Flame in the Dark (Soulwood #3)(27)
I was halfway to PsyLED when my cell jangled and JoJo’s voice said, “Justin Tolliver’s house is burning. Sending address to your cell. Lights and siren. LaFleur wants you there ASAP.”
I pulled off the road, slapped the lights in place, turned on the siren, and set the cell to give me directions to Tolliver’s house. I drank coffee all the way there, knowing for sure that caffeine was a gateway drug to crack. Had to be. Mama would be horrified if I ever let that slip.
? ? ?
The sun was setting over the bend of the Tennessee River when I pulled up to the mansion, parked, and slid to the ground. The rear of the place was engulfed, flames flinging themselves out the windows and doors and the holes in the roof created by the firefighters. The roar and crackle of the fire, the rushing of water through the fire hose, the thrum of diesel generators, all created a rush of heat and noise unlike any other.
I had never seen such a huge inferno and found myself struck still and speechless as the fire’s heat and might reached out and gripped me in its raging fingers, scorching my face even out in the street. Glowing embers and stinking ash fell from the sky, burning. I tossed my good coat back in the truck and pulled a hand-me-down on instead. The heavy coat had belonged to John, my husband, and it hung on my too-slender form, but it was something I didn’t mind getting burned, and it had a hood, which I raised over my hair as I watched the scene. I reseated my weapon in the holster, made sure my badge was in view before I locked up the C10.
Three fire trucks were on-site, pulled up in the grass, two pumping water in through the roof holes, one watering down trees nearby to keep the fire from spreading. Firefighters strode through the ruined lawn, each wearing heavy gear and oxygen tanks and fire-blackened yellow coats.
Feds were on-site too, as was P. Simon—the former Green Beret ALT Security guy, from the Holloways’ party—and Rick, his silver-laced black hair sparkling. A group had gathered beneath the protection of the wide arms of a fir tree. I looked around and saw a small sign that read ALT SECURITY. It was interesting that a man with so many personal problems was at the site of another situation involving the Tollivers. I sent that info to headquarters and heard back instantly that ALT was the highest rated private security firm in Eastern Tennessee. All the rich and famous used them for protection and security. Before I left the truck I sent back a two-word text. Still strange.
I jogged over to them. There were three uniformed men from KFD and two feds, both from previous crime scenes, Chadworth Sanders Hamilton and E. M. Schultz. There was also a small group of four civilians, Justin and Sonya Tolliver and their two children. The smallest child wore what looked like pajamas with bunny slippers and a blanket wrapped around him. The massive fir tree was dripping wet from a drenching by the fire hose, but offered protection from the falling ash.
I was joining a debriefing in the middle. One of the fire department uniforms was saying, “Preliminary testing indicates that an accelerant was present near the back of the house, probably gasoline.”
I turned my eyes to him, blinking against the dark, my retinas burned by the flame, my mouth firmly shut. These were the bigwigs at this investigation and I didn’t want to get myself thrown off the scene.
He continued, “It’s too early to definitively call it, but I suspect arson.”
“I think that assessment is premature,” Justin said, his voice clipped and precise, sounding like a lawyer, even in his shirtsleeves and damp pants and house shoes. He scrubbed his head with both hands, leaving his hair standing up in tufts, staring at the house with eyes that looked too large, too full of emotions that I couldn’t decipher. “The lawn care company kept supplies under the back deck. I never saw a gasoline can, but it’s possible they left one there.”
“Sir,” the fire investigator started.
“No.” His hands slid down his face, past his nose, which was hooked like Abrams’, nostrils too narrow for his face, a Tolliver feature. “Not until you have something more conclusive than just a hit on gasoline.”
Sonya leaned against Justin, crying softly. He didn’t lift his arm to wrap around her. Instead he dropped his hands from his face and gripped his wife’s shoulders, setting her aside as if she was in the way. There was trouble in this marriage, I thought. And I wondered how much the house had been insured for and if one of them had seen a divorce lawyer recently. And then wondered how I had changed so quickly from churchwoman thoughts to law enforcement thoughts. I’d never have considered such a thing only a few months past.
Justin said, “It could have been electrical. Maybe a short in an outside outlet. And if there was gas under the porch, then the can got hot from the fire. It probably burned and splashed flaming liquid up the walls, right?”
Even I knew Justin was being foolish. He had been present at two shootings and now his house was on fire. He had to sense that he was, perhaps, a target.
“Gasoline doesn’t act like that, sir,” one of the fire department’s uniformed men said gently. “Special effects on TV and movies are often wrong.”
Special Agent Hamilton smirked at Tolliver. So far, my distant cousin had shown no particularly good character traits. I had a feeling that I was not going to like him even if I ever got to know him better.
I looked back at the burning structure just in time to see a partial roof on the back of the house, maybe a porch roof, fall in. The crash shook the ground, jarring up my legs and spine. The embers shot high, the flames finally freed to feed on the air, ravenous, destructive. I knew how that fire felt. If I ever let my bloodlust go, it would feel that way—explosive, ferocious, violent.