Amnesia: Lost in the Dust (PART 11)

"She is driving me crazy!"

Emily rolled her eyes and continued to write up the forensics report, she was half listening, as she had been for the last two days of this.

"She has no respect for my privacy, no sense of order or taste. It's like she doesn't understand what quiet or work means."

Emily tapped her pencil against her chin.

"Seriously, as my best friend, you couldn't have found anyone better?"

Emily set down her report with a sigh. "You know Belinda's going to be back in five minutes, it was just a bathroom break."

"Hardly!" Veronica yelled. She had a normally loud and commanding voice, unlike the soft, compassionate voice she had her freshman year of college. "That girl gets distracted at the tiniest things. Just the other day, we sat down for dinner, two minutes in she gets up to pee. I didn't see her for an hour."

"Did you cook dinner?" Emily asked, biting the edge of her pen.

"Yeah, her doctor wants her on a more balanced diet. What are you trying to say?"

"Nothing. But I think Belinda was trying not to eat dinner with you."

"What makes you say that?"

Emily picked up the trashcan by the door and showed her the pile of candy wrappers sparkling in the bin. "Did you make meatloaf?"

"Yeah, I figured I'd ease her into the new diet. Why?" Veronica tucked a loose hair behind her ear.

"Belinda doesn't eat ground meat. She says it tastes funny."

Veronica sniffed, "Well if she talked to me I would know that!"

"Seriously, just down the hall." Emily said, nervously looking at the door.

"Her alarm went off for thirty minutes. Just 'Blaa! Blaaa! Blaa!' Over and over. I knocked on her door, to see if she could shut it off. And there she was snoring away, I swear, those locks are just decorative. And what was with that pile of clothes in front of the dresser? Does she understand anything about organization? I can't walk two feet without bumping into something!"

"She says her dresser is full of spiders." Emily whispered, "Now could you be quiet, I actually have a lot of work to do."

"Oh yes, your job examining dead people," Veronica said, standing up and pacing, "Must be so relaxing. No human interaction involved."

"Except for the murderers." Emily laughed.

"And that's another thing!" Veronica declared, "The way she puts you in the line of fire like that Avana guy. How could she-"

Veronica was interrupted by Belinda entering. She had a big goofy smile on her face. "You'll never guess what happened."

***

"Bells!" David called over, "Bells, can I talk to you for a second." David jogged up, his hair disheveled and a folder in his hand.

Belinda turned, swiftly tapping her can with her fingers. "If it's only a second."

"Oh, sorry, you have to pee. I'll ask you later." David began to turn around.

"No I can hold it, just tell me quick." Belinda eyed the folder with curiosity.

"Yes, it's a case." He handed her the folder.

"Oh the folder, so it's official, you want my opinion." Belinda smiled, outlining the edge of the folder with her finger.

"Actually I want you to visit the crime scene with me."

Belinda raised an eyebrow incredulously, "So it's a date."

"In a way."

"As in you're bringing friends, god a crime scene would be so romantic."

David stared at her wide smile for a second. "I really don't know if your kidding or not."

"Cheese, I'm kidding, now what's this case that's so important I have to see in in person?"

"There was a fire on Brickwood-"

"The mansion subdivision?" Belinda interrupted, opening the folder and glancing at the pictures.

"Yes, but one of the new houses, still in being built."

"This here says it was a suicide." Belinda pointed to the official report, signed by the fire department. "This isn't even an official case, this is just part of the filing system of the fire department."

"Yes, but it was weird. The fire was really big by the time the department got there, the entire roof caved in before they got it out."

"So, maybe the wood was dry, or the guy used an accelerant. He wanted to die, he would have made sure."

"I just think it's something we should look into." He said sincerely.

"I don't do fires, David. I do murders, you need to look in the arson department."

"They told me not to bother-"

"How did you even get this file?" She interrupted.

"What?"

"How did you get this, you wouldn't be putting so much effort into this if you weren't assigned it. Who gave you this case?"

"The chief, he said it wasn't high priority, but I think it is."

"And your other cases?" Belinda asked with an inquisitive eyebrow raise.

"I'll make up for it when this turns out to be murder."

"And he refuses to listen to simple logic." Belinda closed the folder and smiled, "Finally I'm starting to rub off on you."

***

"So it's not a case?" Emily decided, trying to block both of her friends out in order to finish her report.

"No of course it's a case." Belinda smiled, tearing the report from Emily's hand and tossing her her jacket. "And we get to visit the crime scene ASAP."

"Belinda," Veronica asked, with that annoyingly superior voice, "Don't you think it's a bit late to be visiting a crime scene. You two only have an hour on your shift left, you are asking your partner to go for un paid overtime-"

"No one asked your opinion, Veronica!" Belinda's nostrils flared up in anger.

"Can't we go tomorrow?" Emily asked, trying to disturb the tension without making Belinda angrier. "I still need to finish this report and we still have to check out Irene."

"Do you really want to do the autopsy on the 80 year-old crash victim?"

"Well, no, but then they start piling up and we get behind, and they start to smell-"

"BUT!" Belinda interrupted, "David got Ricky to do our last few bodies."

Emily threw her coat on, "I'm in."

"I'll just go home." Veronica said, throwing her own coat on.

"Don't cook." Belinda said hurrying out.

Veronica waved her hands at Belinda mutely, displaying a silent exclamation on her face that said: "SHE IS IMPOSSIBLE!"

Emily shrugged and held the door for her.

***

"Whoa you weren't kidds." Belinda said, jumping out of the passenger seat of David's car. The house was almost a three story manor, complete with a fountain and koi pond amongst the the dirt lawn. It was however scarred with black strips along the wood walls of the building, and the roof was completely caved in. "They totally trashed the place."

"Belinda, this isn't college kids having a party."

"Really? I wouldn't doubt it so quickly. My high school boyfriend drove a VW bus through a house once. Atrocious fire wouldn't be out of the question."

David glared at her.

"Fine." She said, looking around the dirt lawn. "Fine you're right, if it were a herd of wild ollege kids there'd be footprints in the dirt."

"Just try to keep an open mind." He held her free hand and led the girls into the building.

"I thought I was."

"Seriously Bells, I can't stand the idea of some lucky son of a-"

"Whoa!" Emily interjected, trying not to feel like a third wheel.

"Sorry, it's just that I have about two hours to find some sort of evidence to suggest that this wasn't an accident so we can actually get some investigating done and get this guy."

"Or girl." Belinda added. "So that's why you dragged me here. To get some super fast proof."

"Well...." David scratched at his forehead.

"It's fine." Belinda said, after watching him try to come up with some sort of excuse for abusing her ability. "As long as, if this is a murder, you don't just drop me off the case."

"No promises." David smiled opening the front door for them. Belinda walked in, releasing his hand at the door. But Emily stopped at the doorway.

"Are you sure this is safe?" She asked.

"Of course, you and Veronica will have her a safe distance from the investigation. If this is murder she'll be far from whoever this creep is."

"No I meant the building. Won't it collapse?"

"Oh!" David looked up at the burnt structure. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure." David began to guide her through the door, but she didn't move.

"But now that you mention it, are we sure Belinda should still be on this type of work with her..."

"Look." He whispered, "I trust Belinda, and I trust Melanie. If there was any reason to suspect that I couldn't, I would have told someone. Now let's go in, before she gets suspicious."

"You're just scared of her." Emily told him gravely.

"She's my girlfriend, of course I'm afraid of her."

"Good..." Emily bit her lip, "Are you afraid of me?"

"Uh..." David did a quick height comparison between him and her. "Yeah."

"Good."

***

"What do you see?" David asked Belinda as she stood with the tip of her pinkie mindlessly sitting in the corner of her mouth. She was staring at the inverted ceiling where the body was found, crushed under the weight of the wood infrastructure.

"Not much."

"Come on." He put a hand on her shoulder, "Use that freaky forensics power of yours."

"What do you think I've been doing?"

"And?"

"I don't see anything. I literally only see the same charred mass you're seeing." And it was true. Where Belinda was used to seeing thousands of white wire frames, moving around in her vision, she could only see broken wood and a thin layer of dust.

"Okay, well what do you need?" David's hand came into view and Belinda saw everything he'd touched in the last three hours. Half of which was her own hand.

"I don't know, I've never done an arson case. What is it supposed to look like?"

"You want me to tell you what I thought was odd about this fire?"

"Where's Emily?" Belinda asked, not really focusing on the ceiling rubble anymore.

"Checking around the building for any signs of forced entry."

"It's a building sight. Why would they have to force entry?"

"Fine, a struggle, anything off."

"Well that's pointless." Belinda muttered.

"Belinda." David whispered into her ear.

"Sorry," Belinda flinched as his lips touched her ear. "What do you find off?"

"Well, for one, the whole building went up before the Fire department even had a chance to get here." He was still whispering in her ear, giving himself an excuse to brush her hair behind her head and see her face.

"So there was an accelerant. Suicide looks more likely, did he have a history."

"Two attempts, both of which put him in therapy with top priority."

"But?"

"He has no connection to this house, no way he would know it was being built at all."

Belinda unconsciously twisted her hair around her finger, pulling it back over her face. "Pretty horrible way to die. Smoke inhalation, he'd be coughing up fumes to the moment he died." Then a thought hit Belinda. "Has anyone done his autopsy?"

"Yes, and they did find evidence of smoke inhalation."

"Suicide is looking really good right now, David."

"Yes, but there's one more thing. The top floor caught fire instantaneously. Way too fast."

"Now why would there be more accelerant on the top floor than around the body?"

David kissed her cheek. "Now you're thinking."

"There's nothing saying he didn't want the ceiling to cave in on him, to end the pain."

"But it might be enough to get us investigating his background."

Belinda looked back at the caved in ceiling. A small, fuzzy hand appeared in the rubble. One with a knife going back and forth across the wood.