The Body Within the Blaze

By Douglas Ewan Cameron

A late night fire in Al’s Hard Hat Bar near Barton City discovered by Alcona Deputy Sheriff Andrew Carmody brings Fire Inspector Daniel Colquhoun on the scene to investigate. When a body is discovered under the bar, the investigation becomes murder and arson. The main questions are: How did the fire start and whose body is it?
More fires and evidence of old fires point to an arsonist possibly just learning his trade. But a naked woman who escaped from a sex slave environment leads to a crystal meth lab and another fire and another body. Then a restaurant appears to have been torched? Are these fires related? Andrew Carmody and Daniel Colquhoun have their hands full trying to find the arsonist before there is another fire and a possible third death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: W & B Publishers
• Release date: Mar 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9781635542103

Book preview

The Body within the Blaze

by

Douglas Ewan Cameron

W & B Publishers

USA

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any informational storage retrieval system without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

W & B Publishers

For information:

W & B Publishers

9001 Ridge Hill Street

Kernersville, NC 27284

www.a-argusbooks.com

ISBN: 9781635542103

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

The cover picture is by Robert Ellis, Lucerne Firefighter, posted UpNorthLive.com, Thursday, October 1, 2015.

Printed in the United States of America

Dedication

To my wife to whom I verbally dedicated the first book, mentally have ever since then, and feel that in my fourteenth book I once again need to acknowledge her support in all the things I do but most especially in my writing. She is my sounding wall and when I mention an idea which she doesn't think will fly, she lets me know. So thanks Nancy Calhoun Cameron, the love of my life and my best friend.

The professional and, to a lesser extent, the amateur arsonist wants to produce a maximum of destruction no matter how small the first ignition.

Kirk’s Fire Investigation, 4/E, John D. DeHaan, 1997, Prentice-Hall, Inc

Bo Jangles was a drunk. No strings pulled – he was a drunk. He would have been called an alcoholic if he went to AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) meetings, but he didn’t. He just drank – anything he could get his hands on that had alcohol in it. Whenever he had enough money in his pocket for a bottle – any size of a bottle; any kind of booze – he would get someone going to the store to buy him a bottle or he would get there himself, thumb out or walking. Walking was the worst because there weren’t any stores near his current habitat that was about twelve miles south of Hibbard Pond, on Skunk Road, halfway between Lincoln and Barton city. More precisely about a mile west of East Path Extension – which ran from the south end of Hibbard Pond where East Path turned right to become South Path – extending East Path south to M-72.

His cabin was about two hundred yards back from the north side of Skunk Road and reached by an overgrown two-track road that hadn’t seen a vehicle on it in several years. He had been living there less than a year, so he knew that it had been that long since anyone had come here. Besides himself, that is. The place was most likely a hunting camp because most places on this part of Skunk Road were. When he had first arrived here in late spring looking for handouts as well as a place to live, the road looked used – at least within the past year. He had walked up the road, coming to a clearing in the middle of which sat the cabin. It was logs with no window on the right side and a porch with a roof running the length of the front side. A door was in the middle of the porch with steps in front – no railing on the porch. A window was on either side of the door. Both were dirty. There was no one to be seen outside so he rapped on the door. There was no answer. He rapped again; this time louder. Still no answer. He knocked and shouted, Hello, anyone home. Again no answer. He shrugged and turned away not wanting to waste any more time – his stomach was starting to growl. But there is always that chance he reasoned, so he stopped, turned back, grabbed the door knob and turned it … and turn it did. Realizing that it wasn’t locked – Wahl, it was open so I figured I could go in with this invitation and all. – he shoved the door open and yelled Hey, anybody, I’m home. There was no answer. Holding his breath, he stepped inside.

The place was dim, lit only by outside light filtering through pulled shades and cobwebs. It smelled musty as though unused for a long time. He thought If there were a body here, it’s just bones now. From what he could make out it was a one-room cabin – most likely a hunting cabin judging from what appeared to be bunk beds along two walls. He looked and to the right of the doorway was a two-switch switch plate, the closer switch uncovered, the further loosely covered with a piece of tape of some kind. Both switches in the down position. Nothing to lose, he thought and flicked the closer switch. He was startled by a light coming on. It hung down in the middle of the room above a table. A poker table he judged by the cards strewn around and in the center of the table – a pile of money. Bills and change amounting to $18.25 when he counted it. He looked back at the switch plate. Then he went and stuck his finger under the loose tape and flicked the switch up. Immediately there was a hum from the left side of the room. He looked and in the partial gloom he could see something white. Turned out to be small refrigerator, door closed. To the right of the refrigerator was a short counter and sink. Above the sink was a small window. Under the counter to the right of the sink was a drawer and a cabinet door. The drawer contained assorted cooking utensils as well as a can opener. The cabinet contained an assortment of dirty cobwebbed cans – baked beans, kidney beans, tomatoes, corn, etc. The cabinet under the sink had some dish detergent and a dish towel on a rack attached to the door. In the corner beyond the counter was a wood-burning cast iron stove sitting catty-cornered with the chimney pipe going through the wall and up the side of the cabin ending above the roof as further search showed. Inspection revealed a heavy metal pot and cast iron skillet sitting atop the stove. Both were filthy. It turned out that the sink and the refrigerator were also filthy, the latter with mold and rotten food now stiff with the passing of time because the refrigerator wasn’t running. The find in the refrigerator, at least for him, was a partial twelve-pack of beer. Above the stove and the sink hung a single bulb with a pull-string, no shades. Both worked. He tried the water handles on the sink’s faucet, but nothing happened. Bummer he thought.

To the right of the stove was a door that opened to the outside and revealed an outhouse about twenty feet beyond the door. Bet that smells good, Bo thought, but when he needed to use it, it didn’t smell that bad. There was what had been a six-pack of toilet paper (single ply to his disgust). There were four full rolls left and a partial one sitting on a little shelf to the right of the single hole that did have a toilet seat. No problem with an under or over controversy there. There was a pull-string light above the seat, and it worked. When he looked, he could see the wire running from the house, supported halfway by a pole that also was the terminus of a plastic coated clothesline attached to the cabin. Moldy but useable when clean. The door of the outhouse had a half moon cut in it and at night, if the light was left on, it served as a guide to the outhouse. The other find in the outhouse were three magazines: a Field and Stream, a Playboy and a Penthouse. All were three years old. There were no address labels on the porno magazines as he thought of them but there had been one stamped or something in the cover of field and stream. Age and the elements had made the label mostly illegible, but he could make out OIT MI. His conclusion was that the owner of the magazine – and possibly the owner of the cabin – was from Detroit.

A cursory examination had shown that on the sink side of the cabin there was a pipe sticking up out of the ground with a removable metal cover – a pump. Water was important so he went into the cabin and looked at the wall above the sink. There was nothing, so he looked under the sink there was another switch-plate, this one a single and again the switch in the down position and covered by tape. He removed the tape and flipped the switch. He didn’t hear anything. He shrugged. No water, not a good place to stay. Filthy. No water – can’t clean it. Bo Jangles may have been a drunk, but he still had pride in himself and his belongings. Not wanting to give up just yet, he went to the sink and turned on the cold water handle which he had shut off when he tried it earlier. There was gurgling sound, a cough accompanied by the spewing forth of rusty liquid followed by a steady stream of rusty colored water that quickly changed to pale rust and then clear. YES, Bo Jangles had shouted for all to hear although there was no one who did.

Now in his mind there was one thing left – security. He didn’t want anyone sniffing around. There was nothing he could do about smoke from the stove, that would be his warmth in the winter. The woods between the cabin and Skunk Road was mostly pine, cedar and other evergreens so he would be invisible in the winter as well as the summer and everything in between. But there was electricity and that meant a meter, and someone had to read it. You didn’t get electricity for nothing! Going outside he made another circuit of the cabin and discovered a pipe coming out of the foundation on the entry roadside of the house. The pipe ran up the wall and ended in an ell going into the house just below the wooden shingled roof. A look inside revealed the electrical wire entering the house at that point. So the power was underground, most likely running from Skunk Road along the entry road. He walked back looking on both sides of the entry road and finding nothing until he reached Skunk Road. To the right of the entry road there was an electric pole and at its base a pipe came out of the ground and from the pipe an electrical wire that ran up the pole to the wires. The pipe opening was filled with what he thought was a silicon caulk. There was no meter. So the electricity was illegal! Being a hunting cabin it wasn’t used much, and the power was minimal being just a couple of lights and the pump. He could keep his usage low and, unless there was a problem with the power or a close inspection was made, he would be safe. Satisfied that he was secure from discovery or as secure as he could be, he returned to the cabin and the now slightly cool beer. Food could wait. Thirst couldn’t. After all, he was a drunk.

Having discovered the building’s outhouse and electricity supply, he returned to investigate the rest of the cabin, most notably the four bunk beds sleeping a total of eight. Each bed had a mattress – not new but not old either. There were no sheets or blankets but on two – one upper and one lower – was treasure. The upper one had a sleeping bag, open and laid out. Dusty but taking it outside and shaking it revealed it to be fairly new and top quality. On the one lower one he discovered a pillow with a cover. He could sleep like a king. The most startling and unexpected discovery was under one of the bunk beds against the outside wall that had no windows or door. It was a cardboard box which declared on the outside that it was tequila but on the inside were eight bottles of booze: two scotch, three bourbon, one gin and two vodka. A three-day supply that with the beer he would manage to stretch to four.

It took him a week to get the cabin clean to his satisfaction. The refrigerator had been the most disgusting. It had been an all day job – with time off for a drink. Or two. Or.... He had taken one day to walk to the nearest store for supplies. He thought of it as a party store or mini-mart, but it had the essentials: canned food, beer and whiskey, bread, beer and whiskey, whiskey and beer. He had added the twelve dollars he had with him when he found the cabin to the kitty cash on the poker table and had a decent haul. He had four heavy plastic bags that he had to carry back. He was only passed by three cars on the way to the store and two on the way back. It was off-season, he reasoned. All the downstate folks had pulled up stakes and closed things down after Labor Day. He knew there would be brief influxes of folks, mostly men, during hunting season. That worried him a little – the owners of the cabin might be back. He would have to handle that when it happened. If it happened. One day he had taken an ax hanging on the inside cabin wall into the woods and cut down a couple of dead trees which he cut into manageable logs and dragged back to the cabin. That was morning. He had used the remainder of the day cutting the logs into usable pieces and splitting them. Not wasting anything he had gathered the chips and put them in a pail to use as fire starters. There was a metal pail with a slit in the lid sitting next to the log pile at the back of the cabin and he could tell it was for ashes. It was empty which again told him that whoever had been here had basically just arrived. He couldn’t for the life of him think about why they had left in such a hurry. He had taken half a day that first week to find a bar within walking distance. Al’s Hard Hat Bar was one hour away, left down Pine Road a mile from the cabin. He had asked if he could get work there and the owner had agreed that he could clean up twice a week for ten bucks and a twelve pack of beer. He was in seventh heaven and when he had the money, which he earned doing odd jobs for folks around who didn’t have time themselves, he would blow it there. And that’s how he came to be there that fateful Saturday night.

When he was drunk, Bo Jangles was something of a freak, but once regulars at Al’s Hard Hat Bar had accepted him, the difference disappeared. He wasn’t a freak because he was a drunk – there were lots of drunks around – he was a freak because he was one of those strange drunks who don’t appear to have been drinking until they pass out. One minute he is carrying on a very articulate conversation and the next he falls off his bar stool. He was an oddity that way and when he was drinking, as he was that fateful night, a pool would start up as to when he would pass out. Not if. Not how many drinks. Just when. Winner was the closest under the time. If you had 11:21 and he passed out at 11:20, you lost even if the closest under was 11:10. Al’s Hard Hat Bar closed at 2:00 a.m. Saturday night, which was really Sunday morning. That night, for whatever reason, Bo Jangles was still up at 12:10 a.m. when he went to take a leak. He tried the door to the men’s room, but it was locked. Out of curiosity he put his ear to the door. He heard grunting and moaning. Someone’s getting it on, he thought and went out the back door. He walked ten feet away into a small grove of trees, unzipped his pants and ....

It was dark. Pitch dark. Not a light to been seen when Bo Jangles rolled over, his pants wet with urine because he hadn’t completed his piss when he had passed out. He barely noticed as he managed to get to his feet.

What happened to the lights? he mumbled to himself. He walked back toward the bar and noticed that the parking lot was empty. Where is everyone? He didn’t have a watch, so he didn’t know it was 2:37 a.m. and that Marge Coltrane, the bar’s current owner, had left fifteen minutes before. The Jangles Pot (money bet that night) had gone unclaimed and the last half hour before closing had been spent deciding what to do with it. The decision had finally been made that the pot, put into an empty and clean half gallon dill pickle jar, would be the ante for the next contest. $76 makes a nice ante the five remaining contestants (all losers of course) had agreed. What they didn’t know and never would was that Mike Crossgrove was the winner with 12:09.

Bo Jangles had to feel his way along the wall to the back door. When he found it, he wrested the handle and pulled. On a normal night, the handle wouldn’t have turned and the door wouldn’t have budged but that night was not a normal night. That night was a fateful night and the door opened. Bo Jangles stepped inside, pulled the door shut and walked down the dark hallway. This didn’t bother him because this hallway was always dark. Men’s room on the right, women’s on the left, turn the light on when you enter, off when you leave. Many a quickie had happened in this hallway although not this night or ever again.

Bo Jangles stepped through the curtains that separated the hallway from the main room of the bar and found himself in total blackness. There should have been some light. This was a bar and it was never brightly lit but you could always see to find your way around but not now.

HELLO, Bo Jangles shouted. ANYONE HERE?

There was no answer.

I hate to drink alone, Bo Jangles said which was a lie because he would drink anytime, anywhere, and with or without anyone. Still no answer.

Then drink alone it is, and he proceeded to the end of the bar, pushed open the swinging gate, took two steps, turned left, reached out and closed his hand around the neck of a bottle of Jim Beam.

This wasn’t an accident because he often earned money on bets between the regulars and the occasional stop-ins. See that guy at the end of the bar, a regular would say to a newbie. He can find a bottle behind this bar blindfolded. Bullshit, the newbie would say. Honest, the regular would reply. $10 says he can’t, the newbie might say – the amount varied. $10 plus a drink for him if he does, the regular would state. Done. The newbie would be given a bar towel, any one he wanted, and he would apply the blindfold to Bo Jangles who was always willing. He would start in the middle of the bar, walk to the end, turn right, take a step, turn right go through the gate, take the requisite number of steps, turn left and get the bottle and a drink. Piece of cake. Once, after losing the first bet, a newbie doubled it if he could spin Bo Jangles around. Bet accepted provided Bo Jangles faced the bar after being spun. Took him a bit longer but the bet was won. He’d never lost.

In about ten minutes, the Beam was empty and just as he set it back in place, he heard a voice. He couldn’t tell whether it was male or female, but if the bar was closed it had to belong to the bar’s owner and he didn’t want to face her. Marge Coltrane was several owners after Al Merchant who had named the place Al’s Hard Hat Bar, referring to the fact that most of his customers were working men although most of them never wore a hard hat. He had a sign put out front with the name of the place. It was a sign with a rectangular bottom and a curved top. Following the curve was written Hard Hat and between the words in the middle of the sign about halfway down the sign under the space between the letters D and H was Al’s and below that was Bar. So on a quick look, without thinking, the place became known as Hard Al’s Hat Bar and this was shortened to Hard Al’s. Marge Coltrane wanted to change the name of the place to something just a tad more feminine, but in the twenty years that Al Merchant had the place, its name had become a household word. Well, not necessarily a household word but everyone knew what it was and that it was a place to find fun on the weekend, possibly even find someone with whom to shack up overnight. If your husband was late and hadn’t called, then he was at Hard Al’s. If he wasn’t there, you were in marital trouble.

This had nothing to do with marital trouble. For Marge to find him in the bar after hours meant he would lose his job and not be welcome here anymore. He seen enough of people who weren’t welcome anymore to know that he didn’t want that. This was the closest place to his place that served booze and on the right night, especially during hunting season, he could drink for almost nothing. He couldn’t be found in the place after hours. Suddenly the place grew lighter, lit by a bobbling light. Bo dropped quickly to the floor, crawled a few feet and then slid into a space under the bar. Then he lay still and listened.

See, I told you it would work. Letting Marge lock the back door and then going to take a quick piss and she never gives it a thought.

Yeah, said a deeper voice. But how are we going to get into the safe?

I told you that I know the combination.

I remember, Deep Voice said. "You got it when you used to work