"Asphyxiation."
"So the body showed no sign of trauma?"
"Not according to the coroner. Doc Carson's home, if you want to talk to him."
Savannah glanced at Ronan, who nodded and reached for his cell phone as he stepped away from them. “And the fire?” she said, looking back at the fire chief.
"Suspicious."
"Why?"
"It started in the bedroom. A lit candle left too close to lace curtains. The fire quickly moved into the roof cavity, and from there, in an old house like this, it was only minutes before the whole place was on fire."
"But Lana hated candles.” She'd hated them since her son had died in a similar accident when he was five years old.
"Exactly,” Manny said. “So how did the candles get there, and who lit them?"
And why would they want to light them? Who'd want to kill Lana, for God's sake? She might have been independently wealthy, thanks to her dead husband's insurance policies and the regular income she got from the flower shop's lease, but her living style was frugal, and there was little in the way of sellable goods in her house. Lana hadn't even stepped into the TV age, let alone the DVD years. She'd preferred her music and books to all those “newfangled toys,” as she called them. “Is the building safe enough for us to poke around in?"
Manny nodded and swung into step beside her as she moved towards the skeletal remains of the house.
"Were the front and back doors locked?” she asked, stepping carefully through the remains of what was once the living room wall. The ceiling in this section of the house was gone, leaving the living room open to the elements. Burned rafters arched skywards like broken fingers reaching for the stars. Her gaze followed the burn line across the rafters to the wall, which, though it still stood, was skeletal, revealing the innards of the bedroom next to it. The roof had collapsed there, too.
"Front door was locked,” Manny answered. “Back door wasn't."
"Meaning Lana had let someone into her house?"
"Possibly. The old girl was meticulous when it came to locking her doors, and she even used that spy hole of hers to hold conversations through."
Savannah grinned. “I had a ten-minute discussion like that with her last year. It was snowing, and she was afraid opening the door would let out too much heat."
"She always was a bit of a tight-ass,” Manny agreed. His gaze swept around the room, and the amusement in his expression faded. “But she was a gentle old soul who wouldn't have harmed a gnat. She didn't deserve this."
"No.” The question was, why had her life ended like this? “Where'd you find her body?"
He pointed towards the end of the house that still had most of its roof intact. “In the kitchen, slumped over the table with her coffee."
"No smoke detectors installed?"
"Yeah, but the batteries were flat. Or at least, the one remaining in the kitchen was."
Savannah headed down the hallway. “Wouldn't she have smelled the smoke? Seen it?"
"One of the boys was telling me that Lana's olfactory sense was pretty bad. Apparently she left the gas running a few times without knowing it."
"But still, the smoke would have been fairly thick, wouldn't it?"
"This old house exploded pretty damned fast. Given the fact it was dusk and none of the lights were on, she might not have seen the smoke until it was too late."
And she obviously hadn't if she'd been found at the table. Savannah stopped just inside the kitchen doorway and looked around. Most of the damage here was either smoke or water related. Her gaze swept the small room, and came to rest on the table. Soot had outlined where Lana had slumped and found death. Anger slithered through Savannah. Why would someone do this to a harmless old woman?
"When was the fire reported?"
"Seventeen-forty-five. By that time it had reached the roof and pretty much destroyed half the house."
"Who reported it?"
"Rex, the neighbor to the right, saw the smoke and gave us a call. Apparently it wasn't long after his call that the living room roof collapsed."