Firebreak (Josie Gray Mysteries #4)(14)
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?”