Chapter 2

Miles liked and admired Blake. The guy was seven years his senior and he’d been Miles’ mentor the first three months after Miles joined the division. Blake was serious about his job. Accuracy was his middle name. Nevertheless, he was a jovial guy and they had fun together over the weekends and at the local bar where they and their colleagues hung out. Miles was elated when he found out Blake had been assigned as his partner at the end of his probation period.

When they arrived at the scene, Miles grabbed his camera and the duffel bag containing all he needed to process the scene. No one else was around, but then again, it had been two days, and the police line around the scene had kept curious kids and looters away. Miles was glad to see they had also put roadblocks at the entrance to the driveway.

Miles could see how the house could easily be classified as a manor before it burned down. The “before” photos showed a white, two-story building with Spanish architecture. There were oak hardwood floors, double-paneled doors, and a lot of antique furnishings in teak and mahogany. The house itself covered about four thousand square feet, sitting in the middle of two hundred acres of land that was forested on three sides, thereby isolating it from its nearest neighbors.

There wasn’t much left of the house now but blackened high pillars, parts of the white walls, and collapsed roof beams. Miles nodded when Blake suggested he investigate the front part.

Miles crossed over to what had been the front doorway to the wide hall. He looked at the section of wall containing the remains of the window where the broken glass had been discovered outside. So, someone had managed to escape before the flames reached that part of the house. According to the report, the first telephone call had been received by the operator a little after midnight. Fifteen minutes later, the fire had spread over the whole house.

The caller, a neighbor behind the estate, had reported seeing flames at the rear of the house. It made sense that it gave someone time to escape through the front window, Miles mused, as he carefully removed the ash and dust from what was left of the windowsill with his soft brush, looking for fingerprints. After some brushing, he realized it was going to take a more thorough investigation, as he couldn’t gather a single fingerprint. Miles returned the brush to its slot in his bag and prepared his camera to take shots of the scene.

Done with the spot, Miles straightened up. The evidence of the rapid spread of the fire told him that the arsonist had used accelerants. Now it was his and Blake’s job to find the points where those accelerants had been strategically placed.

Miles met Blake halfway into the house, in what had probably been a dining room.

“The caller was right, it started from the back—probably from the basement,” Blake said. “And—” he checked his notes, “—the local police said that was where they found the last victim.”

“Yeah.” Miles had learned that the victim was a man, about mid-thirties, with a dent at the back of his head that had been discernible despite his charred body. Miles’ stomach churned when he recalled where and how the other bodies had been found. Two small ones had been discovered inside a scorched wardrobe and another, a woman, most probably the mother, was in the left wing of the house. It was one thing to read about all those things from the report when you were sitting at your desk, but it was another thing completely when you were standing where the crime had been committed and the smell of burning bodies lingered in the air—even when the latter was only in your imagination.

“Hey, Miles?”

Miles jumped when Blake’s hand came to rest on his shoulder, and, half sheepishly, he turned to him, wiping sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.

“Huh. Yeah. Those…those kids, how did they die? They didn’t seem to be that badly burned.” Miles blinked away moisture that was suddenly blurring his sight.

Blake nodded and Miles noted that his partner also had difficulty talking about the victims. Swallowing, Blake flipped through the pages of his notes. “Yes, the cops think they died before the fire reached them. You saw the wardrobe.”

Miles didn’t know whether he should feel relieved by that information. One thing was certain, the murderer wouldbe hunted down and punished as severely as the law allowed. He would make sure of that. Miles rubbed his eyes before consulting his own notebook.

“A note about the sprinkler system. All the outlets were damaged and not by the fires,” he said.