CHAPTER FOUR!
Carson, California
NIGEL Cunningham surveyed the scene of the apartment fire closely, taking note of every little thing he saw. What was left of a suspicious glass bottle near the window of room 106 on the ground floor, possible point of origin, the odour of gasoline. With keen eyes and an even keener sense of smell, Cunningham noted it all.
Of course, he wasn't called the best fire investigator in Los Angeles County for nothing. He really was the best. And he knew it, too.
Standing up, he looked over to the junior investigators scanning the other parts of the charred room 106.
"Ahem!" He picked at his well-shaped moustache and waited for the junior investigators to acknowledge him.
The three of them stopped their scanning to look in his direction.
"Did you find something?" one asked.
Did you find something, sir, Cunningham corrected in his thoughts without speaking aloud. "Yes, I did," he said instead. "Come take a look at this and tell me what you think of it, Marlowe."
Marlowe carefully worked his way over to the place where Cunningham stood pointing to the floor. Near the blown-out window a partially melted glass container of some kind rested on the floor.
"Melted glass?" Marlowe asked.
Cunningham lifted his eyebrows. "Says Molotov cocktail to me."
"Maybe," Marlowe said. "But it could also be a melted vase or something..."
"What do you smell, Mr. Marlowe?"
Marlowe squinted. "What do I smell?"
"What do you smell?"
"Um...I smell lots of burnt wood..."
"No, no, no!" Cunningham took Marlowe by the collar of his fire jacket and forced him to kneel with him. "Smell the glass. Go, on—sniff it."
Marlowe sniffed the glass and then choked. "Gasoline?"
"Accelerant!" Cunningham stood up and clapped happily. "Bravo! Now get up, and look at the direction in which the fire spread."
Standing too, Marlowe looked, noticing how the origin of the fire seemed to come from where the glass was melted on the floor, spreading away from the window and to the rest of the apartment. "Point of origin?"
"Molotov cocktail," Cunningham said, his moustache curving up into a smile. He whipped out a Polaroid camera and snapped some pictures of the glass and the rest of the scene. "I believe we need to give the Sheriff's Department a call. It's their investigation now. I rule this fire suspicious and probable arson!"
Station 51
Having arrived quite early for his shift that Monday morning, Johnny was nearly ready by the time Roy trudged into the locker-room.
"Your ankle feeling any better?" Johnny asked his partner the moment he walked in.
"Yeah." Roy shuffled over to his locker and opened it. "It's feeling a lot better."
"That's great." Johnny tucked in his shirt and then closed his locker up with a smile.
"You seem happy..." Roy observed apprehensively as Johnny sat down on a nearby bench. At that cue, Johnny reasoned that Roy wouldn't mind hearing about the details of his weekend while getting ready, so he went into his lively narrative. "It was absolutely far out, Roy!" Johnny began. "You remember Barbara, don't you?"
Roy half-heartedly turned to glance at Johnny as he put his shirt on. "Uh...who?"
"The stewardess," Johnny went on. "Barbara."
"Johnny...I don't keep regular tabs on all the girls you date..."
"Come on." Johnny was surprised that Roy didn't remember Barb. She was probably the most serious girlfriend he'd ever had. Well—other than Valerie—then again, he certainly never wanted to think about Valerie ever again consider how that ended up. Yes, Barb was definately more serious than Valerie...
"You really don't remember Barbara?" Johnny went on. "I mean—her and I—we..."
Roy slowly shook his head.
"Never mind." Johnny shook his head too. "It's not that important. Just—we ran into each other again a few weeks ago and got to talking. She wanted to start going out again, so we have."
"Mmm-hmm..."
"Anyways—she is one crazy chick! I really don't recall her ever having quite a wild side the last time we went out. We were both up at my friend, Jake's, housewarming party in Palos Verdes on Saturday, and the place he bought is just out of sight!"
"Right..."
Johnny chuckled at himself. He was only just getting to the good part. "Well, it's got this really nice Jacuzzi, right? And since it was kinda cold we were all hanging out in it for a while. So Barb does the craziest thing. She says, 'I'm hot' and gets out of the Jacuzzi. And—get this—she goes to jump in the freezing swimming pool, after she—" Johnny trailed off the second he noticed someone standing next to him.
"Go on, John," A voice egged on.
Johnny turned to see Chet standing there, eagerly waiting for him to finish his story. "Get out of here, Chet!" Johnny yelled as he stood and shoved him away.
"Aw, but I wanted to hear the rest!" Chet lingered in the doorway.
"I was tellin' it to Roy, not you," Johnny grumbled at him through clenched teeth.
"Well," Roy said bluntly, "Chet actually wants to hear it..."
Johnny flung around to look at Roy. He couldn't believe his partner didn't want to hear about his weekend! "Now I see how it is! I guess my weekend was unimportant. How was your weekend, Roy?—since ya don't wanna hear about mine..."
"It was all right." Roy closed up his locker with a half-grin. "Other than sitting around all day listening to Joanne talk about how worried she was about me."
Chet nodded in mock concern. "Trouble with the misses?"
Johnny chuckled and Roy glared at him.
"Not trouble," Roy corrected. "She just got really upset with me inuring myself, that's all. We had the age-old discussion about always being careful on the job."
"You mean: age-old argument," Chet suggested.
Roy frowned. "Chet—get out of here..."
The facetious smirk left Chet's face at the tone of Roy's voice and he acted like he'd heard something. "Oh, man...I think I hear the Captain calling me. Se ya later, guys..." And with that, he was gone as fast as he had appeared.
"See ya later, guys..." Johnny repeated in exasperation. "Pft! What a ridiculous...Hey?" Johnny noticed Roy suddenly looked beat. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine." Roy shrugged a little, looking down at his feet.
Johnny knew what it was without even having to ask any further questions. "Joanne was really worried about ya, wasn't she?"
"Yeah."
Johnny pursed his lips in thought and leaned up against the doorway. "I thought she was usually okay with your job."
"She is." Roy sat down on the bench. "But I guess it just got to her this time."
That was when an idea popped into Johnny's head, and the second it was there he deemed it brilliant. He just had to mention it right away. This would certainly help his friend out. "You know what you and Joanne need?" he asked in excitement.
Roy tentatively looked up at him. "What...?"
"You need to go out or something! Have some fun!"
"We go out," Roy suddenly defended himself. "We have fun."
Johnny was instantly doubtful of this. "Well," he said. "When's the last time you went out together?"
"Last month, for our anniversary. We had dinner at that seafood place on the pier."
What an excuse! Johnny thought. An anniversary! "That doesn't count!" he said as he shook his head vehemently. "An anniversary is an obligatory sorta date. When's the last time you guys went out just for the heck of it?"
Roy looked like he was thinking for a prolonged moment and then opened his mouth. "Uh—well, I dunno...we won that free dinner from that game show we were on?"
"That was almost two years ago...just listen to this, Roy. Why don't you and Joanne go out dancing with me and Barbara? We were thinking about going this coming Friday. A double date. Whataya say?"
Roy scratched his head. "Well—uh...what kind of dancing?"
Johnny snorted. "What kinda dancing...Disco dancing, Roy. It's the latest thing these days. Now, I know there's a significant age gap between you and me, but I'm sure you'll love it anyways."
Roy gave Johnny an annoyed look. "Johnny...we're only a year-and-a-half apart..."
"Well, whataya say? Will ya talk to Joanne about it, or not?"
Roy shrugged. "All right! I'll talk to her about it when I get home..."
Johnny flashed a crooked smile. "Great! We'll have fun!"
Just then their conversation was interrupted when the locker-room door opened and Mike Stoker peered in. "Are you guys coming?" the taciturn engineer asked. "Marco's almost got breakfast ready."
At the mention of food, Johnny completely forgot about anything other than his sudden hunger. "My stomach's digesting itself!" he exclaimed as he and Roy followed Mike over to the kitchen. Over at the stove, Marco was creating something magical—as always. From the smell of it, it was some kind of spiced-up omelette. Johnny's mouth watered as he sat down in between Roy and Mike.
"That smells really good, Marco," Johnny hollered back to him.
"It's almost done," Marco replied.
"I just hope we have time to eat it," Chet said. "I was a little disappointed that you guys didn't get the chance to try my chili last Thursday."
Johnny had a slight gag reflex, Roy made a face, and Mike grumbled something.
"What?" Chet asked, but none of them dared to answer him.
"So, where's Cap?" Johnny asked, changing the subject.
"He had some sort of phone call," Marco supplied as he flipped his omelette over in the pan. "I think it was pretty important. He closed the office door..."
The other firemen looked over. Sure enough, the door to Captain Stanley's office was shut.
"Huh," Johnny mused. "I wonder what it could be..."
"Here's your slice." Marco flopped a triangle of omelette on Johnny's plate, taking all his concentration away from Captain Stanley's phone call.
Johnny dug in immediately, stuffing his face with a large chunk of egg. "This is great!" he chortled with his mouth full.
The other guys were too busy eating to say anything, so the table fell silent for a time, until Captain Stanley came walking in. His hands rested limply in his pants pockets and he had a concerned look on his face.
"What is it, Cap?" Roy asked him as he sat down at the table.
Captain Stanley shook his head. "That was a call from the Battalion Chief," he said. "He wanted to inform everyone that was called to that apartment fire that the investigators ruled it arson."
Chet leaned forward, pointing with his fork. "You mean someone intentionally set that one?"
"That's what arson means," Johnny stated flatly. Chet glowered back at him.
"Well," Marco said, "maybe it was just a bunch of stupid kids who set it unwittingly."
Captain Stanley's face fell into a frank expression. "Apparently they're not releasing details yet," he said. "But the head investigator was adamant that it wasn't any kind of accident. The Battalion Chief wants us all to be on high alert just in case this wasn't an isolated incident and there's some lunatic going around."
The alarm suddenly sounded then, startling all the firemen and sending them even more on edge.
"Squad 51," the dispatcher began, and everyone save for Johnny and Roy sighed in relief. "Possible heart attack. 25204, Eshelman Avenue, cross street: 253rd."
Johnny and Roy quickly made their way to the squad and were off in a flash, thankful that, this time, it wasn't a fire.
