Earl W. Emerson - The Smoke Room

OTHER BOOKS BY EARL EMERSON

Vertical Burn

Into the Inferno

Pyro

The Smoke Room

THE THOMAS BLACK NOVELS

The Rainy City

Poverty Bay

Nervous Laughter

Fat Tuesday

Deviant Behavior

Yellow Dog Party

The Portland Laugher

The Vanishing Smile

The Million-Dollar Tattoo

Deception Pass

Catfish Caf

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

EARL EMERSON is a lieutenant in the Seattle Fire Department. He is the Shamus Awardwinning author of Vertical Burn, Into the Inferno, and Pyro, as well as the Thomas Black detective series, which includes The Rainy City, Poverty Bay, Nervous Laughter, Fat Tuesday, Deviant Behavior, Yellow Dog Party, The Portland Laugher, The Vanishing Smile, The Million-Dollar Tattoo, Deception Pass, and Catfish Caf. He lives in North Bend, Washington. Visit the authors website at www.EarlEmerson.com.

1. HOWLING IN THE DEEP BLUE TWILIGHT

EXPERTS ESTIMATED THE pig fell just over 11,000 feet before it plunged through Iola Pedersons roof.

The lone witness had been snitching cherry tomatoes from a pot on his neighbors front porch when he looked up and spotted the hog as it tumbled through the deep blue twilight. Whether the hog had been howling because he was delighted with the flight or because of the rapidly approaching earth, nobody ever knew. Ultimately the critter pierced Iola Pedersons roof with the sound of a man putting his foot through a rotten porch.

The pigs demise pretty much signaled the end of all my ambitions.

My name is Jason Gum. Just call me Gum.

At the time, I was twenty-four years old and had been a Seattle firefighter just under two years but was already studying to take the lieutenants examination in another year. I was aiming to be chief of the department. It was ambitious, I know, but the way I figured it, you need goals if you are going anywhere in lifegoals and a straight and narrow pathway.

Engine 29 runs out of a sleepy little station in a residential district in West Seattle. Four people work off the rig: an officer, a driver, and two of us in back. On the day we got the call to check out Iola Pedersons roof, I was working a rare turn on B shift. Stanislow had less time in than I did, and I could tell she was looking to my lead as we raced toward the scene of what the radio report said was a rocket into a house. I knew not to get too worked up until wed evaluated the scene ourselves.

I wonder if its an accidental firing from the submarine base across the water, said Stanislow. Christ.

Its probably nothing, I said.

As we sat in the back of the crew cab watching the streets unfold behind us, Stanislow and I slipped into our MSA harnesses. Theyd also dispatched two more engines and two aerial ladders, a chief, a medic unit, and probably an aid car; yet even with all that manpower, Stanislow and I would be first through the door. Life on the tailboard. Cash money couldnt get a better seat to every little bizarre extravagance of human behavior.

The address was on Hobart Avenue SW, a location drivers from stations outside our district were going to have a hard time finding.

Siren growling, Engine 29 moved through quiet, residential streets until we hit the apex of Bonair Drive, where we swooped down the hillside through a greenbelt that was mostly brown nowSeattle enjoying the driest August on record.

The slate-blue Puget Sound was spread out below us like a blanket. West over the Olympics the sunset was dead except for a few fat razor slashes of pink along the horizon. A hawk tipped his wings and bobbled on air currents over the hillside. Above us a small plane circled.

The house was the only single-family residence on a street of small apartment buildings. The lieutenant turned around and said, Looks like smoke. I want you guys to lay a preconnect to the front door.

The driver placed the wheel blocks under the rear duals and started the pump, while I jumped down and grabbed the two-hundred-foot bundle of inch-and-three-quarters hose preconnected to an outlet on the rig and headed toward the house, dropping flakes of dry hose behind me. The officer busied himself on the radio, giving incoming units directions to our location. Because the driver on this shift was noted for filling the line with reckless speed, I moved quickly, not wanting the water pressure to knock me down the way it had Stanislow at her first fire.

In front of the house a man with one of those ubiquitous white Hemingway beards you see on so many old guys sat cross-legged on the turf, covered in blood. Behind him, the living-room windows were broken out, pieces of plate glass littering the lawn like mirrors and reflecting distant city lights, a twilight sky. The roof had a hole in it the size of a duffel bag. All I could think was that the man on the lawn had been burned and wounded, possibly in an explosion.

Anybody inside? I asked.

My daughter, he gasped. My daughters in there! I think shes in there. God. Im confused.

Stanislow stooped beside the victim. What happened?

Im not sure. It might have been a bomb.

A bomb, Stanislow said. Did you hear that, Gum? What if theres another one?

You got any explosives in the house? I asked.

Just a few bullets. But I didnt do this. It came from up there. He pointed toward the sky.

Powdery material that might or might not have been smoke drifted out of the hole in the roof. Later we determined it was creosote dust being distributed by the kitchen fan. The broken window frames were draped in a wet substance that appeared remarkably similar to entrails.

As I neared the doorway and the cotton-jacketed hose started to harden at my feet, I clipped my air hose to my face piece and began inhaling compressed air. Stanislow caught up with me but stopped near a gore-festooned window frame. Jesus. Look at that.

I pushed the front door open with my boot.

You think thats his daughter? Stanislow asked. You think thats her guts?

Only one way to find out.

Theres no telling how bad hes bleeding. I better stay out here and take care of him.

Okay. Ill go in. You take care of him.

I picked up the nozzle and went through the front door, keeping low the way wed been taught, not crawling but not standing, either. When I switched my helmet light on, hundreds of thousands of black motes wafted in the yellow beam. I could see maybe ten feet through the nebula.

It had been close to 90 Fahrenheit when we left the station, and experts estimated that under normal working conditions the microclimate inside our turnouts was nearly 150. It was probably higher tonight, which kept me sweating profusely in the heavy, all-encapsulating turnout clothing.

It didnt occur to me until I entered the structure that Id been listening to howling for some time now, the noise obscured by the roaring of Engine 29s motor and pump. The noises might have been coming from an animal. More likely it was a second victim. Most of the ceiling in the main room was on the floor, plaster and broken boards underfoot. I moved through the blackness, at times forced to feel my way, dragging the hose even though there was no sign of heat or fire.

Its okay, I said. Im here to help.

She was hunkered on the floor. The black ink in the air had settled on her like broken spiderwebs. The floor was gooey, and as I reached her I slipped to one knee. When I tipped her head up and peeked through the blood and the black residue covering her face, I was greeted by the most startling blue eyes Id ever encountered.