Jack kind of likes dogs.
It's people he's not so crazy about.
Nineteen years (seven with the Sheriff's, twelve with the insurance company) of cleaning up after people's accidents have taught him that people will do about anything. They'll lie, steal, cheat, kill, and litter. Dogs, however, have a certain sense of ethics.
He finds the Vales' dog hiding under the lower limbs of a jacaranda tree. It's one of those little fru-fru dogs, a house dog, all big eyes and bark.
"Hey, pup," Jack says softly. "It's all right."
It isn't, but people will lie.
The dog doesn't care. The dog is just happy to see a human being and hear a friendly voice. It comes out from under the tree and sniffs Jack's hand for some kind of clue as to his identity and/or intentions.
"What's your name?" Jack asks.
Like the dog's going to answer, right? Jack thinks.
"Leo," a voice says, and Jack about jumps out of his geeky paper overalls.
He looks up to see an older gentleman standing across the fence. A parrot sits on his shoulder.
" Leo," the parrot repeats.
Leo starts wagging his tail.
Which is what Yorkies do for a living.
"C'mere, Leo," Jack says. "That's a good dog."
He picks Leo up and tucks him under one arm, scratching the top of his head, and walks over to the fence.
He can feel Leo trembling.
There's that thing about people resembling their pets, or vice versa? Jack always thought that applied to just dogs, but the parrot and the older gentleman kind of look like each other. They both have beaks: the parrot's being pretty self-explanatory and the older gentleman's nose being shaped just like the parrot's beak. The man and the bird are like some interspecies kind of Siamese twins, except that the parrot is green with patches of bright red and yellow, and the older gentleman is mostly white.
He has white hair and wears a white shirt and white slacks. Jack can't see his shoes through the hedge, but he's betting that they're white, too.
"I'm Howard Meissner," the old guy says. "You must be the man from Mars."
"Close," Jack says. He offers his left hand because he has Leo tucked under his right. "Jack Wade, California Fire and Life."
"This is Eliot."
Meaning the parrot.
Which says, " Eliot, Eliot."
"Pretty bird," Jack says.
"Pretty bird, pretty bird."
Jack guesses the parrot's heard the "pretty bird" bit before.
"A shame about Pamela," Meissner says. "I saw the stretcher go out."
"Yeah."
Meissner's eyes get watery.
He reaches over the fence to pet Leo and says, "It's all right, Leo. You did your best."
Jack gives him a funny look and Meissner explains, "Leo's barking woke me up. I looked out the window and saw the flames and dialed
911."
"What time was that?"
"Four forty-four."
"That's pretty exact, Mr. Meissner."
"Digital clock," Meissner says. "You remember things like that. I called right away. But too late."
"You did what you could."
"I'm thinking Pamela is out of the house because Leo is."
"Leo, Leo."
"Leo was outside?" Jack asks.
"Yes."
"When you heard him barking?"
"Yes."
"You're sure about that, Mr. Meissner?"
"Pretty bird, pretty bird."
Meissner nods. "I saw Leo standing out there. Barking at the house. I thought Pamela…"
"Did Leo usually sleep outside?" Jack asks.
"No, no," Meissner says, like dismissively.
Jack knows it's a stupid question. No one's going to leave a little dog like this outside at night. He's always seeing signs for lost Yorkies and cats, and with all the coyotes around here you know it's like "B Company ain't comin' back."
"Coyotes," Jack says.
"Of course."
Jack asks, "Mr. Meissner, did you see the flames?"
Meissner nods.
"What color were they?" Jack asks.
"Red."
"Brick red, light red, bright red, cherry red?"
Meissner thinks about this for a second, then says, "Blood red. Blood red would describe it."
"How about the smoke?"
No question about it, no hesitation.
"Black."
"Mr. Meissner," Jack asks, "do you know where the rest of the family was?"
"It was Nicky's night with the kids," he says. "A blessing."
"They're divorced?"
"Separated," he says. "Nicky's been staying with his mother."
"Where does she-"
"Monarch Bay," he says. "I told this to the police when they were here, so that they could notify."
Except, Jack thinks, Bentley tells me they're still looking.
"I feel for the kids," says Meissner. He sighs one of those sighs that come only from advanced age. The man has seen too much.
"In and out. In and out," Meissner says. "Chess pieces."
"I know what you mean," Jack says. "Well, thanks, Mr. Meissner."
"Howard."
"Howard," Jack says. Then he asks, "Do you know why they were separated? What the issues were?"
"It was Pamela," he says sadly. "She drank."
So there it is, Jack thinks as he watches Meissner walk away. Pamela Vale has a night without the responsibility of the kids so she gets hammered. At some point she lets Leo out to go pee, forgets he's out there, and ends up in bed with a bottle and some cigs.
So Pamela Vale is drinking and smoking in bed. The vodka bottle tips over and most of the contents spills onto the floor. Pamela Vale either doesn't notice or doesn't care. Then, with a burning cigarette still in her hand, she passes out. The sleeping hand drops the cigarette onto the vodka. The alcohol ignites into a hot flame, which catches the sheets, and the blankets, and the room fills with smoke.
Normally it would take ten to fifteen minutes for the cigarette to ignite the sheets. Ten to fifteen minutes in which Pamela Vale might have smelled smoke, felt the heat, woke up and stamped her foot on the cigarette and that would have been that. But the vodka would ignite instantly, at a much greater heat than a smoldering cigarette – enough to ignite the sheets – and because she's passed out she never has a chance.
It's the smoke, not the flames, that kills Pamela Vale.
Jack can picture her lying in bed, passed out drunk, her respiratory system working even though her mind has shut down, and that respiratory system just sucks in that smoke, and fills her lungs with it, until it's too late.
She suffocates on smoke while she's asleep.
Like a drunk choking on his own vomit.
So there's that small blessing for Pamela Vale. She literally never knew what hit her.
They had to scrape her off the springs, but she was dead before the intense heat merged her flesh into the metal. She never woke up, that's all. The fire broke out, her system inhaled a lethal dose of smoke, and then the fire – fueled by all her belongings and her home – became fast and hot and strong enough to melt the bed around her.
An accidental fire, an accidental death.
It's one of those cruel but kind ironies of a fatal house fire. Cruel in the sense that it chokes you with your own life. Takes those crucial physical things – your furniture, your sheets, your blankets, the paint on your walls, your clothes, your books, your papers, your photographs, all the intimate accumulations of a life, a marriage, a physical existence – and forces them down your throat and chokes you on them.
Most people who die in fires die from smoke inhalation. It's like lethal injection – no, more like the gas chamber, because it's really a gas, carbon monoxide, the old CO, that kills you – but in any case you'd prefer it to the electric chair.
The technical phrase in the fire biz is "CO asphyxiation."
It sounds cruel, but the kind part is that you'd sure as hell prefer it to burning at the stake.