Flashover (A Sean McGhee Mystery Book 2) Read online

  He straightened, his hands in the small of his back as he stared at the sky, slowly walking in circles, still trying to catch his breath. He huffed out a hard breath as his breathing finally began to slow.

  “I think you’re trying to kill me. That, or you enjoy torturing me,” he panted.

  She grinned as they ambled toward the front door. “Nah. You’re just getting started. You’re doing great! Better than I did when I first started running. It took me four or five months before I could run all the way to the stop sign and back. You’ve done it in only a couple. I think that’s terrific.” She gave him a teasing grin and a nudge in the ribs. “Ready to go to the other stop sign now?”

  He chuckled then coughed once. “Let me get to this stop sign and back without dying before we worry about the other four miles, okay?”

  She gave him a playful pout. “Okay,” she said, her voice dripping with disappointment. “I guess I’ll just have to keep running that one alone.”

  They entered the house, and as he rehydrated and set the table, Maggie took a shower. After she stepped out, he got in while she finished preparing dinner.

  When he appeared from his shower, dinner was on the table. She’d prepared a summer salad of pasta with cold chicken in a vinegar and oil dressing, mixed with radishes, green peppers, onions and Garbanzo beans. It was delicious, and best of all, served cold. The last thing he wanted at the moment was some of Maggie’s home-style southern cooking.

  “Other than being tasered, how was your day?” Maggie asked, her tone playful, as she popped a bit of pasta and chicken into her mouth.

  “S2D2. What about you?”

  S2D2 was their shorthand for ‘same shit, different day.’

  “Air conditioner went out in the admin building today. That’s going to be a problem.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “Yeah, not only is it uncomfortably hot, but the heat screws up the lab results. Someone is supposed to come look at it tomorrow, but if they can’t fix it pretty quick, we’re going to have to do some scrambling. We may have to buy a portable air conditioner for the lab, or contract the tests out until the unit is repaired, or something.” She shook her head. “If it’s not one thing, it’s three others.”

  Sean nodded. Like most, he’d given no thought to what happened when he flushed his toilet, until a dead body had turned up floating in Brunswick’s wastewater treatment plant. That’s when Maggie, the plant manager, had given him a crash course in how a treatment plant worked.

  As the case progressed, and the mystery deepened, he’d relied on her expertise to help him solve the case. He’d kept it strictly professional, but while they worked as a team to piece together the clues, he’d become more and more attracted to her. After he arrested Steve Locoste for the murder of Boyd Thacker, he’d asked her out on a date to celebrate. She’d accepted and that, as they say, was that.

  They’d been dating a little over two months and he’d forgotten how much he could enjoy the company of a woman. He hadn’t dated anyone regularly since his separation and divorce three years before, and hadn’t wanted to, but that was before Maggie. With her southern charm and that slow drawl of hers, the attraction he felt for her was growing by the day, and she seemed to feel the same way. He wasn’t in love with her, but he found on the rare nights they didn’t see each other, he missed her.

  After they finished eating, he helped her tidy up and then fed TC, her cat, before they settled on the couch. Maggie was a huge movie buff and they spent a lot of time snuggled on the couch while watching something on Netflix. Netflix and chill, she called it.

  He’d never been a big movie watcher before, but her enthusiasm for cinema was infectious and he found himself looking forward to watching movies with her. Whether it was because he was beginning to enjoy movies more, or because it meant Maggie was curled up and tucked in close, he wasn’t sure, but whatever the reason, he looked forward to these times most of all.

  They watched Hell or High Water, and though it was a little warm to be cuddling, he didn’t mind, his fingers softly caressing her arm as she did the same to his leg.

  As the ending credits began to roll, she stretched up with a sigh, and he took her lips in a slow kiss. He wanted to stay the night. He was jazzed up from surviving the tasing, something that had been preying on his mind for the last couple of days, and the excitement of finally being able to run all the way to the stop sign and back without having to slow to a walk for a breather. Most of all, though, Maggie made him feel like he was twenty again.

  He clamped down on his desires. He could wait, and he didn’t want to ruin what might be the best thing to ever happen to him by coming on too strong and being too demanding.

  They spent some time snogging before he stretched and groaned. If she hadn’t asked him to stay by now she wasn’t going to. They had an unspoken agreement that the hosting party had to invite, and she hadn’t. He was disappointed, but she’d spent the night at his place last night so he knew he had no cause for complaint.

  “It’s getting late,” he murmured.

  “Yeah,” she sighed. “I’d like you to stay, but I have to get up and be at work early tomorrow so I can deal with the air conditioner problem.”

  At least she wanted him stay, and if he was going to have to take a cold shower, it made him feel a little better that she would too.

  “It’s okay,” he whispered before kissing her softly again.

  The caress of his lips led to another round of kissing before she sighed and pushed him gently away.

  She held his gaze. “Stop, before I change my mind.”

  “Is that a bad thing?” he breathed as he feathered kisses over her face.

  “It would be at four o’clock in the morning.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah, probably so.” He kissed her again, but with less passion this time. “Thanks for dinner.”

  She smiled. “Thanks for coming over. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  “I hope so.”

  They sat for a moment, watching each other’s eyes before she broke contact. She looked almost disappointed as she sighed. He gave her a small smile, another noisy kiss, then slowly squirmed out from under her and rose to his feet. She stood with him and then escorted him to the door, still tucked in close. She appeared as reluctant for him to leave as he felt.

  He’d just opened the door when he realized his running gear and uniform pants and shirt were still in her bedroom.

  “My clothes!”

  Stepping past, he hurried to her boudoir and returned with his dirty clothes. Retrieving his clothes had broken the mood and leaving was easier now. He offered her another slow kiss in parting.

  “See you tomorrow,” he whispered as he pulled back from the kiss, giving her face a soft caress in the process.

  “Count on it,” she murmured in return.

  He stepped out of her house and walked to his car. He gave her a wave over the top, grinning like a love-struck schoolboy as she waggled her fingers in return.

  He dropped into the Charger. As he backed down the drive, he saw her standing on the porch, watching him leave. For reasons he couldn’t readily explain, it pleased him she was watching, and he was still smiling as he backed into the road and roared away.

  Three

  “Sean? Chief Turney is here to see you,” Kim’s voice said from his phone.

  Sean didn’t stand on a lot of formality. His officers and dispatchers frequently called him by name in private, unless they were teasing him in some way.

  “Send him back.”

  Sean stood as Brunswick’s fire chief stepped into his office. They knew of each other, of course, but they’d never actually met.

  “Pete? What can I do for you? Have a seat,” Sean said as he waved at a guest chair.

  Pete extended his hand. “Sean, nice to finally meet you,” he said as they shook, and then settled into the indicated chair. “The fire yesterday, out at the mill? It looks like it was arson and I wanted to put you in the loop
.”

  Peter Turney was a heavy-set man of nearly seventy, with thinning salt-and-pepper hair, a deeply lined face, and startlingly blue eyes that reminded Sean of the North Carolina sky. He walked with a slight limp, the result of a wrecked car’s airbag deploying during a rescue and breaking his hip. The injury had laid him up for a while, but he’d recovered and returned to doing what he loved.

  He was a city institution and had been with the Brunswick Fire Department for fifty-two years. He’d joined as a junior firefighter at sixteen and often proudly claimed he would retire the day he died. Sean suspected that was true, and if it wasn’t, Pete would probably die soon afterwards.

  “Arson? I’m not questioning your judgement, but you’re sure it wasn’t some vagrant?”

  Pete shrugged. “Could’ve been, but if it was a vagrant, he still intended to start the fire. It looks like an accelerant was used.”

  Sean chewed on his bottom lip a moment. “Okay. Now what? We’re not exactly setup to investigate arson.”

  Pete snorted. “We’re not either. The last time this happened we turned it over to Bill.”

  Sean’s lips thinned as the corners of his mouth pulled down. “Okay. Any clues to who?”

  Pete smiled. “Nope.”

  “Come on, help the new guy out!”

  “I wish I could, Sean, but we’ve got nothing but a burned mattress. Want to take a look?”

  “You’ll go with me and tell me what I’m looking at?”

  “Sure, if you want.”

  “I want. You want to ride with me or take two cars?”

  “Why don’t we go in my truck, that way we can drive right up to the door,” Pete offered.

  “Sounds good to me. Now?”

  “Now’s fine if it’s good for you.”

  “Works for me,” Sean said as he kicked his chair back and stood.

  They walked out of his office toward the lobby. Sean paused to stick his head into the dispatcher’s office.

  “Kim, I’m going with Pete. He’s going to teach me everything he knows about arson.”

  Pete chuckled and waved from the hall. “Hey Kim. If that’s all he wants, we’ll be back in fifteen or twenty minutes.”

  “I’ve got you covered,” Kim said with a nod. “How you doing, Pete? Haven’t seen you in a while.”

  “Still pushing.”

  Sean followed Pete out of the station into the parking lot where he crawled up into Pete’s chief’s vehicle.

  Down the side of the white Dodge Durango was a broad red reflective stripe that started at the front wheel arch. The top of the stripe was even with the top of the wheel opening, then kicked up at an angle on the back door so the bottom of the stripe just cleared the rear tire. In the stripe over the rear tire, FIRE was spelled out in bold white letters. The Brunswick Fire Department shield was on the front doors, breaking the stripe, and CHIEF was spelled out in smaller red letters over the front tire. The red strobes behind the windshield, rear glass, and in the grill completed the look. Like the BPD cruisers, it was a purposeful and attractive looking rig.

  “You know,” Sean began as Pete backed out of the parking space, “I never expected the job to be like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “This. Murder. Arson. This isn’t Boston. I thought I was moving to Mayberry and I would spend my days walking around the downtown area saying hello to Floyd and Goober.”

  Pete chuckled and then glanced at Sean. “If only it were like that. You do know Mayberry was a fictional town, right?”

  Sean grinned. “Really? I thought it was a real place.”

  Pete shrugged. “You should get up to Mt. Airy sometime. That’s where Andy Griffith is from, and supposedly Mayberry is based on the place. Maybe it was kind of like Mayberry back in the day, but I’m sure they have all the same problems we do, just like every other place in the country. This is a different town than the one I grew up in, that’s for sure.”

  “You lived here your whole life, right?”

  He gave Sean another sly glance. “Not yet.”

  Sean snickered. “Okay, point taken. But dragging a dead body out of the wastewater plant? That sounds like something that would happen in Boston.”

  “Just trying to make you feel at home. I tell you though, that was a hell of a thing. Steve Locoste, a murderer? When that was all going down I would have bet good money you were barking up the wrong tree.” Pete looked at Sean. “That’s why you’re the cop and I’m not.”

  “You weren’t the only one who thought I was looking in the wrong place.”

  “Yeah. I heard Rudy was giving you a hard time. Don’t let it get to you. Rudy’s an okay guy.”

  “You have a lot of problems with arson?”

  Pete shook his head. “No, not really. No more so than any other place. The last case where I was sure it was arson was when that guy… what was his name?” he asked himself softly, obviously trying to remember the arsonist’s name. “Anyway, that guy who set his truck on fire. Bill couldn’t prove it, but we all knew he’s the one who did it. That was five or six years ago.”

  “How did you know it was arson?”

  “Things just didn’t add up. For example, it’s funny how an almost new truck breaks down on the side of the road then bursts into flames, isn’t it?”

  “That’s what happened?”

  “Supposedly. The fuel line came loose and sprayed gas all over the place under the hood.”

  “And that’s the reason you think it was arson?”

  Pete shrugged. “If he’d stayed with the truck, I might have bought the story. That’s what most people would have done, right? Open the hood to see what was wrong, see the flame and either try to put it out or call the fire department. But not him. He went home to call a tow truck. He said the truck was fine when he left it. Fire doesn’t work that way. If it was going to light off it would have done it immediately. Once the truck stopped running and he turned off the key, the chance of it catching on fire went way down. And what’s wrong with his cell phone? Plus, I’d have waited at my truck for the tow, wouldn’t you?”

  Sean nodded. “Yeah, sounds guilty to me too, but it’s all circumstantial.”

  “Yeah. That’s what Bill said. In the investigation, he turned up the guy was in arrears on his payments and the finance company was trying to repossess his truck, but he couldn’t tie the guy to the fire. Arson is hard to prove. Something like only fifteen percent of arson cases result in an arrest.”

  Sean made a face, his right eye squinting as he twisted his mouth to the side. “Fifteen percent? You’re not making me feel any better about this.”

  “You have a better chance of figuring it out than I do. Remember what I said about Locoste?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know anything about fire, arson, or any of that stuff,” Sean protested. “I’m just a computer nerd with a badge.”

  Pete chuckled as he slowed, turned into the North State Textiles mill property, and then drove them across what was once a parking lot.

  “I don’t know anything about investigating a crime, either. Besides, I think you’ve proven you’re more than ‘just a computer nerd with a badge,’ and I’ll help you anyway I can. Who knows, maybe you’ll be one of the lucky ones.”

  Pete pulled to a stop by the first of the three buildings and they stepped out of his truck. Sean glanced around. The North State Textiles lot was huge, encompassing the two massive mill buildings and a third, smaller utilities building, along with a fair amount of adjacent land. The entirety of the lot easily enclosed three or four city blocks.

  The lot was choked with waist high weeds, small trees, and brush. It was obvious nobody had cared for the grounds in a very long time. Under his feet was tarmac that had been reduced by nature to little more than gravel. Looking around, it was impossible to tell where the parking lot ended and the rest of the grounds began, assuming there was anything other than parking lot. Nature would soon finish reclaiming what man had once called his.

  S
ean followed Pete into the building. The structure was enormous, with widely spaced brick walls dividing the area up into huge open rooms, the concrete floor high above supported by heavy steel pillars. Pete turned right and led Sean deeper into the building. What windows remained were so dirty little light entered, and those which were broken could do little to eliminate the gloom. Looking around, Sean tried to imagine the space as luxury apartments instead of the dull, dank, and dingy area it was now, but failed.

  “Watch your step,” Pete said, pointing to some wicked looking bolts sticking out of the floor.

  They stopped before a singed area on the brick outer wall with a badly burned mattress ripped to shreds on the floor. The smell of charring was still strong.

  “What am I looking at? Besides the obvious I mean?” Sean asked.

  “The mattress was the ignition source. It was already engulfed by the time the company arrived. The fire was still relatively small so we did a direct attack to knock it down before it got out of hand, but there is no way the mattress should have gone up like it did. Not without some help. It was propped against the wall.” Pete pointed to the blackened and stained masonry. “See where it was flaming up on the bricks?”

  “Don’t mattresses catch on fire all the time?”

  “Not like this they don’t. It was blazing. Mattresses since the nineties don’t burn, well, not very well or easily. They smolder first. The way this one was burning it had to have been doused in something. Probably gasoline if I had to guess. Also, with it propped against the wall like it was, that at least suggests someone was trying to cause the fire to spread. It’s not like a cigarette could be dropped on it to start the fire with it propped up like that.”

  Sean rubbed his chin. “What am I supposed to do with this? I mean, we know the homeless are using this place as a kind of flop house, but…” he said, raising his hands and holding them out in front of him, palms up.

  Pete shrugged. “Beats me. Our procedures state if we suspect arson we’re to report it to the police department.” He grinned, the laugh lines around his eyes appearing. “Consider it reported. Now it’s your problem.”