"The odor is quite pungent," she explained, "and that means it's rising toward us, or at least that'd be my guess," she told others within earshot.
Once on the fifteenth floor, they first heard and then saw firemen storming up the stairwell. Other firefighters were unloading from the elevators and spilling into the hallways above, or so it sounded, some shouting like commandos at the civilians, moving them out and down. Jessica lingered on the stairwell above the fifteenth floor, waiting while others, in various stages of panic, passed her by, some assuring her that the only safe place was the lobby below. Firemen called out to her, telling her she could take the elevator on fifteen for the lobby below.
A crowd too large for the limited number of elevators had emerged by now, and J. T. found Jessica on the stairs, where she'd remained a flight below seventeen. "Hell of a welcome to the Hilton, huh?" J. T. said.
"Yeah, I'd just gotten my shower, and now I'm going to smell like fire," she replied. "Look, I've got to go up there, have a look at the room where the blaze started."
"Funny no alarms or waterspouts went off," he replied. "You suppose all the fire detectors and sprays in all the rooms may be, you know, inoperable or something?"
This high up in a building, she little wondered at J. T.'s distress. A skyscraper could quickly turn into a death trap for those reposing inside.
"Do you have your ID on you? I just grabbed my key and left everything in the room," she confessed.
"Yeah, I have mine with me, but Jess, why do you want to go chasing a fire?"
"I have a grave feeling someone has died in this fire."
J. T. stared a moment. "You getting spooky on me, like that psychic detective Dr. Desinor or something, Jess?"
"No… I heard her death…"
"Heard?"
"Over the phone. She called just before the fire reached her-said something about gasoline, about someone's wanting to kill her. Said her name was Chris Lorentian." Despite the fact that Jessica spoke her remembered thoughts to J. T., she believed her own thoughts sounded too insane to utter.
He shook his head. "Are you sure you didn't just dream this up?" he replied. "Jess, it's just a fire right now. We don't know that anyone's died in it."
"But I'm telling you someone has, and that I spoke to her."
J. T. looked away, his expression saying, Come on, Jess, the reception's already under way downstairs, and those gambling tables are waiting for us, too. But thankfully, he did not say it. Instead he asked, "But why'd she call you? How'd she know about you?"
"How the hell…" she burst out but slowed down, taking a deep breath. "I don't know the whyfors or the how-tos here, J. T. I'm in the dark. I mean, victims usually talk to me, but normally they're dead when they do their talking," she added. "This… this is just weird. This victim, I think, I fear, spoke aloud and directly at me. I don't know how or why… or what to make of it, John."
"Easy, Jess," he offered.
"Let's just get up there and have a look."
John Thorpe could only stare, his mind racing to put the incomplete details together as they climbed toward the seventeenth floor, where they were met with resistance from firefighters who blocked their way until J. T. flashed his FBI identification and announced who they were.
"FBI?" asked the fireman loud enough for the fire marshal inside to hear him. "How did you guys get this one so soon?"
The fire marshal came to the door and introduced himself as Fire Detective Charles Fairfax, a tall, firm-looking man in an untoggled fire coat and flopping, loosely pulled-on fire boots. "I was downstairs in the casino myself when my beeper went off," he explained. "Dr. Repasi had me paged."
Jessica hardly looked the part of an FBI medical examiner at the moment, but Fairfax, a tall, gaunt man with deep-cut wrinkles and leathery, perhaps fire-retardant skin, she mused, took her appearance in stride. She was barefoot, her hair wet, her T-shirt inappropriate. Fortunately, J. T. had his ID and was dressed in a suit for the reception downstairs. The building was full of forensics people, and apparently the fire marshal was also in attendance for the conference.
"Have you come to any conclusions, Detective Fairfax?'' Jessica asked.
''Flat out murder by fire. No surprises, really, except for the mirror."
"Mirror?"
"You'll see it inside. Anyway, there's an accelerant pattern that shows up under blue light clearly enough that tells us she was doused with what we believe to be ordinary gasoline, which was ignited by an unknown source. No book of matches for this guy. Some of our guys think the fire was ignited by a torch wand, which would give the killer some distance from the blaze."
"How do you know it was a torch wand?"
"A second accelerant pattern, a bit distinct from the first. Appears he may have fired up a butane torch and sprayed the gasoline with the butane flame. But this is all guesswork until we can get the lab analysis work done, of course."
"Understood."
"I mean we've got a lot of experience standing in the room. Myself alone, I've seen more than two thousand suspicious fires."
J. T. whistled in response.
"You know fire's the third-"
"Greatest cause of death in the country, yes," finished Jessica.
"Some six thousand Americans a year die by fire, and fifty percent of 'em come up suspicious, requiring the fire marshals. So we see a lot, and nowadays, what with modern science to back us up, we can put quite a case together before it's over."
"Let's have a look-see," suggested Jessica.
"Dr. Repasi's already inside with our fire investigation team," Fairfax explained.
"We just want a look," replied Jessica.
"You got reason to believe it's an FBI matter, then be my guests."
Sure enough, Karl Repasi was inside, leaning in over the bed where an unidentifiable body lay scorched beyond recognition, curled into the familiar, fetal-like position of those suddenly caught in an inferno, as if warding off Hades with merely hands and feet and flesh were defensively possible. The wrists appeared broken, but Jessica had seen victims of fire death many times before, and she recognized the wilted limbs as bones cracked due to the intensity of the heat the body had suffered. Later, during autopsy, X-ray examination would reveal many more broken bones in the body, in legs, arms, and possibly elsewhere.
The entire mattress had gone up, along with a stash of clothing tucked on either side of the victim's body. This added some less than volatile materials in the mix, since most all clothing was fire retardant nowadays. The killer, no doubt, wanted to leave more smoke than flame and to keep the fire localized over the bed. He obviously knew something of the nature of fire and how to control it. Two of the fire marshals were discussing this feature as they entered the room.
"Bastard was in control from the moment he planned the fire to the moment he stepped away from it," one of Fairfax's men concluded.
A scorched black roof mocked from overhead; the nearby wall remained untouched save for peeling, blistering paint, and soot.
Fairfax said to Jessica, "The scene looks like a spontaneous combustion in some regards. I think this guy wants us to think so, too, but we're not stupid."
Jessica saw that the intense source of the fire was localized over the bed, and it did give the appearance that at one moment the victim lay sleeping peacefully in her bed and in the next instant was consumed by fire. Still, much of the room was painted in black soot and creosote, from floor to ceiling; it had been fire alarms in the rooms above and below the fire that had alerted neighbors to the danger. The alarm and sprinkler system in 1713 had been disconnected, presumably by the killer. Atop the ugliness of the fire soot and grease came the sopping, soapy, drenched-in-water layer, creating a moist patina overall, thanks to a snakelike hose meandering through the room.