Through the Fire Page 10

  “I know, had much more time with a solidly built roof. I know that. We pushed the envelope for—”

  “You don’t have to justify what you did. I’m just talking about the difference in construction. My point is, that the wall in the fire James was fighting should not have fallen as quickly as it did given the conditions.” He drank the last of his coffee.

  “So don’t go spreading this as gospel,” he continued, “but the pieces are lining up. More and more of them with each day.”

  “Each day?” I said.

  “With each fire.”

  “So these current fires and my father’s—”

  “Are related. Yes. I believe so. Now, there are still missing pieces. And I’m still studying the findings from last night’s fire, but—”

  “Did Biltman set my father’s fire?”

  Blake pushed his lips together. “I’m not quite at the point where—”

  “What point are you at? I need to know, Blake. If that guy—”

  “I know, Aidan. I know. Listen, I’m busting my butt working on this.” He stood and buttoned his coat. “I’ve got to get going, all right? You’re just going to have to trust me.”

  CHAPTER

  22

  I felt as if I’d just walked onto the set of CSI.

  To be fair, everything at the Prevention office that afternoon was brighter. But phones rang, and people shuffled around desks with flapping papers in hand, glinting badges pinned to white-collared uniform shirts. An investigator stood at one end of the room, suit coat haphazardly draped over a swivel office chair, leather handgun harness hanging loosely under his arm. He scribbled on a large whiteboard decorated with circles and arrows and black-and-white photos of unshaven suspects. Business was hopping in the fire prevention world.

  I didn’t see Julianne, and Blake wasn’t anywhere to be found. I stopped short of clamping down on the arm of Prevention Officer Jim Schaeffer as he passed me in full stride. “Hey, Jim.”

  He glanced at me without slowing, returning his eyes to his route. “Hey.”

  “No. Hey, Jim? Quick question.”

  He stopped and turned, eyebrows raised.

  I put my hands in my pockets. “Have you seen Blake or—” I cleared my throat—“Lab Analyst Caldwell this afternoon?”

  His eyes deviated to his right and down. I tried to remember from detective shows if that meant he was fabricating an answer to my question or if he was actually searching his memory. “No.

  No, I haven’t seen Blake. But Julianne should be around here somewhere.” He waited as if I had just thrown a ball and he needed my permission to chase it.

  “Thanks.”

  He sped off, staring at the papers in his hand.

  I rubbed my neck, taking a few steps backward.

  A sudden “Oh!” and the clanking of glass told me my presence had elevated from nuisance to interference. I turned and caught a surprised Julianne by the shoulders. She held a wooden tray, and her lab glasses had fallen forward to the tip of her nose. She shifted her elbows and her shoulder in an effort to right the glasses.

  I stepped back. “Hey. Wow. I’m so sorry. Here. May I?” I pointed to her glasses.

  She glanced at them, then back at me. “Please.” She leaned her chin forward and up. I pushed the frame to the bridge of her nose. “Woo,” she said. “Thank you. Much better.”

  I grinned. “Everyone is in quite the hurry.”

  “It’s been this way for days. Nonstop. Admin is bringing down the hammer. City manager’s breathing down the fire chief’s neck, and it all rolls its way down here. It’s been an interesting first few weeks.”

  I realized I was still blocking her way. “I guess I should let you take your beakers to the lab.”

  She laughed. “These aren’t beakers.”

  “That’s right. Those are . . . the cylindrical glass . . .”

  “Test tubes?”

  “Yes. Test tubes. I was getting there.”

  She smiled.

  “Thank you for the note,” I said.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t more friendly before.”

  “No, no. It’s okay.”

  She studied my face. “You still don’t remember me, do you?”

  “That’s not entirely true. I remember you. I just have no idea where from.”

  An awkward silence transcended the small gap between us.

  “I remember seeing you,” she said, “on TV at your father’s department funeral. I remember wondering if what was going through your mind was anything like what I was going through.” She pressed her lips together. “I’d lost my father a week before that.”

  I shook my head. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

  She made a quick scan of the room. “Have you spoken with Blake recently?”

  “Yes, actually. This morning we—”

  “Follow me.” Motioning with her head, she led me across the room to a door and asked me to open it. “Thank you. Come on in.”

  We entered a large laboratory. A protected hood system stood to one side. Tables held vials and droppers and microscopes. Labeled cardboard shoeboxes lined wall shelves next to binders with laminated page protectors.

  Julianne set down the tube tray. She peeled off her gloves and propped up her glasses. “I’m Julianne, by the way.” She offered her hand and shrugged. “Just to make it official.”

  I shook. Her grip felt slender and smooth. “Aidan O’Neill. Pleasure to officially meet you.”

  “Grab a seat if you’d like.” She pointed to a tall table bordered by metal stools. She pulled up a seat from a different table and glanced at the closed lab door. Specimen refrigerators and a host of electronics hummed.

  Her feet paired on a rung. She leaned her forearms on her knees.

  “So much more peaceful in here, don’t you think?”

  “Your little enclave?”

  She nodded and then took a deep breath. “So you really don’t remember, do you?”

  I shook my head.

  She played with a button on her lab coat. “You were on the island. At the Celtic festival.”

  “At Wingfield Park?”

  She nodded, eyes glinting.

  I searched my memory. Images entered like a flood. . . .

  Dancers on stage hopping to the rhythm of fiddles and drums . . . A young woman leaning on the bridge railing, watching the Truckee River pass beneath. Her deep blue eyes met mine and she smiled.

  I looked up at Julianne. “You were on the bridge.”

  She nodded again.

  An older man behind her had looked pale and tremulous. He was holding his head. She took his arm and walked him to the edge of the bridge. When he stepped onto the island, his knees buckled.

  “You were the one,” I said. “The one who helped that man who collapsed.”

  Her expression saddened.

  I felt as if an album of old photos had opened in my mind.

  “I came over . . . and you were shaking his shoulders and saying something. I said—”

  “ ‘I’m Aidan O’Neill with the Reno Fire Department. I can help.’ ”

  “That’s right. I knelt by his head and opened his airway. He was unconscious but breathing shallow.”

  She wiped her eyes. “Yes.”

  “He . . .” I stared at her. “He was your—”

  “Yes.”

  “Your father.”

  I watched the scene replay in my head. The medics coming. Me standing on the island by the entrance to the bridge, watching her cross with them.

  I put my hands on my head and looked at the ceiling. “So that’s how we first met.”

  She folded her arms and gave a tempered smile.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  “It’s okay.” She shook her head. “I am, too. For your loss.”

  The second hand ticked on the wall clock.

  “Did you go away after that?” I asked.

  “Yes. But not far. I went through school at Davis before coming back
for this job.” She stood and set her lab glasses on the table. “I’m not satisfied with the ‘undetermined’ conclusion, either. Blake told me. I know you feel the same way.”

  I leaned my elbows on the table. “I’m really glad to have him on my side. He’s refused to put this thing down.”

  She clenched her teeth behind closed lips, slowly nodding. I couldn’t tell if it was from agreement or just acknowledgment.

  I scratched my cheek. “Where is he right now, anyway?”

  She scoffed. “Good question.” She walked over to a wall where dozens of generic brown shoeboxes sat in organized rows. “I’m not sure what Blake has told you, but I think I may be able to help you with your father’s fire.”

  I watched her trace her fingers under the white box-end labels. I stood and pocketed my hands. “Do you think these recent arsons are connected?”

  “Yes, I do.” She stopped at a box and tapped on it. “And I am also convinced that Biltman isn’t the one setting them.”

  CHAPTER

  23

  E ach box label bore a date, ID number, and investigator name.

  She stacked two at a time in my arms. “You can put them on the lab table if you’d like.”

  I laid them out, counting fourteen in all.

  She waved a palm. “Each one of these is a separate fire. This one is the department store that collapsed on you guys.” She stole a furtive glance toward the door and lifted the lid. One small ziplock bag lay on the bottom.

  I reached my hand out. “May I?”

  “Sure.” She nodded. “Just don’t open the bag.”

  I lifted the plastic into the light and let my eyes focus on a cubic centimeter of glassy black char. “Is this all the evidence you have from that fire?”

  “That’s everything.”

  “Out of all that?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Blake find this?”

  She nodded.

  I placed the bag back in the box. We moved to the next.

  “This was from an apartment fire on the fourth of this month.” She shifted an inquisitive glance toward me as if to say, “Were you on that one?”

  I shook my head. “I wasn’t on duty that day. I was down in Mexico.”

  She squinted her eyes in mock misgivings. “A likely story indeed.” She raised two plastic bags from the box, both containing fragments like shiny dark pebbles.

  “And these?” I said.

  “Same as the first. Blake says they may be incendiary residue.

  I’ve run them through the IR spectrometer and haven’t found anything conclusive. Just carbon. Transformed end products of incomplete pyrolysis.”

  “Char.”

  “Yeah. Glassy char.”

  We moved through all fourteen boxes, nothing more revealing than the first.

  “I almost forgot.” She walked back to the shelves, tracing her hand farther down the row, squatting by a box near the floor. “Your father’s fire.”

  She held it with two hands close to her abdomen. A torrent of memories rushed in. I saw his face in images tied together with onion-layered emotions that made my eyes well up. I turned, squinted, and pinched the bridge of my nose. I blinked out the moisture and acted as if I had removed a piece of debris from my lashes.

  Julianne slid the box onto the tabletop, then stepped back and motioned with her hand. I placed my fingers on the lid and lifted it to the sound of smooth cardboard separating.

  A dark coffin of air lay beneath.

  I looked up at Julianne. “It’s completely empty.”

  “I know. There’s nothing.”

  “That’s your connection between this and the recent fires, nothing?”

  “It’s a stretch, I know. But you’ve got to realize that out of all the boxes on this wall, this is the only one with absolutely nothing in it. The closest ones to it are these fourteen.” She walked back to the wall and returned with two others. She lifted the lids. Both boxes held a heap of evidence bags. “These two are from Biltman’s last fires before he was caught a few years ago.”

  “Overflowing.”

  “Right. Not hard to notice the difference between his fires and these fires. But the pressure from Admin right now is to prove progress with these recent arsons. Mauvain got wind that we found a connection between the recent fires and jumped at the chance to link them to Biltman, the obvious and known fire setter.”

  “So, this fire last night . . .”

  “Tons of evidence. The work of a mentally unstable amateur.”

  “Unlike these other fourteen and my dad’s.”

  “All, I believe, the work of a highly intelligent, experienced professional.”

  “But why would Blake go along with Mauvain in molding the case to point to Biltman? He could clearly see that the evidence doesn’t support it.”

  “Good question.” She took a seat. “There is one other thing. Did you happen to notice the investigator’s name on the boxes?”

  I checked the labels.

  B. Williams. B. Willliams. B. Williams . . . Every single one.

  I looked at her sideways. “What exactly are you suggesting?”

  “Look, I’m not one to slander or even talk about other people. I’m really not.” She got up and paced. “I get along with everybody—”

  “Just say it.”

  She pressed her lips together and nodded. “All I’m saying is that Blake is under tremendous pressure to deliver results with this.

  He’s on the promotion list for Prevention chief. They want decisive action.” She folded her arms. “Aidan, you seem like a great guy.

  Just be heads-up, all right?”

  “Just what?”

  The lab door opened. A brass-badged Prevention chief leaned in, his pear-shaped torso pushing his belly over his belt. I stared at the boxes on the table and glanced at Julianne. She raised her hand slightly and gave a shake of her head to say it was all right.

  The chief cleared his throat. “Julianne, I’m afraid I need you to process a new set of samples.”

  She smiled. “Straightaway, Chief.”

  He cleared his throat again. “That’s my girl.”

  She walked past me and winked.

  “Make sure to bring a jacket,” the chief said. “It’s a bit cold out there this morning.”

  Julianne stopped. “Jacket?”

  “Yes. I need you to go straight to the fire scene.”

  She cocked her head. “The Biltman fire?”

  “No, actually. There’s been a string of new fires this morning.

  Investigator Williams was at the scene of the first and marked the items he wants you to bag and test.”

  “Blake’s already been there?”

  “Right.”

  Julianne looked around the room for her coat. “Okay. Where is it?”

  The chief handed her a paper and looked over her shoulder. “Young O’Neill, is that you back there?”

  I raised my eyebrows and smiled. “Chief. Hey. Long time no see.”

  “How are you all hanging in downtown after that roof collapse?”

  “We’re getting along okay, Chief. Thanks.” It was like reciting lines. “Sounds like Firefighter Hartman is making a strong recovery.”

  “Glad to hear it.” He held up a key ring for Julianne and dropped it into her palm. “This is for the Chevy. No running the lights and sirens now, young lady. And take this just in case we need to reach you.” He handed her a radio, then turned and left.

  Julianne doffed the lab coat and pulled on a mahogany brown vest. She twirled the keys into her palm. “Care to join me?”

  CHAPTER

  24

  B rick university buildings looped like film reel. Julianne leaned forward, gripping the ribs of black vinyl on the steering wheel.

  “You know,” I said, “you can actually go a full twenty-five through here.”

  She scanned through the windshield. “Quiet.”

  “What?”

  “I’m trying to c
oncentrate.”

  I leaned my elbow on the door. “Watch out for that student.”

  She let off the gas. “What?”

  “Oh, my bad. False alarm.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  I reached toward the center console. “I bet this siren switch will get us there real quick.”

  She slapped my hand, returning her own with ninja-like quickness to the wheel. “Don’t you dare!”

  I held my hand up and stared at it. “Who hit me?”

  A smile creased the corner of her mouth.

  We passed the planetarium and wove our way into the adjacent neighborhood. I read off a series of directions from the chief ’s notepaper and looked up just as Julianne slowed to a stop near the fire scene. An RPD patrol car blocked off access to a court where a single engine and ladder truck sat parked. Firemen moved with the slogging pace of overhaul, pike poles and drywall hooks in hand.

  Vapid steam meandered off the roof.

  “I know this house,” I said.

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. As a kid. Isn’t this Todd Youngman’s house?”

  “I don’t know. Wasn’t Youngman a battalion chief?”

  “Yeah. He’s retired. He and my dad used to fish together. He had golden retrievers.”

  “Does he still live here?”

  “As far as I know. I haven’t seen him since Dad’s funeral.” I opened my door to see Battalion Chief Anderson approaching in a huff, as if he’d just finished blowing out the fire by himself.

  “Blake just left half an hour ago,” he said to Julianne. No introduction. No “Hi, how are you?” He pointed to the rear of the house. “The probable origin is taped off in back. You got gloves and bags?”

  Julianne produced a silver briefcase. “All set to go, Chief.” She half-curtsied and smiled.

  Chief Anderson’s face did what looked like a hard reboot. His affect sweetened and changed, as though he were looking at his daughter or grandchild. “Well, that’s excellent. Now, you just let me know if you need anything.”

  “Sure will, Chief. Straightaway.” She motioned with her hand, hooking it in front of her like Shirley Temple saying something with determination. I had to look away to keep from guffawing.