Blue Smoke

  there’d been a moment on the street today when she’d gotten a jolt, actively realized how easy it could be to be hurt. Even just a fist to the face.

  But she’d handled herself. Having Smithy say so meant a great deal.

  Even if she considered herself more at home with books and files and study, she could handle herself on the street. She was learning to, anyway.

  She took off her cap, put it on the dresser. Unclipped her weapon and laid it down. Unbuttoning her uniform shirt she frowned at the serviceable white cotton bra.

  She was going on another shopping trip, she decided on the spot. For sexy underwear. Nothing in the regulations about a female officer’s underwear. And knowing she had something pretty and female underneath would be good for her morale.

  With that idea in mind, she ran herself a bubble bath, lit candles, poured a glass of wine.

  And read about fire while lounging in the tub.

  When the phone rang, she let the machine pick it up.

  She listened with half an ear to Gina’s bubbly voice inviting the caller to leave a message, then pushed up, sloshing water, as the next voice came on.

  “Hello, bitch. All alone? Maybe I’ll come see you. Been a while, bet you missed me.”

  She was up, water guttering out candles. Dripping and naked, she dashed for her weapon, pulled it out of the holster. Gripping it, she yanked on a robe as she hurried toward the door to check the locks.

  “Probably a prank,” she said aloud to soothe herself with her own voice. “Probably just some asshole.”

  But she checked the windows, the street below.

  Then she played the message back twice. The voice wasn’t familiar to her. And the phone didn’t ring again.

  They didn’t make a ball game, or the Friday movie. Her schedule or Hugh’s threw them off. But they managed a quick burger at a place near the fire station.

  “Gina’s packed and unpacked three times,” Reena told him. “It’s like she’s going on safari instead of taking a couple days at the beach.”

  “Never knew a woman who didn’t pack twice what she needs.”

  “You’re looking at one.”

  He grinned at her, bit into his burger. “Yeah, we’ll see about that when you get there. You sure you got the directions okay? I can put off leaving until tomorrow night if you’re worried about getting lost.”

  “I think we can manage it. Sorry I can’t leave sooner, but Gina’s stuck until tomorrow afternoon anyway. The three of us will cruise on down. We should be there by midnight.”

  “I’ll keep the light on. This works out. Gives me a chance to open the place up. Hasn’t been used much this season. And I can stock in some food. I hear you can cook.”

  “I was born with a saucepan in one hand and a bulb of garlic in the other.” Plus she liked cooking, the act and the art. “Why don’t you pick up some shrimp? I’ll make us some scampi.”

  “Sounds great. You should make good time. Middle of the week, that late at night. You won’t hit much traffic once you’re into North Carolina.” He glanced at his watch. “I figure I’ll hit Hatteras by two in the morning. If I get going.”

  He hitched up his hip, took out his wallet and tossed bills on the table. “There’s no phone at the cottage, but you can call the market in Frisco and they’ll get word to me.”

  “You already explained, Daddy. Don’t worry about us.”

  “Okay.” He rose, came over to bend down and kiss her. “Drive safe.”

  “You, too. See you tomorrow night.”

  So easy. Pathetically easy. Nobody up and around in bumfuck.

  Take me home, country roads.

  Great night, lots of stars but no moon. Just dark enough, just deserted enough. Passed him five miles back, so he’ll come right along. Pick your spot, get started.

  Pull off the side of the road, open the hood. Could set up a flare, for good measure, but some other stupid son of a bitch might stop.

  Only time for one tonight.

  Just one.

  And he’ll stop. Oh, that’s a given. Do-gooders always stop, the Good Samaritans. Wouldn’t be the first you’ve taken out this way. Probably won’t be the last.

  Got the old rattletrap. Redneck asshole you stole it from will just have to cry in his beer. Got the flashlight. Got the .38.

  Lean against the hood, whistle a tune. Might as well have a smoke, pass the time. He’ll be coming along in a minute.

  Lights coming, best look helpless. Step out just a little, hold up a hand. If it’s not him, just wave them on by. No thanks, I got it, you say. Just got her going again, thanks for stopping!

  But it’s him, all right. Big man in his big blue Bronco. And, predictable as sunrise, pulling over to stop, lend a poor guy a hand.

  Walk right on up to the door. It’s better if he doesn’t get out.

  “Hey!” Big relieved smile, shine the light in his eyes. “Boy, am I glad to see you.”

  Hugh shielded his eyes against the glare of the flashlight. “You got trouble?”

  “Not anymore.” And raise the gun, shoot him twice in the face.

  Body jerks like a puppet. A mother wouldn’t recognize that face now. Time for the gloves now so you can unbuckle the cocksucker, give him a shove. Now all you have to do is drive this handy four-wheeler into the woods a ways. Not too far. Want him found easy, after all.

  Flatten one of the tires. Looks like he ran into trouble, and somebody came along and gave him more.

  Hike on back, get the gas can.

  Let’s see now, we want the wallet, want the watch.

  Oh no! Poor bastard was robbed and murdered on his way to play at the beach! What an awful tragedy!

  Gotta laugh. Make it look sloppy, slosh that gas, gouge that upholstery! Pop the hood, light the engine. Get those tires soaked good and proper. Now step back—safety first!

  And set that bastard on fire.

  Look at him burn. Just look at him go. The human torch, blazing like a son of a bitch. The first minute’s the best, the whoosh and the flash. Amateurs are the ones who have to hang around and watch. It’s only the first minute that flashes in, flashes out.

  Now we just walk away, and drive this rattletrap back toward Maryland. Maybe get us some bacon and eggs for breakfast.

  It was Steve who brought Reena the news. He came into the precinct, stopped by the desk where she was typing up an incident report. His eyes burned out of a bone-white face.

  “Hey, what’s up?” She glanced over, stopped typing. “Oh, don’t tell me you’ve got to pull a double and can’t go down. I was about to go off shift, head home and pack.”

  “I . . . Can I have a minute? Private?”

  “Sure.” She pushed away from the desk as she took a good look at him. Nerves fluttered in her belly. “Something’s wrong. Gina—”

  “No. No, not Gina.”

  “Well, what . . . Hugh? Did he have an accident? How bad?”

  “No, no accident. It’s bad. It’s really bad.”

  She gripped his arm now, pulled him out in the corridor. “What? Say it quick.”

  “He’s dead. Jesus, Reena. He’s dead. I just got a call from his mother.”

  “His mother? But—”

  “He was killed. He was murdered—shot.”

  “Murdered?” Her hand went limp on his arm.

  “She was pretty incoherent at first.” Steve’s mouth thinned, razored as he stared hard over her head. “But I got what I could out of her. Somebody shot him. He was on his way down, just a couple hours from the island, and somebody must have gotten him to stop his car, or ran him off the road, or he had a flat. I’m not sure. She wasn’t sure.”

  He sucked in a breath. “But they shot him, Reena. Jesus, they shot him, then set the car on fire to try to cover it. They took his wallet, his watch. I don’t know what else.”

  There was sickness backing up in her throat, but she swallowed it down. “Have they identified him, positively identified him?”

  “
He had, ah, stuff in the car, stuff that didn’t burn, with his name on it. The registration in the glove box. His parents called me from down there. It’s him, Reena. Hugh’s dead.”

  “I’m going to see what I can find out. I’m going to call the locals and see what I can find out.”

  “They shot him in the face.” Steve’s voice broke. “His mother told me. They shot him in the fucking face. For a goddamn watch and what was in his wallet.”

  “Sit down.” She nudged him down on a bench, sat beside him, held his hand.

  Whatever she found out, she thought, a man—a good man—one she’d kissed good-bye less than twenty-four hours before, was dead.

  And once again fire haunted her life.

  CHAIN REACTION

  A series of events so closely related to one another that each one initiates the next.

  Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?

  Proverbs 6:27

  10

  BALTIMORE, 1999

  Fire sprang out of an untenanted building in South Baltimore on a bitter night in January. Inside, firefighters worked in a holocaust of raging heat and boiling smoke. Outside, they battled temperatures in the single digits, and a frosty wind that blew water into ice and licked flames into torrents.

  It was Reena’s first day as a member of the city arson unit’s task force.

  She knew part of the reason she’d bagged the assignment and was working under Captain Brant was because John had pushed a few buttons on her behalf. But it wasn’t all the reason. She’d worked like a dog to earn it, studying, training, putting in countless unpaid hours—and had never taken her eye 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. The body was burned through, lying with its fists raised as fire victims’ usually were. The heat contracted the muscles, left them looking as though their last act was to try to box away the flames.

  She held up her camera, got his go-ahead nod and took several more shots.

  “How come he was the only one in here?” she wondered out loud. “Temps were down to single digits last night. Street people use places like this for shelter, and it had a rep as one for junkies. Preliminary reports said there were blankets, a couple of old chairs, even a little cookstove on the third floor.”

  Peterson said nothing when she crouched by the body.

  “No visible trauma?”

  “Not so far. Could find something when I get him in. You’re thinking somebody started the fire to cover up a homicide?”