Jeanne Adams - Dark and Deadly

With a grunt, Torie stood up. Her muscles were slightly sore, but the twinge made her smile. She’d instantly regretted the action, and been horrified to give in to the desire she’d repressed all this time. The result was…spectacular.

“Uh, I need a larger size in this,” she said, passing a too-small sweater set over the partitioned door. “And a smaller one in this.” A skirt joined the sweater. “Otherwise, I’m okay for now.”

With another new suit, two skirts, and several sweaters bagged and wrapped up, Torie hurried to Paul’s Mercedes. He’d loaned it to her, arguing that her own vehicle might be a target. He figured that the rental car might be marked by now.

It was a short ride to her house. She wanted to weep at the sight of her once-lovely little row house with its boarded-up windows and smoke-blackened siding. A huge pile of trash was heaped in the front yard, including her great-aunt’s settee, which had been in the front room. The blackened hulks of the matching chairs were on the side of the pile. Her bookcases and the twisted wreck of her plant stands lay on top.

All of it was soggy and disgusting. Soot stained everything. Her flowers and grass were a ruin as well, trampled by the firemen.

Not that she regretted their fabulous response, just the necessity for it.

Sorrels and Marsden waited for her outside the house. Belatedly, she realized she should call Paul. Curling her earpiece around her ear, she used the speed dial for his office.

“Mister Jameson’s office.”

“Good afternoon, Missus Prinz,” Torie said, uncomfortable at talking to the eagle eyed assistant. “Is he in, please?”

Should Torie call him Paul or Mr. Jameson when talking to Martha? How the hell did she address her attorney? How the hell did she address her lover? Was he her lover?

What the hell had she gotten herself into now?

Before she could wind herself up anymore, Paul came on the line.

“Hey, you all right?”

“I’m fine. I’m over at my house.” She heard the quiver in her own voice. Damn it, she had to get over it. It was just a house.

“You’re where? Torie, why?”

“Sorrels and Marsden. They wanted to meet me here, ask some questions about things.”

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

“But I have your car,” she protested.

“I’ll be there.” He hung up without another word.

Miffed, but somehow reassured, she dropped her phone into her purse and got out of the car.

“Ms. Hagen, thanks for meeting us here.”

“Sure.” Torie looked at the gloppy pile in the yard. “That’s just awful, isn’t it?”

Sorrels nodded. “Yeah, they have to tear out so much drywall to be sure they’ve gotten to all the fire, then soak it down. It makes one damn-all mess.”

Marsden cleared his throat.

“Oh, sorry,” Sorrels offered.

“For what?”

“Language,” Sorrels said.

Torie laughed. “I work with engineers, gentlemen. Language doesn’t bother me.”

They looked relieved, even as they were moving toward the house. “We have the key to the padlocks here, since it is still a crime scene,” Sorrels said, unlocking the thing and swinging the makeshift plywood door away from the jamb. The shattered storm door creaked like doom when they pushed it open.

Torie couldn’t suppress a horrified gasp as they crossed the threshold and she saw the devastation. Virtually nothing was left of her living room. The lovely hardwood floors were blackened and hacked. The walls were stripped to the studs, all the wallboard torn away to insure the fire hadn’t spread. The ceiling joists were exposed; some of them were blackened as well, showing where the fire had roared through the ceiling when the bomb went off.

“Oh, my God,” Torie murmured, reaching for the newel post to steady herself. With total disregard for her new pants, she lowered herself to the steps. “This is…this is…”

“Horrible. Yes, it is. Fire always is, but one that’s set? With intent to harm? That’s worse.” Sorrels said it with matter-of-fact calm, but Torie heard the intensity of his conviction.

She managed to nod, but couldn’t speak. It looked like a war zone, like a movie set. It was so different, so surreal, it hardly seemed to be her house at all.

Marsden picked a careful way through the maze of broken floorboards. “We think the bomb landed here, then exploded,” he stated, turning to spread his hands in a wide pattern to mimic the blast.

“Can you tell us where you were when it went off?”

Torie corralled her chaotic thoughts which all centered on how terrible everything looked and smelled. She decided the smell of soaked floors, soggy drywall, and possible mildew were nearly as bad as the smell of the fire.

“I think I was here,” she said as she managed to make herself move toward the kitchen, tripping a bit over the warping floorboards. “I had just let the dog back in and I heard the noise.” She shuddered at the memory, the odor of gas. “I smelled gas, I went toward the living room,” she continued. Looking at the two men, she grimaced. “I guess that was really stupid.”

“It’s a natural response.” Marsden temporized his response. “But dangerous.”

“I guess. Anyway, that’s when the first explosion went off.”

“First?”

“There were two. Pickle and I were thrown back and we hit the door. When I heard another crash, I grabbed my purse to get the phone.” She pointed to where it had been, on the counter. The twisted, melted, and mangled plastic of her grocery bags were a bizarre sculpture on the counter. “I got the door to the deck open. The second blast knocked through the door, out onto the deck.”

Sorrels nodded. “That’s what we wanted to know.”

From the doorway, Paul cleared his throat. Torie jumped at the sound. “Oh, Paul. Inspector, Chief, you know Mister Jameson, don’t you?”

“Yes, indeed,” Sorrels commented, shooting looks between the two of them. “Obviously you two have come to some sort of truce?”

Torie nodded and prayed she wasn’t blushing, though she felt her cheeks heat. “Common enemy, it seems.”

“Yes, Ms. Hagen’s correct. I believe whoever killed our friend is responsible for this as well, and the additional attempts on Ms. Hagen’s life.”

“So you’re a detective now, too?” Marsden said, sarcasm tingeing his voice.

“No, but I’m a trained observer, Chief. And in talking with both of you, with Officer Tibbet, and with the officer who worked the scenes at the hotel, I can put a lot of pieces together.”

Paul turned to Torie, extended a hand as if to brush her arm, but changed the gesture at the last minute. Instead of a caress, he rested his hand on the door jamb. If the others found it odd, they didn’t show it. “So, Ms. Hagen, I know this is difficult.” His gaze was hot, but his tone cool. It was a strange combination.

With a grimace, Torie shook her head. “We’ve known each other for nearly twelve years, Paul. The inspectors know that.”

Paul smiled. “True, but I wanted to be sure you were comfortable.” He looked around, stepping away from the stairs and gazing into the trashed living room. “What a disaster.”

Marsden nodded. “The smallest fire can cause tremendous damage, and this was no small event.”

“May I take anything out of the house?” Torie finally gathered the courage to ask. “Or can I at least go upstairs and see if anything is left of my clothes?”

Sorrels and Marsden exchanged looks, but Sorrels spoke. “Yeah, but be careful. We don’t want you landing on our heads, okay?”

“I’ll come with you,” Paul said, following her up the stairway. The pictures on the wall were cracked and the glass blackened from the blast. She couldn’t tell if any of them were still whole. That alone broke her heart. The large picture of her grandparents was one of the only ones still hanging in place, but along with everything else, it was dark with soot, the black dust obscuring the seated couple.