Murder on the Last Frontier (24 page)

By the time the sound of yelling and the clang of the fire engine bell came up the road, the fire had grown and smoke billowed out of the upper floor window. The four horse-drawn pump car with six men hanging on was followed by the six-horse tank. The firemen leaped off their carts before they came to a complete stop, boots squishing in the icy mud. Two men connected the tank hose to the pump. Others connected the fire hose to the other end of the pump and unrolled the rubberized canvas toward Fiske's.

Three men donned hard leather masks that covered their heads, the eye pieces giving them an insectoid appearance. Hopefully the air canisters attached to the backs of the masks would sustain them long enough to extinguish the flames. When their equipment was secure, they hurried to the hose.

“Ready!” came the muffled cry of the man at the front. He pointed the nozzle toward the open door. Four men operated the pump mechanism, two to a side. After a few pumps, water shot out of the nozzle. The man in the front slowly walked forward.

James came around from the back of the building, and Charlotte breathed a sigh of relief. He strode directly to Chief Parker, who wore a black, hardened leather helmet with a metal crest on the front, and began talking and gesturing. Charlotte couldn't hear what they were saying over the rush of water, the roar of flames, and the chatter of the men near her.

“Charlotte, are you all right?”

She turned toward her brother. Like some of the other men, Michael wore his mackinaw over a stripped pajama shirt and hastily donned trousers.

“I'm fine. Did you get a call? Is someone hurt?” Charlotte hadn't seen anyone come out of Fiske's with an injury. Maybe he'd been contacted as a precaution.

“No, I heard the commotion. But I have my bag, just in case.” He held up his leather satchel, then turned his gaze to the building. “I pray I won't need it.”

James nodded at something the chief said, then walked over to them. Melted snow plastered his hair to his head, but he didn't seem to be feeling the effects. “Doc,” he said, greeting Michael. “Shouldn't have been anyone inside, but if you'll stick around to make sure the firemen are okay, I'd be obliged.”

“Of course,” Michael replied. “Has anyone gotten word to Fiske?”

“One of Parker's sons was sent to the house. He's not back yet.”

The men manning the hose hadn't gone far beyond the front door. One inside shouted something. The men stepped back several steps as a loud crash sounded within the building. Black smoke billowed out of the windows and over their heads.

The onlookers startled and stepped back. Though they were far enough away to be safe from the flames, the chemical smell burned Charlotte's nose and eyes. Several men wiped sleeves across their faces.

“There's the chief's son,” James said, nodding toward a lanky youth jogging down the road as fast as the slick surface allowed. He joined Parker, but the young man was shaking his head. James returned to Charlotte and Michael, his brow deeply furrowed. “Fiske wasn't at home. No one but the housekeeper was there.”

“Caroline's out of town,” Charlotte said. She recalled placing the travel announcement and Caroline Fiske's promise of a holiday party upon her return on the social page of the paper. “She gets back any day now.”

“That's what the housekeeper told the kid. Helluva homecoming,” James said.

All of them looked back at the building. Dread solidified in the pit of Charlotte's stomach.

“Maybe he's at one of the clubs or something,” Michael suggested.

“I'll check around.” James raked his fingers through his wet hair. “I need to catch that damn arsonist. This has gone too far.”

It seemed like hours before the firemen trudged out of the building, smudged with soot and dripping. The outer walls of the hardware store had scorched, but remained intact from what Charlotte could see. Thank goodness they lived in such a wet environment. The interior, however, was likely a total loss.

The chief met with one man as he and his companions helped each other remove their masks, taking care with the air canisters. Charlotte couldn't hear their conversation, but the man gestured back to the building, curving his hand as if giving direction. Parker's frown deepened. Even from where she stood, Charlotte heard his emphatic “Son of a bitch.”

He looked out toward the crowd, his gaze falling on James. “Deputy,” he called, waving James over. “You too, Doc.”

The three of them exchanged glances, and the dread in Charlotte's gut turned to a bilious cramping. There was only one reason to request Michael, the town's coroner, as well as one of its doctors.

“Damnation,” James muttered, heading to the chief.

Michael and Charlotte followed. Both men stopped and turned to her.

“No,” James said, holding up a hand. “This is no place for you.”

Irritation bristled at the back of her neck. “I beg to differ, Deputy. As a journalist I have an obligation to report suspected crimes.”

Michael rolled his eyes. “Here we go again.”

She scowled at him.

“And as Deputy Marshal,” James said, “my investigation into suspected crimes trumps your journalistic obligation. I'll relay any pertinent information to you, Miss Brody, but right now I'm ordering you to remain out here. If you don't, I'll handcuff you to the lightpost. Understood?”

He'd do it, too. Charlotte resisted her natural inclination to argue with anyone who told her she couldn't do this or that and gave him a curt nod. James nodded back. They'd known each other only a few short months and had quickly come to respect each other's duties. When James felt it was time to disclose information for public consumption and safety, he'd do it. Pushing him too far, too fast, would likely land her in one of his jail cells. Or cuffed to a post.

James and Michael made their way to the door of the hardware store with the chief. Two firemen loaned them their masks. The fire may have been out, but smoldering embers and toxic fumes from whatever chemicals Fiske had in his inventory could prove dangerous, if not outright fatal. The three men disappeared into the blackened store. Charlotte caught a few glimpses of smoky light from Parker's flashlight.

Worry gnawed around the edges of her irritation. What was inside the charred store? No amount of craning her neck allowed her to see past the front door.

“What's happening, Miss Brody?”

Charlotte gave Henry, one of her paper boys and a server at the café, a nod of greeting. What was he doing out so late? “The chief asked Deputy Eddington and Michael to look at something inside.”

Under the wan electric streetlight, Henry's ruddy cheeks paled. “What would they need the doctor for? Someone inside get hurt?”

She wouldn't be the one to start rumors or set off wild speculation. James would never forgive her that transgression. “I couldn't say.”

Henry stared at the front door and broken window leaking smoke, his expression the same as the few remaining gawkers who stayed to see what James and Michael might find. “It's not Mr. Fiske, is it? I mean, who else would be in his store at this hour?”

“We don't know what's what, Henry, so let's not jump to conclusions.” She sounded a lot like James, but the words offered a small amount of hope that Lyle Fiske was all right.

“Even so,” Henry said, “the store's a goner.” He glanced at Charlotte. “Do they think the arsonist did it?”

Charlotte and others had entertained the same thought. “I'm sure the fire department and the marshal's office will investigate every possibility. But the three other fires were smaller, in places where no one was around. This seems like a jump in destructive intent to me.”

Henry nodded, his attention back on the building and the firemen putting their equipment away.

Finally, Michael emerged from the hardware store. A fireman helped him with the mask. Michael took a deep breath of fresh air, but his face was drawn.

Charlotte started toward him. “Excuse me, Henry.”

Her feet slid in the slushy road. It was particularly mucky where the water tank had been dripping, adding to the mess of the wet snow. As she reached Michael, James exited the building with the fire chief, the two of them talking low, their expressions similar to Michael's. James held something heavy wrapped in cloth and under his jacket to protect it from the snow.

“It's bad, isn't it?” Charlotte kept her voice low and her back turned so the onlookers wouldn't pick up on their conversation. No need to get rumors started. “Lyle Fiske?”

Michael nodded. “It looks like it. They'll bring the body over to the basement of the hospital. The new morgue is up and running. Just wish we didn't need it so damn soon.”

“You'll confirm who it is and manner of death for an article, won't you?” Charlotte had no desire to attend this autopsy. One was enough for her lifetime.

“I don't want anything out about this yet,” James said as he joined them. He looked cold and wet, his hair dripping. “There are circumstances that need clearing up.”

“Like what?” she asked. “How the fire started? Do you think it was the arsonist?”

“Those questions, and who'd want Lyle Fiske dead.”

“You're sure it was intentional?” What a terrible idea.

“The fire may not have been,” James said, bringing the cloth-wrapped items out from under his coat, “but the knife and hammer near his body suggest his death was.”

 

Charlotte shifted on the uncomfortable chair in Michael's outer office. Staying late at the
Times'
office, she'd typed up a short piece for the morning edition, just a few lines of facts and observations of the fire department's activities. Mr. Toliver had arrived by the time the fire department was finishing up. He manned the linotype, encouraging Charlotte to go home and get some rest.

Sleep had been nearly impossible. Speculation about how the fire had started, why, and the identity of the unfortunate victim were left out of the article, but not her thoughts. The discovery of a possible murder weapon contributed to theories about what had happened.

Poor Mr. Fiske. Charlotte hoped he was dead before the fire started. Awful as that sounded, she couldn't imagine the terror of being conscious while the building burned.

The outer door opened, and Michael came into the office, quickly closing out the cold and wind. Charlotte caught a whiff of burnt flesh under the “hospital” smell of carbolic acid and cleanser. Probably just her imagination, but she rose and cracked open the window for some fresh air despite the winter chill.

“How'd it go, Michael?”

He hung up his hat and mackinaw, then sat in the chair behind his desk. In his usual manner of preparing to deliver bad news, Michael straightened his tie and smoothed back his hair before meeting her gaze.

“I do believe it's Lyle Fiske,” he said. “Build and clothing—what's left of it—are consistent with Fiske. His features had been damaged by flames, but not completely burned away. Still, since no one's been able to find Fiske in town, I believe it's him.”

“Did the fire kill him?” She knew that often people were overcome by smoke before burned by the flames of a fire. With so many chemicals in the hardware store, it wouldn't have surprised her if toxic fumes had rendered him unconscious first. But unless he'd been asleep in his office, how had he not been capable of escaping? The presence of the knife and hammer became more than a little suspicious.

Michael scrubbed his palms over his face, the whiskers on his cheeks just long enough to become disheveled. She'd gotten used to the moustache he sported, but a beard was something else. Though understandable, given the climate. “I think he was dead before the fire.”

Thank goodness for small favors,
Charlotte thought. “Why do you say that?”

“His clothes and skin were burned, and he smelled of chemicals as if he'd been doused with paint thinner or something. That obliterated any obvious wounds on his front. I think the debris that fell on him after the explosion smothered the flames, essentially preserving the rest of the body. The clothing and skin on his back was relatively unscathed. But when I opened him up—”

Her stomach flipped. Images of Darcy Dugan's autopsy three months ago flashed through her mind like a jittery nickelodeon. How Michael managed to distance himself from such gruesome things astounded her. It must have been difficult, especially in a small town where he was familiar with the victims. On the one hand, she knew he was sympathetic to his patients' conditions. On the other, he managed to dictate graphic details of injury and illness with nary a hitch in his voice.

“—blood in his chest cavity.”

“Blood? How?”

“A slit in his heart's apex. There was an obvious cut on the inside of his thoracic cavity and into the heart muscle.” Michael pointed at his own chest, just under his sternum. “The killer thrust upward. Not an easy task to avoid ribs, but the knife found was large enough to do the trick. Still, whoever killed Fiske was pretty strong, and either lucky or skilled.”

A shudder ran through Charlotte. The idea of a “skilled” killer in Cordova brought to mind the terrors of a Jack the Ripper–type.
Let's not blow this out of proportion
.

“Why would someone kill him?”

“That's Eddington's job, not mine. All I can say is he was likely dead, or close to it, prior to the fire.” Michael shrugged and slowly shook his head, looking weary. “Fiske was a decent sort, as far as I knew him. He and his wife were well liked.”

“Not by everyone, perhaps.” Charlotte had only met the couple a few times. Caroline was ten or so years older than she, and Lyle another ten years older than his wife. They were friendly enough, and Caroline seemed to enjoy being among Cordova's growing number of society matrons—wives of the more prominent and successful businessmen.