Blue Smoke

which was just as important to her. She taught me how to ride a two-wheeler, and to finish what I start.”
    He cleared his throat. “She’s survived by her two sons, my cousin Jim and me. I’m going to miss her.”
    Reena waited outside the church while people spoke to Bo before walking to their cars. It was a pretty morning, with strong sun and the smell of freshly mown grass.
    She noted the two people who stayed closest to him. A man of about his age, about five-ten, trendy wire-framed glasses, good, dark suit and shoes. And a woman around thirty with short, bright red hair wearing sunglasses and a sleeveless black dress.
    From what he’d told her, they couldn’t be blood kin. But she recognized family when she saw it.
    He broke away, walked to Reena. “Thanks for coming. I haven’t had much chance to talk to you, to thank you for everything.”
    “It’s all right. I’m sorry I can’t go to the cemetery. I have to get back. It was a lovely service, Bo. You did just right.”

    “Scary.” He put sunglasses over his tired eyes. “I haven’t had to talk in front of so many people since the nightmare of public speaking in high school.”
    “Well, you aced it.”
    “Glad it’s done.” He looked over, and his jaw tightened. “I’ve got to ride out with my father.” He nodded toward a man in a black suit. His black hair had just a touch of silver at the temples, like gleaming wings. Tanned and fit, she thought. And impatient.
    “We don’t seem to have anything to say to each other. How does that happen?”
    “I don’t know, but it does.” She touched her lips to each of his cheeks in turn. “Take care.”
    A t ten on a rainy morning in June that turned the air to steam, Reena stood over the partially destroyed body of a twenty-three-year-old woman. What was left of her was on the nasty carpet in a nasty room in a hotel where “fleabag” would have been a generous adjective.
    Her name was De Wanna Johnson, according to the driver’s license in the vinyl purse found under the bed—and the desk clerk’s statement.
    As her face and upper torso were all but gone, official identification would come later. She’d been wrapped in a blanket, with stuffing from the mattress strewn over and around her to act as trailers.
    Reena took pictures while O’Donnell started the grid.
    “So, De Wanna checks in three days ago with some guy. She pays cash for two nights. While it is possible DeWanna decided to sleep on the floor, and set her own face on fire, I scent a whiff of foul play.”
    O’Donnell chewed contemplatively on his gum. “Maybe the frying pan over there covered with blood and gray matter gave you the first clue.”
    “It didn’t hurt. Jesus, De Wanna, bet he did a number on you first. He had a good combustible source of fuel with the blanket and mattress stuffing, then you’ve got her body fat for the candle effect. But he screwed up. Should’ve opened a window, should have coated this carpet withflammable liquid. Not enough oxygen, not enough flame to finish the job. Hope she was dead before he lit her. Hope the ME and radiologists confirm that.”
    She stepped out to go through the rest of the room, the excuse for a kitchenette. Broken dishes on the floor, what she identified as ground beef mixed with Hamburger Helper sloshed over the graying linoleum.
    “Looks like she was fixing dinner when they got into it. Remains of that in the skillet along with pieces of her. He probably grabbed the pan right off the stove.”
    She turned from it, gripped her hands as if gripping the handle, swung out. “Knocked her back. Blood spatter here looks consistent with that. Comes right back with a backhanded follow-through. Knocks her back again, and down. Maybe pounds on her some more before he thinks, Whoa, shit, look what I did.”
    She stepped around the body. “Figures to light her up, cover up the murder. But animal fat doesn’t burn cleanly. Modest flame destroys tissues, takes her face and more, but it doesn’t bring the room temp, not a closed room, up enough to ignite the stuffing, even the bulk of the blanket he wrapped around her.”
    “So we’re probably not going to be looking for a chemist.”
    “Or somebody who planned ahead. Frenzy of the moment, not premeditated, from the looks of the scene.”
    She moved into the bathroom. The back of the toilet was crammed with cosmetics. Hair spray, hair gel, mascara, lipsticks, blusher, eyeshadows.
    Crouching down, she began to pick