Fireproof

“This isn’t unusual,” Stan Wenhoff, the District’s chief medical examiner, told them.

Tully stared at the blackened skull. The pile of rubble didn’t appear to include a body. He took a couple of careful steps closer. Something about a fire scene made him expect the floor—what was left of it—to still burn all the way through the fire boots and the soles of his shoes.

The scent of smoke and ashes hung in the air. Water and foam dripped from the skeletal rafters that remained. He wished he had a baseball cap. Stan had brought an umbrella and looked ridiculous, like an English gentleman in from a stroll along the countryside. That is if the English gentleman wore Tyvek overalls.

Something wet and solid slopped onto the back of Tully’s neck. He snatched at the debris and flung it aside, drawing a few scowls from Ivan and the fire chief, who had stopped their own inspections to hear what Stan had to say about their latest “not unusual” discovery.

The skull looked as if someone had taken a fist-size rock and bashed a hole into the top of it. The fire investigative team had just begun moving and raking smoldering debris into ridges along the concrete floor, where they would later sift and examine it.

“Think of the skull as a sealed container,” Stan explained to his audience, ignoring the pitter-patter hitting his umbrella. “Like a ceramic jug filled with liquid. Heat it up and it doesn’t take long for the liquid inside to reach a boiling point. That creates pressure.”

Just when Tully envisioned the ceramic jug bursting apart, Stan put an end to his own analogy and added, “The cranium explodes. Boiling blood, brain, and tissue expand and have nowhere to go. The skull literally explodes into pieces. Sometimes it can blow a head right off a body.”

“It was a hot fire,” the fire chief admitted, nodding. “This thing burned upward of a thousand degrees. That doesn’t happen without some help. Definitely used an accelerant. May have been a chemical reaction. We found the start point at the back door. Actually on the outside of the back door.”

All of them continued to stare down at the rubble as if expecting more bones to appear, like one of those picture puzzles that if you looked hard enough and long enough you’d see the hidden objects.

“The intense heat makes the blood boil inside the bones, too,” Stan said. “Same kind of pressure builds up as in the skull. Makes bones fracture and break apart. Could be blown all over the place.”

Which set them all looking around.

“There are other floors.” Ivan pointed up. “Is it possible the rest of the body’s still up there?”

And again, as if on cue, all heads swiveled upward to the smoldering, dripping rafters.

“Chief,” one of the techs interrupted.

He held up a finger to tell the man he’d be right here. As he turned to leave he told them, “Give my folks time to sift through this mess. We should have some answers for you, but remember I’ve got two sites here.” And he walked away.

Ivan followed close behind, his neck still craning up as if he expected body parts to fall down from the second floor.

“What are the chances of IDing this …” Racine paused, searching for words as she referred to the skull. “This victim?”

Stan set aside his umbrella, dug in his Tyvek pocket, and pulled out a pair of purple latex gloves.

“Teeth don’t burn. They might have broken or been jarred off from the pressure.” He picked up the skull and carefully examined the jaw. “Well, this is unusual.” He turned the skull to get a better look inside the jaw. He scraped at the soot with his gloved thumb.

“What’s wrong?” Racine asked.

“The bone doc will need to examine this. But I think the teeth may have been shattered.”

“The fire couldn’t do that?”

“No. Not that I know of.” He was studying the top of the skull now and turned to show them the hole at the top. “Usually when a skull bursts from heat pressure, it shatters. It is a bit odd to have a hole this big without fracturing the skull into pieces. Unless the skull was compromised before the fire.”

“What do you mean ‘compromised’?” Tully wanted to know. “Are you saying the victim may have been bashed in the head and teeth before the fire?”

“It’s possible.”

Tully and Racine exchanged a look and Stan noticed.

“What is it?” he asked.

“The victim out by the Dumpster. Her face is bashed in.”

CHAPTER 15

It was complicated. That’s what Maggie wanted to tell Ben.

In just a little over a year Benjamin Platt had gone from being her doctor to her friend to her … what? What were they exactly?

Boyfriend, girlfriend sounded sophomoric. And although they had shared a hotel room—and a bed, once—as well as many intimate thoughts and conversations, they weren’t lovers. Yet.

Just when both of them confided that they wanted to be more than friends Ben had put the skids on. All it took was his admission that he wanted children, and Maggie found herself backing off, way off.

His only daughter had died five years ago, ending his marriage and causing him to focus all his energy on his career. Maggie had buried herself in her work, too, ever since her divorce. But Ben still ached for his daughter. And while he longed to replace that ache, Maggie wanted to shield herself from another potential loss. Being alone was safer than feeling too much.

Yes, it was complicated.

But she was glad to see him. So why didn’t she tell him that? He was still her friend. Partly because he had reverted to acting like her doctor as soon as he crossed the exam room threshold.

“An occupational hazard,” he had said when he saw her impatience with his incessant questions. But then he continued, “Did you lose consciousness? Any blurred vision? Dizziness?”

“I’m fine.” And she finally put up her hands in surrender. “Tully insisted. That’s all.”

And she convinced herself that this lapse back to a doctor-patient relationship was enough reason not to tell him that her head still throbbed, that she’d been getting killer headaches for months now.

Ben had been her doctor at USAMRIID after Maggie was exposed to the Ebola virus. She had been in the Slammer, an isolation unit. No one could talk to her without an inch-thick glass wall in between. No one could touch her without wearing a blue hazmat suit. Her conversations with Ben had kept her from panicking, from diving deep inside herself. When they discovered they both loved classic movies, Ben had used them to entertain and transport her to another world outside the Slammer’s walls. He had shown her how to escape reality to gain a grasp on sanity.

Dr. Benjamin Platt—army colonel, scientist, soldier—was one of the strongest, most gentle men she’d ever met. There were times when he looked at her and she felt as though he could see so deep inside her that he must have gotten a glimpse of her soul. He understood her, sometimes more than she understood herself. And for the last several months what she had started to feel for him scared the hell out of her.

He offered to take her home. Her car was still at the fire site and she asked if he would drop her there instead. Besides, she wanted to get back to the investigation. She didn’t want Kunze to have any more ammunition against her than this little trip to the ER had already given him.

Ben suggested breakfast first. Before he could slip back into his role as doctor, Maggie asked, “Are you sure you have time? You look dressed for something important.”

She wanted to lighten the mood and almost added, Who died? Then she was very glad she had not, when Ben said he had a funeral to attend later. Another soldier, another comrade coming home in a box.

She didn’t know how he stayed strong and positive with so much death around him. She told him that once and he said he wondered the same thing about her.

“But my dead people are usually strangers,” Maggie had told him. Which wasn’t exactly true. By the time she