Dark of Night

by T. F. Walsh

  Lu glanced at Ace, who’d returned with his coffee. He rolled his eyes and mouthed, “Bill.” A couple of other guys were glaring at Bill. She’d have to question Ace later in private.

  “We’ll be short-handed today for the first two hours until the temp gets here. Sorry Dawson, you’re still on blue shirt duty this week.” Reynolds smiled wryly. “I know how much you hate to miss drills.”

  “Goldarnit!” She shook her head sadly. The only thing more annoying than the repetitious ladder dance was practicing with the hose. Reynolds always made it feel like a high school detention. Still, it was good he cracked the whip. The last thing you wanted on a call was someone misgauging the ladder height and wasting precious time repositioning the damn thing.

  “Why doesn’t Byron meet you at the cop shop?” Ace whispered. “He afraid to let you know where his office is?”

  “Why?” Lu asked. “Did you tell him I was a stalker?”

  “Not me.”

  Marcus was brief as he gave his report for the previous night. A senior with heart pains, but the paramedics had gotten there faster. Presumably the medics had been hanging at the Chinese restaurant down the street. Marcus ended with the usual complaint about something unidentifiable in the fridge.

  “What does Byron have ya doing?” Ace asked as he followed Lu to her locker. “You get to interview people?”

  “We play ‘Good cop, bad fireman.’” Lu laughed. “Nah, we’re just sifting through ashes, looking at the wiring, trying to figure out at which points the fire was hottest.”

  “Sounds dull. You have to wear face masks?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “No thanks.” Ace looked bored. “You should come back. The guy from Bellevue’s some college boy. Doesn’t listen to anyone.”

  “Hmm. I don’t know what we’ll be doing after we’re done in the Baker house. We’ll see,” Lu answered noncommittally. She wasn’t looking forward to ending her work with Byron, but obviously he couldn’t keep her much longer. Hopefully they’d learn something before she got cut. Otherwise it’d be like reading a mystery and losing the book just before you found out whodunit. And it was nice working with someone who valued her input. If only she didn’t feel so off-center around him.

  “Hey, did I tell ya? Laurel Ann asked me to dinner.” Ace grinned.

  “No. That’s great.”

  “I dunno. What if she’s a lousy cook?” His grin faded and he scratched his head.

  “Then you’ll really impress her with your beef barley soup. Either way you win.” Lu locked her locker. “Besides, you both work; if her cooking’s terrible you can just eat out all the time. Then there’s no fighting over who does the dishes.”

  “You’re right.” Ace’s face brightened and he looked back at the hallway. “I think your boss just arrived.”

  Lu put her wallet in her pocket and walked out to meet Byron. “Hey there, I thought maybe you’d replaced me.”

  “Impossible.” His smile was wide and genuine. “Had some paperwork to do this morning. You ready?”

  “Yup.” Lu tried to mute the huge smile threatening to overtake her face. “Where we going?”

  “We have one more visit to Baker Street, and then back to my office.” He held the door open for her and she stepped through.

  “You haven’t finished at the site?”

  “Without you? No way. I pined away in my office waiting for our next meeting.”

  Lu slid into his car hoping he wouldn’t notice her blushing. She was happy he hadn’t been working with other fire fighters. She wondered if she’d enjoy this job as much if she wasn’t working with Byron.

  “Today’s going to be a little different. We’re going to retrace your steps the night of the fire.”

  “Oh. Um, okay.”

  “It’ll be interesting.” He glanced at her. “It might even help with your nightmares.”

  “How did — ?” Lu shook her head. “Those counselors aren’t supposed to …”

  “They didn’t. But from what I know of you, you’d have to be internalizing that death. And you can’t tell anyone because you don’t want to act like the emotional female.”

  “Oh right. Like because I’m a woman — ”

  “No. Because you’re human. And you’re in a male-dominated field where emotions are considered a liability. It’s not an insult, Lu.”

  “Ah, forget it.”

  They rode in silence along the now-familiar route until Byron parked beside the metal fence.

  “Okay, grab your helmet and let’s get started.” Byron popped the trunk and grabbed his clipboard, helmet, and a small black electronic device that he slipped into his pocket. “We’ll start from where the fire truck pulled up.” He unlocked the gate and led her to the front of the building. “Who’s where?”

  “Reynolds tells Marcus and Ace to get out the 2.5 hose and stand by. Reynolds goes that way for the three-sixty. I’m flushing the hydrant. Reynolds radios that there’s a woman trapped inside around back, so Red and I — ”

  “Okay. Let’s fit the action to words, but in slow motion,” Byron prompted.

  “Red and I run to the back …” She started walking.

  “Did you notice anything on this side of the building? Smoke coming from these windows?”

  “No.” Lu thought a moment. “I did notice there was no damage on this side of the house. You couldn’t even tell it was on fire from here.”

  “Where was Josh when you turned this corner?”

  “He was at this door.” She pointed to the re-boarded door. “There were slats across this door that Reynolds was trying to pull away.”

  “Were the boards new or old?”

  “New. Oh, I hadn’t thought about that …” She looked at the big sheet of plywood now covering the doorway.

  Byron pulled a screwdriver out of his pocket and jimmied the edge of the board. “Give me a sec.”

  The board creaked and then separated from the doorway with a sharp crack. The doorframe still showed the slashes from Red’s forced entry, but was overlaid with burn marks and soot. Byron looked over at Lu expectantly. “What next?”

  “Red yells out when he gets through this door and I pull on my mask and follow him inside.”

  As she started to go into the hallway, Byron’s arm shot out and held her back.

  “What did you hear?”

  “The woman screaming and — ”

  “Just one woman?”

  “Yes.” She looked at him in alarm. “God, they didn’t find more bodies, did they?”

  “No. Could you understand what she was saying?”

  “I thought she was yelling ‘Help,’ but then it seemed to be something else. There was a low rumbling noise, so I could only hear her when her voice was very high pitched.”

  “Was that rumbling from the fire? Or something else, maybe a motor, or fan?”

  “It couldn’t have been anything like that.” She shook her head. “The electricity was out. The fire had blown the street lights.”

  “What did the rumbling sound like?”

  Lu struggled to remember. “It sounded like … hmm, kinda like a massive coffee grinder.” She looked at him in surprise. “But that was underneath the fire sound. I could hear the crackling of the wood, and that sort of vacuum noise, like the fire is sucking noise out of an area, you know?”

  He nodded.

  “But what the hell was the grinding sound?” Lu frowned, as she tried to think of possibilities.

  He ignored her question. “What did you see in this hallway?”

  “There was a lot of smoke — ” Lu stopped herself. “Bits of ashes, dust. There were a couple of boxes by that wall.”

  “Keep going.” He walked ahead of her. “When you turned this corner?”


  “The screaming was coming from that direction.” Lu gestured to the right. “Then I turned back this way ’cause there was a loud crash. A beam up there,” she pointed to the gaping hole in the ceiling, “was breaking. There was shelving along there with metal framework above — ”

  “Hydroponics equipment?”

  “I guess so. Um … A stack of palettes against that wall. They were like tinder. And the fire had run up those supports. But I wasn’t really paying attention. I was more worried about the woman.” She looked back at the charred-out remains of the first office. “Red hacked through that door, then a burst of flame — ”

  “According to Red, you yanked him out of the way, seconds before the door exploded.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Why?”

  “It felt wrong.” Lu wondered how to explain. A few of the other fire fighters had gotten so they just trusted some of her instincts, but it wasn’t something she could articulate. And she was worried enough about Byron guessing her fire-starting problem. Luckily that would never occur to Reynolds and his team, but Byron … “Like there was a charged build-up behind the door. I dunno.”

  “Report said Red had to stop you from going further into the building?” Byron sounded perplexed.

  “The woman — ” Lu looked at where the next door had been. It was difficult to tell where the fire had destroyed the building and how much had been the crews working the overhaul. People always seemed to think the fire fighters were done after the fire was out, but they still had to open the walls and pull down ceilings just to make sure the flames were completely out with no “hot spots” remaining.

  She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to see Byron handing her a handkerchief. After a moment of incomprehension, she took it and wiped the tears from her face. She hadn’t even realized she was crying. Strangely enough, it didn’t bother her much to have Byron see her tears; she didn’t feel he would use that against her.

  “Was there fire in the second office?” he asked quietly.

  “No. We could’ve gotten her out.” Lu glanced at him. “I mean, I didn’t think there was fire there … But I don’t know if we could’ve gotten back out of the building. The fire would’ve been on either side of us blocking our escape. Red was right to pull me back.”

  “Close your eyes.” At her startled expression, Byron explained, “Just for a moment. I want you to focus on the moment before Red broke this door down.”

  Lu closed her eyes tightly.

  “Relax.” His hand rested lightly on her shoulder.

  Lu almost jumped out of her skin at his touch. It felt like he was trying to reassure or steady her, but she was already on edge from all the emotions she’d been suppressing. God, was she going to want to kiss Byron after crying, too? A hysterical giggle was building up inside her.

  His calm voice pulled her back. “Don’t worry. This is not some sort of hypnosis thing. I just don’t want what you see today to confuse your memory. What did you hear?” His hand left her shoulder leaving the cool air in its wake.

  “His Halligan was imbedded in the door, but then there was a soft …” She tried to think how to describe it. “Like a … whooomp … an intake of air and an exhale at the same time.”

  “Could you still hear the grinding noise?”

  “It stopped?” Lu felt her eyebrows knit together and brought her fingers up to her forehead to rub out the crease.

  “It’s okay.” Byron’s voice was low, almost caressing. “The memory is there. You don’t have to force it.”

  “The grinding did stop — there were just fire sounds, then the voice again.” She turned around to look at Byron. “What do you think that grinding noise was?”

  He shook his head. “Not a clue.”

  “But …”

  “We’re collecting data. Eventually it will all make sense. How’re you feeling?”

  “Um, fine.” Actually she felt overwhelmed by his proximity. It wasn’t that he wore strong cologne, but his soothing scent overrode all other thoughts. What the hell? Maybe this was emotional transference or some sort of shit like that because he had just walked her back through an emotional experience.

  “Good. I’d like you to do me a favor. Put a paper and pencil beside your bed for the next few nights and if you have any dreams about the fire, write ’em down.” He looked at her face and chuckled. “Don’t worry, I don’t want to hear your dreams, but sometimes that’s the way our brains process painful memories. So you might write something down that will trigger a memory. And that’s what I want to hear.”

  “That makes sense,” she conceded.

  “Do you want lunch?”

  Startled, Lu looked at her watch. It was only eleven-thirty. “Sure. Um, do you get to write these off, or should I be chipping in here?”

  “Department budget, but thanks for asking.” His eyes crinkled with his smile. “Don’t tell Ace and Marcus or they might try pulling rank for the job. Any preferences for food?”

  “Anything’s fine.” Lu was relieved he hadn’t been paying out of pocket for her. It always was a tricky thing asking, but sure better to know early who was footing the bills. “Are we done here, then?”

  “I think so.” He headed to the door. “You were working with Bellevue 2 from the outside of the building after that?”

  “Yup.”

  “And they worked their hoses from the northeast side of the building.” He took off his helmet and dragged his fingers through his hair, pausing mid stroke to ask, “When you were inside, did you sense that the fire was surrounding you from three sides, or just two?”

  “Well, I couldn’t see it all — ”

  “I know, but what did you feel?”

  “It felt like two fires and when they joined, they escalated.”

  “Hmm.” He nodded, took a last slow scan of the burnt-out interior and strode outside. Lu scrambled to catch up to him. He put the board back over the door and pounded a few nails in with the back of his screwdriver. “Shoulda brought some duct tape,” he mumbled as he kicked the bottom of the plywood into place. “Good enough. Now food …”

  • • •

  “The arson cop offered to paint your apartment?” Susan screeched. Lu had called her old friend from Springfield needing her advice for a change. Mostly their late-night phone marathons were about Susan’s scummy ex-husband Ross’ shenanigans and her daughter Kaitlynn. Lu wondered how long it would take Susan to turn the conversation back to her problems.

  “Not exactly,” Lu switched the phone to her other ear. “He said he liked painting and that he and Ace had painted Red’s house. He seemed to think painting would make my apartment more homey.”

  “That sounds like an offer. I think he likes you.”

  “But I work with him, so it doesn’t make any difference.”

  “Only temporarily, and that didn’t stop you from making out with Joshie-baby,” Susan teased. Lu hated the way Susan reduced everything to teenaged drama.

  “Don’t remind me. I could’ve lost my job for that.”

  “You didn’t though. So which one is cuter? Cop or fireman?”

  “How did we get onto this discussion? Weren’t we talking about painting?”

  “I don’t care about that. I wanna talk about which guy you’ve got the hots for.”

  Lu laughed. “Okay, I guess ‘Joshie-baby’ — ” God it was difficult for her to refer to him like that. Probably even his lovers called him Reynolds — “is the more drop-dead gorgeous of the two. Picture Orlando Bloom with a tan and muscles. But Byron is more, I don’t know, real looking. He’s taller than Reynolds, I guess about six-three. You know how I go for the long and lanky musician type.”

  Lu giggled. She sounded just as immature as Susan. “Byron’s got light brown hair, usually disheveled. His smile is great, but ki
nda crooked, and his eyes are really amazing — pale blue with a dark blue rim around the iris. I guess the main difference is that Byron comes across warmer. I get the sense that Reynolds would sell me out if it helped his career. Byron is inquisitive, but I don’t think he’d use anything he figured out against me. He reminds me of Simon Baker.”

  “Who?”

  “You know. The guy who plays the Mentalist on TV? He doesn’t look like him, but he’s got that playful intelligence.”

  “Oh yeah, he’s okay.” Susan giggled. “But I’d have to go for the Orlando Bloom guy. I loved him in Pirates of the Caribbean. Hey, that’s perfect. I’ll visit you at work and you can set us up.”

  “Sure.” Somehow Reynolds putting up with Susan’s messy life seemed unlikely. Lu also couldn’t imagine Reynolds dating anyone with less than supermodel perfection, but it wasn’t as though she’d seen any of his dates. Unlike the rest of the team, he kept his personal life very private.

  “And it may be pretty soon since I’m going to have to come to Seattle to visit Kaitlynn. Damn, I still can’t believe she moved out with her scumbag-father. She’s only fifteen, for god’s sake.” Susan’s voice caught and Lu tried to think how to reassure her.

  “Look, she won’t want to stay with Ross for long. Right now it’s just a way to punish you. And he won’t be happy either, having to cope with teen angst on his own.”

  “You’re not kidding.” Susan’s chuckle ended abruptly. “You will check up on her for me, won’t you?”

  “You bet. Look, I’d better go.”

  “Okay, phone me after you see her. You have their address, right?”

  “Yes, you gave it to me twice. I’ll drop by tomorrow after work and chat with her.”

  “But don’t let Ross see you.”

  “I know. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, Lu. I really appreciate your help. I don’t think I could’ve survived the last few months without your support.”

  “It’s nothing. I’ll talk to you soon.”