Fire Born (Firehouse 343) Read Online Free Page B

and his business practices, had been documented. She wasn’t about to let him get by her—she’d figure out how he was involved in the fi res and she’d have the proof to back it up in court. And if he was responsible for the firefighter’s death…
    …she’d make sure his ass got nailed to the wall.
    Her first move after leaving Graham’s office was to place a call to Robert Dresden, Gracechurch’s fire marshal. After dialing the number her boss had given her, she reached for the white legal pad she always kept on her desk for taking notes and a pen with which to write, clicking the utensil open to have it ready.
    “Fire Marshal Robert Dresden, Gracechurch Division of Fire. How may I help you?”
    Wow, that’s a mouthful , Martie thought, then introduced herself. “Marshal Dresden, I’m Lt. Marti n e Liotta with the Bureau of Fire Safety. Graham Henderson gave me your number.”
    “Yeah, I just spoke to him a little while ago,” Dresden said. “You’re… At risk of offending, when Graham said Martie I thought he was referring to a man.”
    Martie laughed. “No offense taken, Marshal , I get that a lot. Now, as I understand it, Gracechurch lost one of their own this morning?”
    Dresden sighed. “We did, yes. Damn shame, too. Cal was— Captain Calvin Maynard, the man we lost—he was elected by popular vote to command the new fire station. He was a good man, Lieutenant. Damn fine firefight er. He worked the job for thirty years—have you ever seen firefighters at work, Martie?”
    “I’m a certified firefighter myself, Marshal,” Martie replied. “ My father and my brother are firefighters as well. All of us serve here in Billings—I drove the engine out of Company 23 for six years before switching track to arson investigation, and I work a shift at least once a week out of my old house. More than one if I can manage it.”
    “Then you know the life—the dedication and the sacrifices these guys make,” the marshal said. “Calvin was one of the best men Gracechurch has ever had on the job.”
    She didn’t ask h im why he’d placed the call to the BFS—when a firefighter was injured on the job, it was standard procedure that the Bureau be notified. But Martie was sure it was more than following SOP that had motivated Robert Dresden. Based on how passionately he’d just spoken of Calvin Maynard, it was personal, too. His friend was dead and he wanted to know why. He wanted someone to blame, some outlet for his anger and grief.
    Her gut told her that Trevor Breckon was the one he should be angry with.
    “Marshal, you have my word that if there is someone to blame for this, I will find him,” she said resolutely.
    “Thank you. What do you need from me?”
    “ If you could fax me a copy of the incident report to start with, I would very much appreciate it,” Martie said.
    “I’m afraid one hasn’t been filed as yet,” Dresden countered. “I got in here at the office about half an hour ago, but Calvin’s second in command is still at the hospital with his family.”
    Damn. She would have liked to get an idea of what had happened by reading that report. Then a thought occurred to her: Gracechurch wasn’t a very big city—some still referred to it as a town because most of the land area attributed to it was rural, and the population was less than ten thousand. Anyone suffering a traumatic injury would have been airlifted from Gracechurch Memorial to a larger city hospital…
    …and Billings was the closest city with a Level 1 trauma center.
    “Marshal, may I ask which hospital Captain Maynard was transported to?”
    Dresden replied, “St. Vincent’s, right there in Billings.”
    Bingo , Martie thought. It was not a task she was looking forward to, confronting the firefighters who’d known Calvin Maynard best so soon after his passing, but if she was going to get to the bottom of how that fire had started, she needed to speak to the people who had been there.
    “Last I knew,” the