Chapter 3

  As day broke the smoke had mostly cleared over what remained of the Jefferies Power station. A single vehicle remained on the scene, labeled Berkeley County Fire Marshal. Two figures sifted through some of debris near where the fire seemed to have started. The first was Fire Marshal David Green, an older black man about average height with what most would consider a dad bod, his hair and mustache were mostly gray, and the years of service were evident by the lines on his face. His assistant Sylvia Branton was much younger than her mentor, being only 23 years of age, she was small and slender with red hair and freckles skin, her hard rimmed glasses covered green eyes that shone like emeralds.

  She was scraping a patch of burnt concrete on the floor of the rubble, and placed the scrapings into a small tube, the clear liquid in the tube instantly reacted to the scrapings turning a dark red color. “Sir, look at this.”, she said holding up the tube.

  Marshal Green made his way to her, “let's have a look, Kid,” Kid was his pet name for Sylvia. He took the tube and studied it for a few seconds before kneeling and scraping off a bit of the residue himself. He placed a bit on the tip of his finger, then smelled it and placed his finger just on the tip of his tongue. He stood silent for a minute then made an offended face and spit out the material.

  “Alcohol based, definitely an accelerant used, this confirms arson.” he said looking around at the destroyed building. “We need to get samples ready to be sent to the lab in Columbia and tell them we need them back asap.” he began grabbing evidence bags and scraping around the spot. Sylvia paused for a second then asked a serious question, “This is just like the last two isn’t David?”

  David shook his head, “The last two fires were abandoned buildings, this one was occupied, that’s an escalation kid.”

  An hour later they arrived at Station 21, Engine 210 and Ladder 21 were on the pad getting scrubbed down before the end of shift. Inside the bay Captain Miller and several Firefighter were practicing Yoga for a morning workout, David noted that while he was much older than the captain, he definitely wasn’t nearly that limber anymore.

  The inspectors waited patiently until they were done before getting the captain’s attention, “Miller, quit showing off for the probies!”

  Wayne made his way over and laughing, “David you’re just jealous you can’t move like I can.”

  David smiled big “from what your wife says I don’t need to, guess it's all about the right equipment.”

  Wayne hugged his friend, laughing, “I don’t have a comeback for that one so point goes to you.”

  Sylvia shook her head at them and stated in a very matter of fact tone, “I’ll never understand why you men do that, especially when everyone knows it takes a woman to please a woman.”

  David and Wayne stared at her, their mouths agape for a moment as they processed the sly insult they had just received then erupted in laughter, bringing a smile to the young Marshal’s face. “David, she’s more dangerous than you are,” Wayne joked, “At this rate you need to look into early retirement.”

  David nodded, “She does always make me proud, one hell of an investigator, speaking of which we need to talk.”

  Wayne nodded and led them to his office, offering them a seat. He grabbed a bottle of water from his mini-fridge and leaned on his desk in front of them. David handed him the report on the Jefferies fire highlighted on was the line reading unk accelerant possible alcohol based. He looked up at David and Sylvia, the concern evident on their faces, “Is it the same style and chemical as the other two?”

  Sylvia glanced at David who nodded then she presented her evidence, “The fire clearly started in a small, sealed room where an accelerant was used to allow it to build quickly, its possible additional fuel was stored there to allow it spread faster as well. We located several trails that show the accelerant was placed to guide the fire to areas where it would find an ample fuel source.” She paused for a second, then pulled out two folder and handed them to him, “these are the same patterns found at the fire at the abandon Powertech factory and the old presbyterian church in the past month, both of those building were abandoned for some time, Jefferies, even though it’s shut down still had a small workforce onsite.”

  Wayne walked around to the back of his desk and sat in his chair looking briefly at a photo on the wall of him, his father Frankie and Kayla when she had graduated from the Academy. She was in the first class of recruits he trained. He had just become lieutenant back then, Frankie had maybe in the department a year and his dad was still healthy. He had remembered his father saying how proud he was that all his kids were firefighters now, that was how he had looked at Frankie and Kayla, not just as young people who were friends with his son, but as his own kids, last night someone almost took their lives, and it was intentional.

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  “Who else knows all this?”, he asked looking back at David and Sylvia, “Who do we need to bring in?”

  “County has a Certified Fire investigator, April Wells, you know her, she was looking into the Powertech fire, at first we figured it was an insurance scam but now…” he trailed off almost as if what he thought was too dangerous to say. Sylvia cleared her throat then spoke, “Captain in situations like this the first suspects that need to be ruled out are the responders in that area sir, it’s possible that.”

  Wayne slammed his fist on the table cutting her off, “that’s bullshit, everyone one of my crew went into those buildings, and I almost lost two of them, now you wanna blame them!”, his face was red with anger as he stood from his chair, Sylvia had never seen this side of him before and for a second she worried he was going to attack them.

  David spoke calmly, but avoided looking at Wayne, “Nobody thinks they did it, but we have to question them, maybe they saw something they didn’t think was important, but it was, we wanted to give you a fair warning before it started.”

  Wayne crossed his arms, the anger still very evident on his face, “Ask any question you need to, you can use my office, but my team didn’t do it, I’ll call then crew back in but watch your ass or it’ll be 03 all over again David.” He stormed out of the office and made his way towards the truck bay.

  Sylivia turned towards David, “03’?” she inquired.

  David looked away as if ashamed, “I accused his father of trying to protect a possible arsonist, things got heated and Wayne put me on my ass.”

  Sylvia was shocked, Wayne was almost always happy and joking around, she would never have thought him to be violent. David gave a chuckle, “You wouldn’t think he gets violent, but you go after one of his and he’s like a demon, he’s been willing to fight just as hard for me as anybody in this department, I really feel for the first guy who breaks his daughters heart.”

  Officer Wells arrived about an hour later, she was around 5’8” with curly dark hair tanned skin and an athletic figure. She went to greet Wayne but the second she saw his face she made a u-turn and went straight into the office without so much as a word to the captain. April had known him since high school and she knew he was very hard to anger but when you did, just avoid him. She was a former marine and nurse before she became a cop, she volunteered for the arson training because she thought she’d get to work closely with firefighters and so many of her friends were in the department. Unfortunately, when they saw her coming most times it wasn’t a friendly visit, and the conversations were far from enjoyable.

  Over the next several hours every firefighter from all three shifts at station 21 came in for an interview, for most of them it was their day off and they were annoyed to say the least. The last interview was Kayla Lee, she was bandaged from injuries she’d gotten during the collapse. April knew Kayla wasn’t the type to set fires, but she had to do her job. Kayla walked into the room in blue jean shorts and a halter top, her skin gleaming from a light bead of sweat from the South Carolina summer heat. She gave Sylvia a wry smile causing her to nervously glance away momentarily, before sitting and glaring at April.

  April pushed record on the device sitting between then then cleared her throat.

  “Firefighter Lee, are you aware why you are here?” she asked

  “Because you’re a cop and the lead in you bullets fills your head sometimes?” Kayla quipped back sarcastically before giving a real answer, “cause you think one of us set that fire.”

  April nodded, “I don’t think any of you did it, but I have to rule you all out, and I have to know what you saw.” She tried to take as relaxed a stance as possible so she wouldn’t upset her any more than she was.

  “How many times have you been to Jefferies in the last 48 hours?”

  Kayla sighed in frustration then took a deep breath, “Once, I was on the first engine to respond to the fire last night.”

  This is good April thought she’s less hostile, maybe she’ll be easier to work with, “Can you describe your initial response?”

  Kayla groaned but answered, “It was a textbook response, Engine 210 took an attack position, Scott, had the backup lay a line in from the hydrant, Ladder 21 set on the A-D corner, we met with security, they said people were still inside, McMurray and Cambell were teamed up and me and Frankie of course went in for S&R and Tillman and Watts had the attack line, we filled them in and searched left side throughout the building til it came down on our heads.”

  April nodded, “Did you notice anything unusual?”

  Kayla was about to snap no when a thought hit her, “Me and Frankie preplanned that building, where we found the seat of the fire, shouldn’t have had anything that would’ve burned that hot, it was mainly the break area and cafeteria, and most of that was shut down. I mean it shouldn’t have been enough to cause that spread or bring the place down so fast.”

  April and Sylvia exchanged a glance, “So that area was largely unused?”

  Kayla nodded, “After they shut the main plant down that area of the building was really only used for meetings, I mean everybody was usually up in the control room or in the back offices where we got trapped.”

  April turned off the recorder, and looked at Kayla, “Kayla, thank you, I’m sorry you had to come in here, but we have to follow procedure,” she reached out to shake Kayla’s hand and for a moment Kayla let it sit there before accepting it. “Just make sure you catch whoever did this April and remember who your friends are.” She walked out with the same swagger she walked in with only briefly turning towards Sylvia to give her a wink before vanishing from sight.

  “Syliva you’re drooling, “April said flatly gathering her papers and files, “though I guess I can see why, but come one, I gotta face Wayne and he’s easier to deal with when kids are around.”