There’d been no time for reflection at the time. Indeed, it had happened so fast, I’d almost thought it part and parcel with what had followed. But I knew otherwise now, and the realization scared me. My running out of water had had nothing to do with the explosion. Buster’s large profile stepped between me and the source of my reverie. He handed me a cup of coffee. “How’re you feeling?” “Tired.” “I bet.” He looked at me steadily, his face solemn. “I’m glad you made it, Butch.”
I lifted my cup to him. “Butch,” for him, was the ultimate endearment.
“Feeling’s mutual.” But his expression was steady, almost hard. “How did it happen?” “Damned if I know. Flashover, I guess; it got incredibly hot just before it blew. I suppose whatever ventilation there was wasn’t reaching the landing; maybe the attic had something to do with it. I just don’t know. It was pretty confusing.” I took a sip of coffee, which burned on the way down. My throat was sore from the smoke. “Dick said he told Rennie to get the hell out of there when he asked for the ladder.” My mind began to focus on what was going on here.
Buster was after something seeking to lay blame. Any questions I was about to ask concerning the the flat hose line were pushed aside. “I heard some shouting,” I said vaguely.
“Well, that’s what he said. What did Rennie tell you?” “He said we ought to check out the other bedroom. I agreed with him.” “He didn’t tell you Dick warned him the attic was about to go?” “He may have tried.
You know what communication’s like with those things on.” There was a long, drawn-out silence between us. Then Buster pushed out his lips and turned away. “I gotta go check on the equipment.” We watched him lumber off.
“Is he mad about something?” Laura asked. I leaned back again, watching the women’s auxiliary, chatting and laughing, serving their hot coffee and doughnuts to all corners. “We were just kind of bumping bellies.” “Over what?” “Oh, I don’t know. Different people have different ways of doing things. I think he feels we shouldn’t have gotten so close to getting killed.” She was quiet for a couple of seconds. “And he’s trying to blame Rennie.” “He’s just upset, trying to find answers when there’s no point to.
He’ll let it go in a while.” I didn’t quite believe that he’d let it go, but into a mental filing cabinet with the rest of Rennie’s real nd imagined transgressions. I didn’t want to tell her that. Right now didn’t want to think about it.
Besides, it was history. Buster had always leaned on Rennie, first with high hopes, and then in disappointment. In the early days, I think was because the older man wanted to mold the younger one in his own image, to shape a son he didn’t have. But Rennie had refused to lay along, staying independent and wounding Buster’s pride. Buster ad an admirable track record with most younger people. It was a sad and perhaps fitting irony that the one he’d decided to make his special project had also been the one to consistently stand up to him. Through all these years, they’d stayed locked in harness, linked as much by their differences as by their similarities.
I saw the Wingates approaching, stepping over debris like survivors from a train wreck, carefully wending their way toward us. Windgate had his arm around Ellie’s shoulders, which were bowed as if the arm was heavy enough to grind her into the ground. The last time I’d seen this man, he’d been in almost exactly the same spot, but seething with an anger so intense that he’d vented it on someone who’d been trying to help him. I couldn’t help wondering if it all tied together in some way.
He nodded stiffly to me, like we were being introduced at a party and I’d just thrown up all over my shirt front. I was reminded again that I was probably one of the few people in the world to have seen this an in some pretty unbanker-like positions, a point that was probably so important to him as it was immaterial to me.
“Hi there, Bruce.” He frowned slightly at my use of his first name.
On the surface, his was not the man of last night; now, his raw passion was a secret only he was supposed to know about. His chilly demeanor further made me wonder how he’d unloaded his excess steam. “Good morning. I wanted to thank you for your help last night.
“I’m afraid I was a little overwrought.” “No problem.” My response was purely mechanical. I was stunned by his opening concern. The last time this man apparently had seen his daughter alive, she was entering a now almost totally burned building.
Even allowing for the fact that we later hadn’t found her there, the assumption that she was safe belied common sense. He either had ice in his veins, or he knew something I didn’t. “I don’t usually act that way.” “Don’t worry about it.” I was watching Ellie Wingate, who stood stock-still, her eyes glued to the ground. I had the feeling that if she could have turned herself outside in and disappeared like some black hole, she would have done so on the spot. “You didn’t find our daughter in there, did you?” The question wasn’t casual, but it still came too late-like polite but insincere condolences.
“I don’t think so.” He suddenly sharpened, thrown off balance. His eyes locked onto mine. “What do you mean?” “There’s one body that’s pretty badly burned. I don’t know who that is, or even what it is. And one of the victims is a woman. I don’t know what your daughter looks like.” I could have told him I’d recognized the woman from last night, and the three kids, but something about this man told me not to volunteer much, to make him come to me as much as possible. He pulled a picture out from inside his coat and handed it to me. It was a face shot of a woman in her late teens, with shoulder-length light brown hair-not particularly attractive. She had the usual expression of a person who’s wishing the photographer would drink arsenic. I looked at it for a long time, wondering what lay behind the sulky face. I wondered if the hostility I saw in her eyes was actually there, or whether I was injecting some of my own feelings for her father.
I handed the picture back after Laura had glanced at it over my shoulder, a gesture which caused her hair to brush my cheek lightly.
“She’s not the unburned victim.” “Thank God,” Mrs. Wingate whispered.
Her husband pocketed the photograph. “Can we see the other…
victim?” “No. That’s all off-limits until the powers that be arrive to investigate.” “When will that be?” “Several hours, I would guess. They come from far and wide.” He looked concerned. “You make it sound like an army. “Sometimes is, depending on what you got. Usually it’s just the State troopers-there’s one here already that I’ve seen-but in cases like this an arson investigator, the medical examiner; sometimes the State’s Attorney and the State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation get involved if they suspect something.” “Do you think it was arson?” I looked at him for a couple of seconds. He seemed so removed, if his mind was being overworked, concentrating on other things. “I don’t know. I guess time will tell.” The State trooper I’d seen stringing a brightly colored plastic bond labelled “Police Line-Do Not Cross” around the house came walking up to us. He was thin and carried himself stiffly, as if on parade.
This was helped somewhat by his green and gold uniform, which somehow looks more official than most state-trooper getups, especially the green ribbed commando sweater with the matching elbow and shoulder pads.
He nodded quickly at me and Laura, before addressing the couple before us. “Are you Mr. and Mrs. Wingate?” “Yes, we are,” Wingate answered.
“My name is Corporal Wirt. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Of course.” Wirt glanced at us again and gestured down the street, away from the fire trucks. “Let’s step over there.” They all three moved away.