Firebreak (Josie Gray Mysteries #4)(13)
About five miles beyond the New Moon Ranch, around a bend in the road, the Nixes’ one-story white home came into view. Josie slowed the jeep to a crawl. Over half of the ranch-style house had been severely burned. The front door was situated at the center of the house. Everything to the left of it appeared to have been spared. To the right was a large hole that opened up into what had probably been the living room. The house disappeared around jagged black edges like an abstract painting. To the right of the living room the building was completely gone. The gravel driveway led to the front of this burned-out area and Josie wondered if it had been an enclosed garage, but they were still too far away to tell. A pickup truck parked in front of the house was nothing more than a blackened frame.
Josie stopped the jeep before pulling into the driveway and considered the layout of the property. Once around the bend, the road straightened out for about a half mile, and the house sat in the middle of the straight stretch, sitting back about five hundred feet from the road. There were several trees around the house, now burned down to blackened stubs, but with no furniture or other yard ornaments, it didn’t appear there had been much landscaping or many plantings to burn up.
“That’s not a good sign,” Otto said. He pointed at the burned-out truck. “You’d have thought they’d have taken both vehicles when they evacuated.”
Josie pulled into the driveway. Even with half of the house burnt up, it was still apparent it had needed work. White paint had chipped off the siding; some boards were down to bare wood, weathered gray from the sun. There were no other vehicles parked around the house, and no other outbuildings.
She stopped the jeep and they got out of the car, saying little. It was obvious the fire trucks hadn’t reached the home. No sloppy wet ash surrounded the house. It appeared the fire had burned hot and strong, and then had died out without taking the entire house. Josie knew Doug would take the loss hard. He thought the firebreak had been a complete success, and yet this fire on the wrong side of the break had been extremely intense.
Josie looked at Otto. He stood with his hands on his hips, looking perplexed at the jagged hole in the house.
“Looks odd, doesn’t it?” she said.
“Looks like somebody blew a hole through there.” He turned and looked around as if searching for something. “No sign of a propane tank, or something that could have caused an explosion.”
Josie hollered several times and they listened for a response from someone who might be in the house and injured, but they heard nothing.
They split up to walk around opposite sides of the house, keeping their distance from the blackened interior. The smell was horrible, like a trash fire but more acrid. Around the back of the house Josie found a wooden picnic table charred and still smoking. She felt the metal back door for heat. It was warm, but not too hot to touch. Josie put on a pair of latex gloves she kept in her back pocket and tried to open the back door, but it was locked. There were no cars behind the house. She wondered if the truck out front was dead and they’d had to leave it behind. She was hopeful the Nixes had heeded the warnings and evacuated.
Otto met up with her behind the house and gestured beyond, to the rolling hills that stretched out as far as the eye could see. “The burned scrub brush disappears down into that ravine. From here, it looks like the fire spread maybe another two or three acres and fizzled out.”
They walked back around to the front of the house and stood in the road directly in front of the property, appraising the damage, trying to understand the path of the fire.
Josie pulled her cell phone from her breast pocket and called Doug.
“This is Josie. You have a second?”
“I’m on the fire line, but go ahead.”
His voice was loud and she heard commotion in the background so she made it quick.
“We’re on Prentice Canyon Road, on the western edge of the fire. You know where Billy and Brenda Nix live?”
“Yes.”
“Their house burned. It’s about half gone. Do you know if you had any guys working their house?”
“That house isn’t one of the eighteen I talked about. I didn’t know it burned.”
“Okay. I know you’re on the line. Give me a call later when you have a minute.”
“Will do. I’ll check it out later today.”
Josie put her phone back in her pocket and turned back to stare at the house again with Otto. “So the house burned like hell, and then the fire went out on its own.”
“Appears that way,” he said.
“Look here,” Otto said. He was pointing behind them, to the edge of the road. “There’s tire tracks in the ash.” He pointed to where tires must have spun out and threw gravel as a vehicle took off.
“Probably some gawker driving by. They pulled off and stopped to look at the damage. The tire tracks are on top of the ash.”
He nodded. “Could have been this morning even.” He took his camera from his pocket and snapped several photographs at different angles and distances.
“You think Doug can look at the house, the burning trees, what might be burning inside, to determine when the fire started?” she said.
“Problem will be pulling him off the fire,” Otto said. “Let’s see how close we can get to the inside of the house.”
Josie and Otto were both wearing rubber boots over their police shoes to protect the soles from hot embers. They both walked slowly, carefully examining the ground outside the home, and around the opening in the house, for footprints or signs of foul play. A concrete pad, probably used as a front porch, stretched about fifteen feet, from the left side of the front door to the right side of where the living room window once was. Shards of glass covered the concrete and the floor inside the living room. The wood siding on this part of the house burned down to the foundation, and the fire had reached up into the rafters. A ten-foot-wide hole provided access to the room, but they were reluctant to enter the structure because of the roof damage.