Authors: Shawn Grady
B
utcher and Lowell were whispering something when I walked into the app bay. There was a flitting moment of surprise and hesitation as I stood with my turnout bag slung over my shoulder. I broke the silence with a morning greeting of “How’s it goin’?”
“Aidan. Good,” Butcher said. “How’s that jaw?”
I thought it curious of him to care. “A little stiff.”
He twisted one side of his moustache and eyed me.
Lowell shifted his weight. “Well, hey, Mark, I’m going to make sure our new kid’s fueling the BC rigs.”
“Right, I’ve got to check the training schedule anyway.”
I let them make their escape before dropping off my gear by the rig.
I took the stairs two at a time to the third floor and walked back to my dorm cube. While making my bed I noticed a thick book resting on the desk. It was soft leather bound and burgundy with gilded pages. A sticky note curled off the cover.
Aidan,
A dear friend of mine gave this to me many years ago in our
academy. Thought you might want it.
Ben
In the lower right corner of the cover I read the inscription:
James O’Neill.
I flipped the sheets and fanned the scent of old leather and binding glue by my face. My thumb caught and it flopped open, as if it had found a familiar place.
Isaiah.
A verse stood highlighted in orange, the outer end of the rectangle darker with ink.
Chapter forty-three.
Verse two.
I ran my finger underneath it.
“When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor
shall the flame scorch you.”
Static chirped from the ceiling speaker.
Tones.
“Battalion Two, Rescue One, Engine One, Engine Two, Engine Three, Truck One with the safety officer to multiple reports of a structure fire . . .”
I pulled up my drops in the back of the rig as Kat rolled us out, first on the apron. I kept my balance with a hand on the doorframe as we turned onto the street, my other hand pulling over a suspender. Swinging on my coat, I dropped into the jumpseat, watching the ladder truck emerge from the bay, Ben Sower in the captain’s seat, working his arms into his jacket.
I caught a glimpse of dark smoke building in bulbs toward the sky, like a hellish ashy snowman. The smooth hickory of my axe handle felt right in my palm.
And then I heard it.
Quick. So fast and fine that I couldn’t say if it was a word or an image, but it came in a flash of knowledge.
Four vehicles, all on fire.
I pressed the intercom button on my headset. “Cap, what kind of occupancy is this?”
Butcher held up the printout to read it. “It says Ace Auto Repair.”
The city zipped by in horizontal lines.
Lowell cracked his neck. Kat swung the rig down an old industrial avenue between brick buildings girded with goosenecks thick with wires stretching to power poles. The engine bounced with potholes and broken sections of concrete. Kat brought her to a stop just past an alleyway adjacent to a single-story brick structure. Tenebrous smoke belched from its far side.
Lowell hopped out his door for the nozzle. I grabbed a hand light and a Halligan bar and circled around the engine, my father’s axe hanging from its belt sheath. The city swarmed with the sounds of sirens, the balance of the first alarm assignment fast on our tail.
The auto shop sat on an elevated plot, encompassed all the way down the alley by a chain-link fence. Short of running down a full block and doubling back, our only access to the fire would be either over or through a six-foot fence standing on a three-foot retaining wall.
Lowell chucked the nozzle over, the limp hose draping down the other side. He backed up five steps and studied the obstacle. I glanced toward the engine to see if the truckies were on scene and coming with bolt cutters. I turned in time to witness Lowell hurtling through the air. He collided with the fence and clung to its crown like a cat. He somehow heaved his body up and over, crashing down onto the roof of a dilapidated Dodge. He got up, grabbed the nozzle, and worked his way through a scattering of junk to the oily curtain billowing from an open garage door.
I moved to the fence and fed the line over until I could see he had enough slack. I took several steps back, set down the Halligan and hand light, and made my best launch for it. Me and my seventy plus pounds of extra gear bounced off the chain link and back onto the road. In the corner of my eye, I caught Engine Three pulling up on the opposite end of the alley.
I saw Lowell masked and ready to go. The Engine Three firefighters would be with him soon.
I took several steps back before leaping upward again, stalling at the peak, poised for a rearward drop, when a nearby tree offered me its limb. I grabbed ahold and yanked myself over, crashing onto the car roof and rolling to the ground.
I met up with Lowell and pulled on my mask. “There’s four cars on fire.”
He turned. “How could you know that?”
The line charged with water. And hence she beckoned.
We crouch-walked in, Lowell tentative, stopping to pencil vagrant glows on the ceiling. He stretched his foot, sweeping for obstructions, checking for holes. Faint but familiar sounds came from above—the truck guys working to ventilate the roof. I thought of the hand light I’d left in the alley and how it wouldn’t have made much difference. This smoke swallowed day like a snake with white mice.
My eyes saw blackness, but my mind made out four fiery beasts with pupils like predators, teeth to devour, claw-shaped appendages rising in flame.
Ben’s voice echoed in my head. “
Maybe you’re hearing the fire
just fine.”
Hissing sounds shot out overhead.
A brilliant explosion erupted above us.
Lowell shifted with the nozzle. Another blast let out behind us. Heat raged in torrid waves, and the fire pressed in, fore and aft. A third and fourth bright fireball burst deeper in. Our hose stream dissipated, swallowed by the glow and the toxic fog. The room went molten, and we stood on what felt like the one patch of solid ground. I gripped the hose and leaned my shoulder into Lowell’s back. He swirled the water stream, sweeping from side to side.
It was BTUs versus GPMs, and we were on the losing end. The fire grew hotter, and closer. I felt my wrists and earlobes itching.
Lowell scooted back. I supported the hose. And then the smoke shook and whirled upward, sucking from the corners and along the floor, up and around our boots and overhead toward two glowing squares cut from the roof. The thermal strata lifted. Two-by-six rafters manifested from the haze.
Thank God for the truck crew.
We caught our first glimpse of four vehicles suspended in the air, fire still blowing out from all sides.
Lowell turned toward me, and through his ash-littered face-piece, squinted, disdain and suspicion lacing his expression.
Flames shot out from car undercarriages and up through the engine compartments, working along to the ceiling joists. We advanced, hitting the ceiling before chasing the fire around and out of engine components and steel members. A backup line from Engine Three knocked down the fire in two of the vehicles, and the truckies set fans at the open garage door.
With time the shop cleared, fire flickering down in charred vehicles, the last waving remnants of hazy gray slinking in the rafters.
A
lgid air fanned the sweat on my brow. I tossed charred sections of cardboard on the pavement. The truck crew went to work with overhaul, opening walls, searching for fire extension.
Sower held the thermal imager, watching the infrared screen for signs of heat. “Not there, Sortish. To your left a bit. A little more. Yeah, right there. Feel that wall with the back of your hand.”
Operator Donovan stood with a pike pole. “Try taking off your glove there first, bud.”
I grabbed an armful of debris from what looked like a desk in the corner. It looked as though there could be a few legible documents in the pile. Mauvain came in, conversing with a woman holding a clipboard and wearing a fire helmet, an unbuttoned turnout coat and rubber boots over a dark pants suit.
Julianne.
Outside I dropped the debris by the pile. Mauvain strode out, looking through me as if I were an office window.
Julianne studied the license plate of the first elevated car. I could make out the
E-X
of a government exempt plate. Beside it, through the charred exterior, shone a fragment of the former paint job.
Faded red. Same as her department vehicle.
I came alongside and studied her profile. “Is this . . . yours?”
She wouldn’t look at me.
I took off my helmet and wiped my brow. “You going to give me the cold shoulder, too?”
“Not here.”
“Not what?”
Chief Mauvain appeared at the entrance.
She made a quick headshake. “That’s what I’m going to try to determine, Firefighter O’Neill.” Mauvain arrived. “Oh, hello again, Chief.”
Radio traffic blared from his collar-mounted mic. He spun down the volume. “Aidan, would you mind making sure the Rescue crew shut off the utilities outside?”
Knowing Timothy Clark and Waits had already taken care of it, I switched glances between the two of them. “Sure thing, Chief.”
Thanks for the invite to leave.
I worked my way around the south side of the building, walking through a narrow path between the wall and another fence. Mustard yellow leaves blanketed the dirt. I found the gas meter and knelt down to inspect it. As expected, the petcock was perpendicular, shut off at the inlet from the ground. An antiquated electrical panel was also shut off, the large breaker switch pointing to the earth. I leaned against the fence. The buildings old brick looked porous in places, and tiny recesses pocked the mortar. Eight-pane windows were inset every twenty feet or so, the glass soot-stained on the inside, cobweb-covered on the out. I caught sight of Julianne through two broken panes.
She stood alone now, staring at charred rafters.
I looked both ways, then spoke through the empty frames, keeping my voice subdued. “Hey, Julianne.”
She swiveled toward the front.
“Over here. By the windows,” I said a little louder, straightening in reflex, double-checking to see if I was noticed. I felt like a fugitive.
She walked over to the window and held up her clipboard as though she were studying it. “Hey, yourself.” She moved from the window and exchanged a few unintelligible sentences with someone before leaning her face back by the frames. “You still out there?”
“So you still think I—”
“I’ve never thought that.” She put her cell phone by her ear. “I’m sorry I gave you that impression.”
“Was that your department car?”
She nodded, looking around. “This is getting a little close to home.”
“Explosives?”
“So far no evidence.”
“Do you know how many car fires I’ve been on and not one of them has exploded? Your vehicle and those three others went off like bombs, right by our heads.”
She scanned the ceiling and exhaled. “This building’s old, but it’s sprinklered. That would have kept the fire at bay.”
“But it was tampered with?”
She nodded.
Leaves crunched as I shifted my weight. “What else do you have?”
“A witness said they spotted a white van leaving in a hurry about five minutes before the fire was reported.”
“Did they get plates?”
She shook her head.
“How about Mauvain. What’d he say to you?”
She scribbled on her clipboard and then held it by the light of the window.
“They’re looking for a scapegoat.”
Out in the street, Kat walked past the engine. I crossed my arms and leaned on the brick. “They’ve got Blake.”
“Blake’s been released.”
“What?”
She brought her hand up to her hair and tilted her head. “He’s on administrative leave. There’s not enough evidence to keep him.”
“So now what? They suspect me?”
“This isn’t the best place.”
“That’s insane. How could I even? There’s so many—”
“I don’t know, either. I don’t know what is going on. All I’m saying is that somehow you’ve dug yourself a hole, and there are people out there who want to bury you in it.”
“It’s looking to me like someone is out for both of us.”
A voice called from inside. “Inspector, you might want to take a look at this.”
She nodded in acknowledgment. “I guess that means me.” She pocketed her phone and went to work with her pen. She strolled away, tilting the clipboard:
“Lab tomorrow. 8 PM.”
I
’d have been worried about the security cameras outside the arson lab if I hadn’t known that Dan, the building maintenance guy, had been inundated lately with higher priority projects. He said the props would have to do for now and that was good enough for him. It was good enough for me, too, as I saw Julianne emerge from the shadows of the foyer, her hair pinned up, eyes poignant against the night’s photo negative tones.
She pushed open the door. “What’s the secret password?”
I hesitated.
“I’ll make it easy.” Then with a mock British accent, she said, “What’s your favorite color?”
I knew where she was going. “Red. No. Blue.”
“Kaboom.” She animated an explosion with her hands. “Come on in.”
We worked our way down a dark corridor lit by green exit signs and red smoke detector lights. We walked across the main office area to the lab door Julianne had first taken me through. Inside, Ben Sower sat at an island lit by overhead can lights.
I glanced at Julianne.
“We spoke after the fire. I invited him.”
The light gave the lab table the feel of a jeweler’s display, Ben, its curator, holding up a test tube in the light, studying it behind thin-rimmed glasses that hooked around his ears.
“Hey, Ben,” I said.
He refocused his eyes. “Evening, Aidan.” He placed the test tube next to five others on a rack. “This is a concise collection here.”