Slow Burning Lies (29 page)

Then he unscrewed the lid of the bottle.

Maggie’s nostrils twitched and she let out another scream, this time one that sounded like her lungs were on fire. The man glanced back to the shop door, then slapped her. She stopped screaming for a moment then started again. He drew his hand back to strike her again – but stopped short. He stood up and started splashing gasoline from the bottle onto the floor, the tablecloths and the wallpaper.

Maggie was still screaming when he reached out for the cigarette lighter. He flicked the lid open and hit the wheel. The flame danced for a moment and grew as the man turned the control up. He passed the flame under his chin for a second and shut his eyes, caught in its spell, wafting it like his favourite perfume.

‘Please forgive me,’ he said to Maggie.

Maggie’s scream turned to a whimper as he placed the lighter down and slid it along the floor. It was more of a boom than a roar as the flames rose to the ceiling within seconds, and the flimsy tablecloths disintegrated, whirling ghostly fragments around the room in the hot draught.

Maggie’s screaming – all but over anyway – was drowned out by the thunder of fire taking hold. Still she struggled and shouted between coughs.

‘Stop!’ the man shouted. ‘It’s better for you if you’re unconscious.’ He held her face again, cradling her jaw in that same delicate way, then brought the other hand across, cracking into the side of her head. She went limp immediately and slumped to the floor.

Now the man himself started to cough, and he grabbed a bunch of napkins and clamped them onto his mouth.

He sprang up and within seconds was standing outside the coffee shop.

He ran across the road, scanning the street to see if anyone had yet noticed the flames engulfing the shop; apparently they hadn’t. He started calmly walking away.

Then he turned to take one final look at the shop, the flames now only visible behind the weaving plumes of smoke because full darkness had fallen.

And there he stood for a moment.

53

An hour and a half later the fire had been all but extinguished. The Lake’s End coffee shop was little more than a forlorn pile of debris floundering in a swamp of black treacly mess.

The only thing left undamaged was the sign above the shop, and even that was heavily dusted with soot.

Tesla and Johnson stood and surveyed the sad scene, lifting up their safety visors now the worst was over.

 
Ovens that once cooked bagels and cakes and pizzas – not forgetting the best cheesecake in Chicago – had themselves been cooked and ruined beyond salvation. Most of the tables were no more than searing hot metal legs with charcoal fragments atop. The counter, likewise, was now just a honeycomb frame with nothing to support but ash and melted formica. If there had been anything else – tills, display cabinets, utensils, chairs – then the inferno had left them unrecognisable amongst the watery sludge plastered over absolutely everything.

‘I used to come to this place all the time,’ Johnson said, glass fragments screeching under his boots as he turned.

Tesla nodded. ‘Well, we all gotta find someplace else from now on.’

‘But they did the best cheesecake in Chicago here.’

‘You know what?’ Tesla said. ‘The place that did the second best just got promoted.’

The men stood in silence for a few seconds, then Johnson’s nose twitched and sniffed the damp smoky air.

‘What d’you reckon?’ he said.

‘I reckon…
not good
,’ Tesla replied.

‘Gasoline?’

Tesla nodded. ‘Yep, but we’ll let Eddie find out for certain.’

Johnson let out a long breath and idly shoved a lump of ceiling plaster with his boot. ‘It’s a goddam coffee shop. Who on God’s earth would want to do this?’

‘The place that used to do the second best cheesecake?’

Johnson tutted a short laugh. ‘You’re a sick man, you know that?’

‘When I took you on didn’t I tell you you needed a sense of humour?’

‘Okay,’ Johnson said. ‘Point taken.’ He pointed to the doorway. ‘Hadn’t we better arrange for this place to be boarded up?’

As Tesla opened his mouth to speak there was shouting from the street outside. They recognized some of the tones as their colleagues’
don’t take no shit
attitudes and turned.

Between the wisps of smoke they spied a struggle of sorts and went out to see.

‘What’s going on?’ Tesla bellowed.

Two firemen were struggling to restrain a wiry middle aged man who wore a dirty tracksuit, a pair of well-used running shoes, and a distressed, wild-eyed expression.

‘He wants to go in,’ one of the firemen said.

‘Tell him he can whistle,’ Tesla said.

‘I did.’

‘Well, call the cops. Dealin’ with crazy bums like this ain’t our job.’

‘Listen to me,’ the man said. ‘My name’s Doctor Dolan. I threw on what clothes I had to hand and rushed out of my house because I knew my daughter’s life was in danger.’

Tesla looked back into the shop. ‘Oh. And you think she’s…?’

‘I know she works here.’

‘She sure as hell doesn’t anymore.’

‘Will you tell your clowns to let go of me? I need to look inside. I need to know whether that son of a bitch killed her.’

The other firemen looked to Tesla.

‘What did you say?’ Tesla asked the doctor.

‘He’s evil. He said he was going to kill her, he told me he was going to burn her alive.’

Tesla crossed his arms, making his thick plastic sleeves squeak. ‘And how exactly did he say he was going to start the fire.’

‘He didn’t.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘But my guess is he used the bottle of gasoline he had on him.’

Tesla and Johnson seemed to float an inch taller as they gave each other a sideways glance. Neither man spoke.

‘Come on,’ the doctor said. ‘I need to know. Did you find anyone in there?’

‘Follow me,’ Tesla said, grabbing a safety helmet from one of his colleagues and placing it on the doctor’s head. ‘You too,’ he said to Johnson. He turned back to the doctor. ‘You won’t be able to come right in. This is a crime scene until we find out how it started.’

‘I told you how it started,’ the doctor said. ‘It was gasoline.’

‘But how do you know all this?’

The doctor didn’t react to the words. He’d already stopped still, open-mouthed at the wreckage before them.

‘I guess we can talk about that later,’ Tesla said.

‘Oh, please,’ the doctor said, his tone now weak. ‘Please look for her.’

‘Listen,’ Johnson said. ‘We all know how you feel, buddy. But you have to wait here.’

The doctor nodded and stood in the doorway as Tesla and Johnson started sifting through the crumbled remains with wrecking bars. They were re-treading old steps, except the smoke had almost completely cleared now so visibility was better. More importantly they knew someone was in here – or had been.

‘There!’ the Doctor shouted.

Both firemen turned and their eyes chased the line of his finger.

One of the table tops had collapsed in two, half of it disintegrating to black ash, the other half resting where it had fallen, diagonally across the floor, forming a shelter against the wall.

‘Sir! Stay out!’ Johnson shouted back as the doctor staggered across the wreckage.

He was ignored.

‘Move it!’ the doctor said, his face red and trembling. ‘Move the table!’

Johnson looked to Tesla for support, but the more senior fireman gave his head a dismissive shake.

‘You think someone could be behind there?’ Johnson said.

‘Sure they could,’ the doctor answered. ‘If their life’s on the line. Now will one of you help me lift this?’

Then the doctor let out a groan and fell to his knees. ‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘Oh, Jesus Christ in heaven.’

‘What is it?’ Johnson said.

The doctor’s shaking hands held the item up to them. It was as charred as everything else in there – only its buckle suddenly shimmering in the flashlights as the doctor wiped the dust off it – but it was instantly recognisable.

It was a handbag.

‘Is that your daughter’s?’ Tesla said.

The doctor gulped and said, ‘To be truthful, I wouldn’t know.’ He stood up and held the handbag to his chest, wiping off more dust. ‘But who else would be in here with a handbag at this hour?’

He stared at the chunk of table-top for a moment, then all three men grabbed it and pulled it over and away from the wall.

The floor underneath had been protected from the falling debris by the table. There was nothing but a light dusting.

‘I’m sorry,’ Johnson said, then corrected himself: ‘I mean, I’m glad her body’s not here. I’m just sorry we haven’t found—’

‘Hey guys!’ a voice shouted from the doorway.

All three men looked across.

‘That you, Tesla?’ the same voice shouted out. ‘Something here you need to take a look at.’

‘What is it?’ Tesla shouted back.

‘Eddie found her.’

‘
Her?
’ the doctor said. He stumbled towards the doorway, sliding and almost falling as he went. ‘Show me! Show me!’

The fireman at the door looked to Tesla.

‘Show him,’ Tesla said.

The two men raced across the road. The doctor had to wait for the fireman to catch up, then was led to a clearing, a sparse area next to the hedge that bordered a small park between road and shore. They both slowed as they approached a paramedic, who was kneeling down, throwing a shadow in front of herself.

The doctor cried out as he saw the lifeless figure sprawled out in the shadow, then dropped to the ground and touched his daughter’s blackened face. As he drew his fingers down her cheeks they left three thick flesh-coloured lines. He threaded the same fingers through her hair, matted and melted into clumps by the force of the heat.

He put an arm underneath her shoulders and lifted her up, cradling her as tenderly as if she were newborn.

Still, her body was limp.

‘Sir,’ the paramedic said. ‘You have to let me check her out.’

The doctor looked across and, through sniffles, said, ‘Is… is she…?’

The paramedic took in a breath of the tainted air that hung over them like an unwanted friend. ‘I’ve only just found her,’ she said.

‘But she must be!’ the doctor said. ‘She must have gotten out somehow.’ He thrust a finger back to the shop. ‘If she walked out of there she must be all right.’

‘But we…’ The paramedic softened her tone. ‘But we don’t know she did walk out.’

Just then a car turned in the cordoned off area and splashed light on them.

And the doctor saw something.

Maggie – or her body – had been laid out with her head resting on something: a makeshift pillow. He only caught a glimpse of it but he saw it clearly enough.

It was a rolled-up coat – a dark woollen overcoat.

The doctor stood up and his eyes hopped around the park, squinting in the darkness.

Half a mile away, on a passenger ferry chugging its way across Lake Michigan, a man sat on a shore side seat, staring back to the land, to the city lights that faded to a smoky grey at that one location. He was expressionless, emotionless.

‘Where are you headed, young man?’

He turned to see the lady who had just sat down next to him.

‘Wherever,’ he said with a shrug.

She paused as she passed him a puppy-dog frown. ‘For all you know I might well be going there myself,’ she said eventually.

He smiled. He was sad but she was comical. The two cancelled each other out and gave him a little hope in a world short on mercy.

‘Say, aren’t you cold?’ she said.

He shook his head.

‘It can turn mighty chilly on the lake this time of night,’ she continued. ‘You should have brought a coat.’

In the moonlight he noticed a tang of ginger hair and the jowls of deepening old age. She was chatty and she showed a little concern to a stranger. That meant she was a good person. In another life she could have been his mother.

For a moment he though she was going to stretch her arms out and hug him.

Instead, she smiled, a warm glint in her eye. ‘Young man, we’ll be sitting next to each other for some time; we might as well get to know each other. My name’s Marie. I’m from Oregon originally. I’ve moved up here to live with my daughter, Louisa, and her family. My… my husband died recently.’

‘Oh,’ the man said. ‘I’m sorry about that.’

‘You and me both. He was such a nice, caring man; never a bad thought, let alone a bad deed.’ She lifted her eyes to the sky and held them there for moment. ‘Still. A new life beckons. And Louise makes up for it – it’s what children are for.’

‘Yes. I guess they help.’

‘You’re British, aren’t you?’

He nodded.

‘I can tell. I spent a summer there when I was at college. Do you have a name?’

‘A name?’ He turned his head back towards the distant shore, to the spot that had been alive with fire and billowing smoke just half an hour earlier when he’d boarded.

‘You can call me… Jonathan.’

‘You don’t seem too sure who you are?’

‘Jonathan,’ he said, forcing a nod. ‘My name’s Jonathan.’