Charred Read Free Page A

looking for him. He knows Bill.”
    These poor people couldn’t catch a break. Ellie couldn’t do much about the torched house or the strange corpse except to hopefully find out who did it, but she sure hoped Bill would find their dog.
    The wife had started quietly crying again. Gently, Ellie asked, “Do you remember anything, Mrs. Tobias?”
    The woman shook her head and sniffled. She might be pretty under other circumstances, almost fragile looking, with short brunette hair. She wore a beige skirt and light blue short-sleeved blouse, and a thin gold bracelet dangled from her limp wrist. “I work at the library about two blocks from here … I heard the fire engines go by and told my supervisor someone was having a bad day. I had no idea…” A choked sob ended the brief recital.
    That was an ironic and unfortunate comment, Ellie had to agree.
    “Who has keys to your house? Just the two of you?”
    “And her father,” Matthew Tobias interjected. His tan shirt was partially pulled out of the waistband of his pants and one bit of wispy blond hair stuck up at the back of his head. His wife stiffened. Almost immediately, he stammered, “Not … not that I think he would ever be involved in this.”
    “No, of course not. The keys could have been stolen and he doesn’t even know it. We’d appreciate it if you’d check with him and see if they are still where he usually keeps them. With all the damage, we can’t tell right away if there was forced entry, but the fire department said the front door was locked.”
    Mr. Tobias clasped his wife’s hand. “We don’t understand any of this. The other detective asked us if we keep our coffee table on top of the fireplace hearth. Of course we don’t. It’s in front of the couch.”
    Not at the moment. No one was ever going to prop his feet up on it or set down a diet soda while he watched television on that particular piece of furniture again. If it hadn’t had a tile top and metal frame, it might have been gone altogether.
    A cuckoo clock in the corner thrust out a fake bird and made the requisite sound. Ellie decided to try one more time. “What I’m looking for is any event out of the ordinary, not just this morning but recently. Anyone take your morning paper? You find a window unlatched? What about trouble at work? Either one of you?”
    “Enough to kill someone in my house and burn it down?” Tobias laughed incredulously, but mirth was not associated with the hoarse sound. “No. That kind of a problem I’d remember. Besides, at the moment I’m … between jobs. Michelle has no idea why this happened either. We’ve been sitting here talking about it.” He rubbed his face. “It’s … surreal.”
    He wasn’t going to feel the same way once the police left, the fire department pulled out, and what they were left with was one hell of a mess and their insurance company. It was also a crime scene until the Milwaukee PD was through with the house, and sometimes that took a little while. It was going to be all too real very soon.
    His wife asked in a pitiful voice, “Why would anyone do this to us?”
    What about the poor person who wasn’t alive and well and drinking lemonade, but Ellie refrained from pointing that out. They were in shock; she would be too. “I don’t know, but I am going to do my best to try and find out.”
    “It won’t change what happened,” Matthew Tobias whispered. “But I suppose we should thank you.”
    “Any idea where you are going to stay tonight?” Ellie was a cop, but she was also a human being. As of yet her stone and timber house up in the woods of Lincoln County hadn’t sold, and she valued every single piece of furniture and anything else she owned in it. If someone had done to her what had just happened to them … she wasn’t sure how she’d deal with it. There was always something that couldn’t be replaced. Furniture for the most part was not a tragedy, but pictures and other keepsakes were just …