SPN fic: Revelations 1/6 (Gen, PG-13)
Well, here it is: my story for spn_j2_bigbang. I had a lot of fun writing it (and a lot of neurotic fits, but that's kind of part of the fun for me). Make sure to properly admire the gorgeous art that ileliberte made, and to tell her how awesome she is.
Title: Revelations
Author: marinarusalka
Genre & Rating: gen, PG-13 for language and violence
Art by: ileliberte. Check out the art post here.
Summary: AU. Veteran FBI agent Victor Henriksen isn't at all happy when a rookie ATF agent horns in on his investigation of a possible serial arsonist. Still, Agent Winchester's forensics expertise does come in useful. But as the clues and the bodies pile up, Victor begins to suspect that his new partner knows more than he's telling about the case.
AN: Thanks to iamstealthyone, dotfic and athenejen for beta reading, encouragement and general awesomeness. I couldn't have done it without you guys.
Chapter 1
By the time Friday afternoon rolled around, Victor Henriksen was officially having the shittiest week of his life. Hell, when your partner keeled over from a heart attack in the middle of the FBI cafeteria on Monday afternoon, you could be forgiven for writing off not just the week but the entire month as a dead loss. Reidy was going to be all right, but he was on medical leave until the quacks declared him fit for duty again, which left Victor slaving over a double load of paperwork and bracing himself every day against the prospect of having a new partner assigned to him. It had taken years to train Reidy not to be a goddamn pain in the ass, and he had no desire to start the process over with someone else.
On Tuesday, his just-out-of-warranty Audi had coughed, shuddered and died when he turned the key in the ignition. On Wednesday, the guy at the garage had announced "ten to twelve business days" and handed over an estimate for an amount that made Victor's eyes cross. Thursday night, Caroline had gazed at him with big, kind eyes across their table at Santorini as she assured him that she'd always remember their time together fondly and wished him well in his future relationships.
As he elbowed his way off the express bus and into a spray of horizontal rain on Friday morning, Victor just hoped to reach the weekend without getting flattened by a truck, audited by the IRS or reassigned to the Anchorage field office.
"Yo, Henriksen, Grant wants to see you," Sweeney from accounting called over her shoulder as she brushed past him with an armful of files. "He looked pissed 'cause you weren't in yet."
Fuck.
Grant was the field agent in charge of the Chicago office, a hard-nosed bastard who kept insane hours and expected everyone else to do the same. It was barely eight o'clock, so Victor was by no stretch of the definition late for work, but Grant was probably preparing to tear him a new one already.
Victor weighed the relative evils of delaying another five minutes versus facing Grant while looking like a drowned rat, and stopped by his own office long enough to ditch his coat and change his shoes. Reidy would've teased him about being an appearance-obsessed tight-ass (there were points where the training hadn't fully taken), but Reidy was the latest living proof that being laid-back and easygoing didn't stop your arteries from closing up on you before you turned forty. Victor adjusted his tie, and headed toward Grant's office at a brisk march.
Grant wasn't waiting for him alone. A man slouched in one of the two guest chairs, one knee bouncing restlessly as if he'd been there for a while. Victor didn't recognize him, but the guy's generic suit, briefcase, and conservative haircut were as good as a flashing neon sign screaming "junior government employee." Though the badly knotted tie with the AC/DC logo spoiled the picture somewhat.
Victor automatically catalogued the details. Caucasian male, mid-twenties, about six feet, 180-190 pounds, light brown hair, green eyes. Carrying in a shoulder holster under his jacket, which meant some kind of law enforcement, though not FBI unless he'd just transferred in from another field office.
"Agent Henriksen. Nice of you to join us," Grant said dryly. "This is Agent Dean Winchester from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. He's--"
"And explosives," Winchester put in.
Grant glowered at him. "Excuse me?"
"Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives." Winchester smirked as he stood to shake hands with Victor. "I hate to leave the most fun part out."
Grant looked as if he'd bitten into an apple and found half a worm. Victor shared the sentiment. The smirk, the interruption and the tie all added up to a type he'd run into all too often during his six years with the Bureau -- the guys who fancied themselves daring mavericks who bucked the system. Most of the time, "bucking the system" meant screwing up their paperwork and getting perfectly good cases dismissed due to procedural irregularities. Victor had no patience for that shit. If you wanted to be a crazy rock-and-roll rebel, you didn't take a fucking government job, end of story.
"As I was saying," Grant said coldly, "Agent Winchester is a certified fire investigator with the ATF Chicago field office. He has information to share about your serial-arson case."
Victor felt his gut sink. On the one hand, it was encouraging not to have Grant say "suspected serial-arson case," as he'd always referred to it before. On the other hand, the last thing he needed was another agency butting in. Technically, arson was ATF business, but the dead women likely made it murder as well, and anyhow, Victor was the one who'd put the case together, the one who'd connected the dots. Four ordinary, totally unconnected families with six-month-old babies. Four unexplained fires in the course of one year, all originating in the baby's room. Four dead mothers, bodies reduced to ashes. Victor and Reidy had spent weeks on the phone interviewing survivors, firefighters and local law enforcement, had sifted through each family's history in minute detail. If there was a connection among the victims, it wasn't anything that existed on paper.
"Take a look at this." Grant handed Victor a manila folder. "This is what Agent Winchester's put together."
Victor opened the folder, and felt his face pull into a frown as he glanced over the top page. "This is dated 1983."
"That's right." There was no trace of a smirk on Winchester's face now. "Claudia Miller in Saginaw, Michigan. Emma Gallagher in Columbus, Ohio, Patricia Carey in Fort Wayne, Indiana. All killed in fires in 1983, same MO as this year's. When I found out the Bureau was looking at it, I figured I'd pitch in." He gave Victor a quick, tight smile. "In the spirit of interagency cooperation and all that."
Victor would've liked to say exactly where Winchester could shove his interagency cooperation, but (unlike Winchester, apparently) he hadn't gotten to where he was by stupidly mouthing off in front of people in authority. So he nodded his thanks and continued to skim the pages in the folder. He'd read the whole thing in detail later, but what he saw at first glance was enough to tell him that Winchester was right. The MO was identical.
"Twenty-three years," he muttered. "Either our guy started young, or..."
"Or someone's carrying on a tradition," Winchester said.
"And escalating it." Victor tapped his index finger against the Patricia Carey's photo on the last page. "Three fires in 1983. Four this year."
"Five," Grant said. Victor looked up with a start, and Winchester snapped out of his slouch. "Grand Rapids, Michigan, three o'clock this morning." He held up another folder. "I've cleared things with Foley at the ATF. The two of you will be working this investigation together from now on. In the spirit of interagency cooperation and all that."
Oh, yes. Definitely the shittiest week ever.
"So," Winchester said as they left Grant's office twenty minutes later, "you want to grab a cup of coffee somewhere and compare notes?"
"Not particularly," Victor said, and damned if Winchester didn't actually look hurt at that. Only for a second or so, a momentary wince before he arranged his face into an expression of supreme indifference, but it did make Victor wonder exactly how new the kid was at his job, if he still took this sort of thing personally.
Well, only one way to find out. "How long have you been with the ATF, Winchester?"
Winchester looked wary. "Eighteen months. Why?"
Eighteen months. Jesus. The kid wasn't even out of his trial period yet.
"What were you doing before then?"
"School. Master's in forensic chemistry at U. Michigan." The wary look turned into a full-fledged scowl. "Look, I know what I'm doing, all right? I can help you with this."
"I didn't ask for your help."
"Yeah, well, I'm offering. You going to refuse 'cause you don't like my tie?"
Victor wondered if that was a random shot in the dark, or if Winchester was just used to people not liking his tie.
"I'm not refusing your help, I'm refusing to waste time on coffee and doughnuts when we've got places to be. We're federal agents, not beat cops." Victor paused in front of the revolving doors that led to the street and checked his watch. "Now, I have to go home and pack a bag so I can go to Grand fucking Rapids. Presumably so do you. Do you have a car?"
"Yeah."
"Planning to drive it to Michigan?"
"Yeah."
"Good. Meet me back here at ten-thirty. We can compare notes while you drive."
Victor was half-expecting Winchester to be late, but the kid pulled up at ten-thirty on the dot, in a gleaming black monster of a car that looked as if it could've fit a mid-size Japanese import in the back seat. Winchester popped the trunk, but when Victor opened it, he found all available space crammed with cardboard moving boxes. Winchester's duffel was stuffed into a corner, but there was no room for Victor's suitcase and garment bag.
Victor slammed the lid shut with a little more force than necessary, and tossed his things into the back seat before climbing into the front.
"Sorry about that," Winchester said. "I'm in the middle of moving. Forgot I still had all that stuff back there."
"Just drive," Victor grumbled, wriggling out of his trench coat and tossing it on top of the bags in the back.
Winchester clicked the windshield wiper to higher speed and pulled away from the curb, engine purring like a big happy cat.
"Nice ride," Victor said, meaning it. Muscle cars were not his thing, but he knew a well-maintained classic when he saw one.
"Thanks." Winchester practically glowed with pride. "She's an heirloom. Been in the family longer than me."
"My uncle had a silver '59 T-bird," Victor offered. "Man loved that car. Washed and polished it every Sunday. With a diaper."
"Sounds like a man after my own heart." Winchester grinned. "So what happened to it?"
"My aunt sold it after he died."
Winchester winced. "Bummer."
Rush hour was over, but downtown traffic was still a snarl, made worse than usual by the rain. Victor kept quiet while Winchester maneuvered them through local streets onto the expressway ramp. Once they were rolling east on I-90, he decided it was safe to talk.
"So what've you got?"
"A lot of weird shit," Winchester said grimly. "First of all, the bodies."
"There were no bodies."
"Exactly." Winchester's hands went white-knuckled on the steering wheel for a few seconds. "All those women, burned to ashes, nothing but teeth and a few bone fragments left. Do you have any idea how hard it is to do that?"
"What, burn a body? People get cremated all the time."
"Yeah, and it takes about two hours to cremate an adult human corpse at a thousand degrees Celsius. We've got seven fires, five of which were put out in less than two hours. Two were put out in less than one hour. There's no way they could've destroyed the bodies so completely unless the temperatures were way higher than what you'd normally see in a house fire."
Victor shrugged. "Maybe they were. Some fuels burn extra-hot, right? If our arsonist got his hands on something--"
"Right; it could happen. Thermite'll give you two thousand degrees easy, and you could mix it up in your back yard if you wanted. But none of the sites showed the kind of damage you'd expect if that's what was going on. At least not so I could tell from the '83 photos. You've seen the recent ones. What did they look like to you?"
"Like burn sites," Victor said wryly. "I wouldn't have known what to look for." It stung to admit it, but Winchester did bring something new to the table. He and Reidy had skimmed over the lab reports just long enough to get to the "cause of fire: unknown" verdict. They'd focused their investigation on interviewing the survivors and witnesses, looking for motive or some connection among the victims. He could still do it now, while Winchester messed around in the ashes. If they could each do their own thing and stay out of each other's way, this partnership might work after all.
"You would've known it if you'd seen it," Winchester said. "Were the walls still standing?"
"Yes." Now that he thought about it... "None of the sites looked all that bad. Scorched walls, burned-out ceilings--"
"Right, and that's another thing. What's with the ceilings?"
Victor thought back on the lab reports. "That's where the fires all started."
"Which is more crazy crap. Say you're a psycho arsonist, and you're throwing high-temperature accelerant around the room, 'cause you're going to set the place on fire. Where do you put it?"
"The floor," Victor said promptly. "The furniture. Maybe splash some on the walls."
"Exactly. You don't go throwing the stuff at the ceiling so it can drip on your head while you're setting fire to it. That's just stupid. And I'm thinking our guy? Not stupid."
"Maybe it has to be the ceiling. Maybe there's... ritual significance to it or something."
"Mmm." Winchester gave Victor a quick, sidelong glance before snapping his attention back to the hydroplaning SUV ahead of him. "You thinking it's a ritual, then?"
"I think it's a pretty good bet." Victor slid down a little in his seat and tried to rearrange his legs into a more comfortable position. Winchester's car might be a classic, but they had a three-hour drive ahead of them, and he had a feeling that by the end of it he would be wishing for a nice reclining bucket seat. "If it was just some asshole who wanted to set stuff on fire and watch it burn, he could do it a lot easier than this. And I don't know if you've noticed, but every fire took place on the baby's six-month birthday."
"I've noticed." Winchester's voice went flinty-hard. "And I think you're right. It is some sort of ritual, and it's something to do with the babies."
"You know," Victor said, "when I first looked at the case, I thought..." he trailed off, feeling abruptly self-conscious.
"You thought what?"
Victor shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Herod."
"Slaughter of the innocents?" Winchester gave a faint smile, but there was no humor in it. "Only none of the kids have died. So if our perp's looking to kill the next baby Jesus, he's not doing such a great job."
"Maybe he's not looking to kill." Victor had no real idea where he was going with that line of thought, but he felt sure there was something there. He just had to zero in on it. "Fire cleanses and purifies, right? Maybe this guy thinks one -- or all -- of these babies need purifying."
"And their mothers need killing." Winchester scowled. "Charming."
"Hell, what if it's not even a single perp? We've been assuming it's one guy because the MO is always the same, but if it's a cult following a ritual--"
"It's one guy," Winchester said.
Victor frowned at him. "How do you know?"
Winchester shrugged. "Gut feeling."
"Right." Victor rolled his eyes. "Meaning you have no goddamn clue."
"Oh, and you do?"
"Not yet. But I will, and you know why?"
"No, but I bet you're about to tell me."
"Because I'm going to look at the evidence instead of sitting around waiting for a gut feeling."
"Oh, come on!" Winchester turned to stare at him. "You telling me you never had an intuition that turned out to be true?"
"Watch the road. And yeah, I've had plenty of intuitions that were true. And just as many that were false. And you can never tell which is which until you examine the facts."
"Well, here's a fact for you to examine. Why the twenty-two-year gap?"
Victor spread his hands. "Too early to say."
"But it makes more sense if it's one guy, right? He could've been in prison all these years, or in a psych ward, or out of the country or something. There's any number of reasons why a single killer might stop for a while. But why would a cult stop?"
"Any number of reasons." Victor shrugged. "Maybe they lacked a leader. Maybe they think there's something significant about 1983 and 2005. Maybe we should stop playing guessing games until we have more information. Maybe you should look at the fucking road when you drive."
Winchester looked resigned. "You're going to be a total hardcase, aren't you?"
Victor bared his teeth at him. "Damn right."
Chapter 2
Title: Revelations
Author: marinarusalka
Genre & Rating: gen, PG-13 for language and violence
Art by: ileliberte. Check out the art post here.
Summary: AU. Veteran FBI agent Victor Henriksen isn't at all happy when a rookie ATF agent horns in on his investigation of a possible serial arsonist. Still, Agent Winchester's forensics expertise does come in useful. But as the clues and the bodies pile up, Victor begins to suspect that his new partner knows more than he's telling about the case.
AN: Thanks to iamstealthyone, dotfic and athenejen for beta reading, encouragement and general awesomeness. I couldn't have done it without you guys.
Chapter 1
By the time Friday afternoon rolled around, Victor Henriksen was officially having the shittiest week of his life. Hell, when your partner keeled over from a heart attack in the middle of the FBI cafeteria on Monday afternoon, you could be forgiven for writing off not just the week but the entire month as a dead loss. Reidy was going to be all right, but he was on medical leave until the quacks declared him fit for duty again, which left Victor slaving over a double load of paperwork and bracing himself every day against the prospect of having a new partner assigned to him. It had taken years to train Reidy not to be a goddamn pain in the ass, and he had no desire to start the process over with someone else.
On Tuesday, his just-out-of-warranty Audi had coughed, shuddered and died when he turned the key in the ignition. On Wednesday, the guy at the garage had announced "ten to twelve business days" and handed over an estimate for an amount that made Victor's eyes cross. Thursday night, Caroline had gazed at him with big, kind eyes across their table at Santorini as she assured him that she'd always remember their time together fondly and wished him well in his future relationships.
As he elbowed his way off the express bus and into a spray of horizontal rain on Friday morning, Victor just hoped to reach the weekend without getting flattened by a truck, audited by the IRS or reassigned to the Anchorage field office.
"Yo, Henriksen, Grant wants to see you," Sweeney from accounting called over her shoulder as she brushed past him with an armful of files. "He looked pissed 'cause you weren't in yet."
Fuck.
Grant was the field agent in charge of the Chicago office, a hard-nosed bastard who kept insane hours and expected everyone else to do the same. It was barely eight o'clock, so Victor was by no stretch of the definition late for work, but Grant was probably preparing to tear him a new one already.
Victor weighed the relative evils of delaying another five minutes versus facing Grant while looking like a drowned rat, and stopped by his own office long enough to ditch his coat and change his shoes. Reidy would've teased him about being an appearance-obsessed tight-ass (there were points where the training hadn't fully taken), but Reidy was the latest living proof that being laid-back and easygoing didn't stop your arteries from closing up on you before you turned forty. Victor adjusted his tie, and headed toward Grant's office at a brisk march.
Grant wasn't waiting for him alone. A man slouched in one of the two guest chairs, one knee bouncing restlessly as if he'd been there for a while. Victor didn't recognize him, but the guy's generic suit, briefcase, and conservative haircut were as good as a flashing neon sign screaming "junior government employee." Though the badly knotted tie with the AC/DC logo spoiled the picture somewhat.
Victor automatically catalogued the details. Caucasian male, mid-twenties, about six feet, 180-190 pounds, light brown hair, green eyes. Carrying in a shoulder holster under his jacket, which meant some kind of law enforcement, though not FBI unless he'd just transferred in from another field office.
"Agent Henriksen. Nice of you to join us," Grant said dryly. "This is Agent Dean Winchester from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. He's--"
"And explosives," Winchester put in.
Grant glowered at him. "Excuse me?"
"Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives." Winchester smirked as he stood to shake hands with Victor. "I hate to leave the most fun part out."
Grant looked as if he'd bitten into an apple and found half a worm. Victor shared the sentiment. The smirk, the interruption and the tie all added up to a type he'd run into all too often during his six years with the Bureau -- the guys who fancied themselves daring mavericks who bucked the system. Most of the time, "bucking the system" meant screwing up their paperwork and getting perfectly good cases dismissed due to procedural irregularities. Victor had no patience for that shit. If you wanted to be a crazy rock-and-roll rebel, you didn't take a fucking government job, end of story.
"As I was saying," Grant said coldly, "Agent Winchester is a certified fire investigator with the ATF Chicago field office. He has information to share about your serial-arson case."
Victor felt his gut sink. On the one hand, it was encouraging not to have Grant say "suspected serial-arson case," as he'd always referred to it before. On the other hand, the last thing he needed was another agency butting in. Technically, arson was ATF business, but the dead women likely made it murder as well, and anyhow, Victor was the one who'd put the case together, the one who'd connected the dots. Four ordinary, totally unconnected families with six-month-old babies. Four unexplained fires in the course of one year, all originating in the baby's room. Four dead mothers, bodies reduced to ashes. Victor and Reidy had spent weeks on the phone interviewing survivors, firefighters and local law enforcement, had sifted through each family's history in minute detail. If there was a connection among the victims, it wasn't anything that existed on paper.
"Take a look at this." Grant handed Victor a manila folder. "This is what Agent Winchester's put together."
Victor opened the folder, and felt his face pull into a frown as he glanced over the top page. "This is dated 1983."
"That's right." There was no trace of a smirk on Winchester's face now. "Claudia Miller in Saginaw, Michigan. Emma Gallagher in Columbus, Ohio, Patricia Carey in Fort Wayne, Indiana. All killed in fires in 1983, same MO as this year's. When I found out the Bureau was looking at it, I figured I'd pitch in." He gave Victor a quick, tight smile. "In the spirit of interagency cooperation and all that."
Victor would've liked to say exactly where Winchester could shove his interagency cooperation, but (unlike Winchester, apparently) he hadn't gotten to where he was by stupidly mouthing off in front of people in authority. So he nodded his thanks and continued to skim the pages in the folder. He'd read the whole thing in detail later, but what he saw at first glance was enough to tell him that Winchester was right. The MO was identical.
"Twenty-three years," he muttered. "Either our guy started young, or..."
"Or someone's carrying on a tradition," Winchester said.
"And escalating it." Victor tapped his index finger against the Patricia Carey's photo on the last page. "Three fires in 1983. Four this year."
"Five," Grant said. Victor looked up with a start, and Winchester snapped out of his slouch. "Grand Rapids, Michigan, three o'clock this morning." He held up another folder. "I've cleared things with Foley at the ATF. The two of you will be working this investigation together from now on. In the spirit of interagency cooperation and all that."
Oh, yes. Definitely the shittiest week ever.
"So," Winchester said as they left Grant's office twenty minutes later, "you want to grab a cup of coffee somewhere and compare notes?"
"Not particularly," Victor said, and damned if Winchester didn't actually look hurt at that. Only for a second or so, a momentary wince before he arranged his face into an expression of supreme indifference, but it did make Victor wonder exactly how new the kid was at his job, if he still took this sort of thing personally.
Well, only one way to find out. "How long have you been with the ATF, Winchester?"
Winchester looked wary. "Eighteen months. Why?"
Eighteen months. Jesus. The kid wasn't even out of his trial period yet.
"What were you doing before then?"
"School. Master's in forensic chemistry at U. Michigan." The wary look turned into a full-fledged scowl. "Look, I know what I'm doing, all right? I can help you with this."
"I didn't ask for your help."
"Yeah, well, I'm offering. You going to refuse 'cause you don't like my tie?"
Victor wondered if that was a random shot in the dark, or if Winchester was just used to people not liking his tie.
"I'm not refusing your help, I'm refusing to waste time on coffee and doughnuts when we've got places to be. We're federal agents, not beat cops." Victor paused in front of the revolving doors that led to the street and checked his watch. "Now, I have to go home and pack a bag so I can go to Grand fucking Rapids. Presumably so do you. Do you have a car?"
"Yeah."
"Planning to drive it to Michigan?"
"Yeah."
"Good. Meet me back here at ten-thirty. We can compare notes while you drive."
Victor was half-expecting Winchester to be late, but the kid pulled up at ten-thirty on the dot, in a gleaming black monster of a car that looked as if it could've fit a mid-size Japanese import in the back seat. Winchester popped the trunk, but when Victor opened it, he found all available space crammed with cardboard moving boxes. Winchester's duffel was stuffed into a corner, but there was no room for Victor's suitcase and garment bag.
Victor slammed the lid shut with a little more force than necessary, and tossed his things into the back seat before climbing into the front.
"Sorry about that," Winchester said. "I'm in the middle of moving. Forgot I still had all that stuff back there."
"Just drive," Victor grumbled, wriggling out of his trench coat and tossing it on top of the bags in the back.
Winchester clicked the windshield wiper to higher speed and pulled away from the curb, engine purring like a big happy cat.
"Nice ride," Victor said, meaning it. Muscle cars were not his thing, but he knew a well-maintained classic when he saw one.
"Thanks." Winchester practically glowed with pride. "She's an heirloom. Been in the family longer than me."
"My uncle had a silver '59 T-bird," Victor offered. "Man loved that car. Washed and polished it every Sunday. With a diaper."
"Sounds like a man after my own heart." Winchester grinned. "So what happened to it?"
"My aunt sold it after he died."
Winchester winced. "Bummer."
Rush hour was over, but downtown traffic was still a snarl, made worse than usual by the rain. Victor kept quiet while Winchester maneuvered them through local streets onto the expressway ramp. Once they were rolling east on I-90, he decided it was safe to talk.
"So what've you got?"
"A lot of weird shit," Winchester said grimly. "First of all, the bodies."
"There were no bodies."
"Exactly." Winchester's hands went white-knuckled on the steering wheel for a few seconds. "All those women, burned to ashes, nothing but teeth and a few bone fragments left. Do you have any idea how hard it is to do that?"
"What, burn a body? People get cremated all the time."
"Yeah, and it takes about two hours to cremate an adult human corpse at a thousand degrees Celsius. We've got seven fires, five of which were put out in less than two hours. Two were put out in less than one hour. There's no way they could've destroyed the bodies so completely unless the temperatures were way higher than what you'd normally see in a house fire."
Victor shrugged. "Maybe they were. Some fuels burn extra-hot, right? If our arsonist got his hands on something--"
"Right; it could happen. Thermite'll give you two thousand degrees easy, and you could mix it up in your back yard if you wanted. But none of the sites showed the kind of damage you'd expect if that's what was going on. At least not so I could tell from the '83 photos. You've seen the recent ones. What did they look like to you?"
"Like burn sites," Victor said wryly. "I wouldn't have known what to look for." It stung to admit it, but Winchester did bring something new to the table. He and Reidy had skimmed over the lab reports just long enough to get to the "cause of fire: unknown" verdict. They'd focused their investigation on interviewing the survivors and witnesses, looking for motive or some connection among the victims. He could still do it now, while Winchester messed around in the ashes. If they could each do their own thing and stay out of each other's way, this partnership might work after all.
"You would've known it if you'd seen it," Winchester said. "Were the walls still standing?"
"Yes." Now that he thought about it... "None of the sites looked all that bad. Scorched walls, burned-out ceilings--"
"Right, and that's another thing. What's with the ceilings?"
Victor thought back on the lab reports. "That's where the fires all started."
"Which is more crazy crap. Say you're a psycho arsonist, and you're throwing high-temperature accelerant around the room, 'cause you're going to set the place on fire. Where do you put it?"
"The floor," Victor said promptly. "The furniture. Maybe splash some on the walls."
"Exactly. You don't go throwing the stuff at the ceiling so it can drip on your head while you're setting fire to it. That's just stupid. And I'm thinking our guy? Not stupid."
"Maybe it has to be the ceiling. Maybe there's... ritual significance to it or something."
"Mmm." Winchester gave Victor a quick, sidelong glance before snapping his attention back to the hydroplaning SUV ahead of him. "You thinking it's a ritual, then?"
"I think it's a pretty good bet." Victor slid down a little in his seat and tried to rearrange his legs into a more comfortable position. Winchester's car might be a classic, but they had a three-hour drive ahead of them, and he had a feeling that by the end of it he would be wishing for a nice reclining bucket seat. "If it was just some asshole who wanted to set stuff on fire and watch it burn, he could do it a lot easier than this. And I don't know if you've noticed, but every fire took place on the baby's six-month birthday."
"I've noticed." Winchester's voice went flinty-hard. "And I think you're right. It is some sort of ritual, and it's something to do with the babies."
"You know," Victor said, "when I first looked at the case, I thought..." he trailed off, feeling abruptly self-conscious.
"You thought what?"
Victor shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Herod."
"Slaughter of the innocents?" Winchester gave a faint smile, but there was no humor in it. "Only none of the kids have died. So if our perp's looking to kill the next baby Jesus, he's not doing such a great job."
"Maybe he's not looking to kill." Victor had no real idea where he was going with that line of thought, but he felt sure there was something there. He just had to zero in on it. "Fire cleanses and purifies, right? Maybe this guy thinks one -- or all -- of these babies need purifying."
"And their mothers need killing." Winchester scowled. "Charming."
"Hell, what if it's not even a single perp? We've been assuming it's one guy because the MO is always the same, but if it's a cult following a ritual--"
"It's one guy," Winchester said.
Victor frowned at him. "How do you know?"
Winchester shrugged. "Gut feeling."
"Right." Victor rolled his eyes. "Meaning you have no goddamn clue."
"Oh, and you do?"
"Not yet. But I will, and you know why?"
"No, but I bet you're about to tell me."
"Because I'm going to look at the evidence instead of sitting around waiting for a gut feeling."
"Oh, come on!" Winchester turned to stare at him. "You telling me you never had an intuition that turned out to be true?"
"Watch the road. And yeah, I've had plenty of intuitions that were true. And just as many that were false. And you can never tell which is which until you examine the facts."
"Well, here's a fact for you to examine. Why the twenty-two-year gap?"
Victor spread his hands. "Too early to say."
"But it makes more sense if it's one guy, right? He could've been in prison all these years, or in a psych ward, or out of the country or something. There's any number of reasons why a single killer might stop for a while. But why would a cult stop?"
"Any number of reasons." Victor shrugged. "Maybe they lacked a leader. Maybe they think there's something significant about 1983 and 2005. Maybe we should stop playing guessing games until we have more information. Maybe you should look at the fucking road when you drive."
Winchester looked resigned. "You're going to be a total hardcase, aren't you?"
Victor bared his teeth at him. "Damn right."
Chapter 2