by Jeff Gunhus
Part of the outside wall crumbled away and the roof fell in right behind it. The new source of oxygen gave the fire a burst of energy. It swirled and spun, looking for more to consume.
Allison lifted the woman onto her back in the fireman’s lift she’d learned at the Academy. Luckily the woman was small and fairly light. Allison didn’t know what she would have been able to do if she’d found a two hundred and seventy-five pound woman there instead.
Coughing violently and barely able to see, she went back the way she’d come. The hole in the floor was bigger now and she had a clear view down into the living room below. There was movement there. Mike.
“Hey! Up here!” Allison shouted, but it was no use. He couldn’t hear her. She wasn’t sure what he would have been able to do anyway. He was hunched over, picking his way through the burning embers. In a few seconds, he was out of sight, having darted through the room.
Allison didn’t have time to consider what she’d just seen. She needed to get the hell out of the building. She eyeballed the distance over the hole in the floor. She could jump over it easily on her own and then run down the stairs to safety. But there was no way to get the woman across it. Even if she tried to throw the woman over it, she was deadweight and there was no way she’d make it.
She turned back and went into the room where she’d found the woman. Putting her on the bed, she grabbed a chair and threw it through one of the two windows. She put her head through and sucked in a few quick breaths of gloriously fresh air, trying to steady herself.
She was on the side of the house now, but she had a clear view of the front yard. It was filled with people, some running, others standing and hugging whoever was closest to them as they watched the place burn.
A piercing wail filled the air and a fire truck pulled up to the curb, lighting the neighborhood in red strobing flashes. Good news for the building, but Allison knew Harlow’s finest wouldn’t get to her in time.
“Hey! Over here!” she screamed anyway, waving her arms. “Help!”
But her voice was lost in the crackle of the centuries-old house going up in flames.
If she was going to get the woman out of the building, she had to do it herself.
She looked down and saw that the house bumped out below her, giving her a short, slanted roof to climb onto. From there it would be another ten-foot drop to the ground. Piece of cake by herself. Infinitely harder when she was a plus one.
Taking a deep breath and pulling her shirt over her mouth, she turned and stumbled back into the room. The heavy smoke burned her eyes, making tears run down her face. She quickly gave up trying to see and just dropped to a knee, hacking and coughing as she groped her way back to the bed where she’d left the woman. She found the bed.
There was nothing on it. The woman was gone.
37
Allison climbed on the bed, waving her arms madly across the sheets.
She tried to remember if she’d seen more than one bed in the room when she first came in, but she could have sworn there had only been one.
She slid off the far side of the bed, belly crawling to the floor, hitting it with a thump. Dizzy and disoriented, she nearly didn’t notice that her landing was softer than it ought to have been. The woman. Allison didn’t stop to wonder how she’d gotten there, she just grabbed her under the arms and dragged her to the window, hoping that she was heading the right direction.
She tried to peer through squinted eyes but was rewarded only with searing pain from the smoke. There was a low crack behind her and a sudden rush of heat. Even without her sight, she knew that part of either a wall or the roof had caved in. She didn’t want to think about what was going on beneath her, but she imagined the fire raged there. If the floor caved in, it would be a short ride down to a fiery death for both of them. The thought kicked in her survival instinct. Self-preservation demanded she let go of the woman, a stranger no less, and get herself the hell out of there before it was too late. It was the only sane thing to do.
But the thought just pissed Allison off. She yelled and pulled harder at the woman, pushing away any idea of leaving her behind. It was a weakness she would not tolerate.
She hit the wall with her back and reached up behind her, expecting to feel the open space of window. Instead it was solid wall. She’d gone the wrong way. Somehow gotten turned around in the smoke.
Desperate, she reached out to her left. Nothing. Then to her right. She was about to give up on that direction too when she felt the rush of hot wind pass by her hand. The window. It had to be acting like a flue, a spot for the heat to rush to the outside.
She dragged the woman with her, crying out from the effort. The wind intensified, a barely tolerable heat, but she knew it was her salvation. They reached the window and she stuck her head out, gasping at the air once again, this time only a series of hacking coughs, but still a relief.
A loud snap came from behind her and a belch of heat and smoke erupted through the window. She didn’t have much time. She dragged the woman up until her limp legs hung over the windowsill. Allison lowered her as slowly as she could down to the roof of the bump out below. With no better option, her plan was to drop the woman the rest of the way and hope she didn’t roll off the edge. The ten-foot fall was better than the certain death of staying in the house, but not by much. There was a chance the woman would break her neck in the fall and still die. But at least it gave her a chance.
She finally had the woman hanging as far as she could and was about to let her go, when the floor beneath Allison gave out. She fell, but only a foot, keeping her grip on the woman who now dangled on the opposite side of the wall, a counter-balance keeping Allison from falling to her death.
She kicked her legs over the inferno below, trying to find purchase on the wall. She finally did and, using the woman for leverage, hefted herself over the windowsill.
She and the unconscious woman fell through the air in a mix of limbs. They hit the roof hard and rolled off together. Allison tried to orient herself to be able to brace for the impact, but she couldn’t tell which way was up. Either way, it was going to hurt.
But the blast of pain didn’t come. Instead, she landed on top of a small crowd of people who’d gathered below the window. People who’d seen her the first time she’d come out for a quick breath.
Still, stopping her and the woman’s fall was no simple thing. Allison heard several grunts and a few cuss words when she rammed into them, and still felt the jarring impact of the ground when she slid through their outstretched arms. But it was manageable, no more than rolling off a park bench onto the grass. Allison leaned up on the grass, still hacking the smoke out of her lungs, but aware enough to take a mental inventory of her limbs and joints as she moved. Nothing broken. A few sore spots that would end up as nasty bruises, but nothing that was going to hang her up for too long.
“Damn, woman,” said an old man dressed in a tattered bathrobe. “You jus’ crazy.”
“H...h…how is she?” Allison sputtered. “The woman?”
Other people hovered over her but they turned to the old man. It seemed since he’d spoken to her first that it was his job to communicate with the stranger that jumped out of burning buildings.
“She’s fine, girl. Don’t you worry ‘bout it none,” the old man said. But she saw the look in his eyes. In all of their eyes. They didn’t want to upset her.
“No, no,” she said, pushing herself to her knees but stopping as a punishing coughing fit wracked her body. As she looked up, the crowd parted and she saw the woman on the ground, a man alongside her conducting CPR.
She had to blink hard, thinking the smoke inhalation and the mucus that had formed in the corners of her eyes were making her see things. But no, it was Mike administering chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth. By the looks of the people around him, he might as well have been administering last rites.
Shortly, two paramedics rushed up and inserted themselves into his role, placing a breathing bag over the w
oman’s mouth and checking for vitals. Mike turned and looked toward her. He quickly walked over and knelt next to her.
“You all right?” he asked.
She nodded, unable to take her eyes off the woman. “She had two kids. Make sure they don’t come over here.”
The old man looked around quickly. “I know ‘em. Not here yet, so that’s good. I’ll go find ‘em and keep them occupied.” The man strode away to the front of the house.
A stretcher appeared, manned by a fireman and a paramedic. They loaded the woman up and Allison’s stomach turned at the way her arm hung limp off the side. She felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Come on, we need to get away from the building,” Mike said. “It could come down at any time.”
Even though she felt her strength returning to her with each breath of cool, night air, she leaned heavily on Mike and allowed herself to be led away from the house.
“I did everything I could,” she said once they were a bit away from the immediate heat from the fire.
“You did more than everyone else,” Mike said. “Including me.”
Allison froze at that, remembering seeing Mike in the room below her when the floor caved in.
“What were you doing there?” she asked. “Why did you leave the jail?”
Her tone must not have masked the accusation and suspicion she felt, because he stepped back and looked at her, incredulous.
“You think I had something to do with this fire?” he asked.
“What were you doing there?” she repeated, not liking his tone.
“I came to ask someone to go into her room and get Natalie a change of clothes, toothbrush, all of that,” he said. “I figured she didn’t need to spend the night in those crappy clothes she was wearing and I…” He stopped as if realizing she wasn’t buying his explanation. He held his hands up. “Jesus, you’re like a human lie detector. OK, I admit it. I came over to see if I could find her computer.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Once you went back to talk to her, all I could think about was what you said about someone else, probably the killer, being on his way up here too.” He shrugged. “I figured I had good cover to take a quick look around her room and report back to you. I didn’t see the harm.”
“A woman died tonight.”
“I had nothing to do with that. I knocked on the front door. No one came, but I thought I saw a light on in the back. I walked around to the kitchen door and that’s when I saw the fire inside. I broke the door in, tried to put it out, but…” He nodded to the inferno behind them. “Obviously it was no use.”
“I saw you downstairs in the living room during the fire,” Allison said. “Why weren’t you able to get out faster?”
Mike looked surprised, but this look was quickly replaced with a withering resentment.
“I was making sure there was no one left in the building. The same as you,” Mike said, an angry edge to his voice. “Any other questions, counselor? I mean, shit, what’re you thinking? That I came over here and just decided to torch a building with a bunch of sleeping women and children? That’s just nuts.”
Allison knew it was unfair, but instead of feeling guilty for accusing him, she felt a surge of anger. Had he really done everything he could to stop it? Why hadn’t he looked up when Allison had called to him? She might have been able to lower the woman to him and she’d still be alive.
“Jesus, you do think that,” Mike said, misunderstanding the expression on her face.
“No,” she said. “No, I don’t.” She rubbed her burning eyes. “I’m sorry I jumped at you. I’m still a little out of it.”
Mike’s expression transformed into a look of concern. Allison thought it was almost too calculated, too measured, but he was under a lot of stress too, so she discarded the observation.
“We should get you checked out,” he said.
She shook her head, wiping the ashes and soot from her eyes with the edge of her shirt like she was removing mascara at the end of a long night.
“No, I’m fine,” she said. “I don’t believe in coincidences. The night we’re here to question Natalie about the location of the hard drive is the same night the place where she lives just happens to go up in flames? I don’t think so.”
“Someone else is looking for the video files.”
Allison nodded. “Yeah and if this is one of their tactics, then they are just as interested in destroying the files as they are in recovering them.”
“Tracy’s killer?”
“I think so.”
The realization hit Allison like an electric shock.
“If he’s here, even if he found the video files, he’s not going to trust that’s the only copy. He’s going to tie up all loose ends.”
“Natalie,” Mike said. “But she’s safe at the jail.”
“Locked up in a fixed location with only Deputy Dawg guarding her––”
“––and the rest of the town tied up here.”
Allison ran toward her car. “You call the jail, I’ll drive.”
38
Harris liked the look of the old jailhouse. Its brick front and arched windows harkened back to a time when law enforcement was recognized as the bedrock of any community, no matter how small. As a kid, he’d loved the old western movies, the black-and-white ones with the greats like Randolph Scott, Yul Brenner and Gabby Hayes. The kind where the good guys wore actual white hats to mark them as the ones to cheer for. Even back then, Harris felt himself relating more to the other guys, the black-hatted baddies who wanted to shoot up the town, steal cattle, get into fistfights and wrestle with the corseted brunettes in the saloons. What wasn’t to like?
Even so, he also liked the character of the small-town sheriff, a lone voice of law and authority, set apart from everyone else because of the tin star on his chest. He remembered towns back then, at least in the movies, always had a church, a dry goods store, a schoolhouse, a few saloons and a jail. How nice the jail was lent a certain amount of seriousness to the town. By the looks of things, the founding fathers of Harlow, West Virginia took law seriously and invested in a nice building. It just so happened that the town never grew much past the need for the original jail.
It seemed like a shame to shoot up the place.
“Can I help you, sir?” asked the pudgy-faced deputy when Harris walked in.
Harris already knew the deputy was alone. Ten minutes earlier he’d first watched Mike Carrel leave, then the sheriff and Allison McNeil. He followed them to the other side of town and saw the FBI agent run into a house fire. He wasn’t sure how the fire fit into things, but he knew a gift when he saw one. He didn’t wait around to see if the FBI agent made it out. He’d rolled down the street with the lights off, made two turns and headed back to the jail. Now he stood in the front room, talking to the idiot behind the desk with his name tag pronouncing that he was Deputy Cal. An old-fashioned police radio squawked from a shelf on the wall. Fire, ambulance and police talking over one another.
“I’m here on behalf of Ms. Natalie Bain,” Harris said. “I’ve been retained as her attorney.”
Cal jerked up from his chair. He grabbed an empty Big Gulp cup and hocked a gob of chew into it.
“We’re a little busy right now. Fire up at the Smith-Shelly House. You’ll have to come back later.”
“No, I’ll see my client now,” he said. “Unless you want to be the one who drags this town into a civil rights violation lawsuit.”
“C’mon. Really? Frank’s gonna cut her loose in the morning anyway.”
“I don’t intend to let my client stay overnight in a jail with God knows who bothering her.”
Cal stood up and walked out from behind his desk. “There’s no one else here.” He brought out a set of keys from his pocket. “Just me. So I don’t think––”
The world had to do without knowing what Deputy Cal thought because the brain that had formed the idea was suddenly sprayed over the back wall of the office. The big man
slumped into a kneeling position, weirdly balanced so that he remained upright on his haunches, chin to chest, as if sleeping or at prayer. Blood pooled around him, spreading smoothly on the painted concrete floors. The image took Harris a little by surprise and he froze for a couple of seconds, waiting for him to fall over. Finally he walked up, smoke still spilling from his gun’s silencer, put a foot to the man’s chest and nudged him over. The body fell, arms splayed wide, the way it was supposed to. It made Harris feel a little better.
He grabbed the deputy’s handcuffs and keys, then dragged the body a few feet so that it would be out of sight if someone happened to walk by the sidewalk outside. The blood splatter was off to the side, perhaps visible, but the average person would explain it away. Maybe an exploded soda or a plate of spaghetti thrown at the wall as a prank. The idea that it might be little bits of brain and blood clinging to the walls wouldn’t even enter their mental vocabulary.
He flicked through the keys, smiling when he saw that Deputy Cal had conveniently labeled each with red nail polish. He fought the urge to pull off one of the deputy’s boots and socks to see if he’d find perfectly painted red toenails. He suspected he just might and pushed down a giggle at the image of the chubby painted toes.
Jesus, where’s your focus, he thought to himself.
He took a steadying breath and selected the key that said J Door. Seemed like a reasonable jump that J stood for jail and the keys marked with a C and a number were for the cells on the other side of the door. He slid the key in and turned. The lock clicked and the door, its hinges bent or just a little off-center in the old building, slowly opened on its own. An invitation. One he was happy to accept.
“Natalie Bain?” he called out in his official-sounding voice, the one he used when impersonating someone in law enforcement or the military. He walked down the hallway, the brick wall on his left and the cells on his right. He assumed she hadn’t been able to hear the silenced gunshot through the heavy jail door. “My name’s Harris. I’m with the FBI. My colleague Allison McNeil spoke to you earlier this evening.”