Fire Season Read online

  “And—the shed fire and the condo fire have very similar signatures. Use of liquid accelerant, line of accelerant out the door, no matches or containers left on the scene, all pretty deliberate and organized, no apparent DNA, nothing too weird or pathological, beyond the fires themselves. Simple—arson 101—but very similar. The probability that the two fires are set by the same person is pretty high. Unless.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Mancini said. “Unless what?”

  “Unless,” Coffin said, “the person who set the second fire knew how to read the signature of the first fire.”

  “Right,” Wells said, “and you’d probably have to have at least a little training in forensic fire investigation to be able to do that.”

  “And who gets this kind of training?” Gault said.

  “Firefighters,” Coffin said. “Professional and certified volunteer. Some law-enforcement people. Academics in the field.”

  “Ah,” Gault said, swallowing. “I see.”

  “But like I say, the odds are very good that we have a single firebug, and not a copycat,” Wells said.

  “I’d feel better about those odds if Rudy fucking Santos wasn’t involved,” Mancini said.

  You and me both, Coffin wanted to say, but he kept his mouth shut.

  Chapter 9

  Coffin leaned back in his office chair, loosened his tie and unbuttoned his collar. His neck felt sore and constricted, as though a noose had been cinched around it. He rubbed it, cradling the phone in his other hand. “Dr. Sengupta,” he said. “Four forty-five. Right.”

  “Labs anytime before noon. You’re supposed to fast for twelve hours. Have you eaten anything yet?”

  “Nope,” Coffin said. “Just coffee.”

  “They’re squeezing you in. Don’t be late.” Jamie’s voice sounded distant, thin. The phone made a faint whooshing sound that seemed to get louder whenever the wind blew particularly hard against the windows.

  “What happened to Dr. Frankel? I liked her.”

  “She left,” Jamie said. “Five years ago.”

  “I hope it wasn’t something I said.”

  Jamie laughed. “It’s good that we’re doing this. You need to be in tip-top shape if you’re going to chase a toddler around, you know.”

  “Right,” Coffin said. “Tip-top.”

  “Listen, it’s getting late. If you’re going to get your blood drawn in time, you’d better go now.”

  “Right-o,” Coffin said. “I’ll run right over.”

  “Love you, Frank.”

  “Love you, too.”

  Coffin hung up, punched the intercom button. “Arlene?” he said.

  Arlene was the secretary Boyle had brought in. She was very skinny and very tan, and smelled of menthol cigarettes. She looked slightly scorched, as though she’d been overroasted in a big oven; Coffin guessed that she spent a lot of time in tanning salons.

  “Yes, Chief,” she said.

  “My cousin Tony’s the desk officer today. Ask him to come up, would you?”

  “Will do.”

  Ten seconds later the intercom beeped. “He’s on his way,” Arlene said.

  * * *

  “I ain’t seen him, Frankie,” Tony said, standing just inside Coffin’s office door. “Like I said.”

  “He hasn’t been in touch with you? No phone calls? Nothing?”

  “Nope. Nada.”

  Tony seemed nervous. Frightened, even. He was wide-eyed, sweatier than usual.

  “What’s up, Tony?”

  “What’s up with what?”

  “You look like someone’s been chasing you.”

  Tony turned, opened the door a crack, peeked out, then shut the door again as silently as he could. He looked like a frightened bear. He shambled across the rug, lowered himself carefully into a leather guest chair. Outside, in the hallway, workmen started banging on something metal. There was a brief barrage of drilling.

  “Frankie,” Tony said, when the noise subsided for a moment. “They’re back.”

  “Who’s back? You mean Rudy?”

  Tony shook his head so hard that his jowls flapped like a basset hound’s. “Not Rudy. I told you I ain’t seen him.”

  “Who, then?”

  “You’re gonna think I’m crazy.”

  Coffin raised an eyebrow.

  “The saucers, Frankie. I saw ’em again this morning as I was driving in. Over Pilgrim Lake.”

  Tony lived in Eastham, about a half-hour drive from Provincetown on Route 6.

  “Saucers,” Coffin said.

  “Three of ’em, Frankie. Big silver ones. Hovering in formation over Pilgrim Lake as I’m coming down the hill there. Then when I get almost underneath ’em, they zoom off, like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Out toward the Atlantic. Gone. Just like the last time.”

  “What last time?” Coffin said.

  Tony rubbed a hand over his face. His forehead was sheened with sweat. “I shouldn’a said nothing. Forget it.”

  “Tony. What last time?”

  Tony looked over his shoulder again, then leaned forward, meeting Coffin’s eyes. “Back in ’95. October—right around this time of year. I’d only been on the force about six months. I saw ’em then, too. Right before.”

  Coffin’s eyes itched. He rubbed the lids with the thumb and index finger of his right hand. “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he said.

  “Ask me, Frankie,” Tony said, eyes suddenly fierce.

  “Tony.”

  “‘Right before what?’” Tony said, poking at Coffin’s desktop with a thick forefinger. “You’re my first cousin. My best friend since we were kids. Go on, ask me.”

  “Look,” Coffin said. “This isn’t helping me. Somebody’s setting fires.” He looked at his watch. “I’m supposed to be getting my blood drawn.”

  “They took me, Frankie. They came in the night and took me.”

  “Tony.”

  “They did things to me.”

  “They,” Coffin said, “did things to you.”

  Tony stared out the window—past Coffin’s shoulder, over the harbor toward Pilgrim Lake. “And now they’re back.”

  Coffin took a deep breath, smoothed his mustache. “Look,” he said. “Why don’t you take a few personal days? I’ll get one of the temps to fill in. Take Doris and the kids up to Boston. It’d make her happy, right?”

  Tony nodded. “Okay,” he said. “It’s worth a shot. Maybe they’ll take somebody else, instead. Some tourist, maybe.”

  “They can have ’em all,” Coffin said. “As long as they leave their wallets behind.”

  * * *

  At the clinic, Coffin waited to have his blood drawn. The waiting room was pleasant enough: it had a high, cathedral ceiling with skylights and no TV. Coffin picked up a copy of Entertainment Weekly: Someone named Lady Gaga was on the cover. She looked, he thought, like a well put-together drag queen.

  There was only one other patient: a young man, reading a rumpled copy of Newsweek. He looked familiar: not tall, deep chest, close-cropped hair. He had a bandage wrapped around his right hand. Coffin fished in his memory for a name, but couldn’t come up with it.

  The young man looked up from his magazine, squinted at Coffin. “You’re Coffin, right?” he said.

  Coffin nodded. He remembered now. “Yep. And you’re Maurice. From Yaya’s.”

  “That’s right. Only I don’t work there now, since the seals got killed.”

  “Sorry to hear that.” Coffin pointed. “What happened to your wing?”

  Maurice held up his bandaged hand. “Dog bit me. Schnauzer.”

  “Ouch,” Coffin said.

  “It’s no big deal,” Maurice said. “I’d still rather hang out with dogs than people, any day.” There was a minute-long silence before Maurice stirred in his seat. “So, any progress?” he said.

  “On the fires? Not much.”

  Maurice nodded, picked at something on his pants leg.

  Coffin set his magazine down on an end table
. “But you’re talking about the seals, right?”

  “Yeah—that’s right. I meant the seals.”

  Coffin shook his head. “Not so far, no.” He shrugged. “The trail’s pretty cold at this point. Sorry.”

  Coffin jumped a bit when his cell phone buzzed in his pocket, then started to play a boisterous electronic version of “La Cucaracha.” He wasn’t used to having a cell phone and didn’t like having to carry one, but Monica Gault insisted he be “reachable” at all times. He did not like the fact that his cell phone played “La Cucaracha” whenever someone called him, either, but despite numerous attempts, he could not get it to play anything else, or make any other sort of sound. He had been tempted on numerous occasions to throw it into the harbor, and had he been close to the water he might have done so then.

  Coffin pressed the glowing button, put the phone to his ear.

  “Coffin,” he said.

  “Detective, it’s Dr. Branstool from Valley View. Sorry to bother you in the middle of what must be a busy day.”

  “What’s she done now?” Coffin said. “Bitten Mr. Hastings again? Staged another jailbreak?”

  “I’m afraid it’s more serious than that,” Dr. Branstool said. If his voice had had a color, Coffin thought, it would have been beige. “She set Mrs. Pickerel’s room on fire. I’m afraid she’s caused quite a bit of damage.”

  “Mrs. Pickerel? Is that the lady that thinks she’s on a cruise?”

  “We need to have a conversation about your mother’s options at this point,” Branstool said. “Can you come in this afternoon?”

  * * *

  “You’re kicking her out?” Coffin said, sitting across from Dr. Branstool in Valley View’s cramped conference room—table, chairs with little wheels, mouse-colored carpet, broad window overlooking the cemetery. “Just like that?”

  “Just like that, Detective?” Branstool leaned forward in his chair.

  A young woman who’d been introduced as a patient’s advocate sat next to him. She appeared to be about twenty-five and wore a neat navy blue suit, her highlighted hair in a loose bun. She handed Branstool a green folder.

  “This is your mother’s behavioral file.” Branstool opened the folder on the conference table, leafed through several pages of forms and handwritten notes. “October 2006, only a week after she became a resident here, she struck a nurse’s aide with a baked potato.”

  “The nurse’s aide kept calling her ‘hon,’” Coffin said. “She hates that.”

  Branstool looked up, pale eyes behind round horn-rimmed glasses. “April of 2007, she bit Mr. Hastings.”

  “He cheats at Monopoly,” Coffin said. “Not that that would justify biting, of course.”

  “June of 2007, she refused to speak for almost an entire month.”

  “She was upset about the food.”

  “August of 2008 she repeatedly ran naked through the main hall.”

  “She was hot.”

  “May of 2009, she left the facility without permission on nine occasions.”

  “She had a boyfriend. They wanted some privacy.”

  “She routinely uses abusive language toward our caregivers. She was barred by the other patients from our weekly game of charades for making obscene gestures. She refuses all medication—”

  “Look,” Coffin said. “She’s difficult. I get it. She has Alzheimer’s. That’s why she’s here.”

  “But none of it rises to this level of seriousness, Detective. None of it seriously endangered our residents and staff—not until today.”

  “So you’re kicking her out,” Coffin said. He flexed his arm. The nurse who’d drawn his blood had done a good job—he’d hardly felt the needle going in, but now the square of gauze she’d pasted over the wound with a Band-Aid was beginning to itch.

  “Relocating,” the patient’s advocate said. “To a facility in Sandwich that’s better equipped to care for someone with her degree of dementia. We’ve already been in touch with them, and they have a bed available.”

  “So, what,” Coffin said, “they’ll shoot her full of Thorazine and strap her to a wheelchair all day?”

  “I’m sorry, Detective,” Branstool said. His suit was muted beige, his tie a pale, watery green strip of raw silk. “As Ms. Haskell says, we’re just not equipped to care for her here. She’s crossed the line from being difficult, as you say, to being a real danger to herself and others. The rules are very clear—there’s nothing I can do.”

  Coffin looked at Ms. Haskell. She was plump, but her face was quite pretty. She seemed very young. “Could I have a word alone with Dr. Branstool?”

  Ms. Haskell’s eyebrows went up. “Well…”

  “It’s all right, Ms. Haskell,” Dr. Branstool said. “Detective Coffin and I are old friends.” He laughed a weak, dry laugh. Outside, dark clouds herded slowly in from the west. A line of starlings pecked among the gravestones, the cemetery grass was silver green and shaggy in the slanted light.

  When the door had closed behind Ms. Haskell, Coffin leaned forward and propped his elbows on the conference table. “Where did my mother get the matches?”

  Dr. Branstool’s eyes widened behind his horn-rimmed glasses. Something about the way their lenses caught the light made Coffin wonder, not for the first time, whether they were flat glass—worn purely for effect. “We’re looking into that,” he said. “We think one of the orderlies may have mislaid his lighter.”

  “If a patient has dementia,” Coffin said, “and a nursing home operator leaves lighters lying around, who’s liable if the patient sets the place on fire? I’m just curious.”

  Dr. Branstool smiled weakly. “Detective,” he said. “Really now. If we’re going to be legalistic about this, I think Valley View wins that battle hands-down. It states clearly in our residential contract that any action by the patient that endangers or injures staff or residents will result in his or her immediate removal from the premises. We’ve been more than tolerant, Detective—mainly out of deference to you. But now, as I say, she has crossed the line into genuinely dangerous behavior. She has to go.”

  Coffin frowned. “How soon?”

  “The facility in Sandwich will accept her tomorrow.”

  Coffin met Dr. Branstool’s eyes. They were watery and blue behind their fake lenses. “Out of deference to me,” Coffin said, “could you hold off for a few days? Give me a chance to look into the alternatives?”

  “No one will take her, Detective. We’ve tried. But all right—I’m not unsympathetic to your plight, whatever my feelings are about your mother. Three days—then out she goes.”

  * * *

  Coffin sat in his mother’s room. His mother lay on the bed, watching the big TV, hands folded neatly across her chest. Her eyes were bright and fierce.

  “I hate that little cocksucker,” she said. “What’s his name.”

  “Branstool.”

  “No, not that cocksucker”—she waved at the TV’s bright screen—“that one.” The TV was tuned to FOX News. A chubby little man with wet lips and a blond crew cut was standing in front of a chalkboard, writing feverishly. The sound was off.

  “Oh, that cocksucker,” Coffin said. “Everybody hates him.”

  “I shouldn’t have set that crazy bitch’s nightstand on fire,” his mother said after a silence.

  “No,” Coffin said. “That wasn’t good.”

  “It was supposed to be a joke. She thinks she’s on a cruise, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “Well, it isn’t fair,” his mother said. “She gets to be on a cruise to freaking Puerto Rico and the rest of us are stuck in this craphole. It pisses me off.”

  “So it was a joke, Ma? You weren’t trying to hurt her?”

  “Oh, hell no—if I’d wanted to hurt her she’d damn well be hurt. I was just trying to screw with her. I waited ’til she was taking her nap and snuck in and set her box of Kleenex on fire. Once it got going pretty good I started yelling, ‘Abandon ship! Abandon ship!’ You should’ve seen
her scamper out of there. I pissed my diaper, I laughed so hard. But then the damn lamp shade caught on fire and next thing you know the alarm’s going off and the sprinkler’s trying to kick on.”

  “Trying? It didn’t work?”

  “Nope. Kind of made a grinding noise but nothing came out. So fatso-the-nurse had to put it out with a fire extinguisher. Whoosh! Took about three seconds.”

  Coffin took a deep breath, let it out. They sat for another minute or two, not saying anything.

  “So they’re kicking me out,” his mother said finally. “Good. I can’t stand this dump. I don’t know what I’m doing here, anyway—these people are all daffy.”

  “We’ll see about that, Ma,” Coffin said. “We will see about that.”

  “You’re a good boy, Eddie,” his mother said, reaching over to pat his hand. “You were always my favorite.”

  Eddie was Coffin’s older brother, MIA in the jungles of Vietnam, almost certainly long dead. “Thanks, Ma,” Coffin said. “I love you, too.”

  * * *

  Coffin sat in the Crown Vic for a minute or two outside Gemma Skolnick’s house, heater on and engine running. Wind again, the sun already low above the shingled rooftops on Brewster Street. Coffin turned on the radio—nothing but static except for WOMR, the local all-volunteer FM station. They were playing Irish music, something lively with fiddle and bagpipes, lots of fast little notes. It made Coffin’s jaw clench; he turned it off.

  “I am so going to regret this,” he said, shutting off the Crown Vic’s purring V8 and climbing out.

  Gemma answered the door after the third knock, just as Coffin was about to give up and check her studio on Commercial Street, above the post office. She wore a short black kimono, a towel wrapped around her head like a turban. She held the kimono together with one hand; a pink cigarette burned in the other.

  “This is a pleasant surprise,” she said, throwing her arms around Coffin’s neck and kissing him on the mouth. On her tiptoes, she was almost as tall as Coffin. “What’s with the uniform?”

  “I’m acting chief,” Coffin said. “I’m supposed to wear it.”

  Gemma’s bare legs were slick with lotion, her nipples stiffening against the black silk of her kimono. “You’ve put on weight,” she said, giving his belly a pat. “I like a man with a little substance.”