California Fire and Life Read online

  Next thing they do is they go over to the shell of a building they got set up in a big old Quonset-hut hangar.

  Damn thing looks like a dinosaur in a museum.

  A two-room house with dormer windows—half of it just the structural shell, the other half finished out with walls, shingles, doors and windows and the rest of the enchilada.

  First each student has to walk around naming every piece of wood in the skeleton half. Name it—“door buck, stud, collar beam”—then identify the size and type of the lumber—pine 3 by 6, 2 by 4, so on and so forth. Once the whole class can do that, they go over to the finished-off side and now they have to get into window sashes, types of glass, chair rails, balusters—all the stuff that Jack has come to know as “dead load,” fuel for the fire.

  Jack aces construction.

  Next thing they look at is appliances. Go into a big empty warehouse with fire extinguishers all over the place and light fires under television sets, blenders, radios, alarm clocks, you name it. They learn how these behave when introduced to varying degrees of heat. Which is like, badly, because these puppies don’t want to burn. I mean maybe if you’ve spent forty-seven minutes giving yourself carpal tunnel syndrome on the remote control box and still can’t find anything worth watching you might want to set fire to the old Panasonic twenty-inch with picture-in-picture, but what Jack learns is that this is no easy task. You want to toast the TV, you have to bring some serious heat.

  So all day they’re setting fire to stuff and at night Jack humps the books. No suds sessions now; the work’s getting harder and all you have to do to get your locker cleaned out is screw up one exam. Guys are dropping like fat men in a marathon. Like, Timmmberrrrrrr!!!!

  So Jack’s up half the night cramming Ohm’s law (“The current flowing through resistance is equal to the applied voltage divided by the resistance”) into his brain, or trying to memorize the ignition temperature of magnesium (1,200°F) or the length of time it will take an inch of number-two lumber to burn at a temperature of 4,500°F (forty-five minutes).

  Like all day they’re running electrical engineers at them, fire investigators at them, heating contractors at them. They’re even running freaking lawyers at them, so at night Jack’s not only boning up on the explosive properties of methane, the ignition temperature of magnesium and the decomposition of cellulose under an open flame (C6H10O5 + 6O2 = 5H2O + 6CO2 + heat), now he also has to learn the significance of Michigan v. Tyler and The People v. Calhoun and he also has to master the Federal Rules of Evidence regarding the collection and preservation of evidence at a fire scene for the purposes of an arson prosecution.

  Dig it, this is the same Jack Wade who couldn’t force-feed himself two chapters of Moby-Dick and now he’s writing papers covering constitutional law. This is the dude who punked out of Algebra 101 and now he can tell you how much carbon monoxide will be produced by a specific mass of polyurethane burning at a given temperature.

  Jack is hanging in there very strong.

  Learns how to document a fire scene: how to draw a floor plan, how to overlay the progress of the fire on that plan, how to take photographs, what photographs to take and how to light them, how to take notes, how to take samples, how to collect and preserve evidence, how to interview suspects, how to interview witnesses, when to make an arrest, how to testify in court.

  Guys are washing out—there are more empty desks in the classrooms, more available stools in their rare sessions at the bar—but Jack is hanging tough.

  Surprising himself.

  Taking all they can give.

  Then they bring in Captain Sparky.

  15

  His real name isn’t Sparky.

  It’s Sparks.

  You got a guy named Sparks who becomes a fireman anyway, you got a tough guy. You got a guy who doesn’t give Shit One about what anyone else thinks.

  It’s Jack who hangs the nickname Captain Sparky on him, because it’s kind of inevitable. Sparky has no apparent sense of humor. Captain Sparky is as serious as a CAT scan, and he tells the students right off the bat that he’s out to get them.

  Captain Sparky stands in front of the class in his dress blues and says, “Gentlemen, the whole reason you are here, the entire purpose for providing you with this multi-thousand-dollar education, is for you to be able to go to the scene of a fire and determine its cause and origin. If you should pass this class, that will become the sole purpose of your professional life.”

  Looks at the class like he’s Jesus Christ telling Peter he’s supposed to build the church. Looking at them like he’s thinking, Fat chance you dim bulbs could find your asses with both hands, let’s not talk about building no church.

  Anyway, hopeless as they are, they’re all he’s got, so he carries on with, “People’s lives, futures and financial well-being will depend on the accuracy of your determinations as to cause and origin. Your conclusions will be the basis for decisions to prosecute or not to prosecute, to convict or acquit, to hold individuals or corporations liable or not liable in civil suits. So your competence, or lack thereof, will be very critical to individuals and societies. I will do my level best to ensure that we unleash no incompetents upon the public. You will not get the benefit of the doubt. This is a pass/fail course—you pass with a grade of A. Anything below that, you fail.”

  Which intimidates Jack not at all because this is basically the way he was raised. You do the job right or you do it again until you do it right or you just get out.

  So Jack’s like, Bring it on, Captain Sparky.

  “The first rule of cause and origin,” the captain says, “and I quote—and you will commit this to memory—is, ‘Unless all relevant accidental causes can be eliminated, the fire must be declared accidental, the presence of direct evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.’

  “That is to say, that unless you can rule out all possible accidental causes, you may not conclude that the fire was intentionally set. You must classify the cause of the fire as ‘Unknown.’

  “Now let’s look at the other classifications of accidental causes …”

  Natural, Electrical and Chemical.

  Natural—your basic Act of God. Lightning, wildfire, the apocalypse. A gimme putt, because when a house gets hit by lightning …

  Electrical—a major source of accidental fires, Jack learns. So major a source that for a few days Jack thinks he’s studying to be an electrician. They’re running electrical engineers and electrical contractors through the classroom and Jack’s up late at night studying standard electrical plans for your basic two-bedroom two-bath model home.

  They’ve got the class examining burned-out cords—“Was the cord burned by the fire or was it the source of the fire? You need to know”—and electrical outlets and electric blankets and fuse boxes. The class learns how to determine if someone tampered with a circuit breaker in order to give the appearance of an accidental electric fire. They learn how people can accidentally set fire to their houses by overloading extension cords, or leaving them where the dog can chew on them, or by splicing wires or by generally trying to get more electric power than their system was designed to handle.

  Electricity is heat, Jack learns, subject to all the physical laws and consequences thereof. It is, in effect, an incipient smoldering phase awaiting the kiss that will send it to ignition.

  Chemical—propane, natural gas, methane explosions. Then you’re looking for code violations, sloppy installation, mechanical breakdowns. Once again Jack feels as if he’s learning a new trade, because they’re bringing heating contractors in and they break down oil heaters and pumps, propane tanks and insertion systems, nozzles, ignition systems. They learn what they’re supposed to look like and what they look like when things go wrong.

  And another chemical cause—smoking in bed. One of the most common causes of household fires and a beaut. A king-size polyurethane mattress has an HRR of 2,630 (over three times that of a big dry Christmas tree), so if you light one of those up it’s going
to transfer the heat to about everything else in the room, including the inhabitants.

  So those are the three basic causes of accidental fires.

  “To determine the precise cause of origin,” Captain Sparky tells them, “you have to identify the point of origin.”

  Point of origin is the whole game. You find the origin you’re almost always going to determine the cause. You’re going to find the frayed wire, the flawed heater, the mattress that looks like somebody napalmed it.

  Cause and origin is the thing.

  Which is why they make it the final exam.

  What they do is they burn a house.

  The faculty goes out to a condemned two-bedroom ranch house on the edge of town and sets it on fire. Captain Sparky takes the class out there and says, “Gentlemen, here’s the final exam. Do an inspection, do an investigation, and determine the cause and origin.”

  Get it right, you pass.

  Get it wrong, sayonara.

  Jack’s cool with this. This is the way it should be. Get it right or get your feet in gear. Jack’s ready.

  Then Sparky says, “Gentlemen, you are all in the same boat. Work together. Turn in a collective report as to cause and origin. The correct C&O, the entire class passes the course. Incorrect C&O, you all fail.”

  But no, you know, pressure.

  “You have until 0700 tomorrow, gentlemen. Good luck.”

  Sparky tosses down a notebook giving the names and addresses of the neighbors, who get paid fifty bucks each for memorizing a set of facts, in case they’re asked by the students. Same with a pair of owners. Sparky tosses this down and walks off.

  Leaving the students standing there looking at this burned-out shell and thinking, Oh fuck, when Jack says, “Let’s get to work.”

  He organizes the class. Decides someone better do that in a hurry before fifteen men go through like a herd of elephants and trample the evidence. So Jack’s like, “First thing we do is a walk around the exterior and everyone take notes. Ferri, start taking pictures. Garcia, how about doing a diagram? Krantz and Stewart, canvass the neighbors. Myers, interview the owners and get it on tape …”

  Some of the guys stand there looking at Jack like, Who made you God?

  Jack says, “Hey, guys, I ain’t flunking this course.”

  So let’s get after it.

  Four in the morning, they’re back in the dorm talking it over.

  Fuse box fire is what they come up with.

  Overloaded circuit breaker.

  They have heavy char around the fuse box and the worst heat damage in the area directly above the box. A big V-pattern with its base as wide as the fuse box.

  A no-brainer as far as that goes.

  The guys that did the dig-out report no pour patterns on the concrete slab. No spalling, no signs of accelerant.

  Owners were home at the time of the fire.

  Neighbors report nothing unusual.

  Burn patterns consistent with source.

  Materials burned and not burned consistent with HRRs.

  They’re ready to go in: a Class C Fire—Accidental Fire of Electrical Origin.

  “I don’t think so,” Jack says.

  To groans from fourteen exhausted men.

  “The fuck you mean you don’t think so?” Ferri asks. He’s like, annoyed.

  “I mean I don’t think so,” Jack says. “I think this is an incendiary fire.”

  “Fuckin’ Wade,” seems to be the general opinion. “Don’t be an asshole … Wade, don’t be such a pain …” A firestorm, as it were, of protest. Which Ferri leads: “Look, we’ve been working this for fifteen-plus hours. We’re beat. Don’t come in here with your cop bullshit and try to make an overloaded fuse box into a federal case.”

  “Someone tampered with the circuit breaker,” Jack says. “The plastic sheathing on the calibration screw is missing.”

  “Far as I’m concerned, Wade,” Ferri says, “the only sheathing that was missing was what your father forgot when he knocked up your mother.”

  Jack says, “Calibration screws always have plastic sheathing on them. Where is it?”

  “It melted off.”

  “It wouldn’t melt off,” Jack says. “It would melt on. There’s no sign of that. Someone recalibrated the circuit breaker. To do that they had to break the sheath off the calibration screw. I’d look at the owners.”

  “We looked at the owners,” Krantz said. “They looked all right to us.”

  “Did you call the mortgage company?” Jack asks.

  “No,” Krantz says.

  “Why not?”

  “We were looking at a fuse box fire …”

  “Are the owners employed?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you check with the employers?”

  “No …”

  “Shit,” Jack says. Like he’s going to bust Krantz one.

  “I’m sorry,” Krantz says.

  “Don’t be sorry,” Jack says. “Do your fucking job.”

  “Chill out,” Ferri says.

  “You chill out,” Jack says. “These assholes had a job to do and—”

  “Look, hotshot,” Ferri says. “Just because you want to show off—”

  “Explain the missing sheathing, Ferri,” Jack says. “Anybody?”

  No takers.

  “Let’s vote,” Ferri says.

  Knowing it’s 14 to 1.

  “Vote my ass,” Jack says.

  “What are you, the dictator here?”

  “I’m right.”

  Your basic awkward silence. Finally, one of the guys—the guy Jack had pulled from the concrete tower—says, “Shit, Jack, you’d better be right.”

  They write up the report. Electrical fire, deliberately caused by tampering with the circuit breaker.

  Jack walks into the classroom with the weight of the whole class on his shoulders. Six weeks of eighteen-hour days times fourteen men—that’s a lot of heat.

  Captain Sparky walks in and picks up the report from the desk. Stands reading it as fifteen guys grip. Sparky looks up from the report and asks, “Are you sure this is what you want to go with?”

  Jack says, “We’re sure, sir.”

  “I’ll give you another chance,” Sparky offers. “Go out for an hour, reconsider and redo.”

  Jack’s like, Shit. I walked the whole freaking class off a cliff. And now Sparky, of all people, is throwing us a rope. All we have to do is reach up and grab it.

  Ferri raises his hand.

  “Yes?” Sparky says.

  Ferri’s got balls, Ferri’s a man. He points to the report and says, “That’s our conclusion, sir. We’ll stand with it.”

  Sparky shrugs.

  Like, suit yourselves, losers.

  Says, “Well, I gave you a chance.”

  Takes a red pen and starts slashing the report.

  Jack feels like shit. Feels thirteen pairs of eyes burning into his back. Ferri looks over and shrugs. Like, win some, lose some.

  Ferri’s a man.

  Sparky finishes the massacre, looks up and says, “I never thought you’d get the sheath.”

  Just like Captain Sparky, Jack thinks—you have the right answer and he tries to sell you the wrong one. Just so he can flunk your collective ass.

  “Class dismissed,” Sparky says. “Good job, gentlemen.”

  Graduation ceremony tomorrow. Try to dress like grown-ups.

  Fire school.

  What a ride.

  All of which is to say that when it comes to fire, Jack knows what he’s doing. Which is why Goddamn Billy’s not concerned when Jack comes into his office with a dog under his arm.

  16

  Actually, out into his office, because Billy’s sitting out beside the giant saguaro he had imported from south Arizona.

  It’s a Billy kind of a day, Jack thinks—hot, dry and windy. Kind of day that reminds you that Southern California is basically a desert with a few tenacious grasses, overirrigation and a freaking army of gifted and dedicated
Mexican and Japanese gardeners.

  “So?” Billy asks.

  “Smoking in bed,” Jack says. “I was just starting to set up the file.”

  “Save you the trouble,” Billy says. He hands Jack a folder.

  Jack instantly turns to the Declarations Page. The “Dec Page” is a one-sheet detailing the types and amounts of the insurance coverage.

  A million-five on the house.

  No surprise there. It’s a large, elegantly crafted house overlooking the ocean. The mil and a half is just for the structure. The lot is probably another mil, at least.

  $750,000 on the personal property.

  The max, Jack thinks. You can insure your personal property at a value up to half of the insurance on the structure. If you have personal property worth more than that, you need to get special endorsements, which Vale sure as hell did.

  “Holy shit,” Jack says.

  $500,000 in special endorsements.

  What the hell did he have in the house? Jack asks himself. To come up with $1,250,000 in personal property? And how much of it was in the west wing?

  “When did the underwriters start smoking crack?” Jack asks.

  “Be nice.”

  “These endorsements are very whacked,” Jack says.

  “It’s California.” Billy shrugs. Which is to say, of course it’s whacked—everything is whacked. “How much of this stuff is destroyed?”

  “Don’t know,” Jack says. “I haven’t been in the house yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “I found their dog outside,” Jack says. “I thought I’d better get it back to them first.”

  Billy hears that the dog was outside and raises a significant eyebrow.

  Sucks on his cig for a second then says, “It got out when the firemen came in?”

  Jack shakes his head. “No soot, no smoke. Fur wasn’t singed.”

  Because dogs are usually heroes. Fire breaks out, they don’t run, they stick.