Burn You Twice - Mary Burton Page 0,24

that son of a bitch wrote to Ann from prison?”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Upset the hell out of her. I visited him in prison and told him to stop. He didn’t seem to care what I thought, so I spoke to the prison officials. They couldn’t do anything, so I had the post office hold our mail. From that day forward, I’ve picked it up from the post office.”

“Did he write her again?”

“There were two other letters. He insisted he did not set fire to her house.”

“Did you keep the letters?”

“Hell no. I tossed them.” Clarke sighed. “He’s going to do it again.”

“Not if I have any say in it.”

Clarke swallowed the last of his coffee and motioned for his two men to join Gideon and him. “The rubble should be cool enough now to walk, as long as you have your boots.”

“Let me put my thermos back, and I’ll be right there.”

Gideon joined the firefighters as they began to search the charred rubble. Hot pockets still gave off some steam, but for the most part, the fire crews had saturated the structure all the way down to the brick foundation. He moved toward the spot where he’d seen the woman through the window. The area was covered in thick debris.

“It’ll take time to clear the rubble,” Clarke said. “Have a look over here.”

Gideon stared at the large window and then at the wreckage. He had been so close to her, just as he had been only a dozen feet from Joan all those years ago. If he had been a minute quicker, the woman might be alive.

He turned toward the melted and scorched beautician chairs and their work areas. All the flammable products at the stations had exploded in the intense heat and had shattered the mirrors behind them.

Gideon paused in the center of the room, where the destruction appeared absolute. “Where did the fire start?”

“Near here. It explains why the woman you saw was trapped in the blaze,” Clarke said.

Gideon knew the human body literally melted at fifteen hundred degrees, and, judging by the destruction here, this fire had surpassed that mark.

The water from the fire hoses had turned the ash to a black sludge that squished under Gideon’s boots as he walked toward what had been the back of the store.

“This is where the shop stored chemicals like acetone and hair dyes,” Clarke said. “An experienced arsonist would have dumped accelerant here and then trailed the remainder out the door down the alley.”

“Creating a fuse.”

“Exactly. Once the fire trail hit this room, it was game over. All those chemicals are flammable as hell.”

“Everything in this structure appears designed to burn,” Gideon said.

A firefighter covered in soot and grit approached. “Captain Mead, have a look over here.”

Gideon and Clarke crossed the room, mindful of where they stepped and preserving any evidence that might have survived the fire. Following the firefighter’s outstretched hand, Gideon dropped his gaze to a pile of rubble. What at first looked like a badly charred mannequin hand peeking out from the ceiling debris was, in fact, human. The fingers and most of the hand had been destroyed, leaving only a blackened stump behind.

Gideon peered into the charred beams, now tangled together like pick-up sticks. As he stared into the gaps, he followed the remains of the arm to a charred torso and head.

He tried to reconcile Lana Long’s driver’s license image with what lay before him. However, nothing was recognizable.

“I’ll put a call in to the medical examiner’s office,” Gideon said. “The sooner I get an autopsy, the sooner I’ll have a cause of death and an identity.”

“Maybe it was suicide,” Clarke said.

“Could be.”

Clarke shook his head, his gaze transfixed on the form before him. “Reminds me of the house fire north of town.”

“Three years ago,” Gideon said.

“Caused by a dried-out Christmas tree the father had promised to take down, but he put it off several weeks because the kids wanted to keep it up.”

Gideon knew Clarke had nearly been killed saving the father and his two young children. He had turned around to go back in for the mother, but the structure had been fully engulfed. The mother had died in the blaze. Clarke had later been decorated by the city, but he’d privately admitted he’d been deeply shaken for months.

“When can you tell me definitely that this was arson?” Gideon asked.

“My boys and I need to thoroughly comb this place and search for traces of accelerants and incendiary devices.”

“But you have a theory.”

Clarke