Don Marshall hung up, and Anne didn’t waste time. Putting the sedan in drive, she lowered the window and took off, making her way back to the Fire and Safety building. Traffic was pretty light, and it took her less than ten minutes to trade one parking lot for another.
As she was getting out and locking up, she composed a little speech along the lines of how seriously she was taking her new job and how much she wanted to work for—
Don was waiting for her at the front entrance of the sprawling black, steel, and glass building, the man standing in the sunshine, eating something. He was a tall, thin guy, built like the basketball player she’d heard he’d been, and his tightly trimmed Afro had all kinds of gray at the temples. Rumor had it he’d dropped out of Syracuse, where he’d been playing Division I college ball, and joined the Army. Considering how cut-and-dry he was, she could see him in a military uniform.
And he certainly had the been-through-it-all affect of somebody who had seen combat action.
“I’m so sorry,” she said on the approach. “I won’t ever get distracted again—”
“Walk with me,” he ordered as he turned away, not waiting for her to catch up.
It was a bagel. He was eating half an onion bagel that had about two inches of cream cheese on it.
“So you know how many people wanted your job?” he asked as she fell into step with him on the sidewalk that made a square around the building.
“No, sir. I don’t.”
“Take a guess.”
She thought about how bad the economy was. “Ten? Fifteen?”
“None.” He stopped and looked down at her. “No one. The position was vacant for six months before you applied.”
“Oh.” Was she supposed to apologize? “I’m sorry.”
“I think you and I need to be clear with one another.” He put the last bite in his hopper and wiped his mouth with the napkin he’d been using as a plate. “I will fire you and go back to an empty desk before I put up with crap for effort. I took a chance on you—”
“Because of my arm,” she said bitterly.
“No, because I know you don’t actually want to work here.” He resumed his long stride. “You’d rather be back on an engine, dragging hoses into a fire. The reality, however, is that you’re out of options, and I’ve got a back load of cases that need to be looked at with only three investigators—one of whom is relocating because his wife took a job in St. Louis. Oh, did I mention another is pregnant and probably going on bed rest in a week? I won’t have her back until after she’s through with maternity leave. But allow me to reiterate. I would rather have an empty desk than someone who isn’t getting work done. I don’t care if I have to go out into the field myself. So you either get real and be serious about this opportunity, or you can file for unemployment for the twenty-four hours you’ve earned it for.”
Anne shook her head. “You don’t know me.”
“Yeah, I do. You’re someone who walks off the job site before she gets started. And lies to me when I call her and ask her how things are going.”
“I’m sorry. That was the wrong thing to do, and from now on, I’m not going to let you down.”
“Me? You’re not going to let me down?” Don Marshall stopped again and frowned. “Wrong way to look at this. Someone died in that fire you blew off so you could make a trip to the vet’s. A crime against property was committed, and in the course of it, somebody died. Maybe it was a vagrant. Hell, it probably was. But they had a mother and a father or they wouldn’t be on the planet. What you fail to understand is that this job you think is a step down from your calling, your passion? It’s actually justice at work. Unless there was faulty wiring involved—which is impossible because the grid to that block was shut down two years ago—someone walked in there, set a fire, and let the structure burn to the ground. I can’t make you care about helping the police find that criminal. I can’t wake you up to the fact that this work you no doubt consider a desk job is critical to making people safe. But what I will do is boot you out of my department if you don’t prove to me you’re worthy of my standards. You had your calling. This is mine. Are we clear?”
Anne swallowed hard. “Yes, sir.”
“Now, get back in that car, and go back to that site, and try to do the job the taxpayers of this city are paying you for. And remember, you’re a probationary employee for the next ninety days and I can fire you without cause or notice.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mr. Marshall nodded to the parking lot. “G’head. G’on now.”
“Yes, sir.”
Anne wheeled away and blindly walked off. She was halfway to the car when Don called out, “What about the dog?”
She turned back around. “The dog?”
“What did you do with it?”
“I, ah, I made sure it’s at a good vet’s.”
“Better than the streets.”
“Yes, better.”
Lifting a hand, she returned to the car before she apologized again. Remade promises the man didn’t want to hear. Got teary about the dog she was abandoning even though the thing wasn’t hers in the first place.
God, she was so sick of life.
She really was.
chapter
11
Box alarm. Two engines and a ladder from the 617 responding to back up the 499.
As Tom arrived on scene, he pulled up behind the ambulance, and got out. The primary house on fire was your typical two-story wooden structure, built back when Rubik’s Cubes and Flock of Seagulls were popular—and its next-door neighbor was looking pretty toasty as well, the wind carrying the flames across a tiny yard and onto siding that was dry. It was a little unusual to smell the electric burn in the air. Still, faulty wiring wasn’t solely the purview of 1920s bungalows and fifties-era cottages.
The plumes of water being used to fight the initial blaze were coming out of the windows on the first floor. Then again, the 499 was already on scene, and of course, those dumbass cowboys had dragged lines into the house, as opposed to extinguishing the flames via an external position.
Tom strode over to Captain Baker, the incident commander, and was not about to be diplomatic. “What the hell are you doing, Chip?”
The man held up a hand. “Don’t start with me.”
“Why are those idiots in the house?” He knew the answer, though. “Chip, you gotta backbone this shit. Come on. You’re in charge here.”
“The fire’s almost out.”
Tom shook his head and opened his mouth—but then he caught the pisser recruit walking by.
Reaching over, he grabbed onto the sleeve of the kid’s turnout. “Stop. This is done wrong.”
The newbie halted and looked up with wide anxious eyes. His name was Reggie, but he’d already been given the nick of “Wedgie”—which, considering his last name was Boehner and it could have been “Boner,” wasn’t all that bad.
“You fold this side first, secure here . . . and buckle here. They taught you this at the academy.”
As Tom made quick work of the jacket, the kid nodded and stammered something. And was cut off as glass shattered on the second floor.
Smoke billowed out—and then flames.
“Goddamn it,” Tom muttered, “it traveled up the joists.”
Wedgie blinked. “Huh?”
“Go help get the house next door wet.” He shoved the kid forward. “Chip, get those boys out of there. Or I will.”
“Bring those lines out,” Baker barked into the radio. “Repeat, all lines and personnel out. Now. Reposition southwest exterior, six-one-seven fighters next door.”
Three firefighters emerged from the open front door, dragging lines with them. Emilio, Duff, and Moose, Tom guessed by the body sizes.
“How many did you send in there?” he asked. When there wasn’t a reply, he elbowed Chip. “I said, how many?”
“Four.”
“And who’s the fourth?”
The answer to that question presented himself by breaking a second-story window and jumping out onto the asphalt-shingled overhang above the front entrance.
Danny Maguire had a preteen girl in his arms, his oxygen mask over her face even as she struggled against him. “Medic!” he barked.