Fire and Bones (Temperance Brennan #23)

Chapter 17

CHAPTER 17

Resigned to the realization that I wasn’t going home for a while, I requested file designations for the cases Thacker wanted reviewed. Then, grumpy, I trudged to my office.

First off, I looked up the number of a colleague in Reston, Virginia. Dialed.

“Dr. Lizzie Griesser, please.”

“Dr. Griesser is in court today. May I take a message?”

Inwardly cursing, I left my name and contact info, then disconnected.

Using my iPhone, I checked my email. Found news alerts, solicitations from political groups offering to triple-match my donation, pics of animals saved by foundations in need of my money, a notice of an upcoming sale on Spanx.

I deleted all but the Spanx ad. A temporary solution to Lan’s culinary overload?

The messages in my voice mail were equally dispiriting.

No texts.

Feeling deficient over my lack of popularity, spurned by my lover, disappointed at not talking with Griesser, and irked at myself for the idiot agreement I’d made with Thacker, I logged on to the OCME system computer.

Both of Thacker’s files involved DOAs shelved in coolers for more than a month. I skimmed the summaries.

Cynthia Bierny. White. Age seventy-four. Burned to death in the laundry room of her Southeast Washington home.

I read a note inserted into the file two days after its creation.

DOA was a smoker. Fire sparked by a carelessly handled cigarette? Or did someone torch granny?

The comment struck me as callous. Thacker? Or one of her pathologists?

The second case was that of Harriet Stroby, a twenty-three-year-old American University student decapitated by an excursion train on a route used by the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad. Stroby’s file also had a comment inserted by an unnamed reader.

DOA was a poetry major. Self-arranged on the tracks? Died elsewhere and placed there?

Neither case struck me as one needing a forensic anthropology consult. What was Thacker’s game?

Pushing from my desk, I hurried toward the chief ME’s office. Halfway there, the murmur of voices stopped me in my tracks.

I turned to retrace my steps back up the corridor.

One of the voices rose in pitch, overly loud and buzzing with self-importance. Male. Familiar.

The man’s mood was already a snarl of self-pity and resentment, but indignation now elbowed itself into the mix.

I froze.

Listened.

The wanker was sharing intel with the ME but not with me? And goddam Thacker. Why hadn’t she included me in the briefing?

Shoulders and spine ridiculously rigid, I reversed and proceeded the last few yards.

“—considering the possibility that it could have been a hit on one of the four.”

Burgos, who was holding a mug that said Have a Nice Day, stopped midsentence when I came through the door. His expression changed. Then changed again. Surprise. Uncertainty. Irritation. All in one blink of the pale little eyes.

“Tempe.” Thacker regarded me with a long, quizzical stare. “You’re back.”

“I am.”

Thacker’s lips drew into a smile whose longevity looked dicey at best.

“Sergeant Burgos and I were discussing the Foggy Bottom fire victims. Perhaps you’d like to join us?”

“I think that would be appropriate.” Chilly.

I took the chair beside Burgos.

Swiveling back to face Thacker, the arson investigator smacked the mug on the table between us with a hard-edged clunk.

Thacker said to me, “The sergeant is summarizing intel from the Metropolitan Police Department detective assigned to his team.” To Burgos, “Please continue.”

“As I was saying, if one of them was targeted, according to Deery—”

“Merle Deery is the MPD detective you met in the autopsy room,” Thacker interjected for my benefit.

“—according to Deery we got us a shit ton of motive. The vic from the basement—”

“Skylar Reese Hill.”

Burgos ignored me.

“—hotfooted it south to get away from a guy named Alvon Finrock. The happy couple was married less than a year, but the lady decided she wanted out. Finrock didn’t see it that way.”

“Finrock has been calling me nonstop for a week,” Thacker said. “The man is rude and abrasive.”

“That’s being kind,” Burgos sniffed. Not a pleasant sound.

“Does Finrock have a jacket?” I asked.

“Petty stuff. A couple DUIs, one drunk and disorderly, one juvie B and E.” Burgos’s eyes remained on Thacker.

“Where was Finrock at the time of the fire?” she asked.

“Deery says he claims he was on his chesterfield— that’s a couch — in Mississauga binging all twelve seasons of Bones . Neither the Mississauga PD nor border patrol is busting ass getting back to him.”

A short pause for Thacker to comment, maybe me. Neither of us did.

“Danny Green and Johnnie Star were, how shall I put it, close.” Burgos made an obnoxious limp-wrist movement with one hand. “Both are skeevier than slop in a sty. Green worked the Smithsonian metro station offering bargain blow jobs for fifty bucks a pop, supplemented that income stream hawking oxy and K.”

Burgos used the street names for oxycodone and ketamine.

“Star was your man if X or speed was your jam.”

Ecstasy and meth.

“Deery has two hypotheses. A is that one of them maybe pissed off a competitor by expanding onto the other skeeve’s patch.

“B is that some self-appointed vigilante decided to make the world a better place for himself and his red-blooded American brothers. Deery says department moles intercepted a lot of chatter leading up to Memorial Day and this WorldPride 2025 shit, especially a group calls itself Male Order. Catchy, eh?”

“Sounds like a real free-thinking bunch,” I said.

“Who are they?” Thacker asked.

“White supremacists. Misogynists. Skinheads. Neo-Nazis. You name it. They’re scumbags who hate anyone don’t look and think like them. And here’s a tantalizing side note. Certain more virulent Male Order members have a history of torching buildings.”

“These assholes were in DC this past week?” My words dripped with disgust. “Maybe they got worked up seeing all the rainbow flags?”

“Male Order was one of a dozen hate groups staging anti-gay protests in the district recently,” Thacker said.

Burgos took a nice day swig before speaking again.

“Here’s another lead Deery’s chasing. Danny Green was from Birmingham, Alabama. His father, also Danny Green, is a forklift operator there and a candidate for United Neanderthals International. Danny the elder has three assault charges, one aggravated. All old, all dropped, unclear why.

“Danny senior don’t like that his boy’s gay, and he don’t like that his boy’s dating Black. Blames the former on the latter. Could be he got tanked and decided to take Star out.”

Thacker arched a brow. “Along with his own kid?”

Burgos shrugged one scrawny shoulder. “Maybe Daddy’s plan wasn’t as brilliant as he thought.”

Through the window behind Thacker, I tracked a small plane flying low over the city. A banner dragged from its tail, advertising an event whose name and details were lost on my less than twenty-twenty vision.

“Go on,” she said.

“Finally, there’s the Syrian slant.”

“Jawaad el-Aman,” Thacker said. “I understand the kid’s father is the Syrian ambassador to the US.”

“El-Aman’s old man isn’t ambassador to shit.”

Thacker’s gaze hit mine, shock meeting shock.

Burgos pulled the ubiquitous investigator’s spiral from a hip pocket. I’d been wondering at its absence. After licking a thumb, then turning a few pages, he selected salient points, much as Doyle had done.

“Deery dug this crap up. Not sure it matters. The diplomatic mission of the Syrian Arab Republic to the United States was suspended in 2014.” Pause. “The US subsequently recognized the diplomatic mission of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces.” Longer pause. “The final ambassador was a guy named Imad Moustapha.”

Burgos looked up, expression suggesting he wasn’t open to queries. “Arab Spring, al-Assad’s crackdown, the Syrian civil war. You know all that. If not, read about it on your own time.”

“How are relations between Syria and the US today?” I asked—to no one in particular.

“Nonexistent,” Thacker said.

“Does the Syrian embassy still exist?” Again, to whomever.

Thacker nodded. “It’s on Wyoming Avenue, in the Kalorama neighborhood, along with several other embassies. The building is noteworthy because former President William Howard Taft lived in it for almost a decade. He died there in 1930.” Sheepish grin. “DC’s historic architecture is my passion.”

“ My passion,” said Burgos, “is that we wrap this up before I have another birthday sitting here?”

What a dick.

“Here’s the more pertinent stuff. El-Aman’s father is a millionaire businessman and pal of none other than President al-Assad. El-Aman owns properties in DC and Virginia, but his purpose for being in the States right now is unknown. According to Deery, the guy has more bucks than God and more enemies than a tax auditor.”

“If el-Aman’s father is wealthy, what was the kid doing in that Foggy Bottom dump?” I asked.

“Unclear. Jawaad had a condo in Georgetown, paid for by Daddy.”

“What has el-Aman senior been involved with that might have angered someone enough to want to kill his son?” Thacker sounded skeptical.

“The Arab-Israeli conflict, the Golan Heights annexation, the Iraq war, the occupation of Lebanon, state-sponsorship of terrorism, you name it. Deery found dozens of money trails arrowing straight to Jawaad’s old man.”

That night it was beef Wellington with minted peas and mashed potatoes. Custard for dessert.

Zanetti dined with us.

Besides the heart-stopping good looks, the man had the warmth of an old parish priest, and the manners of a royal at court. An extremely winning trifecta.

Another endearing quality. From what I observed, Zanetti was totally smitten with his fiancée. Whenever Doyle spoke, he regarded her with the eyes of a cocker spaniel fixed on a treat.

Naming no names, Zanetti entertained us with anecdotes involving clients. His descriptions of their quirks and foibles rivaled standup at its best.

Mostly for Zanetti’s sake, I shared what I’d learned regarding how long the subcellar vic had been dead. That I’d narrowed the range to the last eighty years.

“Hot damn!” Doyle said, twirling her fork in the air.

Zanetti shot her a look of faux disapproval.

I couldn’t disagree with Doyle. My achievement so far was pretty lame.

Doyle had spent the time between her eleven and four o’clock broadcasts researching the second Foggy Bottom property that had burned. As with the first, it had changed hands several times over the years.

“Might turn into a story, might not,” Doyle said in conclusion.

“It’s a long shot.” Zanetti sounded skeptical.

“Better than no shot at all.”

“Watergate was a long shot,” I said.

“I’ve heard of that,” Zanetti said, deadpan.

Doyle said she planned to stay on it.

As we were finishing the custard, Doyle asked when I planned to head back to North Carolina. I explained that my departure was delayed because of ME files I’d been duped into reviewing.

Zanetti proposed a toast to celebrate my prolonged stay. I clinked the rim of my tumbler to the rims of their crystal goblets. Mine held Lacroix grapefruit sparkling water, theirs a lovely Willamette Valley pinot noir.

We were returning our glassware to the tabletop when Zanetti’s phone rang. After glancing at the screen, his face went contrite.

“Babe.” Uber apologetic. “I really should answer this.”

“Of course,” Doyle said.

Holding the phone to his chest, Zanetti rose, circled to his fiancée, and kissed the top of her head.

“Back in five,” he said.

Doyle and I chatted for a while. Katy. The weather. A new wrinkle cream she was trying. I admit, I noted the brand.

Doyle described a pair of blue satin Manolo Blahniks she’d ordered from Bergdorf Goodman. I wasn’t sure, but figured she meant shoes.

I considered mentioning the Spanx ad. Decided against it.

Doyle reported that she and Chuck were forming a meaningful relationship. I asked how Zanetti was dealing with the chinchilla. Answer: Claritin.

A short silence, not awkward, just there. Then,

“What are these files you’re reviewing?”

I explained the deal I’d struck with Thacker.

“You really are committed to that subcellar vic,” she said.

I shrugged.

Doyle leaned back and pulled off the elastic binding her hair into a pony at the nape of her neck.

“Discover anything astonishing?”

I debated what to share and what to hold back.

“This is strictly between us, right? No ‘breaking news’?” Hooking finger quotes around the hackneyed phrase.

“Jesus, Tempe. Of course not.”

“One case is that of an old lady who died suspiciously. Are you aware of how kitty litter and gasoline can be used to start a fire?”

She shook her head and the ginger curls danced wildly. Joyful at last to be free?

“It’s an old Boy Scout trick.”

“Part of being prepared?”

“I’ll summarize. An elderly woman was found in the charred remains of an annex behind her house, a room where she did laundry. At first her death was thought to be accidental. She was a smoker, the cat pan was there, the washer and dryer, the gasoline container. Turned out the fifteen-year-old grandson killed her.”

“How?”

“After bludgeoning the old lady to death, the little creep dragged her body into the laundry room. Then he went outside and disconnected a supply line running from a propane tank into the dryer. Next, he disconnected the dryer end of that line.”

“Inside the house.”

“Yes. Then, he soaked the cat pan with gasoline and tossed in a match. When the litter was burning, he went back outside, reconnected the gas line, and opened the valve. The fire exploded and burned the annex to the ground.”

“Holy moly. How did the investigators unravel that one?”

“I’m not an expert. But it had to do with the lack of stripping and the presence of oxidation on the gas line’s threads at its point of connection to the dryer.”

“She was dead before her body was burned?” Doyle asked glumly.

“That’s the questi—”

We both turned on hearing a sharp clatter in the hall.

Zanetti was scooping his mobile from the floor.

“That, ladies, is not recommended procedure for the care and feeding of phones.”

He held the device to his ear.

Smiled the toothpaste-of-champions’ smile.

“And she keeps on ticking.”