Ghere's Inferno Read online

  Her neck still had a red ringed scar from the jewelry. The house fire that had nearly killed her, had raised the temperature enough for the metal to become white hot against her skin, branding her. Emy glanced up at the mirror and frowned. The reddish ring was just another scar to go along with all the others she had on her face, neck, and shoulder.

  Luna sighed and Emy shot her a reproachful look before stepping into the shower. She slid the clear, glass door in its tracks until it thumped closed. The dog lay down on the bath mat. Emy undid her braid, and turned the faucet.

  The cool water pattered against her skin leaving her shivering, but she didn’t mind. She’d been at the site for more than four hours and the Houston heat had been extreme. She and Brett had downed bottle after bottle of water, but it hadn’t put a dent in the near heat exhaustion. For weeks, the Houston weather had been stuck in a rut. The humidity was high, the clouds dark and gloomy; but they refused to rain. The heat index was off the scales. Some were calling it the hottest summer on record.

  Asphalt roads buckled under the incredible heat. Water mains were constantly bursting. Cars frequently overheated. People were dying. And fires were everywhere.

  Northwest of Houston, a large brush fire had broken out. The smoke could be seen from thirty miles to the south. I-45 and 2920 were grey with smoke and ash. Residents of the northern areas had been advised to limit their exposure to the outside and always use recycled air in their cars. If the Gulf winds shifted, all that smoke and ash would hit Houston. If that happened, the damage to the indigent would be extreme.

  Emy turned in the shower and smoothed her hair beneath the stream of water. She closed her eyes as her long black hair soaked. Once she was covered with goose pimples, she found the knob with her fingers, and bumped it toward hot. The water warmed at once and she groaned with pleasure.

  Warm water splashed across her upturned face, washing away the grime of soot and ash. Emy opened her eyes, soaped up the loofa, and scrubbed at her face and arms. The soft petals rubbed against the pink, puckered scars running the length of her left arm. She followed their tracks up to her neck and face.

  The smell of the lavender soap finally dispelled the stench of ash and smoke that had been stuck in her sinuses. The two things she hated the most about her job were the smells of a fire site and the blackened, twisted flesh of dead bodies. Luckily, she hadn’t had to deal with the latter today.

  When she’d left the smoldering row of shotgun shacks, a single firetruck and two HPD cars remained along with the CSU van. The CSU van was still parked on the side street and the techs roamed the area looking for evidence. They’d taken casts of the footprints and gathered samples of ash and wood from the suspected ignition site. Before they’d hand off the evidence to the Arson division, CSU would check for DNA, hair, and fiber. Emy was certain they’d find nothing.

  Although CSU might determine the bug’s shoe-size, height, and weight from the footprints, they’d find little else. If the bug had been wearing shoes, they would have been able to narrow down the type of shoe and make guesses about the bug’s job, habits, and possible social circle. By walking barefoot, the bug had removed those from the equation.

  The techs had scraped the asphalt where she saw the remnants of a symbol. They’d also taken dozens of photographs with high def cameras. With any luck, CSU would have all that back to her by tomorrow at the latest. Until then, she could only write a summary report.

  Emy finished washing her body, turned off the shower, and wrung out her hair. Streams of water rushed from the thick, dark mane. She slid open the stall door. Luna still lay on the bath mat. The dog was snoring.

  Mischievous grin on her face, Emy knelt down and shook her hair. Droplets showered the dog. Luna yelped and ran from the bathroom. Emy laughed, toweled off, and dressed for the day.

  Emy yawned into her coffee mug. After five cups, her brain should have been sizzling with activity. Instead, she was fighting to stay awake. The words on the screen kept blurring into one another. She tabbed away from the text editor and the pictures of the burned out shacks jumped into view.

  She stared at the blackened wood and scorched foundations. It was hard to believe anyone had once lived in the small structures. It was even more difficult to believe they had been considered an historical site, given the fact they were used to house “negroes” long before the Civil Rights Act of the 60s. The shacks had been so much like the sharecropper structures in the old south before slavery was ended. She didn’t understand why the NAACP hadn’t insisted the damned things be destroyed. Why anyone would want to remember that time was beyond her.

  As she sipped her coffee, she flipped over to the bug’s “signature.” CSU had placed the high-res digital photos on the encrypted shared drive. The raw photos were incredibly detailed shots of gravel, cracked asphalt, and the dim outline of a shape.

  Emy tapped her fingers on the edge of the keyboard tray. She sorted through the photos and finally found one that seemed to have the best contrast between the shape and the asphalt. Smiling, Emy opened the photo in her editing software. The image appeared in the middle of the screen at negative magnification. She selected the shape and cropped the image. After zooming in, she set the parameters for a filter and clicked “apply.”

  The asphalt and gravel disappeared leaving ghostly lines. Emy applied another filter and the shape popped. She sipped the last dregs of the coffee as she studied the symbol. The circle was thin and black. A large misshapen ‘V,’ looking more like a forked tree branch than the letter, spread from the bottom with its arms reaching to the top of the circle. A smaller, thinner branch lay inside the large one. Knobs, or maybe they were meant to be budding leaves, stuck out from the branches toward the outer circle.

  Emy frowned. She’d never seen anything like the symbol. When she’d first noticed it at the site, it had appeared like something a heavy metal band would have on their cover. Or, for their sigil.

  But this was something else. It didn’t look Nordic or “satanic”; it wasn’t the kind of thing you’d see from amateurs trying to piss off parents and stoke the imaginations of their fans. This was something she’d have to run through the image databases.

  It would have been much easier if the sigil was easily recognizable. Hell, even a stupid peace sign would have been better than this. She knew from her classes that profiling bugs was easier when they showed a lack of imagination or education. But this might be something from ancient history. Or just the scribblings from a damaged mind.

  Emy saved the filtered image to the case folder on the shared drive. Her photos and those of CSU were carefully titled and marked with metadata. She added her own keywords to the filtered image so she could easily find it. With any luck, one of the Homeland agencies had seen it before. If not, she’d have to go digging through database after database or even, god forbid, the internet.

  “Feel like I’ve been kicked in the head.”

  Emy jumped in her chair and turned. Brett was leaning against the cube wall, looking crumpled with fatigue. “One of these days you’re going to get coffee thrown at you.”

  Brett smiled sheepishly. “Sorry.”

  “Uh-huh. What’s up, Boss?”

  He shook his head. “Not much. Just waiting on your report before I put mine together.”

  “I’m still working on it,” she said.

  Brett pointed to where the photos were still splayed across the screen. “I can see that. Although that doesn’t look much like writing.”

  He stepped forward, pulled his glasses from the small chain he wore, and stared at the screen. This close to him, she could smell his cologne. Say what you want about him, but Brett always looked like he’d stepped out of a salon—fresh, crisp, clean.

  “Where did you get that?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “I told you I noticed something at the site. Could be the bug’s signature.”

  “That doesn’t look like anything. Just, well, lines. In a circle.”

  Emy double
-clicked the filtered photo and brought it up on the screen. Brett sucked his teeth.

  “Okay,” he said, “I stand corrected. Contrast?”

  “Yeah. I just applied some plugins to the image. And that’s what our bug drew on the asphalt.”

  He nodded. “That looks a lot less random.” He dropped the glasses from his nose and they bounced on his chest. He ran a hand through his thinning blond hair. “You really think that’s the sig?”

  She shrugged. “Looks like it. I mean, I hate to say this, but unless our bug sets another fire and includes the same mark, it’s impossible to tell.”

  “Right,” he agreed. “So all we can do is hope this isn’t the beginning of something.”

  “Could be the bug’s already been in business and we’re just now catching on.” She turned to him. “Since we have access to Homeland, I think we should probably run it through their systems and see what they say.”

  Brett nodded and then groaned. “Novak is going to love that.”

  She grinned. “That’s why you get paid the big bucks, right?”

  His frown flipped into a wide smile, but his eyes had turned hard. He leaned in close to her. “Dealing with him isn’t worth the money.”

  Emy laughed. “He’ll retire soon, don’t you think?”

  Brett slapped the grey cube wall. The metal clinked. “Don’t you believe it.”

  “Right.”

  “We have pictures of the crowd,” he said.

  She raised her eyebrows. “I take it CSU is running them through the standard routine?”

  Bugs were known to hang out in the crowds that gathered around a fire. Just as serial killers were bound to follow police investigations and watch their handiwork being carried out of murder sites, fire-bugs wanted to see the destruction their flames caused. Standard procedure was to photograph or use video cameras, as subtly as possible, to document those in the crowd.

  “They’re running it through now,” Brett said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  “Or maybe we’re just going to catch a few bad guys with outstanding warrants.”

  Brett smiled. “Or that. Just more noise for the cops to deal with.”

  “Unless we get a fire-bug hit.”

  He nodded. “I know it’s not PC and it’s against everything I believe in, but sometimes I really wish juvenile records were unsealed. Would make catching these bastards so much easier.”

  Emy found herself nodding. “People make mistakes. Especially young people.”

  “Unless they’re strangling animals, peeing the bed into their teens, and starting fires.” Brett slapped the cube wall again. “Okay, I’ll leave you to it. You think you’ll have the report ready before quitting time?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Good. Then get it done. You have anything else on your plate?”

  She shrugged. “Just looking through the cold cases.”

  “That would be for tomorrow,” Brett said. “Your boss commands you to get some sleep. You look like a woman in desperate need of a spa day.”

  She harrumphed. “Isn’t that every day?”

  “Whatever,” Brett said. “Lee and I are going out for drinks later. You’re welcome to join us.”

  She squinted at him. “That’s not going to help me sleep.”

  “No,” he agreed. “But it will make staying awake so much more fun.” He pointed to the screen. “Get it done and go home. And call me later.”

  She saluted. “Aye aye, sir.”

  Brett laughed and left the cube. She watched him go, her lips turned up in a subtle smile. She didn’t have many close friends, but she’d bonded pretty well with Brett and his husband. If Novak, the head of the Arson Department and their boss, knew Brett was drinking with his subordinates on a regular basis, he’d have a conniption fit. But it was good for morale and Emy liked having the company. Brett and Lee seemed like the only people on earth that didn’t look at her scars twice. To them, the scars were just another part of her. And for the first time in her life, she’d finally felt, well, normal. As long as Brett and Lee kept inviting her, she’d keep going out with them. But not tonight. Tonight, she was going to sleep like the dead.

  She turned in her chair, sighed, and brought up the report. Her eyes tried to swim, but she forced them to focus. She was exhausted and definitely needed a nap. But until she finished the report, she couldn’t go home. Luna’s excited face drifted across her mind and she smiled. A little doggy cuddling was definitely in order.

  “First, work. Then, snuggles,” she said to the screen. Her fingers began clicking the keys and the words flowed. It only took her another 45 minutes to finish the report. By that time, she felt like she could sleep for a week.

  Chapter 3

  The warehouse district was less than vacant. Workers of all color were walking toward the METRO station or into town to catch the light rail. He looked across the alley and saw the empty hulk of Minute Maid Field. They could be playing baseball in it, but the Astros and their victorious opposition would likely be the only ones in attendance.

  He sighed into the air conditioned breeze and luxuriated in the shadows. The sun was behind the baseball stadium and the convention center. He drove past the line of expensive condos and townhouses and deeper into the district.

  Metal buildings, small run-down strip malls, and Vietnamese businesses lined the road. He passed by them before turning east onto a ragged street. The concrete had buckled years ago. Rather than ripping up all the concrete and properly resurfacing the road, the city of Houston had applied blacktop patches that shimmered in the heat. As he drove over one of them, he was surprised the tires didn’t stick in the soft surface.

  He passed by a group of kids jumping through the water of a broken fire hydrant. Their black bodies seemed to smile with relief. Dewhurst wished he was out there with them.

  The car bucked and shimmied as it rattled down the cracked pavement. He slowed as he tried to read the graffiti on the walls. The taggers had spread their gang symbols across the sides of the warehouses. Tiny crosses had been painted over several of the letters. Dewhurst knew what that meant—the tagger had been killed.

  He passed the next alley and glanced toward the left warehouse. Its wall was completely barren save for a single symbol. A large, lazy, crimson spiral that ended in a hook seemed to glow from the grubby white wall. Dewhurst gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the shiver that ran down his spine.

  When he reached the last section of warehouses before the bayou, he braked and put the car into park. The sound of the engine was barely audible over the rush of the air conditioning. He turned his head to the right and stared at the warehouse complex.

  Not so long ago, he’d been here in the winter. The warehouse street had been crammed with police cars and ambulances. Trey Leger had made it out of the warehouse alive. His friend, Dick Dickerson, had died a day later. As bad as that had been, it was nothing compared to what they’d found inside the warehouse.

  Dewhurst sighed. He knew coming back to this section of the district just to stare into the open sore of his guilt wasn’t healthy.

  Tony had told him more than once that he needed to let it go. Jackson had said the same. But they weren’t cops—they didn’t understand. Dewhurst put the car in drive, performed a tight U-turn, and headed back down the road.

  Even as the sun was setting, the outside temperature gauge read 102°. Dewhurst punched the gas and hurried through the long line of warehouses. When he made it out and onto Travis, he traveled beneath the overpass and into the remains of rush hour traffic.

  He’d been killing time and he knew it. Jackson was no doubt waiting for him at Mongoose Versus Cobra with a drink in hand and a question on his lips. If he was lucky, Tony would stop by and distract the journalist. He considered Jackson a friend, but the man didn’t know when to quit being a reporter.

  The week’s case load had been light. Relatively, that is. There had been several assaults and two murd
ers. All easily solved, easily filed, easily forgotten. When the heat was this bad, people inevitably lost their shit. Tempers flared more easily even in the air conditioned bars. Without football, basketball, or a decent baseball team, there was little to entertain anyone that didn’t like soccer. So the drinking was to stave off boredom. The fights were another way to relieve that boredom. And the murders were just people unable to control their tempers.

  He drove through the green lights and headed into midtown. As he drove past the Mercedes dealership, he turned left and into the pay-for parking lot. The attendant shook a flag at him. Dewhurst rolled down his window and stared at the young Latino.

  “Five bucks,” the man said in perfect English.

  Dew smiled and reached into his coat pocket. He produced his badge.

  The man stared at it and then at Dewhurst. “Thought I recognized you. Cops park for free,” he said with a grin. The attendant pointed his flag toward the back of the parking lot. Dewhurst mumbled thanks, closed the window, and drove toward the back. He parked next to Jackson’s BMW and sighed.

  The heat hammered him as he walked the hundred feet to the bar. A large sign covered the building’s facade with a furry looking mongoose swiping at a coiled cobra. Dewhurst liked the place, but damn it was pretentious.

  He walked through the doors and into cacophony. The bar was cluttered with couples and groups of friends ordering their drinks. Dewhurst loosened his tie and got into line.

  The hipsters wore their designer jeans and shirts, drank their micro-brews, and argued about bands. After a few moments, he managed to get a bartender and ordered a Buried Hatchet. When the pint of pitch black beer arrived, he headed toward the back.