Blue Smoke

listening to private conversations. I’ll wait until you get back before I call my parents. Maybe we’ll have more to tell them. Maybe it isn’t as bad as we think.”
    I t looked worse, at least to Reena’s eye. In the daylight, the black brick, the broken glass, the sodden debris looked horrible, smelled worse. It seemed impossible that fire could have done so much, so fast. She saw the destruction inside through the gaping hole where the big window with its painted pizza had been. The burned mess of what had been the bright orange benches, the old tables, the twisted mess that was once chairs. The sunny yellow paint was gone, as was the big menu sign that had hung in the open kitchen area where her father—and sometimes her mother—tossed dough to entertain customers.
    The man with the fireman’s helmet and the flashlight came out carrying a kind of toolbox. He was older than her father; she could tell because there were more lines on his face, and the hair she could see under the helmet was mostly gray.
    H e’d given them a quick study before stepping out. The man—Gibson Hale—had the long, lanky build that rarely went stocky. A little worse for wear with the night he’d put in. He had a lot of curling hair, sandy with some bleached-out tips. Got out in the sun when he could, didn’t wear a hat.

    John Minger didn’t just study the fire, but the people involved in it.
    The kid was pretty as a picture, even with the hollow, sleep-starved look in her eyes. Her hair was darker than her father’s but had the curl in it. Looked to John as if she was going to get his height and build along with it.
    He’d seen them last night when he arrived on scene. The whole family, grouped together at first like shipwreck survivors. The wife, now she was a looker. The sort of bombshell you didn’t see often outside the movie screen. The oldest daughter favored her the most, he recalled. With the middle one missing that wow factor by a fraction. The boy had been handsome, with the sturdy look of childhood still on him.
    This kid looked whippy, and there were some bruises and scrapes on the long legs that made him think she probably spent more time running around with her little brother than playing with dolls.
    “Mr. Hale. I’m not going to be able to let you go in yet.”
    “I wanted to see. Did you . . . could you find out where it started?”
    “Actually, I’d like to talk to you about that. Who’s this?” he asked with a smile for Reena.
    “My daughter Catarina. I’m sorry, I know you told me your name, but—”
    “Minger, Inspector John Minger. You mentioned one of your daughters saw the fire, woke you.”
    “I did,” Reena piped up. She knew it was probably a sin to be proud of her status. But maybe it was just a venial sin. “I saw it first.”
    “I’d like to talk about that, too.” He glanced over as a police car pulled up to the curb. “Can you give me a minute?” Without waiting for an answer, he went to the car, spoke quietly to the policemen inside. “Is there someplace you’d be comfortable talking?” he asked when he came back.
    “We live just up the block.”
    “That’s fine. Just another minute.” He went to another car and stripped off what Reena saw now were like coveralls. Beneath he wore regular clothes. He put them, and his helmet, in the trunk, along with the toolbox and, after locking it, nodded to the policemen.

    “What’s in there?” Reena wanted to know. “In the toolbox?”
    “All kinds of things. I’ll show you sometime if you want. Mr. Hale? Can I have a second? Could you wait here, Catarina?”
    Again, he didn’t wait, simply stepped off a short distance.
    “If there’s anything you can tell me,” Gib began.
    “We’ll get to that.” He took out a pack of cigarettes, a lighter. He took the first drag as he pushed the lighter back in his pocket. “I need to talk with your daughter. Now your first instinct might be to fill in details for her, prompt her. It’d be better if you didn’t. If you just let the two of us talk it through.”
    “Okay. Sure. She’s, ah, observant. Reena.”
    “Good.” He stepped back to Reena. Her eyes, he noted, were more amber than brown and, despite the bruises under them, looked sharp. “Did you see the fire from your bedroom window?” Minger asked as they walked.
    “No. From the steps. I was sitting on the steps of my house.”
    “A little past your bedtime, huh?”
    She thought about this, about how to