“I am, sir,” Simon replied.
A derisive snort was the initial reply. “Well, there’s gonna be two positions open on B, what with Cal gone and me transferring. Actually, four—I plan on taking Football and Airborne with me,” Chris said. Both mens’ files had been in the pile of folders, so he knew what their answers would be when he officially asked them.
Simon blinked. “I’m cool with working B-Shift,” he said after a moment.
“What about A-Shift out of the 343?”
His visitor’s eyes widened. “Seriously?”
Chris nodded. “Yes. You’ve got one of the cleanest records in the whole unit, Simon—except for that little scuffle you had with Airborne a while back.”
He watched Simon’s neck flush, and knew he’d probably rather not think about that fight. He’d been the aggressor, but the taller Logan had a longer reach, and had easily defeated him.
Moving on, he thought. “Getting a new firehouse up and running with any efficiency is not likely to be easy on any of us going in,” Chris warned.
“Probably not,” Simon conceded with a grin. “But it’ll be worth any lost sleep to be in the first unit to work out of that house.”
He had to laugh at that. “Keep up that optimism. You’re gonna need it,” Chris said, and then stood.
Simon stood as well, and held his hand out. “Thanks, LT—er, Captain. I appreciate you giving me the shot.”
The two shook hands. “You’re welcome, Simon. And since I’m certain of Football and Logan’s answers, it means I’ve only twenty-one more slots to fill.”
***
They’d started together mostly in silence, save for her passenger giving her quiet directions to the location. Martie began to feel uncomfortable, until Logan broke the ice with, “Can I ask what is probably a dumb question?”
With a slight frown, she replied, “Sure.”
“Are you any relation to Ray Liotta, the actor?”
Martie relaxed and chuckled. “As a matter of fact, yes. His grandfather is my grandfather’s uncle. I actually met him once, at a family reunion some years back.”
Logan looked over at her. “You ever see any of his movies?”
“I’ve seen some of his earlier work, when he was more popular in Hollywood. My favorite is No Escape. Made sure to get that one on DVD,” she replied.
“I like that one too, but I liked him better in Goodfellas and Field of Dreams.” Logan then cleared his throat. “Listen, Lieutenant—”
“You can call me Martie, if you like,” she offered.
“Okay, Martie. I’m Airborne—or Logan, if you prefer. I know that you don’t know me and whatever’s between you and Chris is none of my business, but from what little I’ve observed of the two of you together, I can see that he really likes you.”
Martie was unable to stop the smile that came to her lips. “I like him too.”
“Which is great—too many women have come and gone in our lives because they can’t handle what we do,” Logan said, an undercurrent of bitterness in his tone.
“I was on the job myself for six years after I graduated from college, Airborne,” Martie said. “I know how hard this life is on relationships.”
Her passenger turned to face her again. “Well then, I’m sure you can understand that Chris was just looking out for you. I can tell you from seeing it personally during our walk-through that the Breckon Apartments are a fucking wreck. They’ll probably end up having to tear the building down. I’m sure his sending me along has nothing to do with not trusting you—I’m not here to look over your shoulder. Chris just doesn’t want to take any chances.”
With a sigh, she afforded Logan a sidelong glance and replied, “I know. Once I got over that initial raising of my independent hackles, I got it. Calvin’s death hit him pretty hard, and he just wants to be sure I’m safe. I’m sure he’d do it for any of you, and I know that there is safety in numbers. But I really could have handled this on my own. I’ve been to hazardous scenes solo before.”
“I don’t doubt that,” Logan acknowledged. “But—and please forgive the sexism—not only are you a woman, but a woman he’s interested in. So now Chris’s inner caveman has been awakened and he’s going to be overbearing and overprotective.”
Martie laughed. “Lovely…something to look forward to.”
Logan laughed as well, and Martie was glad the tension between them had dissipated. A few minutes later, they pulled up in front of the Breckon Apartments. She looked up at the aged brick façade as she got out of the car, noting that it was streaked with soot and water marks. The front door was crisscrossed with yellow “Do Not Enter” tape, courtesy of the Gracechurch Police. Logan donned his helmet and jacket as she went around the back of the car, retrieving her own—which she always kept on hand for just such an occasion as this—from the cargo area. But while he wore the black of a non-commissioned firefighter, her helmet was the fire engine red worn by the Bureau of Fire Safety’s arson investigators.
“Lookin’ good,” Logan said with a grin when she joined him on the sidewalk.
Martie handed him one of the two Mag-Tac flashlights she kept with her equipment. “Let’s get this show on the road before Captain Caveman sends the rest of your platoon after us.”
Logan laughed as he followed her up to the door, where Martie tore down the crime scene tape on one side. They entered what she supposed passed for a lobby and switched the flashlights on, the powerful LED beams a stark contrast to the gloomy interior. She paused and lifted the digital camera hanging from a strap around her neck, and after snapping a few pictures of the hallway they headed for apartment 1A. Each apartment on the floor was much the same: smoky, water-damaged, soot-blackened. Martie couldn’t even hazard a guess as to what, if anything, the residents might be able to salvage, and she fought the sadness that always seemed to creep up on her whenever she came face-to-face with the devastation fire wrought on people’s lives.
On their way up to the second floor, Logan was quick to point out the hole in a tread near the landing that Football’s foot had gone through, and they each carefully avoided it. Once again, they did a thorough walk-through of the apartments, Martie stopping now and again to take pictures or dictate a note into her digital recorder. In apartment 2C, she found the first thing that seemed out of place.
“Well, well, well… What have we here?” she mused aloud, snapping a couple of pictures before moving the side table out of the way and kneeling closer.
“What is it?” Logan asked.
“Take a good look, Airborne, and tell me what you see,” Martie countered, directing his attention to the 2-foot-wide black mark in front of her. She watched as he studied the scorched carpet and plaster with a frown on his face, and then smiled when realization dawned in his brown eyes.
He said nothing at first, just started brushing away debris on the floor. Martie moved out of his way, and when she realized what he was doing, she started helping. Within minutes, they had a path cleared that bisected the living room.
“This is a burn pattern,” Logan said at last, then pointed to the spot she’d first taken note of. “And that is the flashpoint.”
“Which is suggestive of what?” she prodded.
“The fire started here. Right there against that inside wall, ran across the floor, and then lit the window wall up. This was definitely arson, because this trail here indicates an accelerant was poured in a trail from the wall to the window—potentially explaining why those windows blew out. The fire was hotter here than anywhere else.”
A smile lit up her face. “Very good, Airborne. And based on what your team told me this morning, this apartment was unoccupied at the time.”
Logan nodded vigorously. “That’s right. Most of the residents were out at work, except for the two college-aged kids in 1B, the old couple in 2A, and Jessica and her mother in 3C.”
“The latter of whom was out of the building and up the street at the gas station buying pop,” Martie said. “
To be honest, I don’t see how the fire burned from say, a lit match thrown down here, to an inferno that made this place NWS by the time you got here from the other side of town. I’m thinking there’s a chance this might not be the only flashpoint. I need to take a closer look at the other apartments, especially the ones that were empty when the fire started.”
“How about we head up to the third floor first, and take a look around there before we backtrack?” Logan suggested.
Martie nodded. “Sure. I left my collection kit out in the car, thinking I wouldn’t need it,” she said. “I should have known better than to assume, especially with this place.”
“What does that mean?”
“The owner of Breckon Management Holdings, the company that owns this building, is already under investigation by the Bureau. Trevor Breckon has taken a serious dislike to me because I’ve accused him of committing insurance fraud. He’s going to absolutely hate me after this,” she said with a salacious grin.
She and Logan finished their tour of the apartment before heading up to the third floor. Based on what they had seen in 2C, Martie studied every inch of the first two apartments with a more discerning eye than she’d used on the first floor, and when she found a similar burn pattern in each, she cursed herself for not paying closer attention. How in the world could she have not noticed in the first- and second-floor apartments? It wasn’t like her to miss something this important—her eye for detail and things out of the ordinary were what helped her close cases, making her popular among her peers and hated by arson suspects.
In apartment 3C she noted that Logan grew tense, and Martie recalled that this was the apartment where Calvin Maynard had been hurt. She took the lead as they walked toward the single bedroom, the beam of her flashlight shining a path in the gloomy atmosphere. When she turned into the bedroom and saw the ceiling beam that had crashed down on Calvin and the little girl, she couldn’t help but gasp in shock.
“That…that little girl would have been crushed to death,” she said breathily.
Beside her, Logan nodded. “Yeah. Takes a hell of a man to save a life. Cal was one hell of a man.”
“I am so sorry,” Martie said, taking his free hand briefly in hers. “I would have liked to known him, I think.”
Her companion glanced down at her. “Cal would have liked you,” he said. “And he’d be getting on Chris about not being so overbearing that he scares you away.”
She chuckled then, sobering instantly as she looked back at the pile of rubble in front of the tiny closet. From there she shined her light up toward the gaping hole in the ceiling, snapped a picture, then stepped closer to the wood and plaster before her. As before, something out of place caught her eye. Martie moved closer and scattered a few pieces of plaster, kneeling once again to study the end of the beam that had fallen.
“You find something else?” Logan asked, coming closer.
“Maybe. Does this look strange to you?”
He knelt and leaned closer, his eyes falling on the end of the beam where her finger was pointed.
“It’s… Well you can see here where it snapped,” he said slowly, pointing to demonstrate. “But here it almost looks like it was cut.”
“Exactly,” Martie said. “These are kerf marks, my friend, made from some kind of handsaw. Someone was up in the attic space of this building, right above this apartment. And they wanted this beam to fall.”
“So they wanted Jessica or her mother to get hurt.” Logan’s grim words were not a question, but a statement.
“It looks that way. Either them or the first responders,” she replied. “Hold your flashlight right on it—I need to get some pictures.”
He did as she asked and Martie hurriedly snapped shots from several angles, making sure she got close enough that they’d be able to prove the beam had been cut. As soon as she had what she needed, she stood, saying, “Too bad we don’t have a K12 with us. I want to take the end of this beam off for evidence.”
“We can always come back later with one,” Logan suggested.
She nodded. “Yeah. But in the meantime, I’m going back down to my car for my field kit.”
Logan frowned, and pushing his helmet up with his thumb, he said, “What do you need it for? We already know it was arson.”
Martie shook her head as she turned for the door. “It’s obvious from that statement that you’ve never worked the courtroom side of an arson case,” she said. “Our expert opinions aren’t enough for a conviction. We have to have evidence that proves what we’ve discovered. So I need to take samples from each of those burn streaks we found, to have tests done to determine the actual accelerant used.”
“Oh, of course. I knew that, I swear,” Logan replied as he followed behind her.
She chuckled as she descended the stairs to the second floor, realizing then that she really liked Logan Kilbride. He was the kind of guy she could really get into— tall, gorgeous, gainfully employed—if she weren’t already very interested in someone else. But a girl could never have too many guy friends, at least in her opinion, and she had the added benefit of Chris and Logan already being friends with each other, so there was little chance of jealousy between them over her.
At least she hoped so.
Logan showed an interest in her job as they walked, asking her questions about what, precisely, an arson investigator did. How they determined what started a fire, how they gave testimony in court. Martie was more than willing to talk about the work she did—it was a job she truly enjoyed despite the accompanying horrors, because each case presented its own unique set of challenges. So into the conversation was she that she forgot to watch for the hole in the steps leading down to the first floor.
Logan saw it before she did and hollered a warning. “Martie, watch out!”
His cry of alarm came just a second too late. Martie had already started to put her foot over the end of the tread, and the momentum of her gait carried her forward. Her right foot went through the hole made by Football’s boot and she pitched face-first toward the floor, just out of Logan’s reach as he sprang vainly toward her to prevent her fall. Martie’s left knee crashed into the broken tread as she went down and her hands were scraped raw as she put her arms out to catch herself. Her flashlight clattered down the steps and rolled to a stop somewhere down on the first floor.
“Figlio di una puttana!” she yelled loudly.
“Fuck!” Logan cursed at the same time. “You all right?”
He was still behind her on the landing. Martie turned her head to look over her shoulder at him. “What were you saying earlier about a dumb question?”
“Point taken,” he replied with a chuckle. “Let’s try again. Tell me your condition so I can help you get out of this.”
She was holding herself semi-upright with her hands flattened on a tread two below where she was stuck. The scrapes she’d received from the wood were stinging, due in no small part to the black grime coating just about every visible surface, including the steps. Her right leg had gone through the hole up to her mid thigh, and when her left knee had slammed into the stair, it had widened the hole just enough to jam it in as well. The fit was tight and very uncomfortable. Martie tried moving her left leg back and forth so she could pull her knee out.
Her efforts proved futile, as she only seemed to be tightening the wood’s grip on her flesh. “Cazzo,” she muttered darkly.
“Martie? Talk to me,” Logan urged.
“Well, your own eyes should be able to tell you the extent of my dilemma, but the long and short of it is that I’m stuck,” she replied sardonically. “Right leg is in to mid-thigh, left is jammed in bent at the knee. I tried wiggling the left leg to get it out and it only seems to have wedged me in further.”
Logan stepped down carefully, standing so that one leg was braced on the landing and the other was planted firmly on the stair where her hands lay. “I’m going to try pulling on that leg, see if I can’t help you out there a little. I promise to go easy.�
��
“Appreciated.”
She watched him over her shoulder as he took hold of her ankle and started slowly to pull.
“Stop, stop!” she cried out a moment later.
He let her go instantly. “What is it?”
“For some damn reason, you pulling up on the back of my leg is driving the front of it into this really sharp edge that’s digging into my thigh.” Martie grunted as the sweat beading on her brow ran down her nose, dripping off the end onto the back of her hand. She decided to try shifting her leg again to no avail.
“Damn it!” she shouted.
Feeling defeated, Martie looked up at Logan. He in turn was looking down at her with an expression that was both resigned and fearful at the same time—and she had no doubt hers was the same as she said, “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but it looks like you’re gonna have to call the fire department.”
Seven
Chris had walked out with Simon when the younger man left, having decided to make the announcement of his promotion to the rest of his platoon. Each of them expressed the same disgust for the fact that the city’s public safety director couldn’t be bothered to wait until after Calvin’s funeral to replace him.
Football, as he’d suspected, agreed wholeheartedly to join his team. Chris hadn’t expected to surprise him with the offer, though he did surprise him with the option to lead 343’s B-Shift as a lieutenant. “Promotion has to be approved, of course, but you’ve got the credentials,” he told the stunned former football player.
“I don’t know what to say, Chris,” Football replied, his voice still laced with shock. “Except thanks.”
Chris grinned as they shook hands. “That’s all you need to say. You deserve it.”
“Who you got in mind for C and D shift leads?”
Sighing as he sat down across from Football, Chris replied, “Well, Cal was planning to put Tonja in charge of C Shift, according to his notes. I don’t even know if she’ll want to move to Gracechurch now, let alone work here.”
“If she does?” Football pressed.
Fire Born (Firehouse 343) Page 9