Cutting Edge

CHAPTER ONE

The arson had been hot, fast, and lethal.

The cloying, acrid scent of the extinguished arson fire had FBI agent Nora English breathing through her mouth as she walked carefully through the remains of what had been the research wing of Butcher-Payne Biotech. The bright white light from emergency spotlights cast an eerie starkness throughout the burned building. Her boots sloshing through the water left behind by the firefighters. Tens of thousands of gallons had flowed into this building to put out the blaze, and the fire crew was surveying the structure to insure there were no remaining hot spots.

They’d been damn lucky. Last winter had been dry, creating a summer combustible with dry brush and trees. The hill of dead, brown foliage behind Butcher-Payne, and the arid canyon across the two-lane highway, could easily have caught fire, spreading through the crisp timber and underbrush faster than they could respond. Fortunately, there’d been no wind to push the fire, and the first responders had done a magnificent job saturating the rooftops and surrounding grounds. In addition, the solid exterior and internal firewalls of the five-year-old building had contained the fire within the research wing.

“The fire sprinklers didn’t go on as they were supposed to,” the Placer County fire chief, Ansel Nobel, said while he escorted Nora to where the body had been found. “The most recent inspection was three months ago; then, they were functioning properly. I don’t understand.”

“Have you checked the water-pump station? Is this area on city or well water?”

“There’s a water storage tank uphill for-damn, that’s it.”

“Excuse me?”

“The water storage tank is for the hydrants. The sprinklers are on a pump system maintained by the county. We hooked up the hydrants without any problems, so when my crew chief told me the sprinklers hadn’t come on, I assumed they were faulty.”

He gestured at the ceiling with his flashlight. The sprinkler heads had distended, but had no water.

“I’ll ask my partner to check it out.” She called Pete Antonovich using the walkie-talkie feature of her BlackBerry. Technically he was no longer her partner, now that she’d been temporarily promoted to squad leader while their SSA was teaching for four months at Quantico. But old habits; she and Pete had been partners since she transferred to Sacramento FBI headquarters nine years ago.

“Pete, it’s Nora. Chief Nobel said the sprinklers didn’t activate. The pump may have been sabotaged-can you talk to the sheriff’s department and get a team over there to check it out?”

“Will do. What’s it like inside?”

“Wet.”

His voice had a modicum of restrained humor. “I meant damages.”

“Same apparent burn pattern as the previous arson fires. Started in the lab and was contained ninety percent there and adjoining offices. The lobby walls have some damage. Hot enough to melt electronic equipment. Arson investigation will know more.”

“When’s Quin going to get here?”

Nora hesitated a moment. Her sister had a reputation, and she hated to fuel it. But this was Pete, so she simply said, “She had a date.”

“It’s five-thirty in the morning.”

“In San Francisco. She promised she’d leave immediately. She wasn’t on call tonight,” Nora defended.

“I’m not being critical, but we need her. I don’t need to tell you they’re escalating.”

The arson gang they’d been investigating for twenty months had never killed before. The three previous arsons had targeted the same industry-biotechnology-but the first two were set in warehouses, and the third fire in a small genetic research building at Sacramento State University. Nora wasn’t certain yet exactly what Butcher-Payne did, but they had “Biotech” in their name and that, coupled with the “message” that had been spray-painted on the exterior-STOP MURDER, signed with the moniker the previous arsonists used, BLF-was enough to make Nora and Pete feel comfortable adding Butcher-Payne to the list.

The only difference in the arson at Butcher-Payne was the victim. Why kill now? Accident or premeditated? Was Jonah Payne targeted because he was Jonah Payne, or simply because he headed the research lab?

“Something else is going on. This just doesn’t feel right to me.” Nora caught herself twisting her shortish, dark blond hair between her thumb and forefinger. She tucked the loose curls behind her ear and dropped her hand.

“Have you seen the vic?”

“I’m heading that way now.”

“I did a field test on the graffiti. The paint is identical to the other arson fires. Chances that this is a copycat drop dramatically.”

“Dammit, Pete, they haven’t killed anyone before.”

“It was just a matter of time, you know that. I’ll go check the pumps and get back to you.”

Nora pocketed her BlackBerry as Chief Nobel said, “It’s happened before.”

That seemed obvious to Nora, and should to Chief Nobel, who was well aware of the previous three arsons. “Excuse me?”

“Arsonists setting a fire not knowing someone is inside.”

“It still makes them murderers, whether they intended to kill someone or not.”

Nobel stood at the entrance to Jonah Payne’s office. “Brace yourself, it’s not pretty.”

Nora buried her emotions deep. It didn’t matter how many times she saw a dead body, or in what condition, the anger and deep sadness at a life taken too soon could overwhelm her if she didn’t close off her feelings. She couldn’t afford to impair her critical judgment. Cops learned to compartmentalize to do the job or they ended up dead or drunk. There was a reason cops had nearly twice the suicide rate as the population at large.

Her ability to fully detach herself had earned her a reputation as levelheaded with those who liked her, and a cold bitch with those who didn’t.

Chief Nobel stepped aside. Bright crime-scene tape crisscrossed the charred opening leading into Dr. Jonah Payne’s office off the main research laboratory. The metal door was open, the paint burned off on one side. Had it been open or closed when the fire crew came in? The office itself wasn’t large, approximately fourteen feet square. Paper fueled the flames in here, soggy remnants of pulp everywhere, higher piles of wet ash and partially burned paper on the credenza behind the large desk. No windows, no natural light-Nora didn’t know how anyone could work in such conditions. She’d put skylights in every room of her small country home because she needed sunlight.

The only thing her mother had ever done for her was give her an appreciation of nature.

Good job keeping your emotions in check, thinking of that woman.

Nora focused on the victim, presumed to be Jonah Payne, who lay flat on his back in front of his desk. His position seemed odd to Nora. She’d investigated only one domestic terrorism case that had resulted in fire deaths: in that case, the fourteen victims had been trapped in a burning building and all had died of smoke inhalation. The bodies had been either in fetal positions or prone.

Payne had second- and third-degree burns over all exposed areas of his body. His hair was gone, and the metal from his glasses had melted into his charred skin. His shirt was completely gone, but he’d been wearing jeans, she noted, and while they were black they appeared intact. Denim could withstand fire longer than many other natural-fiber materials. They’d need to put together all these details to figure out exactly what happened to Payne and whether his death was intentional or accidental.

Fire fatalities were among the most difficult crimes to investigate. Much of the damage to the body came from necessary fire-suppression activities, but when firefighters discovered a victim, they did everything they could to preserve evidence while also putting out the flames. Unless there was a bullet in the body, severe blunt-force trauma, or another obvious external force, determining cause of death was extremely difficult.

The man inspecting the body glanced up. “Chief.”

“Keith, this is Special Agent Nora English with the FBI’s domestic terrorism unit.”

“Don’t come in,” he ordered.

“Nora, have you met our M.E., Keith Coffey?”

“No,” she said. “Dr. Coffey, does it seem odd to you that the victim is on his back?”

He stopped his inspection and looked at her. “Yes, it is very odd. But I don’t want to jump to conclusions before the fire inspector gets here.”

“She’s on her way,” Nora said. “She was out of town and-”

A raspy voice behind her bellowed, “She? Last I checked I’m still a man, sugar.”

Nora bristled and turned. The smoker’s voice belonged to a man who looked old enough to be her grandfather. He wore black pants and a red plaid shirt on which was clipped a fire marshal’s badge.

The man grinned at her and winked. “Yep, still a man.”

“Ulysses, this is Special Agent Nora English with the FBI. I told you about the task force-”

Ulysses waved away the chief’s introduction. “Task force,” he said with derision. “All talk, no action.”

“We should discuss this, Mr-” Nora began.

“Ulysses.”

“I’ve brought in a consultant from the state fire inspector’s office, who’s been on the task force since the first fire twenty months ago-”

“This is my jurisdiction, or are you going to flex your federal muscles and screw everything up?”

Nora didn’t want friction with the locals, but she would “flex her federal muscles” if she had to. Domestic terrorism fell squarely on the FBI’s shoulders. She was about to say that when her sister Quin bounced into the room, the polar opposite of the craggy fire marshal.

“Ulysses!” Quin exclaimed, all petite blond ball of energy fawning over the graying man. She gave him a hug that was longer than it needed to be and Nora watched, bemused, as Ulysses turned to putty.

“If I’d known you were coming, sweetheart, I’d have put out the red carpet.”

Quin laughed. “Nora is my sister. Cut her cute federal ass some slack, okay?”

“Anything for you, sugar.”

Quin caught Nora’s eye with a happy smugness that had Nora twisting her mouth to avoid smirking back. At least the victim was in good hands. Her sister didn’t take anything but her job seriously, which had been a bone of contention between them for years, and there was no one Nora trusted more than Quin with this case. Quin would catch Ulysses up on the previous arsons, freeing Nora to focus on interviewing Payne’s partner and staff. While there was little doubt that this arson was connected to the others, she needed all documentation of threats either in person or writing, a list of any known trespassers over the last few weeks, and information on current Butcher-Payne projects.

Dr. Coffey turned to Nora. “To answer your question, Agent English, I’ve never seen a case where the victim was on his back except if he was dead or unconscious when the fire started.”

Quin crossed over to where Nora stood by the entry and said under her breath, “Sheriff Sanger is here, and he’s on a rampage about Professor Cole, yada yada. That slimy reporter Buttface is here-”

“Belham-”

“Right, Buttface. He’s hanging around Sanger, who’s giving this hot, tall, and sexy hunk an earful. Don’t know if he’s Payne’s partner, but-” She gave Nora the I think he’s stirring up shit sideways glance.

“Thanks for the heads-up.”

“I’ll take care of Ulysses-he’s ornery, but he’s one of the smartest in the business.”

Nora excused herself after one final look at Jonah Payne’s remains.

Unconscious or dead before the fire. That would mean his death wasn’t an accident-he’d been intentionally murdered. Had he caught the arsonists red-handed? Why not hit the panic button? She assumed he would have a method to alert security quickly, but she’d need to double-check with the security company. What happened to the alarm system? Why hadn’t he called the police? Was he unable to? Maybe he had confronted the arsonists and been killed. Or he might have known the perps. Payne’s murder could have been premeditated, and the arson merely a way to cover up the crime and destroy evidence. That would make this crime far more personal, and the culprit more likely to be someone who’d benefit from his death: a partner, wife, or relative. But the M.O. matched the other BLF arsons, which made the personal scenario unlikely.

Quin took command of the crime scene the way she commanded everything in her life-fast and completely, with a sugar coating so no one knew what hit them.

Now Nora had to control whatever damage Sheriff Sanger had done by his public vendetta against Professor Leif Cole. This investigation was already sliding down the slippery slope of legal posturing and games, the press circling like vultures because the biotech industry was controversial, and high-ranking politicians were calling Washington wanting to know what was being done in Sacramento and why they didn’t have an arrest. Shit runs downhill fast.

Sanger was going to jeopardize the entire case if he didn’t keep his big mouth shut.