The Darkness of Evil (Karen Vail #7)(64)
“Got another crime scene. Arson case. Fresh. If you’re not busy, thought you’d want to take a look.”
Busy? Nah, just sittin’ around watching mindless reality TV.
“Where?”
“In the sticks. I’ll text you the address.”
“On my way.” She hung up and asked Hurdle if there was anything further he needed her for tonight. “Crime scene one of my colleagues wants me to take a look at. We good here?”
“Got it covered. Have fun.”
Oh, yeah. A blast.
30
Vail arrived at the address the GPS directed her to—but aside from a mass of emergency responder and law enforcement vehicles, she would have sworn she was in the middle of nowhere. Thick stands of Hickory, Cottonwood, and Hemlock trees obscured the residence from the road, and there were no neighbors for quite a distance in any direction.
She pulled up behind the fire marshal’s truck and found Art Rooney moments later, walking alongside a man and a woman dressed in fire department uniforms.
Rooney excused himself and met her about twenty yards from the burned-out structure, small flare-ups of fire still visible here and there, firefighters quashing them as soon as they sprouted.
“Is it definitely arson?” Vail asked.
“Affirmative. I’ll show you what we’ve got so far—but let’s not forget that it’s below freezing and damp out because of the snow, which makes an accidental fire less likely to do such dramatic damage—without some very substantial help.”
“Same guy?”
“Hard to say just yet, but my gut says yes. If nothing else, look at a basic fact: the arsonist we’re looking for chooses his targets in rural areas where there’s distance between the houses—which means it delays discovery, allowing it to burn longer before the fire department can get to it. More importantly, rural areas are served by volunteer fire departments.”
“Not as experienced?”
“Potentially—but they have to go to the station first to get the trucks. And then they go to the fire. That obviously allows it to burn longer. That extra time means less evidence left behind for investigators to find. Our arsonist has done this in every single instance. That alone is an identifiable MO.”
“But there’s more.”
“Yes,” Rooney said, “there is. Follow me.”
They walked around the scene and approached the area where the front door had been located. Rooney pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight. “See this?”
Vail crouched, got close to the spot where Rooney was pointing. “Tool marks on the strike plate.”
“In other words, evidence of forced entry. The fire also extended beyond the perimeter of the house in an unnatural manner. Plus, there’s extensive damage, there are no V-shaped patterns, and the fire looks to be low burning.”
“V-shaped patterns. That’s when a naturally occurring fire burns up and out,” she said, bringing her hands together and separating them as she gestured toward the sky.
“Correct. Usually the v is burned into furniture and/or walls. We checked the lightbulbs, too, because they’re often a natural point of origin in fires. They’d be melted and flat on one side, like an arrow pointing you to where the heat source was greatest. Again, nothing. So without all that stuff, we’ve got enough to call it arson. But that’s not all.”
“Unusual burn patterns?”
“And high heat stress. Come inside.”
Rooney led the way into what Vail guessed had been the living room.
He knelt again. “Know what this is?”
“Sterno can.”
“And that’s part of our UNSUB’s signature, right? Sterno’s a bizarre, and inefficient, way of starting a fire. But it’s not the only thing that’s strange.” He rose and swung his body, and his light, 180 degrees.
“What am I looking at?”
“That, Karen, is ritual behavior for this arsonist.”
Vail stared at the detritus in front of her, some of which was surprisingly intact: more Sterno cans and lids, burned remnants of a wood match, wax, and a small fragment of what looked like a rag. “Can you be more specific?”
“Not yet. But generally speaking, this is his way of setting the fire. This is the point of origin. There’s some kind of elaborate setup he constructs that gets the fire going using these items you see at your feet.”
“Why go through all that?”
“Think, Karen. Why do any of our offenders do the shit they do? This isn’t any different.”
Vail nodded slowly. “None of this is necessary to start a really hot fire that’ll kill the inhabitants, destroy evidence, and take down the structure. It can be done a lot more efficiently. But for some reason, doing it this way has meaning to this guy. He likes it, fantasizes about it.”
“Right. I’m not sure how all these pieces fit together, but I’m gonna work on it, go through the prior crime scene videos and photos to see if I can reconstruct what he does. And why.”
A chilled wind blew across the landscape and a shiver racked Vail’s body. She stood up and began flexing her fingers. “Will you keep me posted on what you find? I’d love to keep expanding my knowledge base, know what to look for in a scene like this. I’ve got the basics of arson but—well, there’s a lot to know.”