JG02 - Borderlines

by Archer Mayor

  “About the attic getting ready to blow?” “Yeah.” “Yup. Told him I didn’t hear it. But,” I added, “I also told him you decided to search the other room, instead of getting out.” “Over your objections?” “No, just that you decided and I followed.” He nodded. “Good. I told him I couldn’t hear what Dick was saying.” He smiled again. “It’s driving him crazy.” He laughed then and began to walk away. I stopped him with a question. “What made the hose go flat?” He rubbed his cheek with the back of his hand. “They told me the portable pump froze. Didn’t have any oil in it.” He shrugged and filled his mouth with another huge bite, talking at the same time. “By the way, thanks for saving my butt.” “Least I could do for someone who tried to kill me.” He let out a grunt and continued on his way. Laura was looking at me with increasing concern. “What did happen in there?” I smiled at her. “It’s like Rennie said.” She shook her head in frustration. “You guys…” She stood up suddenly and waved. I followed her look and saw a pickup with a young man at the wheel pulled off of South Street. He waved back from the driver’s window.

  “Gotta go. See you later.” I watched her run to the truck, her hair bouncing. She looked good in jeans, and I felt an unreasonable pang at her leaving. I also felt an odd sensation at her running toward another man, even though, presumably, he was her husband.

  “I hear you’re a police officer.” I turned around, surprised at the sudden intrusion. It was Wirt, in full official splendor. “That’s right. Joe Gunther, out of Brattleboro.” We shook hands, although primarily because my hand was flapping in the breeze before Wirt reluctantly grabbed hold of it. “I was told you and Wilson were the first two in there. What did you see?” I resisted stating the obvious-like “a fire”-which would have forced him to step outside the Joe Friday imitation.

  “One incinerated body at the foot of the stairs, wrapped around the remains of the wood stove, and four more upstairs, apparently dead from smoke inhalation. There were no puddles of flaming gasoline on the floor, but the four people upstairs were behind a locked door, with the key on the outside, on the floor.” He looked up from the notepad he was carrying. “What kind of key was it?” I knew what he was after.

  “Old-fashioned, key operated from the other side. It wasn’t a dead bolt.” “And there wasn’t a key on the other side as well.” “Nope, not in the door.” “But there might have been one in the room?” “That’s possible, but I don’t think it’s likely. I’ve never seen a lock key with more than one key. In fact, usually the one key’s been lost years ago and people use a hook and eye to lock the door.” He was scribbling feverishly by now. “Any idea what caused the fire?” I was beginning to tire of this. Also, I didn’t see much to gain by humoring him further.

  I knew damned well all this would stop dead in his little black book.

  With the locked-door problem, he was going to have to bring in BCI-the Bureau of Criminal Investigation. None of them would ask him his opinion on the case, and everyone would ask roughly the same questions of me and everyone involved a dozen ore more times over the coming week.

  A street cop worth his salt could be an invaluable source and a good friend to cultivate; a disliked man. Wirt was best suited to directing traffic and nurturing his resentment.

  I got up and stretched. The ice that had covered me earlier had melted in the morning sun, leaving me damp and weighted down. I began to peel off the cumbersome and very dirty bunker coat as I answered his last question. My own body odor, finally released, damn ear made my eyes water. “Probably the wood stove. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll hit the hay.” I hung the coat on the truck’s tail gate and walked away. “‘Night.” “I have more questions.” The tone was supposed to freeze me in my tracks. “Don’t doubt it for a second. I’ll be around.” I didn’t need to turn round to see him glaring. The heat from his eyes on the back of my head was enough. The truth was, I had some questions of my own. As a rule, accidental fires have a way of explaining themselves, especially where dead bodies are involved. People either die in their beds, oblivious to what killed them, or they’re found along the way toward some hoped-for exit. When they appear behind a locked door, with the key on the outside, I have to wonder just how “accidental” the fire might have been.

  I didn’t make a clean getaway. As I walked down South Street toward I-14, a red Mercedes pulled in, heading my way. The license plate was marked “QUNCY.” I moved out of its way and bent down to the driver’s window as it stopped alongside me. “I thought you drove a blue car.” Dr. Beverly Hillstrom, Chief Medical Examiner for the State of Vermont, smiled up at me. “I did. I traded it in. Big mistake. You should stick to the larger Mercedeses; these little ones just aren’t the same.

  I laughed at that. “I’m lucky to be stuck to a rebuilt Toyota.

  How are you?” She patted the back of my hand, which was resting on her door.

  “In tip-top shape. What on earth are you doing here? You look terrible, by the way.” She wrinkled her nose. “And you smell awful.”

  “Thank you. I’m staying with my uncle. I used to come up here regularly when I was a boy.” “And play fireman?” “How’d you guess?” “You should see your face in the mirror. You look like a chimney sweep. And your ear looks medium rare.” She gave me an appraising look. “It’s hard to imagine Joe Gunther on vacation.” “I’m supposed to be working with the local SA on a small job around here. If you came from Burlington, you made awfully good time.” “The local M.E.’s out of town and I was in Barton anyway. My husband and I are looking for property in the Kingdom. Pure serendipity. Who’s the SA-Potter?” “Very good.

  She laughed. “Not really. I was told he’d meet me here.” There was a small pause. “So, what have we got here?” “I don’t know. I figure if I stay around long enough, maybe you’ll tell me.” I let her park and opened her door for her. As she swung her legs I saw she was wearing a dress and high heels elegant garb for an gant woman. “Lord.

  You’ll have a tough time getting around in these.” She stood up and walked to the back of the car. “I used to. I’ve haven’t since.” She opened the trunk and pulled out a pair of dirty L.L. Bean boots with bright blue socks stuffed in them. “So, you suspect ‘foul play,’ as they say?” I watched as she slipped off her shoes. Beverly Hillstrom was in mid-fifties, maybe a bit older-tall, blond, and slim-but she looked thirteen years younger. I’d first met her on the case in Brattleboro that stimulated the local politicos to make a scapegoat of my boss and me on the hot seat for six months. She’d been the one person who’d supported my reopening what had seemed a closed case and had even plied forensic evidence she’d been keeping in the deep freeze for no reason.

  And that, as Humphrey Bogart would say, was beginning of a beautiful friendship.

  “I don’t know what I suspect-nothing specifically. It’s got several visible readings as I see it, bit of a surprise package.” “And I’m to unwrap it.” “If you would.” I glanced up at the sound of another car pulling behind us. A man in his late thirties, wearing a bad complexion, thin ir, a pot belly, and an ill-fitting three-piece suit got out and waved me. “Here’s Potter now.” “I should have known you’d be in the middle of this,” Potter said me as he approached. “I thought you were supposed to check into the office before you started trouble.”

  His smile, in direct contrast with rest of his appearance, was infectiously childlike. He walked up to Beverly Hillstrom and introduced himself. “I’m n Potter, Essex County State’s Attorney.”

  “Beverly Hillstrom, State M.E.” “Oh, yes, I know. It’s a real privilege. I was expecting the local.E.” Hillstrom’s tone was noticeably cooler now that Potter had arrived.

  The warmth she showed me was a sign of friendship, which was something she did not dispense freely. “Pure chance-he was out of the way; I happened to be in it.” Potter nodded and turned to me. “Any ideas about the fire?” Hillstrom reached back into the trunk and pulled out a camera, a notepad, and a small shoulder bag w
hile I told Potter, “It may just be a guy falling downstairs and knocking over a jury-rigged wood stove.” The three of us began walking toward the building. “Or it may be something else,” Potter added. “Maybe. There’s background for more-a fight last night, some bad blood between townspeople and the bunch that owns the house “Ugh,” Potter interrupted. “Don’t even mention it. I got two calls this morning already from newspeople, wanting to know if it’s arson or murder or God knows what. Shades of Island Pond.” “There may be something more. We found four of the bodies behind a locked door, with the key on the outside.” “Were you the one who found them?” Hillstrom asked. “Me and another guy, just before the whole place blew up. I’m not exactly sure what shape the building’s in.” We had just ducked under the police line when Wirt came jogging up.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Hillstrom looked at him in amazement, her chilly Nordic dander up. “I beg your pardon?” “This is a police line. You can’t just ignore it.” The message was appropriate, but the tone was doing him dirt. I tried to smooth things over. “Corporal Wirt, this is Chief Medical Examiner Hillstrom and State’s Attorney Potter.” He looked at me with contempt, not accepting the social escape hatch I’d opened for him. “This scene is closed until the arson people look at it.” Hillstrom’s back straightened slightly. “Corporal, were your arson people here now, I might concede that point. But they are not and I am. It is my responsibility to examine those bodies, and I am not going to stand around for several hours waiting. Is that acceptable to you?” Potter chimed in. “As chief law enforcement officer of the county, I’ll take full responsibility.” Wirt stared at us for a few moments, his mind obviously crowded with options, some obstinate, some petty, and probably a few quite vulgar. But I guess he decided to pass on them all, or he remembered that his opinions had landed him here to begin with. He muttered, “All right, go ahead,” and left us on our own.

  We entered through the same door Rennie and I had used before, although you could have told that only from the outside. The inside was unrecognizable-the floor covered with a tangle of glistening, black, charred debris. The walls were stained with smoke and dirty water; the smiling half-gone, chunks of soggy plaster hanging to shattered pieces lathing. It brought back memories of the shell-blasted buildings I’d marched as a young soldier over thirty years before, my finger cramping round the trigger, ready to fire at the slightest movement.

  Only here, any movement aside our own was out of the question.

  he smells of damp plaster, wet wood, charcoal, and burned cloth were of death. The very dripping of water in the walls had a funereal sound to it.

  Hillstrom, in the lead, paused to take a couple of pictures.

  “Which ay, Lieutenant?” Despite our recent friendship, we had never dropped the official titles perhaps as a token of our mutual respect.

  “To the foot of the stairs.” Sunlight was beginning to shaft down the staircase through the open roof above, giving me the sensation of being in a damp cave far below the surface of the earth. Dr. Hillstrom began picking her way slowly and carefully through the tangle, making sure of her footing, anscious not only of her own safety, but of the integrity of the scene as well.

  All three of us knew that while her goal was to view the bodies in place, other experts would follow with different interests-interests we might obliterate if we just marched through the building, tossing bricks aside to make a path. It took us ten minutes to cross some twenty feet.

  The foot of the stairs was especially cluttered, since the staircase had acted as a funnel for much of the debris from the floor above. The crystal-clear mental snapshot I had of the night before, of the white-hot stove spewing its column of flame straight up, and the blackened human m extending from its base, was now smudged and altered, covered with enough clutter to render it almost unrecognizable. Had it not been the staircase, I might not have even known where to start.

  “Here?” Beverly Hillstrom asked, sensing my hesitation. I scanned the wall for the stovepipe flue and then pointed to the door. “That’s where the stove is, or was. The last I saw, the body was laying in the middle of it.” The sunlight was quite bright here. Indeed, looking up the stairs, we could see clouds against a blue sky where once there had been a skyline. But the shadows were correspondingly harsh, and made looking beyond the surface of the rubble difficult. Hillstrom pulled a flashlight from her shoulder bag and began probing the recesses. “Here we go.” She crouched suddenly to look more carefully. Both Potter and I instinctively did the same. Caught in the lamplight, its white teeth shining, was a charred human head, its eyes, nose, and lips burned away, its mouth open wide in a silent, agonized scream.

  Potter straightened abruptly. “Jesus,” he muttered and staggered slightly, shifting a pile behind him.

  Dr. Hillstrom looked over her shoulder at him. “Careful, Mr.

  Potter. Would you like to wait outside? I’m not going to do much at this stage anyhow, and I won’t be issuing any findings before autopsy.”

  “No, no. I’m all right.” She smiled brightly. “Oh, I know that. I just meant this will take a while and won’t tell you much. So, if you have other things pressing on your time, you might want to pursue them rather than watch me poking around.” Potter nodded and made a show of checking his watch. “Well, maybe that’s a good point. I’ll get out of your hair.” “You’re not in my hair. You’re certainly welcome to stay.”

  “No, no. That’s okay. I’ll see you later.” He began to backtrack slowly toward the door.

  Hillstrom didn’t say anything until he’d left. She took photographs and notes, shifting an occasional piece of wood or plaster and then replacing it carefully.

  “Very diplomatic,” I said finally.

  She chuckled. “I didn’t relish him throwing up down the back of my neck.” Her investigation was limited by what we could see without seriously altering the scene, so we soon made our way slowly and gingerly up the clogged stairway, occasionally going on all fours. I noticed her dress was beginning to suffer.

  At one point, she paused to look back and take a photograph. “So you think he may have tumbled downstairs, knocked himself out, and spilled the stove in the process?” “Maybe. You ruling that out?” “No.

  It’s very possible that kind of thing happens. There was no other source of fire?” “None that I saw.

  “And no smell of petroleum or oil or something similar?” “Nope.” I was impressed she asked. I wondered what was going through her mind, but I also wasn’t about to inquire. Like most investigators, she was assembling pieces in her head, mentally constructing an incomplete jigsaw puzzle, hopeful that what she had might be enough for her to guess at an overall picture. She didn’t need me to bring up questions she’d already asked herself.

  As we reached the top of the stairs, she asked, “Right or left?”

  “Left.” The bedroom door hung open like the entrance to a dark lair a lack rectangle in contrast to the sun-drenched landing on which we stood.

  Hillstrom looked up at the sky. “Amazing. Where were you when this went up?” “Right over there.” I pointed to the opposite door, which had been blown off its hinges.

  She shook her head silently and smiled.

  We picked our way to the bedroom door. With the sunlight now behind us, the room’s shadows receded somewhat. Here there were no reflective signs of catastrophe; aside from the cloying odor of damp smoke and wet plaster, the scene had an untouched feel about it, a peacefulness enhanced by the shape of seemingly sleeping figures clumped together n the bed. Hillstrom shined her light on them and revealed one small, waste-white face, its dull eyes half open.

  She sighed and extinguished the light. I kept quiet. After just a moments pause, she adjusted her camera’s flash unit and began taking pictures, writing notes, and examining the bodies, being careful not to displace them more than Rennie and I had hours before. I admired her professionalism, tinged as it was by the stray compassionate gesture checking a loose stran
d of hair behind the mother’s ear, giving a small head an unconscious pat. It somehow seemed irrelevant that her parents were all dead, since the concern and attention she demonstrated could have been the same had they been living.

  She eventually finished and straightened, looking around one last me. “Was the smoke very bad in here when you found them?” “No. More like a thin fog.” “And the window, presumably, was closed?” “Yeah.” She nodded, but stayed silent. She had told me once that several ears ago, she’d been encouraged to guess at a cause of death prior to autopsy and had been mistaken. Nothing adverse had come of the roar; she caught it almost as soon as the body was stretched out in her b back in Burlington. But she had learned a lesson, and had vowed ever to announce her findings from the field again.

  I was therefore surprised when she paused at the foot of the stairs, after we’d spent another fifteen minutes carefully retracing our steps. he stood looking down at the black, flaky skull-like head with its frozen, soot-smeared grin.

  “What do you think killed him?” I followed her gaze. Most of him was under debris, but you could see bits and pieces, if you knew where to look, along with one twisted, charcoaled arm, its fist clenched in midair-the classic “pugilistic stance” of the severely burned victim.

  I’d taken it earlier as a piece of wood.

  “Sounds like a trick question. I’ll say the fire.” “Therefore dying of smoke inhalation?” “I guess.” “Have you seen many people die from falling down a set of stairs?” “No.” “What are their injuries, usually?” “I couldn’t say-not about stairs-but from similar falls, I’d guess mostly bumps and bruises, broken legs and hips, an occasional neck or two… something like that.” “How about being knocked out cold?” I looked again at the man I’d briefly known as Fox, wondering what he was telling her that he’d hadn’t told me yet. “Not often, I guess.” “How old was he… ? Oh, did you even know him?” “I met him once. He must have been in his late twenties, early thirties.” She pursed her lips.