Tin City Tinder (A Boone Childress Mystery) (8 page)

“Number Seventeen reporting in. Julia, I’m on site.”
 

“Roger that.”

I parked next to an old tobacco barn a hundred yards from the house. There was another truck already on site, a half-ton pickup with dual rear wheels. Three firefights stood beside the truck. They were dressed in yellow turnouts with orange piping. Atamasco Volunteer Fire Department was stenciled across their backs.

How had they gotten there before me?
 

“Atamasco VFD’s already on the scene,” I told dispatch.

“That’s real quick,” Julia said. “Lamar called in right before you. He says to radio in a status check.”

“Roger that.” I pulled on my turnouts. Grabbed my helmet and the hooligan. Walked across the patchy grass field toward the other firefighters.

The leader spoke to the other two vollies, and they moved toward the house. They wore hand-me-down turnouts and sweat-soaked T-shirts. Their hair was stringy and hung down past their necks, and unless I was mistaken, they were twins.

They split up and took either side of the building.

Something didn’t seem right.

“Y’all got here quick,” I said. “Thought I’d be first responder.”

The leader sported a mop of black hair and a threadbare beard. He wore a blood-red shirt under his unbuttoned fire coat. His head barely reached my chin, but he was broad and stump-shaped, which made him seem bigger. There was something familiar about his face, the way his teeth jutted forward from a pronounced prognathism.
 

“Looks like you thought wrong.”

“Atamasco’s a long way from here.”

“We’re out hunting the Black River. Not that it’s any of your goddamned business.”

“How’s the hunting?” I offered my hand. “Boone Childress, Allegheny VFD.”

“I know who you are, Possum. My kid brother is Dewayne Loach.”

That explained the animosity. The brothers looked nothing alike, except in the shape of the mouth. That’s why he had seemed familiar.

I faced the fire. “What’s the situation?”

A deserted farmhouse. An isolated location. A fire burning so hot and fast, it was a loss before the first responders reached it.

Two times is a coincidence.

Three times is a pattern.

Loach spat tobacco juice at my boots. “Farmhouse is engulfed. Going to be a total loss.”

Nobody could walk up to a house that looked like ground zero and instantly assess the extent of the situation. Maintain professional decorum, I reminded myself. “My captain asked for a visual assessment.”

“Don’t waste your time. The house’s been empty since forever.”
 

“You know the owners?”

“Doesn’t everybody?”

“Not everybody,” I said. “You must know this area pretty well?”

“Ronnie! Donnie! Y’all done yet?”

“You just said—“

“Shut it up, Possum. Let us professionals handle the assessment.” Loach spat tobacco juice again.
 

It hit my boot.

“Too slow, Possum.”

I kicked the wad of tobacco back at him. “This is a pitiful excuse for an assessment, if you ask me.”

“Didn’t nobody ask you.” He grabbed my turnout and tried to push me away. “How ‘bout you sit in the truck till your daddy gets here.”

“How about you take your hands off me instead.” I sidestepped, rolled my arm over his, and pushed hard on his straightened elbow. “I’m not in the mood for dancing.”

“Hands off me, ass wipe!”

"Gladly." I let him go. “No hard feelings?”

He looked my hand over like it was leprosied. “Wouldn’t shake your hand if you was a native-born President of the United States, you goddamn liberal.”

“Liberal? Are you trying to insult me, because I don’t get it.”

“Donnie! Ronnie! Y’all come on back. Mr. Possum’s going to put this here fire out all by his lonesome!”

“I never said that.”

“No you didn’t.” Loach reloaded another plug of tobacco in his jaw. “But I did. Do what you want, but don’t expect us to lift a finger to help.”

3

With Loach and the twins watching, I finished the visual inspection. I returned to my truck and radioed Julia.
 

“Got an ETA on the tanker?”

“They’re still ten minutes out. Cap says for you to call him on the radio.”

I stood on my truck sideboards and radioed Lamar. “Got your status update, Captain.”

“What’s the situation on site?”

“We’ve got a level three burner on a single residence. Stick built. Approximately one thousand five hundred square feet with multiple stories.” I stretched out the mic cord. “Fire has spread to all four corners. Flames coming through the roof in three, check that, four different areas.”

“Exterior fuel sources? Heating oil tanks? LP?”

“That’s a negative, sir.”

Firefighters feared LP, liquid propane. A pinhole leak and a random spark could create an explosion strong enough to blow down a house. A LP tank for a barbecue grill could swell to twice its size and become a poor man’s claymore, blowing jagged chunks of shrapnel straight through your body, turnout gear be damned. Most of the houses in Allegheny County used LP for heating and had huge tanks sitting right next to the structure. It was enough gas to make a crater deep enough to swallow a fire truck.

“How many occupants?”

“None. According to Atamasco VFD. They were first responders. They state that the house is abandoned.”

“Atamasco is half way across the county.””

“That’s an affirmative.”

“Is their captain on site? Their tanker?”

“That’s a negative.” More static. “This is a suspicious situation.”

“Roger that. Our ETA is now eight minutes. Do not engage until we arrive. Roger that.”

How was I supposed to engage without a tanker? “Roger. Childress out.”

I tossed the mic onto the seat. Nothing to do but wait. Just like Loach and the twins, who were parked on their butts in the shade of an oak tree, passing around a pack of Camels.

Hat and hooligan in hand, I walked toward the back of the house. It was typical of farmhouses built in the early twentieth century. It had narrow windows, high ceilings, and an attic. Two doghouses protruded from the roof. Flames danced behind the windows in both of them.

Across the roof, the fire had opened holes the size of a manhole cover, and acrid smoke poured out. I could hear the pop and crackle of the dried-out rafters as they exploded from the heat. In my mind’s eye, I saw splinters as long as my arm flying like jagged arrows in all directions.

I heard a high-pitched squeal, and the window of the high doghouse blew out.
 

“Look out!”

Glass flew ten, maybe fifteen yards, raining down on the ground. I pulled an arm across my face, dropped to one knee, and heard a scream coming from the doghouse.

The same doghouse that was engulfed in enough heat and smoke to roast a man alive.

“There’s somebody in there!” I waved for Atamasco company to join me. “I heard a scream. There! Another one. Someone’s calling for help!”

Loach and his boys didn’t budge.

“Y’all going to help or not?” I yelled.

The twins, Ronnie and Donnie, turned their backs to me, and Eugene Loach just cupped a hand to his ear.

“Can’t hear you.” Eugene blew cigarette smoke through his nose. It curled around his face so that he looked like a bearded Chinese dragon. “Must be that boomer stopped up my ears!”

“Assholes.”
 

I bounded to the front porch. Turned the knob and put my shoulder to the heavy paneled door.
 

No give at all.
 

The dead bolt was thrown.

I drew the hooligan tool back like a spear and rammed it through the door panel. The wooden cracked in half, and when I yanked the head of the tool out, the panel came with it, followed by a blast of heat and smoke that drove me down the porch steps.

“What’re you doing?” Loach yelled.

“Somebody screamed!”

“There ain’t nobody screaming, you dumb ass. It’s just gas releasing or something!”

Loach and the twins stood five yards behind me. Their fire coats were unbuttoned, and their mattocks were stacked against the oak tree.

“Don’t go in there!” Loach yelled. “You ain’t got the right equipment.”

“Then cover me. Ronnie and Donnie can back us up. Two in, two out.”

“Dream on! Ain’t no way we’re risking our lives to rescue some charcoaled pole cat.”

I knelt on the floor and turned on my breathing tank. Heat rose from the planking, and I could feel it through my Nomax pants. It gave me pause. If the porch was already hot enough to heat up my fireproof pants, what would it feel like to walk into a blast furnace? What if Eugene was right, and the sound turned out to be another possum? How would I explain that to Lamar?
 

No.

It wasn’t a possum.

Wild animals don’t scream,
help me
!

I reached inside the door. The deadbolt was an old-fashioned twist bar, and I pulled it down. With a screech, the bolt withdrew, and I kicked the door open.

A wall of heat engulfed me.

Inside, the living room was a wall of flames. Through the smoke, I could make out a pile of furniture and an old sideboard on the opposite wall. The floor seemed intact, as least as far as the stairway, which was about ten feet to the right of the door. I couldn’t see any hot spots there, so it would be my first target.

I crouched, ready to make my first move.
 

Loach grabbed my mask and pulled it away from my face. “Hold up, Possum, you ain’t going in! It’s suicide!”

I yanked my mask out of Eugene’s hand. “Let go of my equipment!”

“There ain’t nobody in this fucking house!”

Help me! Por favor!

“It came from upstairs!”

“It’s just a fucking cat!”

“That speaks fucking Spanish?”

Every second he wasted, the fire got worse. By opening the door, I had let in a massive pipeline of oxygen. But Loach was having none of it. He hooked my left arm. Ronnie grabbed my breathing tank and lifted it, trying to rock me off my feet.

I brought the hooligan down on Loach’s arm. “Back off!”
 

“Goddamn!” Loach howled. “You about broke my arm!”

Bent at the waist, I lifted Ronnie off the ground and dumped him unceremoniously on his ass. Before they could stop me, I leapt inside, ducking the mass of heat above me.

The stairwell was functioning as a chimney. It drew smoke from the first floor to the second. There were still no visible hotspots, but I knew that the fresh oxygen from the front door was sucked upstairs, too.
 

It would only feed the fire.

Lamar had repeatedly warned me about second stories. You had to worry about the ceiling and the floor. Both could give way without notice, and you’d be sandwiched between a ton of superheated material.

“Childress!” Loach yelled.

The three men squatted beside the back door. They beckoned for me to come back. Their coats were still unbuttoned. Proof they had no intention of rendering aid.

“This is suicide!” Loach yelled. “Don’t be a hero!”

“It’s not being a hero! It’s doing what’s right!”
 

 
With the end of the hooligan, I jabbed the steps. The sharp tip found solid wood, so I took each step before stopping to check the next until I reach the second floor.

Inside the turnouts, I felt my sweat sizzling against the fireproof fabric. I had to get out fast. The suit could protect me from flash hits, but the material itself could scald my flesh.

Inside the foyer, smoke bloomed across the ceiling and flowed down the walls to the floor, where it formed a stew of toxic fumes. One breath of that stuff, and I’d be a dead man.
 

“Don’t be dead.” I stayed low, turning my head to the right and left, trying to hear the screams again. But what if it really was another possum? What if I hadn’t heard anything at all?
 

Three doors ahead.
 

One was open. In the room, I could make out the clawed feet of an antique bathtub. The other two doors, on either side of the foyer, were closed. One of them had to lead to the attic. That’s where I’d heard the voice because there was no sound until the doghouse window blew out.

But which way? Opening a door in a fire was like throwing lighter fluid on a lit charcoal grill. If I chose wrong and opened a unburned room, it could result in flashover, causing the whole area to simultaneously combust.
 

Both doors looked exactly the same in the thickening cloud of smoke. The visibility was only a few feet now.
 

I couldn’t afford to wait.

Crack
!

A chunk of plaster longer than me fell from the lathing. It slammed onto the floor.
 

“Shit!”

A second, deeper crack opened. A beam ripped loose from the ceiling and collapsed on the landing, scattering fiery debris. Sparks shot through the smoke and coated my turnouts in embers.

The floorboards shuddered under my weight. The floor was going to collapse and swallow me whole.

Crack
!

A second joist collapsed, and the lathing broke free. The mass swung down like a pendulum, smacking my head before I could react.
 

My helmet flew off.

My mask was knocked aside.

Noxious gas filled my lungs.

Gasping, I clawed at the mask and took a step back into space. My foot searched in vain for solid ground, and I felt myself teeter. Spit and panic flew out of my mouth, and my arms lashed about like a pinwheel twirling in the wind.

“Oh fuck.”

The stairs welcomed my fall.

4

I heard a beeping sound from far away. I thought it was the alarm clock, and I lifted my hand to smack the snooze bar. The hand wouldn’t move. My eyes wouldn’t open, either. The paralysis should have bothered me, but I didn’t have a care in the world. My head felt fuzzy and soft, and there was a warmth in my belly that made me want to sleep forever.

When I heard the beeping again, I knew it wasn’t the alarm clock. The sound was higher pitched and rhythmic. It was starting to annoy me, but the soft feeling was still in my belly.