by David Skuy
“That might be a good idea,” the fireman said grimly. He walked off.
Firemen were walking in and out of the café. A couple of them were putting a fire hose back in the truck. Across the street and down a bit another two firemen were huddled around a fire hydrant.
Pudge pulled on Charlie’s sleeve. His face was pale. “We should get your mom.”
Charlie remained rooted where he stood. His brain was in a fog, as if he could not quite understand what was happening. He looked around at the trucks and the firemen and the smoke. What if the entire place had been destroyed? What if everything had burned down? Only the fireman said it was just smoke — that was a good thing, wasn’t it? But that guy had not actually fought the fire, had he? He was doing crowd control. And what kind of damage can smoke do …?”
“Charlie. Come on. Let’s run back. Your mom will be worried and like he said she should speak to the captain.” Pudge was pulling on his sleeve again.
Charlie nodded. He took one last look around. The firemen were mostly just standing and talking. Everyone was calm. It didn’t look much like an emergency. A few firemen even had their helmets off. As he turned he saw his mom. She was about twenty-five metres away. He walked over to her.
“It’s the café —” he began.
“I know,” she whispered. A tear rolled down her cheek. She held out her arms and they hugged.
“It’ll be okay,” she said. “Don’t worry.”
5
A NEGATIVE DEVELOPMENT
The man placed the coffee mug on the kitchen counter. “This is really, really good coffee.”
“Thanks, Fire Marshal,” his mom said.
“Actually, I’m a fire investigator. The Fire Marshal’s office tends to only get involved with the larger fires. But please, call me Roberto … I have to get one of those espresso machines in my house. Really delicious. Thanks.”
“It’s a commercial-grade machine — it’s made for a café, not really a house, so …” his mom’s voice trailed off.
The investigator winked and pointed his finger at her. “Gotcha. I ain’t getting this quality coffee for cheap, is what you’re saying.”
“Would you like another?” she said.
“No thanks. I appreciate the offer. But I’ve had enough. My wife has been on me for drinking too much coffee on the job. Keeps me up at night. So it’s two cups before lunch, and then I’m cut off. I’m already at my limit cause Frankie and I grabbed one on the way over.”
Frankie took a sip from her coffee mug. “You really do drink too much coffee,” she said with a laugh.
Charlie squirmed in his seat. He had been sitting in the kitchen listening to his mom and the two fire investigators talking for ten minutes, mostly about nothing. He was dying to hear what they had to say about the café. The fire captain had spoken to his mom last night, but told them they might as well go home because the fire was out and it was still too smoky and wet to go in.
Roberto smacked his lips. “Delicious. Really. So, if you don’t mind, Frankie and I need to ask a few questions. This isn’t an interrogation. We’re not the police. Our job is to try and find out how the fire started. I had a good look around this morning, and I spoke to the captain at the scene.”
“We spoke to him too,” Charlie said.
“Let Roberto speak,” his mom said.
“It’s okay,” he said. “There’s no pressure, and feel free to ask me anything you want. I know this is a difficult time. It’s tough when a family business is damaged by fire. Very difficult. We’re here to help.” He picked up his coffee cup and looked into it.
“Are you sure you don’t want another?” his mom asked.
He sighed. “Maybe just one. Thanks. But that’s it. Please don’t give me another, even if I beg.”
“I won’t,” his mom said quietly, and she got up.
“So anyway,” Roberto continued pleasantly, “have you any idea how it could have started?”
Frankie took out her notebook.
“Not at all. I’ve been wracking my brain thinking about it,” Charlie’s mom said.
“When was the last time you were in the café?”
“Around six o’clock. Charlie had a hockey game, and I ran to the bank to make a deposit and then picked him up.”
“Right. Great. So when you came back to get Charlie, did you go in?”
“No. Charlie met me outside. We were in a hurry.”
Frankie began to write in her notebook.
“Of course. Hockey,” Roberto said. “Love the game myself. I have two boys that played. Not bad either; way better than their old man.” He laughed at that. “My goodness, I must’ve driven a million kilometres with those boys. They’re grown up now; funny how I miss it.”
His mom turned on the espresso machine.
“I got off track there,” he continued. “Am I to understand that Charlie was the last one in the store — or the café, rather?” He looked over at him.
“I guess,” Charlie said.
“What were you doing in the café before you met your mom?”
“I was closing up. A few guys came in to buy something …”
“You didn’t tell me that,” his mom said.
“Yeah. Well, I didn’t think it mattered. A few guys … Jake and his friends actually … they bought some muffins. Took them from the tray. Then you honked and I came out. Sorry, Mom, but I might have forgotten to put some stuff away.”
“Doesn’t really matter now, honey,” she said. She turned the milk foamer on.
Roberto raised his voice to be heard over the noise. “Did you smell any gas before you left?”
“No, sir.”
“Any smoke?”
“No.”
“Did you go into the kitchen at all, or use the fryer, or the grill, or the bread oven, or the range?”
His mom gave Roberto his coffee. “He wouldn’t use the range,” she said. “He’s not allowed to.”
“Thanks for this,” Roberto said. He held the coffee up in admiration. “The perfect latte. Look at that foam. It’s almost too pretty to drink, isn’t it?” He took a sip. “Maybe not.” He put the cup down. “Did you use any equipment, young man?”
A chill ran down Charlie’s spine. His mom would be angry. But maybe Roberto knew somehow. Could he? His mind raced.
“Charlie. Did you?” Roberto asked again.
“Yes. The range, for a second. I made a grilled cheese sandwich.”
His mom gasped ever so slightly. “When I said you could get something to eat, I didn’t —”
Roberto held his hand up. “If I could follow up on that. When you made the sandwich — what was it again?”
“Grilled cheese,” Frankie said.
“I love a good grilled cheese sandwich, I gotta admit,” Roberto said.
“Me too,” Frankie said. “Let’s get one after this.”
Roberto gave her a thumbs-up. “Charlie, take me through how you made the grilled cheese.”
The three adults were watching him closely. Suddenly, Roberto and Frankie made him very nervous. “Like I said. It was quick. Some bread, I buttered it, added some cheese, put it in a frying pan and grilled it.”
“Why didn’t you use the grill?” Roberto asked.
It had not occurred to him. “Don’t know, really. I might not have wanted to get it dirty.”
“That makes sense,” Roberto said. “Easier to fry ’er up in the pan. You turned on the gas and made yourself a sandwich. Right?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“Do you have any idea why the range was on when the firemen got there?” Roberto said.
“Charlie?” his mom said.
He felt as if he had been punched in the chest. “No — not really. I think I turned it off.” He thought about it. Jake and his crew came in. He put the grilled cheese down and went out to deal with them. Then his mom came, and he was so angry he just left. Maybe he forgot? “I can’t really remember, to be honest.”
“On the counter I found a ball of melted plastic and what looked like charred paper of some sort. Did you perhaps use some napkins?”
Frankie’s pen was poised over her notebook.
“I did. I took a package down from the shelf.”
“Did you fry the grilled cheese in butter, or something else?”
“I used butter.”
“You didn’t use oil?”
“No. I thought about it, but decided the butter would be better.”
“So there was oil near the range?”
He closed his eyes trying to picture it. There was some olive oil, at least he thought there was. “Yeah. I think so. Olive oil, in a can, against the wall on the counter.”
“Right. Thanks, Charlie. We’ll discuss this back at headquarters, but it looks like we have a solid explanation. The pan would have heated up, the sandwich would have burned, a small spark, a splatter of butter, and those napkins would catch — and then you have a fire. You were lucky the entire place didn’t burn down, really. I think the olive oil caused some discolouration on the tiles and some other surfaces, and the range was affected. But other than the smoke damage and the water, it’s not too bad.”
“We haven’t had a chance to see it,” his mom said.
Frankie put her notebook away.
“I really do appreciate that coffee. Thanks. We’ll be in touch. I have bit more work to do at the site, and I need to figure out why the fire suppression system over the range didn’t kick in. I should have my report to the insurance company in a day or so, and my job will be done,” Roberto said.
“Is there going to be a problem?” his mom asked. Her voice trembled.
“We don’t deal with that side of things,” he said. “We’re only investigators. But it truly was a pleasure meeting you both.”
They got up and his mom showed them to the door. Danielle and her best friend Hannah came running in.
“What did the cops want?” Danielle asked.
“They’re fire investigators, not cops,” Charlie said. “They were trying to figure out how the fire started.”
“What does it matter?” Danielle said. “It happened.”
Charlie shrugged. “They work for the fire marshal’s office. It’s their job, I guess.”
Her question got him thinking, though. Did it matter? What was done was done. More important to fix the Rainbow than worry about a grilled cheese sandwich.
“So how did the fire start?” Hannah asked.
Secrets and Danielle were a bad combination, and the last thing he wanted was for this to get around. “Like I said, they’re investigating. I think they’re going to do a report. We’ll know later, or maybe never. Depends on what they find out.”
Danielle seemed bothered. “I don’t get why it’s such a big mystery. A fire starts in the kitchen; that means the range caused it somehow. Who was the last person to use the range?”
That had taken her about two seconds to figure out. Maybe it would not be so easy to keep this under wraps. Her cleverness irritated him. “How do I know? Let’s wait for the investigators to finish.”
She wouldn’t let up. “But you were there, right? Did you see anyone?”
Their mom came back in. “How about we go over to the Rainbow and check things out?” she said.
“Can we come?” Danielle said.
“Sure. Could you guys tidy up downstairs a touch first, though.”
“No problem,” Hannah said.
The girls ran off.
Charlie had trouble looking his mom in the eyes.
“Charlie … honey …”
“I know, Mom. I’m sorry. I might have left the range on. I honestly can’t remember. I guess I did — obviously I did. I’m so sorry. Jake and his friends came. I should’ve told you. And I thought they were gonna steal the muffins, and I overreacted. I was so mad … I … I heard the horn and ran out. That’s why I wanted to go back so bad. I was going to clean up.”
“I should have been suspicious when you said you were going to do homework,” his mom said. She was smiling.
Charlie felt a rush of tears. She was being so nice. “I’ll make it up to you, Mom. I swear. I’ll clean that place so good you’d swear it was brand new.”
She reached out and ran her fingers through his hair, and then gave him a hug. “It’s okay. I might have to pay more for insurance, but we’ll fix it up.”
The doorbell rang again. Charlie could see a dark shadow in the window. He knew that shape anywhere.
“Pudge is here. We have a practice later and …”
“You were going to do … homework?” she said.
Charlie grinned. “Something like that.”
He heard the sound of scampering feet, and Danielle and Hannah raced to the door. “It’s Pudge,” Danielle announced.
“We’re on our way to the Rainbow,” Charlie said. “You wanna come?”
“Sure. We got time before practice.” He turned to Charlie’s mom. “I’m sorry about the café,” he said. “My dad’s really upset too. He told me to ask if you would like to work out of his kitchen for a while. No problem, he said.”
“That’s incredibly generous,” she said. “I’ll … I should give him a call.”
“He should be at the restaurant by lunch. Not sure where he is now. You could call him there.”
“I will. Thanks, Pudge.”
Charlie closed the front door after everyone had left and pulled it shut tightly. The handle was cold and it stung his hand a bit. That reminded him — he and Pudge had planned to go to the Hockey Repair Shop to look at hockey gloves. Money had been tight even before the fire. There probably would not be much chance of new gloves now — not that he deserved it.
He held out his hands. “Sorry guys. Not this season,” he said to them.
6
AFTERMATH
His mom hesitated, and a grim expression came over her face as she pushed the door open. Charlie followed her in. An acrid smell of smoke struck him. His eyes burned and he coughed a few times. Pudge and the girls coughed too. Without commenting on what she saw, his mom walked past the tables and chairs, through the double doors and into the kitchen. Besides the physical discomfort, all Charlie really felt was relief. It did not seem too bad, other than a swirling, winding streak of black soot that marked the ceiling and a small pool of water gathered near the kitchen.
“This shouldn’t take too long to clean,” he said to Pudge. “We’ll need to sponge off the gunk on the ceiling …”
Pudge’s head swayed from side to side. He seemed uncertain about that.
“Let’s check out the kitchen,” Charlie said. For the first time since the fire his chest was not so tight and his head was clear. The fire investigator had said things were not that bad, and he was right. A little elbow grease and the place would be as good as new.
He pushed the doors open. His mom was leaning against a counter, her eyes closed. A bitter taste rose up in his mouth. Unlike the pale streaks on the ceiling in the main room, the marks on the kitchen ceiling were jet black, and the walls were scorched in a radial pattern starting from the range and fanning out like a peacock’s tail feathers. A few packages of flour had burst and the flour had fallen onto the floor leaving clumps scattered about. Mixed into the water on the floor were bits of tattered and burned ceiling tile. Sections of drywall had burned, and other parts looked melted. He could see some of the fluffy pink insulation peeking out from behind the drywall, and some of it was melted also. As the fire investigator had said, a few of the floor tiles looked damaged, although it was hard to tell how much with the pools of dirty water about. The dials on the range were completely melted. It was an utter mess.
Charlie felt so incredibly bad for his mom, and so unbelievably guilty, that he could not even speak. But he knew he needed to say something, to show her how he felt. She had not moved the entire time.
“Mom, it’ll be … we’ll fix this.”
“I’m really sorry, Mrs. Joyce,” Pudge said. �
��It probably looks worse than it is. A bit of water damage, for sure, and obviously there’s some fire damage. But it might not take too long to fix.”
His words seemed to awaken her. “I suspect the insurance company will have a few things to say about that.”
“You have fire insurance, right?” Charlie said.
“Of course, Charlie,” she said sternly. She walked to the range. “Why didn’t the fire extinguishers go off? They’re supposed to be automatic.” She peered up into the hood.
Pudge came over to Charlie. “Looks kind of like a black cave. Incredible what a little smoke can do,” he said quietly.
“Not so little from the looks of things,” Charlie said.
“How’d it start?” Pudge said.
If only he could turn back time! That tightness in his chest was back. “I might’ve had a hand in that.”
“What do you mean?”
He picked up his knapsack from the floor. It was drenched. The entire back had practically burned away and the plastic tabs holding the straps had melted into tight balls. He threw it back down and pulled Pudge from the kitchen. Out of the girls’ earshot he told him what had happened.
“Figures Jake would be involved,” Pudge said.
Charlie’s shoulder’s slumped and he sat down. “I’d love to blame him, and of course they were total jerks.”
“That goes without saying.”
Pudge was the one guy he could trust — and he had to tell someone. “There’s a bit more to it, and it kind of spilled onto the ice.”
“I figured.”
“They got on me about Julia, which was no biggie, but then they started saying … well, that she didn’t shower and stuff … and smelled. That put me over the edge, and we got into a scrap, and that’s why I was so mad and ran out of here when my mom honked. I wasn’t thinking straight. All I could imagine was them posting stuff online and …”
“Now I get it,” Pudge said darkly. “I heard Roscoe say something about soap. They wouldn’t really spread a rumour like that, would they? People know it’s not true.”
Charlie ran his hands over his face. This was so frustrating he could scream. “I don’t know. If I hadn’t gotten all crazed on them, they probably would’ve just left with their stupid muffins. Something about Jake makes me lose my brain — and now …”