Fire Engine Dead

by Sheila Connolly

  Always the gentleman, James had walked me back to the nearest station after dinner so I could catch my train home. I was used to walking the dark streets of Center City, but it was comforting to have his solid presence next to me. Suburban Station did not lend itself to intimacy, even late in the evening, so our good-byes had been anything but steamy.

  In the morning I was waiting for him when he knocked on my door. He seemed startled that I opened it so quickly. “Good morning,” I said brightly.

  “I see you got home safely,” he replied.

  “I did. Thank you for dinner, and for the escort.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Jane Austen would have been proud of us. Could we get any stuffier?

  “May I come in?” he asked.

  “Of course. Would you like some coffee, or are we in a hurry?” I stepped back to let him into the house.

  “Coffee sounds good. Professor Evans said any time this morning would be fine—she doesn’t have any classes until this afternoon.”

  “Coffee it is, then.” I went to the kitchen to boil water.

  I could hear James roaming around my living room, even though as I knew he had seen it before. But then, there wasn’t room for two people in my tiny kitchenette. When the kettle whistled, he drifted over to the entrance to the kitchen and leaned against the door frame.

  “How will you plan to explain my presence to Professor Evans?” I asked as I poured boiling water over coffee grounds.

  “By telling the truth: you’re assisting the FBI in their inquiries.”

  “That’s pretty vague. Are you—or the FBI—officially involved in the case now?” I handed him a mug of coffee.

  “Yes, finally. There have been five arson fires in the last month, and the police are officially stumped. They’ve asked us to help, formally, but only for the arson aspect.”

  I wasn’t sure if that made me feel better or worse. Clearly the police knew they were out of their depth and had done the right thing, but that also meant that this case would be getting a lot of public attention, which sometimes made it harder to find who was behind it. After all, this guy had already successfully set five fires—if in fact they were all related—and gotten away with it. “What about the dead guard? Is it officially a murder now?”

  “We’re downplaying that for the moment.”

  A nonanswer. Well, that wasn’t my department anyway. “Do we have time to sit for a few minutes and drink our coffee?” I asked.

  “Of course.” So we sat at my small dining table and talked about nothing of importance for a few minutes. I could tell he was getting impatient, so once I’d emptied my cup, I said, “Are you ready to go?”

  He drained his mug. “I am. How far is it to West Chester?”

  “About half an hour, depending on which route you take—and how fast you drive. Are you in a hurry?”

  “I’d like to be back in the city by noon.”

  “Then we’ll take the nonscenic route.”

  In fact, it took almost precisely half an hour to reach West Chester—and another ten minutes to find parking at the university. It was a midsize member of the state’s public education system, with maybe fifteen thousand students, most of whom appeared to own cars and park them on campus. I knew from experience—I had visited the town’s nice, small historical society on more than one occasion—that searching for parking in the surrounding town wouldn’t be any more fruitful. I wondered if FBI agents could get parking tickets fixed.

  We arrived at the Department of Criminal Justice a few minutes past ten. James apparently knew where he was going, and after a few turns he stopped in front of a door with a frosted glass panel, knocked, then went in ahead of me. Professor Celia Evans turned out to be a woman maybe ten years older than me, with a short, no-nonsense haircut and intelligent eyes. She came around the desk to greet him—with a hug. “James, it’s good to see you again! It’s been too long. And this must be…?” She turned to me.

  I extended a hand. “I’m Nell Pratt, from the Pennsylvania Antiquarian Society.”

  “Of course. James mentioned you when he called, said you were helping him on an FBI problem.”

  “I’m happy to help if I can.”

  “Please, sit down. Coffee?” We both declined the coffee, and Celia resumed her seat behind the desk. “So, where do you want to start? Nell, do you know anything about what I do?”

  I shook my head. “James hasn’t really had time to fill me in. Can you give me the short form?”

  “Sure. As you can see, I teach, but I also founded the Arson Study Forum, oh, twenty-five years ago now. We study the people who set fires, and that extends to domestic terrorists. That’s where I intersect with the FBI, which keeps a database of arson events nationwide—they’ve been kind enough to share their statistics with me. I’ve written and lectured extensively on the subject. So, what’ve you got for me, James?”

  “Five warehouse fires in the past month, within Philadelphia city limits.”

  Celia nodded. “Of course. I’ve been reading about those.” She leaned back in her swivel chair and laced her fingers together. “Now, why do I think there’s more to it than a possible arsonist?” Her eyes darted briefly to me.

  As did James’s. “As you’ve probably read in the papers,” he began, “one of the fires destroyed a local museum collection that had been put in storage during a renovation campaign. What you haven’t read—and this is off the record, Celia—is that there’s an outside possibility that the fire was deliberately set for just that purpose, in order to claim the insurance.”

  “The museum needed the money more than it needed its collections?” Celia arched an eyebrow.

  “One piece in particular was worth a nice chunk of change. If it actually burned,” James said. When Celia looked confused, James nodded toward me for an explanation.

  I looked back at him. “James, how much am I at liberty to say?”

  “You mean, can we trust Celia? Of course.”

  “All right, then. The collection that burned belonged to the Fireman’s Museum.”

  Celia laughed briefly. “Oh my! I’m sorry, but you have to admit that it’s rather ironic.”

  James nodded. “We didn’t broadcast that to the public. It would be funny, if the night watchman hadn’t died in the fire. Or at least, his body was found there afterward.”

  Celia sobered immediately. “Oh dear. That is a tragedy. But you two believe it was something more than arson? Was it aimed at the watchman, do you think?”

  “He was dead before the fire began—a blow to the head—but it’s not clear whether that was an accident or not. The watchman was a former firefighter named Allan Brigham, and there’s nothing in his record that suggests he was a target.”

  Celia looked critically at him. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “If—and it’s still a big if—the collection was the target, then Brigham’s death may have been collateral damage. Or he may have been a participant at some point and then was eliminated. We still have a lot of questions.”

  “And how does Nell here come to be involved?” Celia asked.

  My cue. “The president of the museum came to me shortly after the fire to ask for whatever records we had of the collection, to file the insurance claim. We didn’t have a lot of material, but I gave him copies of what we had, including pictures of the antique fire engine that was the centerpiece of the collection. To make a long story short, when I compared those photos to the photos of the charred hulk that appeared in the Inquirer, I thought they weren’t the same piece of equipment. And I told James.”

  “James, did you agree?” When he nodded, Celia went on. “So you suspect that this fire was set deliberately not only for the insurance but also to conceal a theft?”

  James jumped back in. “I was skeptical at first, but I thought the pictures that Nell showed me were convincing enough to warrant further investigation. I haven’t seen all the reports, but I think there’s something funny going on he
re.”

  “Have you talked to anyone at the fire department?” Celia said.

  “Not yet. This is tricky, you know. The museum in question has close ties with the city and the fire department. I don’t have any friends on the inside there, and I don’t want to go barging into a city department and start flinging accusations around.”

  “What about the museum side? I take it that’s where you come in, Nell?”

  I nodded. “As I said, I’m acquainted with the president of the museum, but we’re not even close to friends. But since he asked me to help, James thinks I can nose around from my side and see if I can learn anything—for example, if the museum is in serious financial trouble, which could explain a motive. Or if there’s some disgruntled employee or ex-employee who wants to do harm to it. But as James pointed out, you’ve also got to remember that this is kind of a quasi-municipal institution. They’re officially a nonprofit organization, but their ties to the fire department are pretty tight. It’s hard to separate them. Do you know anyone there?”

  “At the museum? I may have met a few people on the board, but my interests are primarily academic, and the talks I give are not well suited to the museum’s interests. Nor, as I recall, do they have any public space for lectures. I’ve had more contact with the fire department, as you might guess.” She thought for a few long moments. “What are you asking of me?”

  James and I exchanged a look, then answered. “There are only a few people who knew the museum collection was in the warehouse that burned, and who would also know how to sell the fire engine. This wasn’t just a smash-and-grab—this took planning. And the same thing would apply to the fire. Whoever did this had to make arrangements to get into the building and remove the fire engine and then replace it with another, less valuable one, and only then could they set the fire to cover up the theft. And apparently they were careful in how they set it, because it took awhile to really catch.”

  “So clearly it was not a spontaneous act,” Celia said. “And they were trying to delay anyone noticing? Does that mean they knew the watchman was…out of commission and unlikely to report it?”

  I hadn’t even considered that. Whether or not the watchman had been in on the theft, he had been taken out of the equation before the fire was set.

  James nodded. “Exactly. And as I said, only a few people had knowledge of where the collection was. Unfortunately most of them would also know of how to dispose of it, and would have plenty of knowledge about fires and how to set them.”

  “I see your problem. But again, what are you asking of me?”

  “If the fire that destroyed the museum collection was a fire-for-hire, so to speak, how likely is it that the others are related? Is it possible that the multiple fires were intended to cover up the museum one and make it look less obvious? Or did whoever stole the fire engine take advantage of what was already going on, and apparently still is? And where do you go to recruit an arsonist?”

  Celia laughed. “Well, that’s quite a few questions, isn’t it? How much do you know about arsonists, James? Or you, Nell?”

  “Only what I’ve seen on television,” I said, “and I don’t assume that’s accurate.”

  “I’ve worked on a couple of arson cases, but I can’t claim to be an expert,” James added.

  Celia nodded her approval. “All right. You have to ask, does this person, whoever he is, now or as a child, have any behavioral problems? ADHD? Difficulties in school or with personal relationships? Is he aggressive and confrontational? Is he a bully or known to be cruel to others?”

  “Are you sure it’s a man rather than a woman?” I asked.

  “That’s generally true—among arsonists men heavily outweigh women, particularly at a younger age. Are your suspects young or old?”

  Exactly who were we considering suspects? I asked myself. If it was a museum insider, that meant a pretty short list of Peter and Scott Ingersoll, Jennifer Phillips, and Gary O’Keefe. Maybe a board member? How was I supposed to answer Celia’s question? “I’d say adult, not young, but I have no information about their earlier history. Tell me, would it be unusual for someone to suddenly turn to setting fires later in life, or would there be a pattern leading up to it?”

  “To some extent, yes, it would be unusual, and yes, there usually is a pattern. But you also have to remember that the person who planned this and the person who carried out the fire may not be the same person.”

  I hadn’t wanted to consider that, since it would only complicate things, but now it was on the table. “So, either there’s an arsonist setting the warehouse fires and someone else took advantage of that to start a fire for his own ends, or maybe whoever organized the theft commissioned the fire. That sounds odd, doesn’t it? Are there arsonists for hire? I mean, people who don’t set fires until and unless someone pays them?”

  Celia sighed. “Nell, none of these are simple questions. Yes, it’s possible, although I would say that most arsonists act for personal reasons, not for monetary gain, but it has been known to happen. And let me add, just because someone sets a fire doesn’t mean that he is an arsonist, in the broadest sense of the word.”

  I digested that for a moment before asking, “What’s the relationship between firefighters and arsonists?”

  “Another complicated question. Very broadly, a true arsonist acts to satisfy some internal compulsion, even if he can’t explain it, while a firefighter acts to protect the public. At least, we hope so.”

  “You’re implying there are exceptions?”

  “On occasion. But that’s not to say that firefighters are closet arsonists, in general.”

  “But would firemen know any arsonists? Even at arm’s length? I mean, are there people who have a reputation as fire starters, even if they’ve never been caught?”

  Celia laughed. “It’s a very reasonable question, but it’s hard to answer. I’d guess firefighters become aware of specific individuals, based on the details of the crime—timing, what devices or accelerants they use, and so on. But that’s still a long way from knowing their names or how to find them. I won’t say it’s impossible, but it seems unlikely. Are you asking if a member of the fire department, or someone who knew a member, could locate an arsonist for hire? It seems rather far-fetched.” Celia was silent for several long moments. “You know, putting all these facts together, it sounds as though someone harbors a lot of hostility toward firefighters in general.”

  “Why do you say that?” James asked.

  “If this was a planned crime, as you’re suggesting, someone had to have known about the collection and where it was stored. That same someone would have known of the presence of a watchman, and yet, if what you’re implying is correct, that fact didn’t deter him. Maybe this Brigham wasn’t meant to die, but the possibility was there. Psychologically, the arsonist would have taken some perverse satisfaction in simultaneously ripping off the museum devoted to firefighting, stealing their most precious item, and making them look foolish by actually burning the rest of the collection. Sort of a triple whammy. Which doesn’t mean he intended to murder anyone.”

  James nodded. “I hadn’t looked at it that way, but you’re right. So all we have to do is look for someone associated with the museum who hates firefighters? When most of our suspects have public ties to firefighting?” he asked.

  “Don’t take this lightly, James,” Celia said. “We may be looking at a rapid escalation in behavior following a long history of minor incidents that may never have been reported, and who knows what he might do next? I know that doesn’t provide you with much guidance, but it’s the best I can do absent any more concrete data.”

  “I understand, Celia. So let me get this straight: we’re probably looking for a man, and he may have had a long but unreported history of setting fires, which may have been prompted by any number of reasons, but which involve some sort of anger toward the fire department or firefighters in general.”

  “I know it’s not much to go on,” Celia said. “I�
��m sorry.” She looked at her watch. “I’ve got a class in an hour, and I need to prepare for it. I can send you some published papers to look over that might be of help to you. Of course, there’s my book.” She dimpled briefly, and she reached for a bookshelf behind her to pull out a trade-size paper-bound volume. “Nell, let me give you a copy. I think it covers what you need. Then let me know if you think you need more?”

  James stood up, and I followed suit. “Thanks, Celia. I appreciate your time.” He handed her a large envelope. “These are the reports of all the recent fires. I’d appreciate it if you take a look and see if anything jumps out at you. And keep them under your hat.”

  Celia took the envelope. “Of course.”

  “And you know where to find me if anything else occurs to you,” James added. “This is an odd one.”

  “I agree. Nell, nice to meet you. Let me know if you have any further questions.” She handed me a business card, and I tucked it in my bag.

  “I’ll do that. Can I ask, whatever made you go into this line of work?”

  She smiled at my question. “I wanted to be an FBI agent, but all they asked was if I could type. I figured this was a good end run.” Then the smile left her face. “And I think what I do is important.”

  “It is, Celia,” James said quietly. “We’ll get out of your hair now, but thanks again.”

  “Thank you!” I called over my shoulder as I trailed after James.

  As we hiked back the mile or so to the car, I asked, “What did we learn?”

  James looked down at me. “Did you want a simple answer? Celia’s one of the best researchers in the field, but she’ll be the first to admit that people set fires for a wide variety of reasons, logical or not, and it’s not easy to pigeonhole them. She was being cautious, but I’d guess that she sees it as unlikely that a fireman would hire an arsonist to do his dirty work, even if he could find one. If—and I mean that seriously—a fireman felt the need to set a fire, either out of compulsion or for illegal purposes, I’d bet he would do it himself.”