Fire Page 9

  He had to use the multi-tool to cut off four plastic ties from the gloves. Why so many? Were people going to walk out wearing leather work gloves they stole and not get caught? Was that the number one item for theft at Walmart? The irritation he felt at a stupid level of glove security was the first strong feeling he’d had since getting home, and he clamped down on it, afraid a flood of emotion would follow in its wake and render him incapable of action.

  The multitool told the tale when he used it to tap on the lumps inside the garage. He was, he realized, seeing his hot water heater and his furnace. The metallic sound plus their location told him that, once he’d oriented himself. He scanned the house ruins and made out the refrigerator too. None seemed the right size, the size they had been before. They were a little smaller, either because metal had buckled, or because it was an optical illusion for him without the context of walls to tell him their size. But they were in the right spots.

  And he triple-checked the area where Sylvia parked. There was no car husk there, definitely nothing. A wash of relief swept over him at not having to look for her remains here, in the house she’d loved so much.

  But if she was—“gone” was the only word he was willing to use right now—then there were remains. Somewhere. Not here, but somewhere. He wouldn’t know where to look next. Not unless he found her car. He regretted not having some sort of tracker on both their cars. It was a thing he’d never do, not even if he suspected her of cheating on him, which she’d never done and he wouldn’t believe she’d ever do. Hell, lately she hadn’t had time for one relationship, much less two. Though right now, he’d give anything if she had been cheating. Then she might have gone to a lover’s house somewhere else, out of the fire’s path, and be safe. But no, not Syl. She wasn’t that type of person.

  The house had only a crawl space, and the house was one-story, so walking around it wasn’t as dangerous as exploring two-story homes might be. There’d be houses where you’d fall through a compromised floor to a basement. The rooms were recognizable, for the most part, with lines of debris still marking out their walls. It was amazing how much had burned. He kicked around the ash and found a few things, charred beyond use, but still recognizable. A metal bowl they’d kept fruit in, though if there’d been fruit when he left yesterday morning, it had all turned to ash.

  This was useless. Sad and useless, a waste of his time. Sylvia hadn’t been here when the fire claimed the house. Of that, he was 99.99% sure. And the only important thing for him to find wasn’t a thing surviving in the ashes, but his wife. Everything else could wait. If he could find her, he’d have a home again. She was the heart of home to him. In a tent, she would still be his true home.

  He walked back down the driveway and turned once to look back. He could almost see the house as it had been, hovering like a ghost over the black patch of destruction. Then the vision disappeared, and he turned his back on it.

  Chapter 19

  Again, he considered going back and driving his car around to the other entrance to the loop road, but he didn’t want to be caught and sent away. It was true, he’d seen what he came here to see. He knew now that Sylvia had left. She could have driven off to shop before the fire, or she could have evacuated with all the others.

  Though neither scenario made sense. Had she been shopping in Grass Valley and come back to see the fire heading toward Pinedrops, she’d have turned around and called him. Had she evacuated like Pasquale, she’d have called him by sundown. Had she been hurt, treated and released like Pasquale, she’d have called him by this morning, when he’d gotten the call from his friend.

  He made himself replay the memory of their fight yesterday. His fight, really. She hadn’t gotten angry at all. She’d been mostly distracted. Thinking back on it with distance, with the cold dislike of himself for approaching the topic as he did, and with so little time to work it out before he’d left for work, he believed he could remember it accurately. She had not been angry. Or even hurt. Just impatient. She disagreed with him, yes. But she wanted to get her work done and have him out of the house so she could return to her project. It wasn’t a big enough resentment to make her punish him with worry.

  She wasn’t that kind of person anyway. When she was angry, he knew it. She didn’t do any kind of passive-aggressive bullshit where she “forgot” promises or gave him the silent treatment. She’d say, “I’m so pissed at you!” and tell him why. He hated those moments. But he’d come to rely on them. He could rely on them—and rely on her, to be the person he knew her to be.

  If she could have called, she would have called by now. Long before now.

  So she couldn’t call. That was the only possibility remaining.

  He had only one remote glimmer of hope. He’d read how in another fire, a group of people had hidden in the basement of some store. Maybe that had happened here. Maybe he’d come across forty or fifty survivors huddled outside such a place in town, their cellphones also not working, debating whether or not to hike out for help. Something like that could have happened. It wouldn’t have been forty people. More like four or fourteen people, in a town this size. But it could have happened.

  True, the deputy said they’d been fighting the fire here, not that he saw any signs of that around his house. So they’d surely have found a group like that while fighting the fire, and have taken them out. Surely. But he had to look anyway.

  If he didn’t find her in town, he was out of ideas. The only other thing left to do was to hunt for Sylvia’s car, burned out on the road, with Sylvia still in it. He’d need to look again at the charred cars at the loop road entrance near where he’d parked, make sure none of them were the right size.

  Downtown was another six miles ahead. As he walked along, the houses were built closer together. Exactly one was still standing, a bit scorched on the side facing him, but definitely intact. The sight of it made hope flare in his chest. He ran. Making it up to the house, he knocked. No one answered.

  He tried the door. It was locked. He yelled, “Sylvia! Anyone! Are you in there?” And pounded hard on the door. He wondered if someone could be, someone else, hurt maybe. “Do you need help?” he yelled. He listened, but there was no sound at all. Not a bird sang this morning, not in Pinedrops. No traffic. No voices. No loud bass beats coming out of a car driving by. Just the occasional crackle of something still burning, or of debris slithering down a distant pile. That was all he had heard this morning. From this surviving house, he heard nothing.

  He walked away. Now that he knew it wasn’t a refuge for Sylvia, it meant nothing to him. Maybe one day he’d resent that it hadn’t succumbed to the flames when his had, but not today. Today he had a single intent, a single thought.

  Sylvia, where are you?

  He made it to the small downtown an hour later, but there his hopes were dashed. There was no crowd of survivors hanging around the café or art gallery or the one long-closed brick building. It still stood, but it was gutted by fire, the windows gone, the bricks charred. No one was in there.

  He was standing there, his back to the brick, staring around himself and thinking about the long walk back to his car, when he heard an engine noise. The day was moving on toward noon. He’d grown warm with all the walking. James waited for the vehicle to approach. Whoever it was, he’d beg a ride to his car.

  It was a fire vehicle. Not a pumper, not a big truck, but an SUV. He waved it down.

  A man’s head popped out of the window. “Sir, stay right where you are. Keep your hands in my sight all the time.”

  The man was speaking on the radio. He turned again to James. “Do you have an ID? Take it out slowly.”

  James reached for his pocket and stopped before he got there, realizing he had left his wallet in the center console of the car. “I don’t, I’m sorry. It’s in my car, which is parked down at the blockage near Highway 49.” He had his hands out, not up exactly, but well out from his body. Without moving their position, he pointed with one finger back down the road.
<
br />   “Why are you here?”

  “I live here.” He gave his name and address. “My house is burned to the foundation. You guys didn’t save it. Didn’t save many, from the looks of it.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “How can you prove you’re who you say you are?”

  “Well, I guess a deputy could look up my driver’s license. Maybe you can, if you have something in there that’ll show the picture. My DMV photo looks just like me.” The DMV out here was better than the ones he’d been to in urban areas. There, the workers were so angry he had long suspected they were all on probation from some violent crime conviction. Out here, they were more laid back, acted like regular people, and they took a second with your photo so you actually looked like yourself.

  “I don’t have anything like that. You don’t have anything? A piece of mail?”

  “These clothes I’m wearing, and a change of work clothes in my car, they’re all I own. The backpack, the food inside, the multitool and gloves I just bought—” He stopped. “Oh. My cellphone. It’s in the pack. I think we can figure out I’m me by some documents and stuff on the cellphone. Pictures. Pictures of the house, maybe, though you can’t compare it to anything that is there now.”

  “I’m sorry to be so suspicious,” the fire guy said. He seemed to relax at this offer. “If you’d take the pack off slowly and take out the phone, I’d appreciate it. Is it in the main compartment of the pack?”

  “No, in the outside flap. In fact, it’s fine with me if you take it out, if you’re worried about my having a gun or something. I don’t. Just the multi-tool, because I thought I might need it at my house.”

  “Did you?”

  “Not enough left to fix. I did use it to figure out what my hot water heater was. By tapping on it, you know.”

  “I know.” He nodded as if he completely understood what James had done.

  James took off the pack, carried it to the car, and stepped away. “That bigger outer pocket.”

  The fire guy opened the car door, lifted the pack and took out the cellphone. He looked at the screen and held it out to James. “It’s locked.”

  “Right. The code is 3484.”

  “You do it,” he said, the phone still extended.

  James relaxed his arms and took the phone. He punched his way into it and opened his email account for work. His real name was on it. He handed the phone over and said, “That’s where I work. You can call my boss and verify. He can even describe me. We talked about the fire yesterday. He let me leave early because of it.”

  The man looked and handed the phone back. He didn’t seem interested in verifying. The offer must have been enough

  Still, James made a second offer. “I’ll find pictures of the house. Maybe some of me at the café.”

  “Are you here to see if your house is still there?”

  “No. Not now. I’m looking for my wife. She’s missing.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m out of ideas,” he said. “She got out of the house. Her car isn’t there.”

  “That’s good.”

  “But I left her messages and she hasn’t called me. Not by 7:15 this morning, at least, which is about when I lost the cell signal coming up here.”

  “Have you checked hospitals?”

  “A deputy did for me this morning, around three in the morning. She said everybody had an identity who’d been admitted, and Sylvia isn’t one of them.”

  “It’s worth checking again. It’s possible there have been late admittances.”

  “Do you know that for sure?”

  “No, but if someone was trapped, they might not get to a hospital until this morning.”

  “Are you—” James swallowed. “Looking for bodies here?”

  Chapter 20

  “No.” The man looked troubled. “No, I’m not looking for bodies. I’m reviewing the incident.”

  “Incident.” James almost found that amusing. All around him, blackened ruins suggested something more than an “incident,” which seemed a word you’d apply to a minor event. This was a total disaster, not an “incident.”

  “I’m reviewing how the fire was handled, and trying to learn what we could have done better.”

  “Did you do anything wrong?”

  “Not that I’ve seen. It was a fast-moving fire. There was little time to intervene.”

  “Is it out now, do you know?” He supposed he should care about people still in its path, though the part of his mind that worried about other people, about strangers, was sluggish right now. He had his own worries. Still, it seemed the polite thing to ask.

  “Sixty percent contained. We made some headway overnight, but the wind is already picking up, and I doubt we’ll make much headway again until sundown. Be lucky if we hold our own. We might get it out tonight if the weather forecast holds.”

  He was right about the weather. There was more wind than when James had left his car and started to walk. “But you’re already reviewing yesterday’s work?”

  “We have to. I know it seems senseless to someone who just lost everything they owned, but….” He shrugged. “I’m sorry.”

  James waved it off. “I honestly don’t care what you’re doing or when you do it or what the regulations are. I just want to find my wife, you know?”

  The man nodded his understanding. “I need to ask you to leave the area though. And I hope you just do it, and don’t make me pull the sheriff in here to pull you out. We can’t have people wandering around. Looting is a concern.”

  “And you have to find the bodies. I get it.” He swallowed, but he made himself ask. “If you find her, you know, that way, how will I know?”

  “I hate to be blunt.”

  “I’d rather know.”

  He looked doubtful, but went on. “It’s tough to find anyone if the person isn’t located in a structure. I’m afraid you have some hard days ahead of you. I mean, if your wife is fine, and ends up in a hospital at noon, then all is well. Or if she stayed at a friend’s and slept late and called you and is waiting for you to call her back. But if not.... Well, I’m sorry, but you may have to look at some remains. Or some effects.”

  “Christ,” James said.

  “Photos only, and only in cases where it will do any good. They won’t show you grizzly sights for no reason.”

  “All her information will be on her driver’s license. Height. Weight. All that.”

  “I’m going to call a deputy in, not to arrest you, but to make sure we have everything we need on her, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Just have a seat. Use my car if you want.”

  James looked down at himself. He was as soot-covered as everything around him. “I’ll use the ground.” He felt around first, found a cool spot, and sat, drinking water. He had no idea how long it was until a sheriff’s deputy arrived. To his surprise, it was the same one he’d talked to this morning. Her first name came back to him. Venita whoever.

  He managed a smile at the familiar face. It was almost like seeing a friend.

  “How you doing, Mr. Chang?”

  “James, please.”

  “James,” she agreed.

  “I’ve been better.”

  “I already put your wife on the official missing persons list.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But I could gather more information.”

  “Anything you need. Anything that will help.”

  “Okay, first of all, her driver’s license. Did she lie about her height or weight at all?”

  “I don’t think so. She isn’t the type to.”

  “A lot of women do lie. They shave off five or ten pounds.”

  “I doubt Syl would have. But if she did, honestly, she’s been working so hard, she probably lost five this past month or two, so it’d be accurate now.”

  “Is there any way for you to get pictures of her?”

  “I have some on my phone, right here.”

  “Excellent. Let me give you my
number, and you can forward some to me. Front-on face shots, one whole body shot.”

  He did so. “There’s no signal, but they’ll go when I’m back under a cell tower.”

  “Okay. That’s good.” She cleared her throat.

  James waited, wanting to be helpful. Anything that would find Sylvia.

  “Does your wife have any prosthetics?”

  “What? No.”

  “Like a titanium knee.”

  He got it. He saw it. A pile of ash, of bone fragments, and a shiny titanium knee sitting amidst it. They wouldn’t ask if they hadn’t seen that somewhere, in some fire. “Shit,” he breathed, and he found himself sitting on the ground again, though he didn’t remember how he got there.

  “And I’ll want the name of your dentist. And I’ll mail you a release on that.”

  “Stop,” he begged.

  “I’m sorry. We’re through the worst of it, honest.”

  “No,” he said. “We’re not. I’m not.” He understood that now.

  Chapter 21

  It wasn’t the end of his hope—he couldn’t give it all up, not yet—but the detective’s questions threw him for a loop. He didn’t think he could make it back to his car hiking. He asked Venita for a ride, and she put him in the patrol car, in the back like a criminal, and took him out to where he’d left his car. On the way, he pointed out his house.

  “Looks like it was in a pretty area.”

  “It was. Nice view. I guess that’s done now.”

  “It’ll grow back.”

  Too bad people couldn’t.

  She let him out at his car. “Have you slept much?”

  “Not at all.”

  “I’d really like you to sleep. Your mind will be clearer. You’ll be a better driver. And you need to get down to where there’s a cell signal so a hospital can contact you if your wife comes in. I doubt they’ll have this cell tower up again until tomorrow or the next day.”

  Sleep? He was afraid what he might dream of.

  “I’m leaving. I’m actually off duty now, technically.”

  He thought back to last night. “Long shift.”