Blue Smoke

off the goal.
    John’s influence aside, she’d earned her shiny new shield.
    When she could manage it, she continued to give time to the neighborhood’s fire department, in the volunteer capacity. She’d eaten her share of smoke.
    But it was the cause and effect that continued to drive her. Who or what started the fire? Who was changed by it, grieved by it or benefited from it?
    When she and her partner arrived at the scene at dawn, the building was a pit of blackened brick and rubble made fanciful by waterfalls of ice.

    She was teamed with Mick O’Donnell, and he had fifteen years on her. He was, Reena knew, old school, but he had what she thought of as a nose.
    He smelled out incendiary fires.
    He wore a parka and steel-toed boots, with a hard hat over a wool cap. She’d chosen similar garb, and when they arrived on scene at first light, they stood beside the car, one on each side, studying the building.
    “Too bad they let buildings like this go to shit.” O’Donnell unwrapped two sticks of gum, rolled both into his mouth. “Yuppies aren’t coming in to beautify ’round this part of Baltimore yet.”
    He pronounced it Balmer.
    “Circa 1950. Asbestos, plasterboard, ceiling tiles, cheap veneer paneling. Add in the trash heaped around by indigents and junkies, there’s a lot of fuel.”
    She got her field kit out of the trunk, stuffed a digital camera, spare gloves, an extra flashlight in her pockets. She glanced over, noted the black-and-white and the morgue wagon.
    “Looks like they haven’t transported the body yet.”
    O’Donnell chewed contemplatively. “You got trouble looking at a crispy critter?”
    “No.” She’d seen them before. “I’m hoping they haven’t moved it yet. I’d like to get my own pictures.”
    “Starting a scrapbook, Hale?”
    She only smiled as they walked to the building. The cops on duty gave them a nod as they ducked under the crime-scene tape.
    The fire and its suppression had turned the first level into a wasteland of charred and soaked wood, scorched ceiling tiles, twisted metal and shattered glass. Her preliminary information included the fact that the old building had been a haven for junkies. She knew they’d find needles under the overburden, and drew on her leather gloves for penetration protection.
    “You want me to start a grid down here?”
    “I’ll do that.” O’Donnell scanned the scene, took out a notebook to do some sketches. “You’re younger than me. You make the climb.”

    She looked at the ladder standing in place of the stairs that had collapsed. Getting a firmer grip on her kit, she picked her way across, then started up.
    Plasterboard, she thought again, studying burn patterns, stopping to take digital shots of the walls, then a bird’s-eye view of the first level for the file.
    The pattern showed her the fire had traveled up, as it liked best, and washed over the ceiling. Plenty of fuel to feed it, she thought, and enough oxygen to keep it breathing.
    A good portion of the second floor had collapsed, and was now part of the overburden O’Donnell would grid. The fire had run along the ceiling here, too, she noted, eating its way through tile, plywood, plasterboard, fueled by it, and the debris left by unofficial tenants.
    She saw what was left of an old, overstuffed chair, a metal table. The smooth level of ceiling had allowed the fire to race along, sending the smoke and gases to spread uniformly, in every direction.
    And it had taken out the yet to be identified man whose remains were now on the floor, curled, it seemed, inside what had been a closet. A man crouched by him. As it appeared the man had a good yard of leg, it was a long way to crouch.
    He was wearing gloves, work boots, a wool cap with ear flaps and a red-checked scarf wrapped multiple times around his neck and chin.
    “Hale. Arson unit.” Her breath smoked out as she eased onto the edge of the floor.
    “Peterson, ME.”
    “What can you tell me about him?”
    “Flash fried.” He gave a ghost of a smile, at least his eyes did. He was early forties, by her gauge, tall and black and appeared to be lean as a snake under the layers of winter gear. “Looks like the idiot son of a bitch thought he could get away from the fire by crawling in the closet. Smoke probably got him first, then he cooked. Tell you more when I get him in.”
    She moved forward cautiously, testing the floor as she went.
    The probable suffocation from smoke would have been a mercy, she knew.