The Bone Fire: A Mystery - By Christine Barber Page 0,3

last week, but his wife never budged.

He glanced at his watch again, wondering when the field deputy for the Office of the Medical Investigator might arrive. Gil had called the OMI on his way to the scene and gotten assurances that someone would be there soon. He had already called his boss, Chief Bill Kline, to tell him the news: that thirty thousand people might have watched while someone burned to death. Kline’s only response was “I’m on my way.” Gil glanced again at the mountains, which were starting to glow with sunshine, then looked back at the ashes.

The skull had been bleached white by the fire.

It was a small skull. The skull of a child.

Gil looked away again.

Lucy woke up with a start from a dead sleep, her fire department pager screeching next to her on the nightstand. She grabbed it, cranked down the volume, and jumped out of bed, stumbling out of the room before she could wake up the man next to her.

Behind the closed bathroom door, she turned the pager volume up to barely audible and heard the dispatcher call out a car fire in an arroyo. She sighed and rubbed her eyes, debating. She wasn’t a firefighter, so she didn’t need to go. Hell, she was only a volunteer medic at the department, so she really didn’t need to ever go. She could just slip back into bed. On the other hand, the bed held its own problems she didn’t want to deal with. Plus, they might need a medic at the fire to run rehab for the firefighters. Should she stay or should she go? Honestly, Lucy would rather deal with a deadly fire than any man in her bed.

“Okay,” she said to herself, the decision made. She turned on the bathroom light and opened the top bathroom drawer. She pushed aside some tampons and pulled out her Breathalyzer. She knew from experience that if she drank a six-pack and then slept for at least five hours, the machine would register a .02. Last night, though, she’d done the unusual. She’d had tangy shots and sweet mixed drinks. Who knew what that’d do to her blood alcohol level?

She pulled out the device, which was about the shape and size of a cell phone, and blew into the mouthpiece. She had ordered the Breathalyzer a month or so ago after seeing too many DWI crashes. Now, if she did decide to have a beer or two, she could be sure the morning after that she was okay to drive. She considered it the ultimate act of responsibility.

She waited a minute, then looked at the digital readout on the machine. It flashed .07. The legal in New Mexico was .08, so she was good.

She walked back into her dark room, where she stubbed her toe on something in the middle of the floor, yelling out “Oww” before she could stop herself.

“What the hell are you doing out there?” came a voice from the bed.

“You left your shoes in the middle of the floor.”

“Only because you wanted to get my pants off so bad,” he said, chuckling.

The sound made her nauseous and annoyed. She was having day-after remorse, regretting that she’d ever brought him home. It had seemed like such a good idea last night. The alcohol was probably to blame for that.

She’d gone to the Cowgirl after Zozobra, looking for a drink and wanting to hold on to the frenzy of the crowd. She needed to be someplace loud and raucous, but the Cowgirl was quiet. She stood alone at the bar for a moment, looking over the few diners who were finishing up their meals. She had decided to leave when the bartender asked her what she wanted to drink.

She glanced up at him absently. He was studly, in that he was covered in studs. On his dog collar, in his ears, through his nose. She wondered where else.

“Umm, I guess I’ll just have a shot of something,” she said. As he turned to grab an amber bottle, she noticed a tattoo on the back of his shaved head. He poured her a generous shot of who-knows-what and set it in front of her. Lucy downed it in one swallow. It was sweet with a hard edge of alcohol.

“Is that the best you got?” she asked, running a little flirtation up the flagpole to see what happened. She was still geared up from Zozobra and needed to keep the spark going. She was all tension,