Vertical Burn (12 page)

24. THINGS THAT WENT WORSE

Firefighters went in from the north thinking they were fighting a fire in a group of two-story wooden buildings. Others went in from the south, thinking they were fighting a fire in a large concrete-walled warehouse. It was almost forty minutes before anybody knew the scope of the problem.

It was forty-six minutes into the fire before a crew reported putting water on the fire.

Cordifis’s radio, still in working order, was found buried two feet under his body. Finney’s radio, what was left of it, lay next to the body. A service axe was still strapped to Cordifis’s waist. Another, Finney’s, was found forty-five feet away in what had been another room. Cordifis’s inactivated PASS device was still clipped to the belt of his MSA backpack. Finney’s PASS device was found twenty-five feet from the body under a pile of rubble. It had beeped long into the night and was heard by dozens of frustrated and grieving firefighters outside.

The autopsy found Cordifis had died of smoke inhalation. Prior to death, he’d sustained multiple fractures of his tibia and fibula on both legs and a broken index finger on his left hand. What the report glossed over was that Cordifis died inhaling heat so hot it cauterized his lungs. Dying from smoke inhalation implies taking in smoke and losing consciousness. But Bill had died inhaling flames. Every firefighter who saw the report would read between the lines.

25. MAKING FRIENDS IN TAMPA

“We’ve got a CISD this morning at nine,” said Lieutenant Sadler.

“It’s such a waste of time,” Finney said.

“Now don’t get your briefs in a knot. You know it’s mandatory for everyone who was on the alarm. There were probably some guys who’ve never seen a burn victim before.”

A request for a critical incident stress debriefing from any member who’d been on an alarm spurred the department to convene one. One had been called after the Wah Mee massacre, where Seattle firefighters found thirteen patrons of an illegal gambling club bound and gagged and shot in the head. They convened one after the Pang Fire, where four firefighters fell through a floor to a fiery death. They held one after Leary Way. A CISD was meant to be an emotional analgesic, although in Finney’s experience they only added more stress.

For Finney, the only positive aspect to having a CISD for Riverside Drive was that somebody might say something to shed light on his plight. It was tempting to believe Annie had appropriated his jacket after wandering into the station through an unlocked door, perhaps while they were out on an alarm. He could see the whole scenario: Annie steals his coat; a firefighter decides to play a practical joke with the phone call; Annie lights a warming fire, loses control of it, gets confused, and makes accusations; afterward, G. A. Montgomery comes along and flips happenstance into a full-fledged lynching. It could have happened that way.

The meeting was at the Four Seasons Olympic, arguably the ritziest hotel in Seattle, certainly one of the most venerable. After Sam Hoskins parked Engine 26 on Seneca, Gary Sadler and John Finney made their way through the sumptuous lobby, then upstairs to a thickly carpeted room off the mezzanine, where several dozen chairs were arranged in the shape of an oval. It was the same room they’d used for the debriefing after Leary Way, the same chairs, and Finney felt himself floundering in the same murky swamp of guilt and nervous anticipation.

Marshal 5 was building a case against him, and unless something extraordinary happened, he would be behind bars in a week. He would lose his job, and these people who’d once been his friends would abandon him without a second thought.

When all thirty-eight firefighters were seated, Finney saw G. A. Montgomery and Robert Kub station themselves near the door, arms across their chests like bailiffs. He had an uneasy feeling they were planning to arrest him in front of the group.

Just before the meeting came to order, Jerry Monahan popped through the door in his civvies and squeezed a chair into the oval next to Finney’s. As contrary as Monahan could be in his private affairs, Finney thought, he was amazingly docile when it came to fire department dictums; he was there on his own hook.

The session was overseen by an African-American chief from the administration, Caldwell, a man who wanted nothing to do with field operations but who elbowed himself into the chairman’s seat on any committee, always hustling to build his résumé. Finney didn’t catch the psychiatrist’s name, but in a room full of rough-hewn, aggressive firefighters, he stood out as a milquetoast.

The third member of the committee was, oddly enough, Marion Balitnikoff, who, although recognized department-wide for his firefighting skills, was just as widely known for being a jerk. Five years ago he’d been sent to Florida for a rescue and extrication conference and came back early behind a strongly worded letter from Tampa’s police chief requesting Seattle never send him to their city again. Scuttlebutt had it that his offenses included an assault on two underaged prostitutes, wrestling in the street with a cabdriver, and urinating on a woman’s pant leg, presumably while trying to urinate into a nearby fountain, this last performed in a hotel lobby full of tourists. After all this, the Tampa authorities had let him off without charges. You had to know Balitnikoff. Sober, he could be almost charming.

26. SAVING THE MAN IN THE HOLE

Conversation in the room died down when Chief Caldwell stood up to announce the ground rules. Everything was to be kept within these four walls, said Caldwell. Nobody was to repeat anything heard in the debriefing, not to a spouse or a crew member or a pastor. It was, he explained, only under such a covenant that people would feel free to speak openly.

For five months people had been looking sideways at Finney, and today wasn’t any different. They evaluated his neck for scars, stared into his eyes for signs of guilt, listened to his speech for indications of trauma, for substantiation of the persistent rumors that he was on the verge of retiring due to nervous breakdown.

During the meeting firefighters were instructed to announce who they were, how many years they had in the department, what rig they were working on the day of the fire, what they did at the fire, what they saw, and how they felt about it. Finney could see stress levels skyrocketing as each man or woman waited to address the group. Firefighters were a select denomination, chosen for physical abilities, brute strength, endurance, the knack of calculating on the fly, physical bravery, mechanical aptitude, a desire for public service. Nobody was selected for an ability to speak in front of a group or for the gift of soul-searching.

There was a preliminary overview of the basic facts given by Chief Caldwell—the time of the fire, number of units dispatched, the order of their arrival. Clearly Caldwell had done his homework. When he didn’t mention that the house had been on their dangerous buildings list, Finney realized he hadn’t heard the standard warning from the dispatchers during the alarm either. It hadn’t occurred to him until now, but they should have fought that fire from outside, which was the procedure for handling any building on the list. He raised his hand and asked Caldwell about it, well aware that all eyes in the room were now on him. “Not on the list,” Caldwell replied, curtly.

Finney and G. A. Montgomery exchanged glances, though Finney could not read G. A.’s face. Beside him, Monahan stared straight ahead.

They proceeded around the oval in the rough order in which the rigs had arrived at the fire location. When the members of Engine 27’s crew told their stories, McKittrick stuttered and his officer got a case of dry mouth. Sadler told of their arrival, his orders to Monahan, McKittrick’s notification that there was a victim, advising Finney they were going up the stairs, and discovering later that Finney had gone outside alone and put up a ladder. Sadler’s disapproval was duly noted and Finney knew it would be passed around the city like a bad cold.

Monahan told a simple story of looking for the hydrant and nearly driving into the river in the fog.

Having paid scant attention to the others, G. A. swung his stern gaze onto Finney when it was Finney’s turn to speak.

“We went through the front door behind Twenty-seven’s crew. None of us got in very far. Then McKittrick came and told us there was a victim. I got a ladder off Engine Twenty-seven, went to the roof, and found our victim inside the window. Moore brought a line up and cooled off the room while I got her out. After a while the medics showed up.”

“That’s a little sketchy,” said Lieutenant Balitnikoff, the only facilitator who hadn’t spoken until now. “I’m just trying to get us all on the same page here. What about the part where you left your partner?”

All eyes in the room turned to Finney. “I thought this meeting was supposed to be about our feelings.”

“Just curious as to how you felt when you left him.” The room grew quiet. People weren’t stirring. Weren’t breathing. “Don’t you think you should have learned your lesson at the beginning of the summer? The way I remember it, this is a team effort. We work as a team.” Balitnikoff looked pointedly at Diana Moore. It was clear he was including her in his critique. “We’re all family or I wouldn’t speak like this. I don’t think I could bear it if anybody else got hurt.”

Finney couldn’t believe that under the guise of a brotherly admonition, Balitnikoff was publicly chastising him for both Leary Way and Riverside Drive.

“Maybe we’ll think about our partners next time?” Balitnikoff said, to no one in particular.

Finney looked around the group and said, “If I hadn’t done it, that woman would be dead.”

A few people shuffled their feet under their chairs. More than one pair of eyes fell on Diana Moore, who was sitting on both hands looking at the carpet. Finney remembered the scene Balitnikoff had made at Cordifis’s funeral, shouting in the foyer of the church until G. A. Montgomery escorted him outside. Finney never found out what it was about.

The psychiatrist dropped his pen, and from across the room Finney heard the soft sound on the carpet. He wondered if Balitnikoff had been chosen randomly as a facilitator at the debriefing. Generally the department chose from a pool of trained officers or firefighters not directly involved with the incident. While Balitnikoff’s unit, Engine 10, had not been on the call, Ladder 1, housed in Station 10 with Engine 10, had. Finney would have thought that was enough to disqualify him.

Three years earlier, when Marion Balitnikoff transferred to Engine 10, he brought with him a thousand and one stories as well as a reputation for being strong as a bull on the fire ground. In firefighting, unlike many other arenas in life, aggressiveness was preferred over most other modes of action. Reactive was bad; passive was not acceptable. Quick, prompt, informed initiative was what the department wanted—and Balitnikoff had always been aggressive.

Finney’s first real firefighting experience with Balitnikoff had been at an apartment-house fire. In a vacant room on the second floor they’d found a hole in the floor; the hazard had been marked off but nobody could see the warnings in the smoke. When Finney found a firefighter sunk up to his chest in the hole, about to fall more than two stories to the lobby, he threw his body across the man’s arms, gripping his backpack, anchoring him. Now only the weight and friction of Finney’s body prevented them both from sliding in. Finney hollered for help, and several pairs of hands pulled them out. The other man said nothing before, during, or after the incident, and he quickly disappeared into the smoke.

Later, Finney realized it had been Lieutenant Balitnikoff. “That was something, huh? That hole,” Finney said to him afterward. “I thought we were going to lose you.”

“You got the wrong guy.” Balitnikoff turned and walked away.

The episode stumped Finney until he realized it had to do with machismo. Firefighters saved other people. A firefighter who needed saving himself was a rung down from the firefighter who’d saved him. That logic was a holdover from the days when neighboring engine companies raced at breakneck speeds so they could brag about being the first to put water on a fire in somebody else’s district, from the days when only “weak sisters” strapped on air masks. Today, people wore masks and worked in teams. Today, safety was paramount, and today, crews worked together instead of against each other.

These days it was a job, not a way to measure your dick.

27. GET OUT THE TAPE MEASURE

The one thing Diana appreciated about stress debriefings was hearing about an incident from the perspective of each individual involved, viewing an identical scene from a
Rashomon
-like multiplicity of angles.

During the debriefing Finney seemed calm enough, but he was always unflappable. After his laugh, which erupted at the most unexpected times, it was what she liked best about him.

She recalled seeing him at a fire just off Denny Way, where a huge chunk of material sailed off a roof and landed squarely between Finney and a high-strung lieutenant named Gold who routinely took two or three months off every year to let his gastrointestinal ulcers calm down. Looking up and seeing a pair of rookies on the roof, Gold became furious and shouted that he was going to come up and write charges. “Leave this to me,” Finney said, gritting his teeth in a Clint Eastwood grimace. “I’ll fix them.”

Not knowing Finney and fearing the worst, Diana had followed him up the various stairwells in the three-story house and then through a hole cut in the roof. There was no doubt Finney could make life difficult for the two rookies, who were nervously awaiting his arrival. Sizing them up, he spoke in a low voice devoid of emotion, “Next time you throw something off a roof, think big. Skip the lieutenants and captains. Go for a chief.”

It was the sort of dry wit Finney and the rest of the men on Ladder 1 were famous for.

When the meeting finally broke up, just before lunchtime, Diana waited in the lobby.

Robert Kub and G. A. Montgomery emerged from the meeting room, Kub stopping to give her a hug. Montgomery, who had made a studied practice of ignoring her since her first day in the department, continued walking as if he hadn’t seen her.

Kub, on the other hand, flirted with any female who didn’t have a mustache and some who did. “Strange meeting,” he said. “That poor old woman.”

As they spoke, Gary Sadler bumped against Diana’s shoulder and almost knocked her over. He tried to pretend it was an accident, but he wasn’t much of an actor. She’d expected rudeness, had hoped for indifference, but outright hostility was a shock. Not many people were even aware that they knew each other, and Diana preferred to keep it that way.

“Hey,” Kub said, as Sadler walked away. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Let it go,” Diana said.

“That was awful goddamn rough.”

“Forget it. Not to change the subject or anything, but I don’t understand why you and G. A. came to this little soirée.”

Kub’s eyes followed Sadler out of the room, and then he looked away evasively. “Needed to talk to the entry team.”

A group of firefighters from Engine 11 and Ladder 7 walked past, and one or two stopped to say hello. Then Finney appeared from a bank of phone booths down the hall. “Hello, John.”

Finney nodded to Diana and then looked at Kub. “Robert, you get any leads on that fire yet?”

A pair of firefighters came by and slapped Finney on the back. “Great save. Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

Kub gave Finney a beleaguered look. “You mean any
other
leads?”

“Yeah.”

Diana realized something complex was transpiring between these two but didn’t know what it was. They were quiet for several moments, outwaiting each other, the tension building. Finally, Diana said, “Was she living in that vacant house? The old woman?”

“According to the neighbors,” Kub said, “nobody’s lived there for the last eight years. No telling where she was sleeping. We had a witness once, rode buses all day and spent her nights at Sea-Tac. Always dressed up so people thought she was waiting for a plane. Nobody bothers you at the airport. Maybe she was living at the airport.” Kub gave a little wave and left.

Diana took a deep breath. She was aware that since the fire on Riverside Drive her relationship with John Finney had changed. She’d proved herself to him, and there would be no more questions between them. She’d been thinking about this in a casual sense for the past two days, but now that he was in front of her, she plunged ahead. “John, you might think this is an awkward question, and it is, I guess, but are you seeing anybody?”

He looked as if he were trying to remember, then smiled. “Not right now.”

“I feel silly even asking. I talked to Baxter, and he said the last he knew you were dating some college professor, but he didn’t know if that was still happening.”

“A community college English teacher. Her old boyfriend showed up.”

“Sorry.”

“Tell you the truth, I was kind of relieved.”

“The reason I ask is I’m involved in the department’s homeless children’s charity, and we’re giving a costume ball on Halloween. I have tickets, and I’d like you to be my date.”

He took a deep breath, and for a moment she thought he was trying to compose a turndown. “That sounds like a lot of fun. I’ll look forward to it.”

“Look forward to what?” It was Marion Balitnikoff in his black dress uniform, hat pulled low to his eyes.

“Nothing,” Finney said.

“Glad I caught you two together. I know I sounded a little rough in there, but I hope you both take it in the spirit in which it was given. We’re all family, and I don’t want to see anybody else hurt. I mean that. I couldn’t take another funeral before I retire.”

Diana said, “You were awful rough on him.”

“Yeah, well, no hard feelings.” Balitnikoff stuck his hand out to shake, first with Diana, then with Finney. “I just want things to go right from now on.”

After Balitnikoff was out of earshot, Diana turned to Finney. “Don’t forget Halloween. You’ll need a costume.”

“I’m not going to forget.”