Fire and Bones (Temperance Brennan #23)

Chapter 19

CHAPTER 19

W-C Commerce also owns the townhome currently rented by Phil and Devira Aaronson?” I couldn’t keep the shock from my voice.

“Yep.”

“The one with the parakeet?” Stupid question. But my mind was struggling to toggle this new information.

“What?”

“The other house fire?”

Doyle nodded. “W-C holds title to only three or four entities. Two of those are the pair of Foggy Bottom properties that just burned.”

“That can’t be coincidence,” said Zanetti, stating the obvious.

“Duh,” Doyle said.

“Have you shared this finding with Burgos?” I asked.

“Who’s Burgos?” Zanetti asked.

“Burgos is a dick,” Doyle said.

“Major league. But he’s the dick leading the team investigating the first fire.” An investigation involving four fatalities, I didn’t add.

Doyle said nothing.

“Who’s assigned to the Aaronson fire?” Zanetti asked.

“Burgos,” Doyle said.

“Bloody hell,” I said.

“Bloody hell,” Doyle agreed.

“You have to loop the guy in,” Zanetti said.

“Burgos has an ego the size of a container ship.”

“Still, you have to tell him.”

“I will.”

“There’s an MPD homicide cop on Burgos’s team,” I said. “Merle Deery.”

“Dreary Deery,” Doyle said.

“You know him?”

“Oh, yeah.” Doyle gave a little shake of her head. “I’m not sure the man knows how to speak.”

“He is the silent type.”

“You’ve met him?”

“Deery attended the Hill autopsy. Never uttered a peep the whole time.”

“That’s Deery. He’s with the VCB. The Violent Crimes Bureau. His name comes up in a lot of the stories I cover.”

“Maybe we could do a side run around Burgos. Use Deery as our point of contact.”

“Not a bad idea.”

Doyle checked the screen of her mobile. “Anyone think either Burgos or Deery is out there chasing leads at ten on a Friday night?”

Zanetti and I gave almost identical shrugs.

“Besides. It’s time I get to the studio.”

“You work too hard, babe.” Zanetti reached over and ran a gentle thumb down Doyle’s cheek.

“Wait up for me?” Coquettish smile.

“You bet.”

So, tacitly, we decided that phoning either Burgos or Deery could wait until morning.

A big mistake.

True to his promise, Zanetti gave me a lift from the restaurant. He drove a red Land Rover. Said he needed it for hauling would-be buyers from house to house.

“I’m a rock star with the soccer moms.”

“Not to mention the glamping set.”

Zanetti swiveled to face me, brows raised in question.

“Campers wanting all the luxuries when venturing out into the wild.”

“I could use Big Red to pull my forty-foot RV with AC, flat-screen, De’Longhi, and wet bar? Hot diggity!”

We laughed, rode several minutes without talking. Then Zanetti asked,

“Did Ivy say she’s friends with your daughter?”

“Yep.”

Oncoming headlights showed brows halfway to the nary-a-deserter hairline. “No way you’re old enough to have a daughter that age.”

“Ivy may have a few years on Katy,” I ventured, successfully quashing an eye roll he wouldn’t see anyway.

Another mile of silence. This time I stepped up.

“Are you and Ivy planning a big wedding?”

“Like carny in Rio.”

“Have you set a date?”

“For me the sooner the better. Ivy’s the one dragging her feet. But, as you may have noticed, until the lady makes up her mind, there’s no pushing her.”

Thankfully, Jelly Roll interrupted at that awkward point.

I dug my mobile from my purse and checked caller ID.

Lizzie Griesser.

“Sorry,” I said. “This is important.”

“Of course.”

“Lizzie. Thanks for calling back so soon.”

“My pleasure. What can I do for you?”

I described the case I wanted to send her. The subcellar environment. The burlap bag. The mummy-skeleton corpse.

“Think there’s any possibility of doing a genetic genealogy workup?” I asked when finished.

“PMI?”

“I think she may have died after 1940.”

“May have?”

“Yes.”

Following a long stretch of dead air, Lizzie asked, “You’ve cut specimens?”

“One dental, one bone.”

“Sounds like low odds.”

“But worth a shot?”

“All the good ones are.”

“I’ll overnight the samples by FedEx. Same address?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Do you need payment up front?”

“I can bill your ME.”

“Do that. I’ve had to sell her my soul to fund this testing.”

“Gotta admire your dedication, girl.”

We were on Chain Bridge Road when Zanetti posed his next question.

“What did you make of Ivy’s W-C Commerce news?”

“I think it shifts focus away from the victims and onto the landlords.”

“Meaning the property owners were the targets?”

“That could be, though it seems a stretch that arsonists aiming at owners wouldn’t take more care to not set fire to tenants. Still, two houses owned by the same holding company in the same neighborhood catching fire or being torched within days of each other hardly seems random. Tell me if this sounds crazy. I’m thinking the W-C in the name stands for Warring-Cady.”

“And that said targets are somehow associated with the Foggy Bottom Gang? Maybe members of the Warring or Cady family? Doesn’t sound crazy at all, except for the tenants winding up as casualties. That part looks pretty inept.”

“It would be awesome if Ivy could verify ownership.”

“Trust me, she’s all over this, and she’s amazing. She told me that W-C Commerce has no website or social media presence, so most of her internet searches have gone nowhere. But she’s checking free databases and subscription databases and looking for official records, court records, that sort of thing. And she belongs to an outfit called the Global Investigative Journalism Network .”

“You’re confident she’ll come up with names?”

“That or she’ll find someone who can.”

The moon was new, the wooded land beyond my window a shapeless dark void.

The house was quiet as a crypt.

I was still awake at midnight, skimming more of Doyle’s photocopied articles. When a voice spoke from the doorway, I nearly jumped out of my skin.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“No, no. I’m good.” Willing my heart back into my chest.

“I saw your light and thought you might still be awake.”

“Mm.”

“After the last broadcast I need time to wind down.”

“I think Ben’s gone to bed.”

“Too early for me. I can never fall asleep much before three.”

Not awaiting an invitation, Doyle crossed the room and dropped into the excessively shaggy chair. “Ben and I spoke briefly. He said you and I are tracking along the same lines.”

“Given that both homes belong to the same holding company?”

“OMG. I never sent you the Aaronson scene photos, did I?”

“No biggie.” I’d forgotten all about them.

She reached into her bag and withdrew her mobile. A few thumb strokes, then the images landed on my phone. I created an album and saved them to it.

“Finding anything of interest in that muddle?” Stretching out her legs, a very long stretch, Doyle cocked her chin at my piles.

“This and that.”

“Any hot new hypotheses?”

I shared my speculation about W-C.

“You’re thinking someone might dislike Warring or Cady enough to burn down houses?”

“Such a grudge would require some very long-standing resentment and some carefully selected targets.”

“True.” She recrossed her ankles. “What about an issue with the current owners of W-C Commerce?”

“Whoever they are.”

“Whoever they are.”

Doyle finally left at one-fifteen, off in search of a nightcap.

I did a quick toilette, then crawled into bed.

Before turning off the lights, I skimmed the images Doyle had just sent. No reason. An exercise to help me “wind down” as she’d put it.

The pics were as I remembered.

The first was a close-up of the two-story townhome with its bay window and bright red door. Smoke and flames upstairs. Ladder. Brick steps and walkway. Hoses crisscrossing a trampled lawn.

The second was a wider-angle view. Rainbow row houses lining a narrow, cobbled street.

The third was taken with the lens facing away from the fire. Same block, better sense of the chaos. Fire equipment and personnel. Gawkers. Patrol units. Yellow police tape.

Switching my phone to silent mode, I turned off the light.

Suddenly I was wide awake.

For one unnerving moment, I had no idea where I was.

Then recognition.

Chez Doyle.

I felt sweaty and anxious.

Why?

An overload of soy and raw fish?

No. The agitation was due to another barely remembered nighttime drama.

Why was my subconscious nagging me now?

Lying in the dark, I struggled to reassemble the ephemeral fragments.

It seemed my id was processing its most recent intake. As usual.

In the first scrap of dream, I was inside the Aaronson town house. Walking alone from room to room.

In the next, I was out on the street.

I passed two identical boys with two identical dogs.

“Don’t do it,” the first boy said.

“Don’t do what?” I asked.

“There’s a car parked behind you, another in front.”

“I’ll find the key.”

“You’re trapped.”

New scrap. I was alone again, moving from vehicle to vehicle, nose to the windows, hands to either side of my face.

Sonofabitch!

I went bolt upright.

The clock said two-forty-seven.

Heart hammering, I grabbed my phone. Opened the album containing the Aaronson scene pics. Expanded the second image with my thumb and finger.

Yes!

I fired off a text to Doyle.

I’ve got something.

She answered immediately.

What?

Come up to my room.

Give me ten.

Enough time for me to hop on the net.

She arrived in slippers and a long satin robe.

“Look at this,” I said, holding out my phone.

She took the device and studied the image.

“So?”

“Look again.”

She did.

The aquamarine eyes rolled up to mine.