“Yeah, well, you look great.”
Taylor blushed and turned away. She knew he was full of it, but didn’t argue. The mark of a true southern belle: Never put aside a compliment. She ran her hands through her hair, smoothed the mass into a messy ponytail. Gave him a smile.
Though it had been several hours since the fire, the reek of burnt flesh was pervasive, even without the bodies present. Taylor had been smoking all night trying to get the smell out of her nose. She’d succeeded only in giving herself a sore throat. Her voice had lowered an octave. The chill, the smoke, and the slight cold were catching up to her. She popped two Advil Cold & Sinus pills out of their blister pack and swallowed them down with the remnants of coffee sloshing around her cup. She wrinkled her nose; it had gone cold.
Baldwin rubbed his hands together and shoved them deep in the pockets of his jeans. “Do you think they’re about done in there? I’m getting hungry.”
“They should be. Let’s go check with the chief, see what’s keeping them.” They started toward the entry of the nave, but the fire chief walked out before she could reach the doors. He greeted her with a tired smile.
“Lieutenant Jackson. Long night. You’ve been freezing your tush off the whole time?”
“Yep. Fire Chief Andrew Rove, meet Dr. John Baldwin, FBI. He’s working the case with us.”
They shook, and the chief said, “FBI, huh? Well, you’ll want to know this is, without a doubt, arson. The combustible gas detector found gasoline was used as an accelerant near the confessional. Jackson, your Crime Scene techs are trying to lift some prints from the priest’s office; it looks like there were people in there before the fire started. Tea for three, laid out on the coffee table. How very civilized.”
“Tea for three. But only two bodies. The victims knew their killer,” Baldwin said.
“Could be. We didn’t find anything leftover, no gas cans, no rope, nothin’. Place is clean as a whistle except for the office. We’re pulling out now, there’s nothing more for us to do.”
“Thanks, Chief. I look forward to the report.”
With a nod and a small salute, he went to his truck.
Tim Davis, Sam’s death investigator on the scene, walked out of the church with several bags in his hands. Taylor jogged over to him. “Anything worthwhile?”
“I managed to pick up prints off two of the teacups. Unfortunately, the third was clean, still full of tea. Untouched. There was some liquid left in the two that I printed. I’ll run it through the mass spectrometer and see what turns up. And I’ll get these prints over to Lincoln. If I were a betting man, I’d wager they belong to our vics, so there may be nothing to compare them to if we can’t lift something off their hands. Third cup was probably the person who set the fire. Didn’t want to leave any traces behind.”
Taylor chewed on that for a minute. Baldwin was silent. She could see the wheels turning in his head.
“Good work. Get out of here, Tim. Thanks for everything.”
He waved his bags at her and walked away. Taylor turned to Baldwin, confusion settling in her eyes. She needed some time to think about what had happened. “Wanna get some breakfast?”
He looked deep into her eyes, recognizing the frustration she was feeling. “Yeah, let’s do that. I’m starved. My mama always told me, ‘When in doubt, eat.’”
They made their way to the car and headed out. They took the back roads past the huge homes in Belle Meade into Green Hills, skirted the morning traffic down Hillsboro Road, and pulled into the parking lot of the Pancake Pantry, a well-established staple for breakfast in Nashville. The restaurant was so popular that an hour wait was not uncommon, but on this brisk morning, the line was blessedly absent. They had to wait ten minutes for the doors to open, both standing with hands in their pockets against the cold. Baldwin moved closer to shelter her from the worst of the breeze. Taylor leaned against him gratefully, happy for the contact as much as the warmth of his body.
When the hostess finally came to unlock the doors, Baldwin held the door for Taylor. Inside, she caught a glimpse of a flyer in the window. The poster featured a large picture of a smiling Jill Gates. The headline read Have You Seen Jilly? Under her picture were her vital statistics, what she was last seen wearing, and the phone number to the tip line. Taylor felt all the breath being sucked out of her body.