J. Konrath - Rusty Nail

“Are you sure?”

“Check for yourself.”

He found the appropriate page in the color book and placed the paint flakes on the swatch. Looked like a match to me.

“Thanks, Mitch.”

I used my cell to call the station. Herb hadn’t come in today, so I gave instructions to Detective Maggie Mason, who was a comer in Violent Crimes due to good instincts and a lack of any sort of social life. Like me.

“Late model Mitsubishi Eclipse, color gray, first two plate numbers Delta one. Call me when you get the search results.”

If there turned out to be too many to track down, I could get a team to start calling repair shops, to see if anyone came in to replace their side mirrors.

My next stop was Diane Kork’s house. It was in much better shape than I would have guessed, considering the inferno of the night before. The only evidence a fire had occurred were some black scorch marks on the brick, and plywood sheets nailed over the windows and doors to discourage looting.

I stood staring for a moment, wondering how the hell I’d get inside, when luck winked at me and a woman in an OSFM Windbreaker appeared from the backyard, walking a German shepherd.

I flashed my badge.

“Lieutenant Daniels, Violent Crimes. You with the office?”

The woman nodded, offering a hand. She was pear-shaped, short, with large blue eyes.

I hesitated, keeping one eye on the dog, which was the size of a small bear.

“Jeanna Davidson, arson investigator. Don’t mind Kevlar. He’s a sweetheart.”

The sweetheart yawned, showing me enough teeth to swallow a Volkswagen. I shook Jeanna’s hand slowly, to avoid getting mauled.

“I’m guessing this was arson.”

Jeanna nodded. “Kevlar sniffed out the accelerant. Burn pattern suggests gasoline. Were you the one we rescued?”

“Yeah. Thanks for that. Do you mind if I poke around inside?”

“Sure. Structure’s stable. Want a tour?”

“If it’s okay with Kevlar.”

We went around back and Jeanna walked up the porch. The rear entry had a makeshift door nailed to it, with a standard latch and padlock. Jeanna opened it and switched on a Maglite.

Unlike the exterior, the inside was an unholy mess. What wasn’t burned black had been soaked with water. Gray puddles (closer to Magnesium than Titanium Pearl) spread across the kitchen floor, each pool several inches deep. Jeanna led me into the dining room, and I knelt in the doorway and searched the charred floor.

“Looking for anything in particular?”

“Bullet casings. Someone shot at me from here.”

“Do you have any bullets on you?”

“In my gun.”

“Show one to Kevlar.”

I unholstered my.38 and removed a round, passing it over to Jeanna. She held it before the dog’s nose.

“Kevlar, scent.”

The German shepherd sniffed the bullet, which easily could have fit into one of his huge nostrils.

“Kevlar, find.”

She unclipped his leash and the dog shuffled off, snorting here and there.

“Kevlar is one of four dogs in the state’s canine arson unit. I’ve been handling him since he was a puppy.”

Jeanna spoke with the inflection of a proud mother. Since she was helping me, I made with the small talk.

“How long have you worked for the Office of the State Fire Marshal?”

“Seven years. I bring Kev in on maybe thirty investigations a year.”

“Are there many deliberate cases?”

“Last year the office investigated over a thousand. About four hundred confirmed arson. Usually we don’t need the dogs – the signs are obvious, like in here. See how this patch of carpet burned away hotter than that patch? Gas spill.”

“So why bring Kevlar along if you already know it’s arson?”

“He hates being left out.”

Kevlar whined, and Jeanna focused the flashlight on the floor in front of him. I gave the dog a pat on the head and found what he’d been sniffing: a shell casing.

“Good boy, Kevlar.”

Jeanna hugged the bear, and I dug a plastic bag from my jeans and coaxed in the cartridge.

“There might be others,” I said. “Do you mind if I borrow the flashlight?”

Jeanna handed it over and pulled a smaller, slimmer model out of her jacket. Then she commanded the dog to find more bullets. Useful dog. Much more useful than a cat.

I wandered back into the kitchen, tripping over the curtains that had almost been my shroud the night before. I played the Maglite over the entire room. Nothing jumped out at me.

I crept into the living room, and then the dining room, my Nikes quickly becoming waterlogged. The house had gone from Dante’s Inferno to the Addams family, dark and damp and creepy, filled with long shadows and unpleasant odors. Near the wall in the dining room stood a strange-looking pile, and I nudged it with a wet toe and saw part of a handle.

A suitcase.

I squatted and picked through the cinders. Everything was burned pretty good, but two things stood out. The first was a five-inch flat wire, curved into a half-moon shape. The second was a congealed knot that I recognized immediately by its distinctive smell.

Human hair.

“Did you find something?”

“Maybe. Can you check the cabinets in the kitchen, see if any garbage bags survived the fire?”

“Sure. Watch Kevlar for me.”

More poking produced nothing but ash and melted globs. I’d take it back for the lab guys to interpret.

Jeanna found a bag, Kevlar didn’t find any more shells, and I spent another half an hour bumping around in the dark before calling it quits and heading out into the fresh air.

I placed the wet bag in my trunk and called Mason.

“How’s the search for the car going?”

“Narrowed it down to six gray Mitsubishi Eclipses with Illinois plates beginning with D one. Ran priors on five of the registered owners, came up clean except for traffic violations.”

“Send out some squads to visually check the cars for missing mirrors. What about the sixth?”

“Owned by a car rental place.”

She gave me the address, on Irving Park. It wasn’t too far, so I decided to check it out.

The office was typical for Chicago; a tiny building next to a cramped parking lot crammed with vehicles. The lobby was the size of my closet. A stained coffeemaker with a quarter-full carafe sat next to the unoccupied counter. A floor plant, brown and shriveled up, sat in an oversized plastic pot, next to a magazine rack that contained a single copy of Car and Driver and nothing else. I rang the bell.

“Just a second.”

He took his time. I stared at the coffee, cooking away on the warmer, probably since the morning. Against my better judgment I poured myself a Styrofoam cupful. It had the consistency of mud, which was pretty much how it tasted.

Should have trusted my better judgment.

I dumped it on the dead plant. Probably wasn’t the first to do it. Probably was the reason the plant had died.

“Help you?”

The guy was older, several days’ growth of beard on his face, grease embedded in his wrinkles and fingernails. He wore equally stained overalls, and a sewn-on name tag that said Al .

I flashed my star.

“Have you rented out a gray Mitsubishi Eclipse lately?”

He stared, then shook his head.

“Nope.” Then he said, “I did rent out a Titanium Pearl Eclipse, though.”

I bit back my first response.

“We have reason to believe it was involved in an accident. Can you show me who rented it?”

“Lemme get the book.”

Al plodded off, and eventually plodded back, nose pressed into a cracked binder. This time he had on a pair of bifocals thicker than ice cubes.

“Rented it out last week to a fella named Mayer. Mike Mayer.”