Chapter 106

THE HOUSE WAS TUDOR-STYLE, surrounded by tall firs and located in a development of million-dollar-and-up homes bordering on a golf course in Santa Rosa. We edged our car into the pack of sheriff’s cruisers and fire rigs, all of which had been on the scene for hours. The firefighters were wrapping up as the ME and arson investigators came and went, ducking under the barrier tape that had been looped around the premises.

I was furious that Pidge had killed again, and once again, he’d taken his hellacious arson spree to a county where Rich, Chuck, and I had no official standing.

Chuck called out to us, and we walked toward the house.

“The fire was contained in the garage,” he said, massaging the old burn scar on his hand.

Hanni held the garage door open, and Conklin and I stepped inside. It was a three-car garage, tools and lawn equipment against the walls, and in the center of the floor was a late-model minivan that had been seared by flames, the exterior scorched black, blue, and a powdery gray. Hanni introduced us around to Sheriff Paul Arcario, to the ME, Dr. Cecilia Roach, and to the arson investigator, Matt Hartnett, who said he was a friend of Chuck’s.

“The homeowner is a Mr. Alan Beam,” Hartnett told us. “He’s still inside his vehicle. And there’s a second victim, a female. She was found on the floor next to the van. She’s in a body bag for safekeeping. Otherwise, everything is just as we found it.”

Hanni shined his light into the carcass of the van so that Conklin and I could get a better look at the victim’s incinerated body in the driver’s seat. The seat was tilted back. A heavy chain lay across the victim’s legs, and a small book rested on his lap, right above the pink and protruding coils of his large intestine.

I went weak at the knees.

The smells of burned flesh and gasoline were overpowering. I could almost hear the screaming, the pleading, the soft whick of a match, and the boom of the consuming fire. Rich asked me if I was okay, and I said that I was. But what I was thinking was that what had happened here in the small hours of the morning had been the ultimate in terror and agony.

That it had been nothing less than the horror of hell.

Chapter 107

DR. ROACH ZIPPED the body bag closed and asked her assistants to carry the female victim out to the van. Roach was petite, in her forties, wore her thick graying hair in a ponytail and her glasses on a beaded chain.

“There was no ID on her,” Dr. Roach told me. “All I can say is that she looks to be a juvenile, maybe a teenager.”

“Not Beam’s wife?”

“The ex-Mrs. Beam lives in Oakland,” said the sheriff, closing his cell phone. “She’ll be here in a few.”

Hanni began a run-through of the fire for our benefit.

“The fire started inside the passenger compartment,” he said. “Paper and wood were piled up in the backseat directly behind the driver. And this is a tow chain,” he said of the heavy links lying across the victim’s lap.

He pointed to a metal bar down in the driver-side foot well, explained that it was a steering wheel lock, like The Club, and that it had been passed through the chain and locked around the steering column. Hanni theorized that first the chains and The Club were locked, then the newspapers and wood were doused with gasoline.

“Then, probably, the gas was poured over the victims and the can was wedged behind the seats -”

“Sorry, folks, but I’ve got to start processing this scene,” Hartnett said, opening his kit. “I’m getting shit from the chief.”

“Hang on just a minute, will you please?” I asked the arson investigator. I borrowed a pen from Hanni, reached into the van, and as Hanni aimed his light over my shoulder, I used the pen to open the book resting on Alan Beam’s lap.

What kind of message had Pidge left for us?

The usual fortune cookie nonsense?

Or was he mad now? Would he slip up and give us something that made sense? I stared at the title page, but all I saw were the printed words The New Testament. That was all. No scribbling in Latin, not even a name. I was backing out of the van when Rich said, “Lindsay, check that out.”

I went back in for a second look and this time saw a bit of fire-blackened ribbon trailing out from the pages. Using the pen again, I opened the Bible to the bookmark. Matthew 3:11.

A few lines of text had been underlined in ink.

My cheek was nearly resting on the victim’s parched and naked bones as I read the underlined words out loud.

“I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”

Chapter 108

CONKLIN GRUNTED, said, “Purification by fire. It’s a major biblical theme.”

Just then the garage door opened behind us and I turned to see a chic forty-something woman wearing a business suit limned in the sunlight behind her. Her face was stretched in anger and fear.

“I’m Alicia Beam. Who’s in charge here?”

“I’m Paul Arcario,” the sheriff said to her, stretching out his hand. “We spoke earlier. Why don’t we go outside and talk?”

Mrs. Beam pushed past him to the van, and although Conklin put an arm out to stop her, it was too late. The woman stared, then shrank away, screaming, “Oh, my God! Alan! What happened to you?”

Then she snapped her head around and locked her eyes on me.

“Where’s Valerie? Where’s my daughter?”

I introduced myself, told Mrs. Beam that she had to leave the garage, and that I would come with her. She became compliant as soon as I put my hand on the small of her back, and we walked together out of the garage to the front of the house.

“It’s my daughter’s weekend with her father,” she said.

She opened the front door, and as she stepped over the threshold, she broke away from me, running through the rooms, calling her daughter’s name.

“Valerie! Val. Where are you?”

I followed behind her, and when she stopped she said to me, “Maybe Val spent the night with a friend.”

The look of sheer hope on her face pulled at my heart and my conscience. Was that her daughter in the body bag? I didn’t know, and if it was, it was not my job to tell her. Right now I had to learn whatever I could about Alan Beam.

“Let’s just talk for a few minutes,” I said.

We took seats at a pine farm table in the kitchen, and Alicia Beam told me that her marriage of twenty years to Alan had been dissolved a year before.

“Alan has been depressed for years,” Alicia told me. “He felt that his whole life had been about money. That he’d neglected his family and God. He became very religious, very repentant, and he said that there wasn’t enough time…”

Alicia Beam stopped in midsentence. I followed her eyes to the counter, where an unfolded sheet of blue paper was lying beside an envelope.

“Maybe that’s a note from Val.”

She stood and walked to the counter, picked up the letter, began to read.

“Dear Val, my dearest girl. Please forgive me. I just couldn’t take it any longer…”

She looked up, said to me, “This is from Alan.”

I turned as Hanni leaned through the doorway and asked me to step outside.

“Lindsay,” he said. “A neighbor found a message from Alan Beam on her answering machine saying he was sorry and good-bye.”

It was all coming clear, why there were no Latin come-ons. No fishing-line ligatures. And the victims were not a married couple.

Pidge hadn’t done this.

Pidge had nothing to do with these deaths. Any hope I had of tripping him up, finding a clue to his whereabouts, was dead – as dead as the man in the car.