Robert B. Parker's Slow Burn

by Ace Atkins

  I stood in the middle of Marlborough Street with Teddy Cahill. I’d brought Pearl with me, and she sat on her haunches as we peered up at the charred mess. Pearl sniffed at the smoky remnants in the air while the apartment building continued to smolder. I was fortunate to always keep several changes of clothes at Susan’s. Sometimes fresh underwear is better than a cup of coffee.

  “What do we have?” I said.

  “Been working all night,” Cahill said. “ATF sent some good people over. We went over your place inch by fucking inch.”

  “And?”

  “At least we know where this one started,” Cahill said. “Two places. One right by your fucking door and the other on a back wall in the alley. We got a few witnesses who saw a white van parked out back for a few minutes. But no one saw who went inside.”

  “Can I see my place?”

  “We got a lot of guys working.”

  “I’ll step lightly,” I said. “As will Pearl.”

  We walked to Arlington and then back down the Public Alley 421. The back side of the apartment building was damaged worse than the front. Firefighters continued to dampen the roofs and top floors of my building. Smoke broke and scattered in the wind.

  Cahill got onto his haunches and showed the alligator-like marks along some siding, stretching several feet higher and toward the basement door.

  “Looks like they used some tires to get it going hot,” he said. “You can see the remnants on the asphalt.”

  “A white van?”

  “Woman in the apartment directly behind you saw it blocking the alley,” Cahill said. He rubbed his walrus mustache. “But didn’t see anyone come or go.”

  Pearl looked up at me and tilted her head. She was on high alert for clues, her eyes full of worry and confusion.

  “We found a few things,” he said. “ATF will run some tests.”

  “And what are the chances it matches with Mr. Firebug?”

  “Who needs to run a test?” he said. “But why’d they pick on you?”

  “I don’t think it was a secret I talked to Featherstone before he died,” I said. “They may have conflated me, Arson unit, and Homicide. One-stop shopping.”

  I ran my hands along the charred siding and looked up at the back of my building. I patted Pearl’s head. Her nubbed tail wagged.

  “Got somewhere to stay?” Cahill said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “With a friend.”

  “Your friend okay with the dog?” he said. “If not, I can take her for a while. Galway likes other hounds.”

  “I think my friend likes the dog better than me,” I said. “Is it possible to walk upstairs?”

  “Sure,” he said. “But you don’t want to see it. I promise there’s nothing left.”

  “It’s important.”

  Cahill nodded. We walked into the gaping mouth of the back door to the landing and up a back stairwell dripping with water. Pearl sniffed at the charred carpet and piles of charred wood. The sprinklers had done a lot of damage to the halls and the stairwell. Cahill told me he wouldn’t take responsibility if we fell right through the floor. He took me to my floor and swept his hand toward what had been my apartment. It was hard to tell. There was no door. A large portion of the wall facing Marlborough had dissolved. I stepped through the soggy, blackened mess. A firefighter on a ladder waved to me as he made his way up to a higher floor.

  Pearl knew she was home. She turned her mournful yellow eyes on me.

  My bookshelf wasn’t just burned. It simply was no longer there. I found a couple half-eaten picture frames and some cast-iron cookware. Tough stuff, forged in flame. Cahill advised me to leave it until the insurance people could take pictures.

  “They could have my ass for letting you in.”

  I walked back to the bedroom and turned straight around. I stepped carefully around the hole in the kitchen and returned to the fireplace. On the hearth, I found a toppled piece of wood I’d once carved into a horse. It still looked a little like a horse but was much smaller and much blacker. I slipped it into my pocket. Pearl began to whimper. I walked to where the shelving had been to hold the old Winchester. I found the gun a real mess, but the barrel and level held their shape.

  “Just what will you need to link all these fires?”

  “We have a working theory,” he said. “But it’s very technical.”

  “It didn’t sound technical to me the other night,” I said. “You seemed pretty damn sure it was the work of the same person or persons.”

  “Sometimes I envy Homicide,” he said. “They have real evidence. We work with nothing but fucking chemicals and ashes. Unless we get someone to turn, we don’t have much. I’m sorry about your place. But while we were hosing down the Back Bay, someone else touched off another place in the South End. By the time we got a company over there, six of our people were at Mass General for burns and smoke inhalation. We’re pretty sure your place was a diversion.”

  “How bad are they hurt?”

  “They will be back soon,” he said. “But one guy may be looking at retirement.”

  I nodded and swallowed. My apartment and possessions no longer mattered. “Again,” I said. “How do you know it’s the same guy?”

  “He’s got a way of doing things,” he said. “Let’s leave it at that.”

  “You think I’m going to publish a piece in The Globe?”

  “If word gets out, he might change things,” he said. “Right now he’s got a system. We upset the system and we upset our case.”

  “What’s the system?”

  “Found stuff here that looks just like Holy Innocents,” he said. “Okay? Between us, we think he makes a device from a paper grocery bag and plastic Baggie full of kerosene. We found a butt of match at both places and traces of the Baggie. ATF can tell us what kind of accelerant was used.”

  “Any new letters?”

  “Nope,” he said. “But we will. Or the TV station will. That’s where he sends them.”

  “Which station?”

  Cahill told me and we walked out of my apartment and carefully down the steps and back out to the alley. A warm wind blew through the narrow space as we made our way toward the Public Garden. Several news crews had set up for the day along the wrought-iron fencing.

  All the cameras pointed directly at my former home.

  36

  I met Hank Phillippi Ryan an hour later at Government Center. Hank worked as an investigative reporter for WHBH, the NBC affiliate that had studios nearby on Bulfinch Place. She took a seat with me on a concrete bench with a nice view of the soulless brick piazza. I brought her a coffee the way she liked it. Skim milk with one sugar.

  I gave her my best smile, the one that showed my white teeth and dimples. “Help me, Hank.”

  She reached out and hugged me. I was careful not to spill the coffee. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I can stay with Susan for a while,” I said. “She promises reasonable rent and fringe benefits.”

  Hank was a tall woman with ash-blond hair and dark eyes. She had on a black wrap dress and a simple string of pearls. “And then what?”

  “I’ll hunt for a new place,” I said. “Living together isn’t an option for us.”

  I handed Hank the coffee. She thanked me and we watched a huge gathering not far from the T station. There had been several shootings over the weekend in Roxbury. Many walked to the central plaza with signs reading BLACK LIVES MATTER. The coffee and the commotion in the plaza thankfully distracted her.

  “I interviewed the family of one of the kids,” she said. “He was only fourteen and ambushed by two older kids. He’d been sent to the corner store by his mother.”

  “Never stops.”

  “Nope,” she said. “But I wish to God it would. We’ve seen a few things in this city. I guess you wanted to ask me about another neighborhood. Your
Mr. Firebug?”

  “Yep.”

  “I guess I should be flattered,” Hank said. “All the psychopaths adore me.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “How’d you know about the letters?” she said. “We decided not to report on them. It’s obviously what he wants. It’s our station policy not to give that kind of publicity. We turned them over to Boston Fire.”

  “Teddy Cahill told me,” I said. “He says they’re authentic.”

  “I know,” Hank said. “But did Teddy tell you that he’s given details of the fire that only the arsonists would know?”

  “That he did not.”

  “This guy may be a loon, but he’s careful,” Hank said. “No prints. Nothing they can use yet.”

  “Do we have to be gender-specific?” I said. “Maybe Mr. Firebug is a ruse. Maybe it’s Miss Firebug.”

  “Sounds like an exotic dancer,” she said. “How about the insurance angle?”

  “I tried to follow the money trail,” I said. “But that didn’t pan out. In the process, I may have angered some local wise guys.”

  “If you don’t piss off a few people each day, what’s the use of getting up?”

  I toasted her with my coffee. I leaned forward on the bench. More protesters walked across the plaza to join the rally. A man with a bullhorn began to speak. We listened to what he had to say and it made a great deal of sense. The movement began to march toward city hall. We waited as it passed until we spoke again.

  “You know this guy has done dozens of fires,” Hank said. “And he promises much more until he gets what he wants.”

  “What does he want?”

  “The funny thing about crazies is that he hasn’t really said.”

  “Did you keep copies of the letters?”

  Hank returned the question with a look that seemed to appraise my intelligence.

  “May I see the copies?”

  “Of course.”

  We sat in the hot, shadeless expanse of Government Center. I’d sweated through my T-shirt as if I’d run a marathon. I did not detect a note of perspiration on Hank. It must be a TV reporter’s trick of the trade.

  “I have another favor,” I said.

  “Of course you do.”

  “Do you think I only come to you when I need something?”

  “You know, I was having lunch with Rita Fiore just the other day at Trade,” Hank said. “And we were discussing this very thing.”

  “I have done plenty of things for Rita,” I said.

  “You know, she was saying exactly the opposite.”

  “I can imagine the way Rita would say it.”

  “What’s the favor?” Hank said. She absently looked at her phone and then at the thin watch on her wrist.

  “I want to look at video of the fires.”

  “Which fires?”

  “Every fire that is suspect.”

  “That’s a lot,” she said. “This guy has been burning Boston since the first of the year.”

  “And maybe beyond that,” I said.

  Hank raised her eyebrows. I lifted up a hand. “The more I know, the more I can share.”

  “You better.”

  I crossed my heart and held up my right hand. “I think this all started last year,” I said. “I think Mr. Firebug got started with the old church but got scared and stopped. Now he’s revved back up for the summer season.”

  “Arson already went through our video,” she said. “I figured if they’d found something, they’d have asked for copies. They were here for a few hours and then didn’t come back.”

  “Maybe I’ll see something they didn’t,” I said. “I do have a keen, appraising eye.”

  “Knock yourself out,” she said. “I can get you a private room to watch the raw footage.”

  “You mind if I sleep there, too?”

  “I’m sure Susan won’t place a time limit on you,” she said. “But if she does, I know Rita would make room in her bed.”

  “You know, she’s only bluffing.”

  “You really believe that?” Hank raised her eyebrows again. We stood and shook hands, and she walked off without saying good-bye.

  37

  Although he wouldn’t remain under my tutelage for long, I knew watching endless hours of video was the perfect training exercise for Z. At first, he seemed skeptical. But I enticed him with the promise of grinders from Quincy Market and free coffee from the TV station canteen.

  “Yippee,” he said.

  “A dream come true.”

  “You think it’ll be more glamorous in Los Angeles?”

  “City of Angels,” I said. “What do you think? It’s probably a law you get a massage on a stakeout. Herbal tea during a car chase.”

  “I’ve heard the rumors,” he said. “They must be true.”

  “How many hours have we logged?” I said. The room was dark and cold. It seemed as if we’d been there since the early 1970s. I had not seen Hank, but one of her producers had checked on us twice. One brought coffee. Another donuts. God bless them.

  “Eighteen fires,” he said. “We’ve been here for six hours.”

  “Keep track of time for your invoices.”

  “Are you invoicing Jack McGee?” Z said.

  I shrugged, took a sip of coffee, and asked him to continue on with the video. Even though it wasn’t tape anymore, it was a digital image housed on a TV station server. I was a long way from watching Super 8 with my football coach and the whir and click of the machine. Z worked a mouse to stop, freeze, and zoom in. After a while, everything looked the same. Not every fire had been filmed by WHDH, only the nastiest ones. Most of the footage showed the firefighters doing their thing and then a standup from the public-information guy, Steve MacDonald. Sometimes Commissioner Foley would take questions from reporters. We fast-forwarded through all the talk. We were looking at the onlookers. I hoped that somewhere the arsonist would show his face and return to do so again. If we could spot a face in the crowd more than once, we might just have a pattern.

  “That guy,” Z said. “I saw him from an earlier fire. Tall, goofy guy. Kind of balding.”

  He backed up the video. It was Rob Featherstone.

  “He’s dead,” I said. “But let’s see who he’s with.”

  Z ran it for several seconds and then froze the frame. I asked Z to make a screen grab of the image. It was Featherstone and two other men handing out bottles of water. Featherstone and other men who must have been Sparks appeared at several of the fires. At first glance, they would have been dismissed by anyone familiar with fire scenes. But now, with Featherstone dead, it was worth taking another look at the company he kept.

  “So they are like fans,” Z said, “only for firemen?”

  “Yep.”

  “And they go to fires and try to assist.”

  “Yep.”

  “When I played football, we had many women who wanted to assist us.”

  “I bet.”

  “My girlfriend wanted to assist me morning and night until I got benched,” he said. “And then she wanted to assist someone else.”

  “That’s why sometimes one must assist oneself.”

  “Are you always filled with such wisdom?”

  “How will you make it without me?”

  The video moved ahead, showing a warehouse in flames and firefighters shooting water into the guts of the building. Z clicked on another thumbnail image for an apartment fire from March. He let the unedited video run. He skipped through the standup and moved on from the tight footage of the burning building, firefighters, and EMTs. Nothing new. We skipped a couple fires, as they did not match those suspected by Cahill. I wanted to see only fires considered for arson. Several fires, including one where six people died, were accidental. If we didn’t get what we needed, we could go back and look at
those, too.

  I got up and stretched. Z and I walked over to Quincy Market for some coffee and grinders. The donut talk had really gotten our appetites going. We watched another three hours of footage, walked to the Harbor Health Club, and worked out on the heavy bag and with mitts.

  I drove back home and had dinner with Susan.

  The next morning, we were at it again.

  An hour into the last several months, Z stopped a quick pan to a crowd. The shot was only two or three seconds. But with the digital video, we could zoom in tight. Z stood up and stretched and pointed at the large computer monitor. “You see that?”

  “See what?”

  “The man pointed a gun in the air.”

  I looked closer and saw just the glint of a metallic object flash and then disappear. Z pressed slow forward and it became clear it was a gun. A man brandished a pistol for a second, a large smile crossing his face. It appeared the two men with him were laughing and smiling.

  “They’re celebrating,” I said.

  “Yep,” Z said. “Eight families out of an apartment in Southie. They may not be arsonists, but they are guilty of being assholes.”

  “Why would anyone celebrate a fire?”

  Z captured several still images. He zoomed in very close to the men’s faces.

  38

  The late Rob Featherstone’s second-in-command, Jerry Ramaglia, met me across from the Boston Fire Museum at Flour Bakery. I bought us two coffees and found a somewhat secluded table by a picture window fronting Farnsworth. It was late. The light had turned a soft summer gold on the old warehouses and garages.

  “I heard what happened to your place,” Ramaglia said. “I’m sorry. If we can do anything. Or help any of the tenants.”

  I thanked him. Between us sat a lemon meringue pie to share with Susan tonight in lieu of rent. She, too, recognized Joanne Chang’s particular genius. My Braves cap rested on the box to stake my claim.

  “Someone believes Rob left his suspicions with me,” I said.

  “I know,” he said. “Rob’s wife is screwy, but I think she’s right about this. He got shot in the back and dumped off a bridge. What’s the matter with this city? The man only wanted to help others. He was a freakin’ saint.”