Skies of Ash

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  My hands trembled as I pulled off the mask.

  “One of your guys was telling me,” Colin shouted, “that the house went up pretty quick. Why’s that?”

  “Cuz most of it was made of wood,” Quigley snarked.

  Colin cocked his head. “But houses just don’t… combust, even if they’re wood, right? And your guy used that word. Combust. Houses don’t do that normally. Right?”

  “No, they don’t normally combust.”

  “So the cause?” Colin asked.

  “Don’t know. Looks like that outlet in the upstairs bath has the heaviest char pattern.”

  “Has the power company been out?” I asked.

  “Yep,” he said. “Them and the gas company.”

  “So no natural gas?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Electrical?”

  “Possibly. There’s that bathroom outlet to consider.”

  “Deliberately set?” Colin asked.

  Quigley frowned. “You mean arson?”

  Colin smirked. “That’s what a fire’s called when it’s deliberately set.”

  “Anything’s a possibility,” Quigley said. “It’s possible that a meteor came hurtling out of space and crashed into the Chatman’s attic, thus starting the conflagration.”

  “A meteor,” I said. “That would be one for the ages.” I waited for his smile, but Quigley’s grimace only hardened. Onward, then. I sniffed the air.

  There it was again: sharp, chemical, brief.

  “Hey, Quig,” I said, “would I be smelling whatever it is I’m smelling if the house had caught because of faulty wiring or kerosene?”

  Quigley waggled his mustache. “I would say yes if the structure had been a paint store. Cuz that’s what you smell.” He dropped his chin to his chest. “It appears that the Chatmans were redecoratin’ and… none of this is official yet, understand? So the Chatmans were painting that upstairs bathroom, and for whatever reason the socket in there shorted. There were paint cans and thinners and drop cloths on the ground—”

  “And the spark from the outlet hit the thinner and rags,” I said.

  “Then, ka-boom,” Colin added.

  “Is ‘ka-boom’ my guy’s word or yours?” Quigley asked. “Anyway, the hallway goes up cuz thinner’s everywhere. And it burned like it did cuz the whole neighborhood was asleep.” He sighed. “We warn folks all the time about properly storing paint cans and rags.”

  Colin dumped Tic Tacs into his mouth, then said, “When I was a kid, the lightbulb in my pet iguana’s tank caught fire.” He chewed and chewed, then chuckled. “I thought my mother had set the fire. She hated Iggy.”

  Quigley and I waited for Colin to finish his stroll down memory lane.

  But the faraway look in Colin’s eyes meant that he was now lingering in its gift shop.

  “We’re starting at the least-damaged area,” Quigley said, “which is right where we’re standing, to the most damaged. And that’s the bathroom.”

  “So if this is arson,” I said, “who should I look for?”

  “Nowadays?” He shrugged. “Anybody. The boy was an aspiring firebug, but this… This ain’t the work of a kid. And in this neighborhood, you won’t find your typical suspect: white male, midteens to thirty, undereducated, troubled, angry at the world.”

  I scribbled into my notepad. “A white male. What the hell would he be angry about?”

  Colin glanced at the exposed rafters. “How about a black woman gettin’ to carry a gun and a badge? What kind of world allows that shit?”

  I stuck my tongue out at him.

  “This fire ain’t like the other ones Burning Man’s been setting around here,” Quigley noted. “Those fires occurred outdoors, with leaves piled next to the side of the house and kerosene used as an accelerant. This one, the MO is different. This fire started inside, not with leaves, not with kerosene, I don’t think.”

  “So you don’t think this is a serial pyro?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Anything missing inside the house that shouldn’t be?” I asked. “Photo albums, wall safes, jewelry? Stuff folks wanna save before they burn down their house?”

  “Can’t say right now.”

  “Any signs of forced entry?” I asked. “Someone leave a window open or open the doors for ventilation to help the fire spread?”

  “Nope, but we did find PVC pipe in the window sliders. Guess to keep out intruders.”

  I cocked my head. “You’d have to pluck out the pipes to open the windows, right?”

  As Quigley started to respond, two blue and white medical examiner’s vans eased past the yellow tape. They would ferry the three bodies to the coroner’s office near downtown.

  My stomach twisted as we watched the vans maneuver past trucks and police cars and roll closer to the house.

  “We lookin’ at a total loss?” I asked.

  “Except for the converted garage,” Quigley said. “That’ll only need minor repairs.”

  “So,” I said to Colin, “we need—”

  “Yep.” He reached into his Windbreaker and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. “Already got the warrant to search the house.”

  Dixie Shipman joined our little group. “If I was a betting man—”

  “You are a betting man,” Quigley quipped.

  “Which is why Winston is divorcing you,” I added.

  “If I was a betting man,” Dixie said, not missing a beat, “I’d say the butler did it in the library with a candlestick.” Then, she laughed. Huh-huh-huh.

  Quigley rolled his eyes, then tapped my shoulder. “I’ll get you something more official first thing tomorrow morning.” Off he went, radio to mouth, eyes on the worrisome piece of drywall sagging near the living room.

  After introducing Colin to Dixie, I flicked a gaze at her jacket. “Fleece. Very official. Very la-di-da.”

  She sighed. “Here we go.”

  “You can always come back to the force,” I said. “A mea culpa, a sword in your gut, and it’s all good.”

  “I don’t miss the force’s bullshit,” Dixie said. “And I like having a personal life.”

  “Stop frontin’, Dix,” I joked. “It won’t become true even if you say it a million times.”

  She glared at me, then said, “Did you hear back about your interview with HSS?”

  My face burned, and I forced myself to smile. “Touché, Dixie Shipman.”

  Homicide Special Section, a part of the famed Robbery-Homicide Division of the LAPD, handled high-profile murders like the O. J. Simpson case. I wanted a spot that had become available after a squad dick’s retirement, and I had applied with Lieutenant Rodriguez’s very reluctant blessing.

  “They told me I was this close to being selected.” I pinched my finger and thumb together. “But see: Southwest needs good detectives like me in the division, and Rodriguez really didn’t want me to go. But I was this close, Dix,” I said, pinching my fingers together again.

  A smile crept to the edges of Dixie’s lips. “It ain’t horseshoes, boo. You lost.” She pulled from her bag an expandable folder already thick with papers and photographs. “So Christopher Chatman’s parents, Henry and Ava, purchased this place back in the fifties for ninety thousand dollars. Twenty years later, they bought their first hundred-thousand-dollar policy from MG Standard. About thirteen years ago, Christopher Chatman and his wife moved in.

  “In 2009, the house was burglarized while the Chatmans were out. Homie stole five computers, three cameras, and the Blu-ray disc player. We paid the fifty-thousand-dollar claim. Then, last year, the Chatmans raised their policy from four hundred thousand to five hundred and fifty thousand. Since then, they’ve been remodeling, and up until early this morning, the house had five bedrooms, two full baths, a half bath, formal dining room, home office, den, laundry, and the studio apartment out back.”

  “So why are you here?” I asked the ex-cop.

  “ ‘MG Standard: we live to improve life.’ And I’m here cuz my
ass was on call.” Her gaze wandered to a black Jaguar sedan pulling into the driveway of the weird-shrubbed house.

  A man with skin the color of French-roasted coffee climbed from behind the Jag’s steering wheel. He wore a blue pinstripe suit and a steel-blue dress shirt, no tie. A silver watch flashed from beneath the shirt’s left cuff.

  “Who’s Oscar de la Renta?” I asked.

  “Girl, that’s Ben Oliver,” she said, gaze trained on the man now striding up the house’s walkway. “Ummmhmmm.”

  “Stop purring, Dix,” I said, even though the same feline rumbling vibrated in my belly.

  “You gon’ have your work cut out for you. Mr. Oliver is a big-time insurance attorney. We been on opposite sides of the table many times. He’s the one who called us on behalf of Mr. Chatman, and he’s also Chatman’s best friend.”

  Ben Oliver glanced over to Dixie and me as though we were crushed pylons. Then, his eyes shifted to his friend’s house. A frown flashed across his face—the same pissy-sexy look Abercrombie & Fitch had been hustling since the eighties.

  “He’s an asshole,” Dixie said, “but he’s a fine-assed asshole. He got that pimp juice, Lou. Watch ya back and your panties.” And then she laughed. Huh-huh-huh.

  5

  EVEN AS THE NOONDAY SUN WORKED ACROSS A SKY CROWDED WITH SOFT, KILLER clouds of smoke, no one rushed through the on-site investigation. And no one rushed through the slow extraction of three bodies.

  The press hunkered at the yellow tape as LAPD spokeswoman Val Xiomara offered our official statement—three fatalities, no suspect, no comment, a tragedy. Print reporters, their heads down, scribbled furiously onto pads or tapped words into tablets. The talking bobbleheads with don’t-get-too-close-to-an-open-flame hair held mics to their plumped lips and flicked sound bites to viewers at home like birdseed.

  Early this morning, firefighters were called…

  …pronounced dead at the scene…

  …investigate the origins of the blaze…

  Silence came to Don Mateo Drive as one blue body bag, followed by another and then another, was gurney-rolled to the coroner’s vans by men in LACCO Windbreakers.

  My muscles tightened as I watched that somber recessional.

  Cameras clicked. Neighbors gasped and sobbed into their hands. A woman in the crowd whispered a prayer for the dead. “May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed…”

  And then the vans drove away.

  The smoke continued to drift to unsuspecting galaxies, but the fire’s lingering heat still baked away my juicy motivation. Gangsta heat had parched my throat, already scratchy from nibbling ashes all morning. Cinders, dried drops of sweat, and observations from arson experts peppered the pages of my notepad. Now, though, I needed to talk with the other experts: the folks who saw the Chatmans every day.

  At the army-green bungalow across the street, the one with the piano in the window, a slender, brown-haired white lady sat on the porch. She was the type of woman you ignored until it was time for her to do your taxes. Women like that made for great observers.

  She told me her name was Delia Moss and that she’d seen Juliet and the kids on Monday. “It’s unbelievable,” she said, blowing her nose into a tissue. “They’re gone. They’re really gone. And what are we supposed to do now?”

  “Well,” I said, “you can answer a few questions that I have.”

  “ ‘The bad end unhappily, the good unluckily. That is what tragedy means.’ ” She clutched her neck. “I didn’t write that. Tom Stoppard did and it’s rather fitting in this situation, yes?”

  “Yes.” I blinked, then asked, “How was the family yesterday? Anything happen out of the ordinary? Any strange visits or strange people hanging around?”

  “I hate that house,” Delia Moss said—she hadn’t heard a word I’d just asked. “You all must knock it down—that house does not deserve to remain standing. Not after it trapped Jules and the babies. That house must go. You all must put it out of its misery. Haunted piece of shit.”

  “About the Chatman family,” I said. “Who—?”

  “They were a wonderful family,” she said. “A truly special group of people. Their inner light affected everyone they met. Their auras were… indescribable.”

  “They sound perfect,” I said, eyebrow cocked.

  “I wouldn’t want to live if my family were gone. Really: How could I go on after losing three loved ones? How many pills would I have to take to dull that kind of pain? What would I do once my friends returned to their own lives? Would I survive the After? Would I eat the end of a gun? What would I do?” She looked up at me with waiting, cried-out eyes.

  “What do you do for a living, Ms. Moss?” I asked.

  “I’m a playwright.”

  I gave Delia Moss my card and turned to leave. “I’ll call you once the shock wears off.”

  “The cops in the uniforms,” she called after me. “They told me to pay attention. To report anyone who looks suspicious, who doesn’t fit in. But what does that mean, Detective Norton? It’s Los Angeles. And we live between the ghetto, Hollywood, and the airport. Everyone and no one looks suspicious in this city. Suspicious? What does that mean? It means nothing.” And with that, Delia Moss rose from the steps and stumbled into her house.

  And the curtain dropped.

  End scene.

  A middle-aged black woman wearing a silver-sequined sweater and an all-the-way-down-to-there hair weave as glossy as Delia Moss’s baby grand lingered near my Crown Vic. Her eyes bit into me like a hungry hound dog nibbling an uncooked Christmas ham. I would let her have a few bites—but she’d be sick of me before the week ended.

  “Jules loved, loved, loved her Barbra Streisand roses,” Nora Galbreath told me, near tears. The air around her was ten degrees warmer—the sequins from her sweater reflected sunlight.

  Galbreath lived in the Frank Sinatra bebop house on the other side of the Chatmans. Her home had suffered singed eaves, a broken kitchen window, a trashed side yard, and destroyed security cameras.

  “Jules balked when Chloe asked to plant sunflowers beside those roses,” she whispered.

  My pen had stopped working. No one used “balked” in everyday conversation. Even a dollar-store Bic knew that.

  “Jules told Chloe ‘no, no, no,’ ” Galbreath continued, “the sunflowers won’t match.’ ” She dabbed her eyes with tissue. “She promised Chloe that she could plant seeds in the backyard at springtime. But no sunflowers in the spring. No roses in the spring. Just awful, awful, awful.”

  I looked back at the damage done to the Chatmans’ rose beds by fire crews, investigators, and utility guys. Those Streisand roses, especially the bushes that lined the walkway, had been shaken apart, and the mauve petals crushed into ashes and mud.

  I scribbled invisible loops on my pad to coax the pen back to life. “I’m told that Mr. Chatman wasn’t home when the fire started.”

  “He wasn’t,” Nora Galbreath said. “Neither were my husband and I.”

  “Do you know where he was? Mr. Chatman, I mean.”

  “I’m told he was at work. My husband, Micah, and I—that’s M-I-C-A-H—we were staying at a lovely bed and breakfast over in Playa del Rey. Oh, it was lovely, lovely, lovely. We were celebrating since I had sold three condos—”

  “Thanks for your time, Mrs. Galbreath.” I handed her my card. “I’ll contact you—”

  “You don’t want to know about the guy?” she asked. “I was just about to tell you about the guy. I’ve seen him around the neighborhood a few times. The last time was two days ago, early, when I was walking to the park. Black, midtwenties maybe. Suspicious. He carried a black backpack, and he kept staring at me like I didn’t belong. He’s the one who didn’t belong.”

  A suspicious guy? My pen ejaculated all over my hand and the notepad.

  “And he was wearing an orange hockey jersey.” She handed me a tissue to clean up. “Isn’t that suspicious? A black man in a hockey jersey?”

  “
Maybe,” I said. “Would you be able to identify him again?”

  She nodded eagerly. “He really looked like he was up to something.”

  I took down a more specific description of the Guy in the Orange Hockey Jersey: five foot ten, muscular, brown eyes, dreadlocks, neck tat, and another tat of a dragon on his left calf. Dreads could be cut. And that dragon tat could also be removed, but that would leave a helluva scar.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Nora Galbreath said. “Before I forget.” She opened her hand and selected a slick business card from the small stack. SELLING A HOME? TOP-RATED REALTOR NORA GALBREATH CAN HELP. Beneath the text was a picture of Nora Galbreath, her arms folded, wearing a red-sequined sweater.

  I thanked the real estate agent, then wandered over to the brick two-story house, where an impossibly round black woman had climbed out of a red Camry. She carried a giant purse in one hand and a Bible the size of an unabridged dictionary in the other. The car’s back bumper was decorated with two Jesus fish and three MY CHILD IS ON THE HONOR ROLL bumper stickers.

  Ruby Emmett had lived in this neighborhood for almost twenty years, and she, too, had seen the Guy in the Orange Hockey Jersey. “I was plannin’ on callin’ the police if I saw him again. Wish I had.”

  “He could be just a guy,” I said. “Don’t beat yourself up about it.”

  Ruby Emmett shook her head. “Can’t think that way no more cuz look what happened. I’m never one to question God but… Why this family? Why this house?”

  But why not this family? Why not this house? Bad shit had to happen to someone—the “good” someones, too. Children as well. Even the Bible said so.

  “I just came from the hospital,” she said, hoisting the giant purse onto her sloped shoulder. “That Christopher: he’s such a brave man. I told him: the Lord give strength to His people; the Lord blesses His people with peace.”

  “And how is he doing?”

  “How you think he doin’?” she growled. “He almost killed himself tryna save his family. He was comin’ home from work and he saw the fire and tried to run in, but the firemen tackled him. Banged up his head. Nearly broke his arm.”