all the way to the barn. Could the mark have been made by whatever had been used to start the fire? He frowned, knowing that didn’t make a lot of sense. Why use something so elaborate on an abandoned barn that a person could walk right up to without being seen?
Jake pulled out the disposable camera he kept on his belt, and took a picture of the mark. He then took a few pictures of the surrounding disturbance. Maybe it was nothing, but better to be safe.
Just as he was putting his camera away, Haywood came around the other end of the structure.
“Find anyone?” he asked.
Jake was about to tell him about the depression, but hesitated. Haywood would probably look at it and think that Jake was making something out of nothing. But before Jake could actually decide what to do, sirens cut through the sound of the fire.
Both cops turned toward the road. Three fire trucks were racing in their direction, and right behind them were the lights of two patrol cars.
Once everyone arrived, Jake and another rookie, Berit Davies, were tasked with keeping civilians off the property. It was amazing that even at night in a sparsely populated part of town, people had gathered to gawk at the fire.
“So how long do we have to be on the force before we’re not automatically put on crowd control?” Berit asked as they drove one of the patrol cars down the dirt road to the property entrance.
Jake smiled. Berit was probably his closest friend on the force. They were both sort of outsiders — Berit a woman in a crumbling man’s world, and Jake a transplant from Minnesota, of all places.
“Come on,” he said. “You love crowd duty. Isn’t that what you told me last time?”
“Oh, yeah. My favorite thing in the world,” she said as she pulled the car to a stop.
There were at least a dozen people hanging around the opening in the fence. Nearly half of them were actually standing inside the property line.
“All right,” Jake announced as soon as he got out. “Everyone’s going to have to get on the other side of the fence.”
Several of those standing on the property began moving toward the gate. Two men, though, held their ground. Berit headed right for them.
“Excuse me,” she said. “Not sure you heard the other officer, but you’ll have to step back on the other side of the fence, please.”
“Come on,” one of the men said. “We’re not in anyone’s way. We just want to watch the fire.”
“And you can do that, sir,” Berit said. “But from the
“We want to watch from here,” the other one said.
Jake glanced at the rest of the crowd to make sure they were all safely off the property, then headed over to back up Berit.
“I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “That’s not possible. You and your friend will have to move.”
“Really, honey?” the second one asked. “What harm are we doing?”
Jake wanted to step in, and knew that probably any other officer would, but he also knew it wasn’t what Berit would want. So he stopped several feet behind her.
In a controlled voice, she said, “Sir, I’m not your honey, and you’re not staying. So either you walk through that opening and get on the other side of that fence, or we arrest you for trespassing. Up to you.”
The first man put a hand on his friend’s arm. “Let’s go.”
The second man held his place for a moment, scowling at Berit, but then he turned and the two of them walked away.
Jake moved up next to her. “Impressive,” he whispered. “For a woman.”
“And damn near impossible for a man,” she said.
“True,” he agreed.
Together they walked over to the gate. For the next several minutes they were peppered with questions from the growing crowd, most of which they answered with “I’m sorry, I don’t know the answer to that.”
Though there had been no indication the fire was a crime, they knew they had to treat it as such until they were notified otherwise. So, per training, they noted the faces in the crowd, looking for anyone unusually interested in what was going on. But if there was an arsonist in this crowd, Jake was having no success picking out him or her.
It took less than an hour for the firemen to get the blaze extinguished. By then, most of the structure was gone.
“Oliver. Davies,” the voice of Sergeant Niccum said over the radio.
Berit touched the mic on her shoulder. “Yes, sir?”
Jake then did the same. “I’m here, sir.”
“Be advised, we have a nine-oh-one H.”
Both Jake and Berit tensed. A dead body.
“Yes, sir,” Jake said. Then, because he couldn’t help himself, asked, “May I ask where?”
“No, you may not,” the sergeant rebuked him, then signed off.
“Smooth,” Berit said to Jake.
“Yeah, I’ve been practicing,” he replied, trying to play it down.
He knew he shouldn’t have asked the question, but he and Haywood had been first on scene. He would have thought that gave him the right to know what was going on, but apparently not.
“Don’t worry. We’ll find out soon enough,” Berit said, no doubt sensing what was going through his mind.
If only he’d been thinking that way before he’d asked the question, but sometimes he just couldn’t help himself. It was his damn curiosity. A trait he was sure would help him when he became a detective.
5
By the time Jake arrived home, it was nearly 3 a.m. Sleep took a little while to come, and when it did, it was fitful at best. By 8 a.m., he’d had enough and dragged himself into the shower.
The problem was he couldn’t get the fire out of his mind. By the time he’d been released from the scene, investigators had established that the body found inside the barn, while severely burned, had a bullet wound through the neck. There might have been other wounds, too, but the condition of the body made it impossible to check on site.
Was this the guy who had called 911? No one else had mentioned the possibility, but Jake had to believe others were thinking it. No matter what, the fire was obviously meant to cover up the murder.
And what about that depression he’d seen in the sand? Did that have something to do with any of this?
Jake let the water run over his head as he tried to think it through, but everything he came up with was pure speculation, each scenario wilder than the last. Somewhere between the shampoo and the body wash, he decided to return to the barn for another look. He wasn’t due in until four that afternoon so he still had most of the day ahead of him.
He threw on some jeans and a dark T-shirt, grabbed a clean uniform and his belt and gun in case he didn’t have time to come back to his apartment before his shift began, then headed out to the car. The uniform and belt he put in the trunk, but the gun he slid under the front seat. Almost as an afterthought, he returned to the trunk, retrieved his police badge, and shoved it into his pocket.
Though it was only May, the day was already a hot one. But this being Phoenix, that was not unusual. Jake never complained about the heat. He’d grown up about as far north as a person could get without being Canadian. His hometown of Warroad was right at the western base of the little hump at the top of Minnesota. Even with a population of just a few thousand, it was the biggest town for miles. In the winter, Warroad would get as cold as Phoenix got hot. The cold, Jake had no problems complaining about. He and temperatures below fifty degrees had never seen eye to eye. Arizona, on the other hand, suited him just fine.
