What Echoes Render Page 7

  Water had probably ruined the quilts and yarns displayed in the front section, but, as compared to the back, there was very little fire damage by the front door where he stood. Tracing his light further back into the shop, he noted a particular section of blackened wood, a half-circle mark that was charred more deeply than the wood around it. And it was in the middle of the mark that he assumed the checkout counter had previously sat. As it was, there was little left other than a stand of random pieces of lumber and metal sticking out at odd angles. He couldn’t see behind it from his current position, but he’d wager that the half circle he saw now was probably a full circle with the former counter sitting in the middle.

  “Was there damage upstairs?” David asked, shining his light upward. Based on what he saw, he suspected the fire hadn’t reached the second floor and Marcus quickly confirmed his impressions. “And is there a basement in this building?”

  “Yeah, the door is over there,” Marcus answered, shining his light toward the rear right corner of the shop. “Some of the basements along this side of the street connect to one another. There are doors that are, or should be, locked between them, but at one point, the same person owned this land and he liked being able to move back and forth between the theater-cum-brothel and some of his other, more respectful, shops.”

  “Not a bad setup, if you’re so inclined,” David answered glibly, his mind already on the possibilities. Given what he was seeing he was already coming to some opinions, but he didn’t want to risk missing anything so it was a trip to the basement for him.

  “I’m going to head down into the basement, but I’m going to do it slowly. I have to walk around what looks like the origin of the fire and I don’t know about the flooring. So watch where I walk and if I make it, take the same path. If I don’t, don’t follow me.”

  Marcus chuckled a bit behind him. “Live dangerously much?”

  “Nah, this is child’s play. Now, if we were on the roof, that would be a different story.”

  “If you say so,” came the disbelieving reply.

  David inched his way toward the basement door, skirting the edge of the room as much as possible. But with racks and debris strewn about, it wasn’t easy. It was so silent that each time the floor creaked it sounded loud as a bullet, giving his heart a good start.

  About halfway to the door, his foot went through the floor. He could hear Marcus let out a curse, but David stayed focused on slowly pulling his foot out so as not to disturb any of the floorboards around him. When his foot was free, he let out a breath and found a new, hopefully sounder, location for his next step. When the spot held, he continued on back until he reached the door.

  Standing next to the doorway, he took a deep breath and released the tension in his body. Yes, doing this on the roof would have been worse, but contrary to what he’d said, it wasn’t exactly child’s play. He called Marcus over. After coaching him for several steps, David decided that his voice was distracting Marcus more than helping him and the Deputy Chief was probably better off without a firefighter watching his every step.

  So he turned his attention, and flashlight, to the remains of the checkout counter. Sure enough, around the back of the rubble was another half-circle of deeply charred flooring. It was more confirmation of what he’d suspected when he’d seen the front—whatever started the fire had likely been centered in, or under the counter. He had his opinions on that, too. But he wanted to see the basement before talking it through with Marcus.

  Seeing Marcus just a few steps away, David tried the basement door and, finding it unlocked, pushed it open. Taking a good look at the stairs, which were stone and seemed to have been left untouched by anything other than maybe a little water that had seeped under the door, he headed down, ordering his temporary teammate to follow him at a reasonable distance.

  Once David hit the landing, he directed his flashlight around the room. It smelled less of the fire down there, though the odor still lingered, and more like how a dank, musty, subterranean basement should smell. From above, water dripped through the floorboards and hit the storage boxes and shelves with individual plopping sounds. But much like the front of the store that mostly showed only water damage, there was very little indication of a fire down in this part of the building.

  “It looks relatively unscathed down here,” Marcus said as he came down into the basement. David mumbled an agreement but the two continued to direct their flashlights around the room just in case.

  “Let’s take a look at the doors,” David suggested. “Is this one of the basements that’s connected to the others?”

  “Yeah, this shop, the health food shop, and shoe store all connect.”

  “Who would know that?” David asked as they made their way through the room. The floor was concrete and, with the exception of an odd box scattered here and there, the room was mostly well kempt.

  “Anyone who has ever owned or rented one of the buildings on this side of the street. Plus any of the family or friends the owners or renters might have told. Probably the delivery people and the historical society, too.”

  David chuckled. “So you’re saying just about everyone.”

  “Maybe not everyone, but close.” They heard a creaking noise above them and both shined their flashlights upward. “Could that come down on us?” Marcus asked, referring to the flooring above them.

  “Possibly, let’s just stick to the sides. There wasn’t as much damage to that part of the shop. Hopefully, the floors will be sounder there,” he said.

  “Hopefully?”

  “We always live with a little bit of hope in this line of business,” he responded as they reached the door that he assumed led to the next shop’s basement. It looked closed and locked. “Doesn’t look like it’s been opened or tampered with.” He ran his light up and down the doorframe.

  “Carly and I will check the other side, too, just in case,” Marcus commented.

  David nodded his agreement with that decision and then swung his light back the way they’d come, toward the rear of the building. “What are the doors like upstairs?”

  “There’s the front door and a rear access. According to Julie, the front door needs to be locked and unlocked with the key. There’s a deadbolt on it also. The backdoor needs a key to get in, but locks itself when it closes.”

  “There.” David’s light landed on a small casement window not far from where the stairs ended. It was ground level and about two feet high and three feet wide. And it was broken.

  “Shit.” Marcus’s tone was an excellent reflection of David’s own sentiments.

  “We don’t know if this means anything yet.” David said. “Could be that window was broken days or weeks ago or was broken in the fire.”

  But either way, they’d need to look into it. Making their way back toward the stairwell, they stopped about two feet away from the damaged rear window. Glass littered the floor. David realized he hadn’t noticed it on his first perusal of the room because the window was broken clean out with no shards or pieces remaining in the frame. The drop into the basement from outside was less than six feet, and while it would have been difficult for someone his size to fit through the window, it would have been possible.

  To the left of the window he noted another door—a big, heavy metal door. Through the window he could see a set of stairs leading from the basement to the alley behind the shop and he figured it was a delivery door.

  “I think if someone went through the window, that door won’t tell us much,” David pondered out loud.

  “But we’ll check anyway. I’ll send Carly back to the alley to collect evidence and look for footprints. It’s mostly pavement back there, but there are some gravel areas,” Marcus said.

  “And what about those buildings?” David asked with a nod out the window toward several houses that looked to have once been homes but were now businesses. Between the back of the quilt shop and those businesses lay the alley, the railroad tracks, and a road, but each house looked acro
ss at the backs of all the buildings on Main Street.

  “None will have CCTV, if that’s what you’re thinking. Depending on when this window was broken, someone might have seen something. But I doubt it. Someone would have reported it if they had. If it happened last night, there were some track repairs going on just north of town and some of the rail cars were parked here for most of the night,” Marcus answered.

  David grunted at their bad luck, but took it in stride. Having seen what he needed to in the basement, he made his way back up to the main floor of the shop with Marcus following behind him. He could see Ian on the front steps chatting with Carly. They both looked up and raised a hand in acknowledgement.

  Knowing this was when things were about to get interesting, that this was when his investigation really kicked-off, David took a deep breath and got started. But it didn’t take long to find what he was looking for.

  “Marcus.”

  “Yeah?”

  When he was sure he had the other man’s attention, David motioned with his head toward the beam of his flashlight. Highlighted in its circle of light was a medium-sized metal canister. It was lying on its side, ripped in half, blackened, and twisted, about six feet from where the checkout counter had once stood.

  “You’ve got a firebug,” David announced.

  CHAPTER 6

  “IS THAT WHAT I THINK IT IS?” Marcus asked.

  “If you think it’s a dirty bomb and the remains of a well-designed, if somewhat crude, timing device, then, yeah, it is what you think it is.”

  “Shit,” Marcus said on an exhale.

  “A man of few words.”

  “Aren’t dirty bombs nuclear bombs?” Marcus asked after a moment. David almost smiled at the anxiety he could hear Marcus trying to hide.

  David shook his head. “In common lexicon, yes, but in my line of business, we refer to homemade bombs as dirty bombs. They tend to be less precise, though often no less dangerous, than explosives made by professionals.” David studied the remains for a moment longer before adding, “And based on what I see from here, it looks like you have a creative arsonist on your hands.”

  Standing beside him, Marcus took a deep breath of reconciliation. “Okay, so how do we go about this?” he asked. “I’ve never investigated an arson before. We had a serial killer here last year who was after Vivi, and we captured one of the heads of an organized crime syndicate last fall, but I’ve never worked an arson case before.”

  David was staring at the deputy chief. “A serial killer and an organized crime syndicate? In Windsor?”

  “I’d like to point out that both perpetrators were out-of-towners, not locals,” Marcus rejoined.

  He let out a small bark of laughter at both Marcus’s fact and his indignation. “Of course they were,” he replied. Then, turning his attention back to what looked like the area of origin, David brought the conversation to the task at hand.

  “An arson investigation is like any other, only we’ll have the lab run some additional tests on the residual contents of the device we collect and maybe see if we can find out if similar devices have been used in other fires. Other than that, and being extra careful that the floor doesn’t collapse under us while we collect evidence, it’s the same process.”

  “Motive, means, and opportunity,” Marcus muttered and he nodded in agreement.

  After another assessment of the scene, both men agreed they’d need Carly’s help if they had any intention of getting out of there before dark. So, after they gave her a quick update on the situation, the three of them got to work photographing, documenting, and collecting samples, pieces of the debris, and anything else that caught their attention. David, being the most experienced, gathered the pieces of the device that had caused the explosion. And while he didn’t say anything to either of the police officers, he was wagering they’d find that the canister held a natural gas of some sort—something easy to get ahold of, yet effective, maybe propane.

  The clock was striking five as David sealed up the last of the evidence boxes and handed them off to Carly to take to the state lab in Albany. He would check in with the lab tomorrow, but for now, he needed to get a few witness statements. Marcus had arranged for Julie and Jason to be at the police station for him to talk to. Based on what he’d heard from the two Windsor officers as they collected evidence, Carly had already taken official statements from all three witnesses. Judging by how meticulous she had been about documenting the scene and evidence, he suspected Carly’s reports would contain everything he needed to know. Still, he’d have a quick talk with Jason and Julie while the officer made copies of those reports for him.

  So that just left Jesse. As he walked the two blocks to the police station, he pulled out his phone, dialed her number, and agreed to meet her at her place in a little over an hour. He wasn’t sure about the professionalism of his decision to go to her home, but after his day, and hers, he wanted to make sure she was okay and safe. And it would be easier to do that if she could stay in her own space.

  And though a little less than an hour later he still believed his decision to go to her place was the right one, as he pulled up her driveway he considered the fact that he could have timed it better.

  The house itself sat on a hill and was wrapped by a porch on three sides. The front faced the tree-lined main road, and the driveway, which stretched out before him, came up alongside the east side of the house. As he followed the gravel drive, on his left he passed a swimming pond then a sweeping lawn that went all the way up to the house. On his right sat what looked like a small outbuilding or maybe a barn.

  It was beautiful, and the word ‘cozy’ crossed David’s mind, but there was no mistaking the fact that he was fifteen minutes early and had obviously arrived right in the middle of an important family moment. He was reluctant to interrupt, but he knew it was too late to turn around and come back on time, so he pulled up and parked next a gorgeous vintage Bentley.

  Standing near the porch, Jesse, having changed from the jeans and t-shirt she’d worn earlier in the day into a pair of leggings and long sweater, was taking pictures of a young man dressed in a tuxedo.

  She called David over, even as she continued snapping pictures.

  “Matt’s headed off to his last high school formal and I’m tormenting him with pictures. Matt, this is David Hathaway, the arson investigator I mentioned,” she said, making the introductions.

  Matt stepped forward and shook his hand. “Matt Baker, tormented son.”

  David’s lips twitched at the good-natured, put-upon look on the boy’s face. He was tall, several inches taller than David, and looked very little like his mother other than having the same hazel eyes.

  “Mom!”

  David spun as another boy burst from the house behind them and then skidded to a stop. The boy’s eyes went to Jesse, then to him.

  “And this is James,” she said to David. “James, this is David Hathaway,” she added in answer to James’s unasked question.

  Jesse must have mentioned him to the boys because recognition dawned in James’s expression and he stepped forward to shake hands. The boys looked so similar that if it hadn’t been for the obvious age difference and the few inches of height Matt had on James, they could have been twins.

  With a more pressing matter at hand than a visiting arson investigator, at least as far as the younger teenager was concerned, James turned back to his mother. “Mom, Chelsea and some of the others are meeting at the video store, then going to her house for pizza and movies. Can you give me a ride into town? She can bring me back.”

  Jesse arched a brow at her younger son and smiled. “I’m kind of in the middle of an investigation, or at least in giving my witness statement,” she said with a nod in his direction. “David was nice enough to drive out here, I’m not going to head into town until we’re done,” she added.

  David watched the boy’s expression dim and figured there must be something about this girl, Chelsea, that lit the fire in James’s eyes. B
ut he was pleased to see James didn’t argue with his mom.

  “We can drop him,” Matt offered, gesturing to the car and the driver patiently waiting several feet away. “The video store is on the way to Allie’s. We can just drop him and go on from there.”

  “Mom?” James all but pleaded. It was an interesting look into Baker family dynamics. They’d suffered a major loss in the death of Jesse’s husband, the boys’ father, but he would wager that theirs was a family that had pulled together rather than fallen apart.

  “If Matt doesn’t mind, it’s fine with me,” she conceded.

  “Thanks, Mom,” James called as he dashed back inside, not bothering to wait for his brother’s response. “I just need to grab my shoes and a sweatshirt,” he added, his voice trailing off.

  Jesse and Matt shared a conspiratorial smile.

  “It’s Chelsea, Mom. I’m telling you, she’s the one,” Matt said.

  Jesse shook her head. “I still don’t believe it. I think it’s Heather; find out if Heather is going to be there.”

  “Mom and I have a bet about which girl James is interested in,” Matt explained to David. “Mom’s going to lose. I have the inside info, since I go to school with him.”

  “I have the inside info because I see his phone bill and know what number he calls most often,” Jesse retorted.

  “Ready?” James asked as he came jogging back outside, putting an end to the familial betting ring.

  Matt nodded and they climbed into the back of the Bentley. David stood with Jesse as she watched her sons disappear down her drive, a wistful expression on her face.

  “Hard to believe they’re so big?” he asked.

  She lifted a shoulder. “I just remember thinking that this day would never come, and then, suddenly, it’s here. I know it’s a cliché, but there really is a reason it’s such an overused one, because it’s just so true.”