Part 14 (1/2)
”Her sister still there as a patient?”
”I believe so.”
”She okay? I'm a friend.”
”Her condition hasn't changed.”
It was hard to realize how much hope I'd invested in Stephanie Riggs, a woman who really had no reason to help me.
She'd promised to call this morning.
Promised.
It was a bigger disappointment than it should have been. Between my dissatisfaction with the meeting and Stephanie's failure to contact me, I was feeling as forgotten as a puppy in a locked garage.
I dug through my wallet for Stephanie's cell phone number, but I'd misplaced it.
I sat down with the s.h.i.+pping manifest from Continental Freightways. DuPont was a possibility. They were a chemical company. But what bothered me more than the manifest was that I'd been lied to by the guy at JCP, Inc. I picked up the phone and called them back, asked for Mr. Stuart, was told he was out to lunch. No s.h.i.+t, I thought. He was out to lunch when I spoke to him. They took my phone number and promised he would call back.
In the officers' room I looked up Jane's on the Internet. It was a rocket fuel company, or had been. Now they were researching hydrogen fuel cell technology for all sorts of things: s.p.a.cecraft, jets, automobiles, hovercraft, military vehicles, submarines. A quick glance at their literature told me they used platinum in their work. I didn't see how platinum could have caused our problems, but then, what did I know?
While I was on the Internet, on a whim, I went to my favorite search engine and began trying out various phrases: downed firefighters, fatal firefighter illness, firefighter mystery casualty, brain-dead firefighters downed firefighters, fatal firefighter illness, firefighter mystery casualty, brain-dead firefighters. After about twenty-five minutes of experimenting, I came across an obituary for a firefighter in Chattanooga, Tennessee: Vic Swenson, former all-state tailback for the Olewah Owls and twenty-year veteran of the Chattanooga Fire Department, died yesterday after a long, undiagnosed illness, the result of the controversial Southeast Travelers Freight fire three years ago. For the past three years Vic has resided in the Sunnyside Nursing Home, where he's made lots of friends. He was active in fis.h.i.+ng and hunting and played golf at least once a week, and most of his friends said he was the smartest ”cheater” they ever saw. Vic always had a smile for everyone and will be missed by his wife, Sally, and three children, Vic Jr., Echo, and Heather. Memorials may be made to the Citizens' Fund for Truth about Southeast Travelers.
For many long minutes I found nothing else on the Internet about the Citizens' Fund for Truth, and then I came upon a Web site put up by a CFD firefighter named Charlie Drago called ”The Truth about the Southeast Travelers Incident.” Unfortunately, the site was bollixed beyond belief, so that there was only the home page. Lots of tantalizing promises of links and other pages, but none of it worked. I tried a different Web browser, but that didn't produce anything, either. Only the home page. No links. No contact information. No phone number. Also, the word incident incident had been spelled had been spelled incedent incedent.
I phoned the Chattanooga Fire Department main switchboard, told them I was a fire officer in North Bend, Was.h.i.+ngton, and was looking for Charles Drago. I was told he was on duty today and given a station house phone number, which I then called. ”Yeah. Charlie's working today. Let me get him for you.”
As did the woman who answered the phone, Charlie Drago had a Southern drawl so thick you could cut it with a chain saw. I explained who I was and detailed my situation. ”You told anybody about this?” he asked. ”Anybody at all?”
”Well, yes.”
”Then you'd better watch your a.s.s, buddy. They'll be coming after you. No s.h.i.+t. They're probably following you right now. They'll burn your home down. They tried to burn mine down. They'll blow you to smithereens. I mean this. No s.h.i.+t. They'll blow you to Kingdom Come. Your life ain't worth a plug nickel.”
”Who will? Who will blow me to smithereens?”
”Them.”
”Who's them?”
”Whoever was responsible for our incident at Southeast Travelers. Probably the same a.s.sholes who're responsible for what's happening to you fine folks. We lost three guys there. Well, one's dead. The other two only wish they were.”
”Vic Swenson?”
”Yeah. He was one. How did you know that? You're not working for the insurance company, are you? You b.a.s.t.a.r.d.”
”No, Charlie. I'm not working for the insurance company. I'm a firefighter in North Bend. What happened to these guys at the freight company fire?”
”They tried to burn my house down. You see my Web site? It's all on my Web site.”
”I was just there. I couldn't find anything on it.”
”d.a.m.n it! I posted that just yesterday. They trash my site. You know what else? I think they're following me again. Hey. Check it out. If they're not following you by now, they will be. Now tell me the truth. You're not one of them, are you?”
”Charlie, I'm not sure-” Even as I spoke, the house bells clanged. This guy was crazy. I wondered why they even left him on duty. Battier than bat s.h.i.+t. ”That's our house bell, Charlie. We've got a call. I'll talk to you later.”
”Vaya con Dios, amigo.”
”Sure, Charlie.”
I wasn't on duty, but it was a long-standing tradition that extra hands hanging around the station responded in the event of a fire call. Had it been an aid alarm, I wouldn't have bothered, but the tones were for a fire call, and when the dispatcher announced what we had, it came in as a trailer fire. Heavy black smoke reported by cell phone callers on the freeway. More calls were being received from neighbors out on Edgewick Road.
In our department most ”smoke in the vicinity” calls turned out to be bogus, a yard crew burning brush, a hobbyist farmer tuning up his tractor, a woodstove stoked down too far.
At ”working fires” our department relied on mutual aid from nearby departments and on volunteers, who would race from their day jobs or abandon their spouses at night to risk their lives backing us up. It was absolutely the best part of small-town America, and having been raised in the city, I loved every part of it.
Before I cleared the office, my girls rushed downstairs in a state of breathless agitation.
”A fire, Daddy! A fire!” Allyson yelled. It was funny to see her shed her matronly manner so quickly. ”Can we go?”
Britney was so intoxicated with the thrill of it, she couldn't speak at all, just stood next to her older sister gasping for breath. Morgan pretended to be above it all, but I could see she was amped, too.
Any other day I would have said no, but this might be their last chance to see me doing one of the few things I did well.
I tossed Morgan the keys to the Lexus. ”Do not go over the speed limit. Adjust the mirrors. Obey all the traffic laws. Don't worry about missing anything. If it's a good fire, it'll still be burning when you get there. Park off the roadway. Watch out for firefighters and incoming apparatus. Volunteers out here get pretty jazzed. Don't get in anyone's way.”
”Yes, Mr. Swope,” said Morgan.
Ian Hjorth, who had already kicked off his station boots and put on his bunking boots and pants, was climbing up behind the wheel of the engine. Without taking off my civilian clothes, I climbed into the cab next to him. Karrie and Ben Arden were seated behind us in the crew cab. They would finish dressing and don air masks while we drove, prepared to step off the rig and fight fire upon arrival.
Manned by the first arriving volunteer at the station, the tanker would respond to refill our pumper when we ran out of water. Empty, it would then be driven to the nearest hydrant to be refilled. Our engine carried a thousand gallons, enough to put out most structure fires in their incipient stages. The tanker carried an additional five thousand.
Just below Mount Was.h.i.+ngton, I spotted a pall of heavy black smoke rising from behind a low hill. The color and the speed with which the smoke was rising were indicators that we had a structure fire.
On the radio I confirmed that we had a column of black smoke. This would let our volunteers on Wilderness Rim know to bring the engine we kept parked up there at our satellite station. It would also let Snoqualmie, our mutual aid department from the next small town over, know we really had something. It would let the first volunteer to arrive at the station know that he should bring the tanker.
We exited the freeway and rolled up a narrow road shaded by trees on both sides. Here and there a driveway or an open yard fronted the road. Two horses in a field lashed out with their rear legs and galloped off at the sound of our siren.
Half a mile from the freeway, we found smoke coming from the rear of a large lot mostly hidden by trees and brush. ”It's Caputo's place,” Ian Hjorth said, swinging our engine into Caputo's driveway.
”I spotted a hydrant about two hundred yards back.”
”I'll tell the tanker guy when he gets here.”
Because I was the first officer on scene, I would automatically become the incident commander, which meant I would remain outside the fire building and coordinate fire-fighting efforts, remain in contact with incoming units on the radio, and dole out a.s.signments to individual firefighters as they showed up in their private vehicles. It would be my responsibility to make sure everybody on the fire ground worked as a team, that rescues were made promptly, that n.o.body was injured.
The first rule of fire fighting was: Don't get hurt.
If all the civilians weren't out of the building, or if we didn't know for certain whether they were out, our priority would be rescue. Most of the time, though, rescue and extinguishment went hand in hand. You put the fire out-the victim was no longer in danger.