together before it's over.'
'Let's have a look-see,' suggested Jessica.
'Dr. Repasi's already inside with our fire investigation team,' Fairfax explained.
'We just want a look,' replied Jessica.
'You got reason to believe it's an FBI matter, then be my guests.'
Sure enough, Karl Repasi was inside, leaning in over the bed where an unidentifiable body lay scorched beyond recognition, curled into the familiar, fetal-like position of those suddenly caught in an inferno, as if warding off Hades with merely hands and feet and flesh were defensively possible. The wrists appeared broken, but Jessica had seen victims of fire death many times before, and she recognized the wilted limbs as bones cracked due to the intensity of the heat the body had suffered. Later, during autopsy, X-ray examination would reveal many more broken bones in the body, in legs, arms, and possibly elsewhere.
The entire mattress had gone up, along with a stash of clothing tucked on either side of the victim's body. This added some less than volatile materials in the mix, since most all clothing was fire retardant nowadays. The killer, no doubt, wanted to leave more smoke than flame and to keep the fire localized over the bed. He obviously knew something of the nature of fire and how to control it. Two of the fire marshals were discussing this feature as they entered the room.
'Bastard was in control from the moment he planned the fire to the moment he stepped away from it,' one of Fairfax's men concluded.
A scorched black roof mocked from overhead; the nearby wall remained untouched save for peeling, blistering paint, and soot.
Fairfax said to Jessica, 'The scene looks like a spontaneous combustion in some regards. I think this guy wants us to think so, too, but we're not stupid.'
Jessica saw that the intense source of the fire was localized over the bed, and it did give the appearance that at one moment the victim lay sleeping peacefully in her bed and in the next instant was consumed by fire. Still, much of the room was painted in black soot and creosote, from floor to ceiling; it had been fire alarms in the rooms above and below the fire that had alerted neighbors to the danger. The alarm and sprinkler system in 1713 had been disconnected, presumably by the killer. Atop the ugliness of the fire soot and grease came the sopping, soapy, drenched-in-water layer, creating a moist patina overall, thanks to a snakelike hose meandering through the room.
Jessica gave a quick glance to the awful body lying balled up on the bed. Her mind, almost independent of her, ticked off the results of what to her meant obvious murder: massive tissue damage, burning and charring, the limbs swollen and split open from the superheated air, like so many grilled hot dogs. Fried nerves, cooked brains, instant cataracts, ruptured and bleeding eardrums, but the blood was seared to a black oil. The heat on the bed not only sizzled and blackened the woman's skin, distorting all features, but had broken bones beneath the skin.
'A lightning strike of a hundred million volts of direct current, reaching fifty thousand degrees Fahrenheit, would've been preferable to this death,' Karl Repasi was telling the firemen. Jessica surmised that Karl was right the instant she glimpsed the tortured features of the victim.
'Is that right?' asked one of the fire marshals.
Repasi replied, 'When struck by lightning and the current passes through the brain, a person immediately loses consciousness with the crack of the bolt: All breathing halts, you see, and one giant spasm ceases the rhythm of the heart, leaving it in one tight contraction from which it generally cannot recover.'
'So there's less suffering than the usual fire death, I see,' said the fire investigator, whose hand unconsciously gripped his gun for something solid to hold on to. The combination of the stench and the sight of the grilled and blackened young woman on the bed was enough to overpower anyone, even seasoned veterans such as Fairfax and his men.
Repasi seemed now to be holding court. He continued on the relative merits of being hit by lightning rather than dying in the fashion that their present victim had, saying, 'After a short duration, the heart muscle relaxes and may or may not resume a normal, spontaneous beat. Recovery is only possible if the damage to the brain is minimal, but in the case of considerable burn damage to brain tissues, death is absolutely certain. But for every fatal victim of a lightning strike, there are three hit by nonlethal, stray current charges splintering off from the main bolt itself. Such questionably 'lucky' folk are merely stunned and have stiff, sore muscles and small burns where the current exited their bodies. But here, now, the body on the bed represents a gruesome difference from the painless, quick death of a lightning strike.'
For Jessica, the burned-out eyes and the grotesque mask left little doubt that Chris Lorentian, if this were she, had suffered an excruciatingly painful death at the hands of her attacker, proving that fire was not as forgiving as lightning.
The body and facial mask, painted with the sickening and odorous creosote of superheated body fluids and fat, resembled the look of an ancient, cave-dwelling man dug out of a glacier, a fellow whom Jessica had met once at the Smithsonian Institution one Sunday afternoon when she and other FBI employees were given a private tour. The mummified remains were as scorched and blackened as this body before them, but his tissuelike body and ragged cloth remnants had had a hundred thousand generations or more to become blackened and crumbly, not from fire but from ice. Yet the results appeared the same.
Jessica turned away to find J. T. staring with equal fascination at the bureau mirror, which reflected the seared body back at her. Superimposed over the image of the body was a smeared message written in black soot and grease-perhaps the grease of the burning victim-across the gleaming surface of the mirror. The killer's message read:
#1 is #9-Traitors
'He's obviously trying to open a dialogue with us,' J. T. was saying in her ear, but she didn't want to hear this, didn't want a dialogue with the Devil. She didn't want to deal with another Matisak, not now, not ever, but it appeared another was being foisted upon her nonetheless. Still, she didn't want to believe that this madman had singled her out for a dialogue.
Just the same, even as she heard the voices, the boots and rustle of fire hoses and paraphernalia, even as she heard the words of the men in the room, Jessica was off in another place, staring at the strange message on the looking glass, the shape of the killer's handwriting, making mental note of its eccentricities as she'd learned to do from Eriq Santiva, wondering at the message's hidden meaning. The bizarre equation, one equals nine, made no more sense than the single word 'traitors,' yet the cryptic message beat an anthem in her head. Who was the traitor here? The killer or his victim? Someone who had betrayed the killer, someone he meant to kill over and over? Were there other traitors waiting to be burned alive? Perhaps the traitor wasn't the victim at all; perhaps someone close to the victim whom the killer wanted to see suffer? Was Jessica herself seen as some sort of traitor in this perverted, twisted mind? And what did he mean to imply with the numbers? What kind of reasoning was this? That the number 1 represents the number 9?
'What is that?' asked J. T., equally confused.
Jessica stepped closer to the mirror. 'Fairfax, have you found any prints in the room?'
'No, nothing. This guy was extremely careful. Likely wore gloves.'
Jessica knew that fire investigation had come into its own with modern, computer-enhanced gas chromatography and lasers. ''Do you have a blue light with you?'' she asked.
'Right here.'
'Shine it on the message in the mirror.'
Fairfax, impressed, came close to the glass with his handheld laser. One of his junior partners turned off the portable lights they'd brought into the room. Everyone's eyes were riveted to the strange grease marks across the mirror, now highlighted beneath the blue light.
'Do you see what I see?' she asked.
Fairfax gasped. There were multiple print marks in the grease.
'What kind of grease marker is this guy using?' asked J. T.
'We'll need lab analysis, but it appears to be hot grease from the flaming victim. It dries hard and waxy on the mirror's surface, and he took his gloves off to write in it,' Jessica explained. 'Unless someone in here touched the grease?'
She and Fairfax scanned the room for anyone who might confess to having touched the lettering and numbers on the mirror. There were no volunteers. 'Just the same,' said Fairfax, 'everyone here not on my team, leave a set
