Triangles of Fire Page 2

  Obviously, no insurance company had called him to hurry over and check out this fire. Occasionally that happened within an hour of the first spark, but not this time. He might never get this assignment. Like the rest of the people watching, Tom was there because the fire was there. Fire was his profession, but it was also his passion. He had the same prehistoric affinity for flame as everyone else.

  After a few minutes, he pulled his priorities into focus, slammed the car door shut, and headed for the Fire Chief’s buggy. Tom’s relaxed gait contrasted vividly with the searching, diamond-sharp concentration of his deep-brown eyes as he sized up the situation.

  The Chief looked up at the approaching figure. “Hello, Tom,” he said familiarly. “You in on this?”

  “No. Just picked it up on the squawk box. Thought I’d have a look-see.”

  “Well, some arson man will get it.”

  “That’s what I figured. It’s a standard setup. Started in the rear well on the second floor if they’re pros, ground front if they’re amateurs.”

  The Chief’s eyes narrowed by a half-millimeter. Farley’s uncanny accuracy always baffled him. “The well on two. They’re pros, all right.”

  It was uncommon to have a fire set before dark, even in the industrial area on a quiet Saturday. Tom knew that a novice would have made his light near the front in order to get out fast. A pro would take advantage of the updraft in the back stairwell, where the flames would rapidly be sucked up to the floor above. The second floor would be assured of a fresh supply of oxygen moving up from below—like the principle of grates in a fireplace. The heat buildup on the third floor would consequently be faster, and the ignition of both wood and roofing would be more rapid than with a first-floor light. In addition, the rear well, away from the street, might give the fire an extra ten to fifteen minutes before detection—an important block of time.

  Knowledge is the heart of intuition, but since Tom enjoyed his reputation of having a “sixth sense,” he was not going to share his reasoning with the Chief.

  The inside of the factory was getting risky. All of the firemen were being ordered out of the interior.

  “Which were the first-in units?” Tom asked the Chief offhandedly.

  “Engine Four. Then Ladder One came in with Jonah West about a minute later. Why?”

  Farley shrugged his shoulders. “Hunch,” he said. He smiled enigmatically at the Chief and walked off with all the nonchalance he could muster. He knew he would be stopped if he explained the nature of his hunch.

  Gathering speed as he approached Ladder I, Tom looked up at the burning structure. Despite the exterior ring of fire hoses and those blasting water inside the beast’s belly, it was clearly a matter of time—a short time—before fire would win the battle. As if to accentuate its inevitable victory, a long tongue of flame burst out of a third-floor window above Tom’s head.

  Jonah, at the top of Ladder 1, caught sight of the figure rushing toward his truck. He knew Tom Farley and he knew Farley would not be waving at him to come down if it weren’t urgent, so he turned the nozzle over to his second-in-command and scrambled down the rungs.

  “You been in?” Tom did not waste words on greetings.

  “Just for entry and to secure the stairwell.”

  “The back one?”

  “Yeah. That’s where she started. What are you looking for?”

  “A telephone.”

  “Need change?”

  A quick smile fluttered around Tom’s mouth and disappeared. “Did you find any kind of accelerant?”

  “No, but it went so fast it had to be set.”

  “Was there a telephone near where it started?”

  “I didn’t stay long enough to look around, since it was moving upstairs so fast, but there are some old offices on the second floor next to the stairs.”

  “Still many men inside?”

  “A few. I think the Chief will pull them back pretty quick. We’re just trying to keep it off old Gloria next door there.”

  Tom set his jaw. “Got a helmet to spare?”

  “You go in like that,” Jonah chided, “and it’ll cost you a pair of shoes and a suit. Here.” He reached into a gear compartment and pulled out spare boots, a regulation slicker, a helmet, and a heavy-duty flashlight.

  Tom thrust his hat into Jonah’s hands, jerked on the gear, and ran for the entrance.

  “You’ve only got about five minutes, Tom!” Jonah called after him. He shook his head and watched Farley duck through the door into the dying factory, uncertain whether his warning was heard or not. Well—he shrugged his shoulders helplessly—that’s Tom Farley.

  Tom hadn’t asked himself exactly why he was doing this. His action seemed perfectly natural. After all, he had a hunch, and the only way to verify his suspicion was to go in and look. If the building ended up gutted and the roof collapsed, no one would take the place apart just to find out if he was right or wrong. If he was right, it was another link in a chain he had been forging for over a year.

  Tom had no trouble making a beeline to the rear stairs; the few remaining fire hoses either branched off up the front stairwell or continued to the rear one. The firemen still inside were fighting a rear-guard action, though most of them were headed out.

  Acidic water and ashes cascaded down the rear stairwell. Smoke and heat could not get out of the windows fast enough and were backing heavily downward to the ground floor. The acrid smell made Tom wish he had grabbed an oxygen tank and mask—the last thing he wanted was to be overcome by fumes in some dark corner of this blazing furnace. He hesitated, judged that he didn’t have far to go, and bounded up the stairs. Keeping his head as low as possible to stay under the level of the heaviest smoke, he followed the tunnel his flashlight pierced in the dark.

  At the second-floor landing he passed a crew hurriedly descending, pulling their hose behind them.

  “Hey,” one of them yelled. “You’re going the wrong way! We just got orders to get out.”

  “Won’t be a sec.” Tom saw the room he wanted and headed for it, fast. Every fiber of his body was mobilized now. Not one trace of his easygoing self was left.

  Only one hose snaked on beyond the office Farley entered. At the end of that hose, farther down the second-floor corridor, was Jonah West’s best friend, Captain Mannie Rojas of Engine 1, with two of his men. Mannie, thin as an I-beam and twice as tough, was usually the first in and the last out. A combination of courage and intelligence made him the youngest company captain on the force. He knew where the limits were and could be counted on to play right up to them. The three men were crouched low, working their 2½-inch hose under the smoke layer into a back room. Mannie had one last objective before retreating, and he calculated it would only take a few minutes.

  In the furnacelike room Rojas kneeled on his left knee to brace himself against the hose’s terrible back pressure. He checked the position of his backup men, gave a nod, and opened the nozzle full blast. A ton of water per minute ripped at the back wall. At close range its force could break a man’s bones.

  The raging water did exactly what the captain wanted it to do. It knocked holes in the flame-weakened plaster and drove a spray of liquid through to the strips of lath, soaking everything between the studs. Now if he could just get the jet to break through into the next room. . . .

  Mannie was melting in his own sweat. Under the mask his face was the color of his fire truck. They’d have to get out quickly. He braced against the hose’s force. In a few seconds he’d shut it off and scramble to fresh air.

  Mannie’s left leg was getting cramped from kneeling so he moved it out just to change position. A long thick splinter of wood from an aging floorboard jammed straight into the tendon of his knee. In itself the wound didn’t amount to much, but the instant’s painful distraction cost him his grip on the wet nozzle. The maddened snake of hose whipped its deadly brass tip back at him. The metal lashed out, ripped off his mask, lashed again, and felled him with a blow to the temple. Rojas pitc
hed backward without even a grunt, unconscious and bleeding. The backup men yelled and jumped at the flailing nozzle to try to shut it off.

  In the room by the stairwell Farley’s flashlight had just found the object he was searching for when he heard the yells. He wanted to take the telephone, the bell, and the sound-actuated ignition device out, which would require a few minutes. But someone was in trouble, so he whipped off his tie, wrapped it quickly around the actuator, and shoved the bundle into his pocket. Too bad about the rest. He ducked low and raced out to follow the hose. There was an ominous cracking sound, then a bang from the floor above his head as a roof rafter collapsed.

  The arson investigator hit the fire-lit room at the same second that the nozzle swung wildly around in his direction. He jumped back just in time. It was the last swing before the two firemen managed to get the hose under control and shut it down.

  Tom instantly got the picture. He leaped to Mannie’s crumpled form as one of the men called for a stretcher on his walkie-talkie. Tom and the second fireman cradled the unconscious figure and rushed toward the stairs as another crash above them rattled the ceiling. At the top of the stairs they met the incoming stretcher men and a fire crew.

  The medics hustled Mannie’s still body onto the stretcher, out of the burning building, and into the antiseptic interior of an ambulance, which formed a stark contrast to the filth their patient had just left. As the white streak fled the fireground, its sirens howling in the night, the driver called back, “He going to be okay?”

  The man who was trying to stanch the flow of Mannie’s lifeblood yelled back, “Yeah! But that’s sure no goddamn way to make a living!”

  ***

  As soon as Tom had turned his burden over to the medics, he headed straight for Jonah West.

  “I heard on the intercom,” Jonah said, worried about his best friend. “How’s Mannie?”

  “Cut, bleeding, and out cold, but I suspect it’s not too serious. He got the nozzle on the hard part of his head.”

  “That could be anywhere above the neck in Mannie’s case,” Jonah quipped in relief. “You got more than you bargained for, huh?”

  Tom reached into his pocket to retrieve his find. “Yeah, but I got what I wanted, too,” he said proudly. “The little item that set it all off. Sound-actuated device. It was sitting next to the telephone bell. First, the guy plants this thing. Later, when he’s verified no one’s in the building, the arsonist calls. Phone rings. This gadget makes sparks, sets off an accelerant, then the whole place goes. The torch is way off, sipping a whiskey and soda somewhere, safe, clam happy and getting richer by the minute. I just happened to click on the fact that this site and time—late Saturday afternoon—fit in with a pattern of telephone setoffs around the Bay Area. I think I’m closing in on the son-of-a-bitch.”

  “Well, you took a helluva risk to prove it.”

  Farley grinned and shrugged off the exploit. “If you don’t gamble, you don’t win. Incidentally”—he changed the subject quickly—“are any fire marshals around? I’d like to give this to one of your people.” Tom figured it was better to leave a fresh piece of evidence in a potential criminal case directly with a fire marshal—one of the fire department’s own criminal arson investigators.

  “Does it come with or without the tie?”

  “Might as well be with, I’m afraid the tie has had it.”

  “The new guy was here a few minutes ago. He went off to take crowd shots.”

  “See if you can rouse him on the intercom. I’ll go to the car and get a Chain-of-Evidence form.”

  First, Farley retrieved his hat, then he took off the fire gear. He did not feel right without his tie, but that was compensated for by the warm sensation of success.

  As Tom passed the Chief’s buggy Task Force Eleven’s Fire Chief emerged, torn between dishing out half-hearted hell or profuse thanks.

  “I should have known,” the Chief said reproachfully. “As soon as you said you had a hunch you lit up like a neon. That was a great piece of work, but you—”

  “If I’d said it, you’d have stopped me cold.”

  “Damn right!” He slapped Tom’s shoulder. “Good thing you didn’t ask. But next time . . . Jesus, Farley, I never know what you’ll do next.”

  Farley laughed and walked off. When he reached his Pontiac, the car’s mobile phone was ringing. He answered and immediately recognized the voice of Vic Whitlock, the Fire Loss Manager of Global Insurance Company. Even though Whitlock was one of his best clients, Tom never could get friendly with him. Vic was too cold fish, too humorless, too frigidly efficient. Fortunately, Tom didn’t have to love his clients.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Vic demanded. “I’ve got one going over in Oakland that doesn’t sound right. Half hour after it began the insured was already calling his agent and it’s his second one this year.”

  “Tell me the sad story.”

  Whitlock hesitated, brought up short by the mocking tone of Tom’s reply.

  “Tell you what, Vic,” Tom gently needled, “I’ll handle the case if you’ll buy me a tie.” He knew that would shake up Whitlock’s straitlaced way of thinking.

  “You got a Saturday night bag on or what?” Whitlock demanded, though he had never known Farley to be drunk.

  “No, but I’ve half-solved your case just for the hell of it.” Tom savored the claims man’s incredulity before explaining that he was already on the scene. As usual, he left Whitlock reverently amazed.

  It did not even cross Tom’s mind that if he had played his cards differently he could have quadrupled his fee. Tom Farley did not know how to cheat. All he asked was the pleasure of putting an offbeat item on Whitlock’s expense bill: one silk tie, $32.50. It was expensive, but Farley liked nice ties.

  When he finished the phone call, he got a Chain-of-Evidence form from his car and returned to look for the fire department investigator. He found Fred Krinke waiting for him.

  “Hey,” the neophyte fire marshal said eagerly, “I hear you’ve got an acoustic detonator for me.”

  “Yep.” He handed Krinke the tie-wrapped object. “Ever see one?”

  “Just pictures.” Krinke took it. He was clearly excited. A fire marshal could pass a lifetime without coming across an acoustic trigger.

  Farley had a soft spot for anyone who was really interested in the fine points of his work, so he carefully explained how the device operated. “They’re rare, because only a high-class pro would know how to use one. A lot of investigators wouldn’t even think to look, but I’ve had half a dozen cases with the same MO in the last year or two. Probably all the same guy. I don’t want to muddy the chain of evidence on this doodad—we may need it in court. If there’s any gap in the chain of possession from the fire site to the courtroom, the evidence is useless and the whole case can fold. I’ve brought the Chain-of-Evidence possession form, so I’ll sign it off. You sign there and it’s officially yours.”

  Convinced that the young man would become a useful ally, Tom decided to go on. Careful not to make his tone patronizing, he asked, “Now that we know this fire was incendiary in origin and we’ve got the trigger, what’s the next step you’d take?”

  “I’d run it to the lab for fingerprints and try to find out where it came from.”

  “Okay. The fingerprints are a long shot. This trigger is the same make as the others and I’m beginning to suspect the torch bought a gross of them in Hong Kong—I’ve checked every dealer in a hundred-mile radius at least six times. As long as you’re at the lab, though, check for bits of accelerant still stuck to the exterior. He tends to use magnesium foam rubber and charcoal starter. They should run that through the spectrograph. But the most important place to check out is the phone company.”

  The young man looked baffled. “Why?”

  “I’d bet another new silk tie that this phone was hooked up in the last two or three weeks, just for this job. Who signed the order? Who paid the bill? Ask the installer who let him in. Who showed him w
here to put the phone? Then there are details. Why did they have a desk in that so-called office, but no files, no chair?”

  The novice was staring in bug-eyed admiration.

  Heaving a sigh, Tom admitted, “But whoever the torch is, he’s no slouch. The insurance companies have been stuck with paying every one of these telephone triggered fires. I may be tightening the noose around his neck, but he’s still on the loose. He plants these things, sits at home taking life easy, makes a call at his leisure during the weekend. A phone rings, and whoosh. The guy hangs up, relaxed, untraceable. The building owners invariably have some waterproof alibi. This is the first time I’ve gotten a trigger while it was still warm—the next one I want to get before the phone rings. If you’re going to handle the case, Fred, come by the office and check my files—and I can also tell you where you can find a few more cases in other offices around the Bay.”

  “You’re on. Hey!” His eyes lit up hopefully. “I almost forgot to give you the news. Guess who I just photographed in the crowd again. Holy hell, Tom, maybe he’s our telephone man, hanging around to see if it worked! Remember the ex-fireman?”

  “Marty Martin?”

  “You got it.”

  “Not likely. He’s torching, all right, but surely nothing as sophisticated as acoustic triggers.”

  “Shouldn’t I haul him in and ask?”

  “No.” Tom tugged at his earlobe. How could he make this young buck understand the subtleties of applied psychology without deflating his enthusiasm? “Each time Martin gets questioned he gets nastier and more self-righteous. He feeds on it. Makes him a big shot. Swells his ego.”