Burn You Twice - Mary Burton Page 0,37

her roommate during the College Fire.”

First Becca and now Marge were proof the past was always near. “That’s right.”

Gideon patted his hand on Marge’s desk. “We came to meet the doc.”

“Dr. Christopher didn’t look thrilled this morning when he came through here. Said something about fishing.”

“He’ll get over it,” Gideon said. “Thanks, Marge.”

They strode down a center hallway and through another set of double doors. He pushed them open, and they were greeted by a man in his late thirties. Tall and lean, he had the bearing of a wrangler, especially the thick mustache that looked straight out of central casting. A white lab coat covered a plaid shirt and worn jeans.

Gideon extended his hand, and they shook. “Thanks for coming in today. Dr. Peter Christopher, I’d like you to meet Detective Joan Mason.”

“Heard there was another cop on the scene yesterday,” Dr. Christopher said.

“Just happened to be in town,” Joan said.

“I’ve not had a body so badly burned in a long while, so whatever expertise you got is welcome, Detective.”

“Thank you,” Joan said.

“You two slip on gowns,” Dr. Christopher said. “I’ll meet you in the suite in a few minutes.”

“Will do, Doc,” Gideon said.

Gideon fished gowns out of a closet and handed a set to Joan, along with gloves and booties for her shoes. She slid on the paper gown, trying not to think about the last time she had dressed in front of him as she secured the ties at her waist and yanked on the gloves and booties.

She followed Gideon into the exam room as she had followed hundreds of other detectives into suites larger and more sophisticated than this one. Regardless of the room’s size, however, they all had a way of shrinking down to the one gurney and the one sheet-draped body.

Dr. Christopher reached for the edge of the sheet, and Joan braced as he carefully pulled it back. Laid bare before them were the charred, blackened remains of this unidentified human. Most people who died in fires were killed by smoke inhalation, but what the fumes did not destroy, the fire did.

“Do you know if the victim is male or female?” she asked.

Annoyance seemed to ripple through Gideon. She had promised not to insert herself into the investigation, but if he was that great of a detective, he would have figured out by now that she played it a little loose with the truth.

“Female,” Dr. Christopher said as he moved to the head of the table. “I would say midtwenties.”

“Cause of death?” Joan asked.

“That’s an interesting question,” Dr. Christopher said.

“How so?” Gideon asked.

Dr. Christopher pointed a gloved finger to the victim’s blackened neck. “If you look very closely, you’ll see what appears to be a ligature mark around her neck. The implement cut into her skin, so whoever was trying to strangle her was not playing around.”

Joan leaned closer to the remains, reeking of smoke and chemicals. “It takes strength to make that kind of mark.” Avery Newport’s roommate had been filled with a cold medicine to make her groggy. “Women as a group tend to favor killing methods that do not involve direct contact. Poison. A gun or knife in a moment of passion or fury. Strangulation is personal and sexual in many ways. Generally, it’s done by men.”

Gideon shifted his stance. “But I saw her move. I’m sure of that.”

“There was a significant amount of smoke and heat trauma in her lungs. Both factors led to her death,” Dr. Christopher said.

“Clearly, our boy didn’t get the job done,” she said. “The question is: Was he sloppy, or did he want her alive, knowing the fire would kill her?”

“Do you think she surprised him while he was torching the place?” Gideon asked.

Pleased his curiosity had elbowed past his annoyance, she said, “Depends on the ligature he used. Did he have it in his pocket, or did he grab an electrical cord that was handy?”

“The ligature was thin,” Dr. Christopher said.

“Easy to carry in a pocket. Effective. Painful,” Joan said. “He disabled her and then set the blaze.”

“She was trying to get out,” Gideon said.

“She was tough. A fighter,” Joan said with respect. “Any ideas who she might have been? Is this Lana Long?”

“I called all the women who worked at the beauty shop, and none has seen or heard from Ms. Long since her last shift at the salon,” Gideon said.

“These remains fit the general size and description on Ms. Long’s driver’s license,” Dr. Christopher said. “I’ve extracted DNA from her teeth and