None So Blind (20 page)

She made a pretence of turning down a few back roads and looping south below the village before approaching the one back road he knew she’d had in mind all along. Sue had never forgotten the little Carmichael bungalow. Over the weeks, they had watched it transform slowly from neglected, overgrown shack to a fairytale cottage of perennial gardens, overflowing window boxes, and bright green gingerbread trim.

Sue stopped the car at the bottom of the lane, leaned out the window, and drank up the sight in the moody twilight. Marilyn Carmichael’s Honda sat in the drive but the bungalow was quiet and dark. She heaved a wistful sigh. “So cute.”

He rubbed her neck. “We’ll find something.”

She took another breath. Deeper. Frowned. “Smoke? Who would light a fire in this heat?”

He thrust his head out the window. She was right; the acrid whiff of smoke was unavoidable. She climbed out of the car and turned in all directions, searching. The thick brush along the roadside obscured most of the view, but Gibbs knew there were barns and hay fields nearby.

“In the country people are always burning something,” she said. “Dead leaves and brush in the fall, old crops in the spring.”

“That could be it.”

“But in this heat, a grass fire could easily get away from you. Or maybe lightning struck a hay barn.” She climbed back in the car. “We should check the main highway.”

Gibbs was just about to join her when a plume of black smoke boiled up behind the bungalow.

“It’s right behind the house!” He slammed his door shut and pulled out his cellphone, already on the run down the lane as he dialled 911. He could hear Sue behind him, grunting as she forced her body to move. As they drew nearer, the smoke grew thicker, swirling around the roof and roaring up through the treetops. Orange flickered in the basement window.

“It’s
in
the house!” Gibbs ran to the back door. He could scarcely hear the dispatcher through the growing roar that filled his ears. He laid his hand on the door, which was warm but not burning. He reached for the knob. Locked. He shook the door, kicked, fought to get in.

“Bob!” Sue’s voice, screaming. “Don’t! The fire is all over!”

“But someone might be in there!” Still on the line to the dispatcher, he shouted breathlessly about the vehicle in the driveway. The dispatcher was talking, snatches of her voice audible over the din. Any shouts for help? Pounding on the walls? Moving shadows inside? He circled the house, peering through windows but could see nothing through the dense smoke.

By now, the basement was engulfed. One tongue of flame leaped at the back door near the basement stairs and blew out the window before shooting up to the eaves. He stumbled back, stung by flying glass. Pulled his shirt up over his face before forcing himself back to the door. Saw nothing inside but a wall of flame.

Sue grabbed his shirt from behind. “It’s growing too fast! The trees overhead, the forest behind — it could all go in an instant!”

She tugged him coughing and stumbling back down the lane toward the safety of her car. Halfway down the lane, she turned back to look at the bungalow. Tears from smoke and sorrow poured down her cheeks.

“Goodbye, little house,” she whispered.

Through the thunder of the flames came the distant wail of sirens. “Let’s just hope … let’s hope there’s no one in there,” he managed before falling to his knees.

Green got the call just as he was paying an outrageous ransom to get his car out of the hospital parking lot. Aviva was in the back seat, screaming at the restraints of her car seat, and nearby a landscaper was running a very loud lawnmower. Green was surprised to see Gibbs’s private cell number on his call display. The young detective was off duty and by now should have been out in Navan on yet another quest for his dream home.

Dusk had fallen and Green was anxious to get the baby home to bed before a full-fledged temper tantrum developed. He was in a grim mood. His father’s physiotherapist had cornered him to say that his father lacked the will to recover, and without that he would not progress.

“He doesn’t fight,” she’d said in her lilting French accent. “A long-term care facility would be best. I will ask his social worker to arrange this with you.”

Green had hoped the sight of his newest granddaughter would lift his father’s spirits, but Sid barely raised his head when he brought the baby into the room. He lay like a shrivelled husk among the oversized pillows, grey-faced and slack-jawed. His pale eyes tracked Green across the room and his brows quivered in a frown,

“Not sight for baby,” he said.

“She wants to see her
Zaydie
,” Green replied, swooping Aviva in the air until she giggled with infectious glee.

“What? These bones?”

“Her family, her history.”

Amid the translucent blue flesh of his wasted body, Sid eyed him wearily. With Aviva tugging at his ear, Green could barely concentrate, but he wondered whether he’d been wrong to bring the baby. Aviva brought joy, life, and the promise of the future, but his father wouldn’t live to see her grow up, he wouldn’t share in the anticipation or celebration of
simchas.

But then Sid surprised him again. “My stories not for her. Don’t tell
, Mishka.
Look ahead, not back. You too,
Mishkeleh
.”

“I know, Dad. But Hannah loves you, Tony loves you. I want Aviva to know you too.”

Sid wagged his head back and forth. “Enough. Tired.” His eyes filmed with tears. “My Hannah waits. My children, my brother.”

Green sank into the chair by the bed. There was a simple truth in his father’s words. The time for pleading and pep talks was passed. “I know, Dad. But tomorrow let me bring
my
Hannah and my Tony.” He gripped his father’s hand, as fragile as a bird’s wing. “For us, not for you.”

Sid’s pale eyes searched his solemnly. He gave a tiny nod. “Yes. Bring.”

The certainty and finality of his tone sent a quiver of alarm through Green. He leaned over to kiss his father’s bristly cheek and left the room, dodging the social worker as he fled.

Sensing his distress, Aviva cried lustily as he fumbled with her car seat and muttered reassurances he barely heard. His father was slipping away. Green had been expecting this for years, but he’d hoped the passage would be gentler. A simple heart attack and loss of consciousness, without being forced to stare down the end of his life. But for his father, as in the Holocaust, death had never let him off easily.

Hence Green was swearing quietly and emphatically when the phone call came. He was in no mood to talk to Gibbs. No mood to play boss or mentor when floundering in the role of son. He considered letting it go through to voice mail, at least until he was back home, with Aviva in bed and a hefty glass of red wine at his elbow, but Bob Gibbs would not have phoned him on his private cellphone unless he really needed him.

So after four rings, duty won out.

Green smelled the fire long before he turned onto the country road and spotted the cluster of emergency vehicles up ahead. Red and blue lights strobed the darkness and played off the billows of smoke and steam that spiralled into the night sky. He pulled in behind a police cruiser blocking half the road. The officer was trying to keep the small crowd of neighbours, thrill-seekers, and local media at bay.

Green showed his badge and began walking up the road, taking in the scene. Four fire trucks, the district chief’s vehicle, two ambulances, and three police cruisers lined the road and laneway leading up to the hissing ruin of Marilyn Carmichael’s house. The brick walls, although still standing, were blackened, the windows were shattered, and the roof was a charred, gaping hole. The stench was choking.

Firefighters were picking their way around the soggy perimeter, looking for hotspots, while two men conferred at the edge of the lane. Green recognized one as a duty sergeant in East Division. The other, dressed in a firefighter’s uniform, was a brick of a man with a barrel chest, florid face, and handlebar moustache, whose ramrod stance bore the unmistakeable air of authority.
No doubt the district chief
, Green thought. He was on his way to join them when he spotted paramedics tending to fire victims at the edge of the scene and recognized Peters’s strident voice. Her face was red and smudged with soot, but she was swatting away a paramedic intent on bandaging her hand.

“I’m fine, for God’s sake! This little burn is nothing, trust me. Look after my husband. He inhaled a whole houseful of smoke trying to check inside.”

Drawing closer, Green saw Gibbs lying on a stretcher in the back of the ambulance. A sheet covered most of his body but his hair and eyebrows were singed and his face bright red from the fire. He was wracked by coughing as paramedics tried to keep an oxygen mask in place.

Alarm raced through Green. No wonder Gibbs had been unable to give him any details over the phone. He hurried over and Peters leaped up, knocking her stool over. “Sir! We’re all right. Bob tried to be a hero and got too close to the fire — jumping catfish, those flames are hot! Never realized how hot it gets or how fast it can spread. One minute we’re trying to see in a window and the next minute — whoosh, flames are flying out at us. We didn’t know if — there was a car in the drive and we were afraid …” She ran out of air and took a deep, gasping breath that ended in a cough.

“Take it easy, Sue. There’s no rush.” Green laid a careful hand on her scorched sleeve. He had seen the aging Honda in the drive. “Was there anyone inside?”

“We don’t know. They don’t know.” More coughing silenced her. The paramedic tending to Gibbs frowned at her. “Rest that throat. Whoever you are, sir, can you ask your questions of someone else?”

From his stretcher, Gibbs struggled to croak an answer. Green stopped him with a word of thanks and headed over to introduce himself to the men in charge.

“Harry Flannigan,” the district chief said, wrapping Green’s hand in a fierce, calloused vice. “What’s CID’s involvement? You guys know these folks?”

Green nodded. “From an old case.”

“Criminals? Grow-op?”

“Victim’s family.”

“How many people reside on the premises, Mike?”

“Three. A woman in her mid-sixties. Widow.”

“Mobile?”

Green nodded. “That’s her vehicle in the drive. And her two adult children are there visiting.”

“Well, so far there’s no sign of them on the premises. We can’t be sure until the scene cools and we can get in there, but usually victims are found near the exits trying to escape, unless they’re incapacitated. Your two officers who called in the fire heard no fire alarm, so CO poisoning or smoke inhalation is a possibility. Or drugs or alcohol. Any of the residents likely to do that?”

All of them, Green thought with dismay. But before he could reply, a scream split the air and he turned to see a distant figure pushing past the police barricade down the road. White hair glinted red and blue in the emergency roof lights, and Green felt a rush of relief.

“That’s the owner,” he said. “Marilyn Carmichael. Looks as if she just arrived.” Leaving the other two, he hurried down the lane to head her off. When he took her arm, she was rigid with panic. Beneath the pungent stench of smoke and burned plastics, a whiff of alcohol assailed his nose.

“Mike, what happened? What happened to my house?”

He guided her toward the supervisors. “There was a fire, Marilyn. My officers spotted it. Was anyone home? Julia? Gordon?”

“Julia? Gordon?” She repeated the names as if they had no meaning. Her eyes bulged in panic and her hand clutched his arm. “I don’t know. Oh dear God!”

“Where are they this evening?”

“They took the cars. Julia was out.” Her grip eased as her memory came back. “Yes, Julia went out earlier to meet a friend. And Gordon was going to meet someone downtown later, so he wanted my car.” She frowned as if trying to keep track of the evening. “I needed to buy something in the village so I phoned my friend Laura to pick me up. I stopped over for dinner. It was a hot night and I wanted to clear my head, so I told her I’d walk home.” She craned her neck to get a glimpse of her house and her chin trembled. “It’s all gone. Everything’s gone.”

“But you are safe,” he said, trying to block her view of the Honda. “That’s what matters.” He signalled the fire chief aside and reported what Marilyn had said. “There may be one person inside. He was there when she left but was supposed to take the car into town.”

“I need to confirm that, Mike.” Tight-lipped, Flannigan shouldered past him and headed over to introduce himself to Marilyn. “There was one individual in the house when you left, ma’am?”

“Yes, but he was going out. He took my car.” She forced her way around Green’s shielding body and stared at her car in the drive. “He must have got a ride.”

“If he was in the house, where —”

“No. He got a ride. If he was here, he would have put the fire out.”

“Were there working smoke detectors in the house, ma’am?”

“Oh yes, two.”

“Was there a fire extinguisher?”

“On the wall in the kitchen.”

“Is it possible an appliance was left on? Stove, microwave, barbecue?”

She was shaking her head. “I was going to do some baking. I had the ingredients out on the counter but I hadn’t turned the oven on. I needed vanilla. Only pure vanilla works well, so —”

“You’re sure the oven was off?”

She shot him the scowl Green knew very well. “I would never go out with the oven on.”

“Any electrical problems? Sometimes these old places have old wiring.”

“My husband replaced all the old knob-and-tube. Put in proper ground wires. It was a sturdy little house; it should have lasted a hundred years.”

“When things cool down tomorrow, the fire investigator will get inside to look for cause and point of origin.”

She blinked. “Why?”

“Always important, ma’am. Every fire teaches us something. Where and how it started. Your insurance company will need that information too.”

She wrapped her arms around herself as if she were cold, even though the steamy heat from the fire was suffocating. Flannigan’s face remained impassive.
He’s seen too many fires and too many victims, to be easily moved
, Green thought as he slipped his jacket around her and guided her toward a cruiser.