ARTHUR P. BRENNAN, CHIEF FIRE MARSHAL, BUREAU OF FIRE INVESTIGATION, FDNY, read the black stenciled lettering on the door. Brennan was on the phone when Georgia entered, his beefy frame stuffed in a swivel chair aimed at the grime-encrusted window. Beyond headquarters loomed the squat, gray skyline of downtown Brooklyn. The Bureau of Fire Investigation was the law-enforcement arm of the New York City Fire Department. Every marshal had once been a firefighter, and some went back to it after a year or two. For those who stayed, a series of civil service exams took them up the ranks—from fire marshal to supervising fire marshal to assistant chief. The chief was usually appointed.
Brennan wore a department uniform—dark blue jacket with brass buttons and medals on the pocket—which made him look something like a navy general. It had the desired effect, for though he made no move to acknowledge her, Georgia remained at attention, ready to salute.
“You stand like that long enough, you’re liable to attract pigeons.”
The voice came from behind the door. Georgia turned, her concentration broken. Supervising Fire Marshal Mac Marenko was slouched in a chair, a toothpick wedged in his mouth. Though his rank entitled him to more clout and pay, it didn’t automatically make him anyone’s boss—least of all hers.
“Am I interrupting something?” Georgia asked.
“Nope.” He grinned. “I’m just a fly on the wall.”
“Then how about you find a nice pile of manure and make yourself at home?”
“Clever, Skeehan. I like a girl who’s clever.” Marenko rose. He was a big man, easily six-two, in good physical shape, with a mop of wavy blue-black hair that needed trimming and a nose made all the more striking for its appearance of having been broken. “The chief asked me to stay. Besides, I know why you’re here. The prelim report on the Rubi Wang fire, right?” He moved toward her. “Can I see it?”
Georgia shot a quick, nervous glance over at Brennan, who was still on the phone.
“For Chrissake, Skeehan, I’m heading the investigation. I’m gonna see the report anyway.”
“Oh. I thought the NYPD had the case.”
“So did they.”
She wanted to offer congratulations, but the words wouldn’t squeak past her lips. Marenko, she knew, considered women a liability in the fire department. It was hard to root for a guy like him. She extracted the report and handed it over.
“Thanks.” He pulled the toothpick out of his mouth and flicked it into a waste basket. “And thanks, too, for your warm show of support.”
“You want support, Marshal, buy a jock strap.”
“Ouch.” He feigned injury. “That was hitting below the belt.” He opened the report, and Georgia realized that two pages of Frankel’s notes had somehow gotten lodged under the front cover. If Brennan or Marenko got so much as a whiff that Frankel was feeding her information, he’d be out on disability before he could say hasta la vista, baby. She lunged for the papers. Marenko caught her wrist.
“Ah-ah-ah. Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to grab?”
“That stuff doesn’t concern you.”
“I’ll be the judge. First tell me what it is.”
“Some background on other fires that resemble Monday night’s blaze.”
“What other fires?” The voice boomed, startling even Marenko, who let go of Georgia’s wrist. Chief Arthur Brennan was off the phone. He fixed his beady blue gaze on Georgia. Frank Greco, as chief of department, was higher ranking, but he was more politician than commander. To really feel your knees quake, there was nothing like a good session with the chief fire marshal.
“A furniture warehouse in upper Manhattan last December, sir.” Georgia licked her lips. Her throat felt parched. “And two vacants—one in Brooklyn; one in the Bronx. All appear to have been started by something with the same intense heat and destructive power as Monday’s fire.”
“Says who?” The rosacea on Brennan’s face, normally just a bumpy red sheen on his cheeks and nose, looked particularly florid right now. Georgia sensed she was the reason.
“It’s in the reports from each of the fires.” She patted the side of her folder. No reason she couldn’t have looked up the reports herself—without Frankel’s help. Brennan couldn’t prove otherwise. “All of the fires occurred in New York City within the last five months. So far, none has yielded even a trace of accelerant residue.”
“And you think one person is behind them?”
“There’s a pattern,” she said, relaxing a bit as she gathered steam. “We’re talking about combustion temperatures high enough to melt iron and turn concrete into glass. I’m assuming these are arson jobs, but the accelerant is a whole lot fancier than kerosene or diesel fuel—”
“This is, of course, your expert opinion.” Georgia saw the smile, swift and faint, travel from Brennan to Marenko. She had no friends in this room.
“Sir, I know I’m a rookie here—”
“Damn straight, Marshal. You are a rookie, and don’t you forget it.” Brennan spread two large palms on the edge of his desk and rose, his girth straining at his white uniform shirt, his face growing redder and puffier right up to his thinning silver hair. “Who gave you authorization to go looking through other marshals’ investigations?”
“I was just being thorough…” Georgia stammered.
“Thorough? By trying to show people up? Undermining their credibility?”
“Not at all…”
“Well, that’s what it sounds like. Sounds to me like you’re saying everybody else was sitting on their brains while half of New York burned to the ground. And lo and behold, with only—what? A year and a half in this bureau? Seven, tops, in the FDNY?—you’ve got everything solved.”
Georgia swallowed. Why did Walter ever get me into this? “What if something was overlooked? Are you saying you don’t want to know?”
“What I’m saying, Skeehan, is that your input here is over. Do I make myself clear?”
She felt weak and nauseated, anxiously aware of the bitter coffee she’d gulped this morning. In Brennan’s mind, she was now a backstabber. As long as he sat in that chair, she could count on writing fireworks summonses for the rest of her career.
“Something wrong here, Arthur? I could hear you bellowing all the way down the hall.”
Fire Commissioner William Lynch was standing in the doorway. Georgia had forgotten his office was on the same floor. Though Lynch was easily a half foot shorter than the chief, Brennan’s expression of panic reminded her of a humbled schoolyard bully’s. Lynch had the power to hire and, if not fire, at least retire anyone who sufficiently ticked him off.
“It’s just a small department matter, Bill,” said Brennan, nervously patting the air.
Lynch ignored him, shifting his gaze around the room. “Good to see you again, young lady.” He nodded to Georgia. He passed a fleeting glance over Marenko, who seemed to be trying to melt into the dingy beige of the walls. By the time Lynch settled his eyes back on Brennan’s, they were hard. And in that instant, Georgia knew. The commissioner and the chief fire marshal hated each other.
Lynch turned his attention to Georgia.
“Refresh my memory, Marshal. The name is…?”
“Skeehan. Georgia Skeehan.”
“Have you been with the bureau long?”
Probably about thirty more minutes, if Chief Brennan gets his way. “Almost nineteen months, sir,” she replied. “So you’ll be part of the Rubi Wang investigation?”
Brennan cleared his throat. “I’ve appointed Supervising Marshal Marenko here to head the investigation. He’s been with the bureau for ten years. He’s a sixteen-year veteran of the FDNY with two Class B citations—”
“What brings you to headquarters, Marshal Skeehan?” Lynch asked, pointedly ignoring Brennan.
“It’s like the chief says, Commissioner. Just a department matter.”
“Oh, really?” Lynch pulled up a chair from the conference table and sat down with a casual slouch that suggested he wasn’t going anywhere. “I’d like to hear about this department matter.”
Georgia shot a sideways glance at Brennan’s acne-scarred face. He was giving her a hard look. She could deliver an Oscar-winning performance and still wind up dead. Maybe it was time to try a different tack.
“Commissioner, have you ever heard of high-temperature accelerants, or HTAs?”
Lynch shook his head, so Georgia gave him a brief sketch of the pattern of fires. Brennan interrupted.
“Bill, I can assure you my men will consider every lead. But for a rookie to assume these fires are related without any shred of evidence—”
“Except the letters,” Georgia mumbled. The room went silent. Brennan shot a quizzical look at Marenko, who spread his palms and shrugged.
“The letters. The three letters,” Georgia stammered. “From someone calling himself the Fourth Angel.” She turned to the commissioner.
“Twenty-four hours after the first two fires and twenty-four hours before the third, a letter arrived here at department headquarters.” She fished copies of the three letters out of a folder and handed them to the commissioner. Lynch studied them carefully, then handed them to Brennan.
“You haven’t seen these before?” he asked the chief.
“No.” Brennan wiped a hand across his ruddy face and held the packets up to Marenko, who also shook his head.
Now it was Georgia’s turn to be surprised. Frankel had insisted he’d made the letters known. Marenko might not have been aware of them, but Brennan? That seemed impossible. The chief handed the letters back to Georgia.
“Where did you get these?”
“They were supposedly part of the original reports.”
“Not that I saw,” Brennan countered.
“Commissioner, may I say something?” Marenko had been remarkably quiet until now, Georgia noticed. Lynch nodded for him to continue.
“I don’t know where these letters came from or who wrote them. But I’ll tell you this: there are dozens of wackos in New York—harmless wackos—who do nothing but write threatening letters. And tracking them down won’t solve the Spring Street arson. Somebody offed Rubi Wang because they were sore at him. Or his magazine. Or somebody at his party. The odds are very good that this fire was a jealous-lover, Happy Land sort of thing.” In March 1990, eighty-seven New Yorkers died after a jilted boyfriend set fire to gasoline he poured into the Happy Land social club in the Bronx. It was one of the deadliest arsons in city history.
“I’ve already gotten hold of a surveillance tape from a warehouse across the street from the fire,” Marenko continued. “It shows a guy in a cowboy hat leaving the building at eleven P.M.—just minutes before the first alarm was called in. We’re circulating a sketch through the media. Our boy shouldn’t be hard to find.”
Lynch steepled his fat fingers under his double chin. No one spoke. Georgia could hear herself breathing.
“Tell me, Marshal Skeehan,” the commissioner said finally. “What would you do if you were part of this investigation?”
“But sir, I—”
She sucked in a deep breath. “I would certainly follow up on the surveillance tape, as Marshal Marenko is suggesting. But I still think it’s a hell of a coincidence that four very hot blazes with all the earmarks of HTA have taken place in New York City within a five-month period. I think the connections bear investigating. I think the letters do, too.”
Lynch’s smooth, blank features betrayed no emotion. Then, all at once, he clapped his hands.
“I agree,” he said. “And since you’re the only one here with the guts to pursue this, I want you on board.”
“Sir?”
“You heard me. I want you to be part of the Rubi Wang investigation.”
Brennan was on his feet immediately. His complexion had gone from red to ashen. “She’ll be a drain on manpower and resources…” the chief stammered.
“My best guys are gonna end up baby-sitting her,” Marenko protested.
Georgia tried to quell the trembling in her voice. “Sir, this is a great honor, believe me. But I’m really not qualified—”
The commissioner slammed his fist on the conference table.
“This lousy department wouldn’t even have the investigation if it weren’t for me. You think the NYPD just rolled over and played dead? I went into debt with the mayor big-time, so don’t even think of telling me who I can and can’t appoint.”
A dull throb began to form at Georgia’s temples. A capricious appointment by a hated outsider could doom her entire career in the FDNY. But that was something the commissioner probably hadn’t considered. Lawyers, she reminded herself, play by a different set of rules.
Lynch glanced at his watch, a clear sign the meeting was over. “There’s a cocktail party I’ve been asked to speak at tonight, at Sloane Michaels’s hotel, the Knickerbocker Plaza. Michaels is a good friend of mine. It was his building that burned on Spring Street. I would appreciate it, Marshal Skeehan, if you’d accompany me and help calm everyone’s jitters over the situation.”
“Uh, yessir,” Georgia choked out.
“Good. The event’s at eight P.M. Black-tie. Please give my secretary your address and my car will pick you up at seven-thirty.” He gave Brennan a parting look. “And Arthur, you try to sabotage Marshal Skeehan or any part of this investigation, I won’t only go after you, I’ll go after your nice fat pension…Civil servants, my ass,” Lynch muttered as he left. “Three years running this godforsaken bureaucracy, and I haven’t met a civil one yet.”
Lynch’s footsteps disappeared down the hallway. Georgia fought the tightening in her throat. “Chief, it was never my intention to undermine—”
“Shut up,” said Brennan icily. “Shut up and listen good.” He pointed a fat finger at her. “You’re window dressing on this investigation, you hear me? Keep quiet and do as you’re told, and maybe I’ll just forget this ever happened. But if you do anything to make me look bad, I swear, EEO or no EEO, after this is over, you won’t have the authority to piss out a match in this city. Got that, Skeehan?”
“Yes, sir. I got it.”