McGovern was about my age and based in the Philadelphia field office. I looked at her and saw Lucy's new mentor, and I felt a stiffening in my bones.

'At least that's the time the fire alarm went off in the house,' McGovern went on. 'When the fire department got here, the house was fully involved. Stables were burning. Trucks really couldn't get close enough to do anything but surround and drown. Or at least make an attempt at it. We're estimating about thirty thousand gallons of water in the basement. That's about six hours total to pump all of it out, assuming we're talking about four pumps going and don't have millions of clogs. And by the way, the power's off, and our local friendly fire department is going to set up lights inside.'

'What was the response time?' Marino asked her.

'Seventeen minutes,' she replied. 'They had to grab people off duty. Everything around here is volunteer.'

Someone groaned.

'Now don't be too hard on them. They used every tanker around to get enough water in, so that wasn't the problem,' McGovern chided her troops. 'This thing went up like paper, and it was too windy for foam, even though I don't think it would have helped.' She got up and moved to the supertruck. 'The deal is, this was a fast, hot fire. That much we know for a fact.'

She opened a red-paneled door and began handing out rakes and shovels.

'We got not a clue as to point of origin or cause,' she continued, 'but it's believed that the owner, Kenneth Sparkes, the newspaper tycoon, was inside the house and did not get out. Which is why we got the doc here.'

McGovern looked straight at me with piercing eyes that did not miss much.

'What makes us think he was home at the time?' I asked.