Robert Walker - Extreme Instinct

"Why didn't the water sprinklers go off?" she asked, seeing the sprinkler was intact. "Or has it been repaired, too?"

"It was found to be faulty. Something doing with the wiring," said Sheriff Colby, raising his shoulders.

"If you all here were so sure that the death was accidental, why did you call the FBI, Sheriff?"

"I never called no FBI. FBI called us about six-forty yesterday morn."

"I see." She recalled Bishop's note, the time of the Phantom's last call, and realized the killer had directed Bishop's move.

J. T., searching about the room, announced, "Jess, there's no telephone in this room."

Jessica looked about. She had to agree. "Was there a phone in the room with the body?" asked Jessica. "Has that been removed, too?"

The sheriff grabbed at his beard and shook his head. "No, never was any phone in the room. She didn't have a telephone in her room. Cost less for her that way."

J. T. took her aside and whispered, "Must've been frustrating for him, Jess, not to be able to share with you at the time he wanted to. Couldn't put Flanders on the phone to beg for her life from you. Then he had to wait all day and all night to tell you about Flanders."

"Yeah, very inconsiderate of the victim and me, wouldn't you say?" she replied to J. T., then turned and spoke to Colby, asking, "Where was the killer's phone call to Vegas made from, then?''

"I don't know nothing about that, but there's a public phone down in the lobby, which is being dusted for prints but that's kinda crazy since it's public, but the other rooms have phones in them. The killer, if there was a killer here, coulda called from another room, his room, if he had a room here, if there was a killer, that is."

Jessica bit her tongue before saying, ''Believe me, she was murdered, Sheriff. Look, tell me why didn't Flanders have a phone in here."

"It's just that folks who work here don't get 'em, you see."

"What time of day or night was the body discovered?" asked J. T.

''Just after the lunch crowd was thinning out. She complained of not feeling well, cramps, I'm told, so she was going to lie down till the evening dinner rush and come back on duty."

"Anyone see her with a man?" J. T. continued to interrogate the sheriff.

"No, just the usual customer-waitress cuttin' up, you know."

"Meaning?"

"Well, Muriel was a flirt, they tell me. Some say she was after a man, any man."

J. T. nodded at this and asked, "Were there any signs of booze in the room?"

"Couple of empty beer cans, yeah."

"And I'm sure the cans are history now, too." Jessica stepped between J. T. and Colby, asking, ''Any pictures taken of the scene before it was broken down, Sheriff?"

"Thought you'd want to see how it looked, so I brought 'em," he replied with a mild show of pride, spreading them along the small bureau, which did not have a mirror. Jessica guessed that the mirror, too, was being replaced.

Jessica and J. T. studied the crime scene photos, taking their time while the sheriff made comments. ''We took it as accidental, you see. Had no reason to suspect murder. Firemen thought it accidental, or possibly a suicide, but nobody thought it homicide, no. Not at the time."

The photos were not up to standard, most of them too dark, making Jessica squint over each.

J. T. questioned, ''Hard to tell much from these photos. Was she found nude?''

"Yes, sir." Colby's grimace was a sign of his embarrassment and hurt by the entire sordid affair. "She was. Things like this, murder and burning up a woman's body… things like this just don't happen around here."

"And her clothes, were they burned along with her?" pressed J. T.

"That's right." Colby's face lit with surprise at J. T.'s magical knowledge.

''Tucked on either side of her?'' J. T. continued to amaze.

"Yes, sir, they were."

"Any odor of gasoline?" asked Jessica.

"None so's it was noticeable, no, but I'm no fire expert neither…"

Jessica came upon a photo of the mirror in the bathroom. "The words written on the mirror were in the bathroom?"

"Across the medicine cabinet, yes."

"Hard to decipher from the photograph," she said, but the pinched lettering read: "#2 is #8-Malicious Frauds."

"It's him, all right," she announced. "Look at this, J. T."

"That'd be my guess," he replied on seeing the photo.

"We'll want to interview the house staff and authorities, including fire personnel who saw the scene before the body was removed, before the clean-up when the writing on the mirror still smelled of animal fat," she informed Colby.

Colby's flexible features contorted into confusion now. He repeated her words, '' 'Animal fat'?'' Then he quickly added, "Yes, ma'am, ahhh, Doctor."

"And where can we find the bed and the body now?"

"Body's still at the hospital morgue, some thirty miles away, in a freezer, but the bed, well, it's six feet under."

"Six feet under?"

"Somewhere out at the landfill. No way to retrieve it."

Jessica gritted her teeth, saying, "Where there's a back-hoe, there's a way."

J. T. joked, "You want to exhume a mattress and box spring?"

"Maybe that'd be a little over the top, huh?" she asked.

J. T. laughed. "Yeah, Jess, just a bit."

They were about to leave when Jessica noticed that the carpet was dirty with grime brought in on shoes. "The carpet hasn't been replaced," she said. "Let's take a section from near the bed, have it analyzed for accelerants." Jessica went to the spot she felt most likely helpful, and taking out a marker from her valise, she created a square some two by two feet where a fire burn had taken out a chunk of carpet now hidden by the new bed. Apparently the owners hadn't been able to get in new carpeting as quickly as everything else.

"Get someone with a carpet cutter to take this square out," Jessica was saying when she noticed a scorched, barely recognizable piece of paper just below the bed. "What's this?" she asked no one in particular.

The two men came closer to watch her dig out her tweezers. Using the tweezers, she lifted the crumpled fleck of blackened paper residue and gently slipped it into a plastic bag, also taken from her valise. The paper measured only a few centimeters.

"What is it?" asked Colby.

"Something overlooked by both authorities and the maids. It may've come from the killer, and it appears to be what's left of a negative."

"A negative?" asked J. T., leaning in for a closer look.

"Could be from our photo guy. He's a mite careless," suggested Colby.

"Seems everyone hereabouts is a mite careless," Jessica sarcastically added. "What kind of camera was your guy using?''

"Minolta, thirty-five millimeters."

"Then this isn't from his camera, I can assure you. It's from an Instamatic."

"You mean he-the killer-takes pictures of them as they burn?" asked J. T.

Again Colby winced. "That's disgusting."

J. T. put a hand on Jessica's shoulder and he leaned in near her, saying, "We need to do a quick check, make sure no one, including insurance agents, has been in the room for photos using a cheap Polaroid with self-developing film."

"No-don't you see, J. T.? This film was in the fire. Proving it was here when she died," Jessica assured her friend.

"We don't have sophisticated enough equipment here to determine what that fleck of paper means," Colby assured them.

"We'll send it back to Quantico for analysis," J. T. informed Colby, and on closer inspection, both she and J. T. felt certain that it represented a remnant of a burning negative from a Polaroid camera, likely belonging to the killer.

Jessica stared at the clue as if it could speak to her.

Outside, in the hallway, Jessica took J. T. aside and said, "It's no accident, his leaving this trail of bread crumbs, here the film, there the footprint."