Emily got behind the wheel and Javier jumped into the passenger seat. She backed her blue Crown Vic out of the drive and pulled away.
"She seems—nice," Emily said.
Javier knew it best to stay quiet.
"So, is she a badge bunny or something?"
"What? No. What would make you ask that?"
"Well, I mean there's her—and then there's you. She is so out of your league."
"Oh, shut up. She is not."
"Really? Then why the mad rush to get outta there?"
"I know my mom. She'll try to have us engaged or something before the night's over."
"You could do worse."
The flashing red lights blossomed ahead. The river access road was jammed with fire engines, tankers, and pumper trucks feeding hose lines down the embankment to the river's edge.
The engine crews had set up spotlights to illuminate the smoldering camp. Smoking husks of makeshift shelters seemed other-worldly in a dystopian sense. Stark, bleak, and unforgiving.
"I don't like the looks of that," Javier said, pointing at five ambulances parked at the access road.
Across the road from the ambulance crews, a large gathering of displaced homeless watched their belongings turn to ash. A pair of them pointed at a gurney loading into the rear of one ambulance.
Emily found a place to park near a black and white Sacramento Police SUV. Two uniformed officers were keeping the former camp dwellers away from the fire crews.
"Let's find the battalion chief and see what they know," Emily said. "Then talk to these folks before they disappear."
"I'll start with the campers," Javier said and headed toward the edge of the homeless refugees. The shock of what had happened to them was wearing off, and anger was poking through. Shouts blamed the city for allowing the fires to occur, for insufficient shelters, and for ignoring the invisible people.
Emily spotted a public information officer from the fire department speaking with a small knot of reporters. She avoided the media circle and skirted around them, overhearing bits and pieces of the PIO's statement, including the words arson, injuries, and investigation ongoing.
The white helmet identified the battalion chief standing at the edge of the smoldering remains.
"Hey, Chief," Emily said.
Battalion Chief Tommy Mercer turned and nodded. "Detective, this is escalating. The folks who escaped got out with nothing. We got burn injuries and blunt force trauma."
"They get trampled?"
"The doctors will have to verify, but we got reports of a guy attacking them with a baseball bat as the fire spread through the camp. Pretty brutal stuff."
"How many injured?"
"Sixteen. The first wave was triaged and sent off to the UC Med Center or the burn unit. This place went up like a tinderbox. Some were trapped in their tents."
Emily took in the remains of the sprawling community. Blackened husks of plywood, pools of charred tent fabric, and the sight of children's toys strewn in the ash made her feel sick.
"Hey, Chief," a firefighter halfway to the riverbank called out. "Got one."
Another burn victim? Emily thought, but the way the firefighter reacted told Emily there was more than a scorched camper.
Emily followed the battalion chief down the embankment, careful to avoid steaming melted plastic and smoldering tree limbs. Her feet crunched through the blackened grass, and ten feet from the firefighter, the smell hit.
Burnt human flesh.
Emily raised her forearm over her nose. She'd encountered burn victims before, but this one was fresh and severe. A plastic tent had melted and coated the dead with a blue and red cocoon.
"You find any other bodies?" Emily asked.
"We have one more row of tents—or what used to be tents, but this is the only one—so far," the firefighter said. The color had drained from his face.
Emily bent closer to the charred body. She stopped covering her nose and focused on the task.
She wouldn't move the body until the medical examiner was on scene. But this victim—the way it lay face down felt odd. Posed, perhaps. What Emily could tell is that the victim didn't burn to death. He was shot in the back of the head.
