No Ordinary Day (20 page)

His mind returned to the baby his unit had found.

He tried not to think too heavily on where her parents might be. There were many people he had seen in passing looking frantically for missing children, and he had every reason to believe that when morning finally came, bringing light and dry air and calm to the Seventh Circle of Hell that Obergrande had been turned into by the flood, her parents would be located, and the family reunited.

Every reason to believe.

Even though, in his heart of hearts, he didn’t.

He had saved the backpack, had searched for it and located it while the baby was being loaded into the ambulance. Callie Masino had also volunteered to go with her, and rode along in the rig, holding the squalling infant in her arms while the paramedics checked her over.

While he was searching for the backpack, the dozen members of the crew stood in silence at the back of the ambulance, watching solemnly until the rig pulled out of the area, its lights and siren screaming into the air. They remained in silence, standing there until they could no longer see the flashing lights, could no longer hear the siren’s wail echoing off the mountains.

Then, almost as one, they exhaled.

“Hang in there, honey,” called Walt Bentley in the direction the ambulance had gone, choking up. “We’ve got your back, whatever you need. Hang in there!”

“I think when she’s back with her parents, we should ask if we can all adopt her, kind of as honorary aunts and uncles,” Kevin Moreland suggested. “Make her the official Obergrande Fire Company #2 mascot.”

“She broke my damn heart when she called for her mama,” Lindsay Saboran said, fighting back tears. “I’m never gonna get that sound out of my head.”

“You’re the first one in line for aunt-hood, if her parents agree,” Paul Moody said to Lindsay, accompanied by a low vocal chorus of agreement. “Never would have found her if you hadn’t thought of that thermal camera. It would never have occurred to me—I forgot we were testing it for Clarkson.”

“With Callie right on line behind you, Lindsay. She was totally in the zone tonight. That little kid was lucky Masino was on this team,” Cochrane said. “No one else here had the cert for infants.”

“Any sign of who she belongs to?” Andy Klein, the assistant chief, asked Dave. The chief held up the backpack.

“This is all we have to go on, except for the canoe. Forensics has it now. I’m gonna take this back to the station and go over it with a fine-toothed comb.”

He lowered the backpack and took off his fire hat.

“The rest of you, go home, or to the shelter, if your house was in the flood zone. The Red Cross is set up outside the station and on the other side of Tree Hill Park all night. Go there if you need chow or a place to stay. Flood waters usually recede pretty quickly, but the work continues for a long time afterward, so rest up—we’re going to be on duty for quite some time. Good work, Fire Company #2. You’ve earned your bars today, each and every one of you.”

He held the backpack aloft in salute.

The crew returned the salute silently, staring with wide eyes at the little carrier that had saved an infant from the raging river.

Dave examined that backpack now. It had no particular insignia identifying its brand, and only one zippered pocket for storage. The life jacket that had been placed around it had doubtless kept the child alive, because the canoe showed signs of traumatic impact of the most devastating nature.

It looked, as far as he was concerned, like a massive tree had run into or fallen on it, either on land or in the river.

The impact had been on the opposite end of the canoe from where the baby had been secured into the watercraft, and had filled half of it with small branches and leaves.

Though not certain, Dave Windsor thought there might have been blood in it as well.

But, he thought idly as he turned the backpack over in the lantern light, he could see literally nothing in the darkness while he was searching for the canoe, because all his attention had been focused through the thermal imaging camera, looking for any source of heat.

The use of which was an idea that had come from Lindsay Saboran, a smart and common-sensical young woman that Dave expected he would serve under as the department’s chief someday.

I need to put her personally, and the unit collectively, in for a commendation when this nightmare is over,
he thought, running his finger over the backpack’s zippered compartment, little more than a pocket.

Inside that compartment, Dave could feel something hard and thin.

Carefully he slid the pull on the zipper across its teeth, trying to keep from breaking it.

And succeeded, after a moment, in doing so.

The pocket was small and shallow, perhaps three inches deep and eight or nine wide.

Dave slipped his finger inside.

Rather than hard metal, what he expected to feel, his finger brushed a soft, velvety material, a bag or pouch of some sort that contained the harder object, with packing foam in the corners of the pocket protecting it.

He slowly slid that container out of the sodden backpack and laid it on the table in the candlelight before him.

The pouch, from what he could see, had a very old and shedding piece of twine sewn through the top, like a drawstring. Dave untied the knot carefully, using his Boy Scout badge-level knot untying ability, then pulled the bag open and allowed the object inside to slide out onto the table.

It gleamed in the light, despite a layer of tarnish that coated it.

A bracelet, formed of hammered silver, old, from the looks of it, with a single dark stone, its color impossible to discern, set in the center of it. The setting was sectioned, with a clasp and a locking piece.

Dave Windsor was a bright man, with more knowledge of horticulture than anyone in Obergrande, and most likely, all of Essex County.

But, other than identifying it as most likely a bracelet of some kind, uncertain as to what part of the body it was expected to be worn on, fairly certain it was made of what appeared to be silver, and set with a dark, translucent stone of some sort, he had no idea what he was looking at.

The way it had been kept in the velvet pouch, and packed carefully with linen around it, Dave could tell it had great meaning to someone.

Someone most likely related to the muddy infant they had dragged from the garbage pile that lined what was serving as the new edge of the river, at least for the moment.

Dave Windsor carefully slid the bracelet back into its bag, wrapped in the linen as it had been. Then he rose from the table and made his way back into the dark office of the fire station.

He tried to snap on the light, then sighed, getting no satisfaction.

He went to the heavy safe, snapped on the light on his helmet, and carefully spun the dial, having to do so twice until the combination fell in line with a click.

Dave opened the door and put the bag inside the safe, far in the back behind the bank envelopes full of cash from Casino Night the prior week. The treasurer had not attended the meeting the previous night and had not made the deposit that week as a result.

That seems like a million lifetimes ago,
he thought as he slammed the safe’s door closed.

Then he went out into the main room, gathered his coat and boots, suited up and went back out into the aftermath of the storm again.

‡

11:07
PM

East Obergrande, out of the flood zone, west Tree Hill Park

T
he National Guardsman
finally found Lucy in a sheltered spot on the western side of Tree Hill with her wet Red Cross blanket, her eighth cup of coffee, and his flashlight. He crouched down and looked thoughtfully into her face.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am,” he said. “I got back as quick as I could.”

Lucy nodded absently. “I’m sure you did, Sergeant. Thanks for coming back.”

Ace touched the blanket. “This thing is really wet. We should get you another one.”

She shook her head. “There are a lot of people who probably need a first one. I’m fine.”

“You still want to go to your house tonight?”

“Yes, please. I am hoping against hope that the cat made it out.”

“Will you be all right here for about ten to fifteen minutes, ma’am?”

Lucy, starting to succumb to exhaustion, nodded numbly.

“My car’s at Obergrande Fire House #2, which is just up the street a few blocks—”

“I know where it is,” she said flatly. “I take my class there every year for Fire Prevention Day.”

“Well, then you know how long it should take me to get there and back with the car.” He glanced around. “I’ve asked a few of the aid workers to keep an eye on you—”

“Thank you, Sergeant, but I’ll be fine,” Lucy interrupted. “I’ll wait here until you get back.”

“Right. I’ll hurry.” He disappeared into the darkness and the quiet chaos that was still milling about in the park and on the soccer fields of the school further to the south all these hours later.

Twelve minutes later he was standing over her again.

He reached down to her and took her hand, helping her to her feet.

“Come along, ma’am,” he said, his face as straight as ever. “Let’s go rescue the—er, other occupant of your house.”

Lucy’s face was the saddest he had ever seen.

“Not likely to find her alive, unfortunately,” she said softly. “As you’ve already heard, everyone who’s part of my family, everyone I love, has a tendency to die on me.”

11:14
PM

At the edge of the Flood Zone

It only took
seven minutes for Ace to get to the controlled zone, the area from the riverfront halfway up to Tree Hill Park, away from the quaint streets of the resort-like village of Obergrande to the residential area north of the park. The damaged area had already been cordoned off with saw horses and emergency tape, and contained more than eleven city blocks.

Obergrande was a community that gradually rose in a slanted elevation from the lake and riverfront, with the streets along the water rising in a stepped pattern, into the hillier parts of the village and town, until it met the steep hills of High Street and the Overlook, a cliff-like formation from which the town and its lake could be viewed fifty feet above the elevation of the city proper. Until the flood, the area beyond High Street had always been seen as a less desirable part of town, separated as it was from the flat lands.

Today, its height and slant made it seem to be the luckiest area of Obergrande.

Lucy’s house was just one street into the zone from the middle of town. She and Ace came to the barriers and stopped.

Throughout the zone, National Guardsmen, first responders and Red Cross staff were searching homes, particularly those closer to the waterfront that were still largely under water.

Ace had brought an electric lantern in addition to his flashlight, the batteries of which he had replaced upon getting out of the car. He followed Lucy to the barriers as she slowly came to a halt, staring at the disaster area.

A National Guardsman, a corporal, was patrolling the barricades.

“Are we going to be able to get in?” she asked nervously.

“I believe so. Technically I’m still on duty. And I outrank him.” His face remained straight.
“Ma’am.”

In spite of her nerves, Lucy chuckled.

Ace waited at an opening until the soldier approached, then saluted.

“Sergeant Alex Evans, 3rd Battalion, 105th Infantry, National Guard, Saranac Lake, requesting entry. This is Miss Lucy Sullivan, who requests entry as well, in my company.”

The corporal saluted in return. “Yes, sir. Do you have specific business within the restricted area?”

“Miss Sullivan is a resident of this area, and she wants to make certain that her, er, housemate was evacuated.”

“Her housemate had limited mobility, then, sir?”

Lucy had to turn quickly to keep her face from giving her away.

Ace swallowed. “Yes. Difficulty opening doors.”

“Yes, sir.” The corporal saluted, again. Ace returned the salute, then accompanied Lucy to her house. She leaned close to him when they were out of earshot of the corporal.

“Nice save,” she whispered.
“Sir.”

Ace looked down at her and smiled, but just kept walking.

They traveled through the darkened neighborhood, Lucy moving slowly, in shock at the sight of the once-familiar trees, broken and bent, the houses missing shutters and lawns where no grass remained, only puddles of mud. She could not bring herself to look too closely at the lower streets closer to the river, where most of the buildings were still submerged.

Finally she slowed her steps.

“My house is just up ahead,” she whispered.

“Would you like my arm?” Ace asked, offering it to her.

Lucy wasn’t listening. Instead she was staring ahead in the darkness at two people coming up the street. One was another soldier, dressed in fatigues, walking beside one of her neighbors and colleagues from the school.

Recognizable instantly by the white glowing hair that caught the light from the lantern the soldier was carrying.