example, burns at about one thousand degrees. To completely incinerate, a body re- quires heat of around seventeen hundred degrees. The body main- tains its form. The skin basically melts but doesn't disintegrate. It's not uncommon for areas of soft tissue to survive the fire.
'There's a shrinking that occurs,' he continued. 'For example, a two-hundred-pound man will weigh one hundred fifty pounds burned. The clothes, flesh and hair burn. The features, including the lips, remain. All solid black. Generic. Meaning the person no longer resembles themselves.'
Her father couldn't have done this. Could he?
'How often do you see suicide committed this way?'
'Almost never.'
'Why not?' she asked, though she had her own idea why. Through her profession she had learned the importance of not putting words in other people's mouths.
'Understand, I' m not a psychologist. I' m an expert on fire. Anything I offer would be my opinion, one not necessarily based on fact.'
'I'd like to hear it anyway.'
'Most people who choose to take their own life, want to get the job done. They want to go fast and as painlessly as possible.'
'And burning to death is the antithesis of that.'
'In my opinion.'
'Yes.' Avery glanced at her tablet, then back at the man. 'Do you believe my father knew the difference in the way diesel fuel and gasoline burns?'
'Don't know. Could have been he chose the diesel fuel because he had it on hand.'
'He siphoned the gas from his Mercedes.'
'Yes.'
'You ruled out arson? No question in your mind?'
He nodded. 'As I mentioned earlier, following a fire's path tells us its story. With arson, the source of the fire is typically an outside perimeter. In addition, we find the gas can, rags, whatever the arsonist used to set the fire. People are funny, they think we won't find them or something. 'Course, some don't care.'
'But my dad's case wasn't like that?'
'No. The fire started with your father and moved out from there. The remnants of the syphoning hose were found with him.'
'Was there anything unusual about the scene? Anything that gave-you pause?'
He drew his eyebrows together, as if carefully sifting through his memory. 'Found one of your dad's bedroom slippers on the path between the house and the garage.'
'And the other one?'
'There was no sign of it. I suspect he was wearing it.'
'Where on the path?'
He thought a moment. 'A few feet from the kitchen door.'
Her dad had always worn slip-on-style slippers. He'd lost one just outside the door. Why hadn't he stopped for it? That didn't make sense. She wasn't an expert in human behavior, but it seemed to her that stopping for it would be an automatic response.
'You don't find that odd?' she asked.
'Odd?'
'Have you ever tried to walk in one shoe, Ben? It feels wrong. A kind of sensory disruption.'
'But I imagine a man in your father's emotional state would be totally focused on what he intended to do. Although never in that position myself, I suspect it would be all consuming.'
Avery wasn't convinced but dropped the subject anyway. 'Anything else?'
He shifted his gaze slightly. 'It appeared as if he crawled a couple feet toward the door. After he was aflame.'
He'd changed his mind. He tried to crawl for help.
It had been too late.
She struggled to keep her despair from showing. Failing miserably, she knew.
'I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said-'
'No.' She held up a hand. It trembled. 'I appreciate your candor. It may be hard for you to understand, but knowing the facts will help me deal with this. I have to know exactly what happened.'
'I do understand, being that kind of person myself.' He glanced at his watch. 'Have you talked to Buddy about his investigation? Or to the coroner about his findings?'
'Buddy, though not in great detail. I haven't spoken to the coroner yet. But I plan to.'
He stood and held out his hand. 'Good luck, Avery.'
She followed him up. Took his hand. 'Thanks, Ben. I appreciate the time.' She started for the door, then stopped and looked back at him. 'Ben, one last question. Do you have any doubt he committed suicide?'
From his expression she saw that the question surprised him. He hesitated, as if choosing his words carefully. 'My job is to determine how and where a fire starts. Cause and circumstance of death fall to the coroner and police.'
'Of course,' she said, turning toward the door once more.
'Avery?' She looked back. 'Buddy did a good job on this. I've never seen him so…shaken. He didn't want it to be true either.'
But even the most conscientious cop made mistakes. It happened, things went unnoticed, slipped through the cracks.
But she didn't say those things to him. Instead, she thanked him again, turned and walked away.
CHAPTER 16
Hunter hadn't set foot in the Cypress Springs Police Department in thirteen years. It hadn't changed, he saw. But then, in Cypress Springs nothing seemed to change, no matter how many years passed.
He had come today because he had remembered something about the other night that might prove useful to the St. Claire murder investigation.
And because since finding the dead woman thirty-six hours ago, he had been unable to think of much else. He couldn't put the image of the dead woman out of his head.
The front desk stood empty. Not for long, Hunter surmised by the steaming mug of coffee and half-eaten doughnut sitting on a napkin on its top. Hunter didn't wait, instead he strolled past as if he still had every right to do so.
He found the door to his father's office open, the room empty. Hunter stepped inside. It smelled like his dad, he realized. And like his childhood.
Hunter scowled at the thought, at the rush of memories that flooded his mind. Of playing under the big, old oak desk, of him and Matt staring openmouthed as their dad chewed out a couple underlings, of his last visit to the office, on his way to college.
Hunter had attempted, one last time, to broach his feelings of exclusion and alienation from his family.
'Dad, just tell me what I've done. Tell me why you've shut me out. You and Mom, Matt and Cherry. It's like I'm not one of you anymore. Talk to me, Dad. I'll do whatever it takes to make it better.'
But his father hadn't had time for him. He had brushed him off, insisting Hunter was imagining it. That the fault lay with Hunter's perceptions, not reality.
Angry, hurt, he had left, promising that he would show them all, someday, somehow he would show them.
Hunter's gaze landed on the desk. A file folder stamped Photos lay on its top.
From the murder scene? he wondered, inching toward the desk. He saw immediately that they were; the file's tab bore the name St. Claire, Elaine.
'Hello, son.'
