Through the Fire (11 page)

She couldn’t hear him with her headset on. He pulled his on and I followed.

“What are you yappin’ about back there?” she said.

Lowell positioned the mic by his mouth. “I said, ‘You’re not in a bad mood, are you?’ ”

Butcher opened the map book. “This’ll be one block east of Wells Avenue.”

“Got it.” Kat varied the siren tone as we approached an intersection. “Why do you think I’m in a bad mood, Lowell?”

He strapped on his air pack. “No. I didn’t say I think you’re in a bad mood. I was just wondering if you
were
in a bad mood.”

“Why were you wondering that, though?”

“Clear right,” Butcher said as we slowed for a stop sign. “It’s a small apartment complex. There’s a hydrant on . . . the north side it looks like.”

Kat hung a hard right.

Lowell steadied himself with a hand on the door. “Well,” he said. “Obviously now you are in a bad mood.”

“I am not.”

“Okay, you two. Watch these pedestrians up here.”

“Right, I see ’em.”

Lowell leaned toward me and pulled off his headset. I moved mine away from my ear.

He nodded. “I find it’s always best to stay seated when she drives angry.”

“I heard that,” Kat said.

Butcher stared through the windshield. “It looks like we’ve got smoke up ahead, guys.”

My chest fluttered, vibrating all the way down through my knees. I kicked each foot to shake it out.

Cool air fed through my cracked window. The moon shone bright, unobstructed by clouds.

As we crossed Wells Avenue I smelled the smoke.

Gray ribbons wrapped around a second-floor walkway. Lowell put a hand on his door handle.

A man in boxers and a white T-shirt ran to the rig, waving his arms. “Gun! He’s got a gun!”

Butcher yelled to the backseats, “Hold up. Get back in.” He glanced at Kat and picked up the mic. “Let’s pull forward. Reno, Engine One’s on scene, two-story cinderblock multifamily residence with gray smoke showing from a first-floor unit. Advise all incoming units to stage out of the area—we have a report of a suspect on scene with a gun.”

Kat pulled us past the rear alleyway. An apartment’s back window shattered with fire spitting out of it.

“There,” Katrina said, pointing in her side-view mirror.

A pale, lanky man hurtled over a juniper hedge and scrambled down the sidewalk. He wore a pair of tight black jeans and an unzipped polo jacket that flapped behind him. Two RPD patrol cars skidded to a stop in front of him. He hesitated and tried to double back, jumping over the hood of a parked car. He hit his boots midway and then slipped off headfirst onto the concrete. Kevlar-covered chests pounced on him like wasps on a barbecued chicken wing.

“That’s him,” Katrina said. “That’s Biltman. They got him.”

“All right,” Butcher said. “Let’s get in there.”

Kat backed up the rig. Rolling coal-colored curtains flowed from the first floor. I hopped out and stretched a live-line to the door. Kneeling with the nozzle between my legs, I strapped on my mask.

I was forgetting something.

My axe.

Lowell walked up, helmet in hand. “Let’s do it.” He seated his helmet and hoisted his axe, busting out the window beside the door.

Tarry shadows shifted inside, levitating like specters. Owl eyes blinked from the blackness.

Keep your cool, Aidan. Keep your cool.

Butcher held his mask in one hand and motioned with the other. “Swirl us some water in there, A-O.”

I shot the stream in the cloud. It shook and hissed. Lowell pulled more of the hose to the door. I shut down the bale. Butcher checked the doorknob. It didn’t budge. I felt around my belt grasping air. No axe.

“Watch out,” Butcher said, nudging me aside. He turned around and burro-kicked the door.

Wood cracked. He kicked again, pounding out splinters. A third kick. The frame snapped and the door flew open.

Smoke snuck surreptitious glances around the corners.

Lowell twirled his axe over his hand and sheathed it in his belt.

“I could’ve got that, Marky.”

Butcher motioned with his head. “Let’s get in there.”

I hesitated. Lowell nearly snatched the nozzle, but I yanked it away.

He strapped on his mask. “Wet stuff on the red stuff, A-O.”

I put a hand on the doorframe and crawled inside. Lowell lifted the hose line behind me. I swam forward as though under murky water.

The image of a giant wave flitted through my mind.

Focus, Aidan. Focus.

The temperature heightened. The front of my helmet hit something large and hard.

“Keep going.” Lowell said.

“I can’t.”

I felt around to both sides. A hard flat object on my left, to my right something softer. I pushed and it moved enough for us to squeeze past.

An orange glow lit the black fog beyond. The heat forced us lower.

Again, the laughing.

My breathing quickened, ineffective and shallow.

Lowell pushed me on. Flames fanned around a shut door. I crawled to it, clenching my teeth. He reached in front and shoved it inward.

The room lit like concert lights. I sucked the air from my mask. Waves of fire rolled overhead.

I cranked open the bale. Water hammered the hose and knocked me to my rear. The line snaked and slithered back. I grasped the nozzle tight.

Don’t lose it again, Aidan!

Lowell burrowed his shoulder into my back. I balanced off him and made my knees, hosing the furnace, whipping the water stream in a broad circle.

The ceiling darkened and the doorframe flickered down. Lowell pushed the hose forward. I steadied myself with a hand on the floor.

He nudged my back. “The seat of the fire’s in the bathroom.”

“I know, I know.” My knees kept sticking to the melted carpet.

I penciled overhead with short bursts of water. We crept forward and found a door to a small bathroom burned halfway out, everything beyond involved in fire that shot out a high rectangular window.

The flame seemed to form horns and turn its head.

It saw me.

Regrouping itself, it grew and intensified, coming for me.

I brought one knee up and unleashed the water stream. It screamed and hissed, blowing ashy smoke back over us. Everything became lost in the cloud. I saw myself standing before the towering wave, it sucking me up, lifting me, clenching me in its indomitable fist, its arm cocked, ready to drive me back to the rocks.

A terror-filled yell choked out in my throat.

Then the atmosphere cooled, smoke color shifting to a thinning gray. And the vision fled.

Lowell patted my shoulder. “All right, buddy. Let’s shut her down.”

Fans roared from the front door. Flaming speckles dotted the doorframe. Smoke streams flowed out of the bathroom window. Sweat bullets ran down my cheeks. My chest heaved. Additional crews came crouching under the rising smoke line, setting droplights and throwing salvage covers over furniture. Lowell busted holes in the drywall, exposing charred studs. I followed behind and bathed the wood with the bale cracked open.

The apartment cleared of haze, and I saw a scorched couch sitting cockeyed in the living room, our hose line winding behind it. A wall heater with a dent hung where I had hit my helmet. A kitchen counter rose beside it. Everything plastic sported elongated drips stretching to the floor in suspended animation. A television pouted, having folded in on itself.

The truck company went to work pulling ceiling. Lowell and I regrouped with Butcher outside. I peeled off my mask.

Lowell peered back in the doorway and motioned to Butcher. “Mark. Check this out.”

On the kitchen counter rested a shotgun barrel and a hacksaw. The remains of a wooden table lay broken and splintered on the floor.

Butcher pointed to the stock of a gun sticking out of a box on the floor. “An improvised sawed-off shotgun?”

Lowell looked into the box. “This thing’s full of cartridges. We crawled right past it.”

My stomach knotted. I ran my fingers through my hair and glanced around the living room.

“Let’s tape this off until the investigator gets here,” Butcher said.

A dark-haired cop with a Tom Selleck moustache walked over to Butcher. “You guys get the story on what happened?”

Butcher wiped his brow. “No. We saw you catch our arsonist, though.”

I loosened the shoulder straps on my air pack.

The cop folded his arms. “Good old freaky Biltman. Turns out this is his place.”

That got my attention.

“Did you know he’s also a meth addict?” he continued. “He owed money to some gang members who, he said, were waiting for him outside this apartment with automatic weapons.” He rested his hand on his gun. “He doesn’t have phone service, so he figured he’d set a fire to cause a distraction and bring help.”

Lowell shook his head. “Hacked up his table and set it on fire in the tub.”

The cop nodded. “His neighbor came downstairs with a fire extinguisher and Biltman shoves a gun in his face and tells him that if he puts it out he’ll kill him. The fire spread faster than Biltman could handle and so he bailed. That was when you guys pulled up.”

“Great,” Lowell said. “That’s just great.”

Butcher nodded. “That neighbor must have been the guy yelling at us when we first got here.”

The cop scratched the back of his head.

“Good times,” Lowell said.

The cop smirked. “Yeah. Good times.”

CHAPTER
20

I
flipped open my phone and dialed. It rang a couple times as I walked to the Cruiser.

Blake answered, “Investigator Williams.”

“You just like saying that, don’t you?”

“What’s up, you hose dragger?”

“Where are you right now?”

“I’m over at Prevention. Trying to make some headway.”

“You still want to meet this morning?”

“Yeah. Yes, absolutely. In fact, I was just packing things up here and was about to call you. How was the night?”

“I don’t even want to talk about it.”

“Well, I’ll buy your first cup of coffee, then.”

“Sounds great. Dreamer’s or Java Jungle?”

“Let’s do Dreamer’s this time.”

I rolled out of Central and crossed the Virginia Street Bridge, its century-old concrete weathered but stalwart, and parked by the coffeehouse in the old Riverside building. I took my coffee outside and sat at a table along its brick-lined walls and watched the dry-suited paddlers in the kayak park, marveling that the brisk autumn air did little to dissuade them.

There is something discernable in the human spirit when fatigue has flooded the synapses. Time slows. Perception floats. I’ll hear leaves rustle, sense wind currents, notice light refracting off the dew-laden legs of an insect. A couple yellow boats sank and surfaced, spinning and turning off the standing waves. The sound of the water and the gentle rustle and dance of the Riverwalk trees proved a refreshing alternative to the Station One walls and the windows that wouldn’t open.

One hour of sleep. The same sun I’d seen rising on my way to work had risen again, but
my
day hadn’t ended. Lowell said it was like the sun was mocking him.

A man and woman walked past wearing long wool overcoats. Coal for him, tan for her, along with a scarlet beanie. She laughed, their fingers intertwined and swaying in rhythm with their steps. I took a sip and thought of Julianne.

I still couldn’t place her. But something about her seemed . . . right. Like home.

I had a clear view of the corner loft in the Park Tower where I had lived when Christine and I started dating. She’d moved in there after I bought my parents’ house. It was a cool little flat, all four hundred and forty square feet—not including the balcony, which is what really made it great. The summer festivals, the concerts, Artown movies at night in Wingfield Park. I remember having ice tea with her while we watched
The Wizard of Oz
from a pair of chaise lounges we found at the Salvation Army store. If Reno had a heart, this was it. It was where mine fell for hers, six years prior. And that first year was good.

Then my dad was killed.

It made everything different. I know it shouldn’t have. But I became so caught up in the investigation. I wanted to know, needed to know, every fact about that fire. I read and reread every report typed by every captain and chief and investigator. Not to mention news articles and editorials. Stacks of papers cluttered up corners of my flat. When Christine came over after classes, we’d be less than ten feet from each other—me at the desk, poring over incident narratives and her on the couch, cross-legged and hedged in by a book. She read Ayn Rand a lot. That should have been my first red flag.

Folks were full of wisdom for me. “Sometimes bad things happen, Aidan.” “It was just his time, Aidan.” “Believe me, Aidan, God doesn’t have anything against you or your father. Firemen die sometimes, and there’s nothing we can do to stop that.”

That last shining nugget had come from Butcher.

I stopped going to our church. It seemed as if every time someone saw me it made them think of my dad. I couldn’t walk from the foyer to the sanctuary without half a dozen “caring” and inquisitive comments about me and my mom and my grandfather. It was just easier not to go. So I didn’t. If I wasn’t at work, I was at the Prevention office with Blake, and if I wasn’t there, I was sitting on a stool nursing a Guinness, listening to stories about my great-grandfather and the San Francisco quake told by Patty McDonough, who was so ancient I couldn’t believe he still had the strength to pull the tap handle.

Somehow, the stories soothed me. My father had died, but our family legacy hadn’t.

My mother, amid her own heartache, still walked with a strange peace through it all. She encouraged me to talk things out. But I’d dodge her invitations, giving her clichés about how it didn’t work that way for guys. We fix our own things. We don’t ask for directions. We retreat to the cold dark shelter of our caves and concoct charcoal-laid plans for overcoming the beast.

My solitary grieving eventually ran its course, and Christine graciously welcomed me back. She understood I had needed time for healing and resolution. Problem was, I’d never found any. I was just as confused and angry and frustrated with God as I had been when it first happened. We never really talked about how my father being crushed by a fallen brick wall affected me when I tried to go to sleep, or when I went on fires. Because I wanted to make sure that she and everyone knew that I wasn’t going to give in, that I wouldn’t meet the same fate. I would beat it. I would always know what the fire was doing. I would sense a structure before it collapsed. I would hear the fire before it flashed. And I would not be God’s next example of how firemen just die sometimes and there ain’t a thing anyone can do about it.