Murder, Mayhem, Monsters, and Mistletoe

The scene at the abandoned house was a damned mess. Fire trucks and cruisers were everywhere. All the local news channels still had scene reporters out and about interviewing neighbors and any officers stupid enough to talk. Tyson remained in his car a couple of blocks away waiting for the commotion to die down. It eventually did, but not enough. A few homicide detectives and CSIs still lingered and there were city workers mulling around, cleaning up debris, and spreading salt and sand around the area so that the water used to fight the fire wouldn't ice over and cause safety hazards.

  Tyson got tired of waiting and took a big chance. He drove up to the corner, parked his car, and walked towards the building with a purpose.

  "Not your case, Roberts," Detective Williams, a veteran too old to still be working, greeted him at the bare spot that used to be a doorway.

  "I know that. I just thought I'd swing by to see what your old eyes might have missed." He stepped close and lowered his voice. "Look. This is big. Jackson Price's older brother? The man is not going to let this go till the perp is locked up. You can use all the hands you can get on this, and get it over with quick."

  Williams nodded once and stepped aside. One look around told Tyson that the place was completely destroyed bottom to top. He walked through to the kitchen they'd used most often to train in. Less carpeting equaled less accidents for the girl with no aim. Or so he'd thought. There were scorch marks everywhere: walls, ceiling, and floors. Most were new ones that he didn't recognize from the last time they were in here. There were even remnants of the pile of ash that used to be a training dummy on the floor. However, the space was not nearly as torched as the rest of the house. There may have been a fight in here, but why would she have thrown fire at the ceiling? Javier Price was not that tall and Breanne Miller did not have that bad of an aim, no matter how much he'd ribbed her for it. Instead, what it looked like was that Bree had come in here and thrown one hell of a tantrum.

  His attention was caught by the back door. It was standing wide open. Firefighters may have busted in through here if it were a safer entry than the front. Tyson walked to get a closer look. The doorknob was blown straight off leaving scorch marks around where it used to be as well as on the doorjamb surrounding the lock. No, it looked more like someone blew their way out of here in a hurry. And looking up and out past the back yard, it also looked like they blew their way straight through the fence and out to the alleyway instead of back around to the front where their car would have most likely been parked.

  Tyson went back towards the front of the house. There he ran into Williams again and a crime scene investigator.

  "So where was the body found?" he asked them.

  Williams answered, "Right here in the front entry way."

  The CSI bent down and elaborated. "The body was supine, as if he was knocked backwards as he was leaving the house. Can't tell by what, though. The M.E. might have a better explanation, but I couldn't find a single mark on him other than burns. No blow to the head. No GSWs. No knife wounds." He stood up. "The fire was definitely started in this front area. I can't tell what the hell was used as an accelerant, but it burned good, hot, and lethal right here before spreading out to the other parts of the house."

  None of it made any sense to Tyson, but one thing bugged him more than anything else. "How did you ID the body so quickly?"

  "Two things. First, the Vic appeared to have dropped his wallet outside on the sidewalk on the way in."

  "It could have been stolen," Tyson countered...and hoped.

  "True. But there was also a chain around the Vic's neck. Real thick, and made out of some sort of metal that obviously doesn't melt in temperatures that would have been caused by this fire. There was a medal on it with an emblem."

  Williams took over, "When I described it to Jackson Price, he gave the positive ID. Said that no one but a Price would have that on. Supposedly, it's put on them all when they get 'of age' and can't be taken off." He shook his head. "Those rich bastards are so weird. You'd think they were Free Masons or The Illuminati or something."

  Tyson grunted and kept his mouth shut. If only he knew.