The Burnt Remains

by Alex P. Berg

  Of course, mostly wasn’t the same as completely. There were a handful of entries penned onto the cream-colored pages during the past twelve months, including one dated three and a half weeks ago. Said entry didn’t address Stella’s drug use, her trips to the circus, her marital infidelities, nor any new friends she’d been spending time with, though it did address the nude photographs. In the entry, a seemingly distraught Stella wondered how JT could ever believe she’d posed nude, much less in such sexually suggestive poses. She wondered how he could think she would’ve done anything to smear him, especially when the photographs appeared to be an attack on her rather than him, and she lamented the fact that JT had turned into a callous, mean-spirited shell of the man she’d once loved.

  Unless Stella was a master at weaving nuance into passages where there appeared to be none, the painful and intensely personal diatribe didn’t contain any clues to her murder. What it did was add to the picture painted by the last three years worth of filled pages. As expected based on Dean’s discovery of benzedrine in her bathroom, Stella Vernon was not a happy woman. The diary didn’t reach back to when Stella met JT, nor even to their marriage, but it nonetheless revealed their relationship hadn’t always been strained. At the start of the diary, Stella wrote of her husband in loving terms. She wrote of gifts he’d purchased for her or compliments he’d bestowed upon her. Over time, though, their relationship soured. I couldn’t find any particular inciting incident that caused it, but as the months covered in the pages passed, Stella wrote less and less of her husband. When she did, the descriptions were no longer so glowing. She no longer mentioned his kind words or his smile, instead noting how he’d been brusque or short-tempered with her, how he’d brushed her off and how it made her feel unwanted and ugly. Her entries became more listless and disinterested, which perhaps explained why there were fewer and fewer of them as time went on.

  For our investigative purposes, the most important thing about the diary was what it lacked: details. Stella didn’t mention why she’d moved out of a shared bedroom into private quarters. She didn’t mention many friends or acquaintances, and those she did seemed to become less present in her life over time. She didn’t mention any particular fights with her husband, certainly not physical altercations, though there were passages going back well over a year that indicated he abused her mentally and emotionally. Most notably, she never suggested she was romantically involved with anyone else. If anything, I’d guess the opposite from reading her words: that Stella had lost not only her love for her husband, but her love of life itself.

  All in all, if someone had handed me the diary and told me it belonged to a woman who was addicted to drugs and recently died, I might’ve assumed her death to be a suicide. That would fit her pattern of depression and disinterest. Of course, if she had committed suicide, she would’ve needed an accomplice. One committed to turning her death into the most bizarre, convoluted goose chase imaginable.

  At the desk next to me, Moss spoke into her telephone. “No, of course not. I understand. I do sincerely appreciate your time, Mr. Vernon.”

  I heard a click as Moss returned the phone to its base, and she sighed.

  I pushed back from my desk, peering around the partition. “I’m guessing Vernon is as pleasant over the phone as in real life.”

  Moss pushed her chair back, too. “Less of a creep, but more of a jerk.”

  “What did he have to say about Stella?”

  Moss shrugged. “The same as before. He’s adamant Stella wasn’t involved in the extortion scheme. Says she was beside herself when he showed her the photos. That she swore up and down she’d never been a party to such a thing. He still thinks she didn’t remember the ordeal because she was on drugs.”

  “Well, she says it wasn’t because of drugs.” I picked up the diary. “According to her, she never did it at all.”

  “All I know for sure is someone is lying,” said Moss. “Either Illuvar is lying that Stella was lucid and clear-headed when he photographed her, JT Vernon is lying that he thought she wasn’t a part of the extortion scheme, or Stella was lying in her diary about not having participated willingly in the photoshoot.”

  “Why would she lie in her diary?”

  Moss rubber her brow. “I don’t know. She’d only do so if she was planning something illegal and was setting up supporting evidence for herself in the event she got caught. It seems crazy, but everything about this case comes across as nuts. At first I thought the murder and cremation was the puzzling part, but the blackmail doesn’t make sense either. If we take that scuzzy porn photographer at his word, then we have to ask why Stella would participate in a blackmail scheme against her own husband? Was she not getting enough of an allowance from the man for her shopping sprees? Did she have a personal vendetta against him?”

  “I still think someone else was involved,” I said. “Illuvar said Stella didn’t specify who the photos were for. If they were for a boyfriend, perhaps he’s responsible for the blackmail. It would explain why Stella refused to admit to her husband that she’d taken them.”

  “But she went to the trouble of reinforcing that lie in her diary, in which she’d barely written for the past year?” said Moss. “Why?”

  I shrugged “I don’t know. And none of our theories explain why Stella got murdered.”

  Moss sighed again. “Tell me about it.”

  The way Moss hung her head suggested she was more frustrated by the state of the case than I’d realized. I didn’t know if any of it was my fault, but I tried to brighten her mood, regardless. “I think this is all going to come together once we figure out who Stella intended those photos for. That person has to be behind the blackmail and most likely the murder. And there’s definitely someone involved beyond Stella. I mean, look at the letter Vernon got.” I picked it up off the pile of evidence on my desk and held it alongside the diary. “It’s not in Stella’s hand.”

  Moss didn’t brighten the way I’d hoped. “Even if she was behind the blackmail, she wouldn’t pen the letter herself. Her husband would recognize her handwriting. If she was involved—a big if, still—she had an accomplice. Maybe a lover, but I’m not convinced. Nothing in her diary makes me think she was seeing anyone. Besides, call me crazy, but that blackmail letter, while not in Stella’s hand, nonetheless looks to have been penned by a woman.”

  I frowned as I turned my eyes back to it. The penmanship was perhaps a bit on the loopy side, but feminine? “You think?”

  “It’s a hunch. I don’t have any evidence, and honestly, I’m reaching the point where the more I think about it, the more I’m going to end up guessing rather than inferring.” Moss stood and grabbed her jacket. “I think I’m going to head home. Get some rest. You should, too.”

  I glanced at my wristwatch. So much had been going on that I hadn’t realized it was past six. “I will eventually. I just want to sort through a few things first.”

  Moss slipped into her coat, flicking her blonde hair out from under the collar as she did so. “You realize there’s no overtime pay, right? I know Dean’s been on your case to prove yourself and take charge, but there’s layers to that. Standing up to thugs and asking hard hitting questions is great, but you have to be willing to stand up for yourself, too. Knowing when to pack it in for the night is part of that.”

  I nodded. “Sure. But I’m not staying late because I’m trying to prove myself to Dean. He’s not even here. It’s that… How should I put this? I feel as if there are a thousand fish swimming around my brain, and if I can just get the right angle on them, I’ll be able to see the whole school together at once. It’s weird. I’ve never felt this way before.”

  Moss gave me a knowing smile. “That’s a danger, too. Can lead to sleepless nights. The good news is if you’re in need of a support group for your particular neurosis, you’re in the right place. Just give Dean a ring.” She gave me a nod. “See you tomorrow, Phair.”

  “Yeah. See you.”

  I wheeled back into
my desk, setting the diary down but not the blackmail letter. I eyed the flowing script, wondering if Moss was right about who’d penned it. On the one hand, I didn’t want to believe her. I didn’t think there was any concrete science tying handwriting style to gender, but the bigger reason I refused to believe it was that it threw my theory of marital infidelity out the window.

  Or did it? Who was to say Stella’s accomplice, and possibly her lover, wasn’t a woman? It wasn’t that rare of a thing to like the same sex. Heck, if my interpretation of the events I’d witnessed this morning at the bank were any indication, one such individual might have a desk across from me. Besides, it might explain some of Stella’s behavior. Someone who struggled with their sexuality might suffer from depression, same as she did, and it might explain her secrecy. Having an affair while her husband ran for office would be bad enough, but for her to have an affair with a woman? I could see how JT Vernon might want to hide that. So did that mean he was responsible for her murder after all…?

  Behind me, Dean’s phone rang. I turned in my chair and eyed it, wondering what the protocol was. Dean hadn’t asked me to answer it when he wasn’t around. Then again, he hadn’t told me not to.

  I figured a lead being lost to Dean’s absence would be worse than me breaking some unspoken decorum. I stood and picked up the receiver. “Detective Dean’s desk. Officer Phair speaking.”

  The voice that responded was surprised and a bit flustered. “Oh. Officer Phair. It’s Emmett Jowynn. From the morgue?”

  “Oh. Hey Emmett. How are you?”

  “Uh… good,” he said. “Is Detective Dean around?”

  “Been gone most of the afternoon,” I said. “You want to leave a message?”

  “Sure,” he said. “It’s about the black silicate glass I found in the sample from the crematorium. I was hoping I could show him something before I headed home for the evening.”

  “Show him what exactly?”

  The guy might’ve been a coroner, but he knew how to set a trap. “Well, you’re part of the investigative team now, aren’t you? Why don’t you come down, and I’ll show you instead?”

  Why not, indeed?

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Emmett was at his desk with the typewriter as I entered the morgue, though his fingers weren’t clacking at the keys. He sat with his foot crossed over his knee, a folder in his lap. He’d already taken off his lab coat, revealing the rumpled green shirt and khaki slacks he wore underneath, confirming he was waiting on me before he clocked out.

  I hailed him. “Hey, Emmett. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

  He set the folder down and stood. “Not a problem. I called you, after all. Well, technically I called Dean and you answered, but still. Even if Dean had answered, he would’ve had to descend the stairs to get here, same as you, and given that you’re both tall and have legs that are comparable in length, I can’t imagine it would’ve taken him any less time that it took you. At least I would assume so without taking into account motivation or other outside factors.” He smiled nervously. “The point is, it’s okay. I don’t mind staying a few extra minutes.”

  I smiled back, figuring the gesture was an easier response than trying to decipher what the heck he was going on about. “You said you’d discovered something about that chip of obsidian from the Fogel and Sons sample?”

  Emmett lifted a finger. “Well, it’s not obsidian, as it turns out. And it’s not a chip, either. More of a globule. But it is a form of silicate glass.”

  My brow furrowed. “Is there non-silicate glass?”

  I might as well have punched Emmett in the face. His eyes widened, and his mouth flattened. “Of course there is! Glass refers to any non-crystalline, amorphous solid. You can make glass of any number of base elements. Phosphates, borates, germanates, antimonates, nitrates, fluorides. Even metal can form glass, at least in theory. I’ve read papers that suggest metallic glass could be the next big technological breakthrough, if anyone can figure out the engineering side of it. But to answer the question I think you were getting at, most common glasses are in fact silicates.”

  “So how is the fact that it’s silicate glass important?”

  “Well, it’s not. I mean, it is, in a way. But that’s not the focal point I was trying to get at.” Emmett swallowed air. “You know, I think it might be easier if I show you.”

  I didn’t know if Emmett’s proclivity to qualify every statement he made had anything to do with me or if was just the way he was, but either way I got the impression that if I asked too many questions, neither Emmett nor I would ever make it home. “Sure. Take the lead.”

  Emmett nodded, and it seemed to me there was a hint of relief in his eyes. He waved me toward a far table, the one near the light board. “Right. As I mentioned, it’s about the pieces of silicate glass. I couldn’t stop thinking about their presence in the sample. If it were regular soda-lime glass like you find in windows and bottles, there could be all sorts of explanations for how it might’ve worked itself into the remains. From a watch whose face burst during the cremation process, for example. But as you saw, it wasn’t soda-lime glass, or at least the color suggested it wasn’t. In addition, the glass isn’t in shards or chips, as you stated. The edges are rounded. Smooth. That suggests the glass was formed in the furnace or at the very least heated enough that it lost its structure and became malleable enough for gravity to mold. That in turn suggests something about the heat of the furnace, as I alluded to this morning, but what formed the glass in the first place? Sand? That’s the primary ingredient in silicate glass, but it requires much higher temperatures to melt than what you typically obtain in a furnace designed for cremation. So what was it and how did it form?”

  I shrugged as we stopped at the table. “I have no idea.”

  Emmett smiled again. “Oh, I wasn’t asking you. I was simply framing the question. Anyway, I took a closer look at the sample to see if I could find any glass precursors among the ash, and, well… see for yourself.”

  Emmett waved to a microscope upon the desk. I didn’t know what I was supposed to be looking for, but I placed my eyeball to the eyepiece regardless. Though the image was fuzzier than I would’ve hoped for, I could nonetheless get a general sense of what I was looking at. I just had no idea what the hell it was.

  I pulled away. “I see a bunch of squiggly lines.”

  Emmett’s smile grew and he leaned in, as if he had juicy gossip to share. “Those squiggly lines are fibers.”

  I frowned. “Fibers? What kind of clothes could withstand a furnace without burning?”

  “None that I know of,” said Jowynn. “But those aren’t plant fibers. They’re silicate fibers.”

  I still wasn’t getting it. “Silicate fibers?”

  Emmett nodded. “Specifically, asbestos fibers.”

  I didn’t know a lot about asbestos, but I knew it was toxic. I pushed back from the desk. “Whoa. Should we even be here?”

  “You can relax,” said Emmett. “While asbestos is carcinogenic, the amount present under the microscope wouldn’t be dangerous, even it wasn’t immobilized between two glass slides. The rest of the sample you obtained from Fogel and Sons, on the other hand, could be dangerous. I’ve sealed it in an airtight container for now.”

  “Didn’t this stuff get banned?” I asked. “What is it doing here? I thought asbestos was used as a fire-retardant.”

  “It was banned,” said Emmett. “Six years ago, after medical research proved its deadly effects upon the lungs. Before then it was present in all sorts of things. Construction materials, including walls, insulation, and tiles. Clothing. Brake pads. You name it. Often as a fire retardant, but not always. As to what it’s doing in the ash, your guess is as good as mine, but it explains the presence of the silicate glass. I had to look it up, but asbestos fibers melt between four hundred and eleven hundred degrees, well within the range of a cremation furnace. It’s these fibers that melted together and coalesced into the black pea-sized piece of glass I sho
wed you earlier.”

  I blinked, trying to process the implications of what Emmett was telling me. “Are we talking about a little asbestos or a lot of asbestos mixed with the ashes?”

  The coroner's eyebrows rose. “In terms of mass? Maybe not much, but from an occupational health and safety standpoint? A lot. Enough that consistent exposure to it could lead to real health problems. I think we need to contact the crematorium.”

  I nodded. “Definitely. But why would there be asbestos fibers in the ashes?”

  Emmett shrugged. “I couldn’t say. My best guess is the bodies are wrapped in an asbestos-laden shroud while burned, but I couldn’t tell you why. If I’m right though, we need to put a stop to it. The exhaust from that crematorium is quite literally toxic.”

  I sighed, feeling the weight of responsibility on my chest. “Alright. I’ll update the team first thing in the morning.”

  “Please do,” said Emmett as he grabbed his jacket off a nearby coat rack. “I know your team investigates murders, but this? It could be far worse…”

  I nodded. Jowynn slid into his jacket and grabbed his briefcase from the desk with the typewriter, but as he turned my way, I stopped him with a finger. “One more thing, Emmett. The fibers. Did you find them in the remains from the circus and the mortuary?”

  The coroner shook his head. “I didn’t. Which implies—”

  “That Stella Vernon wasn’t cremated at Fogel and Sons,” I finished for him. “I figured as much.”

  Emmett smiled glumly. “Sorry.”

  “Not your fault. I appreciate your efforts, even if they don’t clear anything up.”

  “Any time.” Emmett glanced at the door, but he didn’t move toward it. “Well, I guess I should be going. Enjoy the rest of your evening, Penelope. I mean, uh… Officer Phair.”

  “You, too, Emmett.”