Flashover

by T. Alan Codder

  “I’d like to remind you that you’re the one who—” he began then grinned when she slapped him playfully on the shoulder.

  They wandered until the presentation of the awards. They’d seen all the cars hours ago, so they spent their time people watching.

  His Jag took second place in the classic import category, getting beaten out by one of the Bugs. He accepted the trophy graciously, but considering there were only five cars in the class, it was hardly a resounding endorsement.

  After all but a few of the cars were gone, he and Maggie walked the five blocks to Mangia, leaving the Jag parked in the bank parking lot where it’d been all day. He was pleasantly surprised to see the restaurant wasn’t packed and they were seated immediately.

  The North State Textiles buildings and the downtown area weren’t the only historic structures in town. Mangia shared space in the old Great Eastern Building, a large, two-story, brick structure that once housed the Great Eastern Insurance Company back in the nineteen twenties. While Great Eastern was long gone, its building continued on with new businesses occupying its space.

  In the corner of the converted office building, Mangia was a little slice of Italy. It was decorated to resemble an Italian villa with light stucco walls, cream tile floors, and decorative architecture on doorways, windows, and walls.

  There were about twenty-five small tables, each with red tablecloths and white napkins. A white tablecloth, turned at an angle, topped the tables, allowing the red to peek out at the corners. It was a simple idea, but the stacked table clothes, red and white color combination, and the general décor, gave the restaurant an upscale, romantic feel.

  “My feet are tired,” Sean groaned into Maggie’s ear as their hostess sat them.

  “I bet. At least I got to sit down. What did you find out?”

  Over the next hour, as they enjoyed the excellent lasagna and fettucine alfredo, he told her what Pete had said before they discussed what it might mean to the project. Maggie was far more in the loop on what was happening than he was because she was working with an engineering firm to hook all the new apartments onto their system.

  The last time they were here, he’d ordered the lasagna and she’d ordered the fettucine. They’d switched dishes this time, but still ate off each other’s plate. Unlike the last time, there was no self-conscious hesitation. There was no question this was a date and they were considerably more comfortable around each other. As a bonus, this time, they had the added benefit that he didn’t have to worry about rumors of an affair effecting his murder investigation, unlike three months ago.

  “Can you stay tonight?” Maggie asked as they slowly strolled back to his car.

  “Sure. Three nights in a row. That’s a record. I just need to stop and check on Marmalade.”

  She huffed out a playful sigh. “If you must.”

  He leaned in and gave her a fleeting kiss. “I must. I might even feel a little guilty for leaving him alone so much, if I thought the little shit actually missed me for any reason other than to put food in his bowl.”

  “And clean his litter box,” she supplied helpfully.

  He nodded in agreement. “And clean his litter box.”

  “I bet a lot of men are jealous.”

  He tugged her in a little closer as he smiled to himself. Those who knew Maggie was warming his bed probably were.

  Eleven

  Friday morning, Fire Chief Pete Turney and Police Chief Sean McGhee stepped carefully through the debris of the North State Textiles building. They’d already toured the first building and were now walking through the second, the more heavily damaged of the two.

  “This is one of the ignition points. You can see where the fire ran up the wall and got into the beams that supported the roof,” Pete said, pointing to discolored brick that extended up the wall.

  Sean looked up to see the blue North Carolina sky. About a third of the roof of building two had collapsed in the blaze, and the rest was heavily damaged. The roof of the first building, though it hadn’t collapsed, was also heavily damaged, the large wooden beams blackened and charred. It was clear the roofs of both buildings were a total write-off.

  “These old building were built tough. See those steel rods?” Pete asked, pointing to the series of what looked like large diameter bolts that ran the width of the building. “Those are used to support the walls and keep them from bowing out under the weight of the roof. If they hadn’t been there, this whole structure would have probably collapsed.”

  “But it’s safe now?”

  Pete shrugged. “If it were my building I’d replace all those rods. Getting heated up in the fire then doused with cold water didn’t do them any favors, but it’s safe enough at the moment.”

  Pete led him further into the structure. “Here’s the other ignition source. You can see the same discoloration on the bricks. Just like the other three, this was likely started with a mattress soaked in, probably, gasoline.”

  “Damn. By clearing everyone out I just made it easier for him. He had all the time he needed, and nobody around to question him. I wonder if that was the plan all along, starting a quick little fire so we’d clear the building to give him the time he needed to do a proper job?”

  “I think you’re giving this guy too much credit. I still think this is an amateur.”

  Sean shook his head as he continued to look around at the jumble of blackened wood. “Maybe. We cleaned out all the trash. I wonder where he got the mattresses?”

  Pete spluttered. “Anywhere. Get them at the dump or lying in an empty lot. Getting an old mattress isn’t that hard. Getting it here wouldn’t be fun, but finding one wouldn’t be any trouble. I bet you could go into just about any store in Tilley or Abbeyville and find something.”

  “You think he had help?”

  “Maybe, if only to drag the mattresses in here.”

  “I keep saying ‘he.’ Do we know it’s a guy?” Sean asked.

  “No, but I’d give you good odds it is. Not many women are fire bugs.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He kicked at the rubble. “Not much left is there?”

  “No. Somebody with all the latest equipment and techniques might be able to tell you something, but my bet is they’ll tell you the fire started with a mattress soaked in gasoline, or maybe kerosene, and not much more. They could probably tell you the order the fires started, but I don’t know if that’ll help you any.”

  “I’m no better off now than I was after the first fire.”

  Pete shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. There’s a reason there are so few arrests for arsons.”

  Sean huffed out a breath then scratched the back of his head with a finger. “I’ll be honest with you, Pete, I don’t know where to begin.”

  “I’ll help you anyway I can, but as you can see, there isn’t a lot here to work with,” Pete said as he waved his hand over the blackened floor.

  “Pete?” Rudy’s booming voice called. “You in here?”

  “Second floor, mayor!”

  “What’s he doing here?” Sean asked, keeping his voice low enough that Rudy wouldn’t hear.

  Pete gave him a small shrug. “Beats me.”

  A few moments later Rudy huffed his way to the top of the steps with another man close behind.

  Sean recognized Wallace Barns as he came into view. Barns was in his early- to mid-fifties with close cut thinning dark hair mixed with grey. He was verging on fat, with a round face and a nub of a nose with his stylish sunglasses perched on top, but unlike Rudy, he wasn’t gasping for breath from the climb up the steps. The last time Sean had seen Barns, Barns had been wearing a conservative suit, but today he was wearing a comfortable looking dark blue Polo shirt, brown Dockers, and loafers.

  “They said I’d… find you here,” Rudy panted as he approached. “Good, you’re here too,” he added, looking at Sean. “Do you remember Mr. Wallace Barns?”

  Barns pushed his glasses to the top of his head and extended his
hand.

  “Mr. Barns,” Sean said shaking the man’s hand. “Sean McGhee.”

  “Pete Turney,” Pete added while also shaking Wallace’s hand.

  “Wallace wanted to see the damage for himself. He’s justifiably concerned about there being two fires so close together.”

  “Still think it’s just some homeless guy pissed off at the world?” Wallace asked, glaring at Sean.

  Sean didn’t like Wallace’s tone, but let it slide. “No. I think it’s clear it’s a targeted arson. The question is, why?”

  “How would I know? What I want to know is, what are you going to do about it?”

  “We’ll investigate, but there isn’t much to go on. Know of anyone who wants to see this project fail?” Sean asked.

  “How should I know? There’s always somebody pissed off about something. There might be some kind of endangered cricket living in here that has the animal rights loonies all up in arms, or maybe some guy is mad because he doesn’t want the city spending money to improve the roads in the area when he thinks they should repave his street first. But to answer your question, no, I don’t know of anyone who is out to get me. Why would they?”

  “Just asking the question. Obviously, there’s a reason for the fires. These buildings have been empty for how long?” Sean asked, glancing first at Pete then Rudy.

  “Since the late seventies,” Rudy supplied.

  “And no fires between then and now, am I correct?” Sean asked, looking at Pete.

  “No.”

  “The only thing that’s changed is you bought the property.”

  “Okay. So?” Barns asked.

  “Nobody cared before, but now someone clearly does. The question is, who would want to burn down your buildings, Mr. Barns, and why?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Then, as I told you before, I have nowhere to start.”

  “So, you’re going to do nothing?” Wallace accused.

  “I didn’t say that, but without motive, or a suspect, or something, where do you suggest I start?”

  “You could start by protecting my property.”

  “Mr. Barns,” Sean said, his voice becoming firm. “As I told you, my department can’t provide around the clock security. That’s not our function and we don’t provide that service to any other person or business. If you really want twenty-four-hour protection then you’ll have to hire your own security.”

  Wallace glared at Rudy. “This is the cooperation I can expect from Brunswick?”

  “Look, I know you’re upset,” Rudy began. “You have every right to be, but Chief McGhee is right. He isn’t staffed to have an officer sitting outside some abandoned building twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. That’s not his job, and you know it. Do you have a cop sitting outside your office in Raleigh providing around the clock protection? Of course not.”

  Wallace glared at Rudy a moment then softened slightly. “No. But I don’t have anyone trying to burn the place down either.”

  “We did what we could,” Rudy continued. “We cleared out the homeless and picked up all the trash. We’ll work with you all we can, but your expectation of having the city protect your property at the level you request is unreasonable.”

  Wallace glanced around. “Dammit. There’s no clue to who might have done this?” he asked, looking first at Sean then Pete.

  Pete scrubbed at the floor with the toe of his boot. “What you see is what you get. What didn’t burn up was likely washed away by the fire hoses.”

  “How did it start?”

  “Don’t know,” Pete replied. “Probably some kind of improvised fuse was used to light a gasoline soaked mattress. That’s just a guess, but there were remains of a mattress found at one of the ignition points. There was a lot of accelerant splashed or sprayed around to help the fire spread.” He watched Barns for a moment. “To be honest with you, you’re lucky both buildings weren’t a total loss. If this place wasn’t a big masonry box, they would have been.”

  Wallace looked around again. “Fuck me. Why would anyone want to do this?”

  “Only you can answer that,” Sean said.

  Wallace continued to look around. “I still have to see the other building.” He shook his head. “I need to get an engineer out here to see what the damage is and how much it’s going to add to the cost. Fuck!” He looked at Sean. “Sorry. I know you’re right, but this pisses me off. The timing couldn’t be worse. We were scheduled to start demolition of the utilities building in the next week or so, and now I don’t know if we’re going to go forward with the project or not. If I delay the demo, that slides everything back and we could lose our contractors to other jobs, but if we go ahead with the demo, then find out it’s going to be cost prohibitive to save the buildings, that’s money I just pissed away.”

  “Your insurance should cover this,” Pete pointed out.

  “Yeah, and if I turn it in, my rates are going to go sky high.” Wallace looked around again. “Fuck. I need to go make some phone calls.”

  Rudy waited until Wallace was a good distance away and had his phone to his ear. He looked at Sean.

  “Do what you can,” he said, keeping his voice low, and then strode after Wallace.

  As soon as the two men disappeared down the steps, Sean turned toward Pete. “What the hell does he expect me to do?”

  Pete shook his head slowly. “Beats me.” He looked at the blackened floor and wall. “I don’t think you’re going to learn anything from this.”

  -oOo-

  “Sean,” he said, absently bringing the handset to his ear.

  “Sean, Mayor Klinger is here to see you,” Michelle’s voice said through the phone.

  Sean sighed softly. He should have expected this.

  “Send him back.” A moment later, Rudy stepped into his office. “Have a seat,” Sean said, motioning to a chair.

  “I won’t take much of your time,” Rudy said as he settled into one of the leather chairs. “Barns is talking about pulling the plug on The Mills project. If he does, that will be a disaster. This was a huge win for the town. If he pulls out, that’s going to send a message I don’t want sent.”

  “I understand that, but what do you want me to do about it?”

  “I know you’re in a bind, and I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job, but you managed to pull a rabbit out of the hat the last time. Do you think you can do it again?”

  “I don’t know, mayor. I suppose I could see who may want to deep-six this project. But honestly, the only person I can see who has anything to gain would be Barns himself. Maybe he’s over extended and he sees this as a way to cut his losses by taking the insurance and bailing out? I don’t know.”

  Rudy nodded. “Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, but I don’t get that vibe from him. I spent a couple of hours talking to him after we left you two, and if he did it, he’s really selling it. There’s going to be a guy come look at the buildings in the next couple of days to see if they’re salvageable.”

  “I’ll do what I can, but until I have someplace to start…”

  “I know,” Rudy said softly as he inspected his thumbnail. “What I’m about to tell you is, while not exactly secret, I’d appreciate it if you don’t spread it around. The Mills at Brunswick is going to be the first in what we expect will be a major development boom. Several other companies are watching this and have expressed interest in developing some of the surrounding property if The Mills does well. You remember Barns talking about upgrading Daylin street with the sidewalks and street lights? The city is doing that in partnership with him because we want to encourage the growth. But it all depends on The Mills at Brunswick getting off the ground and doing well. It’s the lynch pin.”

  Sean nodded. He couldn’t remember the details, but he did remember something about widening the street.

  “You can see how important this is,” Rudy continued. “We’re willing to invest in the infrastructure improvements, but if Barns backs out, it could all be
for nothing.”

  “I understand, but again, what do you expect me to do? Pete told me only fifteen percent of arsons end up with an arrest and there probably isn’t any useable evidence left at the scene.”

  “The only thing I want is for you to do a little digging and give it your best shot. Who knows, maybe you’ll beat the odds.”

  Sean grunted. “And if I fail and Barns pulls out?”

  Rudy smiled grimly, his lips pulled tight. “Then we’re no worse off than we were six or eight months ago. We’ll start recruiting again. We liked Barn’s proposal because it preserved the buildings and some of the history of the town, but we’ve had a few nibbles other than his.”

  “Could it have been one of his competitors?”

  “What competitor? We’ve been trying to do something with those buildings for fifteen years. We’d get all these grand proposals from various companies, but when it came time to put their money where their mouth was, nobody ever ponied up.”

  “Oh. So Barns didn’t outbid somebody, or something like that?”

  Rudy snorted. “We’d be so lucky to get a bidding war. No. In fact, Barns’ bid was really lowballed. He put his proposal on the table and basically told us to take it or leave it. We took it because, unlike every other proposal we’ve seen, he was going to redevelop the buildings and he actually had money in hand. There was another firm considering the property at about the same time, but just like all the others, the Downtown Merchants Association was dead-set against that one.”

  Sean frowned. “Why’s that?”

  “The other firm wanted to tear the buildings down and use the space for an outlet mall. The Merchants Association didn’t want the competition.”

  “But this other firm, they didn’t have any money on the table?”

  “No. They said they were definitely interested in doing something with the property, but I’ve heard that so many times, and then nothing happens, that I don’t get too worked up about it until they have a check in their hand.”

  Sean twisted his mouth to the side as he thought. He’d thought maybe they were onto something with another firm trying to sabotage Barn’s project, but after hearing the rest of the story, the idea sounded like a non-starter.