Flashover

by Suzanne Chazin

  “Exactly,” said Georgia. “So what do you make of this?” She squatted behind the charred chair frame and ran a gloved hand over a heavily blackened section of the wall a foot or so off the floor. The wall, once plaster, was burned right through to the wooden studs. “You’ve got a low burn here—lowest burn in the room,” said Georgia. “In a corner where there are no electrical outlets or other obvious sources of combustion. If the fire had gone on a minute longer, the whole room would have looked like this. We might never know about this low burn.”

  Carter dropped the red plastic cap into an evidence can. Then he squatted beside her and scraped a gloved finger across the blackened floor beside the chair. A waxy orange residue came off on his glove. He nodded to the wrought-iron candelabra on her dresser.

  “She burnt one of those candles over here by the window,” he muttered.

  “But it’s too far from the chair to be the source of ignition,” said Georgia.

  Carter straightened up with effort and frowned at the room.

  “Rosen’s a common Jewish name, right?” Carter mumbled. “Got to be hundreds in New York—a lot of ’em doctors.”

  Georgia shrugged. “I guess—why?”

  “Just wondering.”

  He sealed the evidence can. Georgia studied him from behind. His breathing remained uneven, and he looked shaky from the heat. His hand slipped as he wrote the case number, time, date and his name on the top and sides of the can. When he reached for his shovel, Georgia thrust an arm across the metal grip.

  “Not now, Randy. I need you to talk to witnesses.”

  His dark eyes narrowed. He saw what she was doing. “Ain’t nothing wrong with me, girl,” he protested. “I was prying doors off their hinges by hand—none of these rabbit doohickeys—when you were still in diapers.”

  “I know,” she said gently. “But somebody’s got to charm those old society matrons. And I’m not the charm half of this duo.”

  He made a face. “Seems to me, y’all doing a pretty good job of it right now.”

  A ghostly quiet descended on the apartment after Carter left. It seemed to settle in the air and thicken it with a morbid replay of the terror and mayhem only hinted at in the carbonized ruins. Even with the windows open, the ash and plaster dust were like a fine gauze blanket to the lungs. Georgia fought back a cough the way she used to as a kid when she’d swallowed too much powdered sugar on a doughnut.

  She sifted through the debris on her hands and knees, searching for evidence of shorted wires, blown fuses and unexplained burn patterns. She took samples of the floors and walls, the mattress on the street and the box spring in the room. She snapped her own black-and-whites after putting in a call to Herb Moskowitz, the department’s sole forensic photographer, and discovering he’d been pressed into taking pictures of Mayor Ortaglia’s breakfast with members of the Hispanic Coalition. No one needed to tell Georgia that in city politics, photo ops took precedence over crime scenes.

  She was struggling to maneuver the box spring to one side of the room when she heard a set of footsteps in the living room.

  “Randy, can you give me a hand?” she called out.

  The footsteps clomped toward her in the bedroom.

  “Hey, Scout, you’re looking radiant today.”

  Georgia turned. Supervising Fire Marshal Mac Marenko slouched in the bedroom doorway, his tie loosened, his white shirtsleeves rolled up and his strong, sinewy arms folded across his chest. When they were alone, Marenko always called her “Scout,” a nickname he’d coined after once complaining that she was as naïve as a Girl Scout. The name stuck, in part because it was a lot better than other things he’d called her when she first joined the bureau. In front of the other marshals, however, he always called her by her last name. Marenko was terrified of anybody finding out they were dating.

  Marenko pulled a set of latex gloves out of the back pocket of his dark blue trousers. “You want some help?” he asked. At six feet two, he towered over Georgia.

  She brushed her gloved hands down the front of her baggy coveralls. “I can handle it.”

  “My ass, you can.” Marenko grinned, yanking the box spring and tossing it halfway across the room. “Anything else you want me to move?”

  “Yeah. You.” She pulled a black twin-handled gadget from a leather pouch on her duty holster—the belt around her waist that held her Glock nine millimeter—and extracted a small screwdriver from the gadget’s attachments. Then she crouched down and began to pull apart some wiring on a burned lamp.

  “You’re carrying a Leatherman now, huh?” asked Marenko, referring to the small tool—part pliers, part Swiss Army knife—that a lot of fire marshals carry. “I thought you were partial to screwdrivers in your purse.”

  “I broke down and got a Leatherman instead,” said Georgia. “The pliers come in handy.”

  Georgia gestured to the bags and cans she had stacked on the dresser. “I’m nearly finished with the evidence collection. Did you see Randy in the lobby?”

  He nodded. “Carter asked me to come up and have a look at this place, see what I think.” Marenko was one rank higher than Georgia and Carter. He oversaw arson investigations rather than conducting them himself.

  “So”—Georgia straightened up—“what do you think?”

  Marenko let his blue eyes, the color of an oven pilot light, travel the length of her body. “I think my mechanic dresses better.” He reached out and wiped a smudge of soot from her face. “Then again, I wouldn’t ask my mechanic what he was doing for dinner tonight.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t. I promised Connie I’d help quiz her for her sergeant’s exam.” Connie Ruiz was a detective with the NYPD, assigned to the Arson and Explosion Squad. She was also Georgia’s best friend. “You can come help, if you want.”

  Georgia caught the change in Marenko’s expression, the momentary embarrassment in his boyish features, then realized why. Randy Carter was ducking under the crime-scene tape in the living room.

  Though Georgia had told Carter about her relationship with Marenko, Carter, always the gentleman, never let on. He simply nodded to Marenko as he entered the bedroom. But Georgia also caught a shade of wariness in their exchange of glances. The two men had different, if at times competing, roles in Georgia’s life, and they seemed to dance around each other now, like two similarly charged force fields that repelled each other if they got too close.

  “You were right, Skeehan,” said Carter, flipping through his notes. “Dr. Rosen doesn’t smoke. Seems she asked the super to unclog her sink a couple of months ago, then complained when she came home and smelled smoke from his cigarette in her kitchen.”

  “That doesn’t mean jack.” Marenko dismissed Carter a little callously with a wave of his hand. “The chick could’ve quit, then gone back to it. I’ve done that myself maybe twenty times.”

  “You stack your empties neatly on the kitchen counter before you get tanked, too?” asked Carter.

  Marenko’s jawline hardened. “I don’t get tanked,” he said stiffly. “But I do call the shots ’round here, and it looks to me like a routine accidental fire you’re wasting too much time on.” He pulled off his gloves and checked his watch. “Wrap this up in the next hour and send me the report by Thursday.” Marenko started for the door.

  “You’re wrong, Mac,” said Carter.

  Marenko turned. His eyes became slits. “Excuse me?”

  “I don’t mean about whether the fire’s accidental or not. I mean about whether it’s routine.” Carter softened his tone. “Mac, listen to me for a moment. You’re thirty-eight, right?”

  “Thirty-nine,” Marenko said defensively.

  “And Skeehan’s thirty. You haven’t seen too many of your friends on this job come before the One-B Board.” The One-B Board: the fire department medical board, the all-powerful panel of doctors who decide whether or not a firefighter gets “three-quarters,” the coveted line-of-duty pension, if he becomes disabled because of a job-related injury. A
“three-quarters” is just that: three-quarters of a firefighter’s last year of salary, tax-free, every year, for the rest of his life. Firefighters whose injuries are not considered job related get smaller, taxable pensions depending upon their length of service.

  “What the hell’s the One-B Board got to do with this?” asked Marenko.

  “Louise Rosen, man,” said Carter. “In the nineteen eighties and nineties, she made a career out of turning down injured firefighters for line-of-duty pensions. Some of those guys…they never forgave her.”

  Georgia frowned at Carter. “That’s why you asked me about the name Rosen earlier, huh?”

  Carter gave her a sheepish look. “I didn’t say anything before ’cause I didn’t want it to color your findings,” he explained. “I’m not even sure it matters. Rosen’s been retired for maybe five or six years.”

  They were all silent for a moment. Then Marenko ran a hand through his thick mane of blue-black hair and cursed. “Did you tell Arson and Explosion any of this stuff yet?”

  “I figured I’d leave that to you,” said Carter. “I know you have to tell them, but I was hoping you could hold back a day, maybe buy us a little time.” He nodded to the living room. “Dr. Rosen kept two big boxes of patient files in the basement. I got the super to give them to me. They’re out there, by the door. I figured Skeehan and I could look through them later—see if any names pop out.”

  “Jesus.” Marenko ran a hand down his face. “I don’t want this. And I know Brennan won’t.” Arthur Brennan was chief fire marshal of the city of New York and every member of the Bureau of Fire Investigation’s ultimate boss.

  “All right.” Marenko sighed. “I’ll hold back as long as I can. Look through the boxes. Visit Rosen at the burn unit. But don’t get carried away. I’d like to step around this shit if possible, not in it.”

  5

  The temperature was almost chilly inside New York Hospital on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Even so, Georgia felt a trickle of sweat creep down the silver chain tucked inside her shirt as she pushed the elevator button. She didn’t want to be here, at the Cornell Burn Unit, one of the most advanced burn-treatment centers in the world. But then again, neither did Louise Rosen.

  “What odds of survival are the doctors giving her?” Georgia asked Carter as they stepped off the elevator and walked down the windowless seventh-floor corridor, polished to a blinding sheen.

  “Not good,” he said. “She’s got burns over sixty percent of her body. And you know the rule…”

  “Age plus burn equals the likely percent of fatality,” Georgia said grimly.

  “Fifty-four plus sixty,” said Carter, shaking his head. “I don’t think she’ll last long.”

  “Seems horrible for someone to suffer all this only to have no hope of survival.”

  “Gives her family a chance to say good-bye, at least,” said Carter. Georgia caught the wistful note in his voice. His own estranged daughter had died four months ago in a monstrous blaze. There had been no prolonged suffering, as far as Georgia could tell. But there had been no opportunity for a farewell, either.

  “You wouldn’t have wanted this for Cassie,” Georgia offered softly.

  Carter shrugged but said nothing. Georgia could talk to him about almost any subject—except Cassie’s death. At times like these, his grief danced around them, a black hole that Georgia could sense, yet not see.

  She was concentrating on her partner’s reactions so intently, she didn’t notice the two familiar figures in silk-blend suits walking toward them until they were practically on top of her. Chris Willard’s too-tight Italian shoes squeaked on the shiny white linoleum. He walked a little ahead of his partner, his gut jiggling over his downturned waistband. He spoke first. Georgia got the impression he always spoke first.

  “Hey, Pops,” said Willard, stroking his red mustache. “You’re wasting your breath if you think the nurses will let you talk to this chick. Those bats won’t let you get within half a mile of intensive care.”

  Carter gave Willard a long, stony stare—long enough for Willard to feel the heat of his gaze. Then he shifted his eyes to Phil Arzuti. “I thought y’all had no interest in Louise Rosen,” said Carter.

  Arzuti offered up his trademark poker player’s smile. “A formality,” Arzuti assured him. “It’s been a slow tour.”

  A good feint, but Georgia wasn’t buying it. “Your CO sent you back out, huh?”

  The bags under Arzuti’s eyes tightened slightly in surprise. He opened his palms. “Marshal”—he sighed, like a man just following orders—“we have a very thorough commanding officer.”

  Damn, thought Georgia. The cops know about Rosen’s connection to the FDNY. She noted the sudden military erectness in Carter’s posture—a vestige of his days as an army drill sergeant. Clearly, he was thinking the same thing.

  “Did you find out anything?” Carter kept his eyes on Arzuti. Willard answered.

  “The chick can’t talk,” said Willard sourly, waving his hand about as if swatting a fly. “You won’t get past Nurse Ratchett there at the main desk.”

  “Watch me.” Carter turned toward the entrance of the burn-care unit. Georgia began to follow. That’s when Chris Willard looked at her for the first time. He had eyes the color of soggy cardboard—flat and muddy. But there was a glimmer of something else, too—something sharp and unseen, like a knife in the silt of a riverbed.

  “You like seeing crispy critters, Marshal?” Willard asked her now. “The ones still walking and talking with their faces hanging off?”

  “I’ve seen plenty of burned people,” Georgia reminded him. She tried to sound firm and in command, but the raggedness of her voice betrayed her. In nearly eight years in the fire department, she’d encountered more than her share of burned bodies—some fatally. As a fire marshal, she’d taken statements from severely burned victims. But she never got used to it. There was nothing as horrific as a burn. She hated Willard for uncovering this chink in her armor.

  He smiled wickedly at his victory. “You’ll see her in your dreams,” he promised.

  “Are you okay?” asked Carter. “That moron didn’t get to you, did he?”

  “No,” she lied. “I’m just not very good with burn victims.”

  Carter exhaled. “Okay, look—you’ll be fine,” he assured her. “A couple of rules. Go in and suit up without being asked—cap, gown, booties—the works. It’s a sterile environment, and the nurses won’t even talk to you if y’all don’t respect that. That’s why Arzuti and Willard got thrown out.”

  “I understand,” said Georgia.

  “Remember that Louise Rosen doesn’t know she’s checking out of the picture, so don’t say anything to her to suggest that. She’s not a perp. And we’re not doctors. We don’t tell people whether they’re gonna live or die.”

  Kathleen O’Meara, the head nurse in the burn unit, looked to be in her late forties, with the sinewy arms and hollowed cheeks of a long-distance runner. Her moss-green eyes held a mixture of kindness and determination. She hugged Carter as soon as she saw him.

  “I haven’t seen you in ages,” Kathleen scolded. “Not since that fire department fund-raiser for the burn center.”

  “I’ve been sort of…preoccupied,” Carter said thickly, and Georgia thought again about his daughter, Cassie. Carter introduced Georgia and asked Kathleen if they could talk to Rosen. “We’ll be quick and compassionate, I promise,” he added.

  Kathleen looked over their clothes. They both had donned white smocks and masks from a sterile bin. Georgia had tucked her curly, reddish-brown hair under something that looked like a shower cap. She and Carter had slipped clear plastic booties over their black-soled work shoes.

  “I’d like to, Randy. Really, I would,” Kathleen explained. “But it’s like I told the detectives—she can’t talk. She’s got inhalation burns and she’s on a ventilator…”

  “—Can she blink?” asked Georgia.

  “Yes…of course,” Kathleen stammere
d.

  “Perhaps we could ask her yes/no questions and she could blink her answers,” Georgia suggested. “One blink for yes, two for no.”

  “No,” Kathleen said sharply. “Look, Marshal, you won’t get answers to those kinds of questions with a blink.”

  Georgia and Carter exchanged puzzled looks.

  “Kathy,” said Carter gently. “What do y’all think we’re gonna ask?”

  “The same as the detectives, of course.” Kathleen played with a small gold post in her ear. Her face went pale. She leaned closer. “You know—the bomb,” she whispered.

  “The bomb?” asked Georgia. Carter’s eyes were as wide as hers.

  “You mean a bomb in Rosen’s apartment?” They had done a thorough physical examination of Louise Rosen’s apartment. If there had been a bomb there—or evidence of a bomb—they should have found it.

  “No…I don’t think so,” stammered Kathleen. “Somewhere else, I guess. I…I thought you knew.”

  “It’s all right, Kathy,” Carter said soothingly. “We know those detectives. We’ll probably get briefed about it later.” It was a lie, Georgia knew. Whatever made Arzuti and Willard do a one-eighty on this case, they weren’t sharing it with the FDNY. Only civilians believed that all the good guys were on the same side.

  “We’d really be grateful if you could give us a heads-up on this bomb thing,” Georgia coaxed Kathleen. “It could take hours for the information to come through official channels. By then, the trail could be cold.”

  “No one has to know where it came from, Kathy,” Carter assured her.

  “But I don’t know anything else,” said Kathleen. “Really—that’s the truth. The detectives asked me if Dr. Rosen had mentioned a bomb. I don’t think the bomb was supposed to be in her apartment. I got the feeling it was somewhere else. But as I told you, Dr. Rosen can’t talk. She never mentioned a bomb. She never said anything.”