St. Albans Fire Read Free Page A

photographers and reporters, and finally to the family, all in the pursuit of telling details. Also—at some point in the midst of it all—he’d process the actual scene, occasionally taking days to do so. The pecking order for this complicated, often diplomatic procedure varied from case to case and usually, as now, was helped along by others, especially the Vermont Forensic Lab, which today was still on its way. Inevitably, however, sooner or later Michael found himself where he was right now: standing alone in the middle of a water-soaked, blackened, artificial swamp, trying to think through what might have led to its creation.
    Traditionally, barn fires were among the worst. For the most part old, dry, wooden structures, barns were match heads to begin with, before they were stuffed with hay and chemicals and tractors and gas and oil and anything else highly flammable. By an overwhelming margin, when it came to investigating barn fires, Jonathon Michael found himself the tallest thing standing in a clotted field of tangled char.
    This one was the rare exception. For reasons he hoped to discover—through his own reconstruction and from witness accounts—this barn had not been reduced to a cellar hole. It wasn’t salvageable by any means—the entire hayloft overhead was missing, for one thing—but there were remnants of the building still standing, if only to an eye as practiced as his, which meant that he had a great deal more to work with than usual.
    This was especially good news, since the primary reason he was standing here instead of running preliminary interviews was the strong possibility that a young man lay dead at his feet somewhere.
    · · ·
    Joe Gunther carefully replaced the phone.
    Gail Zigman glanced up at him. “Trouble?”
    “Yeah,” he answered tiredly. “A possible arson way up northwest, St. Albans area.”
    She raised her eyebrows. “They called you?”
    “Someone died,” he answered.
    Her face softened. “Ah,” she murmured, once more struck by how often death played an intimate third to their relationship. She and Joe had been together for a long time now—decades, in fact—long enough to give her pause occasionally.
    “You going?” she asked him, a coffee mug halfway to her lips.
    He stretched and arched his back, causing the newspaper spread across his lap to slip onto the floor. “Yup. Not much choice. Sorry.”
    She took a sip and then shook her head. “No, no. I understand. I have work to do anyhow.”
    They were tucked into her small Montpelier condo, where she now spent most of her time. She’d recently been elected to the Vermont State Senate—a low-paying, part-time job in a citizen legislature that functioned only half of each year, although such a description didn’t do justice to either the job’s real demands or Gail’s ability to transform potentially light labor into something all-consuming. Gail Zigman was nothing if not passionate, and did few things halfway. As a result, her large home in Brattleboro—which she’d briefly shared with Joe a few years back—had become little more than a place to touch base. Certainly, Joe, if he wanted time with her, had learned to drive here for it, usually rationalizing the trip by also checking in with his Vermont Bureau of Investigation headquarters in nearby Waterbury.
    Joe got to his feet and went in search of his shoes by the front door. “This’ll probably take a while—maybe a few days. I’ll give you a call.”
    “Sure,” she answered. “No problem.” She added, suddenly concerned, “This is safe, right?”
    He looked up at her, one shoe in his hand, and smiled. “Yeah. Probably an insurance thing gone wrong. Maybe a feud. We’ll just be cleaning up the mess. Nobody shooting at us, at least not till the lawyers show up.”
    She nodded at the feigned humor and let him get back to his task, but the small smile she offered was entirely false. He’d almost died a couple of times on the job, once in a