Robert B. Parker's Slow Burn

by Ace Atkins

  “From what you’ve heard, do you think there might’ve been two points of origin?”

  “Boy, you don’t quit, do you?” Featherstone said. He smiled and thought about it before shaking his head. “I mean, I can’t be sure. When I got there it was mainly smoke. A lot of black smoke. Everything was coming from the basement and out that side alley. I didn’t see anything in the sanctuary. But after Dougherty, Bonnelli, Mulligan, and Grady went in, I could see the big stained-glass window lit up with the fire. The fire had burned its way upstairs and into the sanctuary. But as far as two fires, I can’t say. I guess we’ll really never know.”

  “I hope that’s not the case.”

  “I didn’t leave that church until maybe two or three the next day. I was there when Dougherty’s wife and two of his kids showed up. That’s something I didn’t want to see. You ever hear someone scream not out of fright but out of real animal pain? Stuff deep inside?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “That’s what it is,” Featherstone said. He walked back around from the counter. A thick-calved woman in a blue dress and a husky kid in a tricorne hat bounded into the museum. The husky kid tried to crawl under the velvet ropes and onto a horse-drawn pump. “Hold on.”

  The husky kid made it as far as the wooden wheels before Featherstone told him to get back behind the ropes. Featherstone wandered back to me.

  “I didn’t get real close,” he said. “Most of the fire I was working. I hate what happened to the guys. But shit, I’d do anything I could if some son of a bitch set it. But it’s just a sad day, nothing more. Life sometimes doesn’t make any sense.”

  “But if something changes,” I said. I handed him my card.

  “I promise,” he said.

  Unlike John Grady, he didn’t toss it on the floor. Progress.

  8

  Five days later, Boston Fire marked the year anniversary that Dougherty, Bonnelli, and Mulligan had died inside Holy Innocents. Outside the blackened shell of what had been the church, the chaplain prayed and everyone dropped their heads. It started to rain. Except for a few politicians, nobody opened an umbrella during the service to the fallen firefighters.

  The whole South End went quiet. You could hear the wind and rain hitting the street.

  The fire radio clicked on and a dispatcher read the men’s names and time of the fire last year to the minute. Across Boston, sirens wailed. The skies then opened up and covered Shawmut Street in slanted sheets of water.

  I pulled up the collar on my jacket and removed my hat. I stood back as the firefighters shook hands and hugged one another. Across the street, TV news trucks had set up, taking video from a respectable distance. After a few minutes, the fire trucks drove away. Dozens of firefighters lingered. A few of them were walking into a break in the fence line and going into the church.

  “You making any progress?” McGee said.

  “I interviewed four more first responders,” I said. “And a half a dozen people who watched the church burn.”

  “Insurance?”

  “Checked that out, too,” I said. “Only one to benefit would be the archdiocese.”

  “They’ve done a helluva lot worse.”

  “Sure,” I said. “But their payout wouldn’t be even touching the historic value.”

  “Yeah,” McGee said. “I guess they might’ve turned it into a steakhouse or something. Like that—”

  “Smith and Wollensky,” I said. “Of course the South End is growing that way. Maybe someday it will be a B and B for Labradoodles.”

  “First came the gays and all their arty-farty stuff and now the investment bankers with their Mercedes SUVs, complaining about all the city noise and traffic.”

  “Leave it to Gary Cooper and gays to clean up Dodge.”

  “This property is worth something to somebody,” McGee said.

  “Sure.”

  “Maybe worth more cleared than as some musty old church.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “I’ll bet dollars to donuts,” McGee said.

  “Always an unwise bet,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “I hold one in higher esteem.”

  “You tell me what, then,” McGee said. “What else is there but greed? Someone wanted that church gone.”

  “Revenge,” I said. “Extortion. An act of God.”

  “Revenge is looking good,” McGee said. “But God would never let this happen. Not my God, anyway.”

  The rain slackened and I shook the water from my hat. It was a road hat for the Mississippi Braves that a friend down south had sent. Nearly identical to my Boston Braves hat except for the big M with a tomahawk through it. I watched the men coming and going from the break in the chain-link fence. I spotted John Grady. He had on a blue windbreaker but no hat. His long hair fell limp and wet over his big head as he gave me a hard stare.

  After a few minutes, a tall man with a clipped mustache and wearing a black raincoat walked out.

  “Oh, shit,” McGee said.

  I looked at McGee.

  “Fucking Commissioner Foley,” he said. “He’s going to make a thing. Oh, Christ.”

  Foley shook a few more hands and then the commissioner walked on over. He wore a navy suit with a pale yellow tie. As he moved, you could see a small gold shield adorning his lapel. A smaller man in dress uniform walked in stride almost like a shadow.

  He patted McGee’s back, shook his hand, and eyed me. “Who’s your friend?”

  McGee introduced me.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I heard of you.”

  “My reputation stretches far and wide,” I said.

  “And that you’ve pissed a lot of people off.”

  “Yep.”

  “And caused a lot of folks in BPD a headache.”

  “Also true.”

  He put his hands in his pockets, looked down at the wet pavement. He shook his head as he stroked his mustache in thought. His sidekick stood back, eyeing me and Jack McGee with a raised chin.

  “But I heard other things, too,” Foley said.

  I looked to Jack McGee. And he looked back at me, eyes widened.

  “I know what you’re up to,” he said. “You been fucking sneaking around. Asking questions at my firehouses without coming to me first.”

  I nodded.

  “You know these were good, honorable men?” Foley said. “And they died doing the right thing. They were helping people in this fucking city.”

  “I do.”

  “Then quit sneaking around,” Foley said, putting a hand on my back. “You want to poke around? Fine. Then do it right. Come on down, I want you to see where they died.”

  McGee looked at me and let out a long, steady breath.

  9

  We followed an alley beside the Gothic stone church to a burned-out doorway. Inside, portable lights shone in the dark space. New wooden beams and studs shared space with charred and blackened wood. Foley pointed to the crossbeams overhead and the stone walls.

  “The flashback happened here,” he said. “This is where the mayday went out. We were pushing midlines down both steps. We had a company to the rear of the structure and out on Shawmut. I’ve never seen a fire burn so fast in my life.”

  Water dripped from the crossbeams, pinging puddles on the floor. Sawhorses, table saws, and piles of sawdust and scrap wood littered the basement. He walked to the stairwell, where his driver handed him a small Maglite.

  Commissioner Foley cast light on charred spots along the wall resembling an alligator’s back. “This is deep char,” he said. “This is where we believe the fire started.”

  “But we don’t know how?”

  “The first thing we do is try to rule out the obvious,” he said. “We know this wasn’t electrical. We can find no traces of an accelerant present. It kills you. B
ut sometimes you never know. We know this is where the fire started and the spread just took over everything fast. All that was left was the stone. You think about something so small, a fucking spark hitting this wood and eating everything in its path like a fucking cancer.”

  “What about a second source?” I said. “Another spot it may have originated.”

  Foley stood. He looked to McGee and back at me, shaking his head. “I heard that shit, too. But it’s not true. There’s no evidence of multiple points of origin. Zip.”

  “Most of the church burned up so freakin’ bad, how would we ever know?” McGee said.

  Foley shrugged.

  “Something burned up hot as hell at this very spot,” McGee said. “Place was abandoned like half the buildings we’re seeing right now. I don’t care if there’s a hundred points or just this one. No one does this shit and just stops cold.”

  Foley ran a hand over his jaw. He stared at McGee but didn’t say a word.

  “I’m sure you got your reasons,” McGee said. His fat face was turning a bright red. “But I don’t appreciate the way I been treated. Like I’m some kind of goofball for thinking the firebug did this. I loved Pat. He was my best friend. I was the one who had to call on his wife. Go get his kid at his goddamn soccer game. You know what it was like to hear that order to evacuate on the radio, knowing our guys were inside?”

  Foley nodded. “Of course.”

  “Yeah,” McGee said. His voice softening. “I know. I know.”

  “Can we agree it’s suspicious?” I said.

  “Of course it’s suspicious,” McGee said. “Arson’s got some kind of evidence. And they found more at all the other fires.”

  Foley placed his hands inside his black rain slicker and shook his head. “Yeah?” he said. “Where’d you hear that, Jack?”

  “Everyone in the department knows,” McGee said. “Jesus Christ. You don’t think firemen talk around the station? What else can we do but polish our engines.”

  “We start talking about a firebug and people start to panic,” Foley said. “And then the crazies start joining in to copycat. You know how that shit goes.”

  “But you found something,” I said.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Foley said. “We got something. But it’s not enough yet. If you know something, you better let us know.”

  “Why don’t you broadcast every shred you got to every reporter in this city? Put out a reward?”

  “Like I said, we have to be careful about everything we do,” Foley said. “This takes time.”

  “It’s been a freakin’ year,” McGee said. “Give Spenser something to work off of. What can it hurt?”

  “Look, if Spenser wants to poke around about this fire, I won’t get in his way. Just promise me you’ll share if you get something of use.”

  “Can I meet with investigators?” I said.

  “That’s up to them,” Foley said. “But I’ll ask.”

  “Arson is doing jack shit,” McGee said. “They’ve had their thumb up their ass for the last year. I go down there to talk to them and they look like I just crapped in the sink. Why not let him talk to them?”

  “Ease off,” Foley said. “Let me see what I can do.”

  We walked back out into the light rain and fresh air. I took a deep breath, but could still smell the blackened wood and fire on my clothes. The short, squat man I’d seen before was waiting by a red Ford Explorer, holding a door open for Foley. The front plate had an official BFD tag.

  Foley stopped for a moment to stare at McGee. “Is he as good as he says?”

  McGee looked to me. “If he’s half as good as his ego, it’ll help.”

  “Jack speaks the truth,” I said. “My ego is massive.”

  Foley gave me a nod and walked to the car. The car sped away and I was alone in the rain with Jack McGee.

  “What the fuck was that?” he said.

  “Cooperation?” I said.

  “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not. Watch your ass. Anytime a jake leaves the ranks, it makes me nervous.”

  10

  Susan was still in session. I let myself in, took Pearl for a short walk, and as a reward popped the top on a Lagunitas IPA. Z had introduced me to the beer, as it hailed, like him, from the West Coast.

  I sat on Susan’s back deck and tossed tennis balls to Pearl. Even though Pearl was aging, she could retrieve better than Irving Fryar. A tennis ball wasn’t quite the pros, but she didn’t seem to mind. I let Pearl back in the house for some water, removed my knit shirt, and started Susan’s push lawnmower. Her diminutive lawn had gotten shaggy.

  The whole thing took less than twenty minutes.

  After I finished, I helped myself to another beer as a reward and sat again with Pearl on the back deck. I had on Levi’s, a pair of running shoes, and sunglasses. I must have looked rakish when Susan walked onto the back deck and eyed the lawn. Freshly cut grass smelled of summer.

  “How much do I owe you?” she said.

  “I’ve seen movies that started off like this.”

  “How about you prune the bushes and we’ll talk.”

  I smirked but restrained comment. Susan only shook her head.

  Susan had already changed from shrink garb into a pair of khaki shorts and a lightweight gray T-shirt with a tiny square pocket. She wore her hair on top of her head in a bun and no shoes. Her large, dark eyes were luminous.

  “How about an early dinner at Alden and Harlow?” I said.

  “Or a later dinner at the Russell House Tavern?” she said.

  “Equally enticing,” I said. “Does a later dinner imply we enjoy a matinee?”

  She sat with me on the steps, took a sip of the beer, and handed it back. I was pretty sure she was surveying my landscaping skills. “I knew you were angling when you cut the grass.”

  “Did you notice the patterns I mowed?” I said.

  “Amazing.”

  “Out front, I cut a little heart with an arrow through it.”

  “What will the neighbors say?”

  “It’s Cambridge,” I said. “They find us as eccentric as everyone else.”

  “Okay,” she said. “But only on one condition.”

  “I wear a lacy thong?”

  “Ha,” she said. “Just don’t mess up my hair, big guy.”

  I threw the tennis ball long and far for Pearl, stood, and opened the back door wide for Susan. She walked on ahead of me into the coolness of her house and tossed her T-shirt into my face.

  “Race you upstairs,” she said.

  11

  The next morning, I called on Father Conway at the Immaculate Conception Church in Revere. Conway was a youngish guy, mid-thirties, with a long, thin face and close-cropped dark hair. He wore a clerical collar on his clergy shirt and black-framed glasses that we’d called birth-control specs in the service. He looked a lot like a young Fred Gwynne, minus the bolts in his neck.

  “At first I was thankful the church was abandoned,” Conway said. “But then they brought those men out in bags. I’ll never forget the firefighters standing at attention as they loaded them in ambulances. It was a horrible morning.”

  Up front stood the requisite organ and an all-star lineup of saints along the walls, holy water in a marble baptismal font, and a large wooden cross draped in white. The carpet in the sanctuary was very old, the color of a putting green. The church smelled as fresh as a grandmother’s coat closet.

  “I was there yesterday,” I said. “For the memorial.”

  “I wanted to attend,” Conway said. “But I had two funerals this morning. And a wake tonight.”

  “Plenty of security in your work,” I said.

  “And yours,” he said. Smiling. “It’s been a busy and hard summer. When I counsel people I often talk about how our troubles could be much worse. Often it’s the small things that
pressure us most.”

  “Life,” I said. “Just a temporary condition.”

  Conway smiled at me and nodded. I sat in the second row of pews and he sat in the first. His left arm was stretched out lengthwise as he turned around to talk with me. He looked very relaxed and at home in the musty old church.

  “Did you ever hear any theory from the arson investigators?”

  “No.”

  “Any theories of your own?”

  “With a church that old, I would assume something electrical,” he said. “I don’t believe anyone ever found out. And it seems now they never will.”

  “Investigators have ruled out most everything,” I said. “Including electrical.”

  “Arson?”

  “Some believe it was set,” I said. “But there’s no evidence. The worry is that if it was arson, the same person is loose and setting new fires.”

  “I don’t know why anyone would set fire to the church,” he said. “Plenty of people were very upset about it being sold. They wanted it protected.”

  I nodded and tried to give the impression I’d known that all along. I kept nodding so he wouldn’t suspect.

  “The archdiocese had been wanting it shut down for years,” he said. “That church was started by German immigrants, but for the last twenty years was mainly an outreach for the homeless and drug abusers. I’d been there for only three years, but we were growing, bringing in young families in the South End. It was becoming a viable church again. As you know, some parts of the South End transition slower than others.”

  “So why would they close it?”

  “After all the scandals and our numbers dwindling,” he said, “we needed the money. This isn’t your parents’ Catholic Church. Things have changed a great deal.”

  “I had expected to become more devout as I grew older. Somehow that hasn’t happened.”

  “A Farewell to Arms,” he said. “The old man playing pool with the young lieutenant.”

  “A literate priest.”

  “I took an American lit course while at BC,” he said. “Some things actually stick. May I ask, are you Catholic, Mr. Spenser? You look to be of Irish stock.”