Flashover

by T. Alan Codder

  “Thanks, Robin. I’ll sign it and get it back to you today. I want to move on this as quickly as possible. We’re dying down here.”

  She snickered. “Yeah, looks like it, but we’re going to fix that for you.”

  “I’ll keep an eye out for your email.”

  They exchanged a few more pleasantries before he pressed the button to hang up and then immediately dialed again. He called Balken Fleet Services, the company he’d selected to upfit their cruisers with the computer mounts and wiring the patrol cars were going to need. He and his salesman had already worked out the configuration they were going to use, so it only took a moment to get his fleet on their schedule.

  If everything went according to plan, in three months his officers would have computers in their cars, new laptops on their desks, and software to replace their paper based filing system. That would give them the ability to track evidence and have their case information available at the click of a mouse.

  PISTOL was a modular system that allowed them to start with the basics and add functionality as they needed it. At the start, the software was providing only basic case and evidence tracking, with two additional modules for remote access and personnel. Since they had nothing now, they were taking the base configuration and the BPD would modify their procedures to match the best practices built into the software.

  That was the easy part. The officers would begin using the software immediately with new cases, but getting all the old case information into the system was going to be a major project in itself. He’d like to hire a group of high-schoolers to come in and pound away on the case files until they were done, but the information contained in the files, while public record, was sensitive.

  Instead of high school kids, he was going to have his dispatchers entering the old file information into the system between calls. They’d start with the most recent cases and arrests, and work their way backwards to the oldest. It would take time, but the older the files got the less likely they were to need the information at their fingertips, so it didn’t really matter how long it took. His task in all of this was to manage the project, enter all the personnel information into the system, and provide support as his officers came up to speed on the software.

  He next called his HP salesman and placed the order for his new ProLiant DL80 file servers. They’d already settled on a configuration and all he had to do was place the order. He’d ordered two and would configure them so that one was online and the other was a hot backup in case of failure. He’d ordered two PISTOL servers for the same reason.

  Finished with that task, he placed one more call to his salesman at Intelisys to start the lease on the new highspeed multifunction printer and copier he’d selected to replace the ancient pile they’d been using. Like with Hewlett-Packard and Balken, everything was ready. All he had to do was sign the lease and the machine would be delivered.

  Rudy was probably going to have a heart attack with him spending over fifty percent of his budget on the first day of the new budget year, but it couldn’t be helped. He had to have it, and it all had to happen at the same time.

  After hanging up with Intelisys, he rocked back in his chair and tried to think of anything else he might have missed. He’d been reviewing his upgrade plan weekly, sometimes daily, trying to make sure he had everything he needed so there wouldn’t be any surprises. He stared at the wall for a long moment, tugging on his bottom lip, but couldn’t think of anything he’d missed.

  He rocked forward in his chair and smiled to himself. Evie was surprisingly perceptive. He did feel a little bit like a kid at Christmas.

  -oOo-

  When Sean took over as chief, he’d started walking the ten blocks of the downtown area once a week as a way meet the business owners and familiarize himself with their concerns.

  In the beginning the community was friendly but politely ignored him. Now, six months in, they had loosened up enough around him that people were starting to greet and chat with him as he made his rounds.

  He normally walked on Wednesday or Thursday around eleven, stopping in one of the restaurants for lunch while he was out. That had been ideal during the winter. All the businesses were open and busy, and the weather was perfect, but now that it had warmed up, the midday heat was killing him. The only thing that made it bearable was most of the businesses had an awning or other type of covering over the sidewalk to keep the sun at bay.

  He’d finished his weekly walk through downtown and was working on his proposal for Rudy, detailing what he thought it would take to begin effectively patrolling Tilley. He stared at his spreadsheet, wondering what Rudy was going to say. It was going to be a hard sell, that much was certain.

  He was still staring at the screen, trying to determine if he was being fair and honest and not letting the blight of Tilley color his perceptions, when his phone rang.

  He glanced at it in annoyance. He thought he got a lot of phone calls when he was heading up the CTF—the Cybercrimes Task Force—in Boston, but he was getting more calls as the chief of police than he ever did as a lieutenant on the Boston PD. He didn’t recognize the number as he picked up the handset.

  “Chief McGhee.”

  “Chief McGhee, this is Wallace Barns. I’d like to have a minute of your time.”

  The name tickled a memory, but Sean couldn’t remember where he’d heard it before.

  “How may I help you, Mr. Barns?”

  “I just heard from Peter Turney. He said the fire at The Mills was arson. That’s very bad for my insurance. I’m checking to see if you have any, leads I guess you could call it, on who may have started the fire.”

  When Wallace mentioned arson, the name clicked. “No leads, Mr. Barns. I’ll be honest with you, it’s highly unlikely we’ll be making any arrests. Other than a burned mattress, there’s no evidence. As I’m sure you know, the building is used by the homeless. It was probably one of them. Once your crews begin work you probably won’t have any more trouble out of them.”

  “Chief McGhee, I know you have other concerns, but having you tell me ‘don’t worry about it’ isn’t an acceptable response.”

  “I understand your concerns, Mr. Barns, but the BPD isn’t a private security firm. I can’t assign a man to watch your building.”

  “Can’t you run off the squatters for trespassing?”

  “I can, but unless I station a man there full time, they’ll simply come back. My suggestion is to hire a security firm to patrol the buildings if you’re concerned. But honestly, Mr. Barns, according to Chief Turney, the arsonist was totally incompetent. It was probably one of the homeless and it isn’t likely to happen again. The guy was probably drunk, stoned, or strung out, mad about something, and decided to take it out on your building.”

  There was a long pause but Sean waited him out. “Demolition of the utilities building will begin within two weeks. When the equipment begins to arrive, can I depend on you to clean out the squatters?”

  “Of course. Let me know what day you want it to happen and we’ll run them off.”

  “Okay. That’s something I guess. Maybe once the construction fence goes up I won’t have to worry about it.”

  Sean nodded even though Wallace couldn’t see him. “The homeless generally don’t cause a lot of trouble and just want to be left alone. When it gets too difficult to get back into the buildings, they’ll move on to someplace else.”

  “Chief Turney said there was no structural damage to the building, but if something like this happens again, I expect more of a response from the police than, ‘there’s nothing we can do.’”

  “Mr. Barns, I assure you we take arson very seriously. You can trust me when I say if we had a scrap of evidence on who set the fire, we’d check it out. But unless you can give me a place to start, there’s little we can do. We could question the homeless but they’ll deny even knowing there was a fire, so that would be nothing but a waste of time. If there’s another fire, Chief Turney might be able to compare the two and giv
e us a place to start. I’m sorry you don’t like what I have to say, but I’m being honest with you. Would you prefer I tell you we were investigating it when in fact we weren’t?”

  There was another pause. “No. I appreciate you being honest with me. This project is a sizable investment for us and I want to avoid a bunch of problems if I can.”

  “I completely understand, and the BPD will assist you in any way we can.”

  “Thank you for that. Hopefully you’re right and this was a one off.”

  “I think that’s all it is. That, or whoever wanted to burn your building down needs to hire a better caliber of arsonist.”

  Wallace chuckled. “I shouldn’t find that funny since it was my building. Thank you for your time, chief.”

  “If you have any other concerns, give me a call.”

  “Thank you. I will.”

  Sean placed the handset back on the cradle and sighed. Television and movies did a real disservice to the police. They made everything look quick and easy. The shows cut out all the boring parts and glitzed up the process with procedures and techniques only the richest, most well-equipped departments could perform. Even then, the tests and techniques were often stretched beyond reality for good drama. He didn’t blame Wallace for not liking the news that there was little the BPD could do to protect his investment, but he had to have at least a scrap of information to start an investigation.

  -oOo-

  Sean was on his way home to feed Marmalade and pick up his running gear when he pulled to a stop at a traffic light. In front of him was an old, drab green, flat-fender Jeep, like those from World War II. The Jeep had obviously been heavily modified. It had been substantially lowered over the fat tires it sported in front and back, and it looked too wide, as if another six or seven inches had been added to its width. It also didn’t have a license plate.

  He debated ignoring the missing plate, not wanting to keep Maggie waiting while he wrote the guy a ticket, but decided he couldn’t let it slide and flipped on the strobes. He’d give the driver a verbal warning, which wouldn’t take long. The driver, wearing a crash helmet and racing gloves, gave him a little wave in acknowledgement.

  The moment the light turned green, the Jeep roared, all four tires leaving a ghost of tire smoke as it accelerated away, leaving the light as if it had been fired from a cannon.

  “Holy… shit!” Sean murmured as he buried the throttle of his car in pursuit.

  His Dodge was no slouch when it came to acceleration, but it was severely outclassed as the Jeep rapidly pulled away.

  He pulled the mic from the dash mounted clip. “Dispatch! McGhee. In pursuit of an early model green Jeep, no tags, heading east on Crawford.”

  “McGhee. Dispatch. Units responding to your location.” Claire’s voice replied as she routed cruisers toward him.

  Sean saw the Jeep make a right far ahead, but by the time he reached the road where he thought the Jeep turned, there was no sign of it.

  “Dispatch. McGhee. I lost him.”

  He slowed and flipped off the beacons, but continued down the road, hoping to spot the vehicle.

  “You were outrun by an old Jeep?” Paul Limbrose asked over the radio. “That must be embarrassing.”

  Sean chuckled and shook his head. Paul was the department clown and nobody was safe from his quick wit, not even him.

  “Glad it wasn’t me,” Gavin Reed added.

  Sean’s smile widened slightly. It was going to be a while before he heard the end of this. He weaved around in the area, but saw no sign of the Jeep, though he did see Limbrose and Reed’s cruisers as they too prowled the area.

  Sean picked up the mic. “He’s gone.”

  “We’ll keep an eye out for it,” Paul replied. “How early a model?”

  “It looked like World War II vintage, army drab green, lowered over wide tires. No plate, no windshield. The driver was wearing a black racing helmet, gloves and a medium blue long sleeve shirt,” Sean replied.

  “If we see him, we’ll try not let him get away,” Reed said.

  Sean snickered. “Good luck. That’s no ordinary Jeep. He left me at the stoplight like I was dragging an anchor.” He released the transmit button, then pressed it again. “If you spot him, be smart. We don’t want anyone hurt.”

  “Roger that, chief,” Reed said.

  Seven

  Rudy Klinger was sitting behind his desk staring intently at something on his computer. Sean paused in the door, but when Rudy didn’t look up, he rapped softly on the frame.

  “Mayor, you wanted to see me?”

  “Please, come in and sit down,” Rudy said, looking up then waving Sean into his office. “Couple of things. Did Wallace Barns call you yesterday?”

  “He did, why?”

  “He called my office after he spoke to you. He wasn’t pleased you told him there was nothing you could do.” Rudy held up his hand to forestall Sean’s protest. “I completely understand your position and I backed you up one hundred percent. But can we throw him a bone? Maybe run the vagrants off or something like that?”

  “We can, but what’s to prevent them from returning?”

  Rudy nodded. “I understand, but sometimes perception is reality. This development at The Mills is a big deal for the town and I want to keep Barns happy. It may not do a bit of good in the long run to chase them off, but it’ll look like we’re taking his concerns seriously and doing something. You know that old saying, ‘An ounce of image…’”

  “Yeah, I know. Okay, we can run them off. What would be helpful is if we had some guys to clean the place up by throwing out everything they leave behind so there’s nothing there for them to return to.”

  “You’ve got it. I’ll talk to Perry and have him send a crew and a truck over from sanitation. They’ll go in behind you and pick everything up. Anything else?”

  “No, but I can’t put an officer on the place to keep them from coming back.”

  “And I don’t expect you to. But in another day or so, you can sweep through the place again and chase off anyone who came back, right?”

  “If that’s what you want the department doing.”

  “It’s not, not really. I know your officers have better things to do, but like I said, this is a big win for the town. Until construction starts, I don’t want to give Barns any reason to back out.”

  Rudy was being very reasonable which made Sean slightly suspicious. “Then sure, we can do that. When?”

  “Can you do it today? I’ll make sure Perry gets a crew over there. If you can, I’ll let Barns know.”

  “Yeah, with the understanding this is a low priority. If my officers are needed elsewhere then—”

  “I understand completely,” Rudy said, cutting him off. “That’s how it should be. It probably won’t take your guys nearly as long to run the vagrants out as it will for Perry’s guys to clean the place up anyway. They can make sure nobody comes right back.”

  “Okay, then we’ll try to get it done. Have Perry let me know when he has some guys available.”

  “You tell me when you want them.”

  “Okay, after lunch, say about two?”

  “They’ll be there. They’ve got this big truck with a claw on it they use to pick up tree limbs and such. That’ll make short work of whatever they find.”

  “It’s probably going to be mostly trash, cans, bottles, paper, junk like that. Maybe the occasional mattress.”

  “You get the people out of there and Perry’s guys can sort out the rest.”

  “Okay. We’ll get it done. Anything else?”

  “Yes. I looked over your proposal for Tilley. Twelve officers? You’ve got to be kidding!”

  “You said to tell you what it would take. That’s what I think it’ll take.”

  “But Brunswick only has fifteen!”

  “Yeah, and we’re thin. We really should have four more officers, one on each shift. There are times when we can’t be everywhere we need to be or my officers have to respond to a
call alone when it would be safer with two. I’ll be honest with you, I’d like to have sixteen more and dedicate four of them to Brunswick.”

  Rudy drummed his fingers on his desk a moment as he stared at the computer screen, then looked at Sean again. “I have to ask this. You’re not padding this number because you think I’m going to make you reduce it, are you?”

  “Nope. In fact, if you have to reduce it to get the deal, I’d suggest we not take the contract. The last thing you want to do is understaff Tilley. That’ll only make the situation worse or get someone hurt or killed, and I’m not going to reduce the number of officers patrolling Brunswick to support them. Having said that, it’ll take a little while to staff up that much. If I find out Tilley doesn’t need that many officers, then we don’t have to hire them all and we can reduce the contract price accordingly. But that’s my honest opinion of what I think it’ll take. I didn’t include another dispatcher, which we might need if the call volume is too high for one person to handle.”

  Rudy rubbed his hand furiously under his nose. “Hud is going to shit. There’s no way to reduce this number?”

  Sean shook his head. “That’s what I think it’ll take. That’s in line with the national average for cities our size.”

  Rudy stared at the computer a moment. “Okay. If that’s what it takes. What needs to happen to start this moving?”

  “Hiring officers and switching the 9-1-1 calls to our call center.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “Switching the 9-1-1 won’t take long. A day or two. Hiring the officers?” Sean shrugged. “Depends on how many applicants and their quality. I’d figure a couple of months minimum. Plus, we’re going to have to buy and equip some additional cars. We can have the officers share the cars for a while, but that’s not a good long-term solution.”

  Rudy sighed. “Okay. I knew it was going to be expensive to start this, but damn! I had no idea. I’ll run the proposal by Hud and see if he has a heart attack. If he’s still interested, I’ll put it before the council to get it approved. If everything lands jelly side up, when can you start the patrols?”