by JL Wilson
Copyright, 2012, J L Wilson
Interior layout by www.formatting4U.com
All rights are reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portion thereof, in any form. This work may not be resold or uploaded for distribution to others.
This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
For more information, go to http://www.jayellwilson.com
Dedication
To Dave and Marcia--fireman, friend, family.
Chapter 1
I fell asleep on Saturday night propped on my pillows in bed. My book was open on my stomach and the bedside light was still on, music playing softly on my bedroom CD player. When I woke in the middle of the night, the music had automatically shut off and John was there.
He seemed to tower over the end of the bed, his thick black hair tipped with silver disarrayed and sweaty from his helmet, tucked under one arm. He wore his fire department turnout gear, the mustard yellow coat and pants stained on his arms and knees with ash, soot, and grease. Orange and silver florescent stripes around his arms and legs were a startling shock of color against the drabness of his outfit and against the background of darkness where he stood in the room.
John's gray eyes focused on me with that same look of love and bewilderment I remembered so well. I hadn't forgotten that about him although I may have misplaced other memories in the two years since he died.
"Why are you here, John?" My voice didn't tremble and that surprised me. I was either seeing a ghost or he was a figment of three glasses of wine and an angry phone call from several hours before.
"You look different but the same," he said in a soft voice. "I like your hair that way."
I smoothed back my shoulder-length auburn hair, now cut so it framed my face with wispy bangs above my dark green eyes. When John was alive, I wore it long and pulled back with a clip. After he died, I changed everything that was easy to change in a futile attempt to put the past behind me. It didn't work, of course. I was starting to doubt that I would ever put John or my guilt behind me.
"Nothing's the same, John." I sat up straighter, shivering despite the warmth of this late June night. Mr. Grumble, my gynormous gray-and-black Maine Coon cat, stirred from his spot pressed against my feet. He opened his eyes and regarded the apparition standing a scant foot or two away from him. Then he yawned and closed his eyes again. Either cats were more familiar than I was with spirits or I was hallucinating. Neither option was reassuring.
"You're dead," I said, struggling to keep my voice level. This had to be a dream, right? I couldn't be seeing a ghost...could I? "You died in that fire, rescuing the little girl who went into the building, chasing a puppy."
He smiled sadly. "I know. We died together. With the puppy."
It was so like John to mention the puppy. It was probably the puppy as much as the child that motivated him to run into a burning apartment building.
John's friend and now Roseville Fire Department captain, Paul Denton, had assured me that all of them--John, the child, and the dog--died when the building collapsed and they fell three stories into the basement. The fall, not the fire, killed them. I was grateful for that small comfort. I had visited firemen who were burn victims in the hospital and knew what an agonizing experience it was.
I went to the fire scene when Paul called me that night, telling me John was missing. I talked to the child's parents who were huddled there, watching the blaze. They blamed themselves for their little girl's death and apologized, the father grabbing my hands and the mother sobbing about John and how he died to rescue their baby. I tried to reassure them but they seemed oblivious to any comfort. They left town shortly after that so I could never explain to them that I didn't blame them or their child for John's death.
I blamed myself.
It wasn't until the next morning that another body was found in the debris. A woman had died in one of the apartments and no one reported her missing because she was newly moved into the building. That's when a full-scale arson investigation took place and it was discovered she had been poisoned, not enough to kill her but enough to incapacitate her so she couldn't escape the fire. A detective was assigned to the case to assist the Fire Marshal, but after months of evidence-sifting, no suspects were ever found.
And now it was two years later and my husband's ghost was staring at me on the eve of the anniversary of his death. "Why did you come back?" I got out of bed, fumbling for my bunny slippers but not bothering with a bathrobe to cover my oversized T-shirt.
"I felt you pulling me, thinking about me. It brought me back." He watched as I approached him, his oval face perplexed.
I raised my hand. Should I touch him? He appeared solid, but it had to be an illusion. I wasn't sure if I wanted to know what a ghost felt like. I let my hand drop to my side. "You know what they're saying? They're saying you had something to do with causing the fire."
He shook his head and sweat rolled down the side of his face, looping around his eyebrow and leaving a track through the dirt smudging the line of his chin. His eyes turned icy and cold. "That's bullshit and you know it."
"But how do I prove it?" The simmering anger and confusion I had felt six hours earlier when I hung up the phone washed over me again. I inched closer to him and peered into his face. With the differences in our heights, I used to fit neatly under John's outstretched arm. I thought ghosts were supposed to be cold but John felt as warm as any human--any living human being, that is. "Do you know something, John? Something that could help me prove you weren't involved?"
He hesitated, his lips tightening. "You don't have to prove anything. Let it go, Gem. Get on with your life. Who cares what they say?"
I flinched at his use of my nickname. "I can't, John. It's not right."
"It's not right but don't waste your time trying to clear my name. It doesn't matter."
I heard the insincerity in his voice. This was important to him. I smelled that familiar aroma of wood smoke, warm plastic, and musk from the soap they used at the firehouse. John always showered and changed into clean clothes before he returned from his forty-eight hour shifts, but sometimes the odors from a fire scene were too strong. "It matters to me, John."
He raised his hand. I froze, forcing myself to remain in place. He didn't touch me, though. Or maybe he tried and failed. His fingers hovered near my cheek and his dark eyebrows drew together. "I love you. But it's time for you to go on."
"I have." The words sounded false, even to me.
He smiled, his gray eyes compassionate. "Move on, Gem." He began to fade, odorless smoke wisping around him. "Move on."
A warm breeze touched my back, redolent with smells of the pine trees near the house and the leaf mold that collected under them. I peered over my shoulder at the open window. The lace curtain fluttered. When I turned back to John, he was gone.
Mr. Grumble jumped to the floor, his thump on hitting the wood floor a welcome sound of reality. "Did you see that?" I asked him.
He twined around my ankles, tripping me as I moved. I managed to grab on to the dresser, stopping a tumble to the floor. Grumble sniffed intently at the spot where John had stood then looked at me, his pale gray eyes as puzzled as John's had been. With one final sniff, he trotted toward the kitchen, ghosts forgotten.
It wasn't going to be that easy for me.
*****
I managed a fitful sleep that night and on Sunday morning I followed my usual routine: a quick workout at the local gym, then a leisurely morning reading the paper, doing the crossword, and enjoying my Sunday donut treat, my reward for being a
good girl and exercising all week.
The rest of my Sunday wouldn't be usual. I was supposed to meet Paul Denton at the library to discuss the investigation being re-opened. I was still angry that anyone would imply that John had anything to do with the fire that killed him, but I was also worried. The fire was two years in the past. What kind of clues could be found to prove or disprove the allegations?
I went into my office across the hall from the bedroom and got an accordion folder from the desk drawer. I wrote Fire Invest in bold letters on the tab with a fat red marker. I tucked in a copy of the newspaper articles about the fire and a spiral notebook. If I was going to do research, I may as well try to be organized.
By noon I was at the Roseville cemetery to lay flowers on John's marker. It sat in the middle of the section reserved for people who fell in the line of duty, whether they were in the military service or civilian service, like firemen and police. The cemetery was a maze of criss-crossing avenues, and the only way I could remember John's location was to find the big statue of a Civil War general who sat atop a horse, sword raised. John's marker was a few rows away from the general and was set near the road.
John wasn't buried there. He was cremated, an odd choice for a fireman but one he wrote into his will. We had a private service a few weeks after the fire, attended by John's younger sister, Amy, who flew in from Baltimore. She and my family and a few of John's childhood friends watched as I scattered his ashes from a bluff overlooking the river in our home town of Tangle Butte, Minnesota, a few miles north of the Iowa border.
The cemetery was silent on this warm June morning, the singing of birds the only sound except for the muted hum of car engines in the distance. I stared at the bronze marker, a simple rectangle with John's name, his birth and death dates, and a fireman's helmet and gloves engraved above the lettering. John loved being a fireman. I had accused him of loving his job more than he loved me. Even when I said the words, I knew it wasn't exactly true. He loved his job as much as he loved me, not more. John managed to balance both loves. Perhaps that's why I felt so guilty. I stole the love he had to give and I squandered it.
My cheeks tingled as light mist wafted against my face, mingling with my tears. I peered up through the glossy green oak leaves that sheltered the graves. Dark clouds were forming together into a mass and they didn't look very far away. I set the blue carnations on John's marker and hurried to my car when thunder rumbled in the distance. The cloying smell of cut grass was suddenly choking as the air stilled, the world holding its breath for the oncoming storm.
Tall arborvitae bordered the road, forming a hedge that made it feel like a green tunnel surrounding me. As I drove along the narrow road a small spot opened to my right in the leafy walls. A man stood in the area not far from the road near a gravestone, a desiccated bouquet of flowers lying on its dark gray top. He was pushing the flowers away, obviously getting ready to replace them with the bouquet in his left hand. His movements were stiff and that's when I saw the dark wooden cane propped against a side of the granite headstone.
A clap of thunder sounded overhead, startling the man. He twisted and as I watched, he stumbled to his knees, or, rather, to his knee. His right leg extended straight in front of him and his left leg buckled so he ended up crouching on the ground, his hands supporting his body. It appeared painful and awkward.
I pulled to the side of the road and shut off the car then brushed through the arborvitae to hurry across the small expanse of lawn. "Can I help you?" I asked, leaning over him.
He was younger than I initially thought, probably only a few years older than me. His thick brown hair was cut short, with reddish highlights and a hint of gray at the temples. He had a sharply receding hairline that made him seem tough, like a military man with precisely trimmed hair. When he looked directly at me, I saw dark brown eyes flecked with gold. "Thanks," he said in a husky, low voice. "I lost my balance. If you can get my cane for me?"
I turned and grabbed the cane, almost over-balancing myself as another clap of thunder boomed over us. The man put his left hand on the tall gravestone and took the cane I handed to him in his other hand, getting his balance as I stood nearby, ready to help if he asked for it. He wore a dark blue T-shirt with Northwest Fitness stenciled on it tucked into faded blue jeans. I recognized that shirt. I had a green one like it in my closet. His shirt was snug, showing his heavily muscled arms and chest. When he straightened, I saw that he was only a few inches taller than me. His stocky build made him seem much bigger.
I retrieved the fresh bouquet of flowers that had fallen to the ground, next to the dried bouquet. "Would you like me to put these on the grave for you?" I glanced at the marker. Diane Steele, beloved wife to Dan, cherished mother of Patricia and Martin. The birth and death dates weren't that far apart. I did quick mental math and realized the woman had died two years ago while in her forties. Then I did a double-take.
The death date was the same as John's.
The man took the flowers from me and put them into the metal vase affixed to the side of the marker. "Thank you, Mrs. Carlson. I appreciate the help."
I stared at him, perplexed, then I looked back at the marker. "I'm sorry. Do I know you?" He seemed vaguely familiar and for some reason, I associated him with John. Was he a fireman? Perhaps wounded in the line of duty? He had a long face that was lightly tanned with two bright spots of color on the high cheekbones, probably from his earlier exertion. His eyes were very dark and fringed with heavy lashes. I frowned in confusion. He wasn't a handsome man, but those eyes--I would remember a man with eyes like that.
"I attended your husband's memorial service two years ago. I saw you there. You probably don't remember me. It was a long receiving line." He faced me squarely, both hands crossed on top of the cane, his dark eyes intent on mine.
The memorial service was a blur. John had been buried with a hero's honors attended by firemen from around the state and from surrounding metropolitan areas, all coming to participate. I stood in line with John's sister, Amy, and firemen from the department for what seemed like hours as people filed by to convey their condolences. I didn't anticipate the outpouring of love, support and grief that surrounded me and carried me along like a tide. No one suspected John and I were having marital problems. He walked out of the house on that hot June day to his death and became a hero.
And I was left with the guilt. The mayor came to his funeral, the governor came, and the news media covered it all in exhausting detail. I stood there, numb with guilt that I had argued with him on the day he died and sad that I couldn't retract the last words I said to him.
"I wanted to thank him for fighting the fire, even though he couldn't save my wife." The man's fingers tightened on the carved wooden handle of his cane. His hands were rough and solid-looking, like a workman's hands or an outdoorsman who spent time fishing or hunting.
It took me a second to understand what he was saying. The woman who died in the fire...this was her husband. He was married to the woman who had been murdered, whose body was found in the rubble. The article about the fire had given a brief biography of her family and the family of the little girl who died. I struggled to remember the article and the details. "You were related to her?" I glanced at the headstone.
"I was Diane's husband." He held out a hand, which I automatically shook. "I'm Dan Steele."
"Genny Carlson." An awkward silence fell and I rushed to fill the void. "You were a policeman, weren't you? Or was it a teacher?"
"Both. I was a policeman for sixteen years but I was injured and I retired." He shifted position, leaning heavily on the cane. "After that I became a high school baseball coach and business teacher. Then I retired again, a month or two before the fire. I coach baseball now for a local league." He frowned. "Retirement isn't what I thought it would be."
The details came drifting back to me. He had a double major in college in criminal justice and education, so when he was injured in the line of duty he shifted to teaching. His voice had
a mix of sadness and anger that I recognized. For an instant, he sounded like John. "I'm so sorry," I murmured. "It would be hard to lose your wife and your home like that just when you were looking forward to retirement. It must have been terrible."
One corner of his mouth twisted in a wry smile. "I wasn't living there. Diane and I were separated at the time of the fire."
My mouth opened and closed in a soundless 'oh.' Before I could say anything, a drop of rain splattered on the gravestone.
Dan Steele didn't seem to notice my confusion. "I'm glad I ran into you. I wanted to talk to you about the investigation. Do you have time?"
"You know about it?"
He nodded. "I still have friends in the police department. A friend called me and told me the department was reopening the case. It's typical for the police to lead the investigation. But in this case, the FBI is being called in. That means--" He looked skyward as another drop joined the first one followed quickly by another. "I'd like to talk with you about what they're doing."
"I was going to the library this afternoon to meet someone about it." I glanced around and saw there was no car nearby. "Is somebody picking you up? Or can I give you a ride?"
"Thanks. My car is over there." He gestured with the cane to another part of the cemetery, near the junction of two roads. "My parents are buried in that section. I stopped there before I came here. I parked near their graves."
I led the way to my car, Steele keeping pace next me with a limping gait. We reached the car as a regular staccato of rain drops splattered the grass and pavement. I opened the passenger door and leaned into the car to move the accordion folder on the passenger seat. Lightning tore through the sky and thunder boomed nearby, making me jerk upward in surprise, bumping backward into Steele.
He put his left arm around my shoulders to steady me then in one fluid movement he released me, took the file, twisted to drop into the passenger seat, and sat down. He swung his left leg into the car, pulled his cane inside, grasped his right leg with his right hand and dragged it inside, too. The entire action took only a few seconds to execute.
