Faye Kellerman - The Burnt House

Decker opened his eyes and took in a deep breath. “You can do it if you want.”

Rina took the papers that had landed on his lap and chucked them onto the floor. “Turn off the light and let’s go to sleep.”

No sense arguing with logic. Decker reached over to his nightstand table lamp and turned it off. He slithered under the sheets and slapped his forearm over his brow. “What time is it?”

Rina plumped up her pillow before settling down into bed. “A little past eleven.”

“You’re married to an old man.”

“I know. I was dying to go clubbing and you spoiled everything.” She stroked his arm. “What fascinating tidbit of police-science reading had you so captivated?”

Decker smiled in the dark and took his arm off his eyes. “I was going over a list of tenants that had resided in the now-destroyed Seacrest apartment from 1974 to 1983.”

“You’re trying to find your Jane Doe among those names?”

“Exactly. I’ve verified about half the people on my roster. I was just going over the rest of the names to see if something jumped out at me.”

“Like what?”

“A familiar person from an old high-profile case of long ago.”

“Were you with LAPD as far back as ’74?”

“Yes I was, but not homicide. Juvenile and sex crimes.” Again, he smiled. “As you may recall.”

“Yes, I recall something about that.” She rolled next to him and snuggled against his arm. “Wow. It seems like ages ago that we met.”

He put his arm around her shoulder and drew her close to his chest. “What a glorious day it was. I was doing my best Jack Webb and you didn’t appreciate it.”

“I did so. I thought you were very handsome and charming.”

“Really?” Decker shrugged. “I couldn’t tell.”

“You weren’t supposed to be able to tell. I would have died of embarrassment.”

“Then thank God I was dense.”

Rina said, “Did any names on the list ring a bell?”

“About a half-dozen names seemed vaguely familiar. I’ve checked those off and I’ll look them up in the police files first thing in the morning. Maybe I’ll get lucky, but I’m not harboring great hopes.”

“And you don’t have any other way of identifying the bones?”

“Did I tell you I spoke to Mike Hollander today?”

“No, you didn’t.” Rina propped herself up on her elbows. “How’s he doing?”

“Good, actually.” Decker sat up as well. “He looks the same only a bit grayer and older. I’m sure I looked the same way to him.”

“You haven’t aged at all,” Rina said.

“Spoken like a true wife.”

“Did you show him the plans?”

“Yeah, yeah, Mike was great. He told me he’ll make it a priority and get some numbers back to Cindy and Koby right away. But that’s not why I mentioned him. We got to talking about the Jane Doe and our inability to reconstruct a face directly on the bones because they’re too fragile. Anyway, he said that he saw something on a Cold Case File that he thought might work.”

“What?”

“Something about a computer-generated process that replicates a skull in wood or plastic. The upshot is that a forensic artist can create a face because the bony landmarks are visible in the model. I was a little confused about the process and so was he. The problem is that the tape of the episode is no longer for sale and we can’t seem to locate a copy.”

“Does Mike remember the case?”

“No, and that’s the problem. There was a little trailer for the episode, but it just hinted at the forensics and didn’t mention anything specific, except that the case took place in Wisconsin.”

“I’m sure the tape exists somewhere.”

“Hollander said the same thing. He’s trying to hunt it down. In the meantime, I have Wanda Bontemps looking up high-profile cases in Wisconsin.” Decker threw his head back and blew out air. “We’re not at desperation time yet, but we’re getting there.”

“It’ll work out.”

“Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn’t.”

“Maybe you should take a breather from trying to identify the victim and instead concentrate on the apartment house.”

Decker scratched his head. “Excuse me, I’m confused. There is no apartment house.”

“There is an apartment house, albeit crushed and burned. Walls talk, Peter, even burned ones.”

“Sure, I have long conversations with walls all the time, especially when I’m talking to idiots.”

“You mock, but it’s true.”

“I’m not mocking.” Decker turned off the sarcasm. Rina didn’t offer advice that often, so it paid to listen when she did. “What do you mean?”

Rina said, “Just because concrete, ash, and wood are inanimate objects doesn’t mean that they have nothing to say. In Judaism, we have a definite concept of walls being harbingers of messages.”

Decker smiled. “The writing on the wall.”

“That was literal. The Mene from the book of Daniel. In that case, the message was cryptic and volumes have been written on what it meant. But the messages are not always so mystical. Look at the laws of Tzarat…leprosy…not the bacterial kind of leprosy that we see today. Instead, it’s a spiritual leprosy. One contracts Tzarat when one does lashon harah-gossips against his fellowman. It is manifested by sores all over the body.”

“Like when Miriam spoke against Moshe in the Bible.”

“She wasn’t talking badly about her baby brother. She just thought he should spend more time at home with his wife. But G-d took umbrage. In that case, she was immediately stricken by Tzarat, because Miriam was a prophetess and a holy woman should not be gossiping about her brother even if it was with good intentions. There’s usually a warning system with Tzarat. First the walls of the home contract the disease as a visible sign to its inhabitants to change their ways. If these writings on the walls are ignored, the disease progresses until Tzarat is contracted corporeally by the occupants.”

“Okay,” Decker said. “Next time I find a Jane Doe, I’ll look for sores on the walls of her living room.”

Rina kissed her husband’s hand. “You scoff, Lieutenant, but that’s exactly what you do as a detective. You scour a crime scene to help you solve a murder.”

“Good point, Rina, except in this case, the crime scene was destroyed.”

“Nothing is ever fully destroyed,” Rina pointed out. “Look at Jerusalem, Peter. Anytime someone excavates in the ground-like for an archaeological dig or even just to build a new foundation for a building-something is always left behind. It could be anything from modern-day trash to old coins and relics and water jugs. About ten years ago, someone discovered an ancient tomb from the Second Temple era right in the middle of the suburban area of Rahavia. Just because something was destroyed on top doesn’t mean that the underneath has no story to tell.”

“I’m not saying that everything was destroyed. Obviously recovery has unearthed hundreds of body parts and personal effects. All I’m claiming is that the original crime scene was blasted into oblivion and the ground is basically an ashtray.”

“Sometimes ash is a great preserver,” Rina insisted. “If you take one of those tunnel tours underneath the Western Wall, you can actually see where the Romans dismantled original stones from the Second Temple. They knocked down almost the entire structure and burned what they didn’t smash into smithereens. And they’re still finding a lot of stuff had been preserved.”

“Jerusalem’s a lot older than Canoga Park.”

“But L.A. has its own relics. Look at the La Brea Tar Pits…and all the stuff we’ve unearthed from the Chumash Indians.”

“So if I find a saber-toothed tiger, I’ll concede defeat,” Decker answered.