Клео Коул - Roast Mortem

Flashlight beams from the fire marshals played across the blackened walls and sodden plaster. Though the stainless steel espresso machine appeared intact behind the thick marble counter, Enzo’s breathtaking mural had been burned beyond recognition.

A building could always be restored, new furniture purchased, but that astonishing fresco, completed over decades, could never be replaced. As I surveyed the devastation, tears filled my eyes for the man’s lost art.

Something inside the shop crashed to the floor and I started. A moment later, I felt a large body step up behind me and place a blanket over my shoulders.

“You’re shiverin’, dove.”

Captain Michael Quinn turned me around to face him. Hot tears had slipped down my chilled cheeks. I swiped at them.

“I heard you made a save tonight,” he said. “The men told me you pulled out a kid twice your size.”

“Dante is one of my baristas. I wasn’t about to let him burn alive.”

“But you could have burned alive tryin’ to save him.”

“Anyone would have done what I did.”

“Oh, sure, any firefighter with a cast-iron pair.” He gave me a little smile.

For the first time, I noticed an old burn scar, just under the man’s left ear, a patch of flesh blanched pinkish white. His bulky white helmet was tucked under one arm, baring his sweat-slickened hair. The change in light had altered the shade, I realized. At the height of the blaze, it looked fiery orange. Now it seemed more subdued, a deep, muted burgundy, like brandy-soaked cherries.

The man’s bunker coat was open and flapped a bit in a sudden March gust. Ignoring his own fluttering clothing, he tucked the blanket more tightly around me.

“I’m surprised you’re still here,” he said. “Unless you lingered for a reason? To catch a ride home with me, maybe?”

Is he kidding? Laugh lines creased the edges of his smoke-gray eyes, but I wasn’t entirely sure he was joking.

“I can’t go anywhere, not at the moment. My car keys are in my handbag in the basement, so I’m waiting on a couple of your guys. They volunteered to search for it...”

“Then take a load off while you’re waiting. After what you went through, you shouldn’t be on your feet.”

My mouth was dry, my skin was clammy, and my legs were beginning to feel like underchilled aspic. “I’m fine.”

“You’re fine ? Right. Sure you are.” The captain shook his head. “Come on... ”

His big hand went to my lower back. Too weak to fight the current, I flowed along, letting him propel me toward the back of one of the fire trucks.

He plunked down his helmet on the truck’s wide running board, unwrapped another blanket, and placed it on the cold metal. With two heavy hands, he pressed my shoulders until I was sitting on it. Then he grabbed a paper cup and decanted something from a canary yellow barrel strapped to the vehicle’s side.

“Drink.”

I took the cup, sniffed. It smelled citrusy. Gatorade , I realized, and took a sip, followed by a big swallow.

Oh my God...

I hadn’t realized I was so thirsty, but now my body seemed to be absorbing the liquid’s electrolytes before they even hit my stomach. As I drained the first cup, I realized the captain was already offering me a second. I drained that, too.

“Good girl.”

I threw him a look.

“What?”

“I’m not a girl.”

“What should I be sayin’, then? Good boy? ” He folded his arms. “Too late, darlin’. I’ve already glimpsed what’s under that blanket and unless I need eye surgery” — he winked — “it’s all female.”

I exhaled. Dealing with this guy was going to be a challenge, but I shouldn’t have been surprised, given our previous meeting...

Last December, a not-so-nice person helped me off the Staten Island Ferry (in the middle of New York Bay). Amid my shivering rants to the FDNY marine squad who rescued me was a request that someone contact Mike Quinn. How could I know there was more than one?

The men called the Quinn they knew, this larger-than-life creature of the FDNY. From his blustery entrance on that rescue boat and the flirtation that followed, I got the impression that battling blazes was only one of the captain’s burning interests. As usual, the man’s suggestive stare was making me feel less than fully dressed (even with this first-responder blanket swathed around me like I’d just taken a seat at his personal powwow).

“Listen, Chief, considering your men just saved my friends’ lives, I’m going to cut you some slack — ”

“Well, isn’t that big of you.”

“But I’m not in the mood for games. So would you please drop the retro macho condescension and just call me Clare ?”

“Whatever you say... darlin’ .”

I exhaled. “At least you’re true to form.”

“How’s that?”

“Your attitude comes from the same era as you preferred style of facial hair.”

The captain proudly smoothed his trimmed handlebar. “Can’t resist the old soot filter, can you?”

“Actually, I can. On the other hand, I wouldn’t mind another one of these.” I held out my empty cup.

“Women,” he grunted, shaking his head. But he refilled it. Then he grabbed a plastic water bottle, chugged half the contents, and gazed at the fire-ravaged coffee shop.

“Hell of a blaze,” he said. “Wonder what set it off?”

“What did the fire marshals say?”

“Nothing. They keep their theories to themselves, those boys.”

“What do you think happened?”

“When I first rolled up to the scene, I assumed Enzo’s espresso machine was the cause — ”

“You know Lorenzo Testa?”

“I know every shop owner in this neighborhood. Old Enzo’s got the best coffee around. A lot of my men come here for it and his pastries, too.”

“What made you think the espresso machine was the cause?”

“The steam pressure, the gas lines, any number of things could go wrong with a mechanism like that. It seemed the most likely culprit for the intensity of the blaze — ”

“But that’s not what happened. The start of the fire was farther back in the store, near the utility room — ”

“That’s right, honey. You didn’t let me finish. When I saw the actual burn pattern, it was clear the espresso machine wasn’t the cause. The mechanism was intact. And the gas line didn’t break, even after the fire started — ”

“That’s because the bomb went off in the back of the store — ”

“Whoa there.” The captain raised a calloused hand. “Don’t be usin’ a word like bomb so freely.”

“I was an eyewitness. I know what I saw.”

“And what did you hear then? A loud explosion?”

“No...” That made me pause. “There wasn’t a loud noise. No boom; it was more like the sound I hear when the pilot light on my stove is out and I relight it after running the gas.”

“So you think the cause was a gas leak?”

“I think it was arson , some kind of device rigged to go off at a certain time — ”

“Stop. You’re back to describing a bomb.”

I crossed my arms and met his eyes. “It was a bomb. The only questions those fire marshals should be asking now is who set it off and why.”

The captain held my eyes a long moment but this time it wasn’t a leer. The man was staring into me like a mentalist studying an audience volunteer.

“Oh, no,” he finally said, as if he’d just rifled every thought in my brain pan. “No, no, no you don’t.”

“No I don’t what ?”

The captain bent down, moved his face two inches from mine. “I heard about your games, dove — ”