I look at her.
She keeps her eyes on the road.
"You did not hear me say that," she says.
"I did not hear you say that."
"Chief is on her way."
I look at the highway.
I look at the grey morning over the foothills.
I look at the column of black smoke at the east edge of the city that is coming up over the on-ramp.
I do not say anything.
---
The building is a single-story warehouse with a flat roof and a loading bay at the south end and a parking lot of cracked concrete and a chain-link fence at the back, and the smoke is coming through the roof at the north end in three columns, and the heat is coming off the south wall in a wave I can feel through my coat at twenty meters.
We pull in at six-twelve.
I am out of the truck at six-thirteen.
Doyle takes the engine to the hydrant at the corner of the lot. The four rookies pull the supply line. The big rookie with the cowlick is on the deck gun. The small rookie with the undercut is on the inlet. I run the size-up at the curb with the radio at my mouth.
"Battalion, Truck Nine on scene. One-story commercial, approximately ten thousand square feet, smoke showing all sides, heavy from the roof at the north end. No signs of life on the exterior. We are establishing a defensive perimeter and tying in to the hydrant at Industry and Sixteenth."
"Truck Nine, Battalion. Copy. Chief Mercer en route, two minutes."
I clip the radio.
I walk the perimeter. I walk the perimeter with my helmet on and my coat on and my boots on the cracked concrete, and I count the windows on the south wall and I count the doors on the east wall and I do not see civilians and I do not see vehicles in the lot and the lot is empty and the building is empty and the building is going to burn, and the building is going to burn down to the slab, and the building is one of his.
The building is one of Daniel Clark's.
Daniel Clark is dead.
Daniel Clark has been dead for eleven days, and Daniel Clark's records storage on the east industrial spur is on fire on Saturday morning at six in the morning, and the smoke is black at the roof and the heat is on the south wall, and a man who is dead does not own buildings that catch fire.
A man who is dead has a wife.
A wife who has gone.
The chief's truck pulls into the lot at six-fifteen.
---
Val is out of the truck in her uniform shirt and her chief's coat and she walks across the cracked concrete to me, and she does not look at the building, and she looks at me.
"Hale."
"Chief."
"Sit-rep."
I give her the sit-rep.
