by Shawn Grady
Sower placed both hands on top of the handle. “Funny you’d say it like that. Because you’ve seemed lately like you’re trying to let the fire get you. It’s like you’ve been on this self-destructive rampage, Aidan. It’s not safe for any—”
“Ben, I can’t hear the fire anymore.”
“What about reading the smoke, Aidan? You’re so bent on beating the fire that you’re neglecting to respect it. Like I said, it’s as if you’re—”
“What’s wrong with wanting to beat the fire?”
“Nothing, in essence. But it has to be balanced. Unless something’s changed, you are just a man, Aidan.”
“And fire is just an element.”
“That is created by God.”
“A God who is indifferent to death and suffering.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“It’s not?”
“No, Aidan. It absolutely isn’t.”
“Then why’d He let Dad die?”
He stared at the cornstalks. “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.”
“Not if I don’t let Him.”
He laughed and shook his head. “I think I’m finally starting to get you.”
“Are you now?”
“You have such a chip on your shoulder. You think you know better than God.”
“That’s not what this is about. You haven’t even been listening. I’m saying I’m off my nut, Ben. I think the fire is out to get me. Me. Personally.”
“And you think you can’t hear the fire anymore?”
“I know I can’t.”
His broad shoulders lifted with a deep breath. “Or could it be that you’ve finally realized that you can’t control it?”
I shook my head. Talking to him had been a mistake.
“Have you seriously considered the opposite?”
I folded my arms. “What opposite?”
“That maybe you can hear the fire. That maybe you’re hearing it just fine. That the fire is, in fact, out to get you.”
“You’re funny.” I glanced at the seed in the dirt. “You know what? Forget it.” I turned away.
“I’m just asking if you’ve considered it.”
The white walls of the station stood shadowed and quiet.
“You have a God-given gift, Aidan, just like your father. Things like that are irrevocable.”
Tones.
“Battalion One, Rescue One, Engine One, Engine Two, Engine Three, Truck One with safety officer to a business on fire, multiple reports of heavy smoke coming from the front.”
We screamed down Second toward Wells. A towering column stretched to the sky, atramentous against an achromatic canvas. My backup set of turnouts felt stiff and unnatural, the charred first pair having been succinctly snatched up that morning by the safety officer. I’m just glad he didn’t see my helmet, all blackened and soot stained, the visor tarry and warped at a tented angle.
The rig bounced over an intersection. I clicked the waist belt on my pack. Lowell cranked on his air bottle.
The Jake brake fluttered. Kat pulled past a single-story concrete block structure—Simmon’s Medical Supply. Pitch-colored clouds poured from the front door. An Asian man holding a white shirt by his face stumbled along the sidewalk.
I hopped out and met him. “Is anyone inside?”
He shook his head. “My business. My business.”
I grabbed him by the shoulders. “Are any people in the building?”
“No, no. Stop the fire.” He hacked and coughed. “Stop the fire.”
“Go sit over there,” I told him, pointing down the block.
Lowell met me at the sideboard. “Alley pull?”
“Let’s do it.” I grabbed the big loop and the nozzle. We split ways and paid out the hose. Kat sent water through it lightning quick. It whipped and jerked, and the nozzle pointed, ready for attack. I knelt by the smoke-filled doorway and bled the air from the line.
The front windows stood blackened. Somewhere in its lair the beast slumbered, smoke undulating in tarragon stertor. The sweet acrid scent stayed in my nostrils as I donned my mask.
Breathe.
Breathe.
I saw a serpent uncoiling, lithe and lambent. Its basilisk breath engulfed the threshold.
I shut my eyes. Read the smoke.
I opened them to see intermittent flare-ups bursting above.
Lowell knelt beside me. “Ready to go?”
“Look at the smoke.”
“What?” He couldn’t hear me.
“Look at the smoke. I think it’s going to—”
Fire erupted, shattering the glass. We tumbled backward. I pulled on the bale and widened the pattern, circling the water around the doorway and then to the windows.
Lowell cursed about the heat. He tucked his helmet near my shoulder, his weight bracing my back.
Engine Three arrived and pulled the larger two-and-a-half-inch line. Behind us Butcher called for a defensive strategy. Truck One elevated their ladder. A cannon stream shot from its smoothbore tip, deluging a thousand gallons a minute.
Surround and drown.
The fire receded, retreating to its lair, roaring and hissing the entire way.
CHAPTER
30
A frigid breeze breathed through the birches, the morning air crisp on my cheeks outside the Station One lobby. It had rained lightly overnight, leaving the asphalt dark and glistening. Something in it made me think of Christine, the way her hair reflected light like record vinyl, framing her face while she held a Hemingway novel. She’d swap quick coy glances from my dad’s chair in the living room. “Am I your Catherine?” My response always the same. “Yes, Christine Patricia Allen. You are my Catherine.”
A forlorn vacuum opened inside me.
What had Blake been doing in her car? For that matter, why was he leaving the Cairo as we all were arriving?
My cell phone vibrated. “Hello?”
“Aidan?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s Julianne.” Her smooth voice cooled my loneliness like salve on a sunburn.
“Hey. How are you?”
“I’ve found something new.”
I pulled out my car keys and switched ears. “With the fire at Chief Youngman’s house?”
“Well, yes and no. I’m at a fire scene right now, and there’s another connection. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before, but this is one of several I’ve documented in the last two days.” She was quiet for a few seconds. “Can you meet me here?”
“Sure. Yeah. Who else is there?”
“It’s just me. I’m over on Wells Avenue.”
I stuck the key in the ignition. “I know exactly where you are.”
A faded red Bronco and a stretch of yellow fire-line tape were the only signs of the department that remained around Simmon’s Medical Supply building. No engines, no truck, no chiefs.
The windows were boarded up. Through the front door I saw Julianne standing, sans lab coat, wearing dark slacks, a white blouse, and dark suit coat. She stared at the burn patterns across the walls.
I ducked under the fire line and walked through the front door, crunching glass shards along the concrete. “Don’t you look the part?”
She gave a measured smile. “I’d much rather be looking through a microscope, believe me.”
I nodded. “Battlefield promotion?”
She let out a quick laugh. “Sort of. Just temporary, you know.
‘Acting Deputy Field Inspector.’ ”
“I see. Do you get to have a gun?”
“No. No. But I’m ready to taser the first firebug I see.”
“That’s impressive. No pepper spray?”
“Oh, I’ve got that, too. I’ll tase ’em and then I’ll pepper spray ’em.”
I chuckled and trapped a drywall nugget under the ball of my foot, scribing a white semi-arc on the floor.
“It’s good to see you again, Aidan.”
I looked up. “You, too.”
&
nbsp; She crossed her arms. “I saw news footage of the Cairo fire. I saw you climbing the ladder.”
I bit my cheek and nodded.
“When you went in that room, I didn’t know if you would come out.”
I avoided her eyes. Racks of elongated medical supplies hung frozen in their melted state. “You know, you should probably have a helmet and a HEPA mask in here.”
She creased her eyebrows. “You think I need it any more than you?”
Touché.
She motioned down a hallway. “Come on back here. I’ll show you what I found.”
I followed her to a large back room with a single window on the back wall that lent pale light. The space was empty save for the skeleton frame of a metal filing cabinet sitting in the corner. It looked like Wile E. Coyote with a blown stack of dynamite.
“This,” she said, “was the office.”
“Nothing but ash.”
“Yes. And no.”
“More of nothing to add to the not-so-heaping stack of anti-evidence?”
She wasn’t amused. “This time I’ve managed to find something in that nothing.” She pointed down and made a circular motion. “Take a few steps back.”
I scanned the floor. Encompassing the room’s perimeter, where the cinders had been swept clean, the smooth finished concrete was interrupted by a ring of cracks and chips. “What caused this?”
“Think Johnny Cash.”
“A Boy Named Sue?”
She smirked. “No.”
“What? Okay. The Man in Black?”
She shook her head. “Think what, not who.” She circled her finger, pointing at the floor.
“The Ring of Fire?”
“There you go.”
I studied the spalled concrete. “How?”
She knelt and pinched fine flecks of the aggregate. “Something burned here so hot and so fast that it instantly fragmented the concrete.”
“And the room’s contents with it?”
“Gone. Almost entirely consumed. As if a veritable wall of fire shot up and out, devouring everything in its wake.”
My eyes followed the scorched sediment.
She stepped closer to me. “It seems to have burned out and away from the starting ring. The little that was on the inside here probably didn’t go up until later.” She drew her jacket together. “But it’s not just this. A closer look at the sprinkler system showed that the water flow had been shut off at the riser.”
“Any fingerprints or DNA?”
“Absolutely nothing, so far. Even the tamper alarm is clean and unactivated. Whoever this is, they’re wise to detection methods, both automated and investigative. So I decided to start searching for patterns, and I think I may’ve found some commonalities among the occupancies.”
I played connect the dots in my mind with the recent fires. No picture emerged. “What do you see?”
“This one is the most obvious, but I wouldn’t have made the link except for when you said that house the arsonist targeted two days ago was retired chief Youngman’s. This business here is the primary supplier for oxygen-related equipment to our department.”
“So, both are department related. What about the fire Hartman and I were on?”
“I looked into that. Turns out they are the parent company of our local uniform store.”
I scratched my jaw. “What about the trailer park fire?”
“That I don’t see a connection with occupancy. But I do with geography. Engine One was on the initial attack string for that fire.”
“And it was on C-shift.”
“Right. As roughly ninety percent of the arsons in the last week have been.”
“There was an A-frame fire I went to when I first got back.”
“Which was in District One and happens to be a rental property belonging to another retired RFD chief.”
“And the Cairo?”
“Again, Station One on the first alarm string.” She walked to the window. “I know. The department connection might be a reach. But what we do know for sure is that each of these fires burned hot and fast and left little evidence. And the majority have been on your shift and in your first due area.” She turned and stared at the floor. Shadows cloaked her body. “There’s . . .”
“What?”
“There is something else.”
“Tell me.”
“I don’t know if I should—”
“Yes. You should. Come on now. You brought it up.”
She swallowed. “It’s about your friend.”
“Who? Blake?”
“Yeah.”
“Go right ahead.”
She tilted her head and looked at the ceiling. “There is a history there.”
“A history with . . .”
“Between.”
“Between who? You and him?”
She nodded. “We were dating for a time.”
A memory awakened. “You’re Julie?”
“Some friends call me that. Did he talk about me?”
“Was this like . . . six years ago?”
“Yeah.”
“He mentioned going out with a girl named Julie, that it didn’t work out. That was about it. I never made the connection.”
“ ‘It didn’t work out’? That’s rich.” She angled her lower jaw and shook her head. “We’d been dating for a few months. Things were getting more serious. But he’d just been telling me everything I wanted to hear.” A ripple traced over her eyes. “He’s your friend. I shouldn’t be saying this.”
I narrowed the space between us. “It’s all right. Believe me. It’s okay.”
She brought her lips together, looked to the side and back. “I had to work late one night waitressing. When I left it was dark and as I sat at a light on Fourth Street I looked over and saw Blake walking out the back door of a strip club with two women clawing at either side. They all got into his car, his Fire Department vehicle, and took off.” She shook her head. “Aidan, I feel so awkward telling you this—”
“No. It’s fine. I didn’t know that about him. Thank you for telling—”
“I’m not done.”
“Go on.”
“This one is a much, much bigger jump. I hardly know you, so what do I have to lose, right?” She mumbled, “Except maybe my job.” She folded her arms. “If you look at the circumstances . . . I mean, if you really examine the current situation. There is a possibility . . . And this is just conjecture, really . . .”
“Julianne please, again, just say it.”
She shifted her weight. “All right. I just found out that Blake had been passed over for the promotion to division chief in Prevention. And this wasn’t the first time. It was the third. That’s got to sound like a death knell for his hopes of climbing the ladder. Something like that is bound to stir up resentment.” She straightened her jacket. “That’s all. Infer what you’d like. I just needed to tell someone. It’s hard to know who you can trust right now.”
I didn't know what to think. I shook my head. “Why, after what you’ve been through with him, would you even consider taking a job where he works?”
“I know. But I’m all my father has left. The opportunity presented itself, so I took it to get back here.” She took a deep breath. “You should also know—” She pressed her lips together.
“I should also know what?”
“You should also know that I, personally, can’t—” She stopped, tracing fingers over a jacket button. “Aidan, I want you to have the closure you need with your father’s death. But how can you expect that finding the arsonist will really change anything for you?”
“It will bring justice.”
“Yes. But in your heart. Your fight is with more than just a murderer. I think you can’t accept death.”
“He shouldn’t have died.”
“But people do. Of anyone, you should know that.”
“Doesn’t make it right.”
“And will catching an arsonist change that?”
An
ger blended in my gut. “I don’t have to listen to this.”
“Why, Aidan? What are you so afraid of?”
“Who said I was afraid?”
“Are you? Where is your peace?”
“We make order out of chaos. That’s the job.”
“So you’re always the hero and never the victim?”
“We stop loss.”
“Enough with the slogans. Some things are beyond your control.”
“And what if I can’t accept that?”
“You can.”
“What if I won’t?”
She breathed deeply. “You’ll have to.” Her eyes locked with mine. “You need to. Or life will move on. It will. And you will miss out.”
I looked away. “I don't need this.”
I turned and strode down the hall, out into stark daylight and the chill city air. I blinked against the brightness, seeing a red-hued vision of Christine’s car with Blake sitting in the front.
“Hard to know who you can trust right now . . .”
I glanced back at the building.
That it was.
CHAPTER
31
I took a long walk down Wells, strolling for at least an hour, maybe more. My feet led me to Patty’s. I looked at the thick weathered-wood door and leaned on the sidewalk pay phone. Something twisted in my stomach.
Why am I here?
Going in was neither a healthy nor wise choice. I wouldn’t find any answers in there. No healing. No rest.
I turned and faced the pay phone. Tagged with black marker, torn white sticker residue covered the tarnished and keyed up chrome. If I dialed Christine from it, her caller ID wouldn’t indicate me. I fingered a couple quarters in my pocket and put a palm on the handset. I held the coins by the slot.
Who will answer?
I dropped in the quarters and dialed her number.
It rang three times.
Four.
Five.
Six.
I pulled the receiver from my ear.
“Hello?” A man’s voice.
He repeated. “Hello?” A woman asked a question in the background. It sounded like Christine. I heard chafing sounds like a hand over the receiver, then a muted, “I don’t know, babe.” A ruffling sound was followed by a clear “Hello?”
The voice was unmistakable. I wished it hadn’t been.