The Fort (Aric Davis)

and she’s listed at five feet, four inches. That anywhere close to a match with this girl?”
    “That’s where it gets tough, with this sort of barbecue. First glance, the woman in this pit figures to stand about five foot, tops, but people shrink as they burn. Think of the last time you cooked a steak.”
    “We get it, Tracy,” said Dr. Martinez.
    “Can the kitchen references, then,” said Tracy, grinning. “Anyways, our girl here got cooked with an accelerant, could be gas, but I’m thinking hotter. Bones crack from that kind of heat, which further degrades our ability to nail down a positive ID. So where we’re at now is, we’ve got a young lady who may or may not be Molly Peterson, but who most certainly was killed and burned to death roughly forty-eight hours ago, give or take about four hours.”
    “That seriously the best we can do?” said Van Endel.
    Tracy knelt next to the sheet-covered body and slipped on a pair of white latex gloves. He removed the weights securing the blanket that covered the corpse until it would be placed in a body bag, and then pulled it from the top half of the girl.
    “To be perfectly honest, Detective,” said Tracy, “I think we’re doing pretty fucking good with what we’ve been left. Once I get her to the lab, I’ll be able to pin the time of death down a little closer, but sometimes, what you see is what you get.”
    “Poor girl,” said Dr. Martinez softly under her breath, then made the sign of the cross across her chest.
    Molly, or whoever it was, had been burned to almost nothing. Her skin was ash, covering not-quite-burned red flesh, along with white and yellow fat. Her eyes were gone, and her arms were folded up unnaturally, as the fire had forced her limbs to tighten. Her neck was tilted back as far as her spine would allow, her mouth open as though she were still trying to scream. The teeth were destroyed, just as Van Endel and Martinez had been told they were. If Tracy can get an ID from those, he’s even better than he says he is. Van Endel stared death in the face for a few moments longer, and when he looked away, he saw that Dr. Martinez had turned as well.
    “Cover her up,” said Van Endel.
    Tracy did, moving around the body deftly, taking care not to put his feet too near her. There would be time for poking and prodding later, but that was for the lab, not where she lay now.
    “You see what I mean?” Tracy asked when he stood up. “That girl is gone. I’ll do my best—you guys know that—but I’m not sure there’s anything here to learn, aside from the fact that it was one evil motherfucker who did this to her.” Two stretcher-bearing EMTs interrupted him as they walked down the path.
    “I want everything you can get,” said Van Endel, “even the stuff you think is nothing, all right?”
    Tracy nodded, and Van Endel and Dr. Martinez made their way back up the path to the detective’s car.
    They were silent for the most part as they drove, Van Endel processing the day so far, and Dr. Martinez no doubt doing the same. The boys’ prank had done this much good, anyway: it had launched the search that had led a police dog to the corpse. Not that they’d meant to do it, of course, but it was something, and it was far more than he’d had to go on before. It was tough to feel anything but bad about it, though. Finding the body eliminated hope completely. Molly had been found, just not the right way.
    “You’re going to find him, Dick,” said Dr. Martinez. “You have to. I know that you feel a life is a life, and that this girl’s death should be no more important than any of this bastard’s other victims, and I agree with that. But the brutality of this…there was just no reason to ruin her the way he did, none at all.”
    “Unless we’re missing something and there is a reason. It would hardly be a surprise at this point. Everyone else is messing with us, why not throw in a perp with motivations that are impossible to understand?”
    There was something tugging at Van Endel’s brain, and he let it work away while they drove to a pay phone so he could tell Chief Jefferson he was going to need to make a horrible phone call.
    I’m missing something, but what?

28
    Hooper woke alone, his face glued by sweat to the thick shag of the carpet in the front room. The phone was ringing in the kitchen, and he stood unsteadily to make his way to it. He tried to swallow, but his mouth felt pasted shut. He turned on the sink and sank his