John Lescroart - Nothing But The Truth

Then, gradually emerging from the murk, the definable shapes, images from some horrible dream. Three fire trucks were still parked in the street, hoses trailing from them in the gutters like bloated serpents. A couple of black and white police cruisers – the source of the red strobes – their bubbles on. A half-dozen men in uniform were standing on the sidewalk, on his lawn, milling in the wet morning street.

In a daze, trying to keep the rising sense of panic at bay, he parked carefully, pulling straight into the curb. Getting out, he was aware of the crackling sounds of radio static and perhaps, of smoldering wood.

He moved forward without any awareness of it, transfixed by the still-smoking ruin that had been his home for over twenty years. The white picket fence had been trampled to bits by the firemen and their equipment. What had been a small, carefully maintained lawn was a mess of mud and charred wood. The front porch wasn’t there at all, and the ruined living room behind it yawned obscenely open in the gray dawn. His chair. The mantel over the fireplace. Their beautiful cherry dining set, destroyed.

He was on the property now.

‘Sir?’ A man in a white helmet was suddenly in the path, cutting him off. ‘I’m sorry, but you can’t…’

‘I live here,’ Hardy said. ‘This is my house.’

Miraculously, much of the house had been saved. Some late Hallowe’en revelers on their way home had seen the flames within minutes after the blaze had begun around four a.m. and called the fire department on their cell phone. As a result, the back half of Hardy’s home – kitchen, bedrooms and baths – had remained relatively unscathed, although the cleanup was going to take weeks, and the burned smell might never go away.

The incident commander – the man in the white helmet – had given him permission to survey the damage, but he was to be accompanied at all times by Captain Flores. They were talking about evidence and preservation of the scene and it struck Hardy that he was, at least for now, an arson suspect.

Flores and Hardy stood in the center of the kitchen and Hardy was trying to answer the captain’s questions. But his mind kept jumping. He noticed his black cast-iron frying pan on the stove where he’d left it. Looking down the now-gaping open hallway, he noticed that his front door was still on its hinges, perhaps salvagable. He would plane it and paint it again.

Their footfalls crunched over the glass and debris. ‘No. There couldn’t have been any fire left burning in the fireplace,’ Hardy was telling Flores. ‘I hadn’t been home since yesterday morning. We haven’t lit a fire in there in months.’

‘Well, pretty obviously that’s where it started, up front. You got any gas pipes in there? Do you smoke?’

‘No and no.’

Captain Flores was a sweet-faced young man with a drooping mustache. He followed Hardy back into the burned-out front area of the house and they stood in what used to be the dining room – the dusty rose drywall now mostly gone. The roof was open above them and water still dripped randomly. Hardy let out some air. ‘What do you do with this?’ he asked.

Flores saw similar scenes every day, but that didn’t make it any easier. ‘Do you have insurance?’

‘Yeah, but that’s not what I meant.’

‘I know.’

Hardy turned to him. ‘Somebody did this, didn’t they?’

The captain shrugged. He might have some suspicions but he wasn’t going to share them with a civilian. ‘That’s always a thought. It’s why we’ve got arson investigators.’ He indicated a couple of guys poking around by what used to be the porch. ‘At this point it’s a little early to make that determination. But if you know something I don’t, I’ll pass it along.’

Hardy had his hands deep in his pockets. ‘I don’t know anything,’ he said, referring to a lot more than the fire.

Flores scraped a toe along the burned hardwood floor and sighed. ‘You’re not going to want to hear this, but this might be somebody’s idea of a Hallowe’en prank.’ He paused. ‘It’s happened before.’

Hardy gave it a moment, shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’

If anything, the morning fog had grown heavier.

One of the first things Hardy did after the incident commander stopped him was ask if he could get a patch through to Glitsky’s home on the patrol car radio. Next was his brother-in-law Moses McGuire.

Now the lieutenant sat on the hood of his car, feet resting on the front bumper, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his head down. Even with all his years in homicides, at terrible crime scenes, here Glitsky almost couldn’t bear to look.

Hardy had been silent, withdrawn with shock and rage, when Abe had arrived. Gradually, Glitsky had gotten him away from the arson people, from the house itself, where the effects of the fire weren’t so pervasive. Now he was coming out of it, beginning to pace. ‘I’ll tell you one thing – they think they’re warning me off? They think I’m going away now? They should have killed me instead.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘Whoever did this, Abe.’

‘Somebody did this to get at you?’

Hardy nodded. ‘It’s a warning. It has to be this Beaumont thing.’ Hardy stopped in front of him. ‘You think it’s not?’

Glitsky was silent.

Hardy raised his voice. ‘Well what the hell do you think this was, Abe? Spontaneous combustion?’

Glitsky met Hardy’s eyes. ‘I don’t think it’s a great time to get in an argument with you, how about that?’ He slid off the car, and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

Hardy could only manage a nod. Glitsky gave his shoulder a last squeeze, moved off a few steps, then turned and with an almost visible effort, forced himself to look at the house. ‘If you need me, I’ll be downtown. I’m going to work.’

Flores was at his elbow, and Hardy was back in the house, in the little enclosed area behind the kitchen where he kept his safe. Flores didn’t want to let him back in – they might trample over more evidence. The captain made it very clear that until they were done with their investigation, this was the fire department’s house, no longer his. But the arrival of Glitsky – a highly ranked city cop who was obviously a personal friend – had given Hardy some credibility, and Flores cut him a little slack. They could go up through the back door, and Hardy could get what he needed, although he had to show Flores his license to carry, and even then, when Flores saw what he wanted, he could tell he was pushing it.

But this time he felt no twinge of the reluctance he’d felt the last time he’d gone for his guns. There was also an old badge from his days as an assistant DA. He didn’t think too hard before grabbing it. Then, tucking his Police Special into his belt, he pulled his jacket down over it and walked back into the desolation in the front-yard area.

Moses had finally arrived a few minutes after Glitsky’s departure, and now was standing at the front side of the house by the chimney, which was still standing. Moses had picked up something and held it out as Hardy and Flores mushed through the mud. ‘Start your new collection,’ Moses said somberly.

It was one of the exquisitely fragile Venetian glass elephants that had grazed, cavorted, and trumpeted on their mantel over the past decade, which Moses had rearranged with nearly every visit. Until last night there had been fifteen of them – Hardy had just recently acquired the latest one for their anniversary. And now against impossible odds at least one had survived, perhaps blasted out into the yard by the force of water.

Hardy took it and turned it in his hand, then handed it back to Moses, asking his brother-in-law to hold on to it for him.