by J. J. Cook
Bert had taken it in stride with a maturity that had impressed Stella. He reminded her a lot of the Dalmatian puppy—leggy and sweet, cute and good-natured.
“I don’t know yet,” Stella admitted. “Bob says he can. John says no.”
Kent Norris was a forty-something over-the-road trucker who drove the fire brigade’s pumper-tanker. He was trying to get rid of the stomach he’d built up from his wife’s good cooking, without much luck. “They’re hashing it out over there. That means there’s a gray area.”
“Or John is too scared of Bob to put his foot down,” Walt said. “Where’s Don Rogers? He should be up here at a time like this.”
Don Rogers was the Sweet Pepper police chief, and not exactly Stella’s biggest fan. He’d been angry since she’d first came, not expecting a woman, or someone from outside the community, to take the position.
“You know we don’t get along so well,” Stella said. “He might’ve put Bob up to doing this to get rid of me.”
“That shouldn’t matter,” Walt told her. “He swore an oath of office, same as I did, to enforce the law. He should be here.”
“It looks like you’ve got more company, Chief.” Kent glanced at the older Volkswagen Beetle that had chugged up the mountain road. “The Smittys are here.”
The Smittys were Pat and John Smith who ran the Sweet Pepper Gazette, the only newspaper in town. They got out of their car, both of them with cameras, to find out what was going on. As usual, they were dressed the same—tan trench coats, sneakers, and jeans. They were both about the same height and weight and had gray hair.
Stella was glad to see them. She hadn’t thought of calling them, but it was good to have them there. Whatever Bob chose to do would be recorded and read by a lot of people in town. He might think twice before he did anything completely stupid. He might want to run for reelection again.
“So, what have we got going on up here now?” John squinted at the old cabin. “Somebody gave us a call about the situation. Care to elaborate, Chief Griffin?”
Stella gave them the whole story, from her point of view. The Smittys, both in their mid-fifties, took pictures and nodded. The Smittys absorbed what she had to say and then walked over to where John was still arguing with Bob.
“I think John might have the upper hand now,” Kent observed. “He’s sending the bulldozer driver back home. If Bob’s face turns any redder, he’ll explode for sure.”
“What’s that darn fool doing now?” Walt asked.
Stella watched in disbelief as the driver of the bulldozer climbed off the machine and Bob took the controls.
“Hey!” the driver yelled at Bob. “You’re not licensed to drive that machine!”
“Get down from there, Bob!” John yelled loud enough to be heard over the noise from the truck and the bulldozer.
“Leave me alone,” Bob screamed. “Get out of here. I can take care of this myself.”
“Bob is crazy, Chief,” Bert said. “I think he’s gonna drive the dozer into the cabin.”
“Somebody, besides Bob, better do something,” Walt muttered.
John moved quickly out of the way as the bright yellow bulldozer began to jerk forward again only a hundred yards or so from the cabin.
“He’s gonna do it,” Kent said. “He’s gonna ram the cabin.”
“Shoot him, John,” Walt demanded. “Take out your gun and shoot him in the leg!”
The Smittys’ cameras were flashing, like paparazzi following a famous movie star. They got as close as they dared when Bob started moving faster toward the cabin.
Stella gritted her teeth, her hands clenched in tight balls. She ran to John’s side.
“I don’t know what else I can do,” he said. “I can arrest him after it’s over, but that won’t do much good now. I called Don. He’s on his way.”
“I understand that Bob’s on the council and he owns an important business. You can’t just shoot him.”
“I’m sorry, Stella.”
They all waited for the impact of metal hitting logs. Stella scanned the front windows in the cabin but couldn’t see Eric. What would be left of him when the cabin was gone? Would he disappear for good?
The bulldozer was close to the front steps. The frenzied look on Bob’s face was frightening. Everyone stood completely still as the heavy scoop blade reached the stairs.
Then the bulldozer shuddered and shut down.
The quiet after that moment was startling. Bob tried again and again to restart the engine. It didn’t work. That gave John the opportunity to jump on the dozer and take the keys from him.
“I think that’s enough for one day, Mr. Floyd. Come on down now. We don’t want this to go any further.”
Stella let out a long breath of relief, and her pager went off. There was a fire in Sweet Pepper.
Chapter 2
“I want that cabin torn down,” Bob yelled as John escorted him to the back of his police car. “I want that ghost laid to rest once and for all.”
“I’ll have to take care of this first,” John told Stella. “I’ll come out to the fire, if I can.”
Stella wanted to know if Eric had stopped the bulldozer. There wasn’t time to find out. She was going to have to wait until after the fire brigade had answered the call.
“Do what you have to do,” she said to John. “We can handle it.”
“Going down with us, Chief?” Kent was already behind the wheel of the Cherokee.
“Yes.” She jumped in the front seat beside him. Bert was in the back. “Let’s go.”
Most of the volunteer firefighters were already getting in their gear by the time Stella and her supporters reached the firehouse at the end of the long road from the cabin. Eric had built the cabin close to the firehouse for his convenience. The fire brigade had been his life, and ultimately, his death.
“The fire is out at Sweet Pepper Lake,” Tagger Reamis said when they got inside. He’d been on communications when the call came in.
He was a Vietnam veteran, one of the members of the original fire brigade. Tagger didn’t go out on calls, but he was pretty good at communications, now that he’d stopped drinking. “215 Half Moon Road. I think that’s old Barney Falk’s place at Sunset Beach again.”
“This better not be another speed test. I don’t care if he used to be the state rep from this area or not. Some of us have better things to do than run after him every month or so,” JC Burris said. He was a thin, wiry black man who worked at the Sweet Pepper canning plant. He used to drive a cement truck, which made him perfect for driving the engine.
Stella agreed and knew the rest of the volunteers did too. These people took time out from their daily lives to service the fire and emergency needs of their community. They were passionate about what they did, and they didn’t like being played.
Barney Falk had dragged them out to his house several times to gauge their response limits and ask ridiculous questions about what they did and how they did it. He had once been a powerful man, according to everyone else in Sweet Pepper.
To Stella he was just an annoyance.
“I’m with you.” Stella put her gear on as she ran out to the engine. She climbed up on the passenger seat and closed the door. “If this is another wild-goose chase, we’ll turn the hoses on him.”
Everyone who heard her knew she was joking, but they enjoyed the idea. Whether Barney Falk was powerful or not, the volunteers knew the chief was dedicated to a code of conduct.
The rest of the volunteers scrambled into the back of the fire engine. Stella saw Hero running down Firehouse Road from the cabin to turn out for the fire. His mother, Sylvia, barked a greeting to him, and he jumped in the back of the pumper-tanker with her. Volunteers Kimmie and David Spratt welcomed him.
The pumper-tanker followed the engine/ladder truck down the main road into Sweet Pepper. They continued their high rate of speed past dozens of small shops and the town hall. People waved when they saw them go by. Folks in Sweet Pepper and the surroundi
ng areas, who had been left high and dry when the county pulled their fire service, loved the fire brigade. It had meant lower house insurance premiums as well as knowing their emergency needs would be met.
“Looks like they finally got around to paving the road,” Stella observed as they started up the steep slope into the Sunset Beach community. The road had been deeply rutted and sparsely graveled, making it difficult to get the two large vehicles into the area where the expensive houses were located.
“Yeah, after you gave them hell at the town council a few times,” JC said. “Then they made the rich folks who live out here take care of it.”
“Whatever—it’s a lot better than it was the first time we came out here.”
“I wouldn’t have had any problem with it. It was Ricky Junior driving back then. He was good for a young upstart. I’ve got experience with these babies.”
Which was why Stella had asked JC to drive when Ricky Hutchins Jr. had to leave the fire brigade. She’d hated to see Ricky go. He was one of her first volunteers. He was young and a little wild, but he was the best mechanic she’d ever seen. The fire brigade still missed him.
He’d had to quit the fire brigade to help his mother at the family restaurant after his father had gone to prison. It had been a hard time for them. Everyone from Sweet Pepper had done what they could to make it easier on Ricky and his mother. There was only so much to do with a bad situation.
Both the pumper-tanker and the engine/ladder truck rolled smoothly into the heart of the lake community. There were no old-lady gingerbread houses here from a hundred years ago to give the place character, as there were in town. Everything had been built in the last ten years. The houses were new, huge, and modern—several of them worth millions of dollars.
“Doesn’t look like much to me.” JC parked the engine on the street in front of Falk’s home. “I think that old dude is bored or something. Maybe you can get an injunction against him. I left my little girl’s birthday party to be here, Chief.”
“We need to get out and take a look around.” Stella got on the radio with Tagger. “Who called in the fire?”
Before Tagger could answer, a loud explosion ripped through the house that stood three stories above the lake. The entire area shuddered. Flames and debris were everywhere. The house became an inferno in an instant.
“Get the pumper in back,” Stella yelled at Kent Norris, who was driving that vehicle. “We have to get water on the house from all sides. Tagger, call the police and get someone out here.”
“Chief?” Tagger waited for her response. “The phone call wasn’t routed through 911. I have the cell number on the computer.”
“Hold on to it. This may be arson.”
JC already had the engine pulled up to the house. He jumped out to help Kimmie and David Spratt, Royce Pope, and Allen Wise get the hose attached to the shiny new fire hydrant.
“Where do you want us, Chief?” Bert Wando asked, pry ax in hand, face mask pulled down. “I can go inside and look for Mr. Falk.”
Stella thought a lot of Bert, but she didn’t think he was ready to go into the house. He’d missed a lot of training the last few months of high school. “Not this one. This is bad. Get the thermal imager. Let’s see what’s going on in there.”
She was missing some of her most experienced volunteers. Ricky was gone. John wasn’t there. Banyin Watts was too pregnant to work. Petey Stanze had been injured in another fire.
Stella was going to have to take Allen and Kent into the house. The two men were hard workers. She needed JC and Royce’s strength and calm outside to make sure the hoses remained stable enough to fight the fire.
Bert was disappointed but didn’t disagree with her. He got the used imager the town had recently purchased and brought it to her as she directed the hoses. Kimmie and David put the hydraulic ladder up to the third floor.
“We have to get the roof vented,” Stella told them. “Allen and Kent, I need you inside. Put on your packs and let’s go.”
The fire was so hot that it had scorched the new trees and grass around the house. Debris had totaled the Mercedes that was parked in the drive. People from other houses in the neighborhood walked up to see what was going on. Drivers stopped to point and stare from their cars as the fire ripped through what was left of the structure.
Stella looked at the thermal imager. It was clear to see where the heart of the fire was located, but not if there was anyone inside. “I can’t tell if Barney Falk is in there.”
“We’re gonna look for him?” Allen asked with some trepidation in his voice. He wasn’t used to being backup for the core members who were gone.
“That’s what we have to do,” Stella said. “Are you okay with that?”
Allen frowned. “I’ll give it my best shot, Chief.”
“That’s all any of us can do.”
“We’re not looking for a living person in there, right?” Kent grabbed his pry ax.
“I don’t know,” she confided. “There’s always a chance. Watch your backs. Keep your masks on, and be careful going in. I’ll be right behind you. When I say get out, get out fast.”
Stella got her gear set up and gave last-minute instructions to everyone before she joined Kent and Allen in the inferno.
So much damage had been done to the interior of the house from the explosion and the fire that followed that it was difficult to tell what rooms they were walking through. It looked like a foyer and an office of some sort. The heat and sound of the flames made it hard to concentrate.
They wouldn’t have much time before the house came down. They were going to have to split up to search the three floors, if they had a chance of finding anyone alive. While she wanted to protect Allen and Kent, she needed each of them to walk through the flame and smoke alone.
“I’ll take the second floor.” She knew the fire was hottest there. “Kent, you take the top floor. Allen—the ground floor. Look for survivors. That’s it. Make a quick sweep of the place and get out, whether you hear from me or not. Just get back outside.”
The two men nodded, grim faced, their eyes filled with fear. They each held their pry ax in a death grip before them.
Stella ran up the burning stairs to the second floor. If she hadn’t turned away, she would have lost her nerve as she looked at them. Everyone was scared, even her. It was different back home, where she’d been a firefighter for ten years. Chief Henry had made these decisions. He’d been responsible for what happened to the men and women who worked for him.
Here in Sweet Pepper, that was her job. It was the hardest thing she’d ever done.
Kent quickly used the radio to report from the top floor. “Just melting piles of furniture, Chief. The windows are gone or bubbling. No sign of anyone up here.”
Stella liked and trusted Kent. Even though his inspection seemed fast, she knew he’d thoroughly checked the area.
She could hear her volunteers on the roof trying to vent the fire to allow some of the heat to escape through the roof. What went out through the roof wouldn’t blow back on them.
“Okay. Go outside.”
There was a huge hole in what was left of one of the rooms on the second floor. Whatever had caused the blast had destroyed everything around it. The rest of the floor wouldn’t last much longer.
Stella hoped Barney Falk wasn’t home when this happened. If he was, she had no doubt that they would find his body later.
As she descended what was left of the stairs, Royce called her on the radio. “Chief, we’re out of water in back. The pumper is empty. I thought maybe we could stretch a hose down to the lake and draw from it, but it’s too far. I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault,” she told him. “Get the equipment out front. See what you can do to help everyone else.”
“The police are here,” Kimmie called in. “They want to know if we have survivors. Do we need paramedics or the coroner?”
“Tell them to take care of the bystanders and call both. We don’t know yet wha
t we’re dealing with,” Stella replied.
“Chief!” JC’s voice sounded frantic. “I think the left side of the house is coming down!”
“Get everyone out of that area. Work where it’s safe. We’ll be out soon.” Stella ended up on the ground floor with Allen.
“No sign of Mr. Falk so far, Chief,” he said.
“I don’t think we can search much longer.”
The left side of the house began falling backward, toward the outside, taking what looked like a fireplace and a whole room with it. Stella turned to run, but Allen was gone.
She called out to him on the radio and finally found him on his knees by what was left of a human being. The hole from the second floor, where the blast had gone off, appeared to have dropped the body into what was left of the kitchen.
*
Allen was desperately trying to give CPR to the dead victim, who had been burned beyond recognition in the fire.
He’d removed his helmet and face mask. “Chief.” He was coughing and trying to catch his breath. “I can’t get him up to carry him outside. I thought I could help him here. I can’t do that either.”
“Get your gear on now, Allen, and get out of here. You can’t help him.”
“Chief—”
“Get out now!” she yelled at him.
He was crying as he put on his hat and mask. He ran outside and Kent got him away from the house.
Stella knew Allen had never witnessed anything like this before. They’d only had two fires with fatalities in the time she’d been there. Neither of them had been this bad. He wasn’t prepared, not that anyone could be. This was beyond anything she could have explained to them. Only their tough training got them through it. There was just a moment or two left to get the victim outside before there was nothing remaining of the house.
Kent put his mask back on and grabbed a rug from the front porch. He and Stella wrapped the rug around the victim and got him outside.
