She went in and edged around him so she could see better.
Great kitchen. The kind she would kill for. White European cabinetry, marble sink, stainless steel refrigerator, large window with a view of the park. It struck her that while this was a fairly expensive co-op (and what co-op wasn’t in Manhattan?), it was the apartment’s furnishings that made it seem so luxurious. Like the glass-fronted wine cooler with divided sections set at different temperatures for red and white wines; the glass and wrought-iron table; the array of expensive copper cookware suspended on hooks above a cooking island and breakfast bar.
She heard her own involuntary gasp as she gazed beyond Stack at what was left of the man on the floor. His body was blackened and curled, reminding Rica of nothing so much as overdone bacon. Most of his legs were burned away; she knew that could happen, a human being’s fat could catch on fire and blaze like meat in a frying pan.
Stack and Rica put on their rubber gloves. Rica hadn’t seen the results of a serious kitchen fire before, but that was what this looked like. A cooking accident, maybe a heart attack while the deceased had been holding a match, lighting a cigarette. Or maybe burning grease had leaped from a pan to his clothes that were particularly combustible. She glanced at the stove. No frying pan. But there was a pot without a lid, centered on a lighted gas burner; he had been preparing something to eat. She peered into the pot and saw a couple of eggs dancing around in boiling water. She didn’t turn off the burner. It could wait for the techs.
She turned her attention back to what was on the floor.
“Ever seen anything like this?” Stack asked in a calm voice.
“Only in training films.” Rica swallowed. “There’s hardly anything left of him—or her.”
“I’d guess him,” Stack said, “by the size and what’s left of the shape.”
The corpse’s hair had been completely burned away, leaving an odor much like that created when Rica used a too-hot curling iron. She felt her stomach kick.
“You gonna be okay with this?” Stack asked.
“Yeah!” she almost shouted at him. Don’t ever think I can’t keep up with you, big boy.
He glanced over at her and smiled, reading her mind. “So what do you think?”
“So far, it looks like an ordinary cooking accident. The sprinkler system did its job and put out the fire. Everything in this room and the hall is soaked.”
“So why wasn’t the body soaked before it burned to that condition?”
That was a good question. Rica moved beyond Stack and started looking around the kitchen, being careful where she stepped. Stack didn’t move, looking almost straight up.
“There’s a sprinkler head right over the body,” he said. “The victim might as well have burned to death in his shower as lying where he is.”
“He looks plenty wet now,” Rica said, “but obviously he took his shower too late.”
“That could explain it,” Stack said.
Rica looked where he was pointing, then stood motionless, realizing what he meant.
Propped in the corner where the stove met the wall was a partially folded black umbrella. It was wet, like just about everything else in the kitchen, and it reminded Rica of a huge bat that had roosted there.
“It’s been three days since we’ve had any snow or rain,” Stack said.
Rica had been thinking the same thing. She understood why the sprinkler system hadn’t extinguished the burning man before it was too late. Someone had stood over him, holding the umbrella so he’d burn bright and long. “Madre de dios,” she said. “Why would anyone do such a thing?”
“You’ve been a cop too long to ask that question,” Stack said. “You know there’s no answer that won’t drive you crazy.”
“One answer we have,” Rica said, “is why the FDNY figured we had a homicide here. They must have seen the umbrella.”
“Or something else,” Stack said. “Look at that.” He took her arm and gently led her closer to the body, as if escorting her onto a dance floor. He pointed. “See that blackened piece of cloth near what’s left of the legs?”
He stepped carefully around the body, keeping his distance, as she followed.
“I doubt if he died in that position naturally,” he said. “Or if he had a choice, with his arms behind his back.”
“His arms and legs were bound,” Rica said. “After he was tied up, then probably soaked with something flammable, he was set on fire.”
“And whoever did it stood holding an umbrella over him, shielding him from the water from the sprinkler system, watching to make sure he burned to death and then some.”
Rica tried to push away the vision of someone seemingly politely holding an umbrella over a fellow human being who was on fire. Her stomach lurched again. It was the smell, mainly. She went over to the window and was relieved to see it was the kind that could be cranked open. She worked the metal handle, leaned forward, and breathed in some high, fresh air.
“Ain’t we just in a hell of a business?” she said, when she finally felt steadier and straightened up.
But Stack had already gone down to the street to use the detectives’ band radio in their unmarked to call for the techs and the medical examiner, leaving her with the burned man and the questions that hung in the air like smoke.
THREE
The week after the Ardmont Arms fire, Stack walked into Mobile Response, located in the Eight-oh Precinct, with Rica on his heels. The Mobile Response Squad had been formed to conduct investigations the regular detective division couldn’t adequately handle because of case overload. It was authorized to operate in all five boroughs and had come to be regarded as a crack outfit.
Stack enjoyed the special status, though he knew for a fact that case overload wasn’t the only reason for the squad’s existence. It sometimes served as a kind of pressure valve; the higher-ups stepped aside and let sensitive, potentially damaging cases find their way to the MR Squad in order to minimize any political or PR damage. It was a situation Stack could live with. Departmental politics had worn him down at the edges. But only at the edges.
Though he wasn’t the ranking officer, the mood of the place was subtly altered by his arrival. Detectives at their desks seemed to bend to their work. Those standing and talking or drinking coffee sidled back to their desks or the swing gate to the booking area and either busied themselves or left. Stack took the work seriously, and when he was present, so did everyone else.
He was a big man, six-feet-two and 230 pounds. Now in his forty-seventh year, he was beginning to thicken around the waist, but his shoulders were broad and his big hands made fists like rocks. Even without NYPD politics, he might have climbed through the ranks on ability or looks alone. His head was large, his forehead wide. His dark hair was parted on the side, cut short around the ears and beginning to gray. Level gray eyes studied everything calmly from beneath thick dark brows. His cheekbones were prominent and his jaw was firm with a cleft chin. If it weren’t
