The Blackout

by K J Kalis

  “That’s a good idea. I bought him a cookie.” Jack searched her face. “Is that okay?”

  “Yes, of course.” Kat smiled. Jack was a careful child. The therapist that had worked with him said that the trauma of his dad leaving at such a young age could be a problem in the future. He might question decisions as he made them. The therapist told her to encourage him every time he made a good decision to strengthen his confidence. She added, remembering the therapist's suggestion, “That was a nice thing to do for Mike. Good job!” She ruffled his hair, then looked down at her phone. It had only been a few minutes, but there was no response from Theresa or Bart yet. Kat sighed. All they could do was wait.

  By the time Kat and Jack got back to Mike’s room, Van was there. “Hey, Van!” Jack said pushing past him to give Mike the cookie he bought. Kat almost stopped Jack from giving Mike the cookie. She didn’t know if he could. Luckily, the nurse was with him and nodded that it was okay.

  Kat stayed outside the room. Van joined her. “What are you doing here?” she asked, reaching for his hand and giving it a squeeze.

  “Didn’t want to leave you here to sort this out on your own. You don’t have the best luck at hospitals…”

  Kat smiled. Van was right. She had been drugged in a hospital a few years before when a blackmailer had approached her for information in return for a cure to her mother-in-law’s cancer. “That would be true.”

  Van searched her face. “Have you heard from Bart or Theresa yet?”

  Kat shook her head just as the nurse came out of the room. “Any news on Mike?”

  The nurse stopped. “Nothing yet. I just drew the labs. We have to wait for those to process. I’ll be back.”

  From down the hall, they saw movement. Kat turned and saw a man running toward them. She backed up to get out of the way, but then she realized that it was Bart Walsh. Mike’s dad had finally shown up. “Kat? Are you Kat?”

  Kat nodded.

  “Mike? Where’s Mike?”

  Kat pointed to the bed, where Mike was laying, nibbling on the cookie Jack brought him. Jack had perched himself on the stool again, licking his ice cream cone.

  “Mike, are you okay?”

  Kat could hear Bart talking to Mike. There was something wrong. CEO’s didn’t usually look frazzled. The way that Bart was moving and talking told her that something else was going on. Relief flooded her. Dealing with Bart — whatever his issue was — would be so much easier with Van there to help. She gave Van’s hand a squeeze and raised her eyebrows. He shook his head. She could tell they were both wondering what was going on with Bart.

  Bart seemed to calm down once he found Mike and saw that he was okay. He came out of the room. “Thanks for being here.” Bart looked at Van, reaching out his hand, “We haven’t met?”

  “Van Peck. I’m Kat’s husband.” The men shook hands.

  Bart nodded and looked at Kat. “I think we met one other time?”

  “Yes. At baseball.” Kat looked at Bart. Despite the fact that he was dressed in a nice suit and was now speaking calmly, there was something off. Something she couldn’t quite explain. His eyes kept darting down the hallway as if he was looking for someone. Kat didn’t want to ask him where he’d been. It really wasn’t her business, after all. None of this was. A well of anger started to flow within her. Her fists clenched. Why were they here? She didn’t know Theresa well enough to be the one called when her child got sick. It didn’t make any sense that people who had just moved to California were the best option the Walsh’s had when it came to emergency contacts. Kat stayed silent, afraid of what she might say.

  “Listen, I’m sorry I’m late. It’s just…” Bart said, still looking down the hall. He looked down, his eyes seeming to focus on the floor. “It’s just… I can’t find Theresa.”

  Van frowned. “What do you mean? Did you call her?”

  Bart nodded, “Yeah. About ten times. When the school called, and I couldn’t get in touch with her, I ran home. I thought maybe she was in the shower and I could pick her up and we’d come here together. But she wasn’t there. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Kat pulled her phone out of her pocket. Theresa hadn’t called her either. Kat’s anger began to subside. As a mom, she knew she’d move heaven and earth to protect Jack. She always wanted to be there for him, no matter what he needed. She would have assumed that Theresa felt the same way. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying.”

  Bart ran his hand through his hair. Kat noticed his shirt had come untucked from his pants. The more she looked at him, the more disheveled he looked. “Theresa and I... we haven’t been that close recently. Things have been crazy at work. But I always know where she is. She goes walking at this time every morning. She always says the fresh air helps her to clear her head. But she wasn’t home, and she wasn’t walking. Her purse is still at home and so is her car.” Bart glanced back at Mike, who was resting in his bed across the hallway. Jack had the television remote in his hand, staring at the wall where the monitor was mounted. “I drove the route she walks. She wasn’t there.”

  Kat saw him reach into his pocket. Her mind was racing. What was Bart saying?

  “I stopped to look at the end of the street that’s behind ours. As soon as I got out, I saw this on the ground.” He opened his hand, a white earbud in his palm. “I think this is Theresa’s. Something’s wrong. I know it.”

  As the words came out, Mike’s nurse walked by. Van stopped her, “Hey, is there a conference room or an empty office we can use for a few minutes?” Van pointed to Bart. “He’s pretty stressed out.”

  The nurse nodded, “Sure. It’s just two doors down on the left. Light switch is on the wall to the right when you open the door.”

  Kat darted into Mike’s room to point to Jack where they’d be if he needed them. She wasn’t too excited about leaving the boys on their own even for a couple of minutes, but they needed to hear what Bart had to say.

  Van opened the door to the conference room and flipped on the light switch, the fluorescent lights casting hard shadows throughout the room. Kat squinted. She didn’t go the whole way into the room. Instead, she stayed in the doorway, leaning her back on the doorframe, watching the hallway for movement in or out of Mike’s room.

  Bart sat on the edge of the table that took up the center of the room. It was cherry in color, but by looking at it, Kat knew it was some form of laminated wood. Bart probably had the real thing in all of his conference rooms at work. He didn’t seem to notice though.

  Van stood nearby. He looked at Bart and said, “Tell me this, why do you think that earbud is Theresa’s?”

  Bart pulled it out of his pocket again, his voice cracking. “When she first got these, she couldn’t remember which ear to put them in. Said she couldn’t ever find the lettering that the company put on them. Mike helped her and they marked them.” He pointed. “See? This one says L in black marker.”

  Kat glanced over to see what Bart was pointing at. There was a black L on the earbud. She returned her gaze down the hallway, her heart sinking just a little for Bart, but especially for Mike.

  “Do you have a theory about what happened to Theresa?” Van asked. “You must have

  some idea…”

  Bart sighed. “The problems I’ve been having at work… they have gotten a little out of control.” He looked at Kat. “The guy you talked to at work, Sal? He’s been helping me, but I think things are going off the rails.”

  “And you think that somehow these problems you are having have extended to Theresa?” Van asked.

  Bart stared at the floor again. “I’m afraid they have. I don’t know what to do.”

  17

  Freddie Henderson rolled the toothpick in his mouth with his tongue. He had made his way through the worst of the morning traffic into an area down in a canyon near Modesto. The night before, a small wildfire had started and was currently making its way up the ridge.

  Freddie tuned the radio in his Cal Fire SUV to a
bluegrass station. Not many people he’d met loved country music the way that he did, but for some reason it was in his bones. It was probably because he’d grown up in Oklahoma, where country music was a lot more popular than in California. Freddie tapped his fingers on the wheel, following the GPS that was barking directions to the next scene he had to investigate.

  As the lead arson investigator, Freddie’s job meant he spent a lot of time in the car, especially this time of year. When the summer ended, the winds started to blow and that created the best opportunity for a single spark to start a massive, acreage-eating wildfire. During other times of the year, Freddie helped the local departments with their abandoned building fire reports and other types of arson. This time of year, it was wildfires, at least most of the time.

  Freddie hummed along to the music as the miles passed by, thinking. Most people didn’t realize that wildfires were a strange beast. You’d think they would start at the top of a hill and then crawl their way down. That just wasn’t the case. In fact, he’d seen some fires that got started by lightning actually burn out on their own if they were at the crest of a hill. Fire didn’t like to travel down.

  The GPS told him to take the next right turn. As it did, the GPS told him that he was a mile from the scene. He noticed the road took a steep slope down into a small, narrow canyon. This was the kind of place that fires liked to start. Give them a little tinder and a place they could crawl up and you could have ten thousand acres on fire before the first fire truck ever got there.

  A beep from the GPS told him that he had arrived, but he knew that already. There was a fire truck sitting on the side of the road and yellow tape strung between two trees that had survived the fire. Freddie pulled up, the tires on the left side of his SUV grinding on the gravel. He threw it into park and got out, the smell of smoke still hanging in the air. He took a minute to look around as he got his gear.

  The area looked to be a typical California neighborhood. One that was out of the city a ways, at least. Plenty of trees and undeveloped land dotted with small houses and a winding road. He understood why people liked to live out here. Less traffic, more nature. The canyons and mountains were pretty. There were some natural hazards, of course, including snakes and the occasional mountain lion, but other than that, the biggest problem was the probability of a fire.

  The hills in areas like the ones he was looking at were steep and filled with scrub. Rosewood, Cyprus, Mesquite — the trees all made for great fuel if a fire could get started. He flipped the toothpick in his mouth again. If he was here, then he knew a fire had happened.

  Cal Fire tracked how the fires got started. Knowing whether it was campers who hadn’t put out their fire or some freak electrical storm that sent a shot of lighting down just in the right spot, the higher-ups thought that the more they knew, the more they could control the fires. Freddie doubted that was the case but played along. Fires had a mind of their own.

  * * *

  After he got injured on the job, Freddie wasn’t sure what direction he’d go. A buddy offered him a job selling appliances while he recovered but trying to convince Mr. and Mrs. Smith that the GE was a better buy than the Samsung didn’t excite him in the least. He knew he’d been called to help people and the fire department was his way.

  One day, when he was lying on the couch, just home from physical therapy, the Chief called. He’d known Ned for a while, but not well.

  “How are you feeling?” Ned asked.

  “Good, sir. Just got home from PT. They said I should be good to go in a few weeks.” As the words came out of his mouth, he knew they were a lie. The doctors had been plain with him. The odds that he’d be able to resume his work as a full-time firefighter were slim to none. The damage to his shoulder had been surgically repaired, but they didn’t think he’d have the range of motion or the strength that he’d once had. Running his lanky frame into blazing buildings probably wouldn’t ever happen again.

  “That’s good to hear.”

  Freddie could tell by the tone in the Chief’s voice that he didn’t believe him. At least the Chief was gracious enough to let him continue to believe the lie for a little longer. Freddie swallowed hard, the toothpick turning in his mouth. “How can I help, Chief?”

  “Well, that’s the thing. I know you are eager to get back in the field…” the words hung in the air for just a second, “... but I have a special assignment I was wondering if you’d consider for now.”

  “Shoot, Chief.” Freddie’s heart lifted a little. He stood up from the couch and shut off the television.

  “One of our arson investigators just left for Colorado. I need someone and I need them now. You have a nose for fires. You’ve been out in the field and I need someone I can trust. Interested?”

  “Are you kidding? Yes! When do I start?” The idea that Freddie still had a place, any place, in the fire department drew a smile the whole way across his face.

  “What time is it now?” the Chief asked.

  “Sir, it’s ten am.”

  “I’ll see you in an hour at headquarters.”

  The call disconnected without Freddie having a moment to reply. It didn’t matter though. He had a job. A new job, but one doing what he loved to do.

  * * *

  Freddie called to the firefighter standing by the truck at the side of the road, “What’s up, Chuck?” He loved funny turns of phrases like that. “Get it? Upchuck?”

  “Very funny, Freddie.”

  Freddie’s job had allowed him to get to know firefighters and investigators from all across the region. While the local departments responded to most fires, Cal Fire, the state agency, came in when they needed more resources, didn’t have enough manpower or needed specialized experience. The fire where Freddie had been injured had been one where the local company had been out on an abandoned warehouse fire and couldn’t handle the house fire too. The reality was that the people waiting for help didn’t care what kind of truck it came in. “How are the boys?”

  “Getting big and nasty. The twins are eight and are planning a career in pro wrestling. They like to practice on our cat. Molly put a stop to that. Now they are using couch pillows.” Chuck shook his head.

  “I’d love to see them sometime.”

  “Yeah, let’s do that after we get through these winds. I have a feeling all of us are going to be a little busy for the time being.”

  Freddie lifted his head a bit, feeling a gust push past him, ruffling his red hair. “I’d say so. Whatcha got for me?”

  Chuck motioned for Freddie to follow. They didn’t go too far, just down off the side of the road about ten feet, the gravel crunching under their boots as they made their way down. While the trees and brush by the road didn’t show any signs of being involved in the fire, as soon as Freddie made it down off the side of the road, the smell of burning brush was stronger. “Smells like a new one in here,” he said.

  “Yeah, last night. A couple of neighbors called it in. Said they heard a pop and a crackle and there it went.” Chuck pointed to the top of the hill where smoke was curling into the sky. “They just had a water drop and put it out. Luckily, this one didn’t get too far.”

  Freddie nodded, moving the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other.

  “Take a look at this.” Chuck pointed to the base of an electrical pole. “This is why you're here. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Freddie looked around to get his bearings. They weren’t more than about twenty feet off the side of the road, standing at the base of what had been a utility pole. He looked up to see the top had shattered, a jagged top left instead of a complete pole. At the base of where the pole had been, about thirty feet away, was the transformer. “What in the world?”

  “I know. It’s strange, right?”

  “You could say that.” Normally, when a transformer blew, it stayed on the pole. Clearly, that wasn’t the case here. “The power is off, right?” Freddie asked, seeing the heavy black power cables laying on the grou
nd, pulled nearly twenty feet away from what was left of the pole.

  “For sure. I wouldn’t be out here if it was live.”

  As Freddie started to snap some pictures, his mind started to race, looking for possibilities. What he discovered when he joined the arson investigator’s office was that as much as he enjoyed fighting the fires, he enjoyed figuring them out even more. His shoulder injury had been the best thing to happen to him, that was for sure.

  Freddie stepped back, taking in the scene one piece at a time. “So, what we have here is a splintered electrical pole, a transformer that looks like it was launched off the pole and the lines pulled away. That’s one heck of a power surge, wouldn’t you say?”

  Chuck nodded.

  “Any chance the pole was rotted?” Freddie knew it was unlikely. Utility poles were made of pressure-treated lumber that simply wouldn’t rot.

  “Nope. Look at the wood that’s still attached to the transformer.” Chuck pointed to the bottom of it. “It’s solid.”

  “You are a crack investigator, my friend,” Freddie said, making his way through the charred brush to the piece of equipment. Most people thought transformers were small, but what they didn’t realize was they were so high up on most poles that the size they saw was just part of the effect based on distance. In reality, depending on the model, a transformer could be anywhere from four to six feet long and a couple of feet in diameter. Freddie knelt down, using his pen to poke at the wood. It was solid. “Yup, you’re right. Solid as a rock.” Freddie tilted his head to the side, seeing that the bolts were still in place. “That’s strange.”

  “Whatcha see?”

  “Take a look at this Chuck. The bolts are still firmly secured to the pole. There is no way that this was rotted wood or anything like that. This has nothing to do with the pole.” Freddie stood up. He looked again at the scene, taking in the shattered pole, the transformer and the dead power lines. “Did you notice where the transformer fell?”