Roast Mortem (6 page)

Next door, the Red Mirage was vacated and closed. But the continued glow of its neon sign, along with the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles, made the scattered puddles flicker with an almost demonic hue.

Around me, the men of Engine Company 335 were going through the painstaking process of draining and rewrapping the infinite hose. A rookie fireman swept glass off the sidewalk. Others tossed metal tools back into the truck. I'd watched them use those same tools to tear apart the caffè's walls and ceiling.

I would have gone with Madame to Elmhurst Hospital, but she asked me to remain behind and retrieve her handbag from the basement. Because the keys to my car, my apartment, and every single lock in the Village Blend were in my own bag (also in the basement) I decided she was right and I'd better stick around.

Shivering in the cold March night, I peered once more into Enzo's place. The flames were gone now, but his beautiful interior looked like a rest stop on the road to hell. Water had replaced the element of fire, and it was just as damaging.

Though the hydrants were turned off, torrents of gray sludge still poured from the building's upper levels, staining walls and soiling the colorfully tiled floor. The highly polished wooden tables looked like charred kindling. Broken lumber and bent panels of tin dangled from the ceiling like ragged fangs inside the mouth of a dead monster.

Flashlight beams from the fire marshals played across the blackened walls and sodden plaster. Though the stainless steel espresso machine appeared intact behind the thick marble counter, Enzo's breathtaking mural had been burned beyond recognition.

A building could always be restored, new furniture purchased, but that astonishing fresco, completed over decades, could never be replaced. As I surveyed the devastation, tears filled my eyes for the man's lost art.

Something inside the shop crashed to the floor and I started. A moment later, I felt a large body step up behind me and place a blanket over my shoulders.

“You're shiverin', dove.”

Captain Michael Quinn turned me around to face him. Hot tears had slipped down my chilled cheeks. I swiped at them.

“I heard you made a save tonight,” he said. “The men told me you pulled out a kid twice your size.”

“Dante is one of my baristas. I wasn't about to let him burn alive.”

“But you could have burned alive tryin' to save him.”

“Anyone would have done what I did.”

“Oh, sure, any firefighter with a cast-iron pair.” He gave me a little smile.

For the first time, I noticed an old burn scar, just under the man's left ear, a patch of flesh blanched pinkish white. His bulky white helmet was tucked under one arm, baring his sweat-slickened hair. The change in light had altered the shade, I realized. At the height of the blaze, it looked fiery orange. Now it seemed more subdued, a deep, muted burgundy, like brandy-soaked cherries.

The man's bunker coat was open and flapped a bit in a sudden March gust. Ignoring his own fluttering clothing, he tucked the blanket more tightly around me.

“I'm surprised you're still here,” he said. “Unless you lingered for a reason? To catch a ride home with me, maybe?”

Is he kidding?
Laugh lines creased the edges of his smoke-gray eyes, but I wasn't entirely sure he was joking.

“I can't go anywhere, not at the moment. My car keys are in my handbag in the basement, so I'm waiting on a couple of your guys. They volunteered to search for it . . .”

“Then take a load off while you're waiting. After what you went through, you shouldn't be on your feet.”

My mouth was dry, my skin was clammy, and my legs were beginning to feel like underchilled aspic. “I'm fine.”

“You're
fine
? Right. Sure you are.” The captain shook his head. “Come
on . . .
”

His big hand went to my lower back. Too weak to fight the current, I flowed along, letting him propel me toward the back of one of the fire trucks.

He plunked down his helmet on the truck's wide running board, unwrapped another blanket, and placed it on the cold metal. With two heavy hands, he pressed my shoulders until I was sitting on it. Then he grabbed a paper cup and decanted something from a canary yellow barrel strapped to the vehicle's side.

“Drink.”

I took the cup, sniffed. It smelled citrusy.
Gatorade
, I realized, and took a sip, followed by a big swallow.

I hadn't realized I was so thirsty, but now my body seemed to be absorbing the liquid's electrolytes before they even hit my stomach. As I drained the first cup, I realized the captain was already offering me a second. I drained that, too.

“Good girl.”

I threw him a look.

“What?”

“I'm not a girl.”

“What should I be sayin', then?
Good boy?
” He folded his arms. “Too late, darlin'. I've already glimpsed what's under that blanket and unless I need eye surgery”—he winked—“it's all female.”

I exhaled. Dealing with this guy was going to be a challenge, but I shouldn't have been surprised, given our previous meeting . . .

Last December, a not-so-nice person helped me off the Staten Island Ferry (in the middle of New York Bay). Amid my shivering rants to the FDNY marine squad who rescued me was a request that someone contact Mike Quinn. How could I know there was more than one?

The men called the Quinn they knew, this larger-than-life creature of the FDNY. From his blustery entrance on that rescue boat and the flirtation that followed, I got the impression that battling blazes was only one of the captain's burning interests. As usual, the man's suggestive stare was making me feel less than fully dressed (even with this first-responder blanket swathed around me like I'd just taken a seat at his personal powwow).

“Listen, Chief, considering your men just saved my friends' lives, I'm going to cut you some slack—”

“Well, isn't that big of you.”

“But I'm not in the mood for games. So would you please drop the retro macho condescension and just call me
Clare
?”

“Whatever you say . . .
darlin'
.”

I exhaled. “At least you're true to form.”

“How's that?”

“Your attitude comes from the same era as you preferred style of facial hair.”

The captain proudly smoothed his trimmed handlebar. “Can't resist the old soot filter, can you?”

“Actually, I can. On the other hand, I wouldn't mind another one of these.” I held out my empty cup.

“Women,” he grunted, shaking his head. But he refilled it. Then he grabbed a plastic water bottle, chugged half the contents, and gazed at the fire-ravaged coffee shop.

“Hell of a blaze,” he said. “Wonder what set it off?”

“What did the fire marshals say?”

“Nothing. They keep their theories to themselves, those boys.”

“What do you think happened?”

“When I first rolled up to the scene, I assumed Enzo's espresso machine was the cause—”

“You know Lorenzo Testa?”

“I know every shop owner in this neighborhood. Old Enzo's got the best coffee around. A lot of my men come here for it and his pastries, too.”

“What made you think the espresso machine was the cause?”

“The steam pressure, the gas lines, any number of things could go wrong with a mechanism like that. It seemed the most likely culprit for the intensity of the blaze—”

“But that's not what happened. The start of the fire was farther back in the store, near the utility room—”

“That's right, honey. You didn't let me finish. When I saw the actual burn pattern, it was clear the espresso machine wasn't the cause. The mechanism was intact. And the gas line didn't break, even after the fire started—”

“That's because the bomb went off in the back of the store—”

“Whoa there.” The captain raised a calloused hand. “Don't be usin' a word like
bomb
so freely.”

“I was an eyewitness. I know what I saw.”

“And what did you hear then? A loud explosion?”

“No . . .” That made me pause. “There wasn't a loud noise. No boom; it was more like the sound I hear when the pilot light on my stove is out and I relight it after running the gas.”

“So you think the cause was a gas leak?”

“I think it was
arson
, some kind of device rigged to go off at a certain time—”

“Stop. You're back to describing a bomb.”

I crossed my arms and met his eyes. “It
was
a bomb. The only questions those fire marshals should be asking now is who set it off and why.”

The captain held my eyes a long moment but this time it wasn't a leer. The man was staring into me like a mentalist studying an audience volunteer.

“Oh, no,” he finally said, as if he'd just rifled every thought in my brain pan. “No, no,
no
you don't.”

“No I don't
what
?”

The captain bent down, moved his face two inches from mine. “I heard about your games, dove—”

“Games?”

“You like to play detective. A bad habit you no doubt picked up from my black sheep cousin. But listen to me now: You're not a fire marshal, and you're not trained to recognize the cause of a fire—”

“But—”

“The real marshals are inside that building.” He extended his long arm for a sustained point. “They're taking pictures, evaluating burn patterns, looking for traces of chemical accelerants or electrical damage. They're going to determine how and where the blaze started, and document how my smoke-eaters knocked the monster down, too. They don't need help from an
amateur
.”

I met the man's stare. “I may be an amateur, but I'm also an
eyewitness
.”

The captain straightened up, moved his hands to his hips. “Now why would you want to worry that lovely head of yours about this, anyway? The marshals will make the final determination on what caused the fire, and they'll do it based on proven investigative techniques, not some womanly hunch.”

“I never said anything about a hunch, womanly or otherwise. And this head was there, in that café, when the fire started, remember? I only told you what I saw and what I heard.”

“What you saw and heard is all you should be telling anyone—without speculation.”

“Why?”

“Why . . .” The captain rubbed his eyes, loudly exhaled. Finally, he sat down beside me. When he spoke again, his tone was no longer combative. “Do you know what a fire triangle is, Clare?”

“No.”

“Fire is a chemical reaction that occurs when three elements are present: oxygen for the fire to breathe, fuel for it to consume, and heat to ignite the other two in a chain reaction.” He ticked off the three points on his fingers. “You followin' me?”

“Three elements. Combustibility.”

“Any time these elements are combined, the fire can occur—whether intentionally or accidentally.”

“But I witnessed more than the fire itself. I heard a
whoosh,
saw the initial blast. It must have been arson.”

“You're so sure, eh? Well, factor this in, darlin'. Of the hundreds of fires I put out last year, there were two that were practically identical. Both started in the kitchen trash can of a row house on a quiet street. In the first fire, a woman lit the end of a cigarette and intentionally tossed it into the can. She was broke, couldn't make the mortgage payment, and needed an insurance pay out to stay afloat.”

He paused, met my eyes. “That's arson.”

“Yes, obviously.”

“In the second fire a man emptied a cigarette ashtray into a closed metal can, not realizing there were still burning ashes. The ashes ignited tissues stuffed into the can. The fire smoldered, contained and unnoticed, until it reached critical mass and burst out of the metal can, immediately setting the walls and ceiling ablaze. And because an un-challenged fire doubles in size every thirty seconds, the fire spread throughout the house in minutes, destroying everything. You see?”

“No. I'm sorry but you lost me. What's your point?”

“The first fire was arson—obviously, as you say, once the facts were discovered. The second was accidental, but not so obvious. If a witness had been present to hear and see that second fire break loose, he might have sworn that exploding trash can was a bomb, too.”

I thought about that. “Okay. I understand. I do. And nothing against your fire triangle, but have you ever heard of the blink theory of trusting your first impressions? As a detective, Mike believes—”

“Yes,” I said. “Mike. Your cousin. He believes—”

“To
hell
with what my cousin believes! He's not a fire investigator and neither are you. Stick to the facts, Clare, not what anyone
believes
.”

I sat very still for a moment, letting the man's anger dissipate like those black balloons of smoke released by the burning caffè. Then calmly and quietly I asked—

“Why do you care what I think, anyway?”

“Because Enzo's a good man, and I won't have him accused of arson. He's the last person who'd put his own life at risk, or anyone else's, for some lousy insurance money.”

“I'm sure Enzo is a good man. My friend Madame has known him for years, decades—”

“But if you start shouting
bomb
, the press may get wind of it, and the marshals will be forced to start treating Enzo as a suspect before they even finish with the forensics.”