Fire Born (Firehouse 343) (4 page)

Chris himself was antsy and trying his hardest not to show it. He was a firefighter—a rescuer and leader of others. It had never been in his nature to simply sit and do nothing. Even as a b
oy growing up on the r
eservation he had always been on the move, getting himself into this trouble or that
mess
. According to his grandfather, his body was host to a restless spirit. Though he had been settled in his work and the
city he served for the last six
teen years, his restlessness would not
truly find peace until he had met a kindred spirit.

Translation: His grandfather believed he needed a woman.

He would have laughed at the thought had his present circumstances not been so morose.

Prayer helped
only a little, but still
Chris prayed for Calvin with every breath he
took. He prayed that he would make it through the surgery. He prayed that Calvin would wake up. He prayed that he would talk and walk and return to the job he loved so much, the job he had taught more than half of the men in the room to do. He prayed that
Karalyn
, who was only 24, would have her father to lean on whenever she needed him. He prayed that Tonja would have the man she loved to warm her bed at night and that Calvin’s family would have their son, their brother, back again.

He prayed that he would have his friend.

But through every breath, every silent prayer to God and all the animal spirits he had been taught to revere from the time he could talk, the knot of dread that had formed the moment Calvin had walked through that burning building’s door remained ever present. It burned in his gut like acid and gave root to the fear that was surely in everyone else’s mind, not just his own. A fear that Chris would not let himself put words to, because then that would make it an all too real possibility.

The door to the waiting room opened slowly, and a doctor who looked to be in his mid-forties stepped slowly inside, starting ever so slightly at the number of people gathered. He looked around, his eyes settling on the three women, and cleared his throat.

“
Karalyn
Maynard?” he queried.

Every man in the room not already doing so stood as
Karalyn
rose shakily to her feet. For a moment Chris wondered why the doctor had spoken her name, and then just as quickly realized that because he and Tonja were not yet married, Calvin’s only child would be listed as his next of kin.

“My father?”
Kara asked
,
her breath hitching as her gaze searched the doctor’s.

Chris knew before the man spoke what he was going to say by the subtle drop of his shoulders. He ground his teeth together as the words came haltingly out of the doctor’s mouth, and his heart constricted painfully in his chest once again.

“I… I am so sorry, Ms. Maynard. We did everything we could…”

Karalyn
would have hit the floor hard had Blake Temple not been standing beside her. He caught his cousin’s partner as he
r
knees gave way
and lowered her gently to the tile, holding
her tightly as she began to scream.

“
Daddy!
”

At the same time, Tonja let loose a loud, keening wail of grief. She turned
into Irene’s embrace and the two sobbed into each other’s shoulder. Calvin’s team all hung their heads, their shoulders shaking as they cried silent tears. Bob Dresden let one fall from each eye before he wiped them away and stepped over to the doctor. Chris moved to stand beside him.

“Tell me what happened, Doctor,” Bob said.

With another glance at Kara
,
who was sobbing heavily into Blake’s shoulder,
the doctor looked back at him. “As you may know,” he began quietly, “Captain Maynard’s neck was, for all intents and purposes, broken due to blunt force trauma. Vertebrae C2 through C4 were crushed and his spinal cord was severely damaged. Had he survived he would never have regained the use of his limbs, or felt anything below his neck.”

“What about… What caused his death?” Chris asked.

“
Vasogenic
cerebral edema—
swelling
of the brain
,” the doctor replied. “Nothing we tried slowed it, let alone stopped it
—not even surgical decompression
. Because his skull was not large enough to encompass the greater mass
,
his brain cells began dying and his body responded by shutting his organs down one by one.
I am truly sorry for your loss. I can see that Captain Maynard was cared about very much.”

Chris nodded. “Yes he was, Doctor. Yes he was.”

***

Martine
Liotta
stepped into her boss’s office, shut
ting
the door behind her quietly when she saw that he was on the phone. Graham Henderson held up a finger, indicating he needed a minute, and she nodded.

“Yes,” he said into the receiver. “I’m about to put my best person on it, Bob. Martie will find the SOB, I guarantee it.”

Martie raised one of her arched eyebrows. It wasn’t the first time the Deputy Director of the Montana Bureau of Fire Safety
had referred to her as his “best person”—she’d certainly earned the moniker with her impressive closure record—but it was perhaps the first time she’d ever heard him refer to anyone as a son of a bitch. Graham was a devout Christian and rarely, if ever, used foul language.

A rarity for a man in politics.

Okay, technically he hadn’t actually sounded it out as she had in her mind, but Martie was counting his use of “SOB” as a curse. She was still fighting a smile as Graham hung up the phone and motioned her forward.

“I have a new case for you, Martie,” he said as she sat in one of the two visitor chairs in front of his desk.

Martie crossed shapely legs as she tucked a lock of her black hair behind an ear. “Sir, I’m still working an angle on the
Breckon
case,” she told him.

“This actually involves that little twerp,” Graham said with a snort, causing both of Martie’s eyebrows to rise this time.

“Oh really?” s
he queried, her interest piquing. Trevor
Breckon
was a
young, ambitious real estate develope
r who had found himself on the
BFS radar
two months ago, when a second property of his had caught fire under mysterious circumstances. The c
ase had been assigned to Martie—one of the Bureau’s arson investigators—
who
,
after conducting an initial series of interviews
,
strongly suspected insurance fraud. But she had yet to pin it on him, a fact that soured her stomach daily.

“Yeah,” Graham was saying. “We’ve got a third property that’s gone up with his name on it.
B
reckon
Apartments, a fifty-year-
old three-story office building that was converted—cheaply, if the pattern holds true—into efficiency apartments.
Located in Gracechurch.”

“Gracechurch is where they’re building that tribute firehouse, right?”

“Bay doors open in just under six weeks,” Graham confirmed. “But the opening’s tainted now. The fireman who was set to command the station died this morning
,
as a result of injuries sustained in the
Breckon
Apartments fire.”

Martie closed her eyes, whispering “
Santa Madre,
abbi
pietà
,” under her breath.

“As you know, the first fire was in an empty warehouse belonging to
Breckon
Management Holdings,” her boss went on. “The second was a Mom-and-Pop store that was closed when the fire started.”

“Both of which had shoddy maintenance records,” Martie reminded him. “Julio
Andropoulis
, the store manager, said he’d made numerous complaints to the management company about wiring problems and the circuit breaker tripping, causing loss of product.”

“Which
Breckon
could then
write off on his taxes,” Graham added. “I already want to bust him
for fraud, Martie, but if he’s at fault for
a fire that led to a man’s death, it’s a whole new ball game. I don’t think I have to tell you to do this buy the book. I wouldn’t want that slimy serpent to slither out of his well-deserved shackles on a technicality.”

No, she mused, it was not necessary for him to remind her. Every step of her investigation thus far, all her interviews and research into Trevor
Breckon
and his business practices, had been documented. She wasn’t about to let him get by her—she’d figure out how he was involved in the fi
res and she’d have the proof to
back it up in court.
And if he was responsible for the firefighter’s death…

…she’d make sure his ass got nailed to the wall.

Her first move
after leaving Graham’s office
was to place a call to Robert Dresden,
Gracechurch’s
fire marshal. After dialing the number her boss had given her, she reached for the white legal pad she always kept on her desk for taking notes and a pen with which to write, clicking the utensil open to have it ready.

“Fire Marshal Robert Dresden, Gracechurch Division of Fire. How may I help you?”

Wow, that’s a mouthful
, Martie thought, then introduced herself. “Marshal Dresden, I’m Lt. Marti
n
e
Liotta
with the Bureau of Fire Safety. Graham Henderson gave me your number.”

“Yeah, I just spoke to him a little while ago,” Dresden said. “You’re… At risk of offending, when Graham said Martie I thought he was referring to a man.”

Martie laughed. “No offense
taken, Marshal
,
I get that a lot.
Now, as I understand it, Gracechurch lost one of their own this morning?”

Dresden sighed. “We did, yes. Damn shame, too. Cal was—
Captain
Calvin Maynard, the man we lost—he was elected by popular vote to command the new fire station. He was a good man, Lieutenant. Damn fine firefight
er. He worked the job for
thirty years—have you ever seen firefighters at work, Martie?”

“I’m a certified firefighter myself, Marshal,” Martie replied. “
My father and my brother
are firefighters as well. All of us
serve
here in Billings—I drove the engine out of Company 23 for six years before switching track to arson investigation, and I work
a shift
at least once a week out of my old house. More than one if I can manage it.”

“Then you know the life—the dedication and the sacrifices these guys make,” the marshal said. “Calvin was one of the best men Gracechurch has ever had on the job.”

She didn’t ask h
im why he’d placed the call to the
BFS—when a firefighter was injured on the job, it was standard procedure that the Bureau be notified. But Martie was sure it was more than following SOP that had motivated Robert Dresden. Based on how passionately he’d just spoken of Calvin Maynard, it was personal, too. His friend
was dead and he wanted to know why. He wanted someone to blame, some outlet for his anger and grief.

Her gut told her that Trevor
Breckon
was the one he should be angry with.

“Marshal, you have my word that if there is someone to blame for this, I will find him,” she said resolutely.

“Thank you. What do you need from me?”

“
If you could fax me a copy of the incident report to start with, I would very much appreciate it,” Martie said.

“I’m afraid one hasn’t been filed as yet,” Dresden countered. “I
got in here at the office
about
half
an hour ago, but Calvin’s second in command is still at the hospital with his family.”

Damn. She would have liked to get an idea of what had happened by reading that report. Then a thought occurred to her: Gracechurch wasn’t a very big city—some still referred to it as a town because most of the land area attributed to it was rural, and the population was less than ten thousand. Anyone suffering a traumatic injury would have been airlifted from Gracechurch Memorial to a larger city hospital…

…and Billings was the closest city with a Level 1 trauma center.

“Marshal, may I ask which hospital Captain Maynard was transported to?”

Dresden replied,
“St. Vincent’s, right there in Billings.”

Bingo
, Martie thought. It was not a task she was looking forward to, confronting the firefighters who’d known Calvin Maynard best so soon after his passing, but if she was going to get to the bottom of how that fire had started, she needed to speak to the people who had been there.