What had Ronnie said to Sara in those last horrible minutes? Had he taunted her with the death of her parents? Had he told her he’d taken Jennifer? Or had he shot her immediately?
Later, when Ronnie pulled Jennifer from the trunk and put her in a closet, he’d said saving her was an act of kindness. He loved her.
“Love. You sick son of a bitch. You took my family and left me all alone.” Tears welled in her eyes and one spilled down her cheek. She didn’t bother to swipe it away, figuring after all these years she was due a few.
Despite the theories, she realized no one would ever say why Ronnie had chosen her family. Life had dealt her a shitty hand and that was that.
Rick got the call just after lunch. A fire in the Germantown neighborhood. Framed, one-level home, burned to the ground. Neighbors had reported the flames just after ten and had called the fire department but the fire had been too hot and too fast and the home had turned to cinders in a matter of an hour.
He arrived at the scene to the fresh scent of cinder and ash. Yellow crime-scene tape roped off the house and yard and corralled a large group of onlookers. The media van was parking, but instead of waiting for a barrage of questions, he strode under the tape as he pulled on a set of rubber gloves.
Jake Bishop moved toward him, a dark scowl on his face. “We’ve another body.”
Rick rubbed the back of his neck, hoping to soften the tension. “Any evidence to help us identify the victim?”
“No, but the body was found in the area of the house that would have been the bedroom.”
“Anything to connect this death to Diane Smith?”
“Don’t even know if the victim is female at this point. There’s not much left.”
But that in itself was a connection. Fire had obliterated the last crime scene. “Jonas Tuttle could not have killed this woman.”
“No.” He reached for his notebook.
Inspector Murphy strode toward them, his thick fireman’s jacket open. His Nashville Fire T-shirt was soaked in sweat. His head cocked a bit to the right as if it too were barely hanging on.
Rick stuck out his hand. “Inspector Murphy.”
Murphy clasped his hand and Bishop’s. He nodded toward the charred remains behind him. “I thought you two found the guy who set the last blaze.”
“We thought we did too,” Rick said. “Lots of evidence linking him to the murder.” And yet, here they stood inhaling cinder and smoke, waiting for timbers to cool so another body burned beyond recognition could be removed.
Murphy’s radio on his jacket squawked a request and he silenced it with the flick of a button. “Looks like arson.”
“The house burned fast like the other one?” Rick asked.
Murphy glanced back at the burned remains, staring as if in a silent communication. “It did. It went up very quickly.”
“Same accelerant?” Rick asked.
“As a matter of fact, I just got word back on the accelerant used in the first fire. Tests confirmed it was a mixture of diesel and a product called Thermite, a pyrotechnic mixture. Burns fast and hot. If I had to guess on this fire, I’d say the same cocktail.”
Bishop rested his hands on his hips. “Whoever set this fire wanted to make sure there wasn’t much left behind.”
Murphy nodded his gaze appreciatively. “Whoever set the blaze knew what the hell he was doing. This isn’t this firebug’s first rodeo. And seeing as we’ve ruled out your dead suspect, I’d say look for a guy with a history of arson. His earlier fires might not be as big or as successful as this one but, somewhere along the way, he got a taste for fire.”
The haystack of suspects might have shrunk but they were still searching for a needle. They thanked Inspector Murphy and he moved back toward the ruins.
“House is owned by Nancy Jones, age thirty-four,” Bishop said.
“Anyone seen Nancy lately?”
Bishop shrugged. “The rumblings I heard from the crowd say no, but I’ve not had time to ask.”
Rick glanced at the collection of neighbors, many dressed in sweats or casual clothes. Time to start searching for the needle. “I’ll tackle the neighbors.”
“You take the left side and I’ll take the right,” Bishop offered. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and our firebug stuck around to see the show.”
Arsonists often lingered, hoping to get a glimpse of the mayhem their fires created. The aftermath was often as thrilling as the flames. “Let’s hope.”
Rick scanned the faces of the crowd. No one stuck out but that didn’t mean much. He moved to the crowd of onlookers, wondering if the killer had mingled among them.
He unhooked his badge from his belt. “Who lives around this house? Who knows the occupant?”
A murmur rolled over the crowd before two people, a man and a woman, spoke up. The woman had short, sandy-brown hair, and wore thick Elvis Costello glasses and a yoga hoodie and tights. Beside her stood a man with dark hair and a square jaw covered with salt-and-pepper stubble. Rick waved both down past the crowd. He ducked under the tape and led them a few more paces down the sidewalk.
He looked at the man first. “Your name?”
“Randy Kincaid. “I live in the house behind Nancy Jones’s house.”
“You know Nancy Jones?”
He rubbed the stubble with long fingers. “Well enough. We’ve been neighbors for a couple of years.”
“What can you tell me about her?”
“Nice. Kept her lawn in good shape and had done some good renovation projects in the last year that increased the value of her house.”
Another renovation project. “Know much about the woman?”
“Not much.”
“Issues, problems?”
“None that I knew of. Why’re you asking these questions? It was just a fire.”
Rick ignored the question. In a neighborhood filled with young, working professionals, most were too busy to notice the day-to-day stuff. “What did she do for a living?”
“She works in real estate, I think. She’s coming and going all the time. But like I said, I don’t see her much. Today is my day off. Normally, I’m never home.”
“You have much interaction with Nancy?”
“Just to wave and smile on the rare times we saw each other.” The medical examiner’s car pulled up and the man’s frown deepened.
“Do you think Nancy was in the house?” The question came from the woman, who folded her arms over her chest and hunched forward slightly.
“I don’t know much at this point.” He tossed her a smile meant to be friendly but he suspected it fell short. “What’s your name?”
The woman shoved her fingers through her hair. “My name is Linda Nelson. I live on the other side of Nancy. And she wasn’t dating anyone as far as I knew. She worked hard. It was all about the job.”
“How well did you know Nancy?”
“Nancy and I were good fr
iends. We just went out for drinks last week.”
“Tell me about her.”
“She had a boyfriend but they broke up last year. In fact, he broke up with her. She works as a manager in a real estate firm. She liked her job and her boss liked her.” She glanced back toward the ruins. “I smell fuel. That fire wasn’t an accident, was it?”
“I don’t know. Nancy have anyone bothering her lately?”
“No. Not really. I mean she did text me yesterday about a guy at the corner package-delivery office. Said the guy cut in front of her and was a real jerk. She couldn’t believe it. Nancy, being Nancy, told him where to get off.”
“Did she ever see this guy before?”
“She didn’t give me the impression she had. She’d have told me if someone was hanging around or stalking her.”
“What delivery office does she use?”
“Normally, she goes to the one on Church Street. It has later hours and she’s often racing to make it there before it closes. She sends packages to her brother. He’s in the military.”
“You saw no unusual people around here last night?”
“No, Nancy would have said something if she thought she had a problem.”
Diane Smith had not been killed in her own home so it was possible that whoever had died here was not Nancy. “Do you have contact information for Nancy?”
“Yeah, sure.” She dug a cell from her back pocket. “Want me to call her?”
“Yeah.”
She hit SEND, put the phone on speaker so they both could hear it ring. On the fifth ring it went to voice mail. Nancy had a soft, pleasant voice.
Rick scribbled down her number. “Did Nancy ever mention a woman named Diane Smith?”
“Not that I remember.”
Doubtful he’d find a connection this easily to the other victim, but it was worth a shot. “How long has she been in the neighborhood?”
“Six years,” Nelson said. “She’d talked about moving but decided against it because it’s too expensive right now. She’d just sold her mother’s house and moved her into an old folks’ home. The process took it out of her and her mother died just a few months ago. That’s why she opted to do the renovation work instead. Redid the bathrooms.”