Chuck Hogan - The Killing Moon - A Novel

Eddie had the long pole and was trying to break one of the top windows from the side lawn, but couldn’t get enough force behind it. So he found some fist-sized rocks and started throwing. The third one cracked right through. He resumed with the pole, smashing out the rest of the glass, his hole venting black billows of smoke and wavy heat.

The pumper truck was parked up on the lawn, its hose splashing the exterior, the heated stones hissing as water became steam. The house smoked and dripped like something cooking and melting at the same time.

They yelled back and forth across the lawn, Mort and Stokes wrangling the water-plumped hose and aiming its stream into the high window. Smoke alarms squealed inside and occasionally there was a heat-crack of supporting timber, as fierce as a thunderclap of warning.

With the hot night and the angry blaze and them suffering inside their bunkers and helmets, Eddie was earning his pay on this call, every cent. At one point the pumper ran dry and Mort and Ullard had to drive over to the fire pond on Sundown to reload. The nearest neighbors appeared with drinking water for them, looking up at the smoke in awe.

The pumper returned but the vent did its job, just as training said it would. The smoke out of the upstairs window was starting to fade, the blaze dying out, and Bucky and Mort strapped on masks and tanks and went in through the front door with a hatchet and a pike pole. Eddie and Stokes kept the roof wet and cool, the smoke alarms crying even louder now that the air around the house had stopped whipping.

They came out minutes later, jackets damp and pitchy. Bucky shrugged off his tank and pulled back his helmet, mask, and neck guard, squinting from the heat. He sat on the grass and shed his heavy yellow gloves and dug in the pockets underneath his bunkers, coming out with a cigarette and lighting it up with fish white hands. He smoked deeply, the oxygen mask outline drawn on his face in black sweat.

“Ding-dong,” said Bucky.

“What’s that?” said Eddie.

“The witch is dead.”

Eddie looked at the stinking house. “This is Frond’s place?”

Ponytailed Frond with his socks and sandals. The photographer’s vest he always wore, those empty little film loops.

Bucky said, “There’s some other weird shit in there.”

“Like what?”

“Weird witch shit.”

Maddox appeared, standing beneath a crooked branch of the only tree in the yard. Bucky was right. Always watching them.

“Was he in bed?” Eddie asked.

“On the floor downstairs. Burned to a crisp.”

“On the floor?” Eddie pictured the guy curled up and burning. He shuddered. Frond was in his forties, an able guy. “Why hadn’t he gotten out—”

“How the hell would I know?” said Bucky.

Bucky’s tone reminded Eddie that Frond was the snitch who had reported Bucky and Mort’s traffic-stop beating of Sinclair to the state police. He watched his brother smoking into the air, leaning back on the grass with one hand, then stubbing out his butt and getting to his feet.

“Strap on Mort’s tank,” Bucky said to Eddie.

“What for?” Eddie looked up at the still-smoking house. “There could still be some hot spots.”

“Just put on the damn tank.”

Eddie’s lip curled, but he did as he was told. He got Mort’s tank up onto his shoulders and was wiping out the sooty mask with his glove when Maddox moved in front of them, setting up between them and the ax-chopped door.

“You can’t go back inside,” Maddox said.

Bucky’s shoulders fell, tired and pissed. “Maddox, get the fuck out of our way.”

Bucky started forward, his rubber boots splashing the oversoaked grass, but Maddox stood his ground. “You’re just firefighters here. I’m the cop. Inside there is an unattended death.”

“Unattended death?” said Bucky, mocking the proper terminology.

“This is a potential crime scene. We need a doctor here to certify.”

“Maddox,” said Eddie, more annoyed than protesting, “the witch fell down carrying a candle or something.”

“Then waiting won’t hurt.”

Bucky was smiling and shaking his head in that happy, pissed-off way of his. “Maddox, Maddox, Maddox.” He picked up the fire ax, weighing it in his hand. “We can go around you, over you, or through you. Your choice.”

“Stand down, Bucky.”

Bucky said, “I am going to enjoy this.”

He took a step toward the door, and Maddox’s hand went to his holster.

Bucky stopped short, as though he’d been flat-handed. “Are you shitting me?” he said, gleeful, then continuing forward.

“Buck,” said Eddie, sharp enough to halt him.

Eddie nodded to the neighbors in their robes watching from the lawn, and to the firebugs milling in the driveway, roused by sirens and sky-smoke. Witnesses.

Bucky turned back to face Maddox. But he stayed where he was. Eddie had vented his brother’s anger just like the heat of that house fire. Next time Maddox might not be so lucky.

Dr. Gary Bolt stepped out of his Honda Prelude in the short driveway. The foul air reeked of things not meant to be burned, smoke detector alarms squealing out of the black-windowed house. Steam rising into the slanting light of the morning sun.

Two soot-blackened firemen sat on the front bumper of their truck. “How’s the rice-burner running, doc?” they called to him.

Dr. Bolt put up a quick smile and slid his hand nervously into the pocket of his white coat. Just keep moving. Get this over with.

There was Bucky Pail, mashing a lit cigarette against a tree trunk. He came forward in his fireman’s outfit, bunkers under a T-shirt. It made him look thicker than he did in his patrolman’s uniform: the “camp counselor with a gun” look, as Dr. Bolt often thought of it. There was a cop here too, stepping away from the front of the house.

Dr. Bolt shoved his other trembling hand into his coat pocket. “Here I am,” said Dr. Bolt to Bucky, gamely.

Dr. Bolt knew the cop’s name as Maddox. Maddox looked him over and turned to Bucky. “The vet?” he said.

Bucky said, “Medical doctor, it’s enough.”

Dr. Bolt played at being jolly. “Now there’s a ringing endorsement!”

“You can certify a death?” said Maddox.

Dr. Bolt shrugged, making wings of the flaps of his coat. “I can tell you if a man is alive or not.”

“All we need,” said Bucky, rushing this along. “Let’s do this, doc.”

They started over the spongy grass. “It’s safe to enter?”

“Should be.”

“Should be,” said Dr. Bolt. He felt something squishy in his pocket, remembered his latex gloves. “I brought these.” He distributed pairs. “Might help.”

Maddox didn’t take his pair right away, perhaps noticing Dr. Bolt’s shaking hands.

The sedative he had taken was failing him. Get through this. Do not get caught between these two. And do not piss off Bucky Pail.

“Shall we?” said Dr. Bolt.

Bucky pushed in through the broken door. The front hallway was wet and hazy, and they stepped over puddles to a living room, its walls blistered and blackened almost to the ceiling. Morning sunlight streaming in through a smashed window created an almost churchlike atmosphere, and, in the soot-darkened room, an eerie sense of night-day. Parts of the wall and floor still offered steam, and everything reeked of carbon reversion.

Against the high wall stood a wide stone hearth licked black by flame. A few objects atop the broad mantle had survived the blaze. A pair of ornate silver candlesticks coated with melted red wax. A porcelain skull with a hollowed space as for burning incense. A chalice carved with a distorted crescent moon and star. A cracked rod of glass. A smoky crystal prism.