By the time the firefighters arrived with their hoses and axes, and the NYPD officers established a crowd barrier, a number of club crawlers had drifted our way like Kamikaze-soaked moths drawn to flame. The media crowd had been gathering, too, their interest divided between a burning building and Gin McCauley, who was being singularly ineffective in trying to convince the gawkers to go home.
“How much do you get to keep after taxes?” someone asked her, maybe a journo, maybe a drunk; it was hard to tell the difference.
Once the firemen went into action, they became the focus of attention.
Gin drifted across the street to where Ted and I had been standing, he nattering incessantly into his cellular, I keeping on the down low. We had decided we would stick to a very simple story. Phil was a coworker and friend who’d invited us to his loft for wine and cheese. When we arrived we saw someone leave the building and run away as we approached. We went inside, called Phil, and received no answer. We saw that the loft was on fire and we ran from the building. Both Gin and Ted called their offices, who in turn alerted the NYFD.
That’s essentially what we told the pair of fire department investigators. They had a string of additional questions. Did we see Phil in the burning building? No. Could Phil have been the person we saw leaving? Hmmm. Maybe. Was I sure the rug was soaked with some chemical? Definitely. Did we know of any reason why Phil would want to set fire to his loft? No. Did we know if the building was insured? Isn’t everything? Any idea where they might find Phil? Inside the building.
It took the firefighters several hours to control and extinguish the flames. The building hadn’t burned to the ground, but it would have to be gutted and rebuilt.
“The place is just a concrete slab attached to steel girders,” one of the FD investigators told us shortly before midnight after he and his partner had checked out the interior. “Everything else is ashes and charred wood and hunks of melted plastic.”
“What about … Phil Bruno?” Gin asked.
The investigator’s sooty face registered dismay. “There’s a charred human body in there. Could be your friend. It’ll be up to forensics to make an ID.”
“Everything else is gone?” Ted asked.
“Pretty much. Looks like there was a lot of electronic equipment, cameras—all melted and burned to hell. Furniture, nothing but piles of ash. Porcelain sink, toilet, stove, all recognizable, but I’m not sure they can be reused. Same for the refrigerator-freezer. The heat buckled it but didn’t break it exactly.”
“Anything inside the fridge?” Ted asked.
“Melted and fried goo. Looks like the fire started in a small room to the right of what used to be the kitchen. The body was in that room. You say your friend was a photographer?”
“A television cameraman,” I said.
“Oh. Then I don’t suppose he worked with photographic chemicals.”
“He inherited the building from his father, who was a still photographer,” I said, “so there may have been chemicals.”
“Even with that, I don’t see this as an accident.” The investigator shook his head. “Somebody splashed combustible fluid all over the loft area.”
“Look this way, Gin,” someone called, and I saw a WBC news cameraman moving in our direction. I took a few quick backward steps out of the shot line. Gin was caught in the bright light, but she didn’t seem to mind at all.
I watched her field a few questions with a friendliness and poise that was both professional and a little chilling, considering what we’d just been through. I took another step back and stumbled over somebody hunkering close to the ground.
“Wha—?” I said as Ted jumped up, steadying himself enough to stop me from falling to the pavement.
“Billy,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
“What were you doing down there?” I asked, once the surprise had worn off.
“There’s something odd there on the sidewalk,” he said.
I looked down.
On the pavement in front of Phil’s building was a childlike chalk drawing. Water from the fire hoses and the scuffling of gawkers’ shoes had done damage to the scrawled lines. But in the light from the cameras trained on Gin, I could easily make out the artist’s intent. It was an animal with matchstick legs, a tiny tail, pointy ears, black dots for eyes, and a tiny nose over three sets of whiskers.
A crude drawing of a cat.
“This isn’t exactly a neighborhood where kids play,” Ted said. “And I can’t be sure, but I don’t remember seeing it when we first got here. You make anything of it?”
“Not really,” I lied.