Debra Cowan - Melting Point

In the year and a half since he’d called off his engagement to Gwen, Collier hadn’t regretted his new no-strings policy with women. He didn’t like that Kiley Russell was the first woman to make him think about breaking it. Liked even less that his thoughts were on her instead of the crime scene in which they stood.

“Since we can’t take measurements of the body’s original position,” Terra said, “we’ll have to rely on the Rapid Intervention Team and any other eyewitness accounts to determine where Lazano fell.”

Kiley stepped up, pointing to a spot in front of the open doorway. “The RIT put Lazano here.”

“That’s right. And so did the attack crew who took over for me and Lazano.” Collier turned, his gaze skipping over the puddles of black water on Benson Street. “The shot came from behind. Probably from that warehouse across the street.”

Kiley made a note in her notebook.

Standing on the edge of the bright light thrown by the portable floodlamps, Collier walked to the bloodstain barely visible on the wet concrete and dictated the location into Terra’s handheld tape recorder.

“I’m surprised all the blood wasn’t washed away,” Kiley observed, following the other woman into the warehouse. “I guess it would be too much to hope we might get some prints off this door? I’m guessing the firefighters probably blasted them off with their hoses.”

“We’re trained to put out the fire, which means we can’t really worry about preserving evidence,” Collier said from behind her. “To put out a blaze, you’ve got to chop holes in the roof, tear down walls, kick out windows plus soak everything in thousands of gallons of water. Even so, we’re trained not to get carried away with our water streams. We douse the flames and make sure they don’t rekindle. And we typically use a wide spray pattern, like a fog. If that doesn’t work, we have to use a small spray, so a straight stream could’ve destroyed that evidence.”

“You’re both assuming there were prints to begin with,” Terra said as they paused shoulder to shoulder in a small huddle.

Kiley slid a look at Collier. “What about the heat? Would it compromise a fingerprint?”

“Prints can be tricky. Most people believe fire destroys all evidence, but that’s not true. It would take hot, hot temperatures to distort or destroy a print. From the condition of the wood pallets, I don’t think the fire burned long enough to get that hot. The door is barely discolored.” He pointed over his head to a steel beam with dark streaks. “None of the steel up there is melted, though it is discolored and marked. The melting point for steel is 2500 degrees.”

“So a twenty-minute fire wouldn’t normally be hot enough or long burning enough to melt the I-beams?”

“Not unless there were flammable liquids or explosives, something to help it along.”

“What accelerant do you think was used?”

“Maybe none. That’s something we need to find out.” He studied the steel beams supporting the apex of the roof. “It doesn’t appear the fire got hot enough or high enough back here to melt the steel.”

“Just some of the aluminum walls.” Terra pointed to some damaged sheeting.

Kiley scribbled in her notebook. “So what does that tell you?”

Terra looked at Collier expectantly, so he said, “That the fire temperature on the walls was less than 660 degrees and that whatever reached the ceiling probably burned less than a thousand.”

The detective nodded and made another note.

“First, we’ll try to confirm or eliminate arson,” Terra explained over her shoulder.

Collier added, “Part of that process will be checking the electrical wiring.”

Kiley resettled her helmet. “So, all we know at this point is that Dan Lazano was murdered.”

“Right,” Collier said. “It was definitely not suicide.” Suicide was one manner of death that had to be eliminated in the course of an investigation. Given he was an eye witness, Collier could do that with confidence. He still couldn’t believe Lazano was dead. And how close he had come to being a victim himself.

“I’m sure you’ve both already taken note that this is our second victim from Station Two.” Terra stopped a few feet away, her pretty features grim. “It’s the first time that’s happened.”

“Since the first two firefighters worked out of different stations,” Collier said, “the connection is not that the victims worked out of the same house. I’ll be interested to see if any of our previous interviews turn up on the list again.”

“Let’s get busy,” Terra interrupted, “and see what we can find.”

“Lead the way,” Kiley said.

To ward off the smoke headache already pulsing at the base of his skull, Collier downed several ibuprofen without water and passed a few to her. She took them and slid them into her pocket. He mentally shrugged. Maybe she didn’t get smoke headaches from tromping around fire scenes.

He flexed his hands inside the pair of stiff gloves Terra had loaned him. At Russell’s request, his well-used gloves, stained with Lazano’s blood, were now bagged as evidence outside with another cop. The three of them worked their way from the least amount of damage to the worst.

Terra snapped pictures from several angles and Collier dictated information about their position and observations into her recorder. In his other hand, he carried a shovel and her tackle box. They stopped frequently, shoveling ashes and debris, searching for evidence.

Over the past eighteen months, he’d built his own tool kit, which included every kind of tool from pliers and tape measures to hacksaws and hammers. For evidence gathering, he carried sterile paint cans, paper and plastic bags and a couple of small jars for liquids. Since he’d been on his last firefighting shift tonight and his new job wasn’t supposed to officially begin until Monday, he was without his kit.

Lazano’s murder had moved up Collier’s start date…and teamed him with a woman he would rather avoid. As a fire investigator, he had the authority to interview and interrogate but not to arrest or serve warrants like Russell did. Because of the policy between the Presley Fire Department and Police Department, he would have to work with Detective Russell until one of them proved the death was an accident or murder. They already knew Lazano’s death hadn’t been a suicide and didn’t believe there was anything accidental about it, so it appeared he would be working with the redhead until they closed these murder cases. Just dandy.

The physical reaction he’d had to Russell during that dance had been warning enough, but combined with the insistent curiosity he felt about her, he had backed way off. And he intended to stay that way.

“I have to hand it to y’all,” Kiley said from behind him. “The amount of patience this takes is incredible.”

Collier shared a look with Terra. She’d had to remind him more than once that investigations took time and patience. He’d had to learn to curb his firefighter’s attack mentality and to carefully, thoroughly, follow the crime trail one step at a time.

He’d wanted to work fire investigations for more than two years, which was why he had readily agreed to apprentice with Terra for no pay. Besides putting him in a good position to nab the promotion to fire investigator when another spot with her office opened up, he’d also taken on the additional and demanding hours as a way to forget about Gwen. And he had.

Another fire investigator hadn’t been approved and budgeted until a few months ago. He’d taken the test, passed his independent assessment and been interviewed by Terra along with another candidate. She had offered the job to him, and the other man had found a job shortly thereafter with Oklahoma City’s fire marshal.