan had split town ten years ago. But grilling the kid about his mother was a pettiness she would not indulge.

  “You don’t sound like you’re from here,” Kyle said.

  “You know I’m from Philadelphia.”

  “Why are you looking at case files in this office?”

  She closed the folder filled with graphic color images. “I went to college here. Before you were born.”

  The boy, now looking curious about the file, tried to read the tab. “What was the case?” he asked.

  The kid did not appear to be a fan of sugarcoating the truth, but he was still a kid. “There was a fire.”

  “Did anyone die?”

  “No.”

  “So why do you care about it?”

  “Because people shouldn’t go around burning down houses.”

  “There was no arrest?” Kyle challenged.

  It was her turn to smile. “You must know a lot about police procedures.”

  “Some. Dad’s told me stories.”

  “There was an arrest and conviction.”

  “Then why do you care?”

  “Good question.”

  He nodded to her scarring. “What’s wrong with your hand?”

  “Burn scar.” She tucked her hand under the table.

  “From that fire?”

  The boy was quick. “Yes.”

  “There was a fire in town on Saturday,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “Are you working that case with Dad?”

  “Yes. Kind of. Not exactly.”

  “What’s that mean?” He offered her another cracker, but she declined.

  “Your dad is letting me nose around.”

  “He doesn’t need your help,” Kyle said.

  “He doesn’t really need me at all.” The truth surprised her with a sting.

  Quick, determined footsteps sounded in the hallway, and Gideon appeared in the doorway. “Kyle. Why didn’t you come by my office?”

  “I didn’t want to sit there alone. I got a snack and came in here when I saw Joan. We had breakfast together yesterday at Aunt Ann’s house.”