Fireproof (28 page)

Tully bought a sandwich and coffee from Willie’s and found his place. It was ten minutes before five. He figured he could kill a couple of hours hanging out. He sat down on the cold concrete, realizing quickly why most of the steamy grates were already occupied.

He ate his sandwich, sipped his coffee. He had memorized the blown-up photo he had of the guy. Although the features were mostly shadows, he thought he would recognize the guy’s build, shaggy hair, and pointy beard. But it didn’t really matter. How many guys would be coming up from a manhole after five o’clock?

He sat and ate and sipped and watched. Thirty minutes later his butt felt numb against the cold concrete. He thought about
moving to one of the grates, but there were no vacancies and he worried he might not be able to see all three manholes. The sun had disappeared behind the buildings and from the sidewalk. It would get damp and chilly very quickly.

Tully pulled himself up and leaned against the building, looking for a warmer place. He was a bit distracted when suddenly an orange hard hat popped up out of the manhole farthest away on the other side of the street.

Maggie watched Dr. Mia Ling clearing her credentials with the uniformed cop at the first checkpoint. For Ling to be here instead of Stan Wenhoff, the medical examiner, or one of Stan’s deputies, meant the bodies inside had been reduced to very little flesh and mostly bone. Pathologists worked with tissue and organs. Anthropologists were called in when there wasn’t much left to recover.

Just before Ling ducked under the crime scene tape she saw Maggie. She didn’t bother to hide the obvious relief on her face.

Maggie wished that all it took was a familiar face to make her more comfortable. The fire had already been put out, the building no longer in flames or spewing black smoke. Firefighters had pulled back their equipment. A rescue crew of paramedics was treating three firefighters at the mobile unit. One sat with an oxygen mask. Another’s head had been wrapped, the gauze already soaked with blood. The third was bent over beside the tire well and it looked to Maggie like he was throwing up.

She tried to ignore her own nausea. She had just taken three ibuprofen, hoping they might dull her headache. No luck yet. In the short time it took for her to walk the hundred feet over to
Dr. Ling, she noticed the woman’s look of relief change to one of concern.

Before Ling could ask if she was okay, Maggie held up her hands in surrender.

“Just a bad headache,” she told the doctor, deciding not to share the fact that her stomach had started to roller-coaster on her.

“You don’t have to go inside.”

Maggie hadn’t gone into the previous buildings. Ling was right. She didn’t have to go into this one either. But this arsonist was accelerating at an unpredictable speed. If she wanted to understand him and know how to catch him, she would have to look at the crime scene herself.

“I need to see what he does.”

Dr. Ling stared at her for almost a minute. Then she nodded and headed for the burned-out entrance. Before going in, Ling stopped, opened her duffel bag, and pulled out two pairs of tightly rolled up Tyvek coveralls. She handed one to Maggie.

“I always carry extra.”

A firefighter had given Maggie a pair of fire boots when she arrived. She had slipped them over her leather flats and they still felt like clown shoes on her feet. She kicked them off to pull on the Tyvek coveralls.

Both women rolled up their sleeves and pant cuffs. Maggie folded and placed their jackets in the duffel bag. She stuffed her feet back into the boots while Dr. Ling tugged on a pair of her own. Ling continued her preparation, slipping on a pair of goggles and letting them dangle from her neck; then came thin leather gloves and knee pads, the latter making her look like a baseball catcher.

Maggie slapped on a navy-blue FBI ball cap just as Ling asked, “Ready?”

Inside, ATF investigator Brad Ivan stood between the fire chief, who towered over him, and Julia Racine. When Ivan saw Maggie, he tucked his chin and shook his head like somehow this was all her fault. Maggie followed Ling’s careful steps to the pile of rubble that had attracted the investigator’s attention. In the middle lay what looked like a thick wood door.

The fire chief looked at Ling and immediately began in an apologetic tone, “We came in this way. I’m afraid we stepped right on top of them.”

The debris still smoldered and it took Maggie a moment to make out shapes. A skull with hollow eye sockets that stared up at the ceiling. Beneath the charred piece of wood Maggie could see a long, blackened bone. Then suddenly she could differentiate others poking up out of the rubble.

Flashes of light startled her. Ling had a camera and was busy carefully maneuvering around the group. Quietly and patiently nudging them back without saying a word.

“We didn’t lift anything off the bodies yet,” the fire chief said.

“That’s great. You did good.” And even in her own zone, Ling remained polite. She pocketed the camera and looked up at the fire chief. “Can you help me move this large piece of wood?”

No one moved while the two slowly lifted the charred and crumbling wood. Before they set it down, Racine let out a gasp.

“Jesus! How many people do you think are under here?”

“They were trying to get out through this exit.”

Maggie counted four more skulls. One body was contorted into what she knew was called the pugilistic posture, a boxer on his side. Muscles reacting to being sucked of oxygen pulled the
arms up toward the shoulders, leaving the hands fisted and legs bent at the knees, like a boxer ready to deliver a punch. She had only read about it until now. It meant the victim was still alive when the flames burned through the skin, making it tighten and split open, causing the muscles to clench. Alive but overcome by smoke inhalation. Thankfully carbon monoxide builds up in the blood rapidly and causes loss of consciousness.

Again Maggie caught herself thinking of her father. This was what he would have looked like had one of his fellow firefighters not pulled him out. As a child she didn’t understand why he looked the way that he did in his coffin. His face looked painted and his eyebrows were gone. He seemed peaceful except for the crinkle of plastic underneath his suit. It wasn’t until years later than she learned that when most of the skin and muscle have been burned away, morticians have to wrap the body—arms and legs—in plastic to keep the embalming fluid from leaking out.

Dr. Ling took her last photo, the flash bringing Maggie’s focus back to the pile of bones and ash.

“I need to do this slowly,” Ling told them, ready to begin and ready for them to leave. She started bringing out plastic containers and paper bags, a garden trowel, a short-handled whisk brush, and an ordinary dust pan. “A couple of technicians will be joining me.”

“Can we help you bag the larger pieces?” Ivan offered, while Maggie had already started stepping back, ready to escape.

“Actually, I save the torso for last. Taking the big pieces first tends to break up and disrupt the smaller ones.”

Ling brushed at the closest skull, revealing more pieces of bone. She carefully picked up each and placed them in a plastic box she had already labeled. Maggie had become so focused, so fascinated,
by Ling’s small gloved hands, their movement confident and intent, that she had almost forgotten about her own purpose for being here until Racine tugged at her elbow.

“The chief’s ready to show us the start point.”

She turned to see the fire chief and Ivan going back outside. She glanced at Ling, who no longer seemed to notice anyone else. As Maggie walked past her she noticed the small child’s skull Ling had just taken up out of the debris and into the palms of her hands.

Cornell didn’t make a fuss this time when the tall guy in the ratty-ass green jacket asked to talk to him. Even after the man mentioned a red backpack Cornell hadn’t recognized him. He pulled out what looked like a wallet and Cornell thought he might offer him some money until he remembered he was wearing the hard hat and bright city maintenance vest. Probably wanted to complain about some potholes or sewer backup. Cornell had gotten several of those. So he was taken off guard when the wallet opened, revealing a badge.

“You’re the guy I tripped up.”

“Agent R. J. Tully. And you are?”

“Busted.”

But he didn’t make a run for it and Agent Tully looked surprised, almost disappointed, like he had waited for it all day long. Maybe like this would be an opportunity to pay back Cornell for sending him facedown onto the pavement.

Cornell didn’t remember how the police cruiser appeared out of nowhere. One minute Agent Tully was telling him he wanted to ask him some questions and the next minute a cop was there snapping handcuffs on his wrists.

“Am I under arrest?” Cornell had to ask three or four times before Agent Tully admitted he just wanted to take him in for some questions.

Before his life on the streets Cornell had been arrested once for drunk driving. That time he had been scared shitless that his clients would find out. Funny the direction life took and how circumstances could change a person’s perspective.

This time all Cornell thought about was how warm a holding cell might be. He knew they’d have to feed him. Maybe even give him a clean orange jumpsuit. He found himself getting excited at the possibility of a shower and the availability of a toilet. It would certainly throw off the bastard who was following him. He almost laughed, thinking about the son of a bitch watching him slide into the backseat of the police cruiser.

He’d answer questions all night or maybe not at all. Whichever one got him a holding cell. He could outsmart these guys. His job used to have him chewing up and spitting out guys like this over lunch, sending them into tailspins with all kinds of bullshit. No problem.

Although it would certainly be easier with his friend Jack Daniel’s.

Maggie needed to breathe. She took her time following Racine, Ivan, and the fire chief. Just a half dozen deep breaths of clean, fresh air would help. That’s all she needed, but soot and ash still filled the damp night. The oversize boots made her feet heavy, like lifting blocks of concrete while trying to be careful.

The skull in Ling’s hands had looked so small. It had to be a baby, no more than a toddler. When Maggie got the call earlier, Racine had said this one might be bad. The shops below had closed for the evening but Racine had warned her that some of the shop owners lived in apartments above. This family had come down through the shop, hoping to escape. Why hadn’t they considered using the outside fire escape? She was about to find out why.

“There was a pile of old rags and newspapers,” the fire chief told them, pointing to a black-and-gray stack of ash now on the pavement in the alley, but then the chief was pointing up to a landing. And Maggie immediately noticed that the fire escape was pulled down.

“He probably soaked the newspapers with gasoline. He used a piece of wood to make a little platform on top of the flammables.
Then he put the chemicals on the platform. It allowed him some time to climb down and just walk off. Maybe as much as five to ten minutes.”