Flashover

by T. Alan Codder

  “Sean McGhee.”

  “Sheriff McGhee, Reese Davenport returning your call.”

  “Thank you for calling me back, Mr. Davenport. I just have a few routine questions to ask. This shouldn’t take long.”

  “You said it was about arson?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And you think I, or Olentangy, had something to do with it?”

  “No sir, I didn’t say that. I’d just like to ask a few questions.”

  “You can ask, but I might refuse to answer until I talk to my lawyer.”

  “That’s fine, sir. These are just routine questions. You were the person responsible for making the go-ahead decision on the abandoned North State Textiles buildings in Brunswick, North Carolina?”

  “Brunswick is just outside of Raleigh, right?”

  “About thirty minutes southeast, yes sir.”

  “I remember. Yeah, we were looking at the property. My job was to evaluate the opportunity, present the numbers to the directors, and make recommendations, but I don’t actually approve, or disapprove, the developments.”

  “I see. Were you going to recommend the opportunity?”

  “I was still evaluating it when the property went off the market.”

  “Do you know Wallace Barns and Dynamic Properties?”

  “Only that he was the one who bought the property.”

  “So, you’ve had no contact with him?”

  “Don’t know him. Don’t really care to. I’ve never even been to Brunswick, or Raleigh either, for that matter.”

  Sean scratched the side of his head. This was going no place.

  “I know you said you were still evaluating the property, but what was your gut telling you?”

  “Sheriff, let me explain something to you. We look at thousands of business opportunities each year. We’re one of the biggest outlet mall organizations in the country. We’re not going to burn some guy’s buildings down just because we lost a deal. It’s not worth it. If we really want to put a mall in Brunswick, we will. If not on that piece of property, then another.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you? Then why are you calling me?”

  “As I said, I’m just asking routine questions.”

  “We had nothing to do with any fire.”

  “I understand that, but someone did. I’ve talked to Wallace Barns and he’s just as adamant it wasn’t him, and he’s proceeding with the development.”

  “So, you figured if wasn’t one of the good ol’ boys down there, it had to be the damn Yankees?”

  Sean rolled his eyes. “I’m not saying that at all. But someone wanted the buildings burned down.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t some crazy lunatic who likes to burn buildings down?”

  “Because I caught the guy who set the fires. Someone paid him to do it.”

  “Oh. Did he say it was us?”

  “No, but that means someone has an interest in hurting either Barns or his company, or wants him to abandon the project for some reason. I’ve gone as far as I can with the first, and you were the only other game in town for the second.”

  “Okay, I guess that makes sense. But sheriff, it wasn’t us. There’s nothing for us to gain by doing it, but everything to lose if we got caught doing it.”

  “I understand. If you’d won the bid, what would have happened?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know you wanted to build a mall. What would have happened next if you’d won the bid?”

  “I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking. We’d have torn the buildings down and developed the property.”

  “Would you have sent your own crews down from Ohio?”

  “No. We would’ve put the job out for bid to local firms. We’re a developer, not a construction company.”

  “Did you do that?”

  “Sure. We have to know what it’ll cost to build before we can determine if the project would be profitable, but we didn’t accept any of the bids because we decided not to go forward with the project.”

  “So, you did decide not to go forward?”

  “I guess you could say that. We were still evaluating the market when Barns put in his bid. The mayor… what was his name?”

  “Rudy Klinger,” Sean supplied.

  “Yeah, Klinger contacted us to see if we were interested in a counter bid. The directors talked it over and decided we weren’t.”

  “Because you weren’t ready or because you knew you couldn’t match Barns’ bid?”

  “I don’t know what Barns bid. The reason we didn’t move forward was because we didn’t know if the market was there. We were still doing the research on that. We’re probably going to go forward with the project, but now we’re looking at property on I-40 west of Raleigh. Our research indicates that’s probably a better location than Brunswick.”

  “So even if Barns hadn’t bid on the project, it sounds like you wouldn’t have bought the property anyway.”

  “Never say never. We’re planning to make some aggressive moves into the state, and may revisit Brunswick at some point in the future. If Barns’ project jumpstarts growth, we may come back and develop another piece of property in the area. For now, though, since the deal fell through anyway, we’re looking in a different direction.”

  Sean sighed. As he suspected, this thread went nowhere. “I think that wraps up everything I need to ask. Thank you for your time, Mr. Davenport.”

  “Sorry I can’t help you.”

  “You answered my questions. Oh, one more, if I might. Other than Dynamic Properties, do you know of anyone who was interested in the property?”

  “No. Sorry.”

  Sean grimaced in disappointment. “Okay. Thanks again for your time.”

  “No problem, sheriff.”

  Sean smiled as he hung up. Davenport probably thought every cop in North Carolina was called sheriff, or deputy, because of Andy Griffith.

  He glanced at the clock in the corner of his computer screen. It was almost three. He drummed his fingers a moment then picked up his phone and dialed the wastewater treatment plant.

  “Lizard Lick Creek WWTP,” a voice answered.

  He grinned every time he heard the plant name. “Sean McGhee for Maggie.”

  “Hang on a minute, Sean. She’s right here.”

  “Hey,” Maggie said a moment later.

  “You getting ready to go?”

  “Soon, why?”

  “I thought I’d leave early, pick up a pizza on the way to your place, and we’ll have a double feature tonight. How’s that sound?”

  “That sounds like fun!”

  “Hand tossed super-supreme, half with no green peppers for the lady, right? You want some of those brownie dessert things they have?”

  “Ooooh, yeah,” she cooed.

  “I’ll get some cheesy garlic bread too.”

  “We’ll never eat all of that.”

  “Leftovers.”

  “Okay, perfect. I’ll try to find something interesting to watch.”

  “I thought you wanted to see The Invisible Guest.”

  “I do, but we need a second. I’ll do some poking around and see what I can find.”

  “I’ll be there about five.”

  “Perfect. I’ll see you then.”

  He hung up the phone and pounded away on Chips’ personnel file for another ninety minutes. When he finished, he was ready to call it a day. His last task, before he logged out, was to mark the North State Textiles case as inactive.

  His first stop was home to take care of a few things. He put in a call to the local Pizza Hut and placed his order, fed his cat, and then shaved in case Maggie asked him to stay.

  As soon as he was finished shaving, he hurried back to his car. The pizzas and brownies would be waiting by the time he got there. Good to their word, the food was ready and it took only moments to pay and return to his car.

  As he drove, the enticing aroma of fresh baked pizza filled his c
ar. He hadn’t been hungry before, but by the time he arrived at Maggie’s and pressed the bell, he was ravenous.

  “Come in,” she said, opening the door and taking the two smaller boxes he’d placed on top of the pizza box. “In the living room.”

  He carried the pizza into the living room and placed it on the ottoman that matched her overstuffed furniture.

  Her living room was optimized for watching movies, with a giant television sitting on a cabinet and surround sound speakers placed around the room. Directly in front of the television was her brown, faux leather, reclining sofa. In the center of the room was a large area rug of creams, tans and browns, and there was a matching chair and rolling ottoman with built-in storage that she’d covered with a towel to give them a place to put the pizza. It wasn’t a full-on theater room, but she’d done what she could on a budget and in the space allowed.

  He’d just gotten the pizza box opened when she arrived with the garlic bread, two paper plates sitting on top, and a pair of Samuel Adams. She flipped down the center section of the couch and placed the beers in the holders before setting the garlic bread down beside the pizza.

  She retrieved the two lap desks while he placed pizza on their plates. “What are we watching?” he asked.

  “I thought we’d start with The Invisible Guest, then finish with Metropolis.”

  He handed her a plate. “Metropolis? Isn’t that where Superman lives?”

  “It is, but it’s also the name of perhaps the first full length sci-fi movie ever made. A 1927 silent by Fritz Lang. This is the 2010 restored version with most of the original footage restored and newly recorded music. It’s been on my ‘to see’ list forever. I’d almost given up ever seeing it, but I found it today when I was looking for the second movie. I can’t believe I’ve missed it until now.”

  “A silent movie?”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” she said with an exaggerated roll of her eyes, her tone playfully annoyed. “This is a classic! Stop being so negative! Expand your horizons! You like science fiction. Besides, you didn’t think you’d like The Wave and Beauty and the Beast either, but you did, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, yeah, okay. You’re right,” he said with a grin.

  Truth be told, he really didn’t care what he watched so long as he was watching with Maggie.

  She started the first movie.

  “Wait, this has subtitles?” he asked as the movie began.

  “Yeah. It’s a Spanish movie.” She giggled. “I thought we were past this. You want me to pick something else?”

  “No, it’s okay.”

  Unlike with The Wave, he quickly adjusted and had no trouble getting into the movie, despite the words flashing along the bottom of the screen.

  As they watched, they ate their pizza and garlic bread, stopping about a third of the way into the movie for dessert.

  Leaving the remains of their meal for later cleanup, Maggie flipped up the center section and curled up next to him, tucking herself in tight to his side with her legs folded up beside her.

  “What’d you think?” she asked as they cleaned up their meal after the movie ended.

  “Pretty good movie. I must be getting used to subtitles because I hardly noticed them this time.”

  “See…”

  He smiled but said nothing as he put the leftover pizza in a plastic container and placed it in her refrigerator.

  After the pizza boxes and beer bottles were in the recycle bin, they settled in to watch the second movie, Metropolis. He had to admit, allowing for the fact the movie was ninety years old, he was damned impressed. The German expressionism made the film a little hard to follow and understand at times, but he had another item to check off his bucket list, watching a silent movie.

  “That was amazing,” Maggie gushed as they prepared for bed. “I wonder how they did some of that stuff. The robot changing into a woman? And the robot! I mean, I guess they had to film all that stuff in camera back then, right? I’ll have to look that up.”

  He smiled as he shrugged. He enjoyed watching her get all worked up over something like this, prattling away like an excited kid over something that had caught her fancy.

  “I guess,” he mumbled around his toothbrush.

  “Did you like it?”

  He finished brushing then rinsed his mouth. “It was okay. A little too artsy-fartsy and symbolic for my taste, but yeah, it was okay. I’m glad we watched it. Now I can hold my head up with you movie expert types and say, ‘Yeah, I’ve seen it.’”

  She snickered. “Next time you get to pick the movie, I promise.”

  “You’ve seen everything!”

  “Not everything!”

  “It seems like it.”

  She stepped into his arms. “That’s okay. If I’ve seen it, I’ll watch it again.”

  He gave her a fleeting kiss. “No, that’s okay. You pick. A foreign language film in its original language and a silent movie in one night. What ever will you come up with next?”

  She grinned. “Is that a challenge?”

  “No!” he exclaimed, grinning and drawing the word out. “You’ll probably have me watching a Chinese movie with Japanese subtitles or something.”

  “Ooh, have you watched much anime?”

  “I’ve heard of it but never seen it. It’s Japanese cartoons, right?”

  “Only in the loosest sense. Some of it is just amazing. Let me see what I can find.”

  He rolled his eyes as if exasperated before grinning down at her. “Sure, that’s fine.”

  “I wonder if I can get Ghost in the Shell? There’s a live action version with Scarlett Johansson out. It’d be cool if you saw the original anime version first.”

  “Whatever you want to do.”

  She smiled up at him, that same smile she’d shown him the night he took her to Raleigh for her birthday.

  “You know what I want to do now?” she asked as she melted into him.

  “What?” he asked, holding her gaze.

  “Come with me and I’ll show you.”

  Twenty-Three

  Sean slapped at the side table, trying to find his phone before the fast-paced melody of trumpets, drums and organs woke Maggie. He finally found it and pressed the button to accept the call as he stared at the time, giving himself a moment to wake up. 2:53. He’d been asleep less than four hours.

  This had better be important, he thought as he finally brought the device to his ear. “McGhee,” he breathed, keeping his voice low.

  “Chief, there’s been an officer involved shooting,” Claire said, her voice tight.

  That got his attention and his drowsiness vanished in an instant. He sat up, swinging his feet to the floor. “What?” he whispered as he rose and padded into the hall so he wouldn’t wake Maggie.

  “Fish was involved in a shooting, in Tilley. It happened about five minutes ago.”

  “Fuck,” he muttered, rubbing his eyes. “Okay. I’m at Maggie’s. I’m leaving now. You can give me the address on the way.”

  He ended the call, hurried back into the bedroom, and picked up his clothes.

  “What?” Maggie mumbled as she rolled over.

  “There’s been a shooting. I have to go,” he said as he tugged on his clothes.

  “A shooting?” she repeated, her voice still thick with sleep. “Can’t your officers handle it?”

  “Fish shot someone.”

  “Oh no,” she gasped quietly as she sat up.

  He stood from putting on his shoes, leaned over, and gave her a quick kiss. “I have to go. I’ll call you later,” he murmured before he strode toward the door.

  He trotted to his car and backed out into the road before slamming the car into drive, flipping on his strobes, and put his foot against the floor, the Charger bellowing as it gave him everything it had. Maggie’s house was about fifteen minutes outside Brunswick, plus another five or so to Tilley, but he intended to make it to the scene in ten.

  When he arrived in Tilley, five cruisers wer
e clustered around, his own emergency strobes adding to the nauseating blue flicker lighting up the night. Donner and Caswell were at, what he assumed, was the victim’s car, Chips was talking to Fish, and Officer Derrick Tilden was keeping the crowd back.

  “Fish, you okay?” he asked as he walked up.

  “No, not really.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “I shot an unarmed man,” Fish said, his voice soft and quivering slightly.

  Sean’s blood ran cold. “Start at the beginning.”

  Fish took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I was making a traffic stop. He was driving erratic and I thought he was DWI. No wants or warrants. As I approached, he got out of his car even though I was ordering him to stop. He had something in his hand and I shot him. It was his wallet. It all happened so fast.”

  Sean looked around. “Where is he?”

  “Ambulance took him to Ellie Grey,” Chips said, naming the small local hospital. “Three shots to the torso. They’re going to stabilize him and then transport him to WakeMed. Guy’s name is Lexington Hags, thirty-seven-year-old black male. Like Fish said, no current wants, but he does have some priors for drug use. We found a Hi-Point 9mm and what looks like heroin in the car.”

  “Shit,” Sean spat. “That’s something at least. Has anyone pulled the dash cam?”

  “No,” Chips replied.

  “I’ll take care of that. Take him home, stay with him, and run interference if you have to. There are only two words I want to hear out of your mouths if this gets out. ‘No comment,’ got it? Fish, try to relax, okay? We’ll sort this out.”

  Chips gave Sean a single sharp nod. Fish and Chips were close. He’d have Fish’s back.

  “He was unarmed, chief,” Fish said, his eyes full of pain.

  “I know, Fish. Try to get some rest, okay? Go home and hold your wife and baby.” He watched Fish’s face a moment and didn’t like what he saw. “Give me your service weapon,” he said, holding his hand out.

  Fish stared at him a moment with haunted eyes, then slowly pulled his weapon and put it in Sean’s hand. “Are you going to prosecute? Am I fired?”

  “This is just a precaution. I don’t want you doing anything stupid.” He looked at Chips. “Take care of him. I’ll stop by in the morning and check on him. I’ll put out the word and get someone over to relieve you.”