Beyond Recognition

The solution was simple. A forest fire had raged several months earlier. Firefighters had fought the blaze on the ground, planes had dumped chemicals from the air, and helicopters had worked the spot fires. The victim had been diving in a mountain lake. Accidentally scooped up by a helicopter grabbing water to fight a spot fire, he had been dumped into the fire’s center from a hundred feet up. Case solved. Nonetheless, Shoswitz remained upset about Boldt’s violation of the regulations.

“Unless I’m wrong, the first couple were just vacant structures,” Garman said. He didn’t strike Boldt as the kind of guy to be wrong. He exuded a quiet confidence once he got talking. “Listen, in this city, even a piece of ground the size of a postage stamp is worth ten grand, but not necessarily the structure on it.” He explained, “Property valued at ten grand or higher-that’s when Marshal Five is called in to investigate. Suspicious fire. Known arson. Any of those three. But truthfully, the way it works is that the IC-the incident commander-makes an early call on a fire and determines whether Marshal Five should investigate. We usually speak by phone. I’m apprised of the situation. If it’s cut and dried, some photos are shot, some sketches maybe, and the next day I look it all over. Ten times out of ten I agree with the call. It keeps us from investigating every fire there is.”

He was working up to something and taking his sweet time about it. Boldt’s time also. Garman was an animal with his nose to the ground, carefully approaching the scent.

Boldt felt like asking Garman why he had waited. Why hadn’t he brought up whatever it was at the meeting? Why be secretive and demand privacy and talk around it? Running out of patience, he said, “Maybe you should just tell me whatever it is.”

“They fit some of this,” Garman replied. “Vacant structures, all of them, until now. Teardowns, over in Battalion Five, mostly. The land has all the value, the building nothing. We look at them-Marshal Five-because although they don’t fit the ten grand requirement, they obviously aren’t the result of a lightning strike. But ten times out of ten we have bigger fish to fry. Most of them are the work of JDs, kids out for kicks. We’re not going to catch them anyway. We shoot for a witness, but if we can’t scare one up they go in the back of the file cabinet with a heck of a lot of company. It wouldn’t be the same for you. I’m not talking dead bodies; I’m talking worthless shacks, garages, condemned buildings. Just kicks. A kid with a match and nothing to do.”

“You’re making me uncomfortable, Mr. Garman. I’m viewing all this with a jaundiced eye.”

“Six of them. Maybe as many as fourteen. Maybe more if I dig around. Battalion Five is not my turf, but we trade around, you know, and I’ve worked a few of them. I remember two that appeared to me to have burned especially hot: heavy alligatoring, some spalling, just like we were talking about.”

“What exactly is spalling?” Boldt asked.

“The concrete gets so hot so fast that the little moisture that’s trapped inside it boils and explodes the surface. You’ve seen it on sidewalks in winter, maybe. Looks just the same. Like bad acne. Liquid accelerants, ten times out of ten. That’s okay in a shack because these kids typically use gasoline or some close relative-gas and diesel, diesel and acetone. Readily available stuff. But the two I’m talking about burned hotter than a big dog. Never seen gas do that. I wasn’t thinking in terms of a pro, because who’s going to bother with a little shack? But after we were talking just now, it occurred to me who might bother: Someone testing out his stuff. Let me tell ya, Sergeant. Every fire has a personality. I’m no expert when it comes to understanding everything about fire, even though that’s my job; no one knows everything. But as corny as it sounds, I do know that every fire tells its own story. Studied long enough, it reveals its secrets. To the ordinary eye it produces destruction and chaos, but to those of us who live and die with the beast, it speaks volumes. It will tell you when, where, and how the dragon was born and chronicles its growth to the raging inferno it becomes. Fire respects nothing. No one. But for everything it consumes, it leaves evidence, the telltale marks of who or what created it. It takes on the personality of its creator, just as offspring do their parents: some dull and uneventful; others creative and imaginative.

“I walked the Enwright fire,” he continued. “I had met its little sister, its little brother, these stick burns I’m talking about. They’re all in the same family. To bring it up in the meeting, I embarrass my buddy; I make it look like he should have made more of those stick fires than he did. Monday morning quarterbacking. But it scares the fool out of me, the way those fires feel the same. And if that’s right, then they were warm-ups-pardon the pun. He wanted it just right for Enwright. Made sure he knew exactly what to expect: amount of fuel, speed of burn, degree of destruction.”

“You’re giving me gooseflesh, Mr. Garman,” Boldt said.

“Scares the fool out of me,” he repeated. “Want to know why? Lemme ask you this: Does a guy light off two, three, four test fires-does he take all that risk-just to get Dorothy Enwright perfect?”

“Does he?”

“No way. It’s too risky. One fire, maybe. But four? Six?”

“What exactly are you saying?”

Garman reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew an opened envelope. He placed it before Boldt, who elected not to touch it. The address, written in blue ballpoint ink, was scripted in poorly formed block letters.

“You’ve handled this?” Boldt asked.

“Yes.”

“Anyone else?”

“No. I’ve haven’t shown it to anyone.”

Boldt found a pencil and expertly maneuvered the envelope to face him, curious but at the same time reluctant. “Why me? Why now?” he asked.

Hearing the question clearly troubled Garman, and Boldt sensed he had prepared himself for the answer ahead of time. “How many of these do we all get? You get them, I get them. Quacks. Freaks. Tripsters. Former squirrels we’re not using any longer. Most of them end up in the can. I got a whole series from a woman once, following a TV interview I did. First one was a sexy letter. Second one was another letter and a photo. Third, was a letter and another photo, this time with her shirt off. By the fifth, she was stark naked on a bed, and I mean rude. The sixth, there wasn’t any letter, just a video. That was the last one. They stopped coming after that.” Garman wiped some perspiration off his upper lip. It wasn’t hot on the fifth floor, not compared to summer. “So, something like this comes, you file it under freak. But it arrived the day of the Enwright fire-addressed to my home, not my office.”

“You brought it with you today to the meeting but elected not to show it,” Boldt reminded the man. “Why?”

“I’m showing it to you now.” Garman had naturally red cheeks and a big smile when he allowed it.

“Why show it to me and not your colleagues?” Boldt asked.

“Those guys? I’m one of those guys. I know how they think. We investigate fires, Sergeant. They would have laughed me out of that room. This,” he said, indicating the envelope, “maybe it’s something, maybe it’s not. But it’s your thing, not mine, not those guys. If it means anything at all, you’re the guy for it.”

“Am I really?” Boldt didn’t want the letter. He didn’t want the case any longer. Too many guys between him and the evidence, too much he didn’t know about and would have to learn. He realized that if the body was subtracted from the case, it wasn’t his. He briefly resented Dorothy Elaine Enwright.

Seeming to sense this, Garman said, “Listen, it’s just a bunch of nonsense. That’s the other reason. It’s not a threat or anything. But it’s off the wall. Some plastic and a poem. So what? And then I’m thinking maybe it means something. Those stains on the envelope? I threw the thing out. It was in the trash for three days. I only fished it out this morning before the meeting, because it occurred to me the dates were the same.”

“It’s mailed from Capitol Hill,” Boldt said.

“Yeah, I saw that too.”

Using a pencil’s eraser, Boldt carefully opened the back flap. He hoisted the envelope with the pencil and dumped out its contents. An unremarkable blob of what appeared to be melted green plastic slid out onto the desk’s surface. It was about the size of a poker chip.

Using a second pencil, Boldt extracted and unfolded the note. His eyes fell to the crude drawing of a small headless man climbing a ladder. Boldt could imagine the figure a fireman. The fact that it lacked a head would require the interpretation of the department’s psychologist, Daphne Matthews. Alongside, in the same undeveloped handwriting as on the envelope, was written, He has half the deed done, who has made a beginning.

After an excruciating silence, Boldt looked up at the big man sitting next to him and said dryly, “I don’t like