I started walking toward it.
‘There’s no waste to be disposed of that I know of, and it’s strictly against policy for the oven to run unattended,’ I said.
Outside that door, we could hear the inferno on the other side. I placed my hand on the knob. It was very hot.
Marino stepped in front of me, turned the knob and shoved the door open with his foot. His pistol was combat ready in both hands as if the oven were a brute he might have to shoot.
‘Jesus,’ he said.
Flames showed in spaces around the monstrous old iron door, and the floor was littered with bits and chunks of chalky burned bone. A gurney was parked nearby. I picked up a long iron tool with a crook at one end and hooked it through a ring on the oven door.
‘Stand back,’ I said.
We were hit with a blast of enormous heat, and the roar sounded like a hateful wind. Hell was through that square mouth, and the body burning on the tray inside had not been there long. The clothes had incinerated, but not the leather cowboy boots. They smoked on Detective Jakes’s feet as flames licked the skin off his bones and inhaled his hair. I shoved the door shut.
I ran out and found towels in the embalming room while Marino got sick near a pile of metal drums. Wrapping my hands, I held my breath and went past the oven, throwing the switch that turned off the gas. Flames died immediately, and I ran back out of the room. I grabbed Marino’s radio as he gagged.
‘Mayday!’ I yelled to the dispatcher. ‘Mayday!’
13
I spent the rest of the morning working on two homicide cases I had not counted on while a SWAT team swarmed my building. Police were on the lookout for the hot-wired blue van. It had vanished while everyone was looking for Detective Jakes.
X-rays revealed he had received a crushing blow to the chest prior to death. Ribs and sternum were fractured, his aorta torn, and a STAT carbon monoxide showed he was no longer breathing when he was set on fire.
It seemed Gault had delivered one of his karate blows, but we did not know where the assault had occurred. Nor could we come up with a reasonable scenario that might explain how one person could have lifted the body onto a gurney. Jakes weighed 185 pounds and was five foot eleven, and Temple Brooks Gault was not a big man.
‘I don’t see how he could do it,’ Marino said.
‘I don’t either,’ I agreed.
‘Maybe he forced him at gunpoint to lie down on the gurney.’
‘If he was lying down, Gault could not have kicked him like that.’
‘Maybe he gave him a chop.’
‘It was a very powerful blow.’
Marino paused. ‘Well, it’s more likely he wasn’t alone.’
‘I’m afraid so,’ I said.
It was almost noon, and we were driving to the house of Lamont Brown, also known as Sheriff Santa, in the quiet neighborhood of Hampton Hills. It was across Gary Street from the Country Club of Virginia, which would not have wanted Mr. Brown for a member.
‘I guess sheriffs get paid a whole lot more than I do,’ Marino said ironically as he parked his police car.
‘This is the first time you’ve seen his house?’ I asked.
‘I’ve been by it when I’ve been back here on patrol. But I’ve never been inside.’
Hampton Hills was a mixture of mansions and modest homes tucked in woods. Sheriff Brown’s brick house was two stories with a slate roof, a garage and a swimming pool. His Cadillac and Porsche 911 were still parked in the drive, as were a number of police vehicles. I stared at the Porsche. It was dark green, old, but well maintained.
‘Do you think it’s possible?’ I started to say to Marino.
‘That’s bizarre,’ he said.
‘Do you remember the tag?’
‘No. Dammit.’
‘It could have been him,’ I went on as I thought about the black man tailing us last night.
‘Hell, I don’t know.’ Marino got out of the car.
‘Would he recognize your truck?’