Page 23 of Fire and Bones

Rising from a squat—a move decidedly unpopular with my ankles and knees—I gingerly worked my way up two flights of stairs. Thankful they were located in the less damaged western portion of the house.

Jamar was standing at the back of a charred shell that had probably been one of the jerry-rigged bedrooms. A singed mattress lay half-off a blackened bedframe. A metal rack leaned at an impossible angle against one wall, its rubber wheels melted, the hangers at its base twisted into grotesque shapes.

Seeing me, Jamar pointed at a slag-coated mound underlying the hangers. I crossed to him.

Typically, the scalp goes first in a fire. The human brain is roughly 75 percent water and fills most of the 1,200 to 1,700 cm of the cranial cavity. Deprived of its insulating helmet of hair and tissue, the skull’s outer surface heats up and its contents cook and expand. Pressure builds and eventually the cranium splits.

As the head is destroyed, the facial skin bubbles and crisps. The features melt, eliminating that external façade by which we all recognize each other.

Further south, dehydration and protein denaturation lead to muscle shrinkage throughout the body. Since the bulkier flexors contract more than the extensors, fire victims frequently curl in on themselves, assuming the “boxer” or “pugilistic” pose.

Much of this had happened to the person lying at our feet. Oddly, his or her headgear, though singed, was largely intact.

Ignoring the warning emanating from my knees, I squatted for a closer look. The hat was a baseball cap, with a red, white, and black patch above the bill. A pair of stars on the white stripe suggested the emblem might be a flag.

It was impossible to guess the victim’s gender, or the nature of the rest of his or her clothing. All other fabric had been reduced to a crumbly black residue adhering to the scorched flesh.

Unfolding to upright, I said to Jamar, “Good eye.”

“Poor bastard.” He crossed himself with one gloved hand.

“The body looks fragile. What’s your plan?”

“First, I troll through the rubbish above and around him, bagging and tagging every friggin’ thing.”

“Recording detailed notes and taking pics,” I said.

Jamar looked at me as though I’d suggested babies need feeding.

“Then I get Ace up here and we slide a stretcher under the guy’s ass. If that don’t work, we use plastic sheeting and plywood to get him onto a gurney.”

“Yo.”

As one, we swiveled.

“Found a stiff.” Ace was standing in the hall. “Maybe two.”

We descended single-file down one floor into what looked like another small bedroom. Ace’s “stiff” was wedged into a back corner, behind the gutted frame of an overturned dresser. Cranial fragments stood out pale against the backdrop of flame-darkened wood.

I counted at least six limbs, each now a charred and desiccated cylinder. The lower torsos and thighs, composed of solid, heavy bones encased in thick muscle masses, had congealed into one shapeless glob.

As with the third-floor victim, the body parts having little or no flesh exhibited the most damage—the fingers and hands, the toes and feet. The few surviving digits had been reduced to clawlike hooks.

Four melted sneakers. Two scorched zippers suggesting more than one pair of jeans. I suspected we’d found the couple.

After discussing strategy, I left retrieval to Jamar and Ace and returned to the main level. Spent another hour searching the rubble. Found zilch. Assured several skeptical firefighters that I was doing just fine.

Since a large portion of the parlor floor had fallen into the basement, I proceeded to that level. The air was danker, the light gloomier, but little else differed.

Except that I scored body number four.

The remains resembled those we’d found on the upper floors. The features were toast, and only a hard blackened mask covered the underlying facial bones. But this corpse featured one added twist.

As flames heat a torso, the internal organs and intestines expand, and the viscera may burst through the abdominal wall. Here the full sequelae had played out in all its gory splendor.

Not wanting to slow the recoveries taking place above, I opened my kit and began this one on my own. Had taken pics and was shooting video when I heard boots clumping the stairs behind me.

Thinking it was Jamar or Ace, I lowered my camera and turned.