by Amy Briggs
Every day, we had a briefing to go over the current investigations and any other activity from overnight. As a detective, it was altogether possible to get called in overnight, when the vast majority of crime happened, but oddly enough, with the exception of some fairly straightforward cases, we hadn’t had any major crimes in a while. We were definitely due for something soon. In a big city like ours, there was almost always a drug deal gone bad, burglaries, homicides, you name it, but we had been in a dry spell for about a week, which was almost unheard of.
As the captain briefed us on the crimes that had happened overnight, he mentioned there was a huge fire downtown, which peaked my interest, knowing Matt was working that day as well. If it was deemed arson, police would get involved, but otherwise, it was just a fire that had little to do with us, and certainly not detectives. While it may sound like an elitist statement, the fact of the matter was detectives got involved or assigned to more complicated cases that required an in-depth investigation. There were probably plenty of beat cops watching the fire, and if Brian or Matt gave their opinion, getting in the way.
“Cruise, Connor! I need to you execute a warrant for a deadbeat dad today,” the captain interrupted my thoughts.
“You got it, Captain,” Kevin replied, and we stood up to get ourselves ready to go.
Normally, executing a warrant was pretty uneventful, so it looked like another uneventful day on the force for us today.
As I hauled the hose into the front door of the strip mall store with Jo behind me, I couldn’t help but think this fire spread awfully fast. It had quickly turned into a three alarmer, requiring us to call in neighboring stations to assist in battling the flames.
Through my mask, I yelled to Jo, “You with me?” The thick, black smoke around us was all consuming, and we hadn’t even gotten to where the fire was in the back of the store. The ladder company was on the roof, trying to saw a hole up there to force the flames to go where the air was coming, a pretty standard practice for this sort of fire.
She yelled her acknowledgement back, and we made our way around the front desk and through the door to the back of the store. I was assuming the fire was in the storage room, that’s where most of this type of fire originated, but we had yet to happen upon the flames, which was odd considering the amount of smoke. We were hauling a deuce and a half, which is the nickname for the two-and-a-half-inch hose, which, frankly, was heavy as fuck. Jo never complained about it though; she knew big fire meant big hose, and she and I trained with it quite a bit, because it could really lift you right off the fucking ground if you weren’t prepared for it. Being as small as she was, it was always something she worried about, being able to handle things like that, but we made a perfect team.
We got to the back room, and a couple of the other guys were in behind us, but there was no fire. Using the TIC, the thermal imaging camera, Jax realized the fire was in the eaves of the roof, which meant it didn’t even start in the store we were in.
“Fuck! It’s in the roof, guys,” he yelled through his mask, sounding muffled. It was pretty likely the fire started in the store next door based on how fucking hot it was where we were at, but the other problem was that it was becoming pretty clear the entire strip mall had a shared attic, meaning every single store was going to be affected. I got on my radio to report to the chief what was going on.
“Chief, we have zero fire in this store, but the TIC indicates massive fire in the eaves of the roof. We are backing out.” He was going to need to send a second crew in to the store next door, and we’d have to get out and regroup.
“Copy that. Already have another crew entering next door,” he replied. Jax got behind Jo and helped us haul the massive hose back out of the front of the building so we could figure out what the next move was and check our air levels. We had been in there about fifteen minutes or so, just maneuvering around furniture and such, as it looked like a doctor’s office of some kind. Once we got out, we took our masks off and looked around the scene, and my mouth dropped open.
“Holy fuck,” Jo said before I could. The entire strip mall was almost completely engulfed in flames, except for the one store we had been in. The tones dropped for a full evacuation from the building, and I glanced in Brian’s direction as he was yelling over the radio for all personnel to evacuate. This was now a massive fire, and it was completely unsafe for anyone to be inside fighting it.
There is a critical point in all large fires when Command needs to determine whether or not the structure can be saved without putting the team at further risk than they would normally be in a fire. This structure was not going to be saved at this point, and Brian determined the next best course of action was a surround and drown. Essentially, that just meant we shot massive amounts of water on the building from the outside and tried to drown the fire that way. It was basically a last ditch effort to try to save the structure, but basically, it was fucked. It was now putting water on the fire for show, so it looked like we were trying to save something, but once Command called for evacuation, it meant what the other crews were seeing was bad news.
We made our way over to the manpower pool, which was essentially where we hung out to wait for more orders, when Brian waved me over to him. I picked up the pace and jogged over in his direction with Jo in tow.
“What’s up, Chief? What do you need?” I asked.
Sweating, and with a furrowed brow, he looked me dead in the eye, “Something is wrong here. I don’t know what, but this fire spread way too fast for an ordinary strip mall fire. Once we get it contained, I want you and Jo to climb up in the attic and see what you can find. There’s just no way it should have spread this fast, which makes me believe it was set intentionally.” He looked extremely concerned and spoke quietly enough so only Jo and I could hear him. Something about that was unusual, even though I couldn’t put my finger on it at the time.
My brother had an instinct for fire like no one I’d ever seen except Jo’s dad, our old chief. He just had a way of knowing things you couldn’t ever really know. It was hard to describe, but if Brian felt like something sketchy was going on with a fire, or if he felt like something unusual needed to be looked into, I just did it, and of course, so did Jo, because we trusted him; and frankly, he was Mr. Safety at all times. I mean, we all were, but I think Brian felt especially compelled, being my brother and Jo’s boyfriend, as well as Jack’s protégé, to really look after all of us. I could honestly say I never wanted to be chief. Ever. Too many decisions to make, and at the end of the day, I really wanted to be responsible for my partners and myself, but not the whole kit and caboodle.
Jo, Jax, and I all waited and watched for over an hour as crews continued to battle the flames, and even Jo asked Brian twice if we could go back in to try and put out the fire, but he got more stern with her than I’d seen him since before they were together. He definitely had a bad feeling about this one, which gave me a bit of a sinking feeling in my stomach. We hadn’t had a big fire like this in a long time, and while it was contained to the strip mall, if it had been residential or deeper in the city into the downtown area, it could have escalated into something far more serious than it was so far.
Finally, after about two hours of drowning the fire, it had become safe to go back in. While we waited, we watched the windows blow out of the convenience store, the side wall of the trophy making store on the end crumble, and the doctor’s office we had been in eventually catch fire in the back, burning out all of their inventory and half of their exam rooms. Several firefighters from other companies begged Brian to let their crews go back in, but he refused, saying it wasn’t safe. Once it was overhaul time, when firefighters can go back in to make sure the hot spots won’t catch fire again, Brian indicated with a nod to Jo and me he wanted us to go into the attic to take a look at things.
“Be careful.” He grabbed the brim of Jo’s helmet and gave it a yank, making eye contact with her.
“You know it, Chief,” she winked at him and walked towar
d the building. I gave Brian a nod, indicating I had her back and knew what the job at hand entailed, and we went into the building. While we were dressed in our full PPE, our turnout gear with airpacks, etc., we didn’t have our masks on; we just took some tools with us to go poke around. I had a Halligan bar and a water can, in case we happened upon any hot spots, and she had her axe with her.
“Ok, I’m going to go up,” Jo indicated as we pulled the attic stairs down from the convenience store, where we assumed the fire had originated, just based upon the damage.
“I’m coming right behind you. Watch those fucking stairs though.” I watched her pull the attic stairway down by a string that somehow didn’t burn up in the fire, and followed right behind her on the stairway, a rickety one at that, with or without fire damage.
“Yea, yea, I hear you. Just shine your flashlight around me.” She climbed her way up, and with my face more or less right in her ass, I climbed up behind her.
“MOTHERFUCKER!” she exclaimed before I made it up, and as I came up behind her, I saw what she was referring to. In the corner of the attic space was a pile of gas cans, five of them, melted but still recognizable.
“Holy shit, Jo,” was all I could muster. What we saw was essentially the point where the fire began. All around the gas cans the area was a crisp, black, charred mess of wood. The truss roof around us looked as though it had been burned almost completely through as well, and I knew we needed to get out of there. When a building structure, particularly a roof, is burned to that degree, it’s simply unsafe, and the entire structure could collapse around us. I started making mental notes about what to put in my report as we began to observe our surroundings. It was one of those situations where you didn’t realize what was going on in front of you until you had seen it yourself. We didn’t see anything like that next door in the building we had been in, and all signs pointed to this fire being set intentionally.
“Jo, we gotta get out of here. It’s not safe.” I tugged on the back of her coat.
She reached inside her coat and pulled her cellphone out. She saw me looking at her funny, and she knew I was wondering what she was doing. “I’m gonna take a couple of pics of this just in case we need them. This whole place could crumble to the ground.”
“Ok, hurry up though. I don’t like this. You see what I see, and it’s bad news.” We locked eyes. She nodded and began snapping pictures of the attic. After a few moments, Brian came over the radio, asking for an update.
“Interior, what’s your status?” he asked.
“We’re on our way out, Chief. There’s too much damage to stay up here. No hot spots though.” I replied while creeping back toward the stairs on my hands and knees, pulling on Jo’s coat. “Let’s go, Jo. Seriously, that’s enough.”
“Ok, ok. You don’t have to pull on me. Sheesh.” As we made our way back down the old attic stairway, the acidic scent of gasoline was all I could smell. It was overwhelming my senses, and I stopped my descent. “What’s wrong?” Jo asked me, also stopping on the stairs.
“Do you smell that? I didn’t smell it before.” I clicked my flashlight back on and pointed it around the area below us. That’s when I spotted it, another large gasoline can with rags shoved in the opening, that somehow had yet to ignite.
“Holy shit, let me get a picture of that real quick,” she replied and grabbed her phone again.
“We need to get the fuck out of here and get the overhaul crew in here to handle the rest of this. We don’t have the tools we need for this. Come on!” I snapped at her. Sometimes, Jo really pushed her luck for what she considered the greater good, but this whole place could catch on fire again with that gas can, and we didn’t have anything except for a small water can. We needed to go.
We came out of the building and made our way over to Brian’s truck, where he had Command set up. There were a bunch of people milling around, including owners of the various store fronts. Because this was most certainly a crime scene and could very well be insurance fraud, I didn’t want to report what we had seen with a crowd around us.
“Well, what did you find?” he asked curtly.
I looked over at Jo, who was waiting for me to tell him. “Chief, I need a moment of your time privately to discuss the interior.” I said it as professionally as I could, so he would know I had something important to say. We were all pretty casual with each other most of the time. In an effort to assist, Jo jumped in.
“Chief, I’ll hang out here with the store owners. Matt can brief you.” She smiled and nodded us away, tossing me her cellphone at the same time.
As we walked around to the front of his truck to talk privately, he seemed like he hadn’t picked up the hint this needed to be discrete.
“What is this all about? I’ve got crews from all over town I have to deal with, Matt. I don’t have time for pow wows.” He lifted his sunglasses to the top of his head and looked down at me, folding his arms.
“Dude, this is an arson. We found a stack of gas cans upstairs. I mean, a stack of them. Jo got pictures, of course, but on our way back out, we found one of those larger industrial cans with rags stuffed into the top of it that hadn’t ignited in the fire somehow. So there’s evidence in there, and I didn’t want to tell you all that while the business owners were loitering around up your ass, in case one of them is a fucking criminal.” I handed him Jo’s phone to look at the pictures while I was talking. “It could obviously be insurance fraud or whatever, so I wanted to be discreet.”
“Thanks, man. Someone from downtown was supposed to come and deal with the public, but somehow they’re not here, so I’m stuck trying to do my job while answering their questions nonstop, which is obviously making me crazy. I’m gonna hold on to her phone. I’ll give it back to her at the station, but I want to get these pictures off of it. I’ll send the overhaul crew in to make sure that other can is taken care of.” He began to walk off, getting on his radio and indicating the overhaul team needed to address some fuel on the lower level.
As we regrouped back at the other side of Brian’s truck, the interior crew replied, “Chief, there’s no fuel in here. What are we looking for?”
“Interior, there is a gas can at the base of the attic stairs inside the convenience store. I need you to bring that out.”
“Sir, there’s no gas can here. I’m standing at the base of the stairs.” When he met my eyes, I knew something was wrong. In the last ten minutes, someone on this scene had removed evidence. That was not a sign of good things to come.
We rolled up to the address on the warrant. I noticed it was actually a nice-looking house. The yard was well manicured; nothing looked overgrown or out of place. There was a nice middle class sedan in the driveway, along with a few kids’ toys. My guess was this guy was keeping all of his money for his new family and not paying his child support to his ex. It was a pretty familiar story.
As we casually walked up to the front door to do a simple arrest and take him in, I peeked into the side window and saw a young woman crying, while a man was standing over her. Waving to Kevin to stop, I unholstered my gun and pointed to the front door, mouthing the words, He’s inside, something’s wrong. Kevin nodded his acknowledgement, drew his gun, and we addressed the front door on either side. I tried the doorknob, which was of course locked, so shaking my head, I bowed out of the way for Kevin to give it a swift kick near the lock, which would almost always break a door in.
Kevin kicked the door wide open, and I rushed into the living room to the left of the foyer where I had seen the perp hovering over the young woman. Startled, the woman started screaming and stood up, while the man shouted, “What are you doing in my house?”
“Sir, are you David Chavez?” I asked, pointing my gun in his direction.
“Yes, I am. Who are you? Why are you in my fucking house, bitch?” He raised his hands about halfway. His slightly long, greasy, dark hair fell in his face as he yelled and his face became red with anger.
“We have a warrant for your a
rrest. Put your hands on your head and step away from the couch,” I demanded loudly, pointing my gun at him.
“Ma’am, you need to get up and raise your hands as well,” Kevin told the woman who was muttering something and looked like she was about to start hyperventilating.
As the petite woman raised herself off the couch, she lunged at Kevin, clawing at him. Chavez found the moment he was looking for to try and run past me out the front door. Knowing he was going to try and knock me over with his towering size, I prepared myself and leaned into it as he charged toward me. He had me in size, but I was fast, and since he was so much taller than me, I was able to take us both to the ground as he hit me. I could hear Kevin cuff the small woman after shoving her off of himself. I could also hear him calling for backup.
In a situation like this, where you’ve already got your firearm out and a perp is resisting arrest, you have to be careful to stay in control. As we had fallen to the ground, Chavez tried to kick me in the stomach to push me away. Fortunately, he just barely grazed me as I was scrambling back to my feet, feeling a sharp pain in my hip from the fall. Our positions had switched, so he was closer to the open door now, making me think he would try to run again. I had my gun on him again and was screaming at him to freeze. Gun in one hand while I steadied myself to the foyer wall, I yelled, “Stay down, Chavez. You are under arrest. Every—“
“Fuck you, bitch,” he said as he turned and ran out the open door.
“Sonofabitch!” I muttered as I ran after him. He might have been about seven inches taller than me, but I was way faster. I could hear our backup’s sirens coming, and as I caught up to him in the front yard, I tackled him to the ground, taking him down to his knees.
“You fucking bitch! Get the fuck off me!” I had maneuvered myself on top of his back, and while he was squirming, I was able to get cuffs on him as our backup screeched into the driveway and assisted in restraining him.