Flashover

by Suzanne Chazin

  “So much for your willpower,” she sneered.

  “Hey,” he said angrily, taking the cigarette from his lips. “If I had any willpower, I wouldn’t be in this mess.”

  “A mess for you—right? You’ve got a problem. I’m the problem. You’re just like Rick a decade ago. It’s all about you, isn’t it?” She opened her car door and got out. She needed air, and this was about all that qualified. She didn’t even know where she was supposed to be walking.

  Marenko threw down his cigarette and got out of the car. He kept pace beside her, patting the air in an effort to get her to calm down. “Scout, look.”

  “Get away from me.”

  “Listen to me. I’m not Rick, okay? I won’t desert you.” He grabbed her arm. His touch was firm and strong. She tried to pull away, but couldn’t. He guided her toward him and put both hands on her shoulders, then stared down into her eyes.

  “I’m sorry—all right? I didn’t know what you were going through. God, it’s been a hell of a day for you, hasn’t it?” He bit down on his lip and looked away. Words were never easy for him. “Look, I care about you. I do. It’s just…so sudden, I don’t know what to say.” He wiped a callused thumb across her tear-stained cheek.

  “How about saying I’m your girlfriend once in a while?”

  He straightened. “To who?”

  “To everyone.”

  “To the guys in the bureau? After all the time you’ve put into getting them to take you seriously? You really want me to ruin it for you like that?”

  “No.” She sighed. “I guess not.”

  “Besides,” he added, “it’s nobody’s goddamned business what we do together.”

  11

  Georgia’s son, Richie, was shooting hoops on the driveway of their brick bungalow in Woodside, Queens, when Marenko pulled up to the curb. The ten-year-old’s face broke out in a wide grin. He barely noticed that his mother looked like she’d lost a fight with a two-ton wrecking ball.

  “Mac,” shouted the boy, running to the curb. He was wearing denim cutoffs that fell below his scraped, knobby knees and an oversized Knicks shirt.

  “Hey, Sport,” Marenko called to Richie. “How ya’ doin’?”

  Richie tossed Mac his basketball. Marenko caught it one-handed, then whipped it back. Richie dropped it, then chased it across the driveway while Marenko fetched Rosen’s files from the trunk. You could tell Richie and Mac weren’t from the same gene pool.

  “Are you staying for dinner?” asked the boy. “Grandma’s making burgers.”

  Marenko hefted the box under one arm and glanced at Georgia. She couldn’t read his expression.

  “If you want to, Mac,” she offered.

  “Connie’s here, too,” Richie added as he scampered around back to the patio.

  Marenko’s gait slowed. “She know?” he mumbled, nodding to Georgia’s belly.

  “My mother? Are you crazy? She’s got enough on her mind.”

  “I meant Connie.”

  “I mentioned it.”

  “Christ.” Marenko gave her a sour look.

  “She’s my best friend, Mac. I tell her everything.”

  “Yeah? She tell you everything?”

  Georgia frowned, thinking about their lunch today.

  “Uh-huh,” said Marenko. “That’s what I figured.”

  They walked around to the back of the house. A new above-ground pool took up most of the yard now. Sunlight glinted across its surface like razor blades. There was a concrete patio in back as well, covered by an orange-and-yellow tin awning. Georgia’s mother was at the far end of the patio, lifting the lid off the grill and shifting the charcoal briquettes. She wore one of those pink-and-purple parachute-fabric sweatsuits that looked too dressy to work out in, yet too casual for much else.

  “Hey, Mrs. Skeehan,” Marenko called out in a husky voice. Margaret Skeehan turned and beamed as he put the box down, then walked over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I want my revenge on the pool table,” he teased her. Georgia’s mother was a champion pool player. She won matches not only because she was good, but also because no one ever believed they could get whupped by a fifty-five-year-old grandmother.

  “Anytime you think you’re man enough,” she ribbed him. Marenko had lost a bucketful of pride the last time he’d played Georgia’s mother.

  Marenko looked across the patio at Georgia. She had hung back by the box of Rosen’s case files—she knew her mother would be alarmed when she saw her. “You want me to get you some ice for your hand?” he offered.

  “I’m all right,” Georgia insisted. Margaret walked over and took in her daughter’s torn, filthy clothes and reddened hand.

  “My goodness, you’re not,” she said. She called into the kitchen. “Connie, can you bring out an ice pack?”

  The kitchen screen door opened a minute later and Connie stepped out, carrying an ice pack in one hand and a plate of raw hamburger patties in the other. She was wearing a skimpy white tank top and cutoffs. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, her full breasts jangled freely and her brown skin looked like warm caramel in the late-day sun. Georgia caught Marenko taking her in and pretending not to at the same time.

  “How you doin’, baby girl?” asked Connie, putting the platter of meat down and handing her the ice pack. She had just redone her fingernails, too. Day-Glo orange, same as her toenails—a shade only Connie could get away with. “God, I’m sorry.”

  “Nothing for anyone to be sorry about,” said Georgia, cutting her off. She didn’t want Connie to think she’d told Marenko about their lunch today. Yet even so, she noticed Connie trying to read something in Marenko’s face. Mac felt it, too. He seemed to shrink under that piercing dark-brown gaze. This wasn’t about the Empire Pipeline, Georgia realized suddenly. This was about something much, much closer to home.

  “How many burgers should I put on the grill?” asked Margaret.

  “Five,” Richie piped up.

  “Uh, four,” Marenko corrected. He turned to Richie and tousled the boy’s dark, wavy hair. “Sorry, Sport. I really gotta go tonight. Some other time.” He made a quick round of apologies to everyone. On the driveway, he shot a couple of hoops with Richie, then gave Georgia a peck on the cheek—not his usual sensual kiss. The absence of his lips on hers made her feel hollow inside. He didn’t look back as he drove off.

  “I told him, Con—about the pregnancy, I mean.”

  Georgia said the words softly later that evening, after dinner. The sun had just set and the sky was still bright—white with a tinge of blue, like an undershirt washed with new blue jeans. Richie and Margaret had gone inside, and Georgia and Connie were sitting at the picnic table under the orange-and-yellow tin awning. Georgia had a huge dark blue binder in front of her, and she was quizzing Connie for her sergeant’s exam. From the living room, she could hear snatches of Wheel of Fortune blaring from the television.

  “I thought you might have,” said Connie. “How’d he take it?”

  “Let’s just say, terminal cancer would’ve gotten a better reception.” Georgia sighed. “Sometimes I feel like everything I touch, I ruin.”

  Connie took the binder out of Georgia’s hands and pushed it to one side. “How can you say that? Look at that beautiful son you’ve got in there.”

  “Yeah,” said Georgia. “And I almost walked out on him—remember?” Connie was the only person Georgia could ever admit that to. Sometimes, she had trouble admitting it to herself.

  “You were just overwhelmed. You pulled through.”

  “You mean you pulled me through.”

  Georgia caught the edge to her own voice and looked away, embarrassed. She owed so much to Connie, and yet there were times she felt more jealousy than gratitude about it. Connie was one of the strongest people Georgia had ever known. Though she spoke little about her childhood, Georgia knew it was a sad one marked by her mother’s nervous breakdown and a succession of foster homes. Yet Connie had pulled herself up from that with a grace that seem
ed almost effortless. In fact, everything about Connie had a buoyancy and ease to it that Georgia envied, from her relationships with men to her advancements at work. Connie moved through the roughest seas like all she had to do was kick her feet and swim, whereas Georgia always felt like she was dog-paddling the rapids just before Niagara Falls.

  “Okay,” said Connie. “So I pulled you through. Big deal. It all worked out in the end.”

  Georgia made a face. She wasn’t in the mood to be jollied along right now. “What worked out, Con? That I ended up almost thirty-one, unmarried, still living in my mother’s house?”

  “Least you got a mother’s house,” Connie shot back.

  “Sorry, Con. I didn’t mean…”

  “—Forget about it. I’m just trying to remind you of all the things you do have—a home, a child, a good career…”

  “—Not anymore,” Georgia corrected.

  “Huh?”

  A car alarm squealed somewhere down the block. Georgia rose from the table. She leaned on one of the white wrought-iron awning supports and looked out across the backyard. She could smell the chlorine evaporating from the pool.

  “I killed that doctor, Con,” Georgia said softly, rubbing a hand down the painted wrought iron. It flaked like dandruff across the concrete. “I used my Leatherman to break into his house to get his garage-door opener. Dana died horribly, and it’s all my fault. The Bronx marshals might have covered for me, but Willard and Arzuti will eat me alive over this now that A and E is taking the case over.”

  Connie didn’t speak for several minutes. She lifted one of her long, bronze legs up beside her on the picnic bench and played with a silver chain around her ankle. She’d always loved unconventional jewelry—toe rings, belly-button rings, cuff earrings. She talked about getting a tattoo—one of those thorn garlands around an ankle or a rose on her hip. Georgia tried to discourage her. She thought tattoos looked seedy—especially on women.

  “Did you tell Chief Brennan?” Connie asked finally.

  “I lied, Con. That’s all I’ve been doing all day. Carter and I said we went up to Dana’s because he was Rosen’s ex-partner. We never told anyone that stuff you told us about the bomb threat against the Empire Pipeline.”

  “Good,” she said. “Because I’ve been assigned to the case myself now. I can’t have that stuff coming back to me.”

  “So the bomb threat’s for real?” asked Georgia. Connie stared silently at laundry flapping across the backyard neighbor’s clothesline. The jeans had baked as stiff as cardboard.

  “I can’t say. And if you were in my place, that’s all you’d say, too.”

  Georgia laughed. “No worries about that.” She flopped back down at the table and pressed a glass of lemonade, beaded with sweat, against her forehead. She fiddled with the silver chain tucked into her T-shirt. “When Brennan finds out I lied to him, I’ll be kicked out of the bureau.”

  Connie reached across the wooden picnic table to Georgia. Georgia thought she was going to pat her arm and tell her everything would be all right. But there was a toughness to Connie’s eyes as she yanked out the smooth, shiny black stone on the silver chain around Georgia’s neck.

  “You remember what this is?” Connie asked, holding the stone up to Georgia’s face.

  “An Apache’s tear,” Georgia mumbled, giving Connie a puzzled look. “You bought it for me maybe six years ago when you went to New Mexico.”

  Connie let the stone fall to Georgia’s chest. “Damn straight, girlfriend.” Connie’s dark eyes took on the same look Georgia had seen the night Connie gave her a heart-to-heart after scraping Richie’s peas off the kitchen floor. “It’s obsidian,” said Connie slowly. “Volcanic glass. Formed by fire. Hard as a rock, yet sharp as a razor if you try to break it. To Apaches, the rock symbolized their bravest warriors who threw themselves off cliffs rather than surrender to the enemy.” Connie leveled a finger at Georgia now. “I gave you this necklace not just to make you strong, but to remind you that you are strong.”

  “I won’t be very strong when I’m pregnant and unemployed.”

  Connie rolled her eyes. “Don’t give me that pity-party shit…”

  “—Then stop pretending I’m you. I’m not. I can’t bend the world to my will. I can’t make every man’s head turn in my direction or get the guys on my job to treat me as their equal.” The truth was tumbling out—though it was a truth Georgia suspected that Connie already knew. “I wish I had what you have, Con,” Georgia said softly. “I really do.”

  A hint of a smile—a sad one—played across Connie’s lips. Then she cupped a palm over Georgia’s unburned hand. “You do, baby girl. You just don’t know it yet, but you do.”

  It was almost nine by the time Georgia and Connie had talked themselves out and Connie left. Georgia and Richie took turns reading a scary Goosebumps story, then she put him to bed and settled in to read through Louise Rosen’s case files.

  It was tedious work. There were charts and records and memos dating all the way back to 1980. Georgia wasn’t even sure what she was supposed to be looking for, but she knew Carter was probably feeling the same way right now. She pictured him in his brownstone living room in Brooklyn, tan walls covered with African artwork and masks, surrounded by the same paper mountain. His wife, Marilyn, was no doubt giving him hell for the mess.

  Rosen was meticulous, at least. Her files were dated, and Georgia’s box seemed to run through 1987. Carter probably had the more recent FDNY case files. The paperwork had a pattern to it. There would be one or more injury reports, several pages of the firefighter’s medical records, and then a determination. Denied was usually the word stamped across it.

  But there was one piece of paperwork that didn’t fit the pattern. It was a memo on FDNY letterhead, dated September 15, 1984. It was addressed to Alphonse Pinelli, chief of the Division of Safety, and signed by Edward I. Delaney, a lieutenant in the same department. Pinelli had long since retired and died. But Delaney had risen to chief of operations. He was now one of the top uniformed officers in the FDNY. Georgia scanned the letter now:

  Dear Chief Pinelli:

  I am respectfully submitting my findings regarding my yearlong investigation into the fire and alleged line-of-duty injuries related to the incident that occurred at 2300 hours on August 21st, 1978, at box alarm 3407 in Brooklyn.

  Please refer to the attached medical records, fire reports and work charts for further details of this incident. My report was put together with the help of eyewitness accounts, including detailed records from the captains of Ladder 121 and Engine 203, and firefighter Seamus Hanlon of Ladder 106.

  The name stopped Georgia in her tracks. Seamus Hanlon was now the captain of Engine Two-seventy-eight here in Woodside. It was her father’s old company. She read on.

  As you will see, the men of Ladders 121 and 148, and Engines 203 and 252 have a strong case regarding the aforementioned fire.

  Respectfully submitted,

  Lieutenant Edward I. Delaney,

  Division of Safety

  Georgia stared down at the closed copy list at the bottom of the page. She expected the usual cc’s to various staff chiefs at headquarters. But the final cc made her pause:

  Cc: Director of Operations, Empire Pipeline

  Georgia could think of only one reason why an internal fire department report would be made available to someone at Empire Pipeline: because the pipeline had something to do with the men’s disability requests. She searched the rest of the box but could not find the supporting materials Delaney had made reference to in his memo.

  Seamus Hanlon works five minutes from my house, Georgia reasoned. It’s only 10:30 P.M. If he’s on duty, I could take a quick ride over there and ask him about this memo. It would be her last chance to do so. Tomorrow, she’d have to turn this box of records over to Arzuti and Willard.

  She called the firehouse. A firefighter informed her that Captain Hanlon was on duty. She should have been pleased. And yet, as she sat on her bed, surr
ounded by stacks of yellowing files, she felt a reluctance to step inside that firehouse that she couldn’t simply shrug off to fatigue or laziness. She called Carter and told him about the memo and her plans to visit Hanlon.

  “Are you okay with that?” he asked. “That’s your father’s old firehouse. I know Hanlon was a close friend of uh…” Carter’s voice trailed off. He knew that talking about firefighter Jimmy Gallagher was as painful to Georgia as talking about Cassie was for him. In recent years, since her father’s death, Gallagher had become her mother’s soul mate and the only steady male presence her son, Richie, had ever known. His death in the line of duty a few months ago had devastated them all.

  Georgia fingered the stone around her neck. Apaches’ tears. Hard as a rock. Sharp as a razor. She swallowed hard when she thought about Jimmy and tried to ignore the odd hollowness that came over her.

  “I can handle it,” she told him.

  12

  Engine Two-seventy-eight was in a two-story redbrick firehouse on a quiet block of mom-and-pop stores in Woodside, Queens. Georgia hadn’t seen Captain Seamus Hanlon since Jimmy Gallagher’s funeral in April.

  A firefighter copied Georgia’s name into the company journal—a daily log of the engine’s activities, emergencies and visitors, as well as a list of names of the men on duty. Somewhere in this firehouse, George Skeehan’s name and the shift that took his life at age thirty-nine were hand-copied into a log.

  Georgia gazed past a corkboard of firefighter snapshots to a bronze plaque halfway up the metal stairs. It was a relief cast of her father in a firefighter’s helmet and turnout gear, along with the date of the ceiling collapse that killed him. Georgia knew it was there, set into the diesel-smeared white tile wall. But she didn’t trust herself to look at it—even after all these years. Some things, it seemed, don’t get less painful with time.