“You don’t have to go inside.”
Maggie hadn’t gone into the previous buildings. Ling was right. She didn’t have to go into this one either. But this arsonist was accelerating at an unpredictable speed. If she wanted to understand him and know how to catch him, she would have to look at the crime scene herself.
“I need to see what he does.”
Dr. Ling stared at her for almost a minute. Then she nodded and headed for the burned-out entrance. Before going in, Ling stopped, opened her duffel bag, and pulled out two pairs of tightly rolled up Tyvek coveralls. She handed one to Maggie.
“I always carry extra.”
A firefighter had given Maggie a pair of fire boots when she arrived. She had slipped them over her leather flats and they still felt like clown shoes on her feet. She kicked them off to pull on the Tyvek coveralls.
Both women rolled up their sleeves and pant cuffs. Maggie folded and placed their jackets in the duffel bag. She stuffed her feet back into the boots while Dr. Ling tugged on a pair of her own. Ling continued her preparation, slipping on a pair of goggles and letting them dangle from her neck; then came thin leather gloves and knee pads, the latter making her look like a baseball catcher.
Maggie slapped on a navy-blue FBI ball cap just as Ling asked, “Ready?”
Inside, ATF investigator Brad Ivan stood between the fire chief, who towered over him, and Julia Racine. When Ivan saw Maggie, he tucked his chin and shook his head like somehow this was all her fault. Maggie followed Ling’s careful steps to the pile of rubble that had attracted the investigator’s attention. In the middle lay what looked like a thick wood door.
The fire chief looked at Ling and immediately began in an apologetic tone, “We came in this way. I’m afraid we stepped right on top of them.”
The debris still smoldered and it took Maggie a moment to make out shapes. A skull with hollow eye sockets that stared up at the ceiling. Beneath the charred piece of wood Maggie could see a long, blackened bone. Then suddenly she could differentiate others poking up out of the rubble.
Flashes of light startled her. Ling had a camera and was busy carefully maneuvering around the group. Quietly and patiently nudging them back without saying a word.
“We didn’t lift anything off the bodies yet,” the fire chief said.
“That’s great. You did good.” And even in her own zone, Ling remained polite. She pocketed the camera and looked up at the fire chief. “Can you help me move this large piece of wood?”
No one moved while the two slowly lifted the charred and crumbling wood. Before they set it down, Racine let out a gasp.
“Jesus! How many people do you think are under here?”
“They were trying to get out through this exit.”
Maggie counted four more skulls. One body was contorted into what she knew was called the pugilistic posture, a boxer on his side. Muscles reacting to being sucked of oxygen pulled the arms up toward the shoulders, leaving the hands fisted and legs bent at the knees, like a boxer ready to deliver a punch. She had only read about it until now. It meant the victim was still alive when the flames burned through the skin, making it tighten and split open, causing the muscles to clench. Alive but overcome by smoke inhalation. Thankfully carbon monoxide builds up in the blood rapidly and causes loss of consciousness.
Again Maggie caught herself thinking of her father. This was what he would have looked like had one of his fellow firefighters not pulled him out. As a child she didn’t understand why he looked the way that he did in his coffin. His face looked painted and his eyebrows were gone. He seemed peaceful except for the crinkle of plastic underneath his suit. It wasn’t until years later than she learned that when most of the skin and muscle have been burned away, morticians have to wrap the body—arms and legs—in plastic to keep the embalming fluid from leaking out.
Dr. Ling took her last photo, the flash bringing Maggie’s focus back to the pile of bones and ash.
“I need to do this slowly,” Ling told them, ready to begin and ready for them to leave. She started bringing out plastic containers and paper bags, a garden trowel, a short-handled whisk brush, and an ordinary dust pan. “A couple of technicians will be joining me.”
“Can we help you bag the larger pieces?” Ivan offered, while Maggie had already started stepping back, ready to escape.
“Actually, I save the torso for last. Taking the big pieces first tends to break up and disrupt the smaller ones.”
Ling brushed at the closest skull, revealing more pieces of bone. She carefully picked up each and placed them in a plastic box she had already labeled. Maggie had become so focused, so fascinated, by Ling’s small gloved hands, their movement confident and intent, that she had almost forgotten about her own purpose for being here until Racine tugged at her elbow.