Combustible (A Boone Childress Novel) (11 page)

Lamar's
voice trailed off.

The
next time Boone heard the beep, he woke up soaked in sweat. Light flooded in as he cracked opened his eyes. Mom stood near the doorway of the hospital room, chart in hand, conferring with a man in a white coat. Boone recognized him as their family doctor, the man who once had happily given him a tetanus shot after Boone gouged himself with a rusty screwdriver caked with turtle poop.

On
the opposite wall, the TV was tuned to MythBusters, which is one of Cedar's favorites. He wondered if she was watching now. Below the TV, Lamar sat in a green vinyl chair. A book was opened on his lap. He was wearing reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose. They were about to slide off. Lamar was a handsome man in a rugged sort of way, so different from Boone's real father in looks and demeanor. By the window Abner stood with his back to Boone. His hands are clasped behind him. He was fiddling his wedding ring, a nervous habit. Why would Abner be nervous?

Boone
blinked. The brightness stung his eyes. He tried to swing an arm across his face, but the IV catheter taped to his hand hurt. He yelped softly but loud enough for Mom to hear.

At
the sound of his voice, she passed the chart to Dr. Tetanus and rushed to Boone's side. Her mouth opened wide, and she smiled so big that her cheeks turned her eyes into slits decorated with curling eyelashes.

"Hey,
Boonster," she said, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking his free hand in hers. "How's my boy?"

"
That’s CPO Boonster to you," Boone said after a few seconds. It was garbled because his tongue was thick and his throat raw.

Mom
had no trouble translating. "You had us so worried. All of us." She pointed at Lamar, who has nodded off in the chair near the foot of the bed. The ledge of the long window behind Lamar held several large "Get Well Soon" flower arrangements.

"This
looks like a funeral home," Boone tried to say. It came out as "Dis wookie wikes funnel ohm."

"Looks
like what?" Mom said.

"A
funnel dome."

"A
funeral home?" Mom said. "Don’t say such things."

Lamar
stirred in his chair. "It almost was just that. Those boys from Atamasco saved your life."

"Shh,"
Mom said. "He's not ready for that yet."

"How
long've I been out?" This sounded like English.

"Seven
hours, give or take a few minutes."

"I
feel weird."

"It's
the narcotics. You were hurting earlier, so they sedated you. Gave you a little something to left you get on top of the pain."

"It
must be working." Boone tried to sit up. A needle of pain shot from his bellybutton to his left scapula. "Ow."

Mom
made his life easier by using the controls to lift the head of the bed. "Take it easy. Bruised ribs from the fall. You've also got a sprained neck and burned lungs. You're lucky to be alive. What were you thinking, Daniel Boone Childress? You rushed into an empty house, the other firefighters said. You risked your life because you
thought
you heard screaming?"

So
much him not being ready for criticism. "I did hear screaming."

"
After Lamar had warned you to follow procedure,” Mom said. “Those procedures are in place to save your life, you know."

"
Can we do this later?" Boone said. "When you don't sound like you're talking through a can at the end of string?"

"Even
with bruised ribs, you're still a smart aleck."

"That's
a good sign, ain't it?" Abner said. He wore hiking sandals, canvas pants, and an angler's vest over a T-shirt, and his hair looked more unkempt that normal. He shooed Mom away from the bed. "You’re talking a grown man, not a child."

She sat in a straight
back chair next to the bed. "Dad, he's my son."

"I
recognize the resemblance. He's also my grandson."

Lamar cut in.
"He also did what he knew was wrong. He put himself and the other men in danger."

Abner
stared him down. "I guess it depends on your interpretation."

"Rules
and regulations aren't open to interpretation, Dr. Zickafoose."

"Sure
they are."

"Not
mine."

Boone tried to whistle to shut then up, but he only managed to spit on himself.
“What happened after I got hurt?”

Lamar
gave him the technical details. “The structure was a total loss. The house was in the Frisco VFD’s district so we had containment duty. No other injuries were reported, only yours. I completed preliminary reports on the—”

“Did
anybody search the site for victims?”

“We did a visual search,” Lamar said. "The fire marshal office is following up later."

“Just
a visual? You only looked around?”

Lamar
shook his head slowly, as if to say, will this boy ever get it through his thick skull? “The debris wasn’t stable enough to risk any more injuries.”

He wanted to know how
Eugene and his boys had arrived so soon, but between the meds and Lamar's bad mood, he decided not to press the issue.

For now.

Mom pinched Boone’s chin and gave it a shake. “Let it go, Boonster. You’re hurt. Your body’s got a lot of mending to do, and it will happen faster if you set you mind at ease. Doctor’s orders.”

“Stop calling me
Boonster.”

“It’s better than
possum.” She straightened the sheets and blankets at the foot of the bed. “We do have a dilemma. You’ll need to spend the next couple of days resting. Lamar and I have work commitments, so we need someone to watch over you.”

“A
babysitter?”

“More
like a day nurse.”

“I’ll be fine by myself.”

Boone didn’t know if it was the drugs speaking or the need he suddenly felt to escape hospitalization. Other people like to be fussed over but not him. No thanks, he could take care of himself.

“Think
again, buster,” Mom said. “Once the meds wear off, you are going to notice some serious pain. We need someone to check your vitals, feed you, and control your dosages.”

“How
about putting one of those paper cones around my neck, too? To keep me from chewing on my bandages.”

“That
can be arranged,” Mom said, “if you don’t stop chewing on me.”

“I’ll check in on him,” Cedar said as she walked into the room. “Since he went to so much trouble to get out of an appointment with me.”

“Yeah!”
Boone pumped a fist. Then he groaned. Sudden moments weren’t a good idea. “Mom, this is Cedar—“

“No need to introduce her,” Mom said. “Her beagle’s one of my patients. Hello, Cedar. How are you?”

Introductions and greetings were passed around, ending with Cedar reiterating that she would be glad to keep an eye on Boone until he felt better.

Mom
exchanged a quick look with Lamar. “Thanks, Cedar, that’s very kind of you.”

Then something dawned on Boone. “How did you know I was here?”

“I didn’t at first,” Cedar said, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. “I was already in the waiting room, and the nurses were talking about a cute but stupid firefighter who got hurt. I knew it had to be you.”

Boone knitted his brow. “Why were you in the waiting room?”

"Luigi's in the hospital, too,” she said, sniffing. “He was attacked walking home."

Cedar
had been crying. She tried to cover it up with makeup. That was her first mistake because she never wore makeup, and she wasn’t very practiced at applying it. The shade she had applied was too dark for her complexion. It made the area under her eyes look like dual pink half moons.

“
Dr. Zickafoose,” Lamar said as he rose easily from the chair. “How about a Pepsi?”

“I’m
a Co-Cola man myself.”

“I’m
buying.”

“Let
me get my coat.”

He
grabbed his jacket, and the two men made room for Cedar.

“What
happened to Luigi?” he said. “How is he?”

Cedar explained that after leaving Boone and Cedar last night, he had set off down Highway 12. He ran against traffic on the edge of the pavement. A car came speeding around the bend. The driver flicked the lights from low beams to high. The sudden light threw Luigi off balance as he stepped from the pavement to the shoulder. His foot sank into a mound of loose sand, and he tripped, falling headlong into the beams.

The
driver slammed on the brakes. Wisps of smoke rose into the light of the taillights, and Luigi thought for a moment that they were stopping to help him. Until he saw three doors open and four people piled out. They carried plastic baseball bats and wore George Bush masks and blood-red, long-sleeved shirts.

"Look
boys," the smallest of the Clintons said, "the pork chop fell down and he can't get up. Stupid Mexican."

"I
am Japanese," Luigi said.

"I
t don't make a rat's ass," the leader said. "All y’all look alike to me."

He
took the first swing, a wild strike that Luigi was able to block with his backpack. His only hope was to fend them off long enough for another car to come by. But the punks seemed to sense that they had little time, and they attacked en masse.

Luigi
fought them off as long as he could. It was not long enough, and they left him bleeding and alone on the side of the road. A few minutes later, a passing driver found him and took him to the emergency room.

Cedar
was crying again. Mom pulled tissues out of the box on the stand and passed them to her. She dabbed away the tears and then blew her nose. To her credit, it wasn’t a girly girl blow, either.

“How
bad is it?” he asked.

“Bruises,
mostly. He’s got a goose egg the size of a tennis ball behind his ear. On that thick boney part.”

“The
mastoid process,” Boone and Mom said in unison.

Cedar
smiled. “That’s what I get for talking to a family of bone hunters. But the doctors say he’s going to be okay. They’re keeping him for observation for a few more hours. Truthfully, he’s doing better than his host family. They feel awful about calling Luigi’s parents in Osaka.
Hello, Mrs. Hasagawa, your son got beaten up by a bunch of thugs
. I couldn’t do it.”

“Did
they call the cops? Does he know who did it?”

“Luigi
just gave the sheriff a statement. He didn’t see anything. It was dark, and their masks covered their faces. He only remembered that one of them was short.”

Boone
rose from the bed. “How short?”

Cedar
shrugged. “I don’t think he had a meter stick on him. It was dark? His ankle was twisted?”

“How
about the car? Did he notice the make and model? Or the license plate? Even if he caught a partial number, it would help the investigation.”

“It
was dark? His ankle was twisted? Were you not listening?”

Mom
put her arm around Cedar’s shoulder. “No, he was not listening. He's as bad as my daddy. Always trying to fix things, always wanting to be the crusader."

"I don't think he's listening
to you, either,” Cedar said.

Mom sighed. "L
et me put it in terms that you understand, Daniel Boone Childress. You will let the sheriff investigate Luigi’s assault. You will leave Luigi alone about it. You will not harangue him for information. You may be his friend, but only to give emotional support. You will stay at home, grounded, and recuperating. Do you understand?”

“Huh?”

Mom waved a hand across his face. “Earth to Boone. Did you hear a word I said?”

Boone
blinked. “No haranguing and no fun.”

“Providing
emotional support can be fun,” Cedar said.

“Not as much as haranguing.”

Mom began an explanation of why he would be a greater help to Luigi as a friend, but Boone was already tuned out, thinking of both the house fire and the assault.

Enough sneaking around trying to gather evidence on the sly,
he thought, hoping that Hoyt would listen to him. From now on, he was taking care of business his own way.

A
hospital was a lousy place to sleep when you're so sore your bones were vibrating, and the only thing you wanted to do was drive over to the Loach’s house to drag Dewayne out of his bed and kick his ass right there. Fighting was the barbaric, illegal way of settling problems. But with the painkillers leaving his body, Boone was finding barbarism more and more attractive because he knew it had been Dewayne and the other knuckle draggers who beat Luigi up.

All
night long, Boone rolled back and forth on the hard bed. Off and on when he managed to sleep, his dreams were haunted by images of the ceiling collapsing in front of him and the echoes of a woman’s voice crying for help.

No
one was ever happier to see Dr. Tetanus as he made his rounds at 0600 the next morning. A few papers were signed, then a wheelchair took Boone to the curb out front. Minutes later, Abner backed his Range Rover slowly out of the parking space. The plan was for Abner to take Boone home, and Cedar would check in on him after her morning classes. Boone was looking forward to her visit even more than escaping the hospital.

“You
hungry?” Abner asked Boone as he climbed into the front seat.

Boone groaned from the sore ribs.
“My stomach’s kind of—“

“Because
I was thinking of stopping by this diner near the county line. It’s a little out of the way, but they make one of the best western omelets in the county. Care to investigate?”

Boone
grinned. He shifted in the seat so that his wrist was propped on the armrest and his ribs were in the least painful position. “Now that you mention it, my stomach is feeling much better.”

Abner
slowly pulled out of the lot and onto the highway. “That’s my boy.”

The house in Nagswood was a road kill skeleton that had been picked clean. The charred remnants of the frame stood on the east and west corners of the building, propped up by some unseen force. The frame on the west side was slightly more intact, with eight feet of unburned clapboard siding joining two wall studs and a window header together. The glass in the widow was long gone, but the siding was still white in places. The rest of the structure had given way, collapsing in on itself, burying a home within it. The red brick chimney stood in the middle of the colossal wreck. Its hearth was blackened with soot, but the rest of it was undamaged, almost unmarked, a mocking reminder that human beings often chose the worst materials for building their homes.

Tendrils
of smoke dust rose here and there. Beneath the smoke was a pile of furniture, or what was once furniture. Now it was like the frame, a twisted mass of materials cooked together in a carbon stew. If you were patient and could stand the smell, you might be able to tell that the large slab of wood with a furnace that now resembled alligator skin was once a Chippendale sideboard. You might also see a colonial style secretary desk and a stained glass lampshade. Over in the far corner of the mess that had once been someone’s life, you might see the bedsprings of a queen-sized bed that had occupied the room Boone had decided to visit before the ceiling gave way.

Abner
was a patient man. He discovered all of these things, which he narrated as he wandered through the debris carrying Boone's hooligan tool.

“Stay
out now,” he warned Boone when he started work and when Boone tried for the fourth time to sneak away from the truck. “Poke around in the grass. See if you find anything interesting.”

“What
qualifies as interesting?”

“Anything
that’s not supposed to be there,” Abner said. “You know, interesting. Like why would an abandoned house still be furnished? Why would the furniture be pushed to the middle of the room?”

Good
questions, Boone thought as he drifted closer to the site.

Here
was something interesting. He stepped close to the foundation of the house on the south side. An explosion had blown a crater at least six feet deep into the center of what was a crawl space. A smaller hole, not as deep, overlapped it. Rubble filled the holes in some. Mixed with the aroma of burnt plastic and wood, Boone noticed the smell of block powder.

“
Doc,” Boone said and tried to squat for a better look. A pain in his ribs made him catch his breath. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to squat.

As
he was standing, he saw the glint of sunshine off a windshield. Cars were rolling down the driveway. Two men were in the front seat of the first car, a navy blue coupe. The second car was a white sedan with the Bragg County emblem on the doors.

“Doc,
we have company.”

Abner
glanced at the cars. He pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Fire marshal's office.”

The
drivers parked the cars on the long grass beside Abner's Range Rover. The men in the front car wore blue and gray striped coveralls. One of them carried a tool belt, and the other had a leather satchel that Boone recognized as an evidence case. The third guy was a suit. He carried a clipboard and had a Bluetooth headset in his ear.

"
Greetings and salutations," Abner called out to the new arrivals.

They
walked past Boone without a word. The suit stopped at the lip of the foundation, where he pulled the Bluetooth and tucked it into his pocket. "May I ask who you are?"

"Yes,” Abner said.

"Yes, what?"

"You
can ask who I am."

"Who
are you?"

Abner
carefully snaked his way through the piles of rubble. "Abner Zickafoose, Ph.D."

The
suit stopped short. "
The
Abner Zickafoose?"

"I
can’t imagine there are too many of us in the world." Abner leaned on the hooligan. "Have we met? My memory's not as good as it used to be."

"No
sir," the suit said, extending an eager hand. "Not personally, anyway. I attended several of your seminars on the collection of human remains at the AFPX conference. Your slideshows are pretty unforgettable, like the fireworks explosion you investigated. I mean, how many times do you see agents collecting toes in cardboard flats?"

"I've
seen it several times myself."

"Really?
What were the situations?"

"Ahem,"
one of the men in the coveralls said.

"
Sorry," the suit said, getting back to business. "I'm R. L. Pickett, Loss Prevention, from the Bragg County Clerk's office. I'm standing in for the fire marshal while he's at a conference. These gentlemen are Mr. Early and Mr. Stuart. They’re independent contractors specializing in site clean up and debris removal."

Boone's
ears perked up. Loss prevention was code for arson investigation. "You think the fire was set deliberately?" he asked.

Pickett
twitched, as if he had noticed Boone for the first time. "I don't think anything, personally." His guard was back up, the government armor back in place.

"
The boy’s with me," Abner said, short-circuiting what undoubtedly was going to be Pickett's next question. "My research assistant. I'm investigating this fire, too."

Research assistant? Boone pondered the idea for a moment. His grandfather had volunteered to help scrutinize the case, but now it felt like
Abner was taking over the investigation. Boone never aspired to be anyone's assistant.

Early
and Stuart moved closer to Pickett. It was like they were forming ranks. "Can I ask why?"

"Sure,” Abner said.

"Sure what?"

Boone
rolled his eyes. Stuart checked his watch, and Early shook his head. Pickett wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed.

"You
can ask why,” Abner said.

"Why
are you investigating the fire, Dr. Zickafoose?"

Abner
swung the hooligan onto his shoulder. He looked perfectly at home standing in a dusty pile of debris, dressed in baggy jeans and an angler's vest. His long beard and hair blew in a breeze that had kicked up. "There's reasonable suspicion that an individual was killed here."

Pickett
shifted uncomfortably. His body language suggested insecurity. No surprise there. Fire investigations were complex. They took years of training and hands-on experience. Pickett had neither. "That's impossible. There were no reports of casualties. Our records indicate the house was vacant. What are you basing your claims on?"

"Evidence."

"What evidence?" Stuart said, almost laughing. "You're wasting time, old fella, and time is money. If you don't mind, just step aside and let us finish what we came to do."

Stuart
beckoned for Early. They stepped over the foundation. Abner met them with the hooligan.

"Actually,
boys. I do mind. I'm trying to locate a body, and if you come tromping in here with those size twelves, you're going to make my job that much harder." He handed a digital camera to Boone. “Take a shot every six seconds until we find something, and then every three. The memory chip’s big enough to hold a thousand pictures, so you won’t fill it up. Got it? Good.”

Pickett,
realizing the situation was getting out of hand, inserted himself in front of Early and Stuart. "Let's not do anything hasty, gentlemen." He said something under his breath to the two men, and they stepped down. He turned back to Abner. "Dr. Zickafoose, I respect your expertise, but the fire captain went over this site earlier. He found no evidence of human remains."

"I'm
not surprised. Firefighters don’t get much training in human identification." He turned and made his way through the piles again. He stopped in the back corner of the house. "That's no fault of his own. Most people don't know where to start looking or what to look for. Mr. Stuart, do you think we should be searching for a skull?"

Stuart
scratched the back of his neck. "Well, yeah. I guess so."

"You're
not going to find one. Temperatures in a house fire can get so hot, the victim's cerebral fluid boils and the skull explodes. The mandible and most of the alveolar process usually survive, along with a few teeth. The rest are usually scattered. Mr. Early, where would you look for a body?"

"No
place special." Early shrugged. "Sort of all over."

"Mistake
number two. Anybody know where the bedrooms were?"

Pickett
consulted his clipboard. "There were two. One on the second floor on the east side of the house."

Abner
pointed at the queen-sized box springs they had found earlier. "Confirmed."

Boone
snapped three pictures.

"The
second," Picket said, reorienting the floor plan map, "was a developed attic space on the south side of the house."

That's
where Abner was standing. "You all care to join me? Boone, you, too."

They
stomped through the sticky, black mud that the mixture of ash and water had made. Boone took it easy. Although he was anxious to see what Abner had found, his ribs were killing him. He realized that he was breathing fast and hard, almost hyperventilating from the thrill.

Abner
followed a line of blowflies buzzing above a mound of debris. "Don't forget. Pictures in, pictures out."

It wasn't
anything Boone hadn't heard before, but there was something off-key in Abner's voice, like the sound of a rusted guitar string. "Is something wrong?"

"I'm making double sure that this scene is preserved."

"Why?"

"Because I'm about to disturb it."

"Hope you know what you're doing," Boone said under his breath to Abner. "Lamar says that you need a warrant to investigate a fire after the crews leave the site."

“He’s right,”
Abner said. "But I’m not a cop. I'm a senile old man. That's what they all say. One good thing about senility, you don't have to stand on ceremony just to make politicians and bureaucrats happy. If anybody asks, I'm just following the flies."

They stopped next to a shape that resembled a small hill. Abner looked at the sun. "Any of you gentlemen ever cleaned up a site after an old house burned?"

They
all shook their heads.

Boone
zoomed in for a closer shot.

"Plaster
acts different from gypsum board in a fire. The lathing behind it burns, and sheets of the stuff collapse. Super heated plaster behaves almost like modeling clay, forming around whatever it hits. Like a box springs, for instance."

Abner
shoved the hooligan under the mound and used an unburned rafter as a fulcrum. The mound lifted up, revealing a twin bed box springs stuck underneath.