He pointed to a wall where a vast variety of whetstones and other types of sharpeners hung from pegs. Some were metal, others ceramic. All of the brands were proprietary enough not to reveal the composition on the packages. I scanned some more, my eyes stopping on a small package on the bottom row. Beneath clear plastic was a simple rectangular block of grayish-silver metal. It was called a fire starter and was made of magnesium. Excitement mounted as I read the instructions. To start a fire, one simply needed to scrape a knife on the surface of the magnesium and build a pile of shavings as small as the size of a quarter. Matches weren’t necessary, for the fire starter included a sparking insert for ignition.

I hurried back through the store with half a dozen of the magnesium starters in hand, and in my haste got tangled up in one section, then another. I wound through bowling balls and shoes, and baseball gloves, and ended up in swimming, where I was instantly captivated by a display of neon-colored swimming caps. One of them was hot pink. I thought of the residue found in Claire Rawley’s hair. I had believed from the start that she had been wearing something on her head when she was murdered, or at least when the fire reached her.

A shower cap had been considered but briefly, for its thin, plastic material wouldn’t have lasted five seconds in the heat. What had never entered my mind was a swimming cap, and as I quickly rifled through racks of them, I discovered that all were made of Lycra or latex or silicone.

The pink one was silicone, which I knew would hold up in extreme temperatures far better than the others. I purchased several of them. I drove back to my office and was lucky I didn’t get a ticket because I was passing people, no matter the lane. Images seized my mind, and they were too painful and horrific to entertain. This was one time I hoped my theory was wrong. I was speeding back to the labs because I had to know.

“Oh Benton,” I muttered as if he were near me. “Please don’t let this be so.”

20

IT WAS ONE-THIRTY when I parked inside the bay again and got out of my car. I walked quickly to the elevator and keyed myself back up to the third floor. I was looking for Jerri Garmon, who had examined the pink residue in the beginning and reported to me that it was silicone.

Ducking into doorways, I located her inside a room housing the latest instrumentation used in analyzing organic substances, ranging from heroin to paint binders. She was using a syringe to inject a sample into a heated chamber of the gas chromatograph and did not notice me until I spoke.