“What?” Artie asked. “What do you mean, healing?”
“He’s healing,” Sylvie said with something like awe. “The blisters are— You need to see this, Artie. This isn’t normal. Pull over and—”
The woman’s words died when Mac finally managed to push his eyes open.
“Your eyes,” she breathed with amazement as the ambulance began to slow. “They’re silver.”
“What was that?” Artie asked from the front of what Mac now realized was an ambulance. The woman’s uniform and the gurney he was lying on gave that away.
Which meant he was on his way to the hospital, Mac realized, and knew that couldn’t happen. Rising up on the gurney, he sunk his fangs into the female EMT’s neck, and began to drink.
“I think that’s it,” CJ said as she watched the officer bag the cigarette butts she’d spotted. They’d started the search over an hour ago, using a grid-work pattern to cover the outer edges of the property first, and then moving slowly inward. Fortunately, by the time they’d reached the area around the house itself the fire had been all but out, the firemen concentrating on the interior.
“Yeah. I think we’ve covered everything outside,” Officer Simpson agreed, closing the evidence bag and straightening next to her.
CJ nodded absently, her attention on the farmhouse. They couldn’t look inside yet, but she doubted that would be necessary anyway. Gasoline had been used for the accelerant. She’d been able to smell it as she approached. That and the melted remains of three empty gas cans that they’d found on the edge of the fire had given it away. Two of the three plastic cans had just been melted lumps, but the third one had only been partially melted, and the handle and cap had remained. It might be a lucky find if the arsonist hadn’t used gloves. The cigarettes might be helpful too if they belonged to the arsonist. They might get some DNA off them.
“What now?” Simpson asked.
CJ turned to Officer Simpson. Not Jefferson. Simpson. Officer Jefferson had left about ten minutes before she got there. Simpson had told her that after introducing himself, explaining that Jefferson had been called away to handle a situation downtown. CJ suspected it was the same situation that’d had someone back at the station shouting for the captain as she left, because he had never shown up here either.
“I think that’s it for the night,” CJ said, and wasn’t surprised by the obvious relief on Simpson’s face at her words. It was nearly 2 a.m. and she suspected the younger man probably worked the same shift as Jefferson, and should have been off at midnight. He was probably ready to go home to bed.
“Will we need to go through the house itself?”
CJ eyed the charred remains of what had once been a charming old Victorian-era farmhouse. The fire was out, but a couple of firemen were still running a spray of water over the smoking ruins to make sure there were no embers that might spark up later. She knew from past experience that no one would be allowed inside for a day or two, if at all. An inspector would have to check to see that it was safe to enter and floors wouldn’t collapse underfoot. If there were still floors inside the brick exterior, she thought, but said, “Not tonight. Maybe in a day or two . . . if it’s even necessary,” she added. “I don’t think the arsonist bothered to go inside to set this fire. It looks to me like he just poured the gas over the front porch, back porch, and the bushes around the house and lit it up.”
“Yeah. It does,” Simpson agreed, contemplating the house as well.
“We can come back and check inside in a couple days if we have to, or whenever the fire chief says it’s safe to enter,” she said. “Will the body be examined here in town, or will they have to send it to the city?”
“The body?” Simpson asked, turning to her with a frown.
“Captain Dupree said the homeowner was in the house when it was set on fire and this was the town’s first murder,” she explained.
“Oh.” Simpson nodded, his gaze sliding toward the vehicles in the driveway. “Yeah, the guy who lived here was trapped in the basement until the firemen were able to beat back the flames enough to go in through a basement window and get him out. I guess they found him in a tub in a bathroom down there. He’d filled it with water and submerged himself.” Grimacing now, he added, “They said the water was boiling by the time they got to him. He was alive still, but barely. I didn’t see him when they brought him out, but Jefferson said he was red as a lobster, parboiled with huge bleeding blisters all over.” He shuddered at the thought of it. “They rushed him to the hospital just before you got here, but the EMTs didn’t think he’d even survive the ride.”
“Yeah, the ambulance passed me on their way out,” CJ murmured, her thoughts now consumed with the shape the man must have been in. Boiled alive didn’t sound any more pleasant than burned alive to her.
“I wonder why they’re back,” Simpson said suddenly.
Eyebrows rising, CJ followed his gaze to where an ambulance was parked on the lawn next to the fire trucks. It was quite a distance away, but she could see that the back doors of the ambulance were open, and there were a couple of people inside, hovering around the gurney.
“Do you think one of the firemen got hurt?” Simpson asked with concern.
“That or they found someone else in the fire,” CJ said, and set out across the yard toward the vehicles, with Simpson at her side.
Several firemen and a woman in a paramedic’s uniform were gathered to the side of the trucks and CJ wasn’t surprised when Simpson veered off toward the group rather than heading straight to the ambulance. She assumed he was going to ask them what was going on rather than bother the EMTs working in the ambulance, so she followed him. But while he stopped briefly, and opened his mouth as if to ask something, he then snapped his mouth closed without saying a word, and turned abruptly to continue on to the ambulance.
CJ stared after him with surprise, and then followed. But when he started to climb into the back of the vehicle where a male paramedic and a fireman were bent over someone sitting up on the stretcher, she caught his arm to stop him.
“They’re working on the man—wait here and give them room,” she admonished when he turned a blank face her way.
Officer Simpson didn’t respond, even in expression. That remained blank, she noted, and CJ was about to ask if he was all right when movement in the ambulance drew her attention. The fireman had straightened as much as he could and was moving toward the open doors with the paramedic following. Both of them were walking slightly bent at the waist to maneuver the cramped space.
“Is this a second victim, or did one of your men get hurt fighting the fire?” CJ asked as the fireman stepped down from the ambulance. Much to her amazement, he didn’t even slow down or glance her way to acknowledge the question. Expression oddly blank, the fireman simply walked past her to join the group of people several feet away.
“I was the only victim.”
CJ tore her surprised gaze away from the rude fireman and turned back to the ambulance at that announcement. She couldn’t see the speaker at first—the paramedic was now stepping down from the ambulance, his bulk blocking her view—but once he was on the ground and following the fireman, CJ was able to get her first good look at the speaker. A lack of light in the ambulance affected visibility, but he was a big man, with wide shoulders. She suspected he would be tall once he was standing. His hair was short and appeared dark, while his skin was very fair, but looked blotchy to her in the poor lighting. Although that could have been due to the shadows cast in the ambulance, she thought, and then asked, “I’m sorry, did you say you’re the only victim?”