On Harrow Hill

He looked over at the house and saw a figure in coveralls spraying water from a garden hose through a broken window.

Barstow followed his gaze. “There’s a second hose at the back of the house, and they’ve got a third hooked up inside. Well water. No way to get a tanker truck in here, and no pond to pump water from. The only reason the fire didn’t consume everything is that it started on the leeward side of the house. If it started on this side, it would have blown through this old tinderbox in no time.”

“Who reported it?”

“Ask Morgan. Far as I know, he got two or three calls from distant neighbors out in these woods. All those gunshots must have sounded like a war started.”

“Morgan came out here himself?”

“Along with Sergeant Wood—the guy with the clipboard. Then he put in a call for the rest of us. Plus the EMT squad. They couldn’t get the ambulance through the iron fence, so they carried Cursen and the other girl out on stretchers. That was over an hour ago. This place wasn’t designed for rescue vehicles.”

“Where did they find them?”

“Hiding in the basement. Wounded. Pretty badly. At least the fire hadn’t gotten to them.”

“Any idea what caused it?”

“Hot rounds striking combustibles in the house would be my guess. You should talk to the young man from the sheriff’s department. Denzil Atkins. He’s the official county fire expert. I’m sure he’s bursting to reveal his expertise.” She pointed toward two Tyvek-clad figures on the charred side of the house. “He’s the one making notes on his iPad. Do not ask him if he was named after Denzel Washington. It’s a touchy point.”

“He wouldn’t by any chance be one of your former forensic science students?”

There was a spark of humor in those gray eyes. “You have a talent for detection.”

One of Barstow’s techs walked past them, eyes to the ground, following the same type of spiral search route around the house that Gurney had followed around his barn.

“Any more?” asked Barstow.

“Five on the last rotation.” Without stopping, he held up a plastic bag containing five brass casings.

“We may get to four hundred before the night is over,” she said to Gurney. “You ever have a crime scene with more shots fired?”

“A few. Gang shoot-outs over drug territories. Arm the bangers with Uzis, and it’s the Fourth of July. How about you?”

“Not up here. But I can recall some major fireworks down in Kingston. Drug gangs tend to be well armed.”

“I better go talk to Denzil.”

“See you later, boss.”

Gurney made his way over to the young man with the iPad and introduced himself.

“I know who you are, sir. I’m Officer Atkins, sheriff’s department. What can I do for you?” His tone was as crisp and efficient as his blond crew cut.

“Do you know yet how the fire started?”

“Yes, sir—with a reasonable degree of certitude.”

Gurney recognized the witness-stand phrase. He wondered for a moment if it carried a hint of irony, but the young man didn’t seem to be the ironic type.

Atkins indicated an area of the wall where the siding was partially burned through. “Ignition point was on the interior side of that wall. There’s a shattered kerosene lamp on what’s left of a table, approximately sixteen inches from the interior surface. Our on-site petrochemical residue test indicated kerosene combustion consistent with the lamp capacity. A bullet hole in the partly shattered lamp reservoir and in the opposite wall is consistent with a bullet trajectory beginning outside the house.”

Gurney smiled at the young man’s attention to detail. “You examined the whole interior?”

“Yes, sir.”

“No other ignition points?”

“No, sir.”

“And the wind direction is the reason that the entire house wasn’t consumed?”

“That, plus a burst pipe on the second floor. The heat from the fire caused a solder joint to give way, and the water spreading over the floor and down through the wall structure acted as a partial barrier. They’re off the grid here, but their generator kept working and the well pump kept pumping. If the fire got to the main breaker panel, we’d have had a different outcome. Some people are blind to the risks of a location like this.”

Gurney thought about the location of his own house. “Price of privacy, I guess.”

Atkins shook his head, as if to say that any clear-thinking adult would see that the price was unacceptably high.

Gurney thanked him and made his way to the porch side of the house—the side saved by a benign wind and a broken pipe.

The front door was open, and he entered a wood-paneled foyer, facing a carpeted staircase to the second floor. The acrid stink of smoke and wet ashes was much stronger here than outside. A surprising amount of light was coming in through the windows from the halogen stands surrounding the house, illuminating the smoky haze hanging in the air.

The photographer was panning with his camera around the walls of the parlor to Gurney’s right, pausing at each group of bullet holes.