Charred (13 page)

“Yet?”

It hung there. She saw it didn’t surprise him at all that she was at least considering one day moving up in law enforcement. She was still young, only thirty-two, but she’d been a detective for a while and the case up north wouldn’t hurt later in her career if she was in line for a promotion.

But for now … this case …

“What are you guys calling him, or is that sanctified information?”

“What do you mean?” She looked at him.

He laughed. “Come on, Ellie. I’m going to bet the department already has a name for whoever you are investigating at this time. What? Fireman?”

“This isn’t a television show.”

“No, it isn’t, unfortunately. I really wish people weren’t out there dying.”

She considered him for a moment and then shook her head. “Fireman isn’t bad actually, but might offend some other civil servants that I have seen quite a lot of recently and who risk
their
lives for other people, not take lives. One of the other detectives referred to our resident match-happy friend as The Burner. It stuck.”

“The Burner.”

The kitchen was her favorite part of his house, upgraded to tile and concrete and stainless steel, the windows letting in a lot of natural light.

On a morning like this one, she needed the sun streaming in, making square patterns on the floor, touching her shoulders … outside it was hot, but inside she was cold.

She also had needed to not be alone and Bryce was a logical choice, the one to turn to.

Was he what she needed right now, or was he what she wanted for a lifetime?

But at the moment, in the sunny kitchen, she thought it was probably
yes
.

Was probably good enough?

“Santiago?” Bryce lifted his brows in slight inquiry, prompting her.

He really looked incredible in the morning, which was vaguely irritating. When she was rumpled and hadn’t showered she looked like crap, and here he was, careless gray T-shirt with a Marquette insignia on the front, wrinkled shorts, and tousled hair, and he could do a feature on the front of a magazine.

“Santiago, what?”

Bryce set aside his cup. “I’m going to take an educated guess and assume he was the one who christened the perpetrator in your latest case.”

“You’d be wrong. Why would you think that?”

“Short and flippant. Sounds like him.”

“It was Carl Grasso. He had the case first if this proves to follow the same lines, and he was actually the one who christened our killer.”

“Grasso? For whatever reason his name sounds familiar.”

“He killed two men in a self-defense shooting about the same time The Burner decided to pop up.
If
it is the perpetrator.”

“I see.” Dark eyes held hers. He agreed slowly, “Yeah, that does ring a bell. The police department kind of kept it low key but I remember it vaguely because Suzanne was with the prosecutor’s office back then.”

She was never crazy about the mention of Bryce’s ex-wife.

“They moved Grasso to another section and saved face for homicide.” She changed the subject. Bryce didn’t like her partner, she didn’t really either, so why discuss him? Besides, her job seemed to take up the majority of their conversations and she felt guilty about that now and then. “How is the book coming?”

“Not bad,” he responded noncommittally.

He was writing a novel—he did have a Ph.D. in literature after all—and while she couldn’t describe him as secretive about it, he wasn’t very open on the subject and she was
interested
. “How are things in West Virginia?”

“For the main characters? Fairly bleak, I’m afraid.” His tone was self-deprecating. “I’m still not sure why I decided to embark on a journey quite this dark, but then again, I’m not cut out to write a genre novel.”

He’d really only given her a vague comment that the book was a literary work set in the Appalachian mountains.

“What about your personal experience?” she observed dryly. The case up north lingered, in both their minds at a guess, but Bryce didn’t talk about it often.

He’d not only found a murdered woman’s body, but seen a point-blank shooting where the person on the receiving end died. Both those incidents were fairly hands-on when it came to researching a crime novel, though she doubted he looked at either one that way.

It was a little tough to figure out how to get their way around what had happened. Oddly enough, while it should make them comrades in arms, it sat there like a stone wall at times, separating them despite the attraction, the proverbial elephant in the room. The case was solved. It should be over.

It wasn’t. Not quite. Obviously not for her when it came to her occupation or her colleagues wouldn’t bring it up. She doubted it was out of Bryce’s mind either, especially since it was how they had met.

“Just think about it,” she said, only half joking. “I could be a source of research.”

His dark eyes were steady. “No.”

“Good to hear.”

“God, Ellie, you already knew that.” His body shifted in the chair.

True.

Fine, time to switch into another gear. They obviously had some trouble with this topic of conversation. “So, what’s the premise? At least tell me that.”

“Do you really want to know?”

That stopped her. “If I didn’t, would I ask?” she finally said, taking a drink of coffee as she took her plate to the sink.

“So far, no.”

She turned around. “I’ve gotten the impression you don’t want to talk about it.”

“A work in progress is a little hard to define.”

There were things she didn’t know about him. Well, she could qualify that by saying that even though the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department had crawled all over him with a microscope last fall, and she knew almost everything on paper possible about Dr. Bryce Grantham, there were parts of him that she didn’t quite
understand
. It could be entirely her problem. She liked facts, straightforward and irrefutable, and he was a complicated entity rather than a linear individual.

But, truth be told, she liked that about him. The intellectual bent and the complexity. Simple apparently didn’t appeal to her, and eventually, points connected.

In her experience, most everything did. She rinsed her plate and felt immensely better, though after that crime scene, eating hadn’t been her first priority. Had she been asked outright, she would have declined food, but he’d taken one look at her and just fixed breakfast. For that alone, he deserved a little attention to his life. All too often her job got in the way of deep discussions on more than one level.

“Do your best. I’m really interested.” She picked up a towel and dried her hands. “Wow me, Dr. Grantham.”

He laughed. It cracked the tension, and besides, she really liked it when he was spontaneous, which wasn’t often. Brainy men might be sexy, but they weren’t easy to deal with all the time.

“That’s a tall order. I don’t think you are wowed very easily, Detective MacIntosh.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to try. You are pretty secretive. What is this book about?”

“I can’t decide if I should tell you.”

The combative light in his eyes was intriguing. Usually Bryce was laid back, calm, a contrast to the men she dealt with on a day-to-day basis. She said slowly, “I suppose if you are exploiting the Northwoods Killer case, I—”

“Do you really think I want to relive that? I think I just made it clear I don’t.” He meant it too; she could see it in the twist of his mouth and the decisive shake of his head. “Please, Ellie, give me more credit. I’m not going back there. Not ever. This isn’t a crime novel really. It isn’t about what happened, it is about how the people involved handle it.”

He was adamant enough that she believed him.

“Then?”

“To sum it up loosely, it’s about a dysfunctional family—by the way, show me a functional one—that dabbles in some less-than-legal activities that fairly often have them at odds with each other. But when the youngest son is killed under mysterious circumstances, they reassess their dubious lifestyles and priorities and pull together. Toss in some revenge to the mix, and that’s a thumbnail synopsis.”

“Sounds good,” she said, and meant it. “I like it.”

“Enough about the book. Hopefully one day you’ll get to pick it up and read it. Maybe this crime scene will be more productive and the ME can help out a little more.”

Back to her job, her problems …

She sure as hell hoped he was right. For the sake of the two charred corpses they had on their hands. “I really
am
kind of counting on some forensic evidence on this one. Santiago is convinced Matthew Tobias is just a sideline casualty. A straightforward suicide predicated on the loss of his house when he was already unstable. We did confirm he’d been recently fired again, just like his sister told us, but he had an interview the day his house burned. I don’t know what to think, but I’m inclined to dismiss his case as unfortunate, and not a homicide, though when you think about it, whoever burned that body in the Tobias house is indirectly responsible for his death.”

“How could anyone ever predict that?”

“They couldn’t,” she agreed, the warm sunshine coming in the window incongruous to their conversation.

She added with quiet introspection, “But in reality, it is two murders for the price of one. When we catch him, I’m going to do everything I can to see that involuntary manslaughter is tossed in with the rest of the charges. So far, I don’t even know anyone was murdered. All we can really prove is abuse of a corpse, which is an offense, but hardly serious enough for what I think is happening.”

At least it was Bryce who had redirected the conversation back to the current topic. “And what do
you
think is happening, Detective MacIntosh?”

Good question. “Oh, he’s killing them. I don’t know why yet. I don’t even know how, but he’s killing them, and he’s burning the bodies, and I can tell you unequivocally I am going to catch him.”

Chapter 11

In some circles I move easily, and in others, the past might show like a badge on my sleeve. It isn’t that I’m not aware of it; I can be a good imposter when it is a necessity.

Actually, when I look at it that way, I suppose I am an imposter most of the time and that is the point of it all. I want to be real.

To myself, of course, I am genuine. I always know what I’m doing even if I don’t understand it completely, and I am always aware of the possible consequences. It isn’t a difficult equation; mistakes will happen on both sides, it is just a matter of degrees and finesse. Every single time I think about the people who rise in the morning to go to their lackluster jobs, only to return to their generic homes and watch inane television shows as they eat food that will clog their arteries and give them a blessedly early death, I am glad I am me.

Whatever it is I am, monster or man.

Unfortunately, I have thought for a long time I am both. They aren’t mutually exclusive.

I weighed the knife in my hand just out of habit, looked at the white-faced woman lying so still before me, and, smiling, became the monster.

*   *   *

There was one
thing about being an ex-homicide detective, Carl thought as he negotiated traffic along the lake: It was a bit of a relief to be off the chain. Sure, he still had to adhere to protocol—he was still an officer of the law—but no one was paying attention to what he did with this investigation. They were all watching MacIntosh and Santiago.

So he was free to poke around, break a few rules, and generally not worry about the finer details that might just get a man in trouble. He’d even taken a few days of leave, which he definitely had coming. Metzger had signed off on it without a word according to his supervisor.

His car seamlessly changed lanes, the expensive vehicle an affectation he supposed, but he could afford it so why not?

Except it might stand out in the neighborhood he was headed to, but he had no doubt the community would make him as a cop right away anyway, so the car was probably not a mistake. He had insurance, and he carried a Glock .45 issued to him by the state of Wisconsin. If anyone tried anything, it could be resolved one way or another.

Still, the rows of seedy restaurants and pawnshops baking in the afternoon sun weren’t exactly appealing, and if he didn’t have a specific appointment, he would never venture over here.

There were contacts you never lost. Ex-perps mostly, not murderers but small-time criminals who lived on the fringe, and quite frankly, he’d overlooked a lot of punishable crime for information during his career. It wasn’t as if he was unique; a lot of police officers did it, and in the end, it saved the tax-paying public money. Prosecuting anyone was costly, and if all they were doing was running a bit of illegal gambling on the side, or something else small, what really was the point? Yes, he agreed the law was the law, but there were varying degrees and he’d always felt that way. Picking up a kid for smoking a joint was hell and gone from burning someone’s house down with a body in it.

But the kid with the joint sometimes had great information.

He parked in front of a place that only said Liquor on the sign, turned off the car and pocketed the keys, and then stepped outside. If he weren’t wearing shoes, he was fairly sure the pavement would have seared off the soles of his feet. Inside the place was dark, the windows taped over, and one lone television played a baseball game above the bar when he opened the door.

“Carlo.” John Malcolm looked nervous, wiping his nose with the back of his hand, glancing around the place. Only two other tables were occupied and no one seemed interested. “I got your note. Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“You haven’t been dealing for a while.” Carl slid into a seat. There was a haze of cigarette smoke in the air and the music was just a little too loud for noon.

Thin, narrow shouldered, and probably anemic, John shook his head, his unwashed hair brushing his neck because it was too long. His shirt was unbuttoned halfway down his scrawny chest. His appearance varied with his state of affluence. Today things must have been at low ebb in the cash department. “Hey, I don’t deal. I use. You know that.”