California Fire And Life

5

The woman's dead.

Jack knows this even before he gets to the house because when he calls in it's Goddamn Billy. Six-thirty in the morning and Goddamn Billy's already in the office.

Goddamn Billy tells him there's a fire and a fatality.

Jack hustles up the 120 steps from Dana Strand Beach to the parking lot, takes a quick shower at the bathhouse then changes into the work clothes he keeps in the backseat of his '66 Mustang. His work clothes consist of a Lands' End white button-down oxford, Lands' End khaki trousers, Lands' End moccasins and an Eddie Bauer tie that Jack keeps preknotted so he can just slip it on like a noose.

Jack hasn't been inside a clothing store in about twelve years.

He owns three ties, five Lands' End white button-down shirts, two pairs of Lands' End khaki trousers, two Lands' End guaranteed-not-to-wrinkle-even-if-you-run-it-through-your-car-engine blue blazers (a rotation deal: one in the dry cleaners, one on his back) and the one pair of Lands' End moccasins.

Sunday night he does laundry.

Washes the five shirts and two pairs of trousers and hangs them out to unwrinkle. Preknots the three ties and he's ready for the workweek, which means that he's in the water a little before dawn, surfs until 6:30, showers at the beach, changes into his work clothes, loops the tie around his neck, gets into his car, pops in an old Challengers tape, and races to the offices of California Fire and Life.

He's been doing this for coming up to twelve years.

Not this morning, though.

This morning, propelled by Billy's call, he races to the loss site – 37 Bluffside Drive, just down the road above Dana Strand Beach.

It takes him maybe ten minutes. He's pulling around on the circular driveway – his wheels on the gravel sound like the undertow in the trench at high tide – and hasn't even fully stopped before Brian Bentley walks over and taps on the passenger-side window.

Brian "Accidentally" Bentley is the Sheriff's Department fire investigator. Which is another reason Jack knows there's been a fatal fire, because the Sheriff's Department is there. Otherwise it would be an inspector from the Fire Department, and Jack wouldn't be looking at Bentley's fat face.

Or his wavy red hair turning freaking orange with age.

Jack leans over and winds down the window.

Bentley sticks his red face in and says, "You got here quick, Jack. What, you carrying the fire and the life?"

"Yup."

"Good," Bentley says. "The double whammy."

Jack and Bentley hate each other.

That old thing about if, say, Jack was on fire, Bentley wouldn't piss on him to put it out? If Jack was on fire, Bentley would drink gasoline so he could piss on Jack.

"Croaker in the bedroom," Bentley says. "They had to scrape her off the springs."

"The wife?" asks Jack.

"We don't have a positive yet," Bentley says. "But it's an adult female."

"Pamela Vale, age thirty-four," Jack says. Goddamn Billy gave him the specs over the phone.

"Name rings a bell," Bentley says.

"Save the Strands," Jack says.

"What the what?"

"Save the Strands," Jack says. "She's been in the papers. She and her husband are big fund-raisers for Save the Strands."

A community group fighting the Great Sunsets Ltd. corporation to prevent them from putting a condo complex on Dana Strands, the last undeveloped stretch of the south coast.

Dana Strands, Jack's beloved Dana Strands, a swatch of grass and trees that sits high on a bluff above Dana Strand Beach. Years ago, it was a trailer park, and then that failed, and then nature reclaimed it and grew over and around it, and is still holding on to it against all the forces of progress.

Just holding on, Jack thinks.

"Whatever," Bentley says.

Jack says, "There's a husband and two kids."

"We're looking for them."

"Shit."

"They ain't in the house," Bentley says. "I mean we're looking for notification purposes. How'd you get here so soon?"

"Billy picked it off the scanner, ran the address, had it waiting for me when I got in."

"You insurance bastards," Bentley says. "You just can't wait to get in there and start chiseling, can you?"

Jack hears a little dog barking from somewhere behind the house.

It bothers him.

"You name a cause?" Jack asks.

Bentley shakes his head and laughs this laugh he has, which sounds more like steam coming out of a radiator. He says, "Just get out your checkbook, Jack."

"You mind if I go in and have a look?" Jack asks.

"Yeah, I do mind," Bentley says. "Except I can't stop you, right?"

"Right."

It's in the insurance contract. If you have a loss and you make a claim, the insurance company gets to inspect the loss.

"So knock yourself out," Bentley says. He leans way in, trying to get into Jack's face. "Only – Jack? Don't bust chops here. I pull the pin in two weeks. I plan to spend my retirement annoying bass on Lake Havasu, not giving depositions. What you got here is you got a woman drinking vodka and smoking, and she passes out, spills the booze, drops the cigarette and barbecues herself, and that's what you got here."

"You're retiring, Bentley?" Jack asks.

"Thirty years."

"It's about time you made it official."

One reason – out of a veritable smorgasbord of reasons – that Jack hates Accidentally Bentley is that Bentley's a lazy son of a bitch who doesn't like to do his job. Bentley could find an accidental cause for virtually any fire. If Bentley had been at Dresden he'd have looked around the ashes and found a faulty electric-blanket control. Cuts down on paperwork and court appearances.

As a fire investigator, Bentley makes a great fisherman.

"Hey, Jack," Bentley says. He's smiling but he's definitely pissed. "At least I didn't get thrown out."

Like me, Jack thinks. He says, "That's probably because they don't realize you're even there."

"Fuck you," Bentley says.

"Hop in the back."

The smile disappears from Bentley's face. He's like serious now.

"Accidental fire, accidental death," Bentley says. "Don't dick around in there."

Jack waits until Bentley leaves before he gets out of the car.

To go dick around in there.