Annette Dashofy - Zoe Chambers 03 - Bridges Burned (2 page)

Two

Pete had just turned from Route 15 onto the road leading to the new housing development when one of the homes at the top of the hill exploded, rocking the ground beneath his SUV. What the hell? He jammed the accelerator to the floor.

He’d never been in a war, but imagined the scene must be what a battlefield would look like. One house in the development was leveled. Splintered two-by-fours were scattered across the lot like toothpicks. Smaller bits of debris, swirling on the super-heated air currents, continued to rain down over the equivalent of a city block. Flames and smoke licked the blue sky. The vinyl siding on the two houses closest to the explosion dripped down the exterior walls like candle wax. People—the neighbors, Pete assumed—stumbled around the wreckage. Screams and sobs punctuated the deafening roar of the fire.

A Vance Township fire engine was parked two houses away from the conflagration. Volunteers in full turnout gear heaved folded loops of hoses onto their shoulders and dragged them toward the flames. One of the men fumbled through a side compartment, yanking out a large wrench.

Pete pulled up behind the engine and jumped out.

His radio crackled. “Chief? Chief Adams? Are you there?” So much for proper radio procedure.

He paused and keyed the mic clipped to his shoulder. “I’m here, base.”

“Thank God,” Nancy breathed. “There’s been a report of an explosion.”

He watched as the fire crew connected a line to hydrant. “I’m aware of that. In fact, I’m looking at it. Get on the horn and order all the men in. County and State, too. Make sure the gas company is on their way.” He noticed one of the firefighters sitting on the ground next to the truck as a second man taped a bandage to a bloody gouge on the first one’s head. “And confirm EMS is responding.”

“Copy that. Base out.”

Pete strode to the two firefighters. “Give me a report.”

“We responded to a call of natural gas odors,” the uninjured man said. “It was pretty strong. We’d started canvassing the houses when…” He hoisted a thumb toward the burning rubble. “Boom.”

The second fireman touched his head and winced. “Thank the good Lord we parked here. If we’d pulled up a little farther…”

“Injuries?” Pete nodded at the man on the ground. “Besides you, I mean.”

“Unknown. No one has come to us, but our guys haven’t had time to check on the neighbors.”

“How about the house?” Pete dreaded the answer to his next question. “Anyone inside?”

“We don’t know.” The standing firefighter reached down and helped his buddy to his feet. “But we have more manpower on the way.”

Pete clapped him on the shoulder. “So do I.”

Sirens wailed from somewhere down in the valley. Or else his ears were ringing. Hard to tell. The deafening roar of the gas-fed flames sounded like a jet engine. One of the firefighters barked out an order and the man controlling the nozzle cranked it open. The hiss of pressurized water added to the commotion.

Pete headed toward a group of bystanders and searched for a familiar face. Scenic Hilltop Estates with its trendy homes had attracted an influx of new township residents, mostly city folks moving to the country. Or a romanticized version of it. More than once, he’d had one of these newcomers march into the station to complain about the smell of the nearby farm. Never mind the farm had been there for generations.

It was one of those complainants he recognized now and approached. “Mr. Tierney, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Glassy-eyed, the man tugged at the collar of his polo shirt. “Stephen Tierney.” His voice was as thin and reedy as the man himself.

“Can you tell me if there was anyone at home over there?”

Tierney looked around at the other bystanders then at the fire. “Over there? No. The place was vacant. They—the former owners—defaulted. The bank evicted them a month ago. The house was supposed to go up for sheriff’s sale pretty soon.” He ran shaking fingers through his short-cropped hair.

Pete dug his notebook and pen from his pocket. “Do you know the family’s name?”

“Farabee. Holt and Lillian. And their daughter. Good people. Hated to see them go. Although, now…” Tierney shook his head, and for a moment, Pete thought the man was about to burst into tears.

Movement on the road below drew Pete’s attention. An older model brown Chevy pickup with an emergency light in the front window sped toward them, lurching to a stop behind his SUV. Farther down, a pair of fire trucks turned onto the road leading up to Scenic Hilltop Estates, air horns blasting. A police cruiser—one of his—and a Monongahela County ambulance followed. But Pete’s focus stayed with the willowy blonde who jumped from the cab of the Chevy. Zoe reached behind the truck’s seat and heaved out a canvas duffle before slamming the door and trudging up the hill toward him.

“Mr. Tierney, do you mind sticking around? I want to ask you a few questions, but I have to talk to someone first.”

Tierney continued to pull at his collar, never taking his gaze from the fire. “Yeah. Sure.”

Pete stepped away from the crowd as Zoe approached. For a moment, and only a moment, he pushed the horrible fire out of mind to admire the woman making her way toward him in dusty jeans and a nicely snug dark blue t-shirt. In theory, they were “dating.” Had been for the last month. In reality, both were too busy or distracted to do the whole social thing. They encountered each other at calls like this. They played poker with the gang almost every Saturday evening. And they occasionally met for dinner at one of the local bar and grills, same as they’d done when they’d been “just friends.” As much as they tried for something more, so far work and life had gotten in their way.

Her gaze danced between him and the scene beyond.

“Hey,” she said loud enough so her voice carried over the rumble. “What do we have?”

“The house was vacant.”

She blew out a breath. “Thank God.”

Pete watched over her shoulder as more emergency vehicles climbed the hill, red and blue lights flashing. “I’m going to set up a staging area by my vehicle. Why don’t you make a pass around the perimeter to see if any of the neighbors were hurt by flying debris? Don’t get too close.”

She wiped a sleeve across her forehead. “Not to worry. It’s hot enough today without fighting a fire.”

And yet, there were the local volunteers in heavy bunker gear doing just that.

“I’ll send more manpower out to you as soon as they check in. For now, call me if you need immediate backup.”

She snapped a playful salute at him. “Aye aye,
Capitan
.”

“
Capitan
my ass,” he called after her. “It’s
Chief Capitan
to you.”

Zoe fluttered a dismissive hand over her shoulder as she hiked away.

Pete chuckled and headed downhill toward his SUV. The additional fire crews were lugging gear from compartments on their trucks. Pete spotted the fire chief and waved. Bruce Yancy held up one finger in a be-there-in-a-minute signal. Pete pointed toward his SUV.
Over there
. Yancy nodded again.

Minutes later, Pete stood in front of his vehicle, coordinating his troops. His two full-time officers, Kevin Piacenza and Seth Metzger, grabbed rolls of yellow crime scene tape and started up the hill to rope off a perimeter. On the radio, Nancy reported county was on its way, ETA five minutes. Pennsylvania State Police were only a minute behind. The gas company couldn’t give them a solid time of arrival, but had a man en route.

Yancy snorted. “Better be more than one man.”

“Are we gonna have to wait for West Penn Gas to shut off the line to the house or can your guys do it?”

“We’ll get it.” Yancy motioned at the firefighter holding a wrench and standing next to the lead man on the team closest to the inferno. “Just have to knock the flames down enough so he can get to the meter without being fricasseed.”

“Chief!” someone yelled.

Both Pete and Yancy turned. Kevin Piacenza loped toward them. From the frantic expression on the young officer’s face, Pete knew this wasn’t going to be good.

Breathing hard, Kevin skidded to a stop in front of them. “One of the neighbors on the other side of the fire just told me he thinks the family was still living there.”

Before Pete could process the news, a frantic shout went up from somewhere nearby. He looked around. A man charged past him, headed straight toward the remains of the house, bellowing, “No!”

Pete launched after him. The crazed fool was racing full tilt toward the flames, wailing like a damned banshee. “Stop!” Pete called, knowing full well he was wasting his breath.

The roar and the heat grew more intense. The man hit and burst through the strand of yellow tape as if it were a finish line in a marathon. Pete pounded after him, ignoring a jolt of pain from his recently healed broken foot. He gained ground, but not enough. No way was he going to catch the guy before he’d run into the blaze. The idiot showed no signs of slowing.

Pete caught a blur from the corner of his eye—a streak crossing from his right. The streak slammed into the man, tackling him, driving him into the rubble and the mud. Pete dove on top of them.

Zoe came up sputtering and spitting, her face smeared with muck. The man she’d pile-driven into the ground pushed up to kneel. Pete jerked him to his feet. “What do you think you’re doing?”

The man, tall and all lean muscle in a black t-shirt and jeans now oozing with mud, stared horror-stricken at the flames. “My wife,” he moaned. “My wife was in there.”

The news that a victim may have been inside the obliterated house dropped a pall over what had previously been little more than a chance for the volunteer fire department to play. There wasn’t enough left of the structure to make a rescue attempt. Even though the gas had been shut down, the fire was burning too hot and the scene was too dangerous to start a search-and-recovery mission.

The firefighters had turned a stream of water on Zoe, leaving her soaked to the core, but at least she didn’t feel like a mud wrestler any longer. Three ambulance crews were busy with patients, neighbors who had suffered cuts and scrapes from flying debris or broken glass from their own windows. Zoe, one elbow bleeding from a nasty gash, balanced on the rear bumper of Medic Two and ripped into a packet of sterile pads with her teeth. She’d patched up more lacerations and abrasions in her years as a paramedic than she could count. Bandaging her own wounds one-handed was a little trickier. She pressed the 4x4s onto the cut. Blood seeped through, but at least it would help hold the bandage in place while she finished dressing the injury.

As she reached for the roll of stretch gauze, someone extended a hand over her shoulder, beating her to it.

Pete came around in front of her. “Need help?” He had a large bundle tucked under one arm.

“Since when have you become a medic?”

He gave her a crooked smile. “And you’ve never ventured into
my
line of work.”

“Point taken. Any word on the guy’s wife?”

“Seth and Kevin went door to door, and I questioned the bystanders. No one’s seen her. But there are remains of a minivan in what used to be the garage.”

“Doesn’t sound good.”

Pete tossed the bundle onto the ambulance floor. It unfolded enough for Zoe to recognize it as a jumpsuit. “I thought you might want to change into something dry.”

She glanced down at her sodden and clingy t-shirt, grateful she’d put on a navy one instead of white. “Thanks.”

He peeled the bloody sterile pad away from the cut and made a face. “This might need stitches. Give me another bandage.”

Zoe shoved a handful at him and leaned back, allowing him to finish the job she’d haphazardly started.

“That was a damned foolish stunt you pulled out there.”

She studied his face. His scowl was too forced. He might be upset with her, but she read concern there, too. And something else. Maybe…admiration. She smiled.

“What’s so funny?”

“Someone had to stop the guy from becoming a French fry. With your gimpy foot, you weren’t gonna catch him.”

Pete lifted his gaze from her arm to her eyes. She waited for him to respond with a wisecrack. Instead he lifted a hand and brushed a damp strand of hair from her forehead. “I appreciate the help.” He went back to the patch job on her elbow. “Just don’t do it again.”

“No problem.” She winced. Besides the gash, she had a strong feeling she’d have a few bruises following her tackle. “Hitting that guy was like ramming an oak tree trunk. Have you questioned him yet?”

Pete pressed the end of the self-sticking bandage onto itself. “No. I left him with some of your coworkers to get cleaned up and calmed down. I’m headed over there now.”

“Do you think there’s any chance the guy’s wife
wasn’t
really inside?” She squinted at the burning heap, barely recognizable as a structure.

“Can’t think of any other reason for a man to want to be a French fry.”

She cringed at having her own insensitive words tossed back at her. “Sorry.”

The corner of Pete’s mouth twitched. “The curse of anyone on the front lines. A sick sense of humor.” He motioned toward the jumpsuit on the ambulance floor. “The coroner hasn’t arrived yet, so you might want to be there when I question Frenchy. Get changed out of those wet clothes. I’ll wait.”

Inside the ambulance’s patient compartment, Zoe made quick work of stripping from her soaked barn clothes and stepped into the Vance Township Police Department’s jumpsuit. One size fits all. Provided the wearer was over six-foot and weighed at least two hundred pounds. Zoe rolled up the sleeves and cuffed the bottom of the legs. There wasn’t much she could do about the rest of the extra fabric.

She opened Medic Two’s rear door to find more fire equipment had arrived from the neighboring borough of Phillipsburg and Mt. Prospect Township. A white Ford extended cab pickup with a West Penn Gas emblem on the door rumbled up the hill, picking its way through the emergency vehicles.

Zoe found Pete next to his SUV, coordinating efforts with the state troopers and county officers. He spotted her and waved her closer. The other men moved off to handle their assignments.

“Let’s go,” Pete said to her.

The man Zoe had intercepted had also received a fire hose shower. They found him wrapped in a blanket and shivering on the jump seat inside Medic Three flanked by two paramedics who were checking him over and patching up a scrape on his jaw.

One of the medics completed his assessment and climbed out. He jabbed Zoe with his elbow. “Nice tackle there, Chambers. Next time we play football, you’re on my team.”