Danes looked up discreetly, though he figured he’d be all right moving in the opaque darkness back there. His assailant was now either long gone, or at a severe disadvantage. He was less than 20 feet from the shattered glass slider on the deck, but the detective was clothed entirely in black: a black windbreaker, black jeans, black shirt. He’d be invisible standing still, and close enough moving. LD heard a commotion immediately following the shot, and now flashlight beams were playing over his head, weaving faint, restless patterns on the overgrown Summer brush. Danes watched as they advanced through the dark, moving quickly on the same dark yards he’d tracked through a few minutes earlier. At about 50 feet out the lights disappeared. The uniforms were cagey, thought Danes, and had remembered their Academy training with regards to flash-lighting through darkness towards an armed position. Seconds later, an agitated stage-whisper in Danes ear:
That’s you down there boss? Who shot?
Danes whispered:
Porch. be quiet.
Then the sound of a starter-motor, turning, and catching, from what sounded like the opposite side of the house. Danes and Dinnicola were up and sprinting toward the street-lit front yard with no further discussion. Danes – in the lead by a nose - was drawing his weapon, raking the slide as they went.
They hit the corner, veering right, driving on a running car now directly in front of them and the car was parked, lights off. Dent heard other footsteps coming up behind, the rest of anybody left over at the scene. Now in the tiny light of the lawn-lantern, more uni’s were advancing. There were five, including Dinnicola and himself. They cordoned off a circle around the car, Danes could see it was a four door Honda Civic, couldn’t make out the color, the front yards on Fairmount seemed only slightly better illuminated than the back. They closed slowly, each man drawing a two-handed bead on the car. There was silence around the car and misty fog on the windows as they moved in.
***
Minutes later Danes lead a quick tour of the crime scene for the shift-change just arriving. He found Dinnicola outside, getting ready to make a break for it:
This is weird. Tonight, I mean.
They’d sent the other uniforms back to the house the car had sped away from. Now both residence were secured. Dinnicolla, lying on his back outside the still-running meat-wagon, unburdened himself:
The bodies. No bodies in years, now we got three bodies. The shots. Now the fuckin empty car. It’s 12 midnight. What the fuck next?
Jeez, I hope nothing. Tired.
He glanced at his cell, looking for the time, then re-holstered with a disgusted look.
Midnight? Really? Fuck…
Yeah. I’m gonna hit the gym. No chance I’m sleepin.
Right. Gym. Me too.
Dinicolla played at astonishment:
Gym? Really?
No.
You cantankerous fuck.
Tired. I got nothin. I’m leavin’ before anything else happens.
The two of them glanced back at the Burke house, quiet now, bathed in the light of the only functioning streetlamp on all of Fairmount Drive. Danes headed for the rear entrance, and stopped short after a few steps. He’d been facing Officer Dinnicola in conversation, and now LD saw flames behind the rookie and across the street. Gerald Hightower’s house was on fire, as was the house directly across from his, and the house next to that. Danes mind was turning carwheels as he watched angry new flames bursting from homes both sides of the street. Officer Dinnicola chimed in, still on the ground next to the ambo:
Huh. They all left stoves on?
Detective Danes flipped his cell out and started calling first responders back to Fairmount. As he dialed and spoke, he and Officer Diniccola ran, scoping out the house, trying to gain entry, and looking for anybody asleep inside. There was nobody. As Danes heard the sirens ramping up a mile away downtown, he scanned the dark spaces between the burning houses, saw nothing.
He was in the middle of the street when first units arrived and then he was running, checking in with the ranking firemen, hurrying, telling them what he knew. Danes allowed himself at least some small hope the first response had been fast enough, but as he turned to face the rest of Fairmont Drive, the notion of getting lucky died burning: Five houses were burning on one side of the street, and even as his disbelieving eyes looked on, he saw blooms of flame inside windows on the other side as well.
Every single house on Fairmont was on fire.
The detective felt the heat quickly becoming too much on his skin. He looked around for a place to fall back. Somewhere in the back of his mind his instinct for self-preservation was instructing to get clear immediately, but at the last second he saw the runner.
Somebody booking toward the hedgerow separating the back yards of Fairmont from the grounds of Harbour Hill Nursing Home. Danes, for the second time that night, found himself sprinting up the back yards. This time there was no darkness. Everything was burning. It felt to Detective Danes like running through hell.
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