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“Whoever did it wasn’t trying to be subtle,” Lucas said. He held open the door to the third-floor hallway. “It’s clear arson. Didn’t even need the fire investigator to tell us that.”
Grady paused in the doorway with a scowl. “What makes you say that?”
“The burns on the floor of the apartment we strongly suspect it started in.”
“So?”
“So, when it’s an accident, the fire rises, and you’ll find most of the burn damage is on the ceiling. It whooshes up and spreads from there,” Lucas said, using his hands for emphasis as he explained. “This was the other way around. The accelerant—in this case it was gasoline, which, not original, but it does get the job done—was spread out across the carpet, like they were deliberately making sure it was going to do maximum damage and take the building with it.”
“How do you know it wasn’t just a spill?” Grady asked.
“The lines of accelerant show they poured it from the kitchen, to the lounge, to the bedroom. Trust me, Donehue, this was arson, and whoever did it wasn’t fucking around. Not to mention that the smoke detector in that apartment had been disabled. They wanted the building to burn, they wanted it to be fast, and they didn’t want anyone to be warned about it.”
Arson and murder. Not Quinn’s favourite combination.
Allery was the only person inside the apartment that Lucas led them to. It was being guarded by a uniformed cop and a firefighter. “Guarding” was a loose term, but they were outside, and no one would get in without their permission. Quinn figured the firey was there to ensure that everything stayed safe while the forensic team did their job. The last thing they needed was for anyone to fall through the floor.
If there was actually a forensic team inside. One person a team did not make.
“Where’s the rest of your team?” Grady asked, obviously thinking the same thing.
Allery glanced up at him and went back to taking crispy samples that made Quinn grimace. “Nothing is ever guaranteed, and a half-burned-out building is just asking for trouble. If it collapses and we all die, then at least I’m the only one they’ll need to replace.”
“That’s… so reassuring,” Grady said. “How would they ever manage without your wit?”
She let out an exhausted breath. “It’ll be hard.”
Quinn glanced around the room. “You said something about accelerants?”
“Oh, not this room,” Lucas said. “Fire was started in thenextapartment.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Why kill someone in one apartment and then start a fire in another?” Quinn asked. Wouldn’t it make more sense to do it all in one place?
“I thought you were the detective, man.”
Quinn sighed. “What do we have?” he asked Allery. “Lucas said you think he was dead before the fire started? Neck injuries?”
“Precision strikes to his neck, to be exact. There would have been a lot of blood spray, though the evidence is gone now.” She pointed around the neck with a gloved finger. “Clean cuts. He would have been dead before he hit the ground. From the angle, I’d say they came at him from the back. Surprised him. I doubt he put up any kind of fight.” She gestured at the rest of him. “Even without that, his positioning doesn’t say to me that he tried to get away from the fire.”
“Why do you say that?” Grady asked.
“In cases of victims in a house fire, you can find them near doors or in bathrooms, close to the ground, where they’ve tried to limit their contact with the fire. The smoke inhalation will get them first, but you can see what they’ve tried to do to save themselves. You’d be amazed what people will do when trying to survive.”
Amazed and sad.
Quinn pulled a pair of gloves from his pocket and slipped them on as he crouched beside her. “Any other injuries you can see?”
“Apart from the fact he’s been overdone on the barbecue?”
“Yes, apart from that,” Quinn said dryly. It didn’t really need to be said, did it?
“Nothing that I’ve noted so far. Maybe we’ll know more after we do an autopsy. If we find anything useful, I’ll get it to you straightaway.”
“No phone or wallet on him,” Quinn remarked, glancing over the corpse. While everything had been burned away, items such as a phone, ring, watch, or anything of the kind would still be identifiable. “Anything in the apartment?” It was possible that a wallet could still have enough intact inside it—depending on the make—that they could attempt an ID.
“Not that we could find,” Allery said.
“Wallet, maybe; people forget their wallets all the time,” Grady said. “But a phone? No fuckin’ way.”
