The phone was ringing as I unlocked my office, and I grabbed it just in time.
‘Scarpetta,’ I said.
‘I’ve got some results for you,’ said Tim Cooper, the toxicologist. ‘Ethanol, methanol, isopropanol, and acetone are zero. Carbon monoxide is less than seven percent. I’ll keep working on the other screens.’
‘Thanks. What would I do without you?’ I said.
I looked at McGovern as I hung up, and I told her what Cooper had just said.
‘She was dead before the fire,’ I explained, ‘her cause of death exsanguination and asphyxia due to aspiration of blood due to acute neck injury. As for manner, I’m pending that until further investigation, but I think we should work this as a homicide. In the meantime, we need to get her identified, and I’ll do what I can to get started on that.’
‘I guess I’m supposed to imagine that this woman torched the place and maybe cut her own throat before the fire got her first?’ she said as anger flickered.
I did not answer as I measured coffee for the coffeemaker on a nearby countertop.
‘Don’t you think that’s rather far-fetched?’ she went on.
I poured in bottled water and pressed a button.
‘Kay, no one’s going to want to hear homicide,’ she said. ‘Because of Kenneth Sparkes and what all of this may imply. I hope you realize what you’re up against.’
‘And what ATF is up against,’ I said, sitting across my hopelessly piled desk from her.
‘Look, I don’t care who he is,’ she replied. ‘I do every job like I fully intend to make an arrest. I’m not the one who has to deal with the politics around here.’
But my mind wasn’t on the media or Sparkes right now. I was thinking that this case disturbed me at a deeper level and in ways I could not fathom.
‘How much longer will your guys be at the scene?’ I asked her.
‘Another day. Two at the most,’ she said. ‘Sparkes has supplied us and the insurance company with what was inside his house, and just the antique furniture and old wood flooring and paneling alone were a massive fuel load.’
‘What about the master bath?’ I asked. ‘Saying this was the point of origin.’
She hesitated. ‘Obviously, that’s the problem.’
‘Right. If an accelerant wasn’t used, or at least not a petroleum distillate, then how?’
‘The guys are beating their brains out,’ she said, and she was frustrated. ‘And so am I. If I try to predict how much energy would be needed in that room for a flashover condition, the fuel load isn’t there. According to Sparkes, there was nothing but a throw rug and towels. Cabinets and fixtures were customized brushed steel. The shower had a glass door, the window had sheer curtains.’
She paused as the coffeemaker gurgled.
‘So what are we talking about?’ she went on. ‘Five, six hundred kilowatts total for a ten-by-fifteen foot room? Clearly, there are other variables. Such as how much air was flowing through the doorway . . .’
‘What about the rest of the house? You just said there was a big fuel load there, right?’
‘We’re only concerned with one room, Kay. And that’s the room of origin. Without an origin, the rest of the fuel load doesn’t matter.’
‘I see.’
‘I know a flame was impinged on the ceiling in that bathroom, and I know how high that flame had to be and how many kilowatts of energy were needed for flashover. And a throw rug and maybe some towels and curtains couldn’t even come close to causing something like that.’
I knew her engineering equations were pristinely mathematical, and I did not doubt anything she was saying. But it did not matter. I was still left with the same problem. I had reason to believe that we were dealing with a homicide and that when the fire started, the victim’s body was inside the master bath, with its noncombustible marble floors, large mirrors, and steel. Indeed, she may have been in the tub.
‘What about the open skylight?’ I asked McGovern. ‘Does that fit with your theory?’
‘It could. Because once again, the flames had to be high enough to break the glass, and then heat would have vented through the opening like a chimney. Every fire has its own personality, but certain behaviors are always the same because they conform to the laws of physics.’