“What about Jeremy?” Jesse said.
“The fire started in his room.”
“Did he get out?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.” She took in great gulps of air. “The firemen were forced back by the flames. I was waiting downstairs in the parlor for him. We were going to walk together over to the hotel.”
Her voice faltered, and he rubbed her back again. “Take your time, honey. Relax.”
“He never came down, and then there was this loud noise, almost like an explosion. There were three of us in the house, all downstairs, except for Jeremy. We ran, but Jeremy never came out.” She started crying again.
Hunter looked up at the house. If Jeremy had been in that room when the fire occurred, the chances of him surviving were slim. He turned to Jesse. “What do we do now?”
Jesse shook his head, hands on his hips. “Wait here.” He strode over to where three firemen talked together. Jesse pointed to the house, the smoke now almost gone, gesturing with his hands. One of the firemen shook his head. Jesse stood for a minute, staring at the charred remains, before returning to where Emily and Hunter stood.
“It doesn’t look good. The men said they couldn’t reach that room with the heat and flames, but they didn’t hear anyone calling, so there is the chance he wasn’t in there. They can’t know for sure until they can enter the house, which they’re preparing to do now.”
Hunter rested his chin on Emily’s head as she wrapped her arms around him. “Jesse,” he said, his heart thundering once again. “If Jeremy was in that room when the fire happened, not only might he be dead, all his notes will have burned up with him.”
“I know,” Jesse said, glancing once more up at the house. “I know.”
Chapter 21
The gray haired older judge adjusted his spectacles and leaned against the back of the large leather chair in front of the courtroom. With a brisk nod in the district attorney’s direction, he said, “Call your first witness.”
Hunter sat next to Jesse at the defendant’s table in the Galveston County District Court. It had taken two days to select and swear in the jury. Two days of hell as they tried desperately to piece together the scant information they had salvaged from Jeremy’s investigation.
Jeremy had penned a lengthy list of witnesses to speak with. At least he had provided them with that before everything else went up in flames. Since Jesse and Hunter were both in court all day they only had the evenings to work on the list of people Jeremy had interviewed.
As the defendant in the case, Hunter was unable to talk to any of the witnesses, so Emily had asked several times to help. Each time Hunter was firm about her staying out of it. Who knew what Jeremy had uncovered? Everything protective in him welled up at the thought of her in danger.
It had been deemed by the fire chief that Jeremy had been in the room and had knocked over an oil lamp. Upon examination of the body, the coroner ruled that at the time of the fire, Jeremy had been passed out from a combination of alcohol and morphine and had either died from the mixture, or burned in the fire.
Hunter mourned his friend’s death, with little time to dwell on it since the request Jesse had made to postpone the trial had been denied.
“The State calls Dr. Malcolm Davies.”
A short, rotund man, Dr. Davies was the Galveston County coroner who had examined Louis’s body. Since the information he would provide was already in the medical examiner’s report, there would be no surprises with the man’s testimony.
“Can you please tell the court what you found when you examined the body of the deceased, Louis Smith.”
The man shifted in his chair, almost smiling, enjoying all the attention on him. With such a gruesome job, it was no wonder he relished a little bit of notoriety on occasion.
“Yes.” He fumbled with a piece of paper in his hand, and read. “Based on the examination I performed at the home of Mr. Louis Smith, I determined that the victim died at approximately four AM on October twenty-two, nineteen hundred and seven.”
He glanced up at the district attorney and waited, as if expecting a question. When none came, he shrugged and continued with his diatribe. “The deceased died of a bullet wound to the head from a distance of not more than six feet. In my determination, Mr. Smith died instantly.”
“Did you find a gun at the scene?”
The man narrowed his eyes, as if trying to remember. Hunter shook his head at the man’s performance. All of that information was contained in the report. The coroner was really enjoying this.
At least someone was.
“No, sir. There was no weapon.”
“Were you able to extract the bullet from Mr. Smith?”
“Yes, sir.”