Perfect Justice (17 page)

“Only a fool would not be frightened when death is all around us.” Nguyen hesitated a moment. “But there was something … unusual about Tommy that night. Some feeling of foreboding.”

Now that was interesting. “Do you have any idea why he felt that way?”

“No. At the time I assumed he was simply expressing the anxiety we all feel here. It was only after he was dead that I wondered if the words had more meaning.”

“Did you see anything—or anyone—unusual during the walk home?”

“No. We parted just outside the fence. I returned to my home and—I assumed he would return to his.”

“Then you weren’t at the actual scene of the murder.”

There was only the slightest hesitation. “No.”

“And you didn’t see what happened.”

Colonel Nguyen gazed into Ben’s eyes. “No.”

“And you don’t have any other information about the murder?”

“I—no. Nothing more than what I have already told you.”

Ben couldn’t put his finger on it, but for some reason, he was almost certain Colonel Nguyen was holding something back. But what reason could he have to lie?

Ben shifted the focus to Pham. “Are you planning any more attacks on the ASP encampment?”

Pham stared at him coldly. “I am not at liberty to discuss our plans.”

“I know you have only good intentions,” Ben said. “But your recklessness could hurt people.”

“If we do not act, these killers will force us out of our homes.”

“If you start a confrontation with ASP, you could destroy Coi Than Tien. And perhaps Silver Springs as well.”

“We will not submit—”

A thunderous noise curtailed their debate. All four of them whirled toward the sound, just in time to see a blaze erupt about a hundred feet away. The impenetrable darkness was now illuminated by flame.

Coi Than Tien was on fire.

“T
HE TRUONG HOME!” COLONEL
Nguyen shouted.

The wooden shack was ablaze. In the space of a second it was engulfed in flames.

The four of them ran toward the conflagration. Ben saw what looked like a black pickup truck speeding away, past the barn and through the central gates. It was too dark to get a license plate number, even if there was one.

By the time they arrived, a solid wall of fire separated them from the house. The Truong home was one of the largest in Coi Than Tien, but it was now entirely obscured. Black smoke billowed outward, choking them as they approached.

Ben shielded his eyes from the intense brightness of the flames. “Do you have any telephones here?”

Colonel Nguyen shook his head gravely. “And the nearest fire department is in the next county.”

The fire raged, towering over their heads. The radiating heat was intense; it drew beads of sweat from Ben’s forehead.

Ben suspected there was little chance of saving the house. They had to make sure no one was inside and, furthermore, had to make sure it didn’t spread throughout the entire settlement. But how?

Ben pounded his fists together. They needed to do something, and quick. He just didn’t know what.

“Didn’t I see a well on my way in here?” Belinda asked. Her face was illuminated by the flickering flames.

“Yes!” the Colonel said. “Just north of the barn. And there are buckets inside the barn door.”

“Ben and I will start the water brigade. You two make sure no one is trapped inside.”

Colonel Nguyen nodded. Without further discussion Ben followed Belinda back to the barn.

They found the well without any trouble. The light of the blaze made the area almost as bright as day. Inside the barn, they found several dozen wooden buckets stacked against the wall.

The water in the well was easy to reach. Ben filled a bucket. Straining every muscle, he hoisted it out of the well and carried it back to the Truong home, sloshing and spilling all the way.

He threw the remaining water into the spreading flames. The fire consumed the water as if it were air. At this rate, it would burn forever.

Ben ran back to the well. By this time several Coi Than Tien citizens had emerged from their homes. Most of them had moved directly toward the well. Belinda put two strong men at the wellhead to fill the buckets. She organized everyone else in a line stretching from the well to the fire. One by one they passed the water-filled buckets down the line.

Water still sloshed out along the way, but not as much as when Ben had carried his bucket solo. Each bucketful had only minimal impact on the blaze, but a minimal impact was still an impact. Belinda’s brigade delivered the water quickly and consistently. At least the fire wasn’t getting any worse. It was just possible they might get it under control.

Ben started back toward the fire and saw Colonel Nguyen staggering from the flames. He was walking erratically and coughing. As he cleared the smoke Ben saw Nguyen was carrying a woman over his shoulder.

Ben ran out to help him. Together they gently lowered the woman to the ground.

Ben took one look at the unconscious woman, then quickly turned away. She was alive, but burned horribly.

“Are you all right?” Ben asked Colonel Nguyen.

Nguyen coughed loud and harshly. Seconds passed as he was unable to stop coughing. Ben feared he had severe smoke inhalation—or worse. Finally Nguyen drank in a deep gulp of air.

“Went around back,” Nguyen said. “Climbed up to the nearest window, looked inside.” He started coughing again.

“Take it easy,” Ben said. “Breathe slow and regular.”

“Wall collapsed. Fell on top of me. Burning.”

Ben saw that the left side of his clothes were singed.

“Heard a scream from inside,” Nguyen continued. His eyelids drooped. He was struggling to retain consciousness. “Had to get her out—” The raspy choking swallowed his voice.

“Don’t try to talk,” Ben said. “Just rest.”

The Colonel nodded.

Ben brought Colonel Nguyen some water and put a wet cloth on the woman’s forehead. She was still unconscious. Ben felt certain her burns needed medical attention. He called for help; a man from the brigade line stepped forward and huddled over the woman’s body.

A piercing scream riveted Ben’s attention. A woman near the end of the brigade line had dropped her bucket and clutched her face.

“What is it?” Ben asked.

Her face was distorted by the shadows cast by the blaze. Ben couldn’t understand what she said. But she pointed toward the burning house.

Inside the dense smoke, Ben saw a dark silhouette hugging the ground. It moved.

Ben heard a horrible gasping and choking noise. Then it was gone.

Someone else was trapped in there.

Ben looked around for help. The brigade line was back in action, but it was stretched to its maximum capacity. They couldn’t afford to lose another body. It was him or no one.

He started toward the smoke.

The woman shouted, “Wait!”

Ben turned and the woman threw a bucketful of water, drenching him. He removed his windbreaker, then inhaled and exhaled rapidly, filling his lungs. He held the jacket over his eyes and mouth and plunged into the dense gray cloud.

Ben felt the smoke burning his eyes. He had to resist the temptation to breathe. If he took smoke into his lungs, he was history.

He made his way to the body lying on the ground just outside the front door of the house. The heat was searing; he felt as if he had stepped into the sun.

It was a woman, a young one. Ben rolled her over onto her back. It was difficult to see her face clearly in the smoke, but to his surprise, he found she was not Vietnamese. A slim figure, white face, dark hair. For a brief horrifying moment he thought it was Belinda.

No. As the smoke cleared he saw she was shorter, more angular, and had an entirely different hairstyle. But whoever she was, she was in trouble. The fire consumed the house not five feet away from them.

Ben wrapped his arms around her and lifted her into the air. She was a small woman, but the sudden weight bore down on his ribs, still tender from their recent pounding. The residual air burst out of his lungs. Ben clamped his lips shut and ordered himself not to breathe.

After what seemed an eternity, he emerged from the cloud of smoke. He laid the woman on the ground and gasped for air. It flooded into his lungs, making him woozy and nauseated all at once.

Ben braced himself against the ground. As soon as he felt relatively stable, he examined the woman. He was no medic, but she wasn’t burned and she appeared to be breathing regularly. He didn’t know why she had fallen unconscious. She had probably taken in too much smoke or fainted from the heat.

Her eyelids began to flutter.

“Are you all right?” Ben asked.

The woman blinked rapidly. Then, suddenly she sat up straight, eyes widened desperately, and screamed.

The cry was loud and bloodcurdling. Ben had never heard any sound so horrible in his entire life. The woman reached out toward the flames, shouting words he could not understand. Eventually her breath gave out and her screams were washed away by uncontrolled sobbing.

“What’s wrong?” Ben held her by the shoulders. “What’s the matter?”

The woman shook her head back and forth, crying and moaning. Tears streamed from her eyes.

“Ben!”

Ben looked back over his shoulder. It was Belinda. She was running past the burning house, searching for him.

Ben ran to her. The instant she saw him, she opened her arms and hugged him.

“My God,” she said. “Someone told me you ran into the fire.”

“I did. But I’m all right.”

“Thank God.” She clutched him so tightly Ben wondered if she would ever let go. He hoped she didn’t.

He gazed over her shoulder at the Truong home. The fire was finally dying out. Only a few flames on the north side remained, and they would soon be gone. Belinda’s brigade had saved the day. The woman he now held in his arms had taken charge of a desperate crisis situation and saved both homes and lives.

He squeezed her all the tighter. She was incredible. With the lingering wisps of smoke swirling around them, their lips pressed tightly together.

“Why did you go into the fire?” Belinda asked, after they parted.

“There was a woman trapped in the smoke, trying to get out.”

The woman in the brigade line who had first alerted Ben to the situation interrupted. “You’re wrong. She wasn’t trying to get out. She was trying to get in.”

Ben stared at her.
“What?”

“I saw it. She came out of nowhere, took one look at the burning house, screamed, and ran into the flames. I thought she was crazy.”

“Where is this woman?” Belinda asked. “I want to talk to her.”

“She’s right—” Ben turned toward the area where he had left her. “She was right here.”

He ran back to the now empty place, then looked in all directions, but found nothing.

“She’s gone!”

I
N THE ORANGE GLOW
cast by the sun rising over the Ouachitas, Ben and Mike surveyed the damage to Coi Than Tien. The Truong home was gone; nothing remained but charred wood and rubble. Substantial portions of the homes on both sides were also burned. The entire settlement reeked of smoke.

After Sheriff Collier finally arrived, he took Colonel Nguyen and Maria Truong, the woman Nguyen had pulled from the burning home, to a clinic in town, along with several others suffering from smoke inhalation. They never found the woman Ben had rescued. She had disappeared without a trace; no one seemed to know who she was or where she had gone.

As Ben and Mike approached the charred ruins Sheriff Collier was standing outside, scribbling in a notepad.

“ ’Morning, Kincaid,” Collier said, without looking up. “Glad to see you again when you’re not behind bars.”

Not as glad as I am, Ben thought. “Find anything interesting?”

“Lot of wasted firewood,” Collier muttered. “Few personal possessions. Not much else.”

“Have you determined what started the fire?”

“What am I, a fortune-teller?” the sheriff said irritably.

Ben glanced at Mike, then decided he’d better take the lead in this conversation. If Mike started lecturing the sheriff about arson, Collier would probably go off the deep end.

“Did you find any evidence of an incendiary device? Perhaps some fire-resistant casing? Maybe something as simple as a book of matches for a fuse.”

Sheriff Collier eyed him suspiciously. “What makes you so sure a book of matches started the fire?”

“I’m not. I’m hypothesizing.”

“Look, mister, these shacks are firetraps. No two ways about it. Probably one of these folks was smoking one of those funny pipes in bed, or trying to light a Chinese lantern, and the place caught fire.”

“No way,” Ben said firmly. “I was here when it happened. This was no gradual fire. We heard a loud noise, and then, a second later, the house erupted into flames. I saw a black pickup speeding away. Someone intentionally torched the house. We need to determine how they did it.”

“I’ll be damned if I’m going to root around in that trash heap,” Collier said. “What’s your interest in this, anyway? What’s the connection between this fire and your boy’s case?”

“I don’t know,” Ben answered. “But I can’t help but think there is one.”

Sheriff Collier closed his notepad and started toward his silver pickup. “If you’re looking for some convoluted story to get your client off the hook, you might as well forget it. We’re simple folk here in Silver Springs. We don’t get ourselves caught up in a lot of nonsense.”

“If it’s all nonsense,” Ben said, “you won’t mind if we look through the ruins ourselves?”

Collier frowned. It was obvious he did mind, but didn’t think he was in a position to offer any objection. “Suit yourself, but if you find any evidence, I expect to hear about it.”

“Believe me, you will.” The sheriff drove away.

“Good work, kemo sabe,” Mike said. “You played him like a violin.”

“Yeah, right.” He entered the ruins of the Truong home. “Aren’t you an arson expert?”

“Well, I worked arson cases for two years, if that’s what you mean.”

“Good enough. You’re in charge. How shall we proceed?”