The Fire Investigator Placed The Stairwell Photograph On My Kitchen Table

Gideon did not sit until I offered him a chair.

He was forty-nine, a Black American man with close-cut hair, tired eyes, and a stillness that made room for other people. He put a notebook beside the photograph.

"Is she alive?" I asked.

"Both women got out. Two firefighters had minor heat injuries. They were treated and released."

I gripped the edge of the table.

"Your call helped," he said. "A patrol officer checked Greer's nearby properties while dispatch worked through the addresses. He saw smoke at a closed upholstery shop off Rossville Boulevard."

"I should have followed her."

"You gave us what you knew. Following her might have scared her away."

He said it without making a lesson of it.

The shop had living space upstairs and a fish holding room behind it. Greer owned the whole building. The fire had started under the stairs. Crews had stopped it before it reached the upper floor.

"An electrical timer was recovered," Gideon said. "We're still examining it. I won't call the cause final at your kitchen table."

"Where are the women now?"

"They left before we could finish talking. The tenant gave a first name. Nora. Her sister had trouble breathing and wanted to go."

"You're looking for her."

"We are. You might help us understand where she'd feel safe."

I opened the recording on my laptop.

Gideon watched without speaking. When Russell said, "People with little routes and old vans," Gideon wrote down the time shown on the screen.

"Don't send this around," he said. "Can our evidence examiner collect the original from your account with you present?"

"Yes."

"Who else can delete it?"

"Nobody. I pay for that account myself."

He looked at me then, properly.

"All right, Ms. Vance. Keep paying."

At the fire office, an examiner copied the native file and its time records. She made a numbered receipt. She explained that the file's digital fingerprint would let her check whether a later copy had changed.

I kept my original and signed what I had provided. A prosecutor would review the recording, my contract, and the notice by the camera. Nobody promised me a case based on one clip.

"Does the camera turn?" the examiner asked.

"Fixed lens. I aim it at the food ring so I can see which fish won't eat."

"Was the glass wall there when you installed it?"

"Yes. I checked the glare then. I never thought much about what the glare showed."

That helped more than a promise would have.

Gideon asked about my feeding sheets.

"The tenant had glue on her hands," I said. "Maybe she repaired chairs."

"The shop was hers."

"Then she might know Lottie Chen at the hotel on Broad Street. Lottie has their lobby chairs recovered every winter."

He wrote the name down.

"Please don't tell Lottie where Nora goes," I said.

"I'll ask for a way to pass along my number. Her location stays hers."

I liked that answer.

As he walked me out, a phone rang on another desk. He flinched, just once, before the clerk answered.

Outside, I asked, "Bad sound?"

"Used to wait for calls from a hospital," he said.

I let the silence stand.

"My wife died four years ago. Some habits take longer than the emergency."

"I'm sorry."

"Thank you."

He held the door while I carried my folder through. He did not turn his grief into a claim on mine.

By noon, Russell had called twice.

I let the first call go. For the second, I put my phone on speaker in my empty kitchen and took notes.

"I hear you've been helpful," he said.

"The investigator has my statement."

"Statements can be corrected."

"Mine was accurate."

There was a small breath on the line.

"How much is that van worth?"

"Are you asking for an estimate?"

"I'm asking how easily things can be replaced."

I wrote the words beside the time. I reported the call to Gideon through the office number on his card. He added it to the file and told me how to report another immediate threat.

Then I went to work.

At a dentist's office near Brainerd Road, I found a maintenance man measuring the aquarium cabinet.

"Moving it?" I asked.

"New owner wants the dimensions."

The dentist came out with his hands held open.

"Laurel, I was going to call. Mr. Greer offered $8,200 for the whole tank system. We get to keep it here under a display lease."

"Who handles the fish?"

"His company will arrange it. I thought you'd be included."

On the desk lay a sale agreement. My camera was visible in its attached photograph.

Across the bottom, in Russell's neat hand, someone had written: ALL EQUIPMENT PRESENT.