Dirty Fire (5 page)
Cieloczki paused to emphasize the significance. “Our arsonist took his time inside, soaking everything with gasoline. Gasoline fumes are heavier than air, so they flow down to the lowest point in the structure. The last thing this person wanted was to have a pilot light—for a stove, the furnace or water heater, whatever—touch off the fumes before he was done and out of there.”
“So what?” said Bird. “I mean, how does that make our guy special? If I smell gasoline, I’m going to want to avoid open flames. Turning off the gas is the easiest way to make sure you get all the pilot lights turned off.”
“That thought might occur to a lot of people,” Gil agreed. “But what most people forget are the electrical ignition sources. For instance, it was a cold day outside. Have you ever been around at night when your thermostat clicks on? In a dark room, when the mercury switch makes contact, you see a little flash. That’s more than enough to touch off gasoline fumes, once they reach the right level. You’ve also got refrigerators, blowers, sump pumps. Anything that has an electric motor is a potential ignition source. So what do you do?”
“Our guy also cut the power to the house, right?” Posson said.
Gil nodded. “And that’s not too surprising, either,” he added, anticipating Bird’s response. “At least, it wouldn’t be if there wasn’t a question about the timing.”
Nederlander frowned. “What question?”
“The Levinstein house had a pretty sophisticated alarm system,” Gil said. “When the heat triggered it, a signal was sent simultaneously to the fire department and to the alarm service’s central monitoring system. Our signal is pretty basic. Location and time, essentially. But the alarm company gets much more information—including the status of the alarm system itself. I had them send us a copy of their printout for the incident.”
Gil pushed two sheets of tractor-feed computer paper to Nederlander; Posson and Bird leaned over to look.
Lines of type, tapped out by a dot matrix printer, marched down the fanfold sheet. The top line read:
SYSTEM STATUS: ** OK ** 1215 1/23
“Routinely, the alarm system does a diagnostic self check every fifteen minutes and automatically downloads to the alarm company’s computers,” Gil said. “That way, the company can monitor minor problems that might require maintenance.”
Most of the other lines were identical except for the first set of numbers, which in each line increased by fifteen-minute intervals.
But midway down the page, Cieloczki had used a red pen to circle a line that was printed in capital letters:
SYSTEM STATUS: ** AUX POWER SUPPLY ON** 1723 1/23
“That’s when the system went over to a battery backup,” Gil said. “A power failure isn’t considered a major breakdown. The system simply records when it happens. From 5:30 on, the system was working off the battery.”
Finally, on the last page of the fanfold paper, Cieloczki had circled two lines several times:
!! ALARM ** 10-73 ** 2119 1/23
!! ALARM ** 10-70 ** 2119 1/23
“The alarm service computer uses police ten-codes in its system. As you know, ten seventy-three is code for
‘smoke detected’
in the residence,” Gil said. “The initial alarm came at 9:19 p.m. Almost immediately—with gasoline as the initiator, probably only a few seconds later—the system reported a ten-seventy: flames detected,” Cieloczki said.
“We assume that whoever cut gas and electric to the house also set the fire,” Gil said. “We know the system went on its standby battery power at seventeen twenty-three hours. But that’s 5:23 p.m., almost four hours before the fire set off the alarm.” He looked around the room. “So what happened during those four hours?”
As Cieloczki spoke, I studied the faces of the three police officers. Nederlander was outwardly calm, though his eyes had narrowed noticeably throughout the presentation. Bird was frankly enthralled, his head bobbing as his eyes moved between Gil’s face and the papers on the conference table. Posson’s neck between the white turtleneck and the fringe of her close-cut black hair was already a deep crimson. I sat quietly, waiting for what would come next.
It was not a long wait.
“As you know, under Lake Tower ordinances arson investigations are formally the responsibility of the Fire Department,” Cieloczki said, his voice almost gentle. “The Police Department has been actively pursuing a murder investigation. As a matter of professional courtesy we’ve limited our official involvement. But with your investigation stalled—at a standstill, to use your term, Bob—I feel that I have no choice. I have to exercise my prerogative to assume the lead role here.”
“
Lead
role?” Nederlander’s voice was tight with barely suppressed emotions I could guess did not include mirth. “Forget it, Gil. This is still a murder investigation. That’s
police
work, not…something for a fireman.”
“I’m sorry, Bob,” Gil replied, his voice level. He reached down to his briefcase, which was leaning against the legs of his chair, and removed a folded letter. The paper was high quality bond, so heavy and crisp that it cracked slightly at the creases.
“This is a memorandum from the City Manager’s Office,” Gil said. “Talmadge Evans has decided to create a joint task force to continue the investigation into the case. Police and fire departments and any outside support we require. The memo directs me to review the case files. At my discretion, I am instructed to assume the supervisory responsibility as it relates to the Levinstein investigation.”
Cieloczki handed the memorandum to Nederlander as if it was a loaded weapon—which, from the police chief’s point of view, it was. Even from across the table, the precise, distinctive signature of the man who was both Nederlander’s and Cieloczki’s boss was unmistakable.
“As Public Safety Director, of course, you remain my direct supervisor, Bob. You’re definitely in the loop on all reports, and I’ll brief you regularly. This is just an administrative action to streamline the investigation.”
It was anything but, and Nederlander’s impassivity signaled that he knew it. But he was an experienced veteran of turf warfare, and he knew when to attack, when to dig in and when to pull back. He chose the latter.
“I see,” he said, leaning back from the table. His voice was now almost casual, as if he had suggested the new arrangement. “Well, Gil—you’re the one with the training and experience in all of this.” He spread his hands. “Just tell me how we can support you. You want to keep Terry and Mel on the case, I assume.”
“Definitely, if that’s all right with you,” Gil said. “They’re important members of the joint task force. But I’m also bringing in a consultant to work the investigation—someone with police experience who can help me understand the procedures involved. Davey here was working the case when he was…when he left the police force. He will be an acting fire marshal and report to me.”
No one in the room had seen Nederlander speechless before. It did not last nearly long enough.
“Are you serious?” he demanded. He looked at me fully for the first time since the meeting began. “This…
person
was dismissed from the police force—”
“I resigned,” I interrupted. “Voluntarily.”
“After you were led out of here by three county deputies, in cuffs,” Nederlander retorted, with heat. “You quit before I had the pleasure of firing you.”
“I’ll be working this case,” I snapped. “Get used to it.”
I realized that I was on my feet with no memory of having risen, leaning over the table, nose to nose with my former employer. Nederlander was standing too, and I doubted that anyone in the room could tell which of us had risen first.
Cieloczki also stood. “Let’s keep it together here,” he said in a voice accustomed to commanding people in tense situations. “Bob, I have to say that Davey is uniquely suited for this job. I won’t go into specifics right now. But it’s my decision to make, and I’ve made it.”
Nederlander straightened; in an act of sheer will, he forced his voice to become calm and level.
“Yes,” he said to Cieloczki, though he was looking into my face. “You certainly have.”
He pivoted and stalked out the door. Posson and Bird watched him leave, both their faces impassive masks. Only then did I realize I was breathing hard, and that my fists were balled white-knuckle tight at my sides.
Cieloczki sat down, unruffled at the scene he had orchestrated.
“Davey,” Gil Cieloczki said, looking down at the file on the table before him, “welcome to the team.”
“Well,
that
went well, don’t you think?” Gil said, a little more than a half hour later. To me, walking with Cieloczki across the hall to the offices of Lake Tower’s fire department, the humor in his voice sounded unforced. It might have been facetiousness, or extreme relief.
The meeting with Nederlander and his investigators had indeed gone well, in that it had followed a script Cieloczki had outlined barely two hours before. This earlier meeting had been very private indeed, with attendance limited to Cieloczki and three other people. One was me; another, a well-dressed man with hair that showed careful attention by an expert barber.
The final member of our cabal was a tall, almost painfully thin man named Talmadge Evans.
His eyes had studied me with extreme skepticism as he listened to a story that came from a dying convict. He had asked an occasional question, raised the expected objections. His disbelief had been obvious. Nonetheless, in the end he had signed the memorandum that effectively removed his own police chief from the investigation.
Then he had turned baleful eyes on me.
“I’m not naive, Mr. Davey,” Evans had said. “I know your history here. I also know that you have not held a steady job since you left our police department. I will be honest: I believe you have come to us with this…
story
… for several reasons. But mainly because you need the money.”
He held up his hand before I could speak.
“Very well. You have a job, temporary as it may be. Gil feels strongly that you are needed to resolve this matter.” He nodded toward the other visitor in the room. “His view has the support of the FBI, it appears. That is correct, Agent Santori, is it not?”
Then his voice grew steely, and I knew it for a warning.
“But hear this clearly: I will not stand for a vendetta of any kind. If there is to be an investigation, it will be handled fairly and professionally. You
will
toe that line, sir; any behavior that does not meet that standard will cost you dearly. I will see to it. Personally.”
Evans had folded the crisp, heavy paper and handed the memorandum to Cieloczki. He nodded in dismissal.
As we started to leave the room—through the seldom-used side door, not the one that opened on the main administrative section of the City Manager’s Office—Evans spoke again.
“Gil.”
He paused, as if the act of framing his words would give Cieloczki a last chance to reconsider.
“You are taking a chance—a
serious
chance—on the basis of this man’s credibility, Gil,” Evans told the firefighter. “And, I might add, on his stability. You are about to burn your bridges here, personally as well as professionally. I only hope you understand: if this turns out badly, I cannot protect you.”
Cieloczki nodded. The message was clear and unequivocal.
Evans had given him his support, grudging as it might have been. With it came more than enough rope to hang himself, and the rest of us too.
Much of what I knew about Gil Cieloczki was ancedotal, the blend of rumor and outright fiction that passes for conversation in most organizations.
Some information I remembered from watercooler gossip back when he had first come to Lake Tower to head up the fire department, stepping in after the city eased out the former incumbent. Some I picked up over drinks with members of the cadre of firefighters who had worked with him in Chicago and subsequently had been recruited to form the nucleus of the professional organization he envisioned for Lake Tower.
I learned a bit more from his wife Kay, who—rather than leave an early arriving guest sitting alone with a cup of coffee in her husband’s den—was easily coaxed to talk about him and his achievements. And a little I got from Cieloczki himself, gleaned from what I suspected he thought was important for me to know.
I knew, for example, that he made it a practice to get to work early and leave late.
Like most behavior that is publicly praised, it was a habit that privately made for curled lips and eyebrows half-raised knowingly. When Cieloczki’s name came up in gossip around the Lake Tower Municipal Center, terms like “workaholic” and “desk addict” were often used in the same sentence.
Cieloczki knew what his fellow municipal executives said about his work schedule. When he thought about it at all —which was seldom—Cieloczki recognized it for what it was: a defensive weapon, deployed to justify the bankers’ hours schedule of their own arrivals and departures and occasionally over-long lunches.
They need not have wasted their energy. As long as it had no impact on the firefighting apparatus that Cieloczki had spent the past five years building, the comings and goings in the other offices in the Lake Tower Municipal Center were a matter of almost complete indifference to him.
The fact was that Cieloczki, who had spent almost twenty years in a firehouse environment where a twenty-four shift was the only time clock a firefighter punched, had never really adjusted to a bankers’ hours world. It had never occurred to him to try.
In Chicago, where he had been promoted from ladder company to battalion and subsequently to Deputy Chief, Gil Cieloczki’s life revolved around the almost constant clamor of the fire bell. A talent for the strategic aspects of firefighting—quickly recognized by his superiors—was tempered by his affinity for the hands-on tactical. At home behind either a desk or a three-inch line at a fire, Cieloczki became a fixture both at Fire Department headquarters and at virtually every major blaze in the city. “My Iron Man,” his then-chief described Cieloczki. “Gil doesn’t sleep, doesn’t take a day off—I’m not sure he even
owns
a shirt that isn’t Department-issued.”
It was, by and large, true; at their wedding, Kay had put her foot down on a bridal party in City-issued uniforms, even the full-dress variety. “So it was either T-shirts and jeans or Gingiss,” she had said, shaking her head at the memory. Cieloczki was married in sartorial splendor rented for the occasion.
When it came to firefighting, Cieloczki was a driven man. Not by ambition, the fuel that powered others of his fellows; not even by pride in a job he loved and knew he did well. It was something more simple, and infinitely more complex.
Veterans from the line companies nodded approvingly when Gil’s name came up during bitch sessions in the beer-and-a-shot taverns favored by off-duty firefighters. Cieloczki was not your typical cotton-top, they’d tell the rookies at the table, referring to the unscarred, pristine white firefighter helmets worn by the Department’s upper echelon; Cieloczki had the “bell in his blood”—he was a firefighter’s firefighter who had never forgotten what the job was all about.
Which had made it all the more shocking when Cieloczki quit.
By then, Cieloczki was in his late 30s—relatively young for a deputy chief, especially one with a reputation for having risen on merit rather than politics. He had been at the tail end of an eighteen-month stint supervising the Department’s Investigative and Forensic Services. The nuances of arson methodology, ignition source identification and accellerant trace analysis filled all of his waking hours and many of his nights.
Late one Saturday afternoon, he was working alone in the renovated firehouse that served as the offices for Investigative and Forensic Services. The door opened, and Gil looked up from the memoranda and reports covering most of his desk.
“My name is Talmadge Evans,” a man said. “And I need your help.”
He sat in the visitor’s chair at Gil’s desk and set down a file folder, aligning it carefully with the edge of the desktop.
Evans was a tall man in a suit that had been carefully tailored to a frame that was thin, almost emaciated. Then in his late 50s, Talmadge Evans had the air of a precise man—one who would have been quite comfortable running a major corporation. As it was, he ran the Municipality of Lake Tower. Evans had spent the past dozen years in that role, serving a long line of elected officials.
All of them, upon taking office, quickly recognized the value of a city manager who knew his place. Evans took care not to interfere in matters of simple patronage, nepotism or other occasional political featherbedding. That is, unless and until such practices intruded on the areas Evans categorized under the phrase “efficient municipal management.” If something kept the trains from running on schedule, Evans could be uncharacteristically blunt.
Still, accommodation was always possible. After all, as several past mayors and aldermen had assured each other, Evans was an employee, and a mere bureaucrat at that. As Evans himself was the first to admit, he possessed statutory powers limited largely to what they granted.
Yet over the years, as their own political fortunes waxed and waned while Evans remained, a few of the more perceptive came to realize something profound. Inevitably, the accommodations they had reached with Evans had ultimately evolved to follow the course he had championed in the first place.
Evans thumbed through the folder and selected a neatly cut newspaper clipping. He pushed it toward Cieloczki without a word. The headline type was large and black, the size usually reserved for major tragedies.
NINE DEAD, FORTY INJURED
IN LAKE TOWER APARTMENT FIRE
By A. STEVEN MELSHENKER
Beacon Staff WriterLAKE TOWER, Ill. - A fire of questionable origin roared through a three-story apartment complex yesterday in Lake Tower, a community of 25,000 north of Chicago. In its wake, seven children and two pregnant women are dead and dozens more being treated in several area hospitals. The fire, which broke out at approximately 2:30 a.m., also left five other children in extremely critical condition.
Fire Chief Carl Devroux said that the fire began on the second floor of a forty unitforty-unit apartment building in the Westlake section of the city. Devroux declined to comment on reports that residents had repeatedly complained to the city that the building lacked working smoke detectors and that fire doors—used to prevent the spread of flames and smoke from one section of the building to another—were habitually propped open. The open fire doors allowed the smoke and super-heated gases to move rapidly through the hallway and may have contributed to the high death toll.
According to residents interviewed outside the scene of the blaze, repeated complaints to the owner of the building, listed in county tax records as Monmouth Development Corp. of Lake Tower, were disregarded. Three complaints filed with the Lake Tower Building Department—the most recent less than four weeks ago—were also ignored, the residents charged.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation, City Manager Talmadge Evans said this morning. Evans said that a total of sixteen apartments were destroyed by the fire, and that there was no evidence of working smoke detectors. He said that the fire was declared under control within an hour of its inception, but not before the smoke and flames took their toll.
Evans declined comment on the reports of the alleged complaints. In responding to a question from the media, he acknowledged that safety inspections of existing buildings were the responsibility of the city’s Building and Zoning Department. However, Evans added, in practice such inspections were routinely assigned to the Lake Tower Fire Department.
Cieloczki had known about the fire. Even in a city as accustomed to tragedy as Chicago, this one had stood out. It was remarkable for the age and number of the victims, and for the senseless, preventable way they had died. Smoke detectors were inoperative or missing entirely; fire doors had been latched open and in some cases removed. Worse, inspections required by a litany of state law and local ordinance had been cursory at best. As a result, tragedy had been inevitable.
“We weren’t—
aren’t
—prepared,” Evans said. “It’s just that simple. The same thing could happen tomorrow. At this moment, Lake Tower has a fire department that has become too comfortable with meeting minimal standards. That includes, I’m afraid, our personnel standards. Starting with our fire chief.”
He locked eyes with Cieloczki.
“Carl Devroux is symptomatic of a problem I have faced since I accepted my present position,” Evans said. “You are no doubt aware that Lake Tower has a tradition of…let us say,
opportunism
among its public officials.”
“I’ve lived in Chicago all my life,” Gil said evenly. “And I read the newspapers.”
“Then you know we have had more than our share of such men. For them, public service was little more than a license to enrich themselves. When I was hired as City Manager, it was on the heels of a scandal not unlike this one”—he tapped the clipping with his finger—“and part of my task was to keep it from happening again.”
His face was grim. “I won’t lie to you, Mr. Cieloczki. I am still far from succeeding in that task.”
The firefighter frowned. “Mr. Evans, I don’t quite understand what you want here. What does this have to do with me?”
“Chief Devroux became head of our fire department the year before I was appointed City Manager,” Evans said. “As the city grew, the job grew. He did not grow with it. My failing was not making this issue a priority; I settled for what I thought was an adequate firefighting system. That’s why we need somebody like you.”
Gil shook his head. “I’m afraid I’m not—”
“Please hear me out,” Evans interrupted. He pulled a sheaf of papers from the file. The photocopied top sheet, which carried the Chicago Fire Department logo, was the first page of Gil’s own personnel file.
“I didn’t just pull your name from the telephone book,” Evans said, with a smile. “I know a number of people who know you. In the past few days, I’ve talked about you to people both inside and outside your department. Let me speak frankly, if I may. You are a valuable member of the Chicago Fire Department, but you are not
valued
, if you understand the difference.”
“I don’t,” Gil said, wondering if he had just been insulted. “Enlighten me.”
“From a career standpoint, you have risen as far as you will go,” Evans said flatly. “We both understand that your department is part of your city’s political environment. You are not a political animal by nature; you have no clout outside the department itself. For the next twenty years, the most you can hope for is to do what you are doing now—an increasing amount of administrative assignments, each taking you farther away from the ability to make a real difference. Oh, I’m certain they are important—but may I ask you this: are they what you became a firefighter to do?”
“And that would be?” Gil asked, leaning back in his chair.
“Saving lives,” Evans replied. “Building the kind of fire department that operates on a professional basis. One with the resources, the training and the personnel a city like mine needs to be fully protected. A department that knows what it must do, and does it fully and without favoritism.”
Cieloczki’s eyes locked on those of Evans. Evans looked back from behind the steel-rimmed frame of his glasses. The silence held for several moments as each of the two men took the measure of the other.
Gil spoke first. “You know of an opening, I assume?”
“Chief Devroux will resign before the end of the week,” Evans said. “Very likely, before the end of the day tomorrow. I know this, because I know that in tomorrow’s edition of this newspaper”—Evans tapped the clipping, still on the desk in front of Cieloczki—“it will be reported that Carl Devroux is one of the owners of the Monmouth Development Corporation. The story will be quite explicit in showing that Monmouth, through a series of shell companies, owns a number of substandard, rent-subsidized apartment buildings—among them the building where this tragedy occurred. The article will also carry a quote from me expressing surprise over Devroux’s previously undisclosed relationship to the property.”
Gil nodded. “Let me be frank with you, Mr. Evans. I appreciate the situation you’re facing, and I understand the…ethical problems involved. So even if I was looking for a new job, I’m not sure this would be the time to—”
“The time will never be better,” Evans said. “I, too, want to be candid with you. First, the publicity this has received has damaged our image. Every member of our board has been embarrassed. Despite what some may see as a checkered past, Lake Tower does not like to be embarrassed. We require an immediate solution to the problem Deveroux has created.
“Second, there is a purely practical matter. Our board has been advised to expect a number of lawsuits alleging that Lake Tower was corporately negligent. As a result, the tragedy was compounded. We anticipate some very large claims against us. And justifiably so, of course.”
Evans shrugged. “Fortunately, we have been assured that our insurance will assume the cost of the settlements we will make. However, our carrier has notified the board that it is withdrawing future coverage. They are canceling us out. Worse, we are told that without an immediate, substantive correction of our Public Safety situation, Lake Tower will not be able to obtain insurance from any other carrier.”