Roast Mortem

like I’d done before. Make it go away. Those were his words. But things were different this time. Kevin was falling down drunk when the arresting officers took him in. By the time I heard about it, he was already in the system. I made sure the kid got a good lawyer. I stood up for him in court, vouched for his character. It was all I could do.”

“It didn’t help?”

“The judge didn’t care in the least that Kevin had a relative on the job. She believed he needed a hard lesson. I didn’t say so at the time, but so did I. Kevin pleaded guilty and went to jail for a brief time. It killed his chances of becoming a New York City firefighter, and Michael never forgave me for not doing more to help his brother. But, Clare, I swear I did all I could.”

I turned back to the stove, considering Mike’s words as I slipped six panko-breaded crab cakes into the hot peanut oil. The patties sizzled, the fresh herbs inside giving a hint of floral fragrance to the kitchen, but the primary sensation in the air was heavy and cloying, the kind of feeling you get when you know something is being fried.

“I don’t understand why you and your cousin have to be at war over this,” I said. “Your actions were obviously reasonable and Kevin was in the wrong. How could anyone trust a kid like that to be a responsible firefighter, for God’s sake?”

“Most of the family is on my side, Clare. Kevin even forgave me for not doing more to get him off the hook. But Michael never did.”

“Why not? If what you say is true — ”

“It is. But my cousin’s told his version of that story for so many years now he actually believes it. And that’s the tragedy.”

I turned back to the burner. Mixing and forming crab cakes was simple enough, but cooking them was not. For one thing, there wasn’t much keeping the patties together (not if you wanted to taste crabmeat instead of bread crumbs and binders), so poking them was a bad idea. Flipping should be done only once. And turning them was tricky. Anything held together this precariously had to be handled with finesse.

I glanced over my shoulder at Mike, tried to keep my voice light and casual. “How many years ago did all of that happen, anyway?”

“I don’t know. Twelve or so, I guess...”

“Is Kevin okay now?”

“Kevin’s doing just fine for himself, Clare. He’s an engineer, married with two kids, and makes a perfectly good living. Until last summer, he had a great job at a firm in the city.”

“But he had to move to Boston, right?”

“That’s right...”

Mike’s voice trailed off, and I let it go, focusing on the completion of his meal. Using a spatula I slipped four of the hot crab cakes onto a large dinner plate, placed three colorful mounds of my homemade condiments around them: lemon-garlic mayo; dill-laced mustard sauce; and avocado, gherkin, and roasted pepper relish. Finally, I piled a generous side of my Thai-style coleslaw into a small salad bowl. (In my opinion, the sweet heat and bright astringency of my Thai slaw was the perfect accompaniment to the unctuous richness of the pan-fried seafood.)

Mike picked up his fork and dug in. “Oh, man, this is good...”

I made up my own plate and sat down.

“So...” I carefully poked. “Boston?”

“Yeah,” Mike said, pausing to chew and swallow. “Kevin was downsized recently — just last year — and he had to relocate for a new job, but I hear he’s happy in Massachusetts. And the last time I checked, he no longer touches alcohol.”

As Mike inhaled his dinner, I ate my two warm cakes in silence, trying my best to enjoy the freshly fried flavor of lightly breaded seafood, the complementary notes in the tricolored accompaniments. But I still wasn’t satisfied.

“Are you sure there isn’t anything else between you and your cousin? Just the incident with Kevin?”

Mike looked down, suddenly focusing his attention on the last little bits on his plate. “The thing with Kevin, Clare... that’s what Michael won’t forgive.”

“You know, it sounds to me like your choosing your words carefully again. There’s more to this story, isn’t there?”

“That’s all I can tell you...”

“You mean that’s all you want to tell me.”

Mike looked up then, finally met my eyes. “Sweetheart, I’m going to ask you one more time to stay away from my cousin. Will you do that?”

“Yes.”

“Promise me, Clare.”

“Mike — ”

“Promise me.”

I sighed. “I promise you, Mike.”

“Good, let’s change the subject, okay? Mind if I watch the headlines?”

“No... I’d like to see them, too.”

Mike flipped on the small television in the corner of the counter, turned it to NY1, our local twenty-four-hour news channel.

“I’ll make more coffee,” I said.

Obviously, Mike was done talking about his cousin, but I couldn’t stand having secrets between us, and I was determined to get this one out of him.

As I measured out our Breakfast Blend, I considered how to reopen the subject. For about twenty seconds, the noisy gears of my burr grinder drowned out the dulcet tones of NY1’s morning anchor. Then the grinder stopped and Pat Kiernan’s voice came back.

“...a three-alarm fire in Long Island City. The coffeehouse was part of a popular international chain...”

“Coffeehouse!”

I turned quickly, just in time to see last night’s recorded footage. I recognized several members of the fire station I’d just laughed with the night before. Then I recalled what Oat had said to Captain Michael as they strode away from his office — “Long Island City... a two-alarm, going to three...”

“...and the mayor will make a statement later today about this sad turn of events,” Kiernan continued. “The coffeehouse was closed at the time of the blaze and no customers or employees were injured. But one of New York’s Bravest lost his life...”

I glanced at Mike. We both tensed, waiting. Finally, the still, color photograph came up on the TV screen — a picture of the dead man.

I stumbled backward, fell into a chair.

“...best known for his appearance as Mr. March in last year’s famous FDNY calendar, Bigsby Brewer died instantly after jumping from the building’s roof. The cause of the fire is deemed suspicious and is under investigation.”

Twenty-Four

Three days later, a public funeral was held in Queens. Dante, Madame, and I attended. The mayor was there and the city commissioners. The cardinal came, the FDNY Emerald Society Pipes and Drums, the local press, and every member of Bigsby Brewer’s beloved firehouse.

The pomp and turnout were overwhelming, the grieving genuine. Thousands of firefighters from every borough showed up in dress blues. The small army couldn’t fit inside the church so they lined up in formation on the streets outside, where cops redirected traffic for hours, all the way to the burial ceremony in Calvary Cemetery on Laurel Hill Boulevard.

The younger firefighters looked steely, the older ones visibly haunted, unshed tears glazing their eyes, tense expressions barely masking rekindled memories. Back in fall 2001, this city had seen hundreds of funerals just like