Vertical Burn (10 page)

21. THE HERO SYNDROME

At one end of the house a bathtub dangled by its plumbing. At the other end a broken chimney stood alone like a splinted finger. Most of the upper floor and roof had burned off or been pulled down by firefighters with pike poles, as they hunted out the last embers, and the house had spilled its contents like a broken egg; bits of smoldering cloth and burned garbage lay in the yard. They would wait to finish the overhaul until after Marshal 5 had sifted through the ruins and made a determination of cause.

Small rooms, a good toehold, lots of nooks and crannies, balloon construction, and careful preparation by an arsonist had made the fire almost impossible to stop. Because there was a victim, it was especially important to determine cause, yet there wasn’t much left to sift through; the fire damage was massive. In Washington State an arson resulting in a fatality could be charged as murder and would be, if Annie died and if the SFD apprehended the culprit.

As they waited for Marshal 5 to arrive, Chief Smith located Finney in the rest area.

“Splendid job,” Smith said, his face transforming into a mask of smile wrinkles. “McKittrick said he thought nobody could make it up there, but by golly, you did, John. You and Lieutenant Sadler. You two make a great team.”

“Actually it was Diana Moore off of Ladder One. I probably owe her my life.”

The chief, who may or may not have heard him, stooped and picked up Finney’s helmet. SFD helmets were constructed of a tough, resilient plastic, and it was rare to melt one. Doing so was considered a totem of bravado, an announcement that one had gone where nobody else could. Finney’s helmet was melted from the top down, the face shield dissolved onto the blackened shell like a slice of cheese. “I just wanted to let you know what you did won’t go unnoticed. In fact, I’m going to submit you and Lieutenant Sadler both to the awards committee.”

“It was Diana Moore. And I don’t want an award. She should get one, though.”

Chief Smith smiled. “Moore, huh? How the hell did she haul a hose line up there by herself?”

“Same way any of us would have. Muscled it up.”

“Young woman surprises me sometimes.” Chief Smith winked as he left, and said, “Sure is cute as a button.” Or maybe he said, “Sure has a cute bottom.” Finney wasn’t sure which he heard. Both were true.

A few minutes later Gary Sadler approached, his coat open, a cup of hot cocoa hidden in his large fist. Drifting smoke mixed with the fog, so that except for the red flanks of two nearby fire engines, the neighborhood was blanked out.

Sadler’s face was sweaty, his teeth and mustache peppered with soot. He looked around and, when he saw they were alone, said, “You have a problem following orders?”

The animosity in his voice surprised Finney. “Because I went for the ladder?”

“Because you left me alone inside. You have a problem?”

“My only problem is fiddle-faddling around while somebody is burning to death.”

“I was waiting for
you
to go up those stairs with me. Were you scared?”

“The stairs were gone. I told you that. I told you I was going outside.”

“It turned out the stairs were gone, but what if they hadn’t been?”

“What kind of question is that? They were gone.”

“I didn’t know that at the time. I ordered you to stay inside with me. You and I both know we’re in a paramilitary organization here. We have officers and we have firefighters. The last time I checked, the officers gave the orders. The firefighters followed them.”

They stared at each other for a few tense seconds.

“You’re saying I should obey your orders even if it costs a life?”

“What the hell do you think would have happened if Ladder One hadn’t dragged that hose line up there and cooled your ass off? You were damn lucky you didn’t both get incinerated, you and that old woman. And maybe Moore, too. She’s a damned idiot, just like you.”

Just as Finney was reappraising Sadler in light of his refusal to cut the old woman’s chest so she could breathe, Finney could see in Sadler’s nearly opaque brown eyes that he was wondering whether Finney had abandoned Bill Cordifis the way he’d abandoned him.

Finney’s story about Leary Way couldn’t be verified, and these days everybody in the department sized Finney up in terms of what they imagined happened at that fire. They saw Finney; they saw a dead partner. People connected the dots in different ways. It was as if Finney didn’t have any other history, as if all those years he’d worked on Ladder 1 didn’t count for beans.

“By rights I should write charges on you,” Sadler said. “Insubordination at the scene of an emergency. You could get eight shifts off without pay.”

“I’d gladly trade eight shifts off for that woman’s life.”

“Oh, that’s cute. Make me look like the bad guy.” Sadler stepped close. For a few moments neither spoke. In different circumstances, perhaps with a few drinks under their belts, they might have come to blows. They both knew it would be ludicrous for Sadler to write charges on Finney after a successful rescue, no matter what orders he’d disobeyed. It would only serve to spotlight Sadler’s misjudgment and failure to reach her from inside the building. “When you came down to Twenty-six’s three weeks ago, people told me you had an ego the size of Texas, that you had a problem following orders. I didn’t listen because I like to size a man up for myself. But they were right. You’re a freelancer. A loose cannon. You go off and do what you like. It’s easy to see why Reese didn’t promote you.”

Sadler turned and walked away. When he was ten feet distant, he turned back and said, “I noticed your hand. You going to need stitches?” Finney had cut his hand through his glove sometime during the rescue, probably while breaking out the window. Someone had wrapped a roll of gauze around it; he couldn’t recall who. “I’ll get somebody to fill in so you can go see the doc.”

“Sure.” Although he knew in this instance it was true, Finney didn’t like being called a freelancer. In the old days freelancers were highly valued members of the department, firefighters who could get things done without being told. But these days everybody worked in pairs and they worked to a master plan—a man walking the fire ground by himself was in danger of a reprimand from the safety chief.

A few minutes later Finney noticed Captain G. A. Montgomery and Robert Kub. As Marshal 5’s unit administrator, G. A. rarely did fieldwork, so Finney was surprised to see him at a fire scene. Then again, they had a possible fatality.

G. A. took a couple of purposeful strides toward the house, surveying the disheveled firefighters in the rehab area. Clad in a fire department windbreaker, black slacks and dress shoes, a white shirt, and a tie that was so tight his neck veins stood out, G. A. Montgomery was hardly dressed to pick through a fire scene. Nevertheless, that’s what he and Kub proceeded to do.

Ten minutes later they trotted back around the side of the house and met Finney as he was carrying his MSA backpack to the rig. They shook hands, G. A.’s grip like a gorilla’s, not the least deterred by the dressing on Finney’s hand. When G. A. doffed his small-brimmed orange investigator’s helmet, his hair stuck out like bristles on an old brush, and his large, lined face grew serious.

“You guys first in?”

“Twenty-seven’s was.”

“But this is your district?”

“We were out of service on an aid run when the call came in.”

Stepping close enough that Finney could smell cloves on his breath, G. A. produced a toothpick from somewhere and placed it in the corner of his mouth. “When you got here, you see anything?”

“Yeah. Fog.”

“I was thinking along the lines of civilian activity, maybe someone suspicious hanging around?”

“Just fog.”

“That’s what your lieutenant said. He also said you two had a difference of opinion.” He bobbed the toothpick between his fleshy lips.

“He wanted to make the rescue from inside. I told him the stairs were burned out.”

“How did you know the stairs were burned out?”

“I knew where they were. And I could see the volume of fire in that part of the house. This is the house I was telling you about last night.”

G. A. Montgomery raised his eyebrows. “We’re on Riverside Drive? I guess we are. Hell of a coincidence. But then, coincidences are your meat and potatoes, aren’t they?”

“What does that mean?”

G. A. used his tongue to relocate his toothpick. “You realize this is arson. No electricity. Nobody living here. There’s a smell of gasoline around back.”

“I said last night it was set to be torched.”

Kub and Finney exchanged looks, and Kub turned to assess the building again, effectively removing himself from the conversation. It was a head-in-the-sand move that surprised Finney.

G. A. was holding a large clear plastic bag containing an article of navy-blue clothing. “We got lucky,” he said, flashing a mirthless grin. “We went over to the ER on the way here and talked to the fire victim. She said somebody came up behind her and put a bag over her head, knocked her senseless. When she woke up, she was on the second floor in the smoke.”

“She see who it was?”

“A fireman.”

Finney paused. “She able to ID him?”

“Oh, she knows the jerk. Not his name, but she can pick him out of a photo lineup.”

“There’s always the possibility she’s covering for her own screw-up,” said Kub, without turning to look at them. “Say, she started a warming fire in there and it got out of hand. You know she was rambling. Some of what she said didn’t make sense.”

G. A. gave Kub a disapproving look. “She was in pain and on morphine. But she’ll be a credible witness. People get burned like that, you get them on the witness stand, the jury wants to hang somebody real bad. And look at this,” he said, holding out the plastic bag. “My guess is the perp took it off and forgot about it. People get so simpleminded.” G. A. removed a jacket from the bag, and as he unfurled it, Finney realized it was nearly identical to one he kept in his clothing locker back at the station.

He started to say something, but stopped himself as the scattered events of the morning began rearranging themselves in his mind. An anonymous caller had set up a meeting an hour before change of shift. The assignation had left Finney loitering near the fire location, where, but for the fog, he would have been seen by any number of early morning commuters. As far as he knew, the only person to see him was Annie, but what if Annie thought he was the one who’d mugged her? It would certainly explain the terrified look on her face when she saw him after the rescue, a look that he now realized was more than just pain.

“You recognize this jacket?” G. A. asked, reaching into one of the pockets. He pinched a small green ticket stub.

“That a laundry ticket?” Kub asked.

Finney’s mouth went dry. He’d had his jacket dry-cleaned just last week, and Emerald City Cleaners used green tickets identical to the one G. A. was holding. Finney scanned the right sleeve, and there it was, a tiny blemish where he had accidentally splashed a drop of bleach a year ago.

“Looks like mine,” Finney said.

G. A. turned from the building and glowered at him. “What did you say?”

“That looks like my jacket.”

“This is
your
jacket?”

“Looks like it.”

G. A. glanced at Kub and then swung his gaze back onto Finney. “You running around setting fires on me, John?”

“I’m just saying that looks like my jacket.” It
was
his jacket but he hadn’t worn it in weeks. The last time he saw it, it was in his locker back at the station.

Kub said, “Could you have left it here the other day?”

Finney said nothing. He knew he hadn’t been wearing it the other day.

“If it had been out in the elements, it would be damp,” G. A. said. “Even if the fire had dried the top part, it was folded over pretty good and the bottom side would have been damp. It wasn’t. This was left here today. This morning.”

G. A. Montgomery and Kub both looked at Finney for several beats before Finney said, “You don’t think I had anything to do with this.”

“What I’ve learned over the years is that nobody’s ever quite what you imagine they are. This is the property you told us was set to burn. Maybe you didn’t think we were taking you seriously.”

“You can’t mean that. Even if by some incredible stretch of improbability I did do this—which I didn’t—I wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave anything at the scene.”

“You’re saying somebody else was stupid enough to leave your jacket here?”

“If I’d set this, why would I come back and drag Annie out?”

“Any sick son of a bitch can get a sudden attack of conscience. Or you mighta got bit by the hero complex. You see a chance for a medal and you go for it. You couldn’t help yourself. I’ve seen that before. Maybe you even put her in there just so you
could
come back and save her.”

“Someone took that jacket out of my station locker and planted it. Somebody knew I was talking to you about this place, and they wanted to discredit me.”

“I’d say you’ve been discredited.”

“You told somebody,” Finney said. “You must have given the address to somebody.”

“Sure. I spoke to Charlie last night right after you left.”

“Charlie Reese?”

“I called him at home. You think the chief of the department set this fire and framed you for it?”

“You tell him about my theory?”

“I told him. He said he was going to set up a committee to look into it. As soon as he found the time.” G. A. rotated the toothpick around his mouth a couple of times. “I doubt he’ll find the time now.”

“This was not my doing.”

“Put yourself in my shoes. You tell us about this building. Next day it burns down. At the scene, we find your coat, which you claim was stolen from your locker, a locker, I might add, that’s in a secure fire station. You know the stairs are gone when nobody else seems to, and then you go off and make a lone-wolf rescue without telling anybody.”

“I told Gary—”

“And now the victim tells us she talked to a firefighter on the street before the fire. I’ll bet a nickel against a dollar you can’t account for your whereabouts before you signed into the daybook this morning.”