Fire Engine Dead (23 page)

From all I’d seen and heard, I’d have to say that Gary was exactly what he appeared to be: a decent and open man who loved firefighting. Of course, he could be a skilled actor, and I wasn’t about to tip my hand, just in case. I’d give him one last chance to mention the fire engine, and I had to ask, “Tell me, Gary, what do you think happened?”

“With the fire?” He shook his head sadly. “I’d hate to guess. The string of arsons in the city? It’s an awful thing, but it happens, now and then. It’s spring, right? That brings out something in people—a restlessness, an itch. The fires could be related. Or not. I’d really prefer to think it’s only one sick individual who’s behind them all.”

I sensed some misgivings on his part. “And if they weren’t related, was the museum’s collection the target?”

Gary shook his head. “I can’t for the life of me see why. What harm do we do?”

“The watchman had been a firefighter. Could he have had a grudge?”

“I knew him slightly. He was an angry man, felt he’d been given a raw deal in life.”

“By the fire department?” I asked. “Was he let go?”

Gary hesitated before answering. Finally he said, “Yes. He had problems dealing with the stress, and he took to drinking too much. After awhile he couldn’t be trusted, so the department eased him out. I know what he was offered when he left the department, and it was fair. He was the only one who thought he deserved more. But I can’t see him doing something like this.”

“Given his problems, would he have panicked when the fire started? And in his rush to escape, stumbled and hit his head?”

Gary shrugged. “I’m not one to say. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him.”

Another question occurred to me. “You know, I’m not sure I know the extent of the fire. Was the warehouse completely destroyed?”

“No, our men reached it before it went too far.”

I noted that once again he had identified himself with the current firefighters, despite the fact he hadn’t been part of the department for years. “Do you know where the fire began?”

“The back end of the building, where it would be least likely to be observed. That was logical.”

And careful
, I added to myself. It showed planning. “And that just happened to be where the museum’s materials were stored?”

Gary tilted his head at me, surprised. “You really think that the collections were the target?”

Instead of answering, I asked, “You haven’t considered that?”

“But why? I mean, it’s not as though there was much of value there, except to us. Sure, some old stuff, but there’s more of it around—we’ve already managed to replace a lot of it through donations. There was the fire engine, of course. That was a real loss to us.”

Finally he’d brought it up.
Tread carefully, Nell
. “It was insured.”

He nodded. “Surely you aren’t suggesting that someone destroyed it just so the museum could claim the insurance? It’s not enough to make it worthwhile. We get by financially. The renovations are mostly paid for, from outside sources, so it’s not like we needed the cash for that. There’s no good reason to destroy the collection…unless it was anger at the place.”

He didn’t seem to know that the real fire engine hadn’t perished in the fire—or he wasn’t about to admit it to me. Interesting. “Why would anybody be angry at your museum? Disgruntled ex-employees?”

“You’ve met us all, and we’re all still here. What do you think?”

“I can’t see any of you doing this, but I don’t know you well. What about your board?”

Gary sat back again and blew out a long breath. I waited. Finally he said, “I will not accuse any member of our board of a crime. After all, most of them are firefighters, or have been.”

“But?”

He avoided my eyes. “This is just between the two of us, but there are those on the board who think we’ve outlived our usefulness, that we’re just a drain on city funds.”

Several reactions buzzed through my head, not very coherently. “But didn’t they just help out with the renovation?”

Gary nodded. “They did—but of course the renovation was set in motion a couple of years ago. Things are different now, and pennies count.”

“But surely what it costs them to support the Fireman’s Museum isn’t enough to make a difference to the city budget?”

“It’s a matter of perception. You do recall that members of city government run for office? And there are candidates who want to be seen as proactive in slashing costs, especially these days. We’re an easy target. Of course, they could just cut our funds and tell us that we’d have to find our own way to replace them. Frankly, we wouldn’t last long.”

Once again I was glad that the Society didn’t depend on the city’s support. But what Gary had said raised another issue: if someone within the museum feared a withdrawal of city funding, that might have been enough to make the insurance money look tempting. The museum’s operating expenses were low, and a check like that could sustain it for a year or two, long enough to let the economy recover, or the political climate at City Hall change, or to identify new funding sources. Great, now I had a whole set of motives—random, personal, and institutional. But it kept coming back to: who could have set the fire, or found someone who would do it?

“Gary, I know this is hard, especially when you know so many of the people involved. And I don’t want to put anyone in a bad light, but we have to eliminate the possibility that someone wanted the collection destroyed. I know Peter has been very torn up about this. What about Jennifer?”

“Jennifer? She’s a good woman. Her late husband was a firefighter, you know.”

“I’d heard that he didn’t leave enough for her to get by.”

He looked pained. Still, he answered, “Yes, and that’s one reason she’s working at the museum.”

“How long ago did she start?”

“Oh, five, six years now? Her husband had died a year or so earlier.” He smiled. “She’s indispensable at the museum—does just about everything.”

And doesn’t get paid nearly enough for it
, I added to myself. I wondered why Jennifer had put up with the lousy pay for five years now—couldn’t she have found a better job? I had to regretfully acknowledge that I had learned little from Gary, who had gone out of his way not to implicate anybody. I was out of questions, and it was getting late: time to wrap things up.

“Gary, thank you for meeting with me, and for being so honest. I want you to know that everyone is working hard to lay this to rest. Will the museum be able to open on schedule?”

“Most likely. The fire departments in the city and beyond have been scouring their back rooms and attics for old equipment and such—they’ve been extraordinarily generous. That lovely engine, now—she’ll be harder to replace.”

“Where would you find one? Are there auctions for such things?” I asked. I honestly didn’t know.

“Now and then they go on sale. But we couldn’t afford one at auction at any rate. This last one was donated, years ago. Still, we’ll manage. I hope I’ve been able to help you, Nell.”

“You have, Gary. I appreciate it. And you let me know if there’s anything else I can do. There may be more information in our collections that would be useful to you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Are you all right for getting home?”

“I can pick up my train just down the block. Good night, Gary.”

Once I’d found myself a seat on the train, I had time to reflect on what Gary had said—or not said. All I had heard so far was how wonderful and noble and honest everybody even remotely involved was. Gary had even managed to avoid overly bad-mouthing Allan Brigham, even though he clearly knew of his flaws. Nobody closely associated with the museum had voluntarily brought up the question of theft; either they were brilliant at covering things up, or they were suspiciously ignorant. Or they were all working together. Or nobody was involved.

And I was getting exactly nowhere.

I did not relish going to work the next day. I felt a bit
dirty, digging into the personal lives of my peers, even though it was for a good cause. Worse, I wasn’t coming up with anything useful. James had asked for my help, and I’d done my best to follow through, but I had discovered little that he couldn’t have found himself more quickly and efficiently. I wasn’t even sure this was a collections issue—or even a deliberate crime, beyond the unknown fire setter’s urge to destroy something.

I was getting conflicting impressions from various people about why anyone became a firefighter, and why anyone would try to do their modest museum harm, directly or indirectly, individually or collectively. Certainly firefighting was an honorable profession and always had been throughout its long history—which had begun right here in Philadelphia. The tragic events of 9/11 had burned that image into the public’s vision. Firefighters were the good guys,
committed to protecting and helping people, and nobody wanted to hear anything bad about them—which made this investigation all the more difficult. There was always the chance that a few of them were danger junkies or were looking for some public adoration to boost their own self-esteem, but it was a long jump from that to burning down buildings and killing people.

I had to wonder how many arsonists were eventually caught. Hadn’t Celia said that many arson crimes weren’t even reported? That meant that someone could have been building up toward a major event like this without leaving any sort of trail. I wanted to believe that if all these recent fire events were the work of one person, then he would at some point slip up or leave some crucial evidence and then be identified and caught. Five fires in less than a month. All set by the same person? Or had someone taken advantage of the flurry of destructive activity to conceal one very different fire?

Gary had put his finger on some interesting aspects of the problem. There was no question that fire fascinated people, but obviously they responded in a variety of ways. Why, when I had always lived a modern suburban life, did I react on some primitive level to sitting in front of a fire in my own home? Why did it still have this almost magical appeal in this modern era, when we no longer depended on fire for heat and light?

And how was I supposed to make sense of all this?

In my office—before Eric, for once—I called James, who was also already in his own office, no surprise.

“You have something?” he asked after we had exchanged basic hellos.

“Not really. I talked to Gary O’Keefe last night.”

“The curator? And?”

“He seemed surprised that anyone could have wanted to target the museum’s collection. He couldn’t think of anyone who might have a grudge against the museum. He didn’t want to think that the night watchman had anything to do with it, although he said he thought the guy was a malcontent and had a beef against the fire department. He did hint that there was a rift in the board, between the ones who wanted to keep things going and the ones who wanted to see the museum quietly go away. He didn’t say a word about the possible swap of the fire engines. Have I added anything new to what you’ve got? One blessed, bleeping thing?”

“You sound frustrated.”

“Shouldn’t I? Look, James, I want to help, really. But I like these people, and everybody likes firemen. Nobody’s admitted to being strapped for cash, at least any more than usual. Everybody is good buddies with everybody else, and there’s no skullduggery going on anywhere. And that’s all I can tell you. Tell me you have something better. Is an arrest imminent? Are you hot on the trail of an arsonist?”

“I’m sorry, Nell.” His voice was curiously gentle. “I wish I could say I was. And I regret putting you in a difficult position. The police department has been working hard and cooperating with us, and we’re all still coming up dry. We’ve got a few more things to follow up on. What can I do?”

“Tell me I can go back to my normal life. We’ve got a lot of documents here to process, thanks to you, and that’s our business.”

“So are you off the hook? If you think you’ve talked to everyone that you have access to, then yes, you’re done. You get a gold star in your file.”

“Well…”

“What?”

“I haven’t really talked to Jennifer, except briefly at that foundation event. Has anybody talked to her?”

“Obviously the police talked to her, since she knew where the collection was stored. She didn’t really have an alibi for the time the fire started—she was one of the home-alone-with-a-book group. In the video we saw of the theft, none of the figures looked like a woman—she’s small, and the guys shoving the fire engine around weren’t. And you were with her when she got the news of the fire, right?”

“Right, at that luncheon. In fact, we were at the same table when she got the news, and she looked shocked. She and Peter were both there, and they both reacted the way you would expect. Did she say anything else to the police?”

“All she told them was that she had worked for Peter for five years, and he was very upset about everything. The police didn’t ask anything else.”

“And of course they didn’t ask about the theft.”

“They didn’t know about it.”

“Do they now?”

My question was met with silence on James’s end, and I jumped to the obvious conclusion. “You haven’t told them?”

“Nell, they have enough on their plates, between the string of arsons and the death. And we have no proof that anything was stolen.”

“No, just the strong suspicion of a couple of people like me and Marty.” I didn’t bring up the fact that Eric and Shelby had also agreed on first sight, but that wouldn’t add much credence to the claim anyway. Besides, I already knew James agreed with me, too. “But you’re pursuing it?”

“The FBI is looking into the fraud aspect, yes. Quietly.”

“Doesn’t it go to motive for setting the fire and killing the watchman?”

I could hear his sigh even over the phone. “Nell, the FBI has been officially involved only for a few days. I’m still reviewing the police files on this. Will I tell them about our suspicions? Probably. But high-dollar fraud would be our responsibility, not theirs.”

“And here I thought you guys cooperated these days,” I muttered under my breath.