Chapter 11 Cosi
Cosi
Tonight was one of those dark nights where the world was black and white and every shade of gray in between. The clouds had parted enough to let through a sliver of light from a crescent moon. It was a night meant to be colorless.
It was one of those quiet and peaceful dark nights ruined by red and blue flashing lights.
The bright strobes from Chuck’s cruiser colored the snow in Ilsa’s yard.
Every light was on in the cabin, the yellow hue seeping from her windows.
The heap of orange coals—what used to be Ike’s shed—was smoldering, the hot red fading beneath charred clumps.
The lingering flames wouldn’t survive to see the dawn.
Ilsa’s call to the station had come just after midnight.
But by the time Chuck and the volunteer firefighting crew had made it out to Cotters Lake, there’d been no point in trying to extinguish the fire.
Not only was the lake covered in a thick sheet of ice, making it difficult to get to water, but that shed had gone up like dried kindling.
The crew had made sure the fire didn’t spread to the house, and with all of the snow, it had been easy to contain. The guys had been standing around the blaze, each with a shovel in hand, when I’d arrived at the scene ten minutes ago.
Chuck had radioed me at home after Ilsa had called in the fire.
It had taken me a few minutes to get dressed and wake up Spencer, letting him know I had to leave.
Years ago, I would have had to load him up and take him to Mom’s.
Now, he was old enough to stay home alone for a couple of hours, not that I liked leaving him in the dead of night.
But this was not a call I was going to delegate to my deputies.
I hadn’t seen Ilsa yet. Chuck had told her to wait inside, to get out of the cold. As soon as I finished getting an update, I’d head inside myself.
“Did you look around?” I asked.
“Not yet. Wanted to wait until you got here. Once we realized there wasn’t anything to do but keep the fire contained, I asked everyone to limit where they walked.”
“Good.” Still, there were footprints everywhere around the shed.
According to Chuck’s recap, Ilsa had been in bed, the cabin dark, when she’d seen a flicker of light on her wall. Someone had approached the house carrying a flashlight. The next thing she’d known, the shed was on fire, and she’d called the station.
“I’ll take it from here,” I told Chuck. “Head back to the station. Write up a report. Leave it on my desk. I’ll review it in the morning.”
“I’m happy to stay and help you look around,” Chuck said, his teeth chattering.
He was tall and lanky, almost six nine, and naturally thin.
Even standing close to the fire, the cold had probably already seeped to his core.
All he was wearing were a pair of jeans and his black department coat.
No hat to cover his red hair. No gloves for his bony fingers.
Chuck was only twenty-four, and I’d told him no less than a hundred times to wear long johns this time of year, but he griped that they chafed. Some days, I felt more like a parent than employer to these younger deputies.
Part of me wanted to leave him out here. Let him get so cold that he’d heed my advice from now on. But as his lips began to take on a blueish tint, I jerked my chin toward his cruiser. “I’m sure. Go warm up.”
“Thanks, boss.” He hurried to his car, shutting himself inside the cab. The engine was still running, and his hands immediately lifted to the air vents.
“I think we’re good to take off, Cosi,” one of the firefighters said.
“Yeah.” I lifted a hand. “Thanks for hurrying out.”
“No problem.”
With that, the three-man crew trudged through the snow for their truck.
I waited until both vehicles disappeared down the road. Once the sound of their engines faded to nothing, all that remained was the pop of the fire and the slight rustling of evergreen branches.
Tugging a pair of leather gloves from my coat pocket, I fitted them over my hands.
Then I crouched to the snow, studying the tread of Chuck’s boots so I could rule it out from the others.
I did the same with the tracks left behind by the firefighters.
And once I had their prints memorized, I inched toward the fire, assessing and dismissing any familiar prints as well as taking in the rubble.
The snow was trampled in a ring around the fire, about five feet away from the blaze.
They’d worn a path between the shed and house.
But the rest of the area was mostly undisturbed.
Good thinking on Chuck’s part to limit foot traffic.
The kid might not be great at taking details over the phone, but when he was on a scene, he had strong instincts.
The smell of smoke and gasoline filled my nostrils as I moved closer to the shed’s dwindling remains. A metal gas can was tipped on its side, the lid nowhere to be seen. The sides were intact, so there must not have been much fuel inside. Otherwise, it would have exploded.
My boots sank in the snow as I circled the shed, getting close enough to see metal debris buried in the ash. The side of a toolbox. The head of a rake. The blade of a shovel. With the toe of my boot, I pushed a charred board aside, finding nothing beneath.
As sparks floated into the night, I inched around the building’s footprint toward the back, where a different smell hit my nostrils.
Not gas, but diesel. Fresh. Pungent. It mingled with the smoke.
I pulled a small flashlight from my pocket, illuminating the snow. It was mostly undisturbed, pristine and smooth.
The walls of the shed had all collapsed inward, folding toward the center of the blaze. The roof had capsized into the heart of the fire too. There was a single corner post that hadn’t completely fallen. It was broken in half and the outer edge was still brown, unmarred by the fire.
Around that corner post, the snow wasn’t the smooth blanket like it was in the yard. It was mottled and dimpled. The trees above had suffered the heat from the fire, and the snow on their branches had melted, plopping to the ground.
I swept my light back and forth over the area, searching for tracks. The scent of diesel was stronger, and it was only by chance that my light caught a string of red dots. I bent, touching my finger to one of the dots before lifting it to my nose.
Dyed diesel.
As far as I knew, Ike didn’t have any equipment that would need dyed diesel. His boat’s motor was gas.
My heart rate spiked, my senses going on full alert, as I stood and followed the direction of those dots as they disappeared into a nearby bush.
The branches were bare, the heat defrosting them too. The underbrush was unruly and dense, left wild to grow on the shoreline.
I swept my flashlight back and forth, my gaze following the beam, as I searched through the bramble for any sign of another person. Except it all looked the same, and in the night, it was nearly impossible to make out anything but clumps of snow.
“Damn it,” I muttered. Not again. This couldn’t be the third time I’d come up here because of Ilsa’s call only to tell her there were no signs of another person.
This wasn’t a hoax. This wasn’t a paranoid woman living in the wilderness alone. There was a knot in my gut that screamed something was wrong.
But this investigation might have to wait until daylight.
I was about to turn back, to check on Ilsa and get her side of the story for myself, when two grooves in a narrow space between bushes caught my attention.
They could have come from an animal. A deer or elk cutting through the foliage. Or they could have come from a person. The lines in the snow stopped three feet away from the far edge of the shed, from that post that hadn’t entirely burned and the drops of dyed diesel.
It could have been close enough for someone to toss diesel on a shed wall, then strike a match.
I traced the trail through the bushes, away from the cabin and the lake, toward the edge of Ike’s property and the taller trees of the forest. “Gotcha.”
A surge of adrenaline raced through my veins as I set off to follow, picking up the trail about fifteen yards away.
I sidestepped the tracks, making sure I didn’t disturb them as they made a straight line to the trees.
The snow came up to my knees, giving a slight whoosh as I walked.
It was so cold that the flakes were light, holding no weight from water.
It was deep, but it didn’t take much effort to wade through the drifts.
Behind me, my path began to collapse on itself, hiding some of the evidence of my footsteps.
If the wind picked up tonight, it would blow the featherlight snow everywhere and cover up these tracks by morning. Maybe the person who’d been sneaking around Ilsa’s was counting on it.
The trail neared a towering tree where the branches had shielded the ground from some of the snow. Enough that there was a single, perfect imprint in the snow.
A boot with horizontal treads about the same size as mine pointed the opposite direction. He’d followed the exact same path to and from the cabin.
Not a deer. Not an elk. Some fucker tormenting Ilsa.
I picked up my pace, following the trail deeper and deeper into the forest. My pulse pounded in my ears, my eyes continually shifting from the ground to my surroundings.
Sweat beaded at my temples beneath my wool cap and my muscles warmed.
I wasn’t sure how far I’d gone, but when the trail turned toward the lake, it didn’t take long before I hit the shoreline.
And that’s when the trail stopped.
The snow had blown off the lake enough to reveal wide, clear stretches of ice. Whoever had gone to Ilsa’s knew this area well to know there’d be nothing to follow once they hit the lake.
“Fuck.” My chest heaved as I planted my hands on my hips. A breeze hit my face, the sheen of sweat turning cold. And the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as a shiver trickled down my spine.