Heaven's Fire (5 page)

Junior blinked into the camera light.
"
Well, I don’t know. I think maybe we’d--
"

"
Excuse me, you’ll have to do this later. I need to talk to Mr. Firenze.
"

Luis looked up from the eyepiece at the big dude that was blocking his shot.
"
Who are you?
"

"
Simon Aamot. I’m with ATF.
"

Cool. And come to think of it, the guy did look like a Fed. Sort of like Tommy Lee Jones, only taller and younger, thinner and better-looking.
"
Great. I’ll talk to you instead.
"
Luis tilted the camera up and leveled it on Aamot.

"
No, you won’t. You'll stay out of my way.
"
The Fed stepped closer and put his hand up to block Luis's lens.
Nobody
touched Luis's lens.
"
Hey!" Luis lowered the camera and backed away. "You heard of freedom of the press? I got a right to be here.
"

"
This is a crime scene. You don’t have any rights here at all. Maybe you should go look for your TV truck.
"

Luis had already done that. But he didn't think that's what the Fed meant. This sounded more like a threat.

Luis thought about what Jake had told him once about getting more with piss than with vinegar.
"
Listen man, I’m stuck here. And you’ll want to talk to me anyway, right? I mean, I shot the whole thing.
"

He could see Aamot was thinking about it. "You're right," the Fed finally said. "I'll need to see everything you filmed. Wait at the boat, and we’ll take you back.
"

Luis wasn't good at waiting. Besides, he had to get his tapes back before the Fed or anybody else got their hands on them.

"
I don’t want to hurry you, man. Maybe he,
"
Luis gestured at the Coast Guard guy
on the boat
,
"
could take me back to shore on the cutter and come back for you. I could have the tape all queued and ready for you in the production truck.
"

"
What’s your name?
"

"
Luis Burns. So
listen,
I'll--
"

The Fed put his hand on Luis's shoulder and turned him and his camera around.
"
Well, Luis, that's a boat, Petty Officer Kutchera is piloting, not a cutter. Cutters are 65-feet or longer. But don’t you worry. I'll be done
here
soon, and then we’ll go back together and you can learn all about boats and the Coast Guard, before we look at the film.
Also
together. Understand?
"

Luis shrugged away. He liked his personal space.
"
Yeah. Okay. Sure.
"

Aamot turned to talk to Junior, and Luis subtly edged back toward them.

"
He kept asking questions," he heard Junior say. "What happened, what my father
had
done wrong, were the shells too big to be safely fired--
"

The Fed asked something so quiet, Luis couldn't hear him. Whatever it was, Junior didn't like it. He pulled his cap off and ran his hand through his hair.
"
Damn it, Simon, what do you want me to say? That we shouldn’t have done the sixteen-inch shells the customer wanted? Who knew? Other companies are doing bigger shells without a problem.
"

Simon, huh? Aamot and Junior must know each other. Pretty cozy, the investigator and investigatee being tight.

"
But maybe not on barges," the Fed said, giving Junior the same kind of stare he'd given Luis. "And not fired by hand.
"

So maybe they weren't so tight. Junior looked like he was going to cry.
"
My dad...Dad wouldn’t fire electronically. He said the drama was in the torches.
"

Aamot shook his head.
"
Your father didn’t usually cut corners, Pat. I’ve seen him refuse
to fire a show
when the crowd was
t
oo close or he didn’t think the site was safe.
"

Ahh, so the site wasn't safe.

"
And you’re wondering why he didn’t do that this time?" Junior was getting mad all over a
gain. "This is our biggest show
next to the Fourth of July, Simon. Dad
didn’t want to lose it. Me, Angela and Ray, my mother and father, Tudy, our employees and their families, we all depend on Firenze Fireworks. We don’t shoot fireworks, we don’t eat.
"

The Fed started to say something, but Junior kept going. He was sticking his finger in Aamot's face for emphasis, something that struck Luis as not such a hot idea.
"
But big show or not," Junior said, "my father wouldn’t risk hurting someone. Why aren’t you looking for him, instead of trying to blame him?
"

Sure enough, Aamot told Junior to drop the finger. Then he turned to Luis. "And you? You go to the boat or I'm going to drop
you
in your tracks. Got it?"

Luis got it.

*****

Simon steered Pat away from Luis Burns and anybody else who might be able to hear them.

"
Listen, Pat, the Coast Guard is doing everything they can to find your father and Ray. You have to know, though, that the chances of Pasquale having survived
a
blast
that close
are not good. As for Ray, let's hope that one of the spectator boats picked him up.
"

Pat hesitated, started to say something, then just nodded.

"
You also know that I have to do my job and that means finding out what happened. But I’m not like that camera guy, I’m not looking for some talking point or sound bite. I just want to
determine
what happened. And so do you, I think.
"

"
Pat?
"
Tudy Guida's voice
behind them. "A
nother
Coast Guard boat is bringing Angela."

Simon flinched and turned to face the little man.
"
Tudy, I’m sorry.
"

Tudy wouldn't meet his eyes.
"
You’ve found them then?
"

"
No, not yet. I didn’t mean to make you think otherwise.
"

Tudy had a tooth missing in front and a habit of poking his tongue through the open space when he thought. He was thinking hard now
, the tongue darting in and out
.
"
This is terrible, just terrible,
"
he said, looking beyond Simon toward the water.

"
Why don't you tell me about the shells?
"
Simon
suggested, wanting
the old man to focus on something concrete.
"
How they were made, how they were fired.
"

Tudy tried to answer, but Pat interrupted. He seemed to be back in control of himself.
"
Three sixteen-inch round shells with two-pound black powder lift charges. They
each
had
a ten-second time fuse
.
"

It jibed with what Simon had seen on the vivid replay of the explosion.
"
The three shells were on one quickmatch?
"

"
Quickmatch up to the first shell, then a three-second time fuse between the first and second, and between the second and third. Dad wanted them to break individually, but be fired close enough so they’d overlap in the air. It should have worked.
"

"
Who made the shells?
"

"
My father. He wouldn’t let anyone else touch them.
"
Pat looked over at Simon.
"
I saw him build them,
Simon
. Everything was right.
"

In
the ATF man's
mind, fireworks shells were a lot like parachutes. You didn’t know they were packed wrong until it was too late to do anything about it.

Simon
nodded toward Luis Burns, who was standing by the
Coast Guard
boat, chatting up Kutchera.
"
The media will be on you thicker than flies. Decide what you want to say now and just stick with it. They’ll keep asking the same questions in every way they can think of. You just keep feeding them back the same answer. Don't let them rattle you.
"

But Pat had caught sight of a figure being helped off a second Coast Guard boat that had just pulled alongside. "I need to see my sister."

As if she had heard him,
the figure
turned and crossed the barge toward them. Angela Firenze Guida was tall and slim, the opposite of her fireplug brother and father. She slipped into their group, hugging first Pat and then Tudy, before turning to Simon.

She held out both hands. "Simon."

Simon hesitated and then took her hands, not quite knowing what to say.
The Firenze daughter
had always seemed more European, more
"Italy"
Italian, than either her father or mother, both of whom had been born
in the country
.
Angela
had
an exotic
grace about her, perhaps the result of going to school abroad.

"
I’m sorry to be bothering you now, Angela,
"
he ventured.

She
ignored his apology, just staring
up into his eyes.
"
Have you found Ray? My father?"

She seemed almost somnambular, like things weren't registering. In Simon’s experience that meant she was in for a b
ig fall later. Still it made the woman
easier for him to deal with now, heartless as that might seem. He let go of
Angela's
hands.
"
I’m sorry. No. You were on the south barge with Ray?
"

"
That’s right.
"
She backed up a little half-step, and her eyes filled.
"
We fired the finale.
"

"
Where was Ray at the moment of the explosion?
"

"
On the side closest to my father's barge.
"

"
Was
your husband
near the edge?
"
His words sounded formal, even to his own ears.

Angela didn't react.
"
Yes, but I'm not certain how close. I had moved away to watch the finale." She looked down at her hands. "Ray liked to smoke after a show, and I hated his cigarettes.
"

Simon wasn't surprised. A lot of fireworks technicians smoked. Yet another warning from the Surgeon General for the side of the cigarette pack.
"
Warning: Smoking can blow you to smithereens.
"

"
Did you see what happened to Ray?
"
he
persisted
.

Angela shook her head.
"
The blast
...
I looked over for him after the
explosion
. I was screaming for him to help my father. But
Ray,
he couldn’t--he wasn’t there...
"
Her voice trailed off disbelievingly as she stared across the lake again. Tudy put one thin arm around her and gave Simon the eye.

Simon, already treading carefully, backed off.
"
Thank you, Angela. I won’t bother you any more tonight.
"
He turned to Pat.
"
Will you be at the factory tomorrow?
"

Tomorrow was Saturday, but in Simon’s experience, the Firenze family worked seven days a week. That was only partly because Pasquale and his wife, Sadie, lived in a house just up the private road from the
fireworks
factory.

Pat nodded, but didn’t say anything.

Simon touched his arm.
"
Why don’t we take you all back? There’s no need for you to stay out here.
"

Pat was watching the boats still combing the lake.
"
I think we’ll stay for a while. Thanks.
"