‘It’s not like we’ll be in different hemispheres,’ Lucy answered back.
I knew better, and so did she. Janet was an FBI agent. The two of them had been lovers since their early training days at Quantico. Now they worked for different federal law enforcement agencies and soon would live in separate cities. It was quite possible their careers would never permit their relationship again.
‘Do you suppose we can carve out a minute to talk today?’ I spoke again as we picked our way around puddles.
‘Sure. When we finish up here, we’ll have a beer, if we can find an open bar out here in the sticks,’ she replied as the wind blew harder.
‘I don’t care how late it is,’ I added.
‘Here goes,’ Lucy muttered with a sigh as we approached the tent. ‘Hey gang,’ she called out. ‘Where’s the party?’
‘You’re looking at it.’
‘Doc, you making house calls these days?’
‘Naw, she’s babysitting Lucy.’
In addition to Marino and me, NRT on this call-out were nine men, two women, including team leader McGovern. All of us were dressed alike in the familiar dark blue fatigues, which were worn and patched and supple like our boots. Agents were restless and boisterous around the back of the open tailgate of the supertruck with its shiny aluminum interior divided into shelves and jump seats, and its outside compartments packed with reels of yellow crime-scene tape, and dustpans, picks, floodlights, whisk brooms, wrecking bars, and chop saws.
Our mobile headquarters was also equipped with computers, a photocopier and fax machine, and the hydraulic spreader, ram, hammer, and cutter used to deconstruct a scene or save a human life. In fact, I could not think of much the truck did not have except, perhaps, a chef, and more importantly, a toilet.
Some agents had begun decontaminating boots, rakes, and shovels in plastic tubs filled with soapy water. It was a never-ending effort, and in brisk weather, hands and feet never dried or thawed. Even exhaust pipes were swabbed for petroleum residues, and all power tools were run by electricity or hydraulic fluid instead of gasoline, preparing for that day in court when all would be questioned and judged.
McGovern was sitting on a table inside the tent, her boots unzipped, and a clipboard on her knee.
‘All right,’ she addressed her team. ‘We’ve been through most of this already at the fire station, where you guys missed good coffee and donuts,’ she added for the benefit of those of us who had just gotten here. ‘But listen up again. What we know so far is the fire is believed to have started day before yesterday, on the evening of the seventh at twenty hundred hours.’
McGovern was about my age and based in the Philadelphia field office. I looked at her and saw Lucy’s new mentor, and I felt a stiffening in my bones.
‘At least that’s the time the fire alarm went off in the house,’ McGovern went on. ‘When the fire department got here, the house was fully involved. Stables were burning. Trucks really couldn’t get close enough to do anything but surround and drown. Or at least make an attempt at it. We’re estimating about thirty thousand gallons of water in the basement. That’s about six hours total to pump all of it out, assuming we’re talking about four pumps going and don’t have millions of clogs. And by the way, the power’s off, and our local friendly fire department is going to set up lights inside.’
‘What was the response time?’ Marino asked her.
‘Seventeen minutes,’ she replied. ‘They had to grab people off duty. Everything around here is volunteer.’
Someone groaned.
‘Now don’t be too hard on them. They used every tanker around to get enough water in, so that wasn’t the problem,’ McGovern chided her troops. ‘This thing went up like paper, and it was too windy for foam, even though I don’t think it would have helped.’ She got up and moved to the supertruck. ‘The deal is, this was a fast, hot fire. That much we know for a fact.’
She opened a red-paneled door and began handing out rakes and shovels.