'Positive. Smell the gas?'
Railsback sniffed. So did Cash. Both wrinkled their noses. The stench of burnt flesh seemed to override all other odors. 'Must take a trained sniffer,' Cash gasped.
A creak and groan came from above. A half-dozen rafters plunged into the basement, kicking up a cloud of ash.
'Back!' someone shouted. 'Get back! The whole damned thing's going.'
He was wrong. It was just a chimney, but the crash was enough to scatter the crowd. Hose teams rushed to soak live coals exposed by the falling bricks.
'Better keep your people back, Lieutenant,' said the battalion chief. 'The whole thing might collapse. Or we might not have the natural gas all the way off… Wish the tourists would go home.'
Cash thought they were well behaved. Awe seemed to have held all but the boldest at a safe distance. The youngsters were the troublesome ones.
He and the other officers formed a little skirmish line clique before the ruin, staying out of the fire department's way, asking neighbors their opinions about what had happened. More police, hospital, and civil defense types kept showing up. The arson squad descended like a swarm of locusts.
Ten o'clock came. Railsback and Cash were still there. Annie, Tran, and Tran's sons had done yeoman service running coffee and sandwiches. Tran had even pitched in to help excavate the bodies. The work didn't seem to bother him. Plenty of practice, Cash supposed.
There were four of them. Not enough remained to tell much just by looking, but they seemed, by size, to have been young.
'You know,' said Railsback, 'I'll bet they're the ones who started it. I been talking to people. They say this Smiley was always having trouble with kids. They might've been going to show him with a little fire that got out of control and trapped them.'
'Yeah? Where's all the mothers crying, 'Oh my baby?' The only trouble he had was kids using his yard for a shortcut.'
'What kind of guy was he?' Hank asked, watching the last plastic bag disappear into the last ambulance.
'I don't know. What do you mean? I knew him for thirty years, but not very well. He was a private sort of guy. Saw him more at the neighborhood association meetings than any other time.'
'I just wondered. Can't tell what it was anymore, but he had a lot of strange stuff in his basement.'
Cash shrugged. He hadn't noticed. But he hadn't done much looking. 'He says he was a doctor in the old country. I don't think he ever practiced here. Never did anything but hang around his house and go to stamp-club meetings. He was some kind of expert on rare stamps. The whole third floor of his house was filled with stamp albums and books about stamps. Like to drove me crazy talking about it the one time I went over there.'
'You see anything strange?'
'No. Except for the stamp collections the house was the same as any other place on the street. I never went in the basement, though.'
'Hospital-type stuff. Yeah. That's what it was.'
'Now you mention it…' The basement had looked a lot like a ruined intensive care ward.
'Think he might have been in the abortion business before it was legal?'
'Without us ever getting a hint?'
Railsback shrugged. 'I'll believe anything anymore. Not much we can do here now. Shit! I forgot about the Old Man. Smith or Tucholski say anything about taking him in?'
'I don't think so.' Cash was too tired to think. And he still had to go back to the station for his own car. He handed Hank the keys to the police vehicle. 'Why don't you get the car, check on your dad, then pick up me and Beth at my house?' Beth had fled thither after her first glimpse of a burned corpse.
'Okay.'
As Cash strolled homeward with Tran, the major asked, 'What became of your partner? His wife and your daughter-in-law were at your house when I returned from work. They were upset.'
'Oh, I don't need that.'
'Pardon?'
'I'm wiped out. I don't think I can cope with Carrie tonight.' He quickly explained what he and John had done, and that John had vanished. Just like O'Brien, four hoods, and a twelve-year-old detective.
'And now the woman's disappeared too?'
'Slick. But I got a good idea where she went. Hank gives me fifteen minutes tomorrow, I'll find out for sure. She's got a brother or uncle or something in New York that she doesn't know we know about. She'll go there.'
Annie had managed to get rid of Carrie and Nancy somehow. He didn't ask, just collapsed into a chair and listened bemusedly to Beth and Le Quyen, who were carrying on an animated conversation. Friday would be another along day, and during it he would have to tell Carrie the truth.
And Teri, too.
His life was closing in. His job was polluting it, and he was losing his zest.
He didn't get to bed till one, and then only with Hank's hard, 'Be in bright and early, Cash!' still ringing in his ears.
