Lopez turned into a room dominated by a four-poster bed, a chin-high chest of drawers, a secretary, and two chairs. Everything in the room, like everything else on the second floor that wasn’t charred, was heavily sooted. “Thought this would interest you.” He ran a finger down the secretary. “I don’t think this is the same piece I looked at several weeks ago, but it’s supposed to be.” He wiped off an engraved card saying the secretary had been built in Pennsylvania about 1804.
Lopez left shortly after seven. Like all volunteer firefighters, he had to work for a living. The fire department provided action, a sense of well-being, and good deeds, but it didn’t pay the bills.
McLean photographed and sketched, starting in the street and working back to the packaging room where the fire had started. The floorplan sketches he faxed to Mort Reed, who redid them on his Macintosh and faxed them back. That done, McLean returned to the shipping room and stood in the center of its blackened shell, willing the fire to speak to him. To brag about its direction, its fury and force. About where it started and about its devious ways of spreading. About its deadly intentions.
Finally he knelt before a metal ring, all that remained of a cardboard shipping drum, and scraped gently through the ashes and a tangle of wires. The possibilities were narrowing.
The truck slammed into a pothole, bringing up the possibility of a broken spring. McLean concentrated on his driving and steered into a one-hour photo processing shop where he dropped off the morning’s work. He then drove the six remaining blocks to a leafy neighborhood and Regina Thom’s Victorian, where he parked behind a cobalt blue Miata.
“Who’s there, Eric?” The female voice from deep within the house carried a note of exasperation.
Hostile grey eyes sandwiched between slick black hair and a cold-reddened nose flicked sideways, then returned to McLean. “Some guy. Says he’s here about the fire.”
With ill grace Eric let their visitor in just as the woman belonging to the voice stepped into the front room, vigorously toweling her hair. She wore a tightly cinched robe and rubber thongs.
“Miss Regina Thom?”
“Last time I checked, yes.” There was a hint of amusement in her voice. McLean took it, and the boy’s snicker, in stride.
“You witnessed the fire Saturday night at City Center Antiques. I’d like to impose for a few minutes to get your impressions of what happened.”
Regina Thom, who at twenty-nine still had the wholesome good looks of a Midwestern cheerleader, gripped her robe at the neck. “Let me change first. I’ve been packing, and it’s dirty work. I couldn’t take another second of it.” Eric’s smirk melted beneath her icy glare. “Entertain my guest for a minute, if you’re up to it. Get him coffee or something.”
Eric shrugged and hung a cigarette from pouty lips.
“Outside with that. I’ve told you no smoking in the house.”
Nervous hurt flicked across his face, like a Doberman kicked by its master.
She ignored him altogether and turned to McLean. “There’s coffee in the kitchen.” She nodded toward the back of the house.
“I’m fine, thank you.”
Regina left accompanied by the slap of rubber on linoleum. McLean admired the room’s furniture, wondering about its history, particularly its recent history. He noted with amusement an elaborate electronic weather station and several other expensive catalogue toys. Eric, coughing between drags, followed every move from the verandah.
McLean, a weekend woodworker himself, ran appreciative fingers over a secretary, its open slant lid exposing a series of small cubbyholes and drawers. He examined the joinery on a small drawer, sighing with envy at the precisely fitted dovetail joints. He replaced it and examined a large color photograph sitting edgewise in a slot. A young Regina sat in the lap of a sharp-featured woman with deeply sad eyes. A teenage girl, sunlight glittering off henna curls, stood behind them, hands gripping the older woman’s shoulders.
“My family, Mr. McLean. My brother took it.”
“Very handsome. Do they live in the area?”
Regina’s face pinched but almost as quickly relaxed, although her voice took on a husky edge. “They’re dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I. Now, how can I help you?” She settled onto a couch, fixed McLean with a look of calculated neutrality, and ignored the front door as it opened. McLean, standing beside the secretary, tensed slightly at the shadow floating past on thick-soled white shoes in an acrid cloud of residual smoke.
Eric slouched up to the doorway leading to the back of the house. Without taking her eyes off McLean, Regina called to him to continue packing.
“You’re leaving town?”
Regina’s eyes shifted slightly. “What with my job in ashes and my employer dead, I see no point in staying around.”
Surveying the large pile of boxes blocking half the living room he remarked that she was a fast worker.
“I don’t have to explain myself. Now what can I do for you?”
“Tell me what you saw Saturday night. Both before and after the fire.”
“I saw smoke and flames pouring from the second floor. I knew Clement was up there, at least he was supposed to be. It was late.”
“Did the fire seem unusual in any way? Did it move rapidly, for example?”
“I have no idea if it moved rapidly. I’ve never seen a building bum down, much less watched a kind and generous man die.”
“Were you the last to leave the building?”
“I suppose so. Unless Clement let someone in after hours I don’t know about. I left about seven. Saturday is always a long day for us.”
“What did you do after leaving Mr. Firth?”
“The health club has a small restaurant. I ate a light dinner, then went into the weight room.”
“Any idea how the fire started, or where?”
“No. The store’s old. I’m no expert. I mean no one looks at a building like it’s going to bum, but I’d bet on the wiring. The place was always blowing fuses. Will your insurance company try to blame Mr. Firth for doing some of the wiring repairs himself?”
“Are you a close friend with Miss Zack? I believe the two of you were together the night of the fire. At the Jumping Jack.”
“I’d hardly say we’re close friends, but her grandmother and Clement, Mr. Firth, were having difficulties and I, well, I commiserated with her.”
“Did Mr. Firth own the building?”
Regina worried her lower lip. “That’s what so upset Tina. He’d taken over her grandmother’s debts along with the business, but he hadn’t paid everyone and some of them were getting nasty.”
Clement Firth began looking neither kind nor generous.
Perhaps reading McLean’s expression, Regina clucked. “I never said he was a good businessman. It seems he was as disorganized as Zoe was. I tried, I tried often, as his store manager, to get him to pay those bills, but he just didn’t take owing money seriously, I guess. He is, he was, quite a salesman. I’m afraid Zoe’s no better off now than before.” She stopped talking and looked down at her hands, but McLean sensed more than was said. A hint of broken promises. A hint even of anger.
“His will should help her out somewhat.”
“Will? Clement had no will.” Regina laughed uncomfortably.
McLean rubbed the bum scar barely hidden by his mustache. “Was Firth married? His background seems a bit sketchy.”
“No. Never.” An oddly positive statement for a relationship less than a year old.
“Were you and Clement close friends?”
Regina’s face hardened. “Do you mean were we lovers? Of course not. And you never answered my question. Will the insurance company blame Clement?”