by Earl Emerson
We got the call for our big fire Friday night when we were parked in the alley near Rainier and Atlantic. Attack 6 got there about the time we did.
There were four houses in a row, all built maybe sixty years ago. All four houses were so close together you could spit out the window of one and into the window of another. The fire had been set between houses one and two counting from the right, had gone up the wall of house number two, gone into the living and dining rooms on the first floor and snaked up into the attic on the exterior.
When we got there, the front door was open, smoke was pouring out, flame coming out the windows on either side of the house. Wollf told us to do search and rescue. At three in the morning with the front door wide open and nobody in sight it was the obvious call.
Dolan got up on the porch, where he hooked up his face piece. I got myself on air just as Wollf came around the front of the apparatus, clicking his pressurized hose to his MSA mask, giving himself air. Which meant we were all three ready at the same time. On his knees, Dolan tried several times to go into the house, but each attempt was rebuffed by the heat. I wanted to tell him to stay back, that he was going to get burned like Pickett, but Jeff Dolan has twenty-four years in the department and doesn’t want my opinion.
“Let’s go,” said Wollf, who simply stepped over Dolan—no hesitation—and disappeared into the house. Seconds later he was walking in the fire. Walking, not crawling. I saw him in what appeared to be the center of a large yellow ball of flame. Dolan couldn’t get in. I couldn’t get in. Wollf walked right over us.
At first we thought if he could do it, we could, but in the few seconds we deliberated, the heat grew more intense.
The smoke closed down again, and a burst of orange flame came out the front door and chased us off the porch, which definitely cancelled any plans either of us had for following Wollf inside.
The crew of Attack 6 was still in the front yard.
“God, he’s crazy!” said Dolan, looking into the flames. “He’s gonna die.”
“We’re all going to die,” said Towbridge, leaping up onto the porch beside us. “It’s just a matter of how and when.” It was an expression Wollf used.
A minute later, as Zeke and Slaughter were going through the doorway with the 13⁄4-inch line blasting, Wollf stuck his head out the second-story window above us, black smoke arching out around him. Over his portable radio he said, “Atlantic Command from Ladder Three. Primary search all clear.”
Chief Eddings, who was in the street behind us, didn’t reply.
Dolan and I followed Attack 6’s hose line inside. They used a lot of water in the doorway. On my way through the living room I stopped and pulled more hose. Again I heard Wollf on my portable. “Atlantic Command from Ladder Three. Primary search all clear. Do you copy?”
After a moment the dispatcher came on the air and said, “Atlantic Command. Ladder Three reports primary search all clear. Did you receive?”
Again Eddings said nothing. A moment or two later she was on the air. “Attack Six. Have you finished your primary search?”
It took Slaughter a moment to drop whatever he was doing and answer. “Negative, Command. We haven’t done any searching.”
“That’s what I thought,” Eddings replied, which was both an unnecessary radio transmission as well as a slap in the face to Wollf, who’d already told her the house was clear.
It’s dangerous for an incident commander to ignore a radio message. To pretend someone on the fire ground was not being heard. And then to pretend the dispatcher hadn’t relayed the message.
If Wollf had been calling for help, would she have ignored that too? It was bad enough she had everybody searching the house a second time.
After the fire was tapped and we were changing our expended bottles for fresh ones, Dolan looked at Wollf. “Man, you tryin’ to get killed?”
“If you’d been inside, you wouldn’t have wanted me to wait.”
“You coulda got killed.”
“We’re all going to die—”
“It’s just a matter of how and when,” Towbridge finished.
Wollf’s air bottle had blistered from the heat. His helmet was filthy black, the L-3 insignia patch melted and unreadable.
Later, Dolan whispered, “Do we really want to be working with somebody who’s got a death wish?”
“I been thinkin’ the same thing about you ever since I been on Ladder Three,” Towbridge said. We all laughed at the look on Dolan’s face.
But I’m beginning to think Jeff is right. I’m beginning to think I’m working for a man who wants to die in a fire.
Not that I wouldn’t follow my lieutenant through the back door of hell itself. Because I would. But I don’t want another partner hurt, and I certainly don’t want to see anybody die.
It turned out the residents were across the street at a neighbor’s house, watching us out the windows—they had no idea people were risking their lives for them.
37. GUARDING THE CAN
While we were waiting for Marshal 5 to show up and investigate, I walked the perimeter of the premises with a battle lantern. Two front rooms had been fully involved when we got there, heat and smoke traveling up the stairs, burning pictures off the walls, charring light fixtures, discoloring mirrors, and ruining the contents of the upstairs closets. The residents had been lucky to escape with their slippers and the cat.
Engine 30 had come in behind us and used their 13⁄4-inch line to douse the outside of the second house. Slaughter had yelled at them, “You don’t attack a fire from outside, you idiots!”
“We’re hitting the exposures,” one of the Engine 30 guys replied amicably.
“Just don’t be pushing the fire onto us when we’re inside!”
“That’s not what we’re doing.”
“Assholes!”
At fires everything with Slaughter had to be a contest. When I was a boot, our first fire together had been in an abandoned house. We’d gone in low, him screaming at me the whole way. Finally I turned around and said, “Don’t yell at me.” I must have intimidated him, because he never did it again. That was about the time he began writing negative reports on me.
Slaughter’s yelling wasn’t the panicked screaming you got with Eddings. It was more of a bullying tactic he’d copped from his father, long since retired as the driver on Engine 18, an ornery cuss who called anybody who didn’t follow his lead a “pussy.”
After ten minutes of searching I found what I was looking for.
“Whatcha got?” Slaughter asked. “What’s that?”
“It’s a Shasta diet black cherry can,” I said. “Same as the one we found at the Pennington fire.”
“Let me see that,” Slaughter said, reaching for it.
“Don’t touch it!”
“Don’t get your tits in a wringer. I wasn’t going to put any prints on it.”
“Weren’t going to put any prints on what?” Rodney LaSalle approached, followed at a distance by Marsha Connor, who always followed at a distance. LaSalle carried a camera, Connor a notepad. Both wore coveralls and rubber fire boots. As usual, there was a wedge of unease between the two fire investigators, just as there was between myself and Slaughter.
I directed the battle lantern onto the container. “You found one of these before?” LaSalle asked.
“Two.”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell us?”
“I did.”
LaSalle knelt and sniffed the mouth of the can. “Nice find. It’s piss.”
When Connor took a turn at smelling the can, LaSalle laughed and said, “You never smelled piss before?”
She got up and said, “It’s piss if they’re drinking ninety-one octane. That’s gasoline.”
“Really?” LaSalle tried to laugh off his mistake. “I burned out most of my olfactory glands smoking Marlboros. Why don’t you take a picture?” He handed the camera to Connor. “I’ll scout around.”
“That’s the third one I’ve seen. There mus
t have been others.”
“As far as I know, we got one,” LaSalle said.
“But it is a signature?”
“Like he’s deliberately leaving ’em? Could be.”
Slaughter was staring off toward Rainier Avenue. “Back in the late Seventies there was a series of arson fires in this district,” I said. “At the time, somebody was leaving Shasta diet black cherry cans at the scene.”
LaSalle scratched his head. “Late Seventies was a little before my time. Like twenty years before.” He turned and looked at Slaughter. “Steve? Weren’t you in FIU in the late Seventies? You remember the arsons he’s talking about?”
“Vaguely.”
“And?”
“One day the guy just up and disappeared. We never saw him again.”
“Didn’t a firefighter die?” Connor asked. “Seems to me I remember that.”
“My father,” I said.
None of them knew how to react. Connor’s eyes watered up. Slaughter stared at the street. LaSalle looked at me with undisguised curiosity. “You’re kidding. Your father?”
“That’s what I said.”
“So you two both had fathers in the department? Working at the same time? How did he die?”
I looked at Slaughter. “Ask him. I was four years old.”
Slaughter looked at LaSalle and said, “I don’t recall the details. I do seem to remember something about pop cans.”
“Shasta diet black cherry cans,” I said.
“We’ll look into it,” said LaSalle, heading down the street toward Chief Eddings.
“Can you two guard the can for a minute?” Connor asked. “I’m going to get a box to put it in.”
When we were alone, I looked at Steve Slaughter. “You never told me you were working in Marshal Five when my father died.”
“Do the math. It happened twenty-five years ago. I’ve been in twenty-seven. A lot of us were around.”
“Not in fire investigation.”
“We never even had a viable suspect. The arsons stopped. Kerrigan in FIU swore he’d track down the bug and make him pay, spent years on it. He never came up with diddly.”
“You must have been frustrated.”
“If I saw him now? Tonight? I’d break his goddamn neck.”
“You never had a hint who it might be?”
“Nope.”
When Connor came back, she gave me a sympathetic look. “You know, what we might have here is a copycat, somebody who knows about those old arsons.”
“Either that or he’s back,” I said.
“Not fuckin’ likely,” said Slaughter.
38. THE HUMAN GARBAGE DISPOSAL
Eddings found me at the intersection, her bunking coat unbuttoned and flapping, as if she couldn’t fit her bulk into it; her bulging lower belly bursting from her pants like the spillage on a boiled egg that cracked during cooking. As she approached, I could see her trying to gather herself together.
“Wollf. I’ve been meaning to talk to you all shift. It’s come to my attention that your reports on Rideout aren’t factual.”
“I haven’t submitted a report yet.”
“Maybe not, but you’ve written three and I read them and they’re not right.”
“They’re still in my drawer.”
“Steve faxed them to me. They’re not factual.”
Ignoring the nugget about Slaughter interfering with my reports, I said, “Which part isn’t factual?”
Eddings gave me a look that was maternal and pitiful at the same time, then glanced up the street at the others who were out of earshot. “You say she’s strong enough to carry ladders, yet somebody saw her putting a ladder down on the sidewalk Sunday night. You say she doesn’t makes mistakes on the fire ground, but we all know she broke out that kitchen window and got Pickett burned. Slaughter says she wanders around at fires like a chicken with its head cut off.”
“Slaughter’s got his opinion. I’ve got mine. I’m her officer. It’s my opinion that matters.”
“You know what I think? I think you’re doing everything you can to make sure she succeeds.”
“I do everything I can to make sure every recruit succeeds. That’s my job. It’s your job too.”
“It would be too bad if you were being influenced by that slinky little body.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”
“I don’t get this. You fired a woman up at Ladder Eleven.”
“She fired herself. I wrote the facts, just like I’m writing the facts about Rideout.”
“Maybe you don’t understand the politics here, Wollf. You didn’t just accidentally land in the Fifth Battalion. I had to go over heads, Wollf, but I went downtown and called in some chits. I’m building a battalion here. One I can be proud of. I fought hard to get you, so don’t let me down.”
“What about letting Rideout down?”
“One phone call from me, and you’ll be outta here.”
“I don’t lie or cheat. Go ahead and make the call.”
We stared at each other for a full thirty seconds. Here at last, Eddings knew, was an officer as bullheaded as she was. “You understand you’ll be bouncing around the city until Bill Hertlein retires.”
“Do what you have to.”
“God damn it, Wollf!” Everybody in the street turned around to watch now. “You’ve got something here. Don’t get pigheaded and throw it all away.”
“I’ve been pigheaded my whole life. I can’t change now.”
All her blather about wanting a good officer on Ladder 3 was just that, blather. I’d been brought in as the axe man. As soon as I got rid of Rideout, I would be expendable. I knew that now. What I didn’t know was why Eddings was so bent on firing Rideout in the first place.
“I really don’t want to see you working at Forty-one’s.”
I began walking away.
“What’s going on here?” Chief Hertlein strode toward us. It was the first we’d seen of him tonight.
“Chief, I want you to transfer this bastard,” Eddings said. “Tonight.”
“Which bastard?” Hertlein asked. The gaggle of nearby firefighters began backing away like chickens at a dogfight.
Eddings tried to take a deep breath but found her lungs already full. She’d been screaming and holding her breath at the same time. It tended to raise the pitch of her voice. “I want Wollf out of my battalion right this minute.”
“What seems to be the problem?”
“He’s not somebody I can work with. I thought he was, but I had to counsel him last shift and again tonight. We need to ship him out.”
Hertlein turned to me. “I worked on Ladder Three for a couple of years. It always sees a lot of action. I would think that would suit your temperament. On the other hand, I’ve been thinking of moving you out of there.”
“My things are packed.”
The comment surprised Hertlein. In the Seattle Fire Department everyone knew there were people who needed to be on engines and there were people who weren’t happy unless they were on a ladder company. At Thirty-two’s I’d made no bones about it. I was a truckman. Ladders and equipment. Forget the hose lines and the midnight aid calls.
Hertlein looked at Eddings and said, “You went to a lot of trouble to get this man in your battalion. It’s been what? Three shifts?”
“This is four,” Slaughter said, moving alongside Eddings.
“What do you think about this, Lieutenant Slaughter? You think Lieutenant Wollf is working out?”
“Hey, if the battalion chief wants him out, who am I to argue?”
Hertlein turned to Eddings. “Tell you what I’m going to do.” He looked at me. “Since you want to leave”—he turned to Eddings—“and you want him to leave”—he turned now to Slaughter—“and you obviously don’t want him in your station—I’m going to keep him right where he is.”
“But you’re going to move him?” Eddings whined. “Eventually?”
“To tell you the truth, I kinda like the
idea that you don’t want him.”
Eddings stared at Hertlein in disbelief. As he walked toward his idling Suburban, he scooped up a fistful of cookies off the card table the buffs had set up.
Later, Towbridge said, “Hertlein’s a human garbage disposal, ain’t he?”
39. LOCAL PARIAH SERIAL-KILLER PERVERT PEEPER
PORNO-COLLECTING MURDERER CAR THIEF IN TRAINING
The whitecaps on the lake were taller than my deck, waterspouts crashing over the railing and into traffic on the Mercer Island floating bridge. Gulls hovered nearly motionless over the water.
I was cross-legged on the floor in my living room, the contents of my father’s battered black trunk laid out around me, the memorabilia and newspaper clippings compulsively culled by my grandmother, who’d felt an obligation to save anything that contained the family name, no matter how deleterious. Oddly enough, most of our family tragedies had been chronicled in the local press.
My grandfather, who had been ill his last few years, died falling off a cliff while posing for a picture on the wrong side of the safety barriers at Grand Coulee Dam—a snappy little article there. Grandmother followed him with a heart attack two years later—just an obit.
The squabble over whether or not to move me out of Station 6 reminded me of when I’d been a kid and the relatives were trying to decide who would take me next. I’d gotten in the habit of pretending I didn’t care, knowing that to acknowledge the hurt was to let it mark you. Except in this instance I did care. The pyro working these past weeks near Six’s was the pyro who killed my father. I was more and more convinced of it.
I picked up the half-melted helmet—one of the last things my father ever touched. The color was barely recognizable except for the red undersides. It didn’t seem fair that this piece of inconsequential plastic could still exist when my father did not.
I pulled a newspaper clipping out of the trunk.
THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD BOOKED FOR MURDER
SEATTLE—The son of a deceased fire lieutenant who died in the line of duty six years ago has been booked into the King County Juvenile Detention Center on suspicion of murder.
Dead are Alfred T. Osbourne, 29, and Emma Grant Wollf, 32, whose bodies were found in a Belltown apartment rented to Wollf. The suspect, 13, and his brother, 10, are both the sons of the deceased woman. According to neighbors, Osbourne had been living in the apartment for some months and was the mother’s boyfriend. Neighbors had complained about loud fights and drinking at the apartment.
