Fireproof (3 page)

Her brother squatted down to the floor, obviously weak-kneed, sitting back on his haunches. In the light from the opened refrigerator behind him Maggie could see the soot smeared on his forehead. His fingers clenched the door handle.

“I didn’t want to wake you,” he said, struggling to his feet. He was a firefighter, young and in great shape, and yet Maggie had reduced him to a frazzled pile on her kitchen floor.

“I didn’t expect you until the end of the week.”

“We finished early. I should have called.” Then he added with a smile, “Sorry. I’m not used to having someone to call.”

And Maggie wasn’t used to having someone come home.

They were still learning their way around each other. Maggie had invited her half brother, Patrick, to stay with her when he graduated from the University of New Haven in December. Armed with a new degree in fire science, he was anxious to add experience to his résumé and had taken a job as a private firefighter. The company maintained contracts in thirteen states, so Patrick spent most of his time away, using Maggie’s house as a home base in between assignments.

They had just found out about each other in the last several years. Maggie’s mother had kept her father’s infidelity a secret for more than twenty years. Likewise, Patrick’s mother had told him only that his father had died a hero. There had been no mention, no hint, no clue that a sister existed, half or otherwise. It was an agreement the two women had wielded after the man they both loved died suddenly, leaving each of them with a child to raise on her own.

So here they were, two fatherless children, now adults, learning to be siblings.

“You mind if I have some of this pizza?” He pointed to the box he had been reaching for on the top shelf of the refrigerator.

“Help yourself.”

Maggie knew it wouldn’t be easy. She had become an intensely private person. She actually liked living alone, and she liked—no, it was more than that—she
craved
solitude. So it wasn’t a surprise when she and Patrick began an ongoing battle almost as soon as he’d arrived. The surprising part was that it had nothing to do with typical issues of sibling rivalry or even territorial roommate disputes. Not about money or food or dirty socks in inappropriate places. If only it could have been something that simple.

No, Maggie didn’t approve of Patrick’s new employer. Worse than that—she questioned the ethics of the Virginia-based corporation and she couldn’t understand why Patrick didn’t.

Braxton Protection sold high-end, expensive insurance policies—the Cadillac of policies, offering protection for elite homeowners who could afford it. Part of that special protection included a private crew of firefighters if the need arose. In other words, Patrick had chosen to be a sort of mercenary. Instead of a gun for hire, he was a hose for hire.

Maggie wasn’t sure why she couldn’t just shut up and pretend it didn’t matter. Patrick wanted the accelerated experience. What was wrong with that? Why wait around a real fire station for a fire when you can dive right in to monster wildfires threatening catastrophes? And if people could afford it, why shouldn’t they be able to purchase special protection? Or so their arguments, or rather their discussions, went.

“So what happens,” she had countered, “when you have to
drive around a house that’s already engulfed in flames to go hose down a house miles away?”

That’s when Patrick would shrug and give her a boyish grin that reminded her of their father.

And right now he looked like a twenty-five-year-old who was exhausted and hungry. He must have come directly from the fire. Soot smudged his forehead and lower jaw. His hair was still damp with sweat from his helmet. The cowlick—their father’s cowlick, even on the same side—stood straight up and Maggie fought the urge to reach out and smooth it down, just like she did every single time she dreamed about her father in his casket. That’s what had sent her spiraling into the nightmare. She had smelled smoke. Patrick reeked of it.

“Did you drive directly from the site?” she asked, trying to remember where he had been this past week.

“Yeah.”

He left the open box of leftover pizza on the island countertop while he popped open a can of Diet Pepsi. He slid onto one of the bar stools, suddenly stopping and hopping off like the seat was on fire.

“Sorry. I guess I smell bad.” A slice of pizza in one hand, the Pepsi in the other, he looked back to see if he had gotten the bar stool dirty.

“Don’t worry about it. Sit.”

Maggie grabbed a slice of the pizza and took a seat next to him, waving at him to sit back down.

He hesitated and Maggie hated how tentative and how polite he still was around her. Almost as if he were waiting for her to change her mind, change the locks. She blamed herself. There were twelve years between them, and she was supposed to be the mature one.
What a joke that was. She had no idea how to do this family thing. She purposely kept people at a safe distance. She had lived alone a long time and hadn’t shared living quarters since her divorce.

Other than Harvey and Jake.

That’s when she bolted off her bar stool.

“Where are the dogs?”

The panic from her nightmare returned, showing itself in her voice.

“I let them out in the backyard.” But Patrick was already on his feet again.

In three steps Maggie was at the back door, punching in the security code and flipping on the patio light.

“Jake’s been digging out.” She tried to calm herself. “One of the neighbors threatened to shoot him if he finds him in his front yard again.”

“You’re kidding. That’s crazy.”

But Patrick was beside her as she flung open the door.

Both dogs came loping out of the dark bushes, white and black, side by side, tongues hanging out, noses caked with dirt.

“Looks like he’s gotten Harvey to help him.” Patrick laughed.

It was funny and Maggie smiled, relieved despite the tightness in her chest. Four months ago Jake had saved her life. She wanted him to feel safe here, to feel like he finally had a home, and yet he insisted on escaping like she had infringed on his freedom. Maybe she had been wrong in taking him away from the vast openness of the Nebraska Sandhills. She had wanted to save him, like she had saved Harvey, but maybe Jake had never needed saving.

The dogs lapped up water, sharing the same bowl, leaving dirt in the bottom. Patrick and Maggie returned to their pizza just as Maggie’s cell phone began to ring.

She checked the time—1:17 in the morning. This couldn’t be good. For some reason she thought about her mother, but knew it was just Catholic guilt for not telling her about Patrick staying here. Not like it was a problem. Her mother rarely came to her house. Finally she grabbed her phone and saw the caller’s number displayed on the screen.

“Detective Racine,” Maggie answered instead of offering a greeting.

“Hey, sorry to wake you.”

“No, it’s okay. I was already up.”

Maggie was surprised. Usually Julia Racine’s brisk manner didn’t include an apology no matter what time of day. It took a lot to soften up the District homicide detective. Maggie had witnessed the occurrence only a handful of times.

“I already called Tully. Our firefly’s been busy,” Racine said without much pause. “And this time he’s left us a body.”

R. J. Tully flashed his badge at the uniformed cop patrolling the first set of crime scene ribbons. The guy nodded and Tully slipped under. He wished he’d grabbed something warmer than his trench coat.

And, damn, when had he gotten a stain on the lapel?

Didn’t matter. His choices had been limited. Staying overnight at Gwen Patterson’s was still something new. With his daughter, Emma, away and in her second semester of college, there wasn’t any excuse to hurry back home, but he hated the idea of having two different sets of clothes at two different houses. He had been married for thirteen years, on his own now for more than five. Maybe he was too set in his ways to be in a relationship.

Gwen had generously given him his own drawer at her house and his own side of a closet, almost twelve inches next to her soft and colorful fabrics. His space looked pathetic with only an extra shirt and an extra pair of trousers. That’s all he had hung there. None of it seemed right. It felt like he was playing house at someone else’s place and he didn’t like it no matter how much he loved Gwen.

When the phone call woke them both, Tully should have been
reluctant to leave, disappointed or something—anything, but not relieved.

Thank God, Gwen had been too sleepy-eyed to notice.

He stepped aside. Let two firefighters tromp past him headed into the billowing smoke. Before sunrise he guessed this one would be a two-alarm. In less than a week Tully had learned more about fires than he cared to know.

Another thing about staying at Gwen’s—it put him at the scene sooner than perhaps he wanted to be here. This time of night it was a short five- to ten-minute drive from her Georgetown condo. Ordinarily it would have taken him thirty to forty minutes to get to the District from his bungalow in Reston, Virginia.

He took advantage of being early. Found a spot downwind from the smoke. The flames actually felt good against his back, warming the chilled night air, letting him forget the thinness of his trench coat. The days had been unseasonably warm for February but the evenings were still a reminder that winter was not over.

Tully pushed up his eyeglasses. He pulled out a pen, and his fingers checked his pockets for something, anything, to write on. He settled for a sales receipt. Then he found a spot under an oak tree, safely out of the way, and started to examine the gathering onlookers.

Son of Sam had admitted to starting hundreds of fires. Even before he shot his first victim, he claimed to be a serial arsonist. He’d set a fire, then stand off by himself someplace where he wouldn’t be noticed. He’d watch the blaze, enjoy the chaos, and masturbate.

Tully studied the faces in the glow of the flames, trying to ignore, to shut out the crackling
whoosh
behind him. A camerawoman and a reporter had already stationed themselves up close to the ribbon.

How did they get here this soon?

Tully jotted down, “Who called in fire?”

Then he looked beyond them, beyond the bystanders. He searched the shadows, scanning the alleyways and sidewalks across the street. He let his eyes move over the rooftops. He checked each window, side by side and row by row in the neighboring buildings. As far as he knew, these were warehouses, not residences, so it would be strange, or at least unusual, to see movement or lights on any of the floors.

He moved to the other side of the tree and started the process again with the adjacent block. That’s when it struck him that the few bystanders looked like homeless people. He was used to seeing what he called the city’s “night crew.” Drug dealers, prostitutes, overnight delivery men, and cabbies. They were usually the only ones out at this time of night. But he never got used to seeing the homeless, with their hollowed-out cheeks and vacant eyes, reminding him of walking zombies.

“Hey, Tully.”

The voice startled him so much it made him jump. Probably thinking about zombies didn’t help.

Tully glanced over his shoulder. Detective Julia Racine wore jeans and a leather bomber jacket, unzipped—her badge and weapon on display. There was always something Racine did or said that made her seem tougher than Tully knew she was. Tonight it was the unzipped jacket on a cold night, plus a swagger and now a swipe of her hand through her short spiky hair, which was still wet from a quick shower.

“What are you doing out here in the shadows?” she asked.

She didn’t expect or wait for an answer. It was Racine who had called him and this was her greeting. He was used to it by now.

“He’s here,” Tully said, almost under his breath, and he didn’t move. His eyes returned to the adjacent building.

He wasn’t sure Racine had even heard him. She came up beside him and stood stock-still, hands in her pockets, so close he could smell coconut and lime. Probably her shampoo, and it was enough for Tully to think that the aroma canceled out her swagger and her unzipped “I’m too tough to get cold” tough-guy message. It was one of the things Tully liked about working with women, though he’d never in a hundred years admit it—they always smelled so much better than men.

“Fifty-five percent of arsonists are under eighteen,” she said with no emotion and without a glance in his direction, all business as usual.

She studied the clusters of people while Tully continued to go from window to window, floor to floor.

“You’ve been reading too many worthless statistics.”

He stopped at the third floor of the brick building on the corner. He could have sworn he saw a flash through the window. Did it come from inside the building or was it only a reflection of the flames?

“Body’s outside,” Racine said. “It’s in the alley behind a Dumpster.”

“Outside?”

That didn’t sound right to Tully. The other fires had had no casualties. A body usually meant the acceleration of an arsonist, the next step. Fire wasn’t enough to achieve the same high so they started setting fires to occupied buildings. But if the body was outside, it was hardly a casualty.