Fire Born (Firehouse 343) (14 page)

“Which is suggestive of what?” she prodded.

“The fire started here. Right there against that inside wall, ran across the floor, and then lit the window wall up.
This was definitely arson, because this trail here indicates an accelerant was poured in a trail from the wall to the window—potentially
explain
ing
why those windows blew out. The fire was hotter here than anywhere else.”

A smile lit up her face. “Very good,
Airborne
. And based on what your team told me this morning, this apartment was unoccupied at the time.”

Logan nodded vigorously. “That’s right. Most of the residents were out at work, except for the two college-aged kids in 1B, the old couple in 2A, and Jessica and her mother in 3C.”

“The latter of
whom
was out of the building and up the street at the gas station buying pop,” Martie said. “
To be honest, I don’t see how
the fire burn
ed
from say, a lit match thrown down here, to an inferno that made this place NWS by the time you got here from the other side of town
.
I’m thinking
there’s a chance this might not be the only flashpoint. I
need
to take a closer look at the other ap
a
rtments
, especially the ones that were empty when the fire started.”

“How about we head up to the third floor first, and take a look around there before we
back
track?” Logan suggested.

Martie nodded. “Sure. I left my collection kit out in the car, thinking I wouldn’t need it,” she said. “I should have known better than to assume, especially with this place.”

“What does that mean?”

“The owner of
Breckon
Management Holdings, the company that owns this building, is already under investigation by the Bureau. Trevor
Breckon
has taken a serious dislike to me because I’ve accused him of committing insurance fraud. He’s going to absolutely hate me after this,” she said with a salacious grin.

She and Logan fin
ished their tour of the apartment
before
heading up to the third floor. Based on what they had seen in 2C, Martie studied every inch of the first two apartments with a more discerning eye than she’d used on the first floor, and when she found a similar burn pattern in each, she cursed herself for not paying closer attention.
How in the world could she have not noticed in the first- and second-floor apartments? It wasn’t like her to miss something this important—her eye for detail and things out of the ordinary were what helped her close cases, making her popular among her peers and hated by arson suspects.

In apartment 3C she noted that Logan grew tense, and Martie recalled that this was the apartment where Calvin Maynard had been hurt. She took the lead as they walked toward the single bedroom, the beam of her flashlight shining a path in the gloomy atmosphere.
When she turned into the bedroom and saw the ceiling beam that had crashed down on Calvin and the little girl, she couldn’t help but gasp in shock.

“That…that little girl would have been crushed to death,” she said breathily.

Beside her, Logan nodded.
“Yeah.
Takes a hell of a man to save a life.
Cal was one hell of a man.”

“I am so sorry,” Martie said, taking his free hand briefly in hers. “I would have liked to known him, I think.”

Her companion glanced down at her. “Cal would have liked you,” he said. “And he’d be getting on Chris about not being so overbearing that he scares you away.”

She chuckled then, sobering instantly as she looked back at the pile of rubble in front of the tiny closet. From there she shined her light up toward the gaping hole in the ceiling, snapped a picture,
then
stepped closer to the wood and plaster before her. As before, something out of place caught her eye. Martie moved closer and scattered a few pieces of plaster, kneeling once again to study the end of the beam that had fallen.

“You find something else?” Logan asked, coming closer.

“Maybe.
Does this look strange to you?”

He knelt and leaned closer, his eyes falling on the end of the beam where her finger was pointed.

“It’s… Well you can see here where it snapped,” he said slowly, pointing to demonstrate. “But here it almost looks like it was cut.”

“Exactly,” Martie said. “These are
kerf
marks
, my friend, made from some kind of handsaw. Someone was up in the attic space of this building, right above this apartment. And they wanted this beam to fall.”

“So they wanted Jessica or her mother to get hurt.” Logan’s grim words were not a question, but a statement.

“It looks that way. Either them or the first responders,” she replied. “Hold your
flashlight right on it—
I need to get some pictures.”

He did as she asked and Martie hurriedly snapped shots from several angles, making sure she got close enough that they’d be able to prove the beam had been cut.
As soon as she had what she needed, she stood, saying, “Too bad we don’t have a K12 with us. I want to take the end of this beam off for evidence.”

“We can always come back later with one,” Logan suggested.

She nodded.
“Yeah.
But in the meantime, I’m going back down to my car for my field kit.”

Logan frowned, and pushing his helmet up with his thumb, he said, “What do you need it for? We already know it was arson.”

Martie shook her head as she turned for the door. “It’s obvious from that statement that you’ve never worked the courtroom side of an arson case,” she said. “Our expert opinions aren’t enough for a conviction. We have to have evidence that proves what we’ve discovered. So I need to take samples from each of those
burn
streaks we found
, to have tests done to determine the actual accelerant used.”

“Oh, of course.
I knew that, I swear,” Logan replied as he followed behind her.

She chuckled as she descended the stairs to the second floor, realizing then that she really liked Logan
Kilbride
. He was the kind of guy she could really get into— tall, gorgeous, gainfully employed—if she weren’t already
very
interested in someone else. But a girl could never have too many guy friends, at least in her opinion, and she had the added benefit of Chris and Logan already being friends
with each other, so there was little chance of jealousy between them over her.

At least she hoped so.

Logan showed an interest in her job as they walked, asking her questions about what, precisely, an arson investigator did. How they determined what started a fire, how they gave testimony in court. Martie was more than willing t
o talk about the work she did—i
t was a job she truly enjoyed despite the accompanying horrors, because each case presented its own unique set of challenges. So into the conversation was she that she forgot to watch for the hole in the steps leading down to the first floor.

Logan saw it before she did and hollered a warning. “Martie, watch out!”

His cry of alarm
came just a second too late. Martie had already started to put her foot over the end of the tread, and
the momentum of her gait
carried her forward.
Her right foot went through the hole made by F
ootball’s boot
and she pitched face-first toward the floor, just out of Logan’s reach as he sprang vainly toward her to prevent her fall. Martie’s left knee crashed into the broken tread as she went down and
her hands were scraped raw as
she put her arms out to catch herself.
Her flashlight clattered down the steps and rolled to a stop somewhere down on the first floor.

“
Figlio
di
una
puttana
!”
she yelled loudly.

“Fuck!” Logan cursed at the same time.
“You al
l
right?”

He was still behind her on the landing. Martie turned her head to look over her shoulder at him. “What were you saying earlier about a dumb question?”

“Point taken,” he replied with a chuckle. “Let’s try again. Tell me your condition so I can help you get out of this.”

She was holding herself semi-upright with her hands flattened on a tread two below where she was stuck. The scrapes she’d received from the wood were stinging, due in no small part to the
black grime coating just about every visible surface, including the steps.
Her right leg had gone through the hole up to her mid thigh, and
when her left knee had slammed into the stair, it had widened the hole just enough to jam it in as well. The fit was tight and very uncomfortable. Martie tried
moving her left leg back and forth so she could pull her knee out.

Her efforts proved futile, as she only seemed to be tightening the wood’s grip on her flesh. “
Cazzo
,” she muttered darkly.

“Martie?
Talk to me,” Logan urged.

“Well, your own eyes should be able to tell you the extent of my dilemma, but the long and short of it is that I’m stuck,” she replied sardonically. “Right
leg is in to mid-thigh, left is
jammed in bent at the knee. I tried wiggling the left leg to get it out and it only seems to ha
ve wedged
me in further.”

Logan stepped down carefully, standing so that one leg was braced on the landing and the other was planted firmly on the stair where her hands lay. “I’m going to try pulling on that leg, see if I can’t help you out there a little. I promise to go easy.”

“Appreciated.”

She watched him over her shoulder as he took hold of her ankle
and started slowly to pull.

“Stop, stop!” she cried out a moment later.

He let her go instantly. “What is it?”

“For some damn reason, you pulling up on the back of my leg
is
driving the front of it into this really sharp edge that’s digging into my thigh.” Martie grunted as the sweat beading on her brow ran down her nose, dripping off the end onto the back of her hand. She decided to try shifting her leg again to no avail.

“Damn it!” she shouted.

Feeling defeated, Martie looked up at Logan. He in turn was looking down at her with an expression that was both resigned and fearful at the same time—and she had no doubt hers was
the same as she said, “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but it looks like you’re
gonna
have to call the fire department.”

Chris had walked out with Simon when the younger man left
, having decided
to make the announcement
of his promotion
to
the rest of his platoon. Each of them expressed the same disgust for the
fact that the city’s public safety director
couldn’t be bothered to wait until after Calvin’s funeral to replace him.

Football, as he’d suspected, agreed wholeheartedly to join his team. Chris hadn’t expected to surprise him with the offer, though he did sur
prise him with the option
to lead 343’s
B-Shift
as a lieutenant. “Promotion has to be approved, of course, but you’ve got the credentials,” he told the stunned former football player.

“I don’t know what to say, Chris,” Football replied, his voice still laced with shock. “Except thanks.”

Chris grinned as they shook hands. “That’s all you need to say. You deserve it.”

“Who you got in mind for C and D shift lead
s
?”

Sighing as he sat down across from Football, Chris replied, “Well, Cal was planning to put Tonja in charge of C Shift, according to his notes. I don’t even know if she’ll want to move to Gracechurch now, let alone work here.”

“If she does?”
Football pressed.

“If she decides to stick to her plan to move here, I’m going to offer C Shift lead to her, because that’s what Cal would want,” he told him. “If not, I’ll offer it to someone else.”

“Hey LT—or rather, Captain now,” Terry said with a grin. “You hear anything from the guys on A? They’re past the end of shift
.”

“Shit,” Chris muttered, looking toward the garage. “We probably should have taken that call.”

“I think they took it to cut us some slack, to be honest,” Rick spoke up. “You know, because of Cal.”

Chris nodded, thinking he was probably right. He rose, intending to head for the radio r
oom, where he knew a volunteer firefighter was manning the radio (there was always someone in the radio room in case one of the vehicles was out and the other was required to assist; this way the scene commander could call the firehouse directly)
, when
suddenly
the rumble of the pumper’s engine could be heard. He walked outside to watch as A-Shift’s driver pulled past the driveway and prepared to back into the station. The maneuver was completed flawlessly, and was followed by a second
perfect backup-and-
park by the driver of the ladder truck.
Chris headed back inside.