Valley of Ashes (24 page)

I jotted down
locks, pizza box, door.
Then
opportunity
, underlined.

“Yes, sir.” Rainer pointed to someone behind us. “You have a question?”

I swiveled my head. A youngish man with a goatee was on his feet, near the rear pews.

“I’ve been camping out in my store for the past week, just in case,” he said. “It’s… well, my stock seems so
flammable
. Antique furniture. Do you have specific recommendations for fire extinguishers?”

“Of course fire extinguishers are a great idea, and the more the better,” answered Rainer. “But I want to urge business owners
not
to take up residence in their establishments. If you’re in a commercial building outside normal hours of operation, my people aren’t going to know you’re there. We’ve been tremendously lucky so far that the damage has been limited to property—I’d like us all to do everything we can to keep it that way. We’d be happy to help you set up a neighborhood-watch rotation instead. You’ll be a lot more effective as a deterrent
outside
your store, and we’ll both sleep better.”

Mimi said “damn right” under her breath, beside me.

The goatee-antiques guy thanked Rainer and took his seat.

When everyone started swiveling their heads back toward the dais, I caught sight of Bittler’s face about ten rows back.

Awesome. My lucky night.

“Fucking Bittler’s here,” I whispered to Cary. “Let’s make sure we duck out the back way when this is over.”

“Or just demand sanctuary,” he whispered back.

Mimi gave me a gentle nudge in the ribs. “Am I going to have to separate you two?”

She was kidding, but I concentrated on my note-taking thereafter.

Most of the questions were low-key until this ponytailed Baby Boomer in a Jah Guide T-shirt interrupted Rainer’s explanation of sprinkler-system regulations.

“All well and good,” the guy whined, “you trying to put the onus of
this crap on
us
. Why can’t you people take some responsibility here? If you were doing your damn
job
, we wouldn’t be in this mess. I don’t see how padlocks and citizen patrols can make up for your department’s professional incompetence.”

I heard clapping and turned to look: two more graying hippies with AARP cards and an outsized sense of entitlement.

“Sir,” said Rainer, “I agree with you. I could tell you about limitations of our manpower or equipment or funding, but the fact is that we’re failing to catch this person. All I can do is ask my teams to do their best, and ask all of you for your help—we need your eyes and ears, your attention to detail.”

“Well what the hell have you found out about this creep?” Jah Guide dude yelled. “
Anything?
What are we supposed to be looking for, while you’re asleep at the wheel?”

Oh for fuck’s sake, would my parents’ generation
never
grow the fuck up?

“There are some details of the investigation that we don’t want to make public, of course,” said Rainer. “But here’s what I’d like you to know: The fires have been set at all different hours, so we’re probably looking for someone who doesn’t have a regular job. While we can say with some certainty that the arsons have been the work of one individual, to date—based on evidence I can’t get into in a public forum—there has been some variation in his method. He’s employed sophisticated techniques on several occasions that lead us to believe he’s not a first-time offender, though he may be new to this area.”

“Pretty damn vague,” the heckler shot back.

I thought I heard Mimi’s teeth gnashing.

“Sir,” said Rainer, getting a little pissed now, “would you prefer that I give everyone in this
room
a tutorial on the specifics of do-it-yourself arson, step by step?”

“Of course not,” the man harrumphed, “but isn’t it true that most of these people turn out to be firefighters themselves, in the end? Firebugs who get into the business to play with what obsesses them in the first place, and then make themselves out to be heroes?”

Rainer took that shot head-on. “There have been cases of that, I’m very sorry to say.”

“That man in California… wasn’t he a chief or something?”

“Sir,” said Rainer, “let’s stick with the case at hand. We’re doing everything we can to stop these crimes—interagency cooperation, investigative work, you name it, using all the resources we have. But we need to work together as a community. Stop this guy before he does more damage, before anyone gets hurt. I wish we could do it alone. I wish
I
could do it alone—”

“Well, damn it, then why don’t you—”

“
Please
let me finish, sir. Please. I’m willing to admit to you that I’m failing at my job right now. Failing you, failing myself, failing everyone in this room by not performing as well as I
want
to be performing, on behalf of our community. But we—myself and every firefighter in this county—are
not
asleep at the wheel. It’s just an overwhelmingly large wheel.”

Rainer got some enthusiastic applause for that. Much deserved.

“Look,” he continued, “arson is a
huge
problem in this country. Anybody have any idea what it costs us nationally, over the course of a year?”

He looked around the audience, side to side. “Anyone?”

Silence.

“Let’s start with property,” said Rainer. “Last year alone, our communities sustained roughly three point six billion dollars in property damage—during the course of an estimated
five hundred eighty-four thousand, five hundred
separate instances of arson.”

Heckler dude didn’t have a comeback to that.

The captain’s hands were clenched now. “But the property damage isn’t what keeps me up nights, sir. What keeps me up at night is that five hundred sixty people
died
in those fires. And I’m doing my damnedest to make sure we don’t have any fatalities in Boulder.”

Someone called out “hear, hear!” from the back of the room.

Rainer leaned forward, over his podium. “And let me tell you that my damnedest means asking
all
of you for help. Yourself included, sir.”

“Well,” said the heckler, “if you put it that way—”

“I’ll put it any way I
have
to, to get you on board.”

“Sign me up,” the man responded, before sitting heavily down amidst general applause.

“What, you think I’m taking advantage?” I asked Cary.

He, Mimi, and I had adjourned to a microbrewery on Pearl Street: Sunshine, Rainbow, whatever.

“Not exactly,” he said.

I squinted at him. “Then what? I mean, she offered to babysit, and I needed a babysitter. But if you think it’s inappropriate… Like, what, she feels pressured because my husband is kind of her boss…?”

“Maddie,” said Cary, “look, it’s just that—”

“Oh, my God, that
is
what you think!” I said, suddenly horrified with myself.

“Who are we talking about?” asked Mimi.

“This really nice chick Dean and Cary work with,” I said. “Setsuko. Cary, seriously, am I a total asshole? It didn’t occur to me that she… I mean,
shit
. I figured she could use the money.”

“She’s not going to let you pay her,” he said.

“That’s even worse. Like I think she’s a serf or something. Cary… help me. Should we leave right now?”

“Finish your beer,” said Mimi. “And then have another. Make a night of it.”

“It’s fine, Maddie,” added Cary. “Just, Setsuko’s got a lot on her plate right now.”

“Anything I should know other than that they want to deport her and stuff?”

Cary sighed.

“It’s not Bittler, is it?” I asked. “Oh, God. I mean, he’s hard enough on
you
—I’d hate to have to deal with him as a chick.”

“Bittler?” said Mimi.

“The butthead guy we wanted to duck out of the church quickly to avoid,” I said. “And thank you for sneaking us out the back door, by the way.”

She looked at Cary. “So ‘the butthead guy’ is harassing this Set-Sue person?”

“No,” he said. “Not like that… it’s just that she’s been working her ass off, and she’s supposed to be leaving on vacation tomorrow, and…”

He stopped and looked away. Exhaled.

“And what?” I asked, touching his wrist.

“Nothing. Really.” He still wouldn’t look at me.

“
And
I’m totally exploiting her, on top of that, but you’re too nice to say so?” I said. “Excellent.”

Cary shook his head. “It’s fine, Maddie. You didn’t take advantage. Setsuko just has a hard time not feeling obligated. She’s always on the verge of volunteering herself beyond the capacity of any single person. She needs a break.”

“Dude,” I said. “You’re not helping me in the guilt department, here. At all.”

“Drink your damn beer,” said Mimi. “And then I’m going to go get you
both
another pint.”

So we did. And she got up to keep her end of the bargain.

But I still felt like there was something more Cary wanted to say to me.

“Dude,” I said, “I’m totally feeling like there’s something more you want to say to me.
Spill
.”

“I’m sorry, I’m just really distracted.”

“By what?”

“Everything I was talking about with you and Dean, before. Bittler, and the warehouse crap. The whole situation is getting under my skin, worse and worse.”

“Look, if he
is
embezzling, or whatever, he’s only going to fuck himself up in the end, right? Come on… could be the best possible way to get rid of him.”

“I have this crazy feeling that he’s going to set me up.”

“Oh, come on… Bittler? He’s a pompous little low-rent petty-Napoleon shitbag, not a criminal mastermind.”

He just looked at me, and I swear to God I thought he was going to burst into tears or something.

“Cary, you’re really scared of him, aren’t you?”

He took the last sip of his beer.

“Dude, come on—big tough guy like you? You could, like, break that pathetic windbag in half over your knee without increasing your
heart
rate by a single rpm. And here you are, acting like he’s Vlad the fucking Impaler and you’re fresh out of garlic. Don’t be such a pussy.
I
could kick his ass.”

“I need to get into that warehouse,” he said.

“Crazy talk.”

“I need to know what’s going on before he fucks me completely. I don’t want to just stand around waiting for the goddamn anvil to drop on my head, you know?”

“So, what, you’re Wile E. Coyote and he’s going to launch you off a cliff with some Rube Goldberg Acme rocket? Pshaw. Take a fucking Ativan.”

“Madeline, I am absolutely serious.”

“Pussy,” I said. “You are absolutely, seriously
pussified
.”

“Madeline, for chrissake.”

“Big, fat, pink—”

“Damn it—”

“Hairy—”

“Fuck
off
.”

“
Genitalia
,” I said. “Of the female persuasion.”

“You’re not funny.”

“Bullshit. I am hysterically funny.”

“Which is why I’m laughing. So hard.”

I poked him in the solar plexus. “You are
totally
laughing. In here.”

He crossed his arms.

“And
blushing
.”

Okay, that part was true.

“Like a little girl,” I said.

“What the hell is
wrong
with you?”

“I’m trying to distract you.”

“From what?”

“See? It worked.”

“Oh, for God’s sake…”

“Okay, look… as your friend, I feel it is my duty to distract you from breaking into a fucking warehouse that belongs to your employers, you idiot. Because that’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard. And I happen to be the queen of stupid ideas, most days: the imam. The hierophant. The
empress
of stupid. So I’ll have you know I speak with some authority, because me and dumb-assery,” I held up two fingers, pressed tightly together, “we’re like
this
.”

“How the hell is it stupid to want to figure out what the fuck my corrupt sadist of a boss is up to, before he pins whatever it is on me?”

“He’s got the only set of keys to the place?”

“Yes.”

“So how are you getting in?”

“I don’t know. Crowbar.”

“You planning to wear gloves?”

“I guess… even though I’ve been in the place before and my fingerprints are probably on stuff already.”

“They have an alarm system?”

He didn’t answer.

“Security cameras?”

Silence
.

“So for all you know,” I said, “there’s going to be
video
of you breaking into a warehouse with a fucking crowbar, while wearing latex gloves. Whereupon whatever alarm system they have is probably going to, like, light up a goddamn jukebox-slash-calliope’s worth of bells and whistles down at the nearest cop station.”

Cary’s mouth had contracted to the size of a sesame seed.

“And Bittler’s been keeping tabs on you for how long, now? Your résumés, your general dissatisfaction with the company… Got any cover letters to potential employers saved on your hard drive at work?”

Poppy seed.

“Not to mention you’ve been a little hard up for cash lately. Because they’ll look at your bank records, too. Been carrying much of a balance in your checking account, these past few months? Oh, that’s right… you’re basically flatlined, except for the money you had to borrow from your father to make last month’s rent.”

I rattled my fingernails along the side of my beer glass in four-four time. Sounded like a very tiny horse, galloping away.

“Yup, I gotta hand it to you,” I said, looking up at the ceiling. “That’s a genius plan—start to finish. You might as well wear a Hamburgler costume and a fuchsia T-shirt that reads, I
YEARN TO BE ASS-RAPED IN THE STATE PEN FOR THE REST OF MY NATURAL-BORN DAYS
across the back, in sparkly six-inch-high letters.”

“ ‘Made it, Ma. Top o’ the world,’ ” said Cary, utterly deflated.

“Hey, at least you know enough not to misquote Cagney.”

“Fat lot of good that’s doing me.”

“Exactly,” I said. “So let’s come up with a different plan, shall we?”