Then ten days later another building burned, one of four at another small complex, La Giaconda Arms. It, too, burned completely. Sparks had also showered on an adjacent building and that had partially burned. A lot of people were displaced. Randi had begun her investigation after the first fire, a routine examination that she did for all fires, suspicious or not, just to be safe about them. But two fires so similar and so close together made her nose itch. But by the time they were faced with the fourth one her nose was itching as well as the back of her neck, both signs something was definitely not kosher.
“Still looking for answers?”
She looked up to see Captain MacNeill standing there. Randi had the utmost respect for the main, He’d been with the fire department for twenty five years, earning his command through sweat, hard work and a lot of smarts. There wasn’t a man in the department that didn’t respect him. Randi was particularly grateful to him because he’d given her a chance when some others might not. There were too many like Noah who felt women did not belong on a firefighting team.
Noah. Her stomach hurt every time she thought of him. Seeing him had been both wonderful and painful. She thought she’d convinced herself she was no longer in love with him but one look told her how wrong she was. He was just as ruggedly handsome as he’d been the last time she saw him, after that disastrous last evening. And she still wanted him just as much, but she didn’t think she could ever forgive him for the way he’d handled everything. He’d hurt her badly and she still hadn’t been able to completely bury the pain.
Forget him, she told herself. You have work to do here.
MacNeill hitched hip onto a corner of her desk. “Still puzzling over those fires?”
She nodded. “I want to go back over each of the sites again. Take more specimens and do some more testing.”
“You thinking there’s a tricky accelerant involved?” he asked.
“I’d say that’s at the top of my list.” She stretched. “There’s just so many of them to analyze for. I’m looking for similar burn patterns, too. And I want something that explodes at a lower temperature but still takes enough time so our firebug, if there is one, has time to get to safety.”
“Oh, you can be sure there is one,” MacNeill said. “Four apartment fires in five weeks? That’s not just poor maintenance.”
Randi shrugged. “You know people are always complaining that apartment fires in this city are a weekly event. Old buildings. Lousy maintenance. All the usual.”
“Any determination yet on the ignitable liquid residue?”
ILR—ignitable liquid residue—was the trace left at every fire if an accelerant had been used. The arson investigator carefully took samples to the lab where they were analyzed for identification.
Randi sighed. “Yes. Unfortunately there seems to be more than a single accelerant. Different ones at different sites. If this is indeed one person—which I’m getting the weird feeling it might be—it’s someone who knows what the hell they are doing and working hard to throw us off the scent.” She gave a tired grin. “So to speak.”
MacNeill nodded. “You’ve got good instincts, Randi. That’s one of the reasons I pushed so hard to make sure this happened for you.” He gave her a faint grin. “Don’t tell any of the male investigators but you already run circles around them.”
His words gave her a warm feeling. “Thank you for that. I do my best.”
“Which is excellent, by the way. So what’s your next step?”
“I want to go back and revisit each scene, take more photos, take additional samples.” She pointed at the screen on her computer, where she had pulled up pictures of the various fire sites. “I told the lab to look for even the most miniscule trace of an additional accelerant, something that would reach a flashpoint quickly and destroy an entire building that quickly. This is a very sophisticated arsonist.”
“It is unusual,” MacNeill agrees. “It’s rare for a building to combust completely before the fire trucks can get there.”
“The lab tech says they are using both an IRL and an accelerant to increase the speed of combustion. They’re different in every incident, though. Plus, whoever is is doing this uses onsite materials to try and describe the real cause of the first. In one case it was stacks of foam patio cushions, in another wicker furniture stored in an empty apartment.”
“Damn.” MacNeill shook his head. “We’re just damn lucky that no one was killed or seriously injured.” Randi nibbled the tip of a pen. “The apartment complexes are scattered all over the city, everywhere except the northwest. Firebugs usually contain their activity to one geographic area.”
“Well, we need to figure something out, because all the owners are banging on us to get the reports in so they can file insurance claims. I’m tired of them they’re breathing down our necks and threatening us with lawyers.”
“I’d love to say let’s close this but I can’t.” Randi sighed. “There’s just so much strange to the whole situation. Dan thinks I’m nuts, too, looking for some kind of conspiracy. He wants to get a profile of the firebug and let his men go to work on it. Go back through their files. They’ve already questioned some suspects, but all of them had verifiable alibis.”
Dan Kessler was the detective from the San Antonio Police Department she’d been paired with since she got her promotion. He’d ben assigned to her first couple of cases. When they’d discovered they had a good working rhythm together MacNeill had reached out to Dan’s lieutenant and asked if it could be a regular thing. So far so good.
“But you think it’s more.”
She shrugged. “Maybe
