Reuben Weeping

1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-0-9662868-6-1
Verlag: Bernard Street Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet/DL/kein Kopierschutz

E-Book, Englisch, 245 Seiten

'Weeping' is an arson investigator's terms, and also the state that befalls the grief-stricken survivors of a fire. So it is with a raised eyebrow and incipient suspicion that New York claims representative Fritillary Quilter encounters cool, calculating, and unemotional Faith Browning, whose sister Dorsey has just burned to death in their family home. When Faith puts in a claim without first giving the insurance company a chance to conduct a fire investigation, Tilly is teamed with arson pro Isaac 'Ike' Blessing. Tilly and Ike must sift through the ashes to find the truth. Written by a real-life private eye and fire investigator, Weeping is fueled by technical authority, lively characters, and stylish prose.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Reuben, Shelly

Leseproben

CHAPTER TWO I should have figured out what I wanted to be on the day that I first met Ike Blessing. He was what I wanted to be. But more about that much, much later. The aftermath of a fire is generally about as bewildering as surviving a car crash or witnessing the commotion of objects being hurled around with random violence during the tempest of a tornado. You’re shocked. If you move at all, it’s generally in response to something that somebody tells you to do (“Check her for bruises,” “See if she needs oxygen,” “Get that blanket and put it around her shoulders.”). You aren’t at all sure of what happened to precipitate the confusion, and you have no idea what’s going on. The fire engines arrive. Your parents rush across the street. Someone, maybe the fire chief, asks you questions. Your mother brings Bradley to your home and puts him to bed. Your father – or maybe it’s Mr. Tallman from the corner house – extracts from you the location of Mr. and Mrs. Borkin, whose house, apparently, is on fire. On fire? How can that be? Just a few minutes ago, you were reading Dostoevsky. The Borkins return. Mrs. Borkin, the compulsive talker, is now compulsively talking hysterically. Mr. Borkin’s face is deadpan. Possibly he’s thinking that with the insurance money he’ll receive, instead of repairing the damages to his house, he’ll go out and buy a thick steak or a blonde with a pert nose and no vocal cords. A man who writes for The Conversation Bulletin, our weekly newspaper, comes up and asks me questions. I recognize him from the last tennis match I won at school. He took my picture then, and he takes one now as I stand, huddled in a blanket I don’t need, by the flashing lights of a police car. And then, almost without transition, I wake up the next morning and it’s over. How did I get from there to here? Was I really babysitting for the Borkins last night? Do they really live across the street? Did what I think happened really happen? I got dressed, went downstairs, and reassured my parents that I was quite all right and definitely capable of going to school that morning, to which they responded, “There is no school, dear. It’s Saturday.” Then they proceeded to become involved with one or another of my multitude of siblings, and I went out the side door of our house. I could have gone out the front and been instantly confronted by the sight of the Borkins’ house across the street, but I wasn’t ready for that yet. If reality had to be faced, I wanted to sneak up on it. It’s amazing how slowly I can walk when I try. I’d slept late that morning, and it was almost noon before I left the kitchen. I had considered myself an ultra-mature fifteen-year-old until about midnight of the day before. Now I felt young, inept, useless, and as if I would spend the rest of my life being pummeled by an ego-deflating and arbitrary fate. It’s amazing how quickly a teenager can turn into a two-year-old when everything doesn’t go her way. It took me about three years to cross the street, because it’s difficult to walk across a slate path, down a flight of garden steps, over a patch of grass, down a curb, across a street, up a curb, and over another patch of grass without once looking up. When I finished performing this inefficient combination of somnambulism and trespassing, I found myself on the sidewalk that intersected with the brick path that led to the Borkins’ front door. The configuration of the house where I had babysat the night before was not complicated. Think of a loaf of bread. Square off the corners. Put a row of windows on the top floor. Put a row of windows on the bottom floor. Put a roof on top and a door in the middle. The den in which the fire started was on the right side of the ground floor of the house. I looked up. I was very, very surprised. What I had both dreaded and expected to see was a loaf of bread that had been in the oven way too long and had been burned, blackened, deformed, collapsed, and crisped. What I saw instead was the same big old barn of a Borkin house, pretty much as it had been yesterday morning, with the exception of a board covering a broken front window and a trail of soot discoloring the siding outside the den. I don’t know exactly what happened then, but the next thing I knew, I had crumpled and was sitting on the grass. I guess I’d collapsed from the strain of … of … relief? Could that be possible? I hadn’t burned the Borkins’ house down. I hadn’t. I hadn’t. I hadn’t. And… “Are you all right, sweetheart?” Those were the first words that Ike Blessing ever said to me, and to me they symbolize everything that I later came to know about the man. Observation: He recognized that there was something wrong. Concern: He took it upon himself to intervene and see if he could help. Masculine indifference: If he knew that in contemporary society the revised and reconstituted male is no longer permitted to refer to a girl as “sweetheart,” either he didn’t care, or he made the unsubstantiated assumption that I really was a sweetheart, which had the same effect on me as a protective, avuncular arm around my shoulder would have. I don’t remember what I said in response. I don’t remember a single thing I said or did the rest of that day, except to follow Ike Blessing around outside the Borkins’ house and then to tail after him inside, and listen to what he had to say. What I learned or figured out later was that Ike was Isaac C. Blessing of Isaac C. Blessing Associates, Fire and Arson Investigations, New York City, New York. I saw him only that one day, and then he disappeared from my life for ten years. He was thirty-five at the time and had been a fireman for umpteen years before transferring to the Division of Fire Investigation, where his job was to investigate fires. He was in line to become a supervising fire marshal when a mayoral election brought a change of command to the fire department, and the new commissioner, appointed by the new mayor, who was decidedly not a law-and-order man, opted to take homicide investigations away from the fire marshal’s office and give them to the police. Which, in effect, meant not to prosecute arson homicides at all, since New York City police officers were neither equipped nor trained to investigate them. In frustration, Ike Blessing left the department that he loved and the job that he loved, set up an office in Brooklyn Heights, and put out his shingle. Shortly thereafter, the fire commissioner resigned at the pinnacle of an influence-peddling scandal. He was replaced by a former battalion chief who loved fire marshals and restored most of their powers. But it was too late for Ike. He had pushed the Down button on that elevator, and there was no going back. What I know now but didn’t know until much later was that my fire was Ike’s first case as a self-employed arson investigator. There were many, many more things about Ike that I didn’t know. What observations I did make that fateful day were pretty much limited to the man himself. He was then and still is handsome. He has the kind of hair you expect to see only in a retouched photo, but it’s real and it really is an Alpine yodeler shade of blond. His eyes are diamond shaped and crystal blue. You’d think they would be cold, but they’re incredibly warm and friendly. At least they are when he isn’t taking on the guise of Avenged Justice. He has a big nose, big ears, and a square, Joe Palooka jaw. Very rarely in real life do you meet someone who looks like the movie version of the man who just got back on his horse after saving a whole western town, but Isaac Blessing looks like that. And acts like that. I was a puddle of exhausted, nervous imaginings, and he was the tall, laid-back intruder to my neighborhood. He held out his hand. I took it, and he hauled me to my feet. “I’m Ike Blessing,” he said. “The insurance company asked me to take a look at this fire. Who are you?” I was glued to his blue eyes. “I’m Fritillary Quilter,” I said. “But my friends call me Tillary.” “Do you live here, Tilly?” I didn’t choose to correct him. “No. I’m the babysitter. But I started the fire.” Ike didn’t do anything for a few seconds; he just stared at me. Then he said, “We’ll see about that.” He went to his car, where he opened the trunk and took out a flashlight. He flung a camera bag over his shoulder, and obeying a jutting motion of his head, I followed him. First we circled the house. There was a pile of rubbish in the backyard, outside the den window, on top of which was a burned, deformed, fabric-covered rectangle. He picked it up and tucked it under his arm. Then he proceeded to take pictures of all four sides of the house. He took most of the pictures outside the den. “See, Tilly,” he said, “when you walk the exterior perimeter of the structure you’re investigating, you can get a general idea of where the fire started even before you go inside.” I had a very specific idea of where the fire had started. But of course, I had been inside. We approached the front door. Ike wiggled the doorknob. It was unlocked. “May I go inside with you, Mr. Blessing?” I asked with uncharacteristic meekness, since I had no intention of being left behind. “Sure, sunshine. Come on in.” He turned on his...