SAM WAS THE first of her team to arrive on the scene of the smoldering fire that had demolished half a mansion in one of the District’s most exclusive neighborhoods.
“What’ve we got?” Sam asked the fire marshal when he met her at the tape line.
“Two bodies found on the first floor of the house, both bound with zip ties at the hands and feet.”
And that, right there, made their deaths her problem. “Do we know who they are?”
He consulted his notes. “The ME will need to make positive IDs, but the house is owned by Jameson and Cleo Beauclair. I haven’t had time to dig any deeper on who they are.”
“Are we certain they were the only people in the house?” Sam asked.
“Not yet. When we arrived just after four a.m., the west side of the house, where the bodies were found, was fully engulfed. That was our immediate focus. We’ve got firefighters searching the rest of what was once a ten-thousand-square-foot home.”
“Any sign of accelerants?”
“Nothing so far, but we’re an hour into the investigation stage. Early days.”
“Has the ME been here?”
“Not yet.”
“Could I take a look inside?”
“It’s still hot in there, but I can show you the highlights—or the lowlights, such as they are.”
Sam followed him up the sidewalk to what had once been the front door. Inside the smoldering ruins of the house, she could make out the basic structure from the burned-out husk that remained. The putrid scents of smoke and death hung heavily in the air.
“That’s them there,” the fire marshal said, pointing to a space on the floor by a blackened stone fireplace where two charred bodies lay next to one another.
Sam swallowed the bile that surged to her throat. Nothing was worse, at least not in her line of work, than fire victims. Though it was the last thing she wanted to do, she moved in for a closer look, took photos of the bodies and the scene around them, then turned to face the fire marshal. “Anything else you think I ought to see?”
“Not yet.”
“Keep me posted.”
“Will do.”
He walked away to continue his investigation while Sam went outside, carrying the horrifying images with her as she took greedy breaths of fresh air. As she reached the curb, the medical examiner’s truck arrived. She waited for a word with Dr. Lindsey McNamara.
The tall, pretty medical examiner gathered her long red hair into a ponytail as she walked over to Sam.
“Fire victims,” Sam said, shuddering.
“Good morning to you too.”
“Hands and feet bound with zip ties.”
“Here we go again,” Lindsey said with a sigh. “Looks like it was quite a house.”
“Ten thousand square feet, according to the fire marshal.”
“I’ll get you an ID and report as soon as I can.”
“Appreciate it.” Sam opened her phone and placed a call to Captain Malone. “I’m at the scene of the fire in Chevy Chase.”
“What’ve you got?”
“Two DOA, bound at the hands and feet, leading me to believe this was a home invasion gone bad. I need Crime Scene here ASAP.”
“I’ll call Haggerty and get them over there.”
“I want them to comb through anything and everything that wasn’t touched by the fire, and they need to do it soon before the scene is further compromised. We’ve got firefighters all over the place.”
“Got it. What’s your plan?”
“I’m going to talk to the neighbors and find out what I can about the people who lived here while I wait for Lindsey to confirm their identity.”
“Keep me posted.”
Sam slapped the phone closed and headed for her car to begin the task of figuring out who Jameson and Cleo Beauclair had been and who might’ve bound them before setting their house on fire. If the bodies were even those of the Beauclairs. Cases like this were often confounding from the start, but they would operate on the info they had available and go from there.
Her partner, Detective Freddie Cruz, arrived as Sam reached her car, which she had parked a block from the scene.
“I guess it was too much to hope our homicide-free streak would last until after the wedding,” he said.
“Too much indeed. We’ve got two deceased on the first floor of the west side of the home, hands and feet bound.”
“Do we know who they are?”
“We know who owns the house, but we’re not a hundred percent sure the owners are our victims,” she said, passing along the names the fire marshal had given her. “Let’s knock on some doors and then go back to HQ to see what Lindsey can tell us.”
“I’m with you, LT.”
“Any word from Gonzo?”
“Not that I’ve heard yet.”
“He can catch up.”
* * *
PAIN WAS LIKE WATER. It flooded every available space until there was only pain and nothing else. It became all consuming, and someone in that kind of agony would literally do anything to make it stop, even meet a known criminal to buy the one thing that could offer relief that only lasted a few hours. The pain always won. Always.
The transaction happened so quickly and seamlessly it was over before it started. To a casual observer, it would look like two men who hadn’t seen each other in a while meeting on the street and exchanging an affectionate greeting that included the clasping of hands.
Gonzo walked away with what he needed to get through another couple of days. He got in his car, immediately took a pill and chased it with coffee left from yesterday. Then he zipped the rest of the pills into the inside pocket of his jacket. Resting his head back against the seat, he waited and gritted his teeth against the unrelenting torture that made it impossible to do anything but hurt.
In the last few weeks, he’d started to notice it was taking longer for the pills to work. He needed something stronger. The doctor he’d gone to when he twisted his back taking down a suspect at the beginning of the summer had cut him off after the third refill, so he’d resorted to back channels to fulfill his needs.
His phone buzzed with a text from Cruz.
Leaving the scene and heading back to HQ. Two DOA in Chevy Chase fire, hands and feet bound.
Ugh, fire victims were the worst. If he waited a little longer, he wouldn’t have to view the charred bodies in the morgue. They’d need dental records to ID them anyway, so there wouldn’t be any info for a while. He had time to close his eyes for a few minutes, and then he’d be good to go.
* * *
AFTER GETTING NOWHERE with neighbors, who didn’t answer their doors, Sam and Freddie returned to HQ, entering through the morgue entrance. Before they stepped into Lindsey’s lab, Sam stopped him with a hand to his arm. “This is gonna be bad. Take a minute if you need it.”
“I’m as ready as I ever am to go in there.”
“Step back if it’s too much for you. No judgment.”
With his face set into a grim expression, he nodded and took a deep breath to calm himself.
No matter how many years one spent on the job, some things never got easier, and viewing dead bodies, especially those from a fire, was right at the top of the nightmarish list of things that could never be forgotten.
Her stomach turned at the thought of it, but someone had to do it. The moment the two people in the morgue had been killed in her city, they’d become hers, and she would do her very best for them. With justice in mind, Sam took a step forward, triggering the automatic doors that led to the morgue where Dr. Lindsey McNamara had the bodies on side-by-side tables.
Sam tried not to look too closely. “What’ve you got, Doc?” Lindsey’s brows knitted with concentration as she stood over the deceased. They were in good hands with her on the job.
“Nothing yet. If you could find their dentist, that would help.”
“We’ll get on that.” Sam glanced at Freddie and gestured for him to go get started on tracking down the dental records. They had an email they could send that would alert every dentist in the capital area that they were seeking records. Hopefully, one of them would recognize the Beauclairs’ names and get back to them quickly. A positive identification was the first step in a case like this.
Freddie bolted from the cold, antiseptic-smelling room to send the message.
“They were bound with zip ties that melted into their skin.” Lindsey pointed to the waxy remains of the zip ties while Sam choked back a gag. “Both were wearing wedding rings. One is male, the other female.”
Sam didn’t ask how she could tell that. “Anything else I should know?”
“Nothing yet, but I’m just getting started.”
“Okay. Check in with me when you’re done.”
“You know I will.” She looked up at Sam. “So the guys will be gone for three weeks, huh?” Her fiancé, Terry O’Connor, was Nick’s chief of staff.
“Yeah.”
“I can’t bear the thought of three weeks without him,” Lindsey said with a moan. In any other profession, it might’ve been odd to engage in girl talk over the charred remains of two people who’d been alive twenty-four hours ago. In their profession, it was just another day. “What kind of simpering female does that make me?”
“The kind who loves her guy.”
“I really do love him,” she said with a sigh. “He hasn’t even left yet, and I already miss him. Maybe we can do a girls’ night out or something to break up the time.”
“I, um, sort of agreed to go on the trip last night, if I can get the time off.”
“No way! Ugh, I’m so jealous. I’d love to go.”
“Why don’t you?”
“I’m saving my vacation for the wedding and honeymoon. We set a date finally.”
“Oh, that’s big news. When?”
“Next August at his parents’ farm in Leesburg.”
“That’ll be amazing.”
“I can’t wait. I asked Shelby to help me plan it. I hope that’s okay.”
“Of course it is.” Sam and Nick’s assistant, Shelby Faircloth, had been one of the District’s most sought-after wedding planners before she took the job with them after planning their wedding. She still owned her wedding business but had stepped out of the day-to-day management. “She’s the best of the best.”
“That’s why I wanted her. Your wedding was the nicest I’ve ever attended.”
“It was rather awesome, wasn’t it?” Hard to believe it had already been a year and a half since then. “I’d better get to it. I’ll be looking for your report.”
“I’m on it.”
Sam exited the morgue and took the winding hallway that led to the Homicide detectives’ pit where Detectives Cruz, Green and McBride were discussing the fire, the victims and next steps in the investigation. “Where’s Gonzo?”
“Not here yet,” Cruz said, meeting her gaze, his concern apparent.
“Give him a call.”
“Already did. No answer.”
What the fuck? It wasn’t like her sergeant to fail to show up at a crime scene or to check in with them if he was going to be late. She went into her office, closed the door and called Christina.
“Hi, Sam,” Christina said, her tone lifeless. “What’s up?”
“I’m looking for Gonzo. Did he get the call about the homicide this morning?”
“He left an hour ago,” she said, sounding concerned now. “He’s not there yet?”
“No sign of him.”
“Where could he be? He got the call from Dispatch and left a few minutes later.”
“I have no idea, but we’ll see if we can track him down. I’ll let you know if we hear from him if you wouldn’t mind doing the same.”
“Of course. Sam. I... Tommy, he’s...”
Sam waited impatiently for her to finish the sentence.
“Never mind. I’ll talk to you later.”
Before Sam could respond, the line went dead. Now what the hell was that about? She hated when people left statements half-finished. Nothing was more aggravating. Well, receptionists who tried to keep her from seeing people she needed to talk to during investigations were more aggravating. They might very well be the most annoying people in existence.
Her mind kept going back to the despair she’d heard in Christina’s voice and the fact that Gonzo wasn’t where he was supposed to be this morning, not to mention how distracted and “off” he’d seemed in recent weeks. She released the clip that held her long hair out of her way when she was working and ran her fingers through it while trying to figure out what to do about Gonzo.
Reaching for the extension on her desk, she buzzed Detective Cameron Green and asked him to come into the office.
When he knocked on the door and poked his head into her office, she waved him in. “Close the door.”
“What’s up, LT?”
She liked the clean-cut blond man who’d joined their team right after Labor Day. He’d done an admirable job of filling the spot left vacant by their murdered colleague. Though the rest of them dressed casually in jeans, Cameron came to work every day in a shirt and tie. He was squared away in more ways than one. “I have a delicate question to ask.” She gestured to her visitor chair.
Sitting, he said, “Okay.”
“How does Gonzo seem to you lately?”
“Um, fine. I guess.”
“I know I’m putting you in a bad spot asking about your partner and your sergeant, but he’s late today and hasn’t checked in, which isn’t like him, and well... I’m worried about him. Again.”
“I didn’t know him before, so I’m not sure what’s normal for him.”
Losing a team member in the line of duty firmly split life into before and after. “Fair enough,” she said, sighing.
“But lately, he’s seemed a little...distracted, I guess you could say.” Cameron chose his words carefully because it wasn’t the best career move to speak to the big boss about your partner, who was also your sergeant.
“How so?”
After a long pause, Cameron said, “I’d like to leave it at distracted, if that’s all right with you.”
“Of course.”
“I hope you understand. It’s been a bit of a delicate proposition to take his late partner’s place and...”
“Say no more. I get it.” Partners had each other’s backs on the street and in the house. Asking one of them to talk to a superior officer about the other was a dicey thing at best. “Thanks for coming in.”
“If I could say one more thing.”
“Please. Whatever’s on your mind.”
“I told you that I worked for my family’s funeral home business when I was younger.”
She nodded. His connections to the Greenlawn Funeral Homes had come in handy during a recent investigation.
“One of my jobs was to set up for the grief groups that used to meet in our function room. I was in charge of keeping them in coffee and cookies, so occasionally I would hear some of what was said. I remember this one guy, who’d lost his young son in an accident, said how everyone kept watching him for signs that he was getting better when the pain was actually getting worse with every day that went by.”
Sam absorbed this information, feeling a sense of shock and dread that her close friend and colleague could be getting worse rather than better, and she hadn’t noticed.
“Cruz mentioned this morning that it’s nine months today since Arnold died. Perhaps that might have something to do with what’s going on with Gonzo?”
Sam swallowed the lump that suddenly formed in her throat. It’d been nine months since Arnold died, and the new guy had to remind her of it? “Could be,” she managed to say. “I really appreciate your insight.”
“I’ll keep an eye on him. Try not to worry.”
“Thank you.” Though he told her not to worry, Sam wondered how she would do anything but. And now she had reason to wonder if Gonzo could handle being in charge of the squad for three weeks if she took the trip with Nick.
Opening her phone, she placed a call to Gonzo that went right through to voice mail.
Now she was officially worried.
* * *
A LOUD NOISE woke Gonzo from a sound sleep. He opened his eyes to realize he was in his car, parked on a side street and a uniformed member of the Metro PD Patrol division was looking in the driver’s side window.
Gonzo reached into his pocket for his badge and found himself on the business end of the other officer’s service weapon. He put up his hands.
The door swung open. “Keep your hands up and get out of the vehicle.”
“I’m on the job. I was reaching for my badge.” With a department of more than four thousand officers, it wasn’t possible to recognize everyone, but most officers recognized him as the guy who’d let his partner get killed a foot from him.
“Let me see it,” the young Patrolman said, still holding the gun on Gonzo.
Gonzo pulled the leather billfold from his back pocket and flipped it open to reveal the gold shield he’d worked so damned hard to get, for all he cared about it now.
The Patrolman holstered his weapon. “My apologies, Sergeant, but when you reached for something, I had to assume it was a weapon.”
“I understand.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m battling the flu and was taking a minute to regroup. I’d appreciate if you didn’t report this to anyone.”
“I won’t if you won’t.” Pulling a weapon on a superior officer wasn’t the best career move, even if it had been warranted.
“You got it.”
“Hope you feel better.”
“Me too.” Anytime now. Gonzo got back in the car and glanced at the time on the dashboard. “Holy shit,” he whispered, realizing he’d been asleep for two hours. He checked his phone, which was full of missed calls from Cruz, Christina and Sam. “Fuck.” Shifting the car into Drive, he pressed the accelerator and promptly crashed into a passing vehicle.
Slamming the palm of his hand hard against the steering wheel, he let out a string of curses, and then, ignoring the pain radiating up his arm, he got out of the car to see how bad it was.