dakini_grl. As always I welcome your comments and hope you have new sentences if you'd like to submit one. I'm going slow but hope to get more of these things done in the new year.Dakini's sentence is bolded in the story.
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Sedra McMahill often had a hard time explaining her job to people. Not that her career was difficult to understand, she just rarely wanted to get into it with folks she hardly knew. And most of her time was spent with folks she hardly knew. Airplanes, insurance company satellite offices, car rental companies, distressed families, and stressed fire department personnel made up the majority of her haunts and contacts. Though the last two groups usually knew exactly why she came around and were guardedly polite, either scared of her decision or resenting her presence.
With the other people whose company she found herself thrust into the "What do you do?" question arose within seconds. A basic, neutral conversation starter for those who enjoyed conversation. Sedra didn't.
She suspected her reticence to gab was a function of her paternal Scottish blood. The McMahill's tended toward the taciturn Scot tradition, despite the influence of her Irish grandmother's more garrulous Fallon blood.
Any gathering with both sides of her family present was always awkward at first, but when enough whiskey was introduced the islanders and the northerners ended up singing together around a battered piano. Sedra often wondered if the need for a rickety upright was another genetic trait of her bloodline. She'd never been to a house within the extended family network that didn't have one along with at least two people - herself one of them - who knew how to bang out ballads without spilling the tumblers that inevitably festooned the top of the Wurlitzer like an inverted chandelier.
Single malt, novelty drinking glasses, or sheet music. Sedra hadn't had to think about what gifts to get her family since puberty.
The gatherings, and her whiskey consumption, were few and far between, so when asked what her job was by others she usually fell back on fireman, despite the gender implications of the title, and worked it into a conversational dead end that would allow her to get back to the in-flight magazine's crossword puzzle.
It wasn't a lie, exactly, just creative use of tense. Sedra had spent years in a station, heeding calls and saving lives. It was her nose that had shifted her career. A house that didn't smell right after a devastating fire. She mentioned the sharp scent to her chief and the investigator was called in.
When they found the evidence of arson Sedra was booted into investigative training. Though she imagined that getting her out of the station house and replacing her with a man may have been a factor.
Still, investigation was interesting work and she found it was a relief to enter buildings after they had burned for a change.
Blind chance put Evervigil in her path, just one of those things that came together - meeting a rep at a burn site, a couple of cases she testified about for their side - and she was offered an job with the national insurance firm. Second-guessing the municipal investigators when they didn't find indications of the uninsurable act of arson, basically. Turning on her own, is what her supervisor called it, but his heart wasn't in the scolding, knowing he would have snatched up a similar pay increase if they'd offered.
Today she was in Kentucky. Away from home at the distance of two failed airplane conversations, a frustratingly unfinished crossword puzzle, and too many hours in a crappy rental car trying to find this backwoods address.
A red and white truck was waiting for her at the site. If not for the vehicle, the man kicking at the dirt by the edge of the scorched foundation looked like he could have been there by accident. No evidence of his official capacity adorned his figure, his body had obviously once been alarm-ready hard but now showed signs of a desk-job gut. The checkered hunter's cap, a fringe of graying hair sticking out the back, and quilted jacket looking comfortable and casual over jeans that had faded from use instead of fashion. He didn't turn around until Sedra had cut the engine and popped open her door, simultaneously tugging on the trunk release.
"Mornin'," he called to her, wrestling a thick hand from his pants to wave laconically as he approached, dirty work boots crunching along the fall leaves.
Sedra nodded at him, leaned in to pull the trunk lever and then shut her door. "You Hanson?" she asked, shaking his proffered hand once before turning toward the back of the car.
"Yup." He watched as she pulled out her waders and rubber boots from a duffle bag, a bouquet of airport tags flapping along the handle. She stepped into the waterproof overalls and strapped them on, the bib cinching against her breasts. Sedra adjusted them unselfconsciously before remembering her companion. She glanced up to see him nonchalantly, if deliberately, staring to the right.
The gesture pleased her, as did the fact that Hanson hadn't started yapping or bitching as soon as she showed up. With practiced motions Sedra yanked the boots on and reached for the duct tape in her duffle.
"I gotta assume you're McMahill, 'cause the fishing is lousy out here." Hanson said, looking back at her, leaning against the side of her rental car with a slight smile on his face. A nod to indicate her outfit.
Surprising herself, Sedra felt a slight flush of shame cross her cheeks over her brusque manner. It was an unfamiliar feeling. Pushing it from her mind she stuck her hand out again. "Sorry, yes. Sedra."
He shook it once, still smiling, "Mornin'," he repeated.
Watching her tape the top of the boots to the waders, Hanson's forehead creased for a moment before relaxing as he spoke again. "You're flying out tonight." It was more statement than question, confident he'd figured it out.
That was another surprise. Sedra's unconscious book-cover judgment of the man was rapidly reforming. "Yeah. I hate flying covered in soot and grease."
Hanson smiled again. "Just go ahead and assume I've said something funny about smoking sections on airplanes," he drawled, then turned to amble back to his truck.
When Sedra was strapped into her protective gear Hanson had unrolled a blueprint of the house on the hood. The awkwardly large papers showed a single story house with a quarter basement and attic.
The plans were old, the blue leeching away to white, the lines becoming indistinct. The paper crinkled like parchment under their fingers as they each held an edge flat. McMahill swiveled her gaze between the prints and the ruins. Blackened stakes, all that was left of walls, poked up in random directions from the charred rubble.
The front of the house was marked by a collapsed bulk of porch partially covering a thrust of steps leading from the foundation to the ground, making them impassable. Sedra carried the plans over to it, orienting them to her position. She did the same on each of the four sides, staring intently at each stop.
"So," she said to Hanson who had followed her along the circuit, "where did the fire start?"
The man's eyebrows went up, though that was the extent of the surprise on his face. It was a moment before he spoke. "Not to be rude but can't you tell?"
"Yes. But I want to know if you can." The words were impassive but she held his gaze and watched his face redden as she spoke.
"A test for the hillbilly inspector? See if the bumpkin can find his ass without a map?" His drawl almost unnoticeable in the flat tone.
Sedra smiled widely, "Almost. But my bias isn't regional, Hanson, it's occupational." The smile disappeared, "Most municipals just take the two week course and leave it at that. Their investigations involve twenty minutes poking at charcoal and blaming gasoline or electricals depending on if they want an arson charge or not."
Hanson stared for a moment and then nodded, prompting Sedra to add, smiling again, "If it were a bumpkin comment I would've called you Gomer."
The man laughed, a spontaneous burst of surprisingly lilting sounds that reformed his face along younger lines. "OK, sarge." He took the blueprints, rolling them as he approached the side of the foundation, and stepped up into what was left of the living room. Turning he offered a hand to McMahill, hoisting her easily. The clasp lasted a second longer than necessary. She wondered if he had lingered in the handhold or if it was her, the moment ending when he turned to regard what was left of the great room.
Sedra patted her hair once before scowling and forcing herself to abandon the gesture.
Taking a few careful steps Hanson approached the bowed and empty front-doorframe, stopping just past it. "This was a picture window. Big sheet of glass, sheer curtains and heavy drapes. I could see it everyday when I drove to work." He pointed down the road, indicating either where he lived or where he worked.
He put a toe on a pile of debris, "Table with a lamp, right in the middle of the window. Don't think I ever saw it turned off, night or day."
"Old lamp?" McMahill asked, pulling out a camera and aiming at the pile.
"Yup. Big ol' shade. Little crystal things dribbling around the edges. Kind that would end up on some fool's head at a party in a Playboy cartoon."
"When did that stop being funny? Say cheese." The camera clicked and whirred. Hanson arched an eyebrow just before the flash went off, the top of the inverted V disappearing beneath the bill of his hat.
"Round the time Kennedy got shot, I figure. So, ancient lamp means ancient cord, coiled up on itself right about here." He poked his toe at another spot. "Frayed cord, dusty drapes, wooden house, etc., etc."
He turned and spread his arms wide, taking in the destruction around them. "Ta-da." Letting his hands fall he regarded McMahill with a smile. "How's that, yankee?"
She wagged a finger at him, "You took more than a two week course, Pyle, admit it."
"Surprise, surprise, surprise," he drawled in a startlingly accurate Jim Nabors impression.
"I still have to send in the samples," She pulled out a bag and moved to the flash point. "No offense." Hanson stepped aside, watching as she scraped up several bits of house into bags of various sizes. They disappeared into her overalls after she had sealed and marked them.
Straightening, Sedra looked down the length of the foundation. "What's that?" she asked, pointing to the back of the house and a standing section partially hidden behind a collapsed wall.
Hanson followed her gesture with his eyes. "Ah, yes. The mystery door. C'mon." He picked his way along the floor, threading a path through the rubble. "Floor's ok along here, just keep in step."
They wound through ruins that Sedra identified through smell and small visual clues. An unmistakable reek of burned furniture stuffing and upholstery marking the couch's final resting place. The wreck of a bookshelf, fluttering black wings the only remains of the book covers. Cheap plastic panes of a china hutch melted around the delicate fragments of shattered dishes and cups across from a pile of burnt wood with colored puddles in the center.
Sedra waved at the drippings, "Fake fruit or plastic flowers?"
The man stopped and regarded the detritus. He pointed to a smoke stained piece of curved glass, camouflaged at the edge of the table's remains. "I'm guessing fruit in a bowl."
Hanson continued on, leading her into the kitchen at the back of the house. The destruction was less complete this far from the lamp in the window. The refrigerator was mostly intact, it's metal door warped from the heat. The sink cocked at a jaunty angle over the collapsed cabinet, a slick in front of evil looking liquid from the burst bottles of cleaning fluids underneath.
And there, by the fridge, stood a door. The paint scorched and bubbled but otherwise unmolested by fire. Three stout boards, browned by flame and temperature, crossed the frame. They were firmly secured with large gauge nails.
"It ain't the back door, must have gone down to the cellar," Hanson nodded his chin at the door and unrolled the faded and crackling floor plan. It wasn't so much the architect's familiar blue lines as a map; the basement door had been nailed shut for what looked like a century or more. The fire damage having aged the wood, giving it the look of an ancient portal.
Sedra ran her hands over the boards, scratching soot away from a nail head as big as her thumb. "Why's it sealed off?"
"Natural question. Whenever I find a free standing door in a house destroyed by fire, shut and nailed closed as though the demons of hell were going to burst through, I tend to ask myself the very same thing." He stepped past McMahill, indicating the area just behind the door. "Look at this."
She moved next to him, craning her neck to see around the thick doorjamb. Directly behind it two steps led down, ending in a jumble of rubble. The staircase was choked with wood, linoleum, and roofing.
"There's gaps and such you can peek in with a flashlight. 'Bout four feet down or so you'll see the water." He pointed and gestured with a twisting motion to indicate the water traveling through the tangle of blockage. "Had to go somewhere once it left the hoses and it brought just about all the loose garbage that could float. I figure most of the wall lathe is down there."
"What's the family say?" Sedra couldn't fight the disappointment in her voice. The sudden denial of an answer made getting one that much more desirable.
Hanson shrugged, taking his cap off and rubbing a hand through a surprisingly full head of hair. The tousled grey and abashed expression gave him a boyish appearance and McMahill reduced her estimate of his age.
"The poor woman who lived here got too much smoke in her. Only people she had was a niece who hadn't been around for 15 years. She hadn't any idea what the old lady wanted to keep down there."
He kicked a piece of something into the pile. "We got theories at the station but it's just B.S.ing. Everything from ape men to vampires. Probably ain't much more than old Christmas decorations and canned peaches." Hanson pursed his lips in though for a moment, "Maybe bags of that vile old-lady candy…"
Groaning at the thought of the hard candies she had been subjected to when visiting her great-grandmother, Sedra took several pictures, the door, the stairs, the boards before letting out an exasperated sigh. "Well, are they going to dig it up?"
"The mystery door got a hold of you, too." Hanson grinned at her. "Tends to do that to a body." He followed her off the edge of the foundation, leaping nimbly to the ground without taking his hands out of his pockets. "Ain't nobody gonna pay to get it dug up unless they want to rebuild. Don't know when that's going to happen. This isn't exactly a seller's market."
Sedra tossed her camera into the trunk and leaned over to pull tape off her boots. "So you got a theory?" She asked, looking up at Hanson who had resumed his spot leaning against the car.
"A few. Wild stuff." He resettled the hat on his head.
"Tell me over dinner?" She straightened to look at him as she asked.
Hanson's eyebrow went up again, "Don't you have to fly out tonight?"
Sedra shrugged, looking back into her trunk at the duffle and the large rolling bag. Tags festooned both handles from a dozen airports, some of their arcane initials doubled or tripled from multiple trips. She knew exactly what was in each bag. It was hard for her to remember what clothes were in the dresser drawers in her apartment. Looking back at Hanson she saw the smile on his face.
"Always another plane in the morning," she said.
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