Cause to Burn Read online

  Cause to Burn

  By Mairsile

  Cause to Burn

  © 2017 by Mairsile. All Rights Reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form, without written permission.

  Editor: Tracy Seybold

  Cover Design: Mairsile

  Other books by Mairsile

  www.Mairsile.com

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  And as always, may the glory go to God.

  Dedication

  My sincere thanks to Firefighter Kim W. for lending her expertise on this book, and to all the first responders who run into danger to keep us safe. You are all my heroes!

  As always, I couldn’t write without the wonderful talents and support of Joyce, Fox, and Tracy. Thank you!

  About this book:

  Jordy grew up a firefighter's daughter. It was no surprise that she followed in her father's footsteps. But she took it a step further, becoming a fire and arson investigator. When she discovered her latest case involved a serial killer who killed with fire, it soon became very personal.

  Robbie, a bestselling author, no longer considered herself a reporter. Her newest book would be about firefighters, in honor of her stepdad. To research her material, she needed to step into Jordy's world and be her shadow. That would not be easy. To Jordy, she was a loathsome, nosy, trouble making reporter, who was being forced on her.

  Together, they would discover how much they had in common, as they followed a dangerous path leading to unexpected information about their combined histories, and a killer from the past.

  Prologue

  “For my third magnum opus, I title this piece, Homeless on the Range,” he said, laughing maniacally at his own cleverness. It was an unseasonably warm November night in Memphis, and the Southern humidity hung thick in the air, making even the crickets perspire. His furrowed brow dripped sweat down his flushed face, but he didn’t bother to wipe it away. He was in a hurry.

  He ran over to a dark corner beside a fire engine truck parked in front of a rundown, abandoned building, fully engulfed in flames. Firefighters rushed to and fro, pulling hoses, dousing the building with jets of water. Spectators watched from behind the police tape with awe and fear. No one had time to notice him standing in the shadows, grinning with delight.

  He pulled out his cell phone and hit the video recorder app, then he panned up the building, catching a fire tentacle licking the air before retreating back inside. He zoomed in on a firefighter climbing the turntable ladder on the firetruck to the third floor.

  The firefighter was who he was in a hurry to get on video. “This is Henry Stringfellow’s only child, and she just photobombed my masterpiece. Somebody’s gonna die tonight.”

  The firefighter, along with another, crawled through the window and disappeared inside the burning building. Fire leaped out of the opening and waved, as if to say thank you.

  Chapter One

  Jordyn Stringfellow

  “It looks like a kitchen fire. Somebody probably forgot to turn the stove off and it cost them their lives,” Scott theorized.

  “This fire was set intentionally,” I corrected him.

  The fireman was kneeling, inspecting the kitchen floor where the linoleum had melted to the wood base. He was not one of my favorite people. He turned and looked at my boots covered in soot from walking through the living room to the kitchen. But it wasn’t my boots that interested him. Nor was it my khaki pants, although his eyes slowed as he followed my long legs up to my hips, hidden partially by my Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm. He lingered just a millisecond and then trailed his eyes up my stomach, thankfully hidden underneath a white tank top with a dark blue t-shirt layered on top. But where I drew the line was when he purposefully stared at my breasts as if he was making love to them.

  “My eyes are up here, asshole.”

  Every time I have to work with Scott Rogers, I have to put up with his ogling, even though he knows perfectly well that I prefer women. In fact, I made sure everyone in the precinct heard me when I yelled at him that I was a lesbian. I have no use for an old leach who thinks women are only good for one thing, and it certainly has nothing to do with putting out fires. Unfortunately, nothing seems to deter Scott’s lewd ways.

  He stood up and looked me in eyes, “How could you think it was intentional, when you just walked in here?”

  Scott was six inches shorter than my 5’8”, a fact that he loved because his eyes were practically level with my breasts. Thankfully, he was in his sixties and close to retirement, although his smooth skin and salt and pepper hair made him look younger. I was twenty-seven when I was promoted over him last year, but I detested the man five minutes after I met him six years ago.

  Not only was Scott a perverted woman hater, but he drank on the job, and although he somehow never got written up for it, I’m pretty sure that’s the reason he didn’t get the investigator job. As usual, I had to tune him out in order to concentrate on my job. Pulling out my digital voice recorder, I began dictating my observations. “Fire originated from the kitchen—”

  “Like I said.” Scott snickered.

  I ignored him and continued, “Automatic coffeemaker was the flash point. The coffee machine sat about five inches from the plugin and was facing the stove. It looks like the timer was set to make coffee, however, I smell gasoline and there are remnants of a rag tucked behind and beneath the machine. Note to self – call in the forensic electrical engineer to verify my findings. See photos one through ten.” I stopped the recorder and aimed my high-resolution digital camera at the scene, taking exactly ten photos from different angles. Then I continued with my observations. “The fire started in the wiring and traveled both vertical and horizontal. The carafe glass was blown out across the stove, and it looks like the handle and metal ring melted. Horizontally, the fire ignited a plastic bottle of oil sitting on the counter opposite of the stove. The non-stick skillet melted to the electric coils on the stovetop. Most of the dials melted away, but the indications are that the stove had been turned on. Vertically, the fire was more intense as it traveled up the coffeemaker, scorching a path across the cupboard and spreading out across the ceiling. See photos eleven through twenty.”

  I snapped ten more photos and then something caught my eye. I let the camera dangle from my neck as I picked up the coffee machine. The area where the machine had been sitting was not as severely scorched as the rest of the counter.

  “Oh, shit!”

  “What? What is it?” Scott asked excitedly.

  My hand shook as I pointed a finger at the counter. Someone had deliberately drawn a smiley face within the square left by the machine. I forced myself to calm down so that Scott wouldn’t notice my quivering fingers as I took several pictures of the graffiti. The lines were a stark white against the dark grayish brown linoleum. It appeared as if the circle was glowing when it was actually the accelerant spreading out.

  “He left a message,” I said, leaning in to smell the area, “using concentrated benzoyl peroxide.”

  Benzoyl peroxide is one of the pyromaniac’s favorite accelerants because if applied correctly using the tube version, they can also sign their artwork.

  I studied the scene closely, trying to get inside the arsonist’s head. In order for his plan to have worked, he would have had to either change out the owner’s coffeemaker with a duplicate model that he had already altered or he came in and rigged the owner’s machine to trigger the fire. The first scenario was unlikely unless he
knew the exact brand used by the family. He could only know that if he had been in their house before, either covertly or by invitation, which would mean he purposely targeted the family. Or maybe he did just come in on a whim and rigged the timer on the coffeemaker before putting the rag with the accelerant under the machine. Either way, I had to be sure the area had been searched for a discarded coffeemaker.

  “Officer,” I called to the police officer standing outside the kitchen door. He came inside and I pointed to the remains of the coffeemaker. “We’re looking for a coffeemaker that may have replaced this one.” He nodded and pulled out his radio to call it in.

  “What have we got?” Fire Chief Joseph Tripp asked as he walked up. He was followed by a petite woman who was obviously a civilian by the look of her high heels.

  Who wears high heels to a crime scene? Her shoes annoyed me but her beautiful figure took my breath away. The lady fumbled in her purse and dropped a candy wrapper on my crime scene floor. Then she tripped as she bent over to pick it up. What a klutz.

  “The fire was deliberately set, Chief, and the perp left a message for us,” I reported, pointing to the smile drawn on the counter.

  “Oh, shit,” he exclaimed.

  I have known Joseph Tripp all my life. He was my father’s best friend and became my godfather when I was born. He was also one of my heroes. And being a daddy’s girl that was saying a lot. He was there for me when my father was killed on the job. He attended my graduation, and he helped me achieve my dream, and my father’s dream, of becoming a firefighter.

  Uncle Joe knew he was my hero, but he never let on, and I was too much of a professional to use my connections with him for personal gain at work. It was hard enough being a female in the men’s club; I wasn’t about to let anyone play favorites with me. The paid female to male ratio for firefighters in the United States was only a little over four percent, and I had no misconceptions that I was promoted because of my sex, although my skill did play a part in the decision. I knew that I was their token female, put in the position to satisfy state quotas. That and the fact that the only other contender at the time was the drunk currently ogling the dame in the high heels.

  “It looks like we’ve got ourselves a pyromaniac, Chief,” I surmised, keeping an eye on Scott.

  “Can I quote you on that?” the woman asked, holding up an ink pen and pad.

  A damn reporter! I glared at her and then looked at Uncle Joe. “Chief, who is this?”

  Looking at her skeptically, I noticed that she was immaculately dressed in a royal blue pantsuit with matching high heels, now gray from the ashes. She had on a fireman’s helmet, as was protocol, but I could still see her shoulder-length blonde hair neatly tucked back behind her ears. The color reminded me of my favorite candy, butterscotch. She looked so young under that oversized helmet, and when she pushed it back from her face, her subdued red lipstick and flushed cheeks made her look like a teenager. But when I saw her soft violet eyes smiling at me from under that adorable, wobbly helmet, I knew she was all woman. I had to look away before I started drooling like the pervert, Scott. She was obviously a reporter by the way her thumbs tapped furiously on her cell phone. That was how she took notes. There’s an app for everything, even nosy reporters. I detested reporters. They only got in my way and then misquoted me.

  “This is Roberta Witherspoon. She was a reporter for the Memphis Times. Then she moved to New York where she freelanced for the Weekly Reporter, until she wrote a bestseller that sold ten thousand copies in the first week.”

  He seemed to know a lot about her background. Curious. And just because she was now an author didn’t mean she wasn’t still a nosy reporter. Once a reporter, always a sneaky, backstabbing, misquoting, beautiful reporter.

  “Now she’s back in her home state, writing a book about firefighters. She has asked the commissioner if she could do some research in the field. Obviously, she said yes. Ms. Witherspoon, this is Lieutenant Jordyn Stringfellow, Fire and Arson Investigator, or as I like to call her, the best damn arson investigator this side of the Mississippi. Jordy, meet your new partner for the next few months.”

  “Oh, hell, no, Chief,” I blurted. “I can’t have a civilian shadowing me, getting in my way.” I looked down at her heels. “Her high heels tripping over my crime scene.”

  “I apologize for my attire,” she said, looking down at her clothes. “I was in a meeting with Commissioner Kathryn Anderson and didn’t want to hold things up when the call came in. As you might imagine, I was eager to get started.”

  Now she’s dropping names like that’s supposed to impress me. I wasn’t convinced, and I let my puckered brow show her that.

  “I promise, I’ll leave the high heels at home next time.”

  “Would you excuse us, please, Ms. Witherspoon?” the chief said.

  She glanced at me with a subdued smile on her lips.

  Oh, yeah, I’m stuck with her.

  Uncle Joe took me by the elbow, and we went into the hallway. “Listen, Jordy,” he said gruffly. “You’re a damn good investigator for the greatest fire department in Tennessee. Now, I know you do your best work alone; that’s why you’re not technically partnered with Scott.”

  “And I really appreciate that, Uncle Joe.” More than you will ever know. I suspected that he knew why I didn’t want to work with Scott, but we’d never actually talked about it. It was true that Scott wasn’t “technically” my partner. In fact, he didn’t really have a specific duty to perform. Uncle Joe kept him on so he could retire with full pension, but didn’t allow him to fight fires anymore or officially investigate fires. He was just there… all the time, annoying the hell out of everyone.

  He shrugged. “But in this case, you don’t have a choice, kiddo. If the commissioner thinks it’s a good idea to give this woman access, then I think it’s a good idea, too, and I expect you to think so as well.”

  “How much access do I give her, Uncle Joe? If this does turn out to be a serial arsonist, it could get messy.”

  “Give her full access, Jordy.”

  Who the hell did she have to sleep with to get full access to a crime scene like this?

  “She has agreed not to publish names and she will speak with the commissioner before she puts anything in print. She has also agreed to follow your command in regards to investigative protocol and fire safety.”

  I yanked off my hard hat and raked my fingers through my short hair. I wouldn’t, I couldn’t make him order me to cooperate. That just wasn’t my style. I was a team player, no matter how much I hated the idea of having a tag-a-long.

  “Jordy,” he said, putting both hands on my shoulders. “It’s good publicity for the department, and for you. Show your stuff out there and make us proud.”

  I smiled at him mischievously. “All right, Chief,” I replied, putting my hat back on. “I’ll take one for the team.”

  We walked back to where Roberta and Scott were standing, and I heard Scott say that he would be happy to give Roberta a personal interview. Oh, God, that’s not good. I looked at Uncle Joe, hoping he would intervene.

  “I’d like that, Mr. Rogers. Let me get the lay of the land first, and then I’ll get back with you. All right?”

  “Sure, and you can call me Scott.”

  Oh, she was smooth, got to give her credit for that. I wondered if she had been clued in already about Scott or if she really did mean what she said.

  “Now, as I was saying, Roberta will be with us for a few months, as she gathers research for her new book. In case you weren’t aware, her last novel, Into the Belly of the Beast, is still on the New York Times bestsellers list.”

  “Sounds like you’re a fan, Chief,” Scott said as he took a step closer to Roberta and brazenly rubbed shoulders with her.

  I watched for Roberta’s reaction to his proximity. She took a step away from him. Oh, yeah, she’s on to him, all right. I just hope it doesn’t end up in her book.

  “I seem to remember seeing the pictures of you si
gning books,” Uncle Joe said. “With two shirtless bulging muscled men standing behind you, wearing policemen hats.”

  I rolled my eyes at the blatant use of sexual manipulation to sell books.

  Uncle Joe didn’t seem to notice and said, “I am a big fan of Roberta’s work. That novel was all about the life of a female patrol cop, and it was very insightful and very well written. That’s why I’m excited she’s chosen to base her next novel on this precinct and on your work, Jordy.”

  “Thank you, Joe, you are most kind,” Roberta cooed. “I just hope I do you and this fire department justice.”

  She called him Joe. Not Mr. Tripp, not Chief, but by his first name. Yep, she’s got her polished hooks into someone, all right. But it doesn’t matter. I won’t be as easily played as the men were. This isn’t a game to me, damn it. People’s lives are at stake, and no one will get in the way of my finding this sick son of a bitch before he kills again.

  “And just so you’ll know,” Roberta continued. “It was not my idea to have those men standing behind me. It was my publisher’s and I went along with it because I was naïve. Believe me, it will not happen again.”

  Well, at least she recognized it was wrong. Still…

  “Jordy, did you hear me?” Uncle Joe asked.

  “What? Sure, Chief,” I said, hoping he didn’t see my cheeks flushing. “I’m listening.”

  “Could have fooled me. As I was saying, Roberta‒”

  “Please, call me Robbie,” she said as she batted her eyes at him.

  Uncle Joe smiled and then turned to me. “Robbie will be on your schedule, Jordy. When you’re on call, she’s on call. When you bunk at the firehouse, she will also bunk at the firehouse. This is what she has asked for, to be treated as one of the crew.”

  And when I take a dump, will she take a dump with me? Oh, brother. I shook my head and retorted, “On call means 24/7 and when that bell rings, I am out the door, no matter the day or time or social schedule.”