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Larry said, “Before I spill it, let me say this is pure speculation at this point.”

Cody sighed. “Of course.”

“And it’s just me right now. I don’t have anyone else on the case to confirm what I’m saying or poke holes in it.”

“Yes, Larry,” Cody said impatiently.

“Let me walk you through it,” Larry said. “Got a pen?”

“Sure,” Cody said, firing up the PC and waiting for it to boot. He opened one of the files to take notes on the front inside cover.

“First,” Larry said, “we’ve got nothing new on our end. The arson tech is still sifting through the burned-out cabin and they’ve confirmed everything we thought. I talked to one of them today and he said there was no sign of accelerants, which tilts it toward an accident rather than a homicide, but in my mind it isn’t convincing. The place was old and dry to begin with and built with logs. Those kinds of buildings go up like a box of matches, especially when there is spilled alcohol on the floor to help it along. The guy said the fire spread normally from right in front of the open woodstove throughout the room.”

Cody said, “Has anything else been found by the crime-scene techs? Hair, fiber, anything like that?”

“Nope. It looks like whoever did it literally left no fingerprints. But more likely, he spent the whole evening in the living area and didn’t venture into the kitchen. There are some latents in the bedroom, as you know, but we don’t have any hits on them yet.”

“Damn,” Cody said. “Call me if anything comes of that.”

“Yeah,” Larry said. “I’m thinking the bad guy knew the best way to cover his tracks was to burn everything down around him when he was through.”

Cody nodded. “I agree. It accomplishes a couple of things. The fire not only destroyed any latent evidence, the fire itself points us away from homicide.”

“Speaking of,” Larry said, “the three victims other than Hank Winters I found through ViCAP all died within the last month. There might be more and there could be other methods of death, but for now that’s our universe, okay?”

Cody nodded as if Larry could see him. He could hear Larry shuffling papers.

“The first was a William Geraghty, sixty-three, of Falls Church, Virginia. The police report on him says he was a midlevel Democratic political consultant. He was found at his beach house three and a half weeks ago. His cottage was burned down and his body was found in the wreckage. The police there initially called it an accident but a few days later a witness said they saw a vehicle coming from the place in the dark shortly after it was established the blaze took off. No good description of the vehicle or driver, but because the cottage was located on a dead-end road and it was the middle of the night, the car was considered suspicious. The autopsy of Geraghty sounds real similar: blunt-force head injuries and lack of smoke in his lungs. The cops there list it as a possible homicide and the case is open. I spoke to the lead detective in Falls Church and he basically said there has been no progress in the case; no further leads at all.”

“Sounds familiar,” Cody said.

“Yes. But in this case the fire damage was total. They didn’t have rain to stop it. Which means no hair or fiber, and no DNA to run.”

While Larry talked, Cody Googled the name “William Geraghty” and found items including his death notice in the local paper and older references to his involvement in political campaigns throughout the country. He would study the items later, when Larry was done.

“What do we know about him besides his job and his death?” Cody asked.

“I’m getting to that, but let me do this in my own way.”

Cody knew better than to try and get Larry to cut to the chase.

Larry said, “The second victim identified by ViCAP is Gary Shulze, fifty-nine, Minneapolis. This was two weeks ago. He was a professor of literature at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. His body was found at his cabin near a place called Deer River in the northeast corner of the state on Lake Winnibigoshish. Same thing we’re getting used to: burned cabin, body inside, head injuries. The difference here is it appears there was a deep puncture wound into his brain as opposed to bludgeoning. The wound was initially explained away as a postmortem injury caused by glass shards driven into his body by falling timbers, but the coroner doesn’t rule out the possibility it was caused by a knife blade driven into his skull and withdrawn. Obviously, the locals initially thought it was a suicide or accident, but Shulze’s wife Pat convinced them her husband had recently cleaned up his act and had undergone some kind of conversion. She said he was loving life. There was no way he’d do himself in, she said. Of course, we’ve heard that kind of thing before from loved ones, but the detective told me she was so convincing that they listed the case as open even though they have their doubts.”