We were crouching to examine the bag when the wall beside us burst into flames in a loud, crackling whoosh.
The heat, the sound, and the sudden light made us scramble back in shock and terror. Instinctively, we both went for the door.
But it wouldn’t budge. We slammed our bodies against it to no avail. It was jammed tight.
“Were you smoking?” Monk asked me.
“I don’t smoke,” I said.
“Then how did the fire start?”
I remembered the smell of gasoline. Someone wanted to kill us.
Another wall ignited, the dry wood catching fire remarkably fast, the flames licking out for us like the tongues of ravenous monsters.
I glanced at the paint, the turpentine, and the fertilizer and knew what they would soon become.
A bomb.
In a few seconds we would be dead.
The heat was unbearable—each breath felt like a knife jammed down my throat. I looked around, and through the flames and disintegrating wood consuming one wall I could make out the muddy pond several yards away.
Without thinking, I grabbed Monk’s hand, closed my eyes, and ran screaming into the wall.
The wood seemed to shatter like glass. I felt a thousand white-hot stings and knew that my clothes were on fire. I ran blindly, tripped in the muck, and fell facefirst into the thick water of the pond, losing my grip on Monk.
It was like falling into pudding. I had to fight to get up, the weight of the mud and my clothes pushing me down into the shallow pond.
When I came up for air, I was standing in water up to my chest, sludge dripping off my scorched clothes and singed hair.
Monk emerged beside me, sputtering and coughing, draped in weeds like a swamp monster. His lapels were blackened from the flames and it looked like a dozen people had tried putting out their cigarettes on his jacket.
We both turned to look at the shack as it exploded, sending canisters shooting up into the air like fireworks, trailing embers. The explosion seemed to suck the air out of the fire. The shack collapsed on itself and became a big bonfire that lit up the pond. I could feel the hot air against my face.
“Whoo-wee!” Monk shrieked happily, wiping muck from his brow. “That was a rush.”
I stared at him. I’d never heard him say “whoo-wee” or anything remotely like it. I couldn’t believe he was happy, standing there waist-deep in sludge, his hair still smoking from the fire. I could only imagine how I must have looked, but I knew how I felt.
“Someone just tried to murder us,” I said.
“It was fun,” he said with a smile.
“Fun? We were nearly burned alive! We’re about to be attacked by bloodsucking leeches!”
“Now we know we’re on the right track,” Monk said.
I wanted to wipe that dopey smile off his face and make him as miserable and angry as I was. And I wasn’t beyond rubbing salt in his wounds to do it.
“But any evidence that might have connected Dr. Rahner to Bruno Leupolz’s murder has literally gone up in smoke.”
“Wrong,” Monk said.
“You can’t prove the body was hidden in the shack or that Dr. Rahner was ever there because”—I pointed to the fire— “the shack is gone.”
“Who cares?” Monk said.
“You do!” I shouted. “Dr. Rahner is going to get away with murder.”
“Bullpucky.”
“Did you just say ‘bullpucky’?”
“This is our lucky night,” he said. “If we hadn’t been on fire, we never would have found this.”
He reached into the muck with both hands and pulled up a big black trash bag that was cinched tight, the yellow plastic drawstrings tied in a neat double bow.
“I present the missing stuff from Bruno Leupolz’s apartment, ” Monk said.
“Or somebody else’s trash,” I said. “Who knows how many people have ditched their garbage in here?”
“This is a Norwegian Reef Knot, is it not?” He tipped his head towards the drawstrings and began to giggle. “Knot, not. Get it? Knot, not. Who’s there? The Monkster, that’s who!”
I was starting to regret saving his life. I might have corrected that error then and there if not for the sound of approaching sirens and the possibility of getting caught in the act.
Fire trucks roared up a logging road on the hillside above us and a few minutes later a dozen firefighters spilled down on the clearing carrying shovels and fire extinguishers.
While they doused the bonfire with foam and shoveled dirt on the embers, we slogged out of the pond and sat on a log to await the arrival of the police.
Mosquitoes drawn by the lights buzzed by my ears. I swatted at them and searched my body for leeches as best I could without stripping entirely.
Monk gazed up at the stars and sighed contentedly.
“This is nice,” he said.
I paused for a moment to stare at him. “We’re breathing smoke, soot, and toxic chemicals. We’re being bled dry by mosquitoes and leeches. We’re soaking wet, covered in mud, and smell like we died yesterday. And you think this is nice?”
“I wish we had some marshmallows,” Monk said. “We could put them on sticks and roast them over the embers. Wouldn’t that be tasty?”
Stoffmacher and Geshir approached us. I didn’t even notice their arrival on the scene.
“When I heard where this fire was, I had a feeling we’d find you here,” Stoffmacher said. “Would you like to tell us what happened?”
“We went to Berlin and found out why Dr. Rahner murdered Bruno Leupolz,” Monk said.
