Fire Engine Dead (31 page)

It was getting dark when James came back. I was drafting an email to the staff on my laptop, explaining briefly what had happened and what they should expect on Monday, when I looked up and found him slouched in the doorway, watching me.

Marty saw him, too. “I can stay here until this crew is finished, Nell. You must be wiped out,” she said. “I’ll try to get the board here sometime in the afternoon tomorrow, if that works for you. I’ll call you in the morning when I’ve got that sorted out.”

The weight of the day came crashing down, and I realized I was exhausted. I hit Send and said, “Sounds good to
me.” I stood up and stretched to loosen up my spine, and recalled that some of the scattered aches and pains came from other recent events, like wrestling with a criminal. I wondered if there were bruises to match.

James straightened up and walked toward me. “You ready to go?”

“Yes. Home?”

“I’ll drive you.”

And that was the extent of our conversation until we reached my house. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, but I felt a bit out-of-body. Nothing seemed quite real; the world wasn’t the same one I had awakened to yesterday.

At my house he helped me out of the car and walked me to the front door. “You’re coming in?” I said as I unlocked the door, although it wasn’t exactly a question.

He smiled. “Of course. We had a date, remember? I brought dinner—it’s in the car.”

“You know, I don’t deserve you.” I smiled back.

“Yes, you do.”

I wasn’t sure how to answer that, so I said nothing. I walked into my house and almost expected it to look different: it seemed ages since I’d been here. James went back to the car and reappeared moments later carrying a couple of bags. When had he had time to find food, what with interviews and paperwork and all that stuff?

After I’d shut the door behind him, I found myself saying something stupid along the lines of, “I think I’ll change.” I was still wearing Marty’s smart outfit, and I thought I should take care of it, since it was better than most of the stuff in my closet.

“I’ll deal with dinner,” James said, heading for the kitchen.

Upstairs I avoided looking at myself in the mirror. I was pretty sure the dark circles under my eyes were expanding by the minute, and when I carefully pulled off the layers of clothes, purple bruises emerged—and I felt every one. I was in no mood to be entertaining or witty, or even coherent, but I didn’t think I could send James away if I tried, and I didn’t really want to. I finally pulled on some of the loosest, softest, oldest clothes I owned. I wasn’t going to impress him in a ragged college sweatshirt, but I didn’t think it mattered.

Downstairs again, I found that James had located plates and silverware and set my table, and I could hear the microwave humming. Takeout, then, but high end—I had recognized the bags. He ferried something to the table and asked, “Wine?”

“Please.” I assumed he didn’t expect me to string together logical sentences, so what could it hurt? He emerged from the kitchen again with a large bowl filled with some kind of pasta that smelled incredible even from across the room, and set it on the table before pouring me a glass of wine. “Sit.” I sat.

The next few minutes were devoted to intense consumption of wondrously flavored carbohydrates, accompanied by that first glass of wine. Then the pace slowed, and I helped myself to a second glass from the bottle James had so kindly left on the table.

“The police let me sit in on their interview with Jennifer while you were at the Society with Marty,” James said without preamble.

“Oh? What did she have to say?”

“Something along the lines of,
Scott seduced me and persuaded me to give him the whereabouts of the collection—I had no idea what he was going to do
, et cetera.”

“And of course she didn’t ask why he wanted to know,” I followed sarcastically.

James nodded. “So she says. After all, Scott’s not around to contradict her.”

“Did she know Scott was an arsonist?”

“Not that she’d admit. It would be hard to prove. When we showed her the surveillance footage, she admitted that it was her brothers’ trucking firm that hauled the fire engine away. But she’ll find a way to blame Scott for that, too—he’s been working for the brothers on and off, since the museum laid him off. Everything is Scott’s fault—and he’s not here to defend himself.”

“Ah,” I said. “So if she knew her brothers were involved, and she knew they were switching machines, she must have known about the fire? Does that make her an accessory in the death of the watchman?”

“Maybe.”

“Have you rounded up her brothers?”

“Of course. They are, as they say, singing like birds. And since they’re across state lines, it’s actually a good thing the FBI is in the mix here.”

“You know, I never thought to ask where the other fire engine came from—the one that burned.”

“One of the brothers said they came across it in a hauling job. It was a mess, in pieces, but they figured if it was in a fire no one would notice.”

“So odds are good that the museum will get their original fire engine back? If there’s a museum for it to go to.” That made me sad and glad at the same time.

“Eventually, if Peter’s up to managing the place.”

“That could be a problem. I get the feeling that if Peter
doesn’t come back, the city might seize the opportunity to shut the place down. Which would be a shame.”

James was silent for a few beats, staring into the depths of his glass. Finally he said, “Nell, I’m so sorry you got caught up in this. I’m sorry I brought you into it.”

I looked at him directly. “I wanted to help. It’s not like you sent me into enemy territory to spy on anyone. You asked me to find out what I legitimately could about a peer institution and the people associated with it. I probably would have checked that out myself, just out of curiosity, once I recognized the switch in the fire engines, or would have when Marty pointed it out, too. I couldn’t have let that go without saying anything to you or the police. You had no way of knowing how it would turn out.”

“I still regret putting you in that position.”

“Well, don’t,” I said tartly, taking another sip of wine. “I make my own decisions, and I was glad that you asked for my help.”

“Ah.” He looked at his plate and pushed a few noodles around. “Thing is, I’m sorry I put you in that position because I care for you a lot, and when someone attacks you I want to smash his face in before I shoot him twelve times.”

At last we’d gotten down to it. I felt giddy with…relief? Exultation? “I feel the same way about you. Well, minus the beating up and the shooting part. But what really got to me was the way you just came in and held me together. James, nobody has ever done that for me before. It made me realize that maybe I could possibly lean on someone—you—without giving up anything of me. Does that make sense?

He nodded solemnly. “It does.”

“But you’ve really perfected that stony agent face! I have no idea what’s going on in your head most of the time.”

“You’re pretty good at stonewalling yourself.”

He was right, and I knew it. “I know. And I’m sorry. I’ve wasted too much time pushing you away. And you didn’t have to scrape me off the floor, take me home, feed me, and give me pep talks to keep me going, but you did. And I liked it. I
really
liked it, and that surprised me.
You
keep surprising me. I want to know more.”

“That can be arranged.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

He looked at me for a moment, then stood up and came around the table to my side and held out his hand. I took it, and he pulled me up—and into his arms.

We got to know each other quite a lot better.

James and I were enjoying a leisurely breakfast consisting
of whatever I could find in my cupboards—not much—when Marty called.

“He still there?” she began.

It wasn’t worth protesting that I had no idea what she was talking about. “Mm-hm. What’s up?”

“I managed to corral a quorum of the board for three o’clock this afternoon. Most of them were squawking like chickens after they’d seen the news, but nobody was answering the Society’s phone. I explained that you had gone into seclusion to recover.”

Shoot—I should have thought to leave a message on the machine, but I’d been just a little distracted. “Any problems?”

“Nothing you can’t handle. I got a ballpark estimate for cleaning up the mess in the reference room, both the books
and the space, so we can throw that at the board and let them argue about pennies.”

I saw James tiptoe down the hall with his cell phone at his ear. I admired the line of his back as he went.

“Yo, Nell—you still there?”

“What? Oh, yes, of course. Do I want to know how much the cost will be?”

“No. But it’s not like we have a choice. It has to be done. So I’ll see you at three. Say hi to Jimmy for me.”

James had returned and was watching me with a smile. “Marty, right?”

“Yes. She says to say hi to you. Do you ever get the feeling she’s pulling the strings here?”

“Marty? Maybe. Under that plain exterior beats the heart of a true romantic. So, you’re meeting with the board today?”

“Yes, at three. We need a damage-control strategy, putting a positive spin on this whole mess, as far as possible.
But look, only one person died! It could have been more!
When nobody should have died at all.”

“It’s not your fault. That’s your mantra for the day. If you hadn’t done what you did, it would have been far worse. Oh, and I’ve got some news that should distract them.”

“Good news? Because I really don’t want to hear any bad news at the moment.”

“I’d say good. The police have found the fire engine.”

I felt like clapping my hands like a small child. “That’s wonderful! Where?”

“Jennifer’s brothers hadn’t gotten around to moving it far—they stuck it in one of the warehouses they use in Jersey. Once they heard the FBI was involved, they gave it up
fast. I think they figured they could handle local cops, but not the feds. And I have a feeling that the city will think twice about shutting down the Fireman’s Museum, now that there’s been so much publicity. Maybe you and Peter can plan a grand reopening—with the fire engine.”

“Maybe. He’s going to have to replace Jennifer. It’s not going to be easy to find someone who can do everything for the lousy pay the museum offers.”

“He can ask Gary O’Keefe to help with recruitment. I’m sure he could sweet-talk someone into doing it.”

“Good idea. I’ll suggest it. So I guess I have a couple of hours to spare before I have to leave for the city. You have any idea what we could do?”

“Yes.”

I like a man who knows his own mind.

Two thirty found me fidgeting in my office. I’d checked
the cleanup progress when I came in, and things looked as good as could be expected after a fire and a flood. At least, as Marty had said, the damage had been limited to the one room, and the lost books were not irreplaceable. And we’d proved that our fire retardant systems worked, a small crumb of good news. I’d rather not have found out.

At quarter to three I went downstairs to the lobby. Marty and I had decided to start by giving the board members a quick tour of the damage and get it out of the way—I couldn’t guess what horrors they were imagining, based on the news headlines.

Lewis Howard, a grizzled old buffalo of a Philadelphia lawyer and board chair, was one of the first to arrive. He greeted me with what appeared to be sincere concern.
“Nell, my dear, the papers would have you at death’s door, and the Society in ruins. I’m happy to see both of you looking so fit.”

“Thank you, Lewis. The press does tend to exaggerate, don’t they? I’m glad you could make it on such short notice, but I thought we should be proactive in addressing some of the events of the past few days.”

“Of course, of course,” Lewis rumbled. Then he spied a colleague. “Excuse me, m’dear, but I need to have a word with Thomas.” He lumbered off, and I turned to a new arrival. At five past three Marty and I shepherded our small flock through the catalog room and reading room until we found ourselves clustered in a ragged semicircle around the battered door of the vault. I cleared my throat, this time not because of smoke but because of the lump that had grown there, and addressed the group.

“Gentlemen—and ladies—I’m sorry we had to convene this hasty meeting, but as you all know, there was a fire and a death here on Friday. I wanted to explain…” and I launched into a sanitized version of the events, from the warehouse fire to the connection with the Fireman’s Museum, to the string of arsons in the city, which had ultimately led to the death of Scott Ingersoll. No one commented while I spoke, and they gave me a fair hearing. When I drew to a close, there was a moment or two of silence.

I wasn’t surprised that Lewis Howard was the first to speak. “So it was through your quick thinking, and your familiarity with all aspects of the building, that you were able to derail this man’s plan?”

“Yes.” I found myself wanting to elaborate, to apologize for somehow bringing this violence into this building, but I
restrained myself; Marty had been coaching me on managing the board.