Sam and I both knew that this case wasn't necessarily a homicide. In Kentucky, it's not that unusual for remote dwellings to burn to the ground with sleeping or incapacitated occupants inside. Lots of mountain folks rely on wood-burning stoves and kerosene heaters for heat, and they sometimes use coal-oil lamps or even candles for light. The rural volunteer fire departments do their best, but sometimes they're not even aware of the fire until it's too late to help. In this case, a distant neighbor just happened to see the blaze and call it in. But the ramshackle old house was pretty much rubble by the time the firefighters got there.
Generally, the coroner, local law enforcement officers, and an arson specialist examine a fire scene. If the fire appears to be truly accidental, the bodies are simply recovered and brought to the M.E.'s office for autopsy and positive ID.
So what had made Sam and the coroner suspicious in this case? For one thing, the fire had occurred in the middle of a mild day in April. Not much chance that anyone was using a heater. Then there was the time of day. How likely was it that three able-bodied people were sleeping so soundly during daylight hours that they couldn't make their way out of this small one-story house, especially since there were plenty of doors and windows? The third clue, and the one most significant to trained fire-death investigators, was the fact that the bodies themselves were in abnormal positions.
Of course, probably no charred fire victim can be said to have a “normal” position, but there are certain things you look for when investigating a fire death. If a person dies from smoke inhalation-the usual cause of death in a fire-carbon monoxide builds up in the blood, causing a rapid loss of consciousness. Even after the person has blacked out, though, his or her body continues to react. The windpipe, or trachea, sucks in soot and smoke, and the organs and muscles turn a bright cherry red as carbon monoxide replaces oxygen in the blood. Last-minute chemical reactions in the muscles of the victim cause him or her to contort into what we call the “pugilistic” position-arms bent at the elbows; wrists and forearms drawn in toward the shoulders; hands balled into fists, as if the person were engaged in a boxing match. The legs, too, often flex slightly at the hips and the knees, so that the victim looks to be sitting in some imaginary chair.
However, none of the bodies in the Pulaski County farmhouse were in that position, Sam told me, meaning that there had been no physiological muscle reactions to the fire. And since Sam could actually see one victim's internal organs through rents in the abdominal wall, he'd noticed that there was no sign of the cherry-red discoloration that would have been there if the victim had died while inhaling smoke.
When I arrived at the scene, Sam walked me through the remnants of the little house and pointed out the other reasons he was suspicious. Something about this case had gotten to him: There was a catch in his normally soft voice, lending an air of uncharacteristic sadness to a man I had come to know as cheerful and completely professional even at a crime scene. Then, as we tiptoed through the rubble, Sam suddenly bent down beside a bright-yellow marker flag, and I saw what had affected this career lawman so profoundly. This victim was tiny-by my estimation, a child no older than two or three.
“There's another little one over here, Doc,” Sam said as he took my hand and helped me negotiate over a still-smoking pile of rubble topped off with a porcelain sink. This second victim was a little bigger, but from head to toe, he-or she-was only about four feet long.
“I know you don't like us to go tromping around through a fire when we've got potential murder victims,” Sam went on. “So once the coroner and I confirmed that we had a suspicious situation, I had everybody just back off until you got here. But the biggest body is over there.” He pointed with his chin while lifting a burned beam out of our way. “Firefighters found that one right off-the others were so little that it took a while. But nothing's been disturbed. Even the firefighters stopped spraying heavy water once they realized there were bodies in here, just a fine mist to keep the fire down.”
Sam stopped talking abruptly as though he was trying to get control of his voice, and I had to stifle an impulse to put a comforting hand on his arm. Instead, keeping my own voice casual, I said, “Okay, Sam, that's good. Why don't you keep filling me in while I'm getting my stuff together?”
Sam followed me out to my van, talking more naturally now. “The neighbor says that a woman, Shirley Bowles, lived here with her two kids, Amy and Brian. Seems she got married to man she hardly knew back about a month ago, 'cause she thought he could help her out with the kids. That man, McKinney, was around when they were trying to put out the fire, but he left when the firemen started asking the whereabouts of Shirley and the little ones. He came back for a while, but then when they started finding bodies, he disappeared for good.”
I cast a furtive glance into the woods, which were turning dark with the setting sun. “Where is he now?”
Sam saw what I was thinking and, suddenly, he grinned. “I don't know, Doc, but I've got men out looking for him. I've also got sharpshooters posted around this place, just in case he tries something funny. You know I always cover your back.”
He was right there. Once, his deputies had literally shielded my body with their own when a distraught father had sneaked up to the periphery of our crime scene with a rifle, threatening to shoot me and the coroner during our court-ordered exhumation of his two children.
I grinned back. “Okay, Sam. How about you watch out for me, and I'll try to help us nail whoever did this?”
I climbed into the one-piece navy jumpsuit I wear at most crime scenes, along with the matching cap that proudly announced “State Medical Examiner.” After I pulled on my fireproof boots, I strapped heavy pads across the front of my knees so I could crawl over anything in my path, pulled on a pair of thin leather gloves, and reached for a stack of the plastic snap-lid boxes I keep in my van for collecting fire-scene evidence.
Back in the house, I knelt beside the biggest victim and lifted off the large pieces of burned wood that had half-buried the body. Then I gently brushed away the loose debris from what used to be the victim's face with a large, soft paintbrush about four inches wide, careful not to disturb any bone fragments that might be in the vicinity. Like any housewife, I brushed the ashes into an ordinary dustpan, and then-contrary to most standard housekeeping manuals-slid them carefully into a paper bag to look at later under a magnifying lens.
The victim's face had all burned away, but I could see by her bones that she was a female. What remained of her forehead was smooth and rounded, or “bossed,” while the bone above her eye sockets was smooth, without the heavy brow ridge that most men have. Her bones also told me that she was an adult: Her skull bones and their connecting growth plates, or suture lines, showed signs of complete closure, as opposed to a child's partially open skull. And this woman's mouth was clearly full of permanent teeth. A large section of her skull was missing, but I could see the broken fragments-some still attached to her body, others scattered among the debris. Rearing back on my haunches, I tried to keep my hands and body out of the way as I asked the detective standing beside me to take several photos.
When I'm working a crime scene-especially a fire scene, where all the evidence is so fragile-I continually have to remind myself and everyone else to slow down. After all, the victims are already dead. They're not going to get any deader. Despite the natural human reaction to respect the dead by removing and cleaning up their bodies as soon as possible, we actually show them more respect by leaving them where they are and documenting the evidence that can help us discover how they died. Once you've moved a piece of evidence at a crime scene, that's it. You can never put it back.