Flashover

by T. Alan Codder

  “All I can promise is that I’ll look into it, but nothing may come of it. At fifteen percent, the arsonist gets away with it eight or nine times out of ten.”

  Rudy bobbed his head in understanding. “That may be all it takes to keep Barns happy. He’s a bit of a bully. He was probably just seeing how much he could get out of us.” He paused as a smile tugged at his lips. “Besides, I’ve seen you in action. Once you get your teeth into this, you won’t let it go, come hell or high water. Believe me, I know.”

  Sean snickered. “That’s true, but only so long as I have some threads I can pull on. I’m not going to waste my officers time on this when it probably won’t go anywhere.”

  “Fair enough,” Rudy said as he stood. “Do what you can. If I tell Barns you’re investigating, he can’t complain we’re not taking his concerns seriously.”

  Sean looked up and held Rudy’s gaze. “I’ve always taken his concerns seriously. I just don’t know what to do about them. Before I wasn’t even sure there was anything to investigate. Now, clearly, there is.”

  “Thanks, Sean.”

  “You’re welcome, mayor.”

  Once Rudy was out of his office, Sean shook his head in exasperation. While he appreciated Rudy’s new-found respect and confidence, he wasn’t sure he could live up to his expectations. Fifteen percent was long odds to start building a case on.

  He’d work this investigation personally in his spare time. No point in assigning someone a case he didn’t think they could solve. Besides, if Barns was going to be a pain in the ass and throw tantrums, he didn’t want his officers having to deal with that. His officers couldn’t tell Mr. Wallace Barns to shove his unreasonable demands, but he could.

  Twelve

  Sean listened as the phone purred over the speakers in his car.

  “Hey! What’re you doing?” Maggie asked when the phone stopped ringing.

  “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to beg off on dinner tonight.”

  “Oh no. What’s happened?”

  “Nothing, really. This arson case is turning into a problem. I’m going to grab a quick something at home before I go back out and do a little snooping.”

  “Oh,” she said, her disappointment clear in her voice.

  “I’m sorry, but it can’t be helped.”

  “I understand, and it’s okay.”

  He felt a little guilty for choosing work over Maggie, but he wanted to try to track down any of the homeless that’d been staying in the buildings. The best way to do that was to visit their regular haunts when they tended to be active.

  His department kept the downtown area clear, but the collection of fast food restaurants and gas stations at the interstate were harder to police with all the transient traffic. That’s where the homeless tended to congregate, looking for handouts and holding up their signs begging for money. If someone complained one of his officers would sweep through and run them off, but otherwise his department left them alone.

  “Just be careful.”

  “Nothing to worry about. I’m trying to track down anyone who was staying in the North State Textiles buildings to see if they saw anything.”

  “Okay, but be careful anyway.”

  “Yes, mother.”

  She giggled. “Don’t be a naughty boy or I’ll have to send you to my room.”

  He chuckled. “Want me to call you later so you know I made it home safe and sound?”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “But you wouldn’t mind?”

  “No, I wouldn’t mind,” she said, her voice quiet and her smile clearly heard.

  “Okay. I’ll give you a call when I get home. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Now that you’ve said you’ll call, don’t forget, or I’ll worry.”

  “I won’t. Bye.”

  “Bye,” she replied softly as he pushed the button to end the call.

  He didn’t want her fretting about him, and there certainly was no reason for concern tonight, but for some reason having her say she’d worry brought a smile to his lips.

  A few minutes later he was pulling into his apartment’s parking space. He trotted up the steps, opened his door, gently nudging Marmalade aside as the cat greeted him.

  “Move, cat, before I step on you,” he fussed as he danced around the animal.

  Marmalade raced to his food cabinet, rearing up and putting his paws on the door before looking over his shoulder and meowing as Sean approached.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. You thought you were going to starve.” He scratched the cat gently on the head then bumped him aside and opened the cabinet. “How about… seafood?”

  Marmalade meowed that seafood sounded good to him.

  “You eat better than I do,” Sean muttered as he opened the can and scraped the pâté into Marmalade’s bowl. “Here you go,” he said, placing the bowl on the floor.

  As the cat ate, he quickly slapped together a sandwich and wolfed it down, drinking water directly from the jug he kept in the ’fridge so he could get out to the interstate as soon as possible.

  His first stop was the burned-out hulks of the North State Textiles buildings. He walked through the buildings but found nothing. He didn’t expect to find anyone but he’d decided that no longer than it would take to check, it was worth a shot.

  His next stop was the McDonalds near the interstate. He slowly cruised through the parking lot but saw no one who looked out of place. He repeated the procedure at the Wendy’s and then the Taco Bell with the same results. He next prowled through the Exxon and the Circle K, but saw nothing that caught his eye.

  Before he crossed the interstate, he stopped at the stoplight beside a man holding a sign that claimed he was homeless. He flipped on his emergency beacons and rolled his window down.

  The man was probably between thirty-five and forty, and was thin to the point of gauntness. He was sporting a scraggly beard and didn’t appear to have bathed in the last day or so. His cloths were ill fitting, his long-sleeved red shirt heavily faded, and his blue ball cap was sweat stained, filthy, and had faded to almost grey. His sneakers were untied and his dirty jeans had seen better days. The man was really selling the homeless gig.

  “You from around here?” Sean asked.

  The man glanced around and swallowed hard. “I live in Tilley.”

  Sean smiled. Having a cop with his lights on was spoiling his business.

  “You’re not staying in the old North State buildings?”

  “No, sir. I live with my girlfriend.”

  “Know anybody who stays there?”

  “No, sir.”

  Sean nodded slowly. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “There was a fire there last week. Know anything about that?”

  “No, sir.”

  Sean nodded again. He was pretty good at reading people and this guy seemed to be telling the truth, though he was clearly nervous about something. He was probably afraid Sean was going to give him a ride to the city limits and he’d have to walk back or catch a ride. That was their standard procedure for moving the homeless along.

  “I think you’re done here for the day, don’t you?”

  The man nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t let me find you here when I come back,” Sean warned as he rolled up his window and pulled away, flipping off his strobes as he did.

  He pulled into the Sheetz gas station and did a slow circuit before crossing the road to the Burger King. Finding nothing there, he made his final stop in the parking lot of the Chik-fil-A.

  As he crept though the parking lot, he paused and watched a dirty and disheveled man shuffle across in front of him. When he opened the door to an ancient, battered and faded, Dodge Dart, Sean continued on, slowly circling the business.

  Finding nothing, he drove back into town. While he was glad the cluster of businesses at the interstate weren’t overrun with homeless, it was frustrating that he’d only found the one man, and he wasn’t even hom
eless. He smiled to himself. Just like the police, the homeless were never around when you needed one.

  He wasn’t so naïve to think that simply chasing them out of the North State Textiles buildings was enough for them to leave the area. He just had to find where they’d holed up. While he didn’t have the authority to arrest anyone, he could still cruise through Abbeyville and Tilley and ask a few questions.

  He stopped in Abbeyville first. If anything, Abbeyville was in worse shape than Tilley. Abbeyville was about the same size as Tilley, population wise, but it had an almost non-existent downtown area. A collection of ten joined businesses on one side of the street composed the business district. The row buildings were all empty or boarded up, with several of the store fronts looking like they were only days from collapse as they leaned on their neighbors like drunks.

  As he crept past the buildings he gave his head a small shake in sorrow. It wasn’t even seven yet, and while Brunswick wasn’t Boston by any means, Brunswick’s downtown still had people out until around ten, when the four restaurants that shared space with the rest of the downtown businesses closed.

  Brunswick’s downtown was alive with activity, and was at one hundred percent occupancy. The owners obviously took pride in their businesses and his department made sure their customers felt safe. Tilley, and especially Abbeyville, were exactly the opposite and were just depressing.

  With a deep sigh, he left Abbeyville and headed for Tilley. When he arrived in Tilley, he pulled to a stop at the curb beside four men in their mid- to late-twenties lounging against one of the abandoned stores.

  All four were wearing dark blue or black hoodies even though it was hotter than hell outside, with tight fitting skull caps and pants worn low over their hips and bunched at their feet. They stared at him with sneering indifference, cigarillos dangling from the lips of three of the men, as he pulled to a stop.

  “Evening,” Sean said, rolling his window down. “How’re you men doing?”

  “Fine,” one of them said slowly, clearly wondering what Sean was fishing for.

  “I’m looking for someone.”

  “Well, you found someone,” another of the men said, squinting through the smoke of his cigarillo as his buddies laughed.

  “So I have,” Sean replied with a faint smile. “Seen anybody new around in the last couple of days?”

  “Naw, man. There ain’t never nobody or nothing new around here,” another of the men said, loosely waving his hand toward Sean, his middle two fingers tucked in slightly so he was pointing with his pointer and pinky fingers.

  “After the fire at old mill buildings the other day, I’m wondering where the people who were living there went.”

  “Don’t know nothing about that,” the first man said.

  “I see, and you haven’t seen anyone new around?”

  “Nuh-uh, man,” a third man said. “He told you. Nothing new ever happens around here.”

  Sean held his smile. His Charger was unmarked and black, but these men had him pegged for a cop before he’d even rolled to a stop. They weren’t going to tell him shit and would deny knowing anything even if one of the homeless was standing there beside them.

  He gave them a nod. “Thank you for your time, gentlemen. Have a good day,” he said as he crept away.

  He drove to the end of the business district and parked at the curb before stepping out of his car, pulling the flashlight from its charger as he did. Professional courtesy dictated he inform Tilley he was conducting an investigation in their jurisdiction, but he didn’t want a hassle. He wasn’t going to do anything except take a peek through the windows of the businesses and see if he could see signs of recent activity. If he found someone he’d contact Tilley and let them know what he wanted.

  He walked along the cracked and buckled sidewalk, shining his light through the windows of the buildings that weren’t boarded up. What he saw was either empty space or the building being used by the owner as a dumping ground for unused items.

  He was about halfway back to the group of men when they slowly sauntered away. He smiled to himself and wondered what he’d interrupted.

  When he reached the end of downtown, he crossed the street and made his way back to his car, shining his light into buildings as he did. Like the other side, most of the store fronts were boarded up, and those that weren’t were either empty or piled full of assorted junk. Also like the other side, everything was covered in a thick layer of dust and spider webs that hadn’t been disturbed in a very long time.

  He shook his head as he crossed the street back to his car. Except for the single used clothing store, the entire downtown of Tilley was deserted and the buildings probably hadn’t been opened in years.

  He sat down in his car and plugged the flashlight back into its charger. He started the vehicle for the air conditioning and then drummed his fingers on the steering wheel a moment, trying to decide what to do. He finally decided there was nothing else he could do tonight.

  “Shit,” he muttered as he reached for the column shifter, put the car in gear, and pulled away from the curb.

  This had been a total waste of time. He’d really thought he would find something, even if it was just signs of recent movement inside one of the stores, but he’d come up with a big fat nothing. Without somewhere to start, he was wasting his time. Monday he’d tell his officers to start making regular checks in and around the fast food places and gas stations near the interstate. Maybe they’d get lucky and turn something up.

  He returned home and stomped to his apartment. Since he’d finished earlier than he expected, he should go to Fat2Fit and workout, but he just couldn’t summon the interest. Instead, after ignoring Marmalade’s pleas for food, and dropping his gear in his bedroom, he opened the refrigerator, pulled out a Samuel Adams, and flopped onto his couch. He took a pull from the bottle then remembered he was supposed to call Maggie. He dug his cell from his pocket and selected her number.

  “Hey!” she said in answer. “How’d it go?”

  “Didn’t find a thing. I should have joined you for dinner.”

  “Oh. Sorry to hear that.”

  He sighed. “It’s not your fault. Trying to find these people is like trying to grab smoke.”

  “What people?”

  “The homeless. They’re like ghosts.”

  “Don’t let it get to you.”

  He snorted. He wasn’t sure which was more frustrating. Having no information to work with, or having information that didn’t fit together or made no sense. He finally decided it was the former. If the information he had didn’t make sense, that only meant he was missing some of the puzzle pieces and he just needed to keep digging.

  “I’m not.”

  “You sure?” Maggie asked.

  He smiled to himself. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “Now? Now I’m going to have my officers help shake the trees to see what falls out.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means I’m not going to spend any more time working on this until I have something to work on it with. I’ll have my guys keep an eye out for anyone who looks like a vagrant, and if we find one, we’ll ask a few questions. If that doesn’t turn up anything, then this’ll be another unsolved arson.”

  “So that means we’re on for tomorrow, right?”

  “Yep.”

  “And you’re not going to wimp out on the run at the last minute, are you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay, good. I’ve gotten spoiled over the last couple of months. Tonight reminded me of how much I dislike eating alone.”

  “TC was there,” he said, referring to her cat. TC was short for, oddly enough, The Cat.

  She giggled. “Yeah, but he’s not nearly as much fun. You left me so out of sorts I didn’t even feel like watching a movie.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said softly

  “I’m kidding, but I did miss you.”

  “So, you did wat
ch a movie?”

  “I was going to, but everything I wanted to see, I wanted to watch with you. Like I said, you’re spoiling me.”

  “Yeah, well, sometimes it can’t be helped.”

  “I know. One of these days, something will happen at the plant and I’ll have to work. Then it’ll be me who has to bail on dinner, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

  “We do what we have to.”

  “Yeah, I know. But working isn’t nearly as much fun as curling up on the couch and watching a movie with you.”

  “That much is certain.”

  There was a long pause. “I missed you tonight,” she finally said, her voice soft.

  “I missed you too.”

  “I wish you were here.”

  “Want me to come over?”

  She sighed. “Yes, but no. You don’t have to do that. It’s already after nine and I’m a big girl. I can stay by myself one night.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “I know.”

  He smiled to himself. It was one of those no, but yes, responses you gave when you wanted something but were trying to be polite and considerate of the other person.

  “Give me a few minutes to gather my stuff and I’ll come over, okay?”

  There was a brief pause. “I’d like that,” she murmured.

  “Okay. I’ll see you in a bit.”

  “I’m looking forward to it,” she said softly then hung up.

  There was definitely something happening between them. He’d nearly said, ‘love you,’ before she hung up, the words almost popping out without thought.

  He didn’t love her, not really, but there was no question he was starting to feel something for her. At least, that’s what he thought was happening. Whatever it was, it was something he hadn’t felt in years, not since before Stephanie had asked for a separation.

  When he’d been married, he and Stephanie had always ended their phone calls with ‘love you.’ In hindsight, he should have known something was going wrong when Steph had gradually stopped saying it. At the time, he hadn’t paid much attention to her occasional lapses, at least not until she’d almost stopped entirely.