Flashover Pt. 02

"Okay. That's something, I guess. Maybe once the construction fence goes up, I won't have to worry about it."

Sean nodded even though Wallace couldn't see him. "The homeless generally don't cause a lot of trouble and just want to be left alone. When it gets too difficult to get back into the buildings, they'll move on to someplace else."

"Chief Turney said there was no structural damage to the building, but if something like this happens again, I expect more of a response from the police than, 'there's nothing we can do.'"

"Mr. Barns, I assure you we take arson very seriously. You can trust me when I say if we had a scrap of evidence on who set the fire, we'd check it out, but unless you can give me a place to start, there's little we can do. We could question the homeless, but they'll deny even knowing there was a fire, so that would be nothing but a waste of time. If there's another fire, Chief Turney might be able to compare the two and give us a place to start. I'm sorry you don't like what I have to say, but I'm being honest with you. Would you prefer I tell you we were investigating it when in fact we weren't?"

There was another pause. "No. I appreciate you being honest with me. This project is a sizable investment for us, and I want to avoid a bunch of problems if I can."

"I completely understand, and the BPD will assist you in any way we can."

"Thank you for that. Hopefully you're right and this was a one off."

"I think that's all it is. That, or whoever wanted to burn your building down needs to hire a better caliber of arsonist."

Wallace chuckled. "I shouldn't find that funny since it was my building. Thank you for your time, chief."

"If you have any other concerns, give me a call."

"Thank you. I will."

Sean placed the handset back on the cradle and sighed. Television and movies did a real disservice to the police. They made everything look quick and easy. The shows cut out all the boring parts and glitzed up the processes, procedures, and techniques only the richest, most well-equipped departments could perform. Even then, the tests and techniques were often stretched beyond reality for good drama. He didn't blame Wallace for not liking the news that there was little the BPD could do to protect his investment, but he had to have at least a scrap of information to start an investigation.

Sean was on his way home to feed Marmalade and pick up his running gear when he pulled to a stop at a traffic light. In front of him was an old, drab green, flat-fender Jeep, like those from World War II. The Jeep had obviously been heavily modified. It had been substantially lowered over the fat tires it sported in front and back, and it looked too wide, as if another six or seven inches had been added to its width. It also didn't have a license plate. He debated ignoring the missing plate, not wanting to keep Maggie waiting while he wrote the guy a ticket, but decided he couldn't let it slide and flipped on the strobes. He'd give the driver a verbal warning, which wouldn't take long. The driver, wearing a crash helmet and racing gloves, gave him a little wave in acknowledgement.

The moment the light turned green, the Jeep roared, all four tires leaving a ghost of tire smoke as it accelerated away, leaving the light as if it had been fired from a cannon.

"Holy... shit!" Sean murmured as he buried the throttle of his car in pursuit. His Dodge was no slouch when it came to acceleration, but it was severely outclassed as the Jeep rapidly pulled away. He pulled the mic from the dash mounted clip. "Dispatch! McGhee. In pursuit of an early model green Jeep, no tags, heading east on Crawford."

"McGhee. Dispatch. Units responding to your location." Claire's voice replied as she routed cruisers toward him.

Sean saw the Jeep make a right far ahead, but by the time he reached the road where he thought the Jeep turned, there was no sign of it. "Dispatch. McGhee. I lost him." He slowed and flipped off the beacons, but continued down the road, hoping to spot the vehicle.

"You were outrun by an old Jeep?" Paul Limbrose asked over the radio. "That must be embarrassing."

Sean chuckled and shook his head. Paul was the department clown and nobody was safe from his quick wit, not even him.

"Glad it wasn't me," Gavin Reed added.

Sean's smile widened slightly. It was going to be a while before he heard the end of this. He weaved around in the area, but saw no sign of the Jeep, though he did see Limbrose and Reed's cruisers as they too prowled the area. He picked up the mic. "He's gone."

"We'll keep an eye out for it," Paul replied. "How early a model?"

"It looked like World War II vintage, army drab green, lowered over wide tires. No plate, no windshield. The driver was wearing a black racing helmet, gloves, and a medium blue long sleeve shirt," Sean replied.

"If we see him, we'll try to not let him get away," Reed said.

Sean snickered. "Good luck. That's no ordinary Jeep. He left me at the stoplight like I was dragging an anchor." He released the transmit button, then pressed it again. "If you spot him, be smart. We don't want anyone hurt."

"Roger that," Reed said.

Rudy was sitting behind his desk staring intently at something on his computer. Sean paused in the door, but when Rudy didn't look up, he rapped softly on the frame.

"Mayor, you wanted to see me?"

"Please, come in and sit down," Rudy said, looking up then waving Sean into his office. "Couple of things. Did Wallace Barns call you yesterday?"

"He did, why?"

"He called my office after he spoke to you. He wasn't pleased you told him there was nothing you could do." Rudy held up his hand to forestall Sean's protest. "I completely understand your position and I backed you up one hundred percent, but can we throw him a bone? Maybe run the vagrants off or something like that?"

"We can, but what's to prevent them from returning?"

Rudy nodded. "I understand, but sometimes perception is reality. This development at The Mills is a big deal for the town and I want to keep Barns happy. It may not do a bit of good in the long run to chase them off, but it'll look like we're taking his concerns seriously and doing something. You know that old saying, 'An ounce of image...'"

"Yeah, I know. Okay, we can run them off. What would be helpful is if we had some guys to clean the place up by throwing out everything they leave behind so there's nothing there for them to return to."

"You've got it. I'll talk to Perry and have him send a crew and a truck over from sanitation. They'll go in behind you and pick everything up. Anything else?"

"No, but I can't put an officer on the place to keep them from coming back."

"And I don't expect you to, but in another day or so, you can sweep through the place again and chase off anyone who came back, right?"

"If that's what you want the department doing."

"It's not, not really. I know your officers have better things to do, but like I said, this is a big win for the town. Until construction starts, I don't want to give Barns any reason to back out."

Rudy was being very reasonable which made Sean slightly suspicious. "Then sure, we can do that. When?"

"Can you do it today? I'll make sure Perry gets a crew over there. If you can, I'll let Barns know."

"Yeah, with the understanding this is a low priority. If my officers are needed elsewhere then--"

"I understand completely," Rudy said, cutting him off. "That's how it should be. It probably won't take your guys nearly as long to run the vagrants out as it will for Perry's guys to clean the place up anyway. They can make sure nobody comes right back."

"Okay, then we'll try to get it done. Have Perry let me know when he has some guys available."

"You tell me when you want them."

"Okay, after lunch, say about two?"

"They'll be there. They've got this big truck with a claw on it they use to pick up tree limbs and such. That'll make short work of whatever they find."

"It's probably going to be mostly trash, cans, bottles, paper, junk like that. Maybe the occasional mattress."

"You get the people out of there and Perry's guys can sort out the rest."

"Okay. We'll get it done. Anything else?"

"Yes. I looked over your proposal for Tilley. Twelve officers? You've got to be kidding!"

"You said to tell you what it would take. That's what I think it'll take."

"But Brunswick only has sixteen!"

"Yeah, and we're thin. We really should have four more officers, one on each shift. There are times when we can't be everywhere we need to be, or my officers have to respond to a call alone when it would be safer with two. I'll be honest with you, I'd like to have sixteen more and dedicate four of them to Brunswick."

Rudy drummed his fingers on his desk a moment as he stared at the computer screen, then looked at Sean again. "I have to ask this. You're not padding this number because you think I'm going to make you reduce it, are you?"

"Nope. In fact, if you have to reduce it to get the deal, I'd suggest we not take the contract. The last thing you want to do is understaff Tilley. That'll only make the situation worse or get someone hurt or killed, and I'm not going to reduce the number of officers patrolling Brunswick to support them. Having said that, it'll take a little while to staff up that much. If I find out Tilley doesn't need that many officers, then we don't have to hire them all and we can reduce the contract price accordingly, but that's my honest opinion of what I think it'll take. I didn't include another dispatcher, which we might need if the call volume is too high for one person to handle."

Rudy rubbed his hand furiously under his nose. "Hud is going to shit. There's no way to reduce this number?"

Sean shook his head. "That's what I think it'll take. That's in line with the national average for cities our size."

Rudy stared at the computer a moment. "Okay. If that's what it takes. What needs to happen to start this moving?"

"Hiring officers and switching the 9-1-1 calls to our call center."

"How long will that take?"

"Switching the 9-1-1 won't take long. A day or two. Hiring the officers?" Sean shrugged. "Depends on how many applicants and their quality. I'd figure a couple of months minimum. Plus, we're going to have to buy and equip some additional cars. We can have the officers share the cars for a while, but that's not a good long-term solution."

Rudy sighed. "Okay. I knew it was going to be expensive to start this, but damn! I had no idea. I'll run the proposal by Hud and see if he has a heart attack. If he's still interested, I'll put it before the council to get it approved. If everything lands jelly side up, when can you start the patrols?"

"I suppose we can start immediately, but our coverage will be no better, and probably worse, than what they have now. Brunswick is paying these officer's salaries, so Brunswick should have priority on the calls."

"What if we let Tilley's officers continue while we staff up, and we support them?"

Sean grimaced. "That wouldn't be my first choice, no. Who's in charge? Me or Coop? If they know they're going to be out of a job in a month or two, they're not going to have much incentive to do their job. I don't want my guys putting their ass on the line, only to find out Tilley's officers are going to hang them out."

"You think that might happen?"

"No..." Sean replied slowly. "Cops are pretty tight because they know it might be their ass on the line needing help, but why take the chance? To be honest, I'd worry more about Coop. I know how I'd feel if, say, Raleigh started sending cops in to patrol Brunswick. I don't want officers making arrests who don't report to me. I'm answerable to the people of Brunswick, but who are the officers from Raleigh answerable too?"

Rudy nodded as he leaned forward and propped his elbows on his desk. "Yeah, okay. I see your point. You know, when I talked to Bill about this, he made it sound like it was no big deal to start patrolling Tilley and Abbyville. Now, talking to you, I can see there's more to this than I thought." He scrubbed at his mouth again. "I still think this is the right way to go, though." He paused, obviously thinking over the differences in opinion between his current police chief and his former. "Okay. I'm going to pitch the idea to Hud straight up, just like you explained it to me. It's got to be your show all the way down the line. If he agrees, we'll move forward, but if he balks on any point, we'll drop it. I'm not willing to jeopardize all the progress we've made in Brunswick just to support Tilley."

Sean nodded in agreement but wondered when the next shoe was going to drop. "Thank you, mayor."

"If he takes the deal, and the council approves it, you can begin the patrols immediately?"

"Yes, so long as 9-1-1 has been switched over and you understand that support for Tilley will be weak until we can get more officers hired."

Rudy nodded. "Yeah, I'll make sure Hud knows what to expect. If we can pull this off, this will be another big step forward, for both our towns."

"Anything else?"

"No. That's it. Thanks for turning this around so fast. You'll let me know once you've run the riff-raff off?"

Sean nodded. "I'll call you as soon as we finish."

Rudy grinned. "That'll be perfect. Thanks."

Sean was standing in the heat as the white, five-ton, International truck with a dump bed and a big claw on a hydraulic boom grumbled to a stop behind his car. Fish and Chips were standing at his side, waiting for his signal to start moving the people out of the buildings. Where Chips was built like a football player, Fish was taller and lankier, with dishwater blond hair, vivid blue eyes, and a large, thin, nose. He and Chips had started with the BPD less than a month apart and were close friends.

Two men climbed out of the boom truck as another truck with a dumpster on the back passed them and pulled to a stop in front of the line of patrol cars. Two more men stepped out of the second truck.

"Jack Rawlings," the man driving the boom truck said as he extended his hand. "I understand you need some trash picked up."

Jack was perhaps a year or two older than Sean. He was carrying some extra weight around his middle, but he was tanned and sported muscular arms. All four men were wearing ball caps and reflective sunglasses that also appeared to function as safety glasses.

"Sean McGee," he replied, taking the man's hand. "Yeah. We're going to remove anyone we find inside, then I'd like the place picked clean, down to every scrap of paper. I don't care what it is, if you find it, out it goes."

Jack chuckled. "Well, that makes it easy if we don't have to try to figure out what's trash and what's not." He turned to the much younger man who had been driving the second truck. "Kurt, drop the dumpster by the first building then you and Skip start beating the grass for big stuff and make a pile. Larry and I will start inside." He looked around the large lot. "Hopefully there won't be a lot of shit out in the weeds."

"I'm only worried about inside, if that helps," Sean offered.

"Since we're here, I figure we might as well get the big stuff. I'd bet my aunt Fannie's fanny there's at least one appliance, and maybe a mattress or two, out there in the grass somewhere. Since we brought the boom truck, we'll pick all the stuff up, so it doesn't end up back in the building, and we have to do this again."

Sean grinned, liking the man's no-nonsense attitude. "That's thinking ahead." He turned to his officers. "Okay. Let's go make some people mad. Fish, you take the utilities building. Chips, the far one. I'll take this one."

As his two officers nodded and moved off, Sean wiped at the trickle of sweat running down the left side of his face as he walked toward the first building. That first drop of sweat, always on his left temple, signaled that he was about to start sweating in earnest. He entered the building and looked around. It looked as abandoned as it had when he'd been here with Pete to look at the burned mattress. He walked along the ground floor, past the charred bedding as he made a circuit of the building to check each of the huge rooms. As he did, he opened the doors and looked into the two offices tucked in the corners as Jack and his crew began using scoops to pick up the piled trash and dump it into large rolling bins. Finding no one, he climbed the wide stairs to the second floor, wondering if he was wrong about the homeless staying there.

The second floor was in worse shape than the ground floor. There were several dirty mattresses scattered around in the various rooms, along with more bottles, cans, and plenty of evidence of drug use. It was cooler on the second floor than the first, the slight breeze blowing through the broken windows helping to relieve the stuffy heat of the lower floor. There were several nests, but only one was occupied.

"You're going to have to clear out. You're trespassing on private property," Sean said to the withered woman sitting on one of the mattresses.

The woman was thin with a couple of missing teeth and long, stringy, greasy hair. She clearly hadn't bathed in at least a few days and was dressed in little more than mismatched rags. "Don't nobody live here."

"It's still private property. Gather up your stuff and get out."

"Don't nobody live here! I ain't hurtin' nobody!"

"If you don't leave I'm going to have to arrest you for criminal trespass. Now I know you don't want that, and I don't want that, so get your stuff and move along."

"You fuckin' cops! Always hasslin' us!" the woman groused as she staggered to her feet. "This is my stuff!"

"Fine. Take it with you."

She began to gather her belongings, mostly rags and bottles as far as Sean could tell. "Leave my stuff alone!"

"What you don't take with you will be disposed of, so if you want it, take it with you."

"Disposed of?"

"Hauled to the dump."

"You can't do that! This is my stuff!"

"I can and I will. Don't make this worse than it has to be."

She glared at him with clear malevolence, and he hoped she didn't do something stupid. "Fuckin' pigs," she muttered as she gathered a few items and began to shuffle away. "You're just a fucking pig!"

He smiled. He didn't know people called the police pigs anymore. "Be careful on the steps," he said in his best Officer Friendly voice.

"Fuck you!" the woman called as she gave him the finger.

He chuckled and finished the circuit of the second floor, but found nobody else. There were obviously several people staying in the building, but they weren't there now, and when they returned they were going to have to sleep on the concrete floor or find someplace else. He trotted back down the steps.

"The second floor is worse," Sean said as Jack and his helper carried the charred mattress toward the door. "Watch for needles."

"Great," Jack drawled as they passed, never slowing.

"There was only the one old woman up there, but there are probably three or four more staying up there with her. If any of them come back and give you any trouble, give the station a call," Sean continued as he followed the men out.

"You got it, chief. The place wasn't as bad as I was afraid it would be, so we should be done here in a couple of hours, maybe less."

Sean paused and watched the two men chuck the mattress into the dumpster.

"Need anything from me?"

"No, unless you want to help hump out the trash."

Sean grinned. "No. I think I'll leave it to the experts."

Jack smiled as they turned back to the building. "Yeah, somehow I knew you were going to say something like that."