Chapter 11

It took almost an hour for the fire department to get the blaze all the way out. The barbershop was a complete waste, as was most of the pawnshop next door. The ambulance took almost twenty minutes to arrive, but thankfully one of the volunteer firefighters had a bottle of oxygen and some paramedic training, and they were able to get Mr. Cooper breathing again. He’d probably be in the hospital for a few days, but I was happy he was going to be alright.

I was feeling better by the time the paramedics arrived, but Orville had waved me back onto the ground when I tried to get up and told me to stick around. With Mr. Cooper off to the hospital, I was the only witness, so that made sense. I didn’t particularly want to deal with the hassle, but I wasn’t going to give him a hard time. He’d need to get statements and everything. Besides, my ribs hurt and I didn’t particularly feel like walking anymore.

I was starting to second guess that when he finally got around to me about the time they got the blaze out. I was hot, being eaten up by mosquitoes, and in pain. All I really wanted to do was get back to my apartment and crash.

“Sorry that took so long,” he said when he sat on the curb next to where I was leaning against one of the volunteer fire guy’s car.

I might have been annoyed I had to wait so long, but I wasn’t really annoyed at him. I’d dealt with this kind of thing in New York City and I knew he was just doing his job.

“I get it,” I said. “Want me to go through what happened?”

“Sure,” he said, pulling out a small notepad from his pocket. “First, I wanted to say that that was a hell of a thing you did, that jump out of the window. You saved George Cooper’s life, that’s for damn sure.”

“Thanks,” I said, looking away a little embarrassed. “So, I was walking down the street on my way up to Oak Ridge, and I smelled smoke. After a second I realized there was a fire in the back of the barbershop. I heard someone yelling upstairs and saw the fire moving pretty fast, so I went up to check on the guy yelling. I found Mr. Cooper on the floor coughing, probably from smoke inhalation. The fire was moving fast, so by the time I got to him and checked on him, the stairs were already blocked by flames. I had to find a way out and there wasn’t a fire escape, so I threw his mattress down to the street and jumped out, using my body to cushion the blow. That’s when you showed up. I didn’t see anyone around or in the store when I got here and the street was empty. I didn’t see anyone hanging around. That’s about it.”

“So no idea how the fire started?”

“Nope. I don’t come down here much and I haven’t had a haircut since I came back. Mr. Cooper might have an idea, but from the state of the bedroom, I’m guessing he was already in bed when it started. The covers were pushed to the floor and he was in what I guess was pajamas, so he might not be much help.”

“I see,” Orville said, writing something down and putting the notepad back in his pocket.

I looked at the crowd that had started to gather around, pushing in towards the still smoldering, hollowed-out frame of the building. A place like Buxton didn’t get a lot of excitement, so naturally, everyone in town who heard about the fire wanted to see it for themself.

“You might want to keep those people back until the fire department can go over the scene. It’s not hard to accidentally destroy traces of arson,” I said, pointing at the crowd.

We’d had that problem with a tenement that had been burned down by its owner for the insurance payment. He’d managed to walk because enough people had gone through the scene before the arson investigators got there and caused all kinds of evidentiary problems. The lieutenant had raised holy hell, since it had been our job to close the scene. I was just a grunt, but the patrol sergeant that day had gotten chewed up pretty good over it.

“Al, get those folks back,” he called out to his deputy, who’d shown up a few minutes before Orville had come over to me.

I knew from our last encounter that he was often up in Summersville, which about fit how long it took for him to show up.

“You know we don’t really have an arson investigator, right? Hell, we don’t even have anyone full-time in the fire department.”

“Yeah, I know. I guess it’ll fall to you then.”

“Then we’re really in trouble,” he said with a smile.

That was the thing I remembered about Orville. He always seemed to have a smile, even when we were giving him shit. Maybe that’s why we were so hard on him. He just never seemed to be affected by what others thought. At the time, I probably thought it stupid that someone could ignore popular opinion like that, but looking back, it was probably his best trait.

“Do you think we need someone to look at this? I mean, the building was pretty old. Fires like this happen.”

“Yeah, although when I got there, the fire was in the back room. The fuse box was in the front area by the stairs, and it didn’t have that smell you expect from an electrical fire. I’m no expert, but unless they left a candle burning in the back room, it seems a strange place for a fire to start. If it had started upstairs where Mr. Cooper had a stove, then maybe, but in the back room downstairs? If it was me, I’d look into it, just to be sure.”

“You know the last fire we had was when Sam Allen’s trailer meth lab blew up. That had been pretty easy to figure out, since meth labs blowing up isn’t that uncommon. A fire like this ... I don’t know.”

“Yeah,” I said, not sure how to respond.

Surprisingly, Orville didn’t say anything else for a minute. I’d given my statement, so I expected him to get up and help Al or do whatever else had to be done.

After a minute, he asked, “Did you deal with these kinds of things much in New York City?”

“Fires? I guess. I mean, I was just a beat cop, but there were a few we had to work, closing off the scene and whatnot.”

“Did you get a chance to see how the investigations ran?”

“No, well, I guess a little, but I wasn’t all that involved. Why?” I asked, starting to get suspicious of the entire line of questioning.

“I was just thinking, if we did need to investigate this, I’m not sure how we’d do it. I sure as hell don’t know anything about investigating arson and since no one got hurt, it isn’t like we’re going to be able to get help from the staties. Hell, the way you just broke down why you thought there was something going on here was ten steps ahead of anything I would have thought of.”

“No,” I said, trying to head off where this conversation was heading.

“I didn’t ask anything yet.”

“No, but I can feel it coming.”

“Look at it from my end. I’ve only been sheriff a few years and Al came on last year. Neither of us went to any kind of academy or anything like that. Hell, I think you have as much time in uniform as Al and I combined.”

“I was just a beat cop. I wrote tickets and chased down shoplifters.”

“You did more than that,” Orville said.

“How would you know?” I asked, suddenly connecting several dots and not liking how they were adding up. “You know, it hadn’t occurred to me, but Mom suddenly thinking I might call you and ask about work did seem a little weird. That isn’t the kind of thing she’d normally jump to on her own. You called her about it, didn’t you?”

“I did. I also called your old precinct and asked around about you. I gotta say, not the friendliest people on the planet, but I did end up talking to your lieutenant and convinced him to send me your file, as a kind of professional courtesy.”

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

“Maybe not, but this makes me realize how poorly suited Al and I are for something like this. Yeah, you may not have been a detective, but you’ve worked around crime scenes and had classes that cover stuff like this in the academy. It makes you way more qualified for this kind of thing than us.”

“I’m not looking for a job,” I said.

“I know. You made that pretty clear the other day. I’m just asking for a favor. Help me investigate this. Think of it like penance for how things went between us back in high school.”

“Huh?” I said, more caught off guard than anything else.

Orville was crafty, I had to hand it to him. I’d actually started to think he hadn’t even remembered how terrible I’d been to him in high school, and here he was trying to use it as leverage to get me to help him.

“I’m not saying I’m holding a grudge or anything, but I’ve been watching you since you got back, and you’re really not the guy I knew, back in the day. The way your mom tells it, I think you actually regret how things went back then. I figured that someone who’s turned over a leaf like that has to have a little guilt, and I’d be a fool not to play on that if it gets me some help with this. Frank Williams and George Cooper are good men. They’ve known both of us since we were little kids. If this fire isn’t an accident, we gotta make sure we do right by them, you know.”

I just shook my head. Here I thought Orville was just a nice, happy-go-lucky guy, only to find out he was just as bad as my mother with the guilt trip. He certainly had layers to him.

“What exactly are you asking me to do?”

“Just look into it. See if there really is something off kilter with the fire and, if there is, find out where we should be looking. If you need it, the county has an agreement with the state police to send stuff to their lab. We don’t use it much, but it’s part of our tax remittance, so it’s about time we got some of our money’s worth. Talk to who you have to talk to and give me a report on your best guess as to what happened. We’ll take it from there.”

“I’m not making any promises on how thorough this will be,” I said.