he arrived at the police station, he found Paul waiting for him in the lobby, arms crossed.
"What do we have?" Mark asked.
"Randall Kelly, environmental activist. Died ten miles outside of town."
"Let's go."
Once they were in the car Paul explained. "Apparently he was protesting the misuse and destruction of the forestland. Fire department did a controlled burn in the area early this morning to clear out a lot of the dead trees and dry tinder."
"And they cleared out a little more than they bargained for," Mark said.
"Exactly."
"Sounds like an accident."
"Yeah, but the captain wants us to check it out anyway."
"Why not? I've already been to one accident today," Mark said with a sigh. "So, exactly what homicides were you referencing when I called?"
Paul shrugged. "We've still got a couple older cases to work, like that art dealer from a few months back."
"Or the Iranian student from last year. I know. Trust me, I don't forget a victim," Mark said.
"Hopefully Kelly isn't one of them, just a poor slob who was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Like Jeremiah this morning.
They reached the burn line and were waved through by fire- fighters. A minute later they were pulling up a few hundred feet away from the scene of the accident.
Randall Kelly, or rather, what was left of him, was still handcuffed to a charred tree, half of which was little more than embers and ash. The flesh had been burned off the majority of the body with part of the face and arms more intact than the rest.
"Terrible way to die," Paul said.
"You're preaching to the choir," Mark said. "I'd rather be shot any day."
"Can you imagine seeing it coming and not being able to escape?"
"Makes you wonder what he did with the key, why he couldn't free himself."
"Maybe he dropped it? Swallowed it?" Paul said.
"Maybe, or maybe someone was supposed to come over today and let him go, friend or family member maybe."
The fire chief was standing at a respectful distance and Mark finally turned away to engage him, catching sight of the coroner arriving on scene out of the corner of his eye.
Mark had met the chief half a dozen times but he introduced himself anyway.
Jim shook his head. "One of these days we'll have to have a barbeque or something, meet under happier circumstances."
"Looks like we've already got something of a barbeque here," Mark said before he could stop himself.
"I trust you know that wasn't funny."
"Sorry," Mark said, wincing. Usually people apologized to him, not the other way around. "Tell me what happened."
"We were doing a controlled burn before the dry season, trying to get rid of a lot of dead leaves, branches, and trees.We're going to be heading into summer with too much dead undergrowth. Better to burn it now than to risk a fire breaking out and burning out of control later."
"I assume you filed all the necessary paperwork, got permits, everything?"
"Of course. We advertised, even posted signs warning people to stay away."
"When did you realize someone ignored those warnings?"
"Helicopter pilot who was keeping an eye on the burn from up above spotted the car about a quarter of a mile off. We doused the fire as fast as we could, but it was too little, too late. It took us an hour to find him. We were hoping someone had just left the car, but then, well, I smelled burned hair and a minute later I found him. That's when we made the call to you boys."
"How did you know who he was?"
"The registration in his car. It made sense, too. He raised such a stink a couple years back when we were going to do the burn. He even managed to get a temporary restraining order, called for environmental impact studies, blah, blah."
"What happened?"
"While everyone was busy messing around some idiot set off a fire with a cigarette butt. Fire wiped out more than a dozen houses."
"I remember that," Mark said.
"Yeah, well, we hadn't heard much from Mr. Kelly since then. Figured he'd learned his lesson, just sorry others had to pay his tuition."
"More often than not that's what happens," Mark said. "So, I guess he forgot it and headed out here to try and do the same thing all over again."
The fire chief stroked his chin and stared toward the body."I'm not entirely convinced that's true."
"What makes you think that?" Mark asked sharply.
"You ever seen a rat caught in a trap?"
"Can't say as I have."
"They get desperate enough they'll gnaw their own leg off to get free."
"Randall Kelly wasn't a rat," Mark noted.
"No, but he was in a trap same enough. What would you do to save your life?"
Mark turned and looked at the skeleton. "You mean would I gnaw my own hand off?"
"No need. All you'd have to do is dislocate or break one of your thumbs."
"Spend much time running from the police when you were a kid?" Mark joked even as he stared at the body. Jim was right.All Randall would have needed to do to escape was free one hand. If he had struggled hard enough he could have broken his thumb even if he didn't mean to.
"Why weren't you struggling, Randall?" he whispered.
True to her word Geanie returned just before lunch, freeing Cindy up to head to her meeting at O'Connell's Pub. She arrived a couple of minutes early and settled into a booth.The pub was authentic Irish, at least as far as one could get in California. She had always liked the food and every once in a while she would come in and watch people talking and playing darts. She didn't participate even though she was a pretty good dart thrower. Cindy was always too shy to get up in front of people and perform like that.
"One day," she promised herself under her breath as she stared longingly at the dart board. Of course, it looked much different than the one she had on the back of her bedroom door at home. This one didn't have a picture of her brother on it. I wonder if I can even hit a board without using his face as a target? she thought, smiling to herself.
"I hope I didn't keep you waiting," Gary O'Connell said as he slid into the
