Firebreak (Josie Gray Mysteries #4)(15)

She peered down at the floor and bounced on her toes, checking the give in the floor. She walked slowly toward the loveseat and stood behind it, as if it provided some measure of protection from the grotesque body on the couch. “I don’t feel any give. I think it’s okay.” She glanced up at the ceiling where the rafters were burned. “The fire burned all the way through the roof. You can see daylight.”

He frowned. “I think you’d better get out of there until we find out if it’s safe.”

“It’s a smoldering house, Otto. We need to get details logged before we lose them.”

“Not if it means a house falling in on us!” He beckoned with his hand for Josie to come outside. “Call Doug. Have him get the fire marshal down here to start an investigation. I’ll call the coroner.”

Josie started toward the opening in the living room wall and stopped next to the body. She looked at Otto for a moment. “If you were in your living room, and it caught fire, what would you do?”

He smirked, refusing to answer what appeared to be a stupid question.

“Let’s say something inside your house exploded even, and caught your house on fire, what would you do?”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“I’d get out.”

“How would you get out?”

He stared at her.

“What do they teach every kid in school about a fire?”

Otto finally caught on. “Stop, drop, and roll.”

She pointed at the couch. “Billy Nix, or whoever this is, is lying on his back on the couch. His hands are curled up around his head like he’s trying to shield his face. Wouldn’t he have rolled off the couch, onto the floor, tried to crawl out?”

“But if there was an explosion he wouldn’t have had time.”

She shook her head. “No explosion. Something burned through this part of the house. Look at the furniture in the living room.” She walked out of the house and stood with Otto, looking back inside. “The couch, with its back facing us, is still intact. It’s burned, the fabric melted, but not like it was blown away from an exploding living room wall. And, it’s directly in front of where the outside of the house seems to have been burnt first.”

“As if somebody put gas or an accelerant on the house and torched it,” he said. “Which would have given Billy Nix ample opportunity to get off the couch to safety.”

“Unless he was already dead.”

*

Josie cleared the rest of the house for other possible victims. She found it odd that Billy would have stayed behind during the evacuation and his wife would have left. She thought of them as a team.

After completing an initial sweep of each of the remaining rooms, she and Otto stood near the road where the stench wasn’t as strong in order to make their phone calls. She called Lou Hagerty, first-shift dispatcher at the PD, and asked her to begin the process of tracking down the Nixes. Josie instructed Lou to find them, but to provide no information. Josie wanted to talk with them first. Otto had also called Mitchell Cowan, the county coroner, who was on his way.

Almost an hour after Josie left a message for Doug about the body, her phone rang again. She explained the details they had discovered and their suspicions.

“Where did you find him again?” Doug asked.

“He’s lying on the couch, on his back. His arms clenched up with his fists around his face. Maybe in fear?”

“If he was afraid why wouldn’t he get out, at least try and crawl to safety?”

“That’s just what we thought. We’re assuming he was already dead when the house burned, but Cowan’s on his way. We’ll get the autopsy started unless we need to wait for the fire marshal.”

“No, that’s partly what took so long to call you back. I talked to him. He’s in Odessa, covered up right now with all the wildfires in the area. It’ll be at least tomorrow before he can get here. He asked if I would step in. You okay with that?”

“Absolutely,” she said, grateful for the help. She knew very little about fire damage, and she’d never worked a fire investigation for a possible homicide. Those investigations were turned over to the state fire marshal. The local police typically had little involvement.

“When can you get here?”

She heard him cover the mouthpiece on his phone to talk with someone. He finally came back and said, “I’m on my way.”

Josie received a call from Lou stating that she’d not been able to reach either of the Nixes by phone. Josie gave Lou the names of several additional people to call who might know their whereabouts, and asked Lou to text her a list of phone numbers and contacts that Josie would be needing.

Several minutes later Josie and Otto watched the white county hearse, a converted 1978 Dodge station wagon, wind its way down the road until finally pulling into the driveway. Mitchell Cowan got out of the driver’s seat wearing brown dress pants and loafers with a plaid button-down shirt. He’d always reminded Josie of the sad-eyed donkey with the big belly from the kids’ stories. Eeyore. Shaped like a bowling pin with a broad midsection and small head, Cowan was slow and methodical, and talked only when necessary to provide relevant information. Most people considered Cowan odd, but Josie had always liked him. He worked hard and he genuinely cared.