Loonies (6 page)

When the cane was presented, Brian snapped the picture of the two grinning men while everyone applauded. The crowd began to mingle, a few people filing downstairs to the bar, and Brian went up to the old man to get some quotes. Rolfe was ninety-six, and it shouldn’t have surprised Brian that he was younger than the recent recipient. Didn’t women live a lot longer than men?

The old man worked his gums before answering any of Brian’s questions, as if he were chewing over his thoughts before spitting them out.

“Where did you live before settling in Smokey Hollow?” Brian asked, always curious what brought people to this off-the-road spot.

“I was all over the east coast,” Rolfe said. “Worked as a ticket conductor on the passenger trains back in the day, in a time when a lot of people traveled by rails.”

“What brought you to Smokey Hollow?”

“Seemed like a nice fit,” he said. “At all the stations the trains would stop at, I’d look out the windows at the towns. Some of them looked nice and peaceful. I remember stopping at Smokey Hollow, seeing that big beautiful mansion on the ridge overlooking the town. Just looked like a nice place to retire.”

“What keeps you busy in retirement? Any hobbies?”

“I still wanted to work when I retired, too restless to just laze around, so I got a job at the movie theater downtown. Started out as a ticket taker and worked my way up to projectionist. But then the theater closed down. Business was slow. That was sad.”

“So what’s your secret to longevity?”

“Hmm,” the old man said, thinking. “I don’t drink, don’t smoke, haven’t got laid in a long time.” He burst into laughter, his gums flapping. “Oh, and I try to stay fit. Exercise. Keep my strength up.”

Brian couldn’t imagine what the man’s workout regimen was at his age.

“And I try to keep my mind sharp. That’s important. I do crossword puzzles, play dominoes, checkers, anything to keep thinking. I have a pretty good memory. I can recall things from way back.”

As Brian scribbled in his notepad, trying to keep up with the old man’s gibbering, sirens sounded outside on Main Street. His portable scanner was clipped to his belt, but he had it turned off so as not to interrupt the evening’s proceedings. Back in Boston he would have been glued to every twitch of static from his scanner, never knowing what excitement might be sparked on its waves. Here he wasn’t too concerned. There was the occasional late night car accident or maybe a drunk-and-disorderly call, but never anything to keep him awake at night.

Someone at the back of the room exclaimed “Oh God!” and he realized how wrong he was.

A flickering glow filtered through the windows at the rear of the room. Brian was still in mid-scribble—Rolfe Krimmer’s comment about how disappointing it was when the movie theater had closed—when he turned to look at the back of the room, not noticing Chief Treece sidle up beside him. A row of people had gathered at the windows at the back of the room, and over their silhouetted shapes Brian could see the source of the glow beyond the glass. It was flames.

“The Mustard House,” Noah said softly into his ear. “It’s on fire.”

In a flash, barely hearing Noah’s words because he could see for himself, Brian pushed his way to a space at one of the windows and stared at the mansion on the ridge, great orange flames shooting up into the dark night sky. Now it was his turn to exclaim “Oh God,” and he turned to run to the stairs, not even noticing that Noah was already gone.

Brian raced down the stairs, feet barely touching the wooden steps, and out onto Main Street to his car. Across the street he spotted the tall thin man with the high hair again, ambling down the sidewalk, hands hanging by his side. The man stopped and picked something up off the ground, putting it in his pocket before continuing down the street.

Other people filed out of the Odd Fellows Hall and into their vehicles. Brian hopped into his car and was soon part of a convoy heading up Hemlock Street toward Ridge Road. Through his windshield he had a view of the blazing building and the huge plumes of thick black smoke billowing above the pointed gables.

His heart raced as he pressed on the accelerator, climbing the steep grade. This is what his heart used to feel like, racing as fast as the thoughts in his head. Why was the asylum burning so fast? How long had it been burning before the call came in to the Fire Department? He did some calculating. Smokey Hollow had no ambulance service and relied on paramedics from the county. How many ambulances were in the surrounding area? He thought about the size of the structure and the number of rooms it must have. He wished Dr. Wymbs had told him how many patients were in the asylum. There could be dozens. Would they have been able to get out in time? The place seemed to have erupted in an instant. Were the patients’ rooms locked? How many staff members were there at night? God, why hadn’t he gotten these answers earlier? Damn Dr. Wymbs and his stubbornness. Would there be enough ambulances?

Sirens screamed in the night as Brian reached the top of the ridge and got as close as he dared, not wanting to interfere with the emergency vehicles. Blue and red lights flashed in a spasm, and fire engines streamed in from neighboring towns. Brian was able to find a spot at the front of a crowd of onlookers who had gathered and were being kept back by Night Shift Alvin and a few others of Smokey Hollow’s finest. He spotted Noah and moved to his side.

“Holy shit,” Noah said, not looking at Brian, staring at the conflagration before him.

“This is unbelievable,” was all Brian could think to say, trying to hide his excitement. What was it about a fire that turned grown men into little boys?

A ring of fire engines surrounded the blazing structure, pouring water from their hoses in what Brian had often heard of as a “surround and drown” technique, usually a last resort for a fire so out of control that there was no way to save the building.

Brian looked up at the second floor windows, expecting to see hands and arms thrusting through the barred windows in frantic pleas for help, but there were none. God, had they all succumbed or had they gotten out before it was too late? He looked around, searching for people wearing—what? What did the patients wear, some kind of gowns? He saw nobody dressed like that.

“Where are they?” he shouted into Noah Treece’s ear.

“Who?” the chief asked, giving him a puzzled look.

“The patients, the staff. Did they get out?”

The chief shook his head. “Nobody’s gotten out.”

Brian looked back at the building, glass shattering from a burst of flames in the gabled windows on the second floor.

“Oh, shit.”

Huge plumes of thick black smoke billowed into the dark night sky, blotting out the stars. The yellow-brown clapboards blistered and blackened, peeling away from the walls.  Brian’s face seared in the heat from the blazing structure, forcing him to step back, sweat dripping from his scalp down his neck.

No screams, he thought. Had they all been overcome by smoke inhalation already? No one screaming, no one trying to get out. Had it happened that fast? This was a hellish nightmare. He almost felt guilty for thinking it would still be another five days before the weekly went to press. But still, there would be nothing then to top this story.

Brian was so mesmerized by the inferno that he almost forgot to take pictures. He took out his camera and moved a little to his left to get a good angle on the firefighters helplessly pouring jets of water on flames that refused to give up. He began clicking away, circling the face of the asylum to get different shots. He kept sidestepping and snapping before almost bumping into somebody.

It was Capt. Steem, along with Sgt. Wickwire. The captain glared at him, the glow from the blaze lighting up his bald crown and the deep furrows in his forehead. Brian smiled and began retracing his steps back toward where Noah stood. Steem looked at him with disgust. Wickwire held no expression, just stared.  They weren’t in authority up here, Brian told himself, so he needn’t worry about them trying to remove him from the scene. It did make him wonder if they had gotten more out of Dr. Wymbs than he had. After all, it couldn’t be just a coincidence that the institute was going up in flames like this, could it? Of course not. That was obviously why they were here.

With a loud crash, part of the roof on the west wing caved in, and a shower of sparks rose up into the air. The pointed tips of the gables on the front of the façade looked like teeth, as if the head of a giant dragon had tipped back and opened its mouth, belching fire and brimstone into the night sky.

The crowd gasped, and Brian turned to look at them. Most of the people from the Odd Fellows Hall had gathered to watch. There was Leo Wibbels, Eldon Winch, Mrs. Picklesmeir, and even Rolfe Krimmer, holding his brand new cane. Brian felt bad for the old man. Sorry, Mr. Krimmer, it looks like you just got bumped from the front page. You picked the wrong time to be the town’s oldest resident.

He spotted the local priest from St. John’s Church standing in the front of the crowd, beside a nun. The priest was overweight. The nun was homely with a rugged face and bent nose. They both made the sign of the cross as they stared up at the devastation.  The nun grasped her rosary in her large hands. No amount of praying was going to help here, he thought.

Brian glanced to the left and saw a slim, tall, gray-haired woman, clutching the front of her housecoat as if she were cold, but she looked more frightened than anything. He didn’t remember seeing her at the Boston Post Cane ceremony. She must have just come to the scene, like so many of the other townspeople, curiosity drawing them to the big fire. The whole town could look up and see the scene on the ridge.

“Damn!” Brian yelled, shoving his camera in his pocket and pulling out his phone. He dialed home, wondering what time it was.

“Finally,” was all Darcie said when she answered.

“Honey, I’m sorry I didn’t call. Things got real crazy.”

“I know,” she said. “I’m watching out our bedroom window. Of course I knew that’s where you’d be.”

“Yeah, it happened so fast, everyone just rushed up here.”

“It looks pretty bad.”

Brian took a few steps along the perimeter as he talked. “Worse than bad.”

“Anyone hurt?” Her voice cracked with genuine concern.

He didn’t know what to tell her. He didn’t even know himself, but it sure had all the markings of a real tragedy. She was still nervous because of the skeletons in the trunk, so he didn’t want to pile much more on her, especially when he couldn’t be with her right now.

“Don’t know yet,” was the only response he could think of. “What time is it?”

“After midnight.”

He didn’t think it was that late already. “I’ll probably be up here most of the night.”

“Of course.” Was that disappointment in her voice, or resignation?

“Don’t wait up.”

“I never do.”

“Goodnight. I’ll try to be quiet when I come in.”

“Love you.”

“Me too,” he said, shutting off his phone and shoving it into his pocket.

He scribbled some notes in his notepad, jotting down the communities that had sent fire apparatus. Eight towns had sent trucks. He spotted the Smokey Hollow fire chief’s truck and the department’s engine. Simon Runck was standing beside the fire chief, Warren Shives. The chief was speaking into his radio, no doubt coordinating the operation with the other units.

Brian sidled up beside Simon Runck, thankful the assistant chief didn’t have his ventriloquist dummy with him. That would have made for too bizarre a scene. He had spotted Simon in the bay of the fire station a few times with Marshall, entertaining some of the firefighters with the puppet during their down time. He hoped the assistant chief had better jokes than he used for the kids at the school performance he had witnessed.

Brian stood quietly, listening to Chief Shives bark orders into his radio. The rest of the crew from the town’s engine poured water from their hose through the window on the first floor where Brian remembered Dr. Wymbs’ office was located. Simon’s eyes beneath his fire helmet looked jittery.

“Hello, Simon,” Brian yelled, trying to be heard over the barking chief and the roar from the flames and the snapping and cracking of timbers. Simon almost jumped, not aware Brian had been standing beside him.

“Oh,” he said. “Hi.”

“Quite a scene,” Brian said.

The assistant chief nodded, looking back at the fire. “Went up very fast. Too fast.”

“Nobody got out?”

Simon turned to him. He didn’t answer and didn’t need to. He looked away again.

“Not the quiet place to work you thought it would be, huh?”

Simon cracked a smile and nodded. “Not at all.” He looked at Brian. “This shit scares me.” Brian could see that in Simon’s eyes. “That fire is out of control and eating everything like a hungry beast and we can’t do anything about it.”

Brian jotted that down. Great quote.

“Several towns had to bring tanker trucks,” Simon continued, “because we wouldn’t have had enough water to fight this one.” The assistant chief shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Not enough water in the state to drown this sucker.”

Another crack, and another section of roof caved in. Part of the façade above the front door pitched forward and crashed onto the ground with a roar of splinters and glass. Brian took his camera out and shot more pictures. He turned and took some shots of the onlookers. Crowd reactions often made some good pictures and this group was displaying expressions of startle and amazement at all the right moments.

Brian took in as much as he could, scribbling in his notepad. His heart was racing as fast as he was writing. As the night wore on, his heart slowed at the same pace as his scribbling, and before long he put the notepad and pen away. The crowd began to dissipate in the same ratio of the flames, people getting into their cars one by one and taking the road down into town. Soon there were only wisps of white smoke curling upwards from the heap of timbers as firefighters milled through the ruins of the Mustard House, dousing embers.

The sun rose over the tall pines beyond the ridge. The last spectator was gone, and Brian sat in his car and waited as the fire crews started digging through the rubble. He knew what he was anticipating: the removal of the bodies. Multiple ambulances remained on standby, the EMTs huddled together.