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said. “The wildfire index was low and kept the fire contained to a quarter mile perimeter.” He wore the heavy beige and yellow-trimmed firefighter’s coat, pants, and boots. He held his fireman’s hard hat in his strong, square-palmed, long-fingered hands. He had a thick smudge down the side of his strong, high cheekbones.
    I stood with Ed, Rex, and a small crowd of smoke-smudged locals who had come out to stamp out any hot coals or ash left over from the warehouse explosion. In front of us, a large blackened hole gaped out of the cinder blocks in what used to be the roof of the warehouse. Glass was shattered and crumbled on the ground as the explosion had blown out every window and door. The back bay door had come up out of the hole in the roof and folded over the top of the cinder block like the peeled back top of a sardine can.
    “We’ve walked the half-mile perimeter,” Luke Archibald reported to Bruce Miller, the acting fire chief. “We’re as sure as a person can be that the cinders are out.” A small man of average size, Luke wore his balding, blond hair carefully brushed back and held into place by hair gel. He wore a dark green T-shirt underneath a green and white patterned, short sleeved cotton shirt. His shirt and his jeans were soot coated. He wore athletic shoes that had been gray and blue at one point but were now dust-covered brown.
    His son Sherman stood beside him. Seventeen, with shaggy blond hair, braces on his teeth, and freckles across a little nose, his hazel eyes took in the sights of explosion and mayhem with a sort of wonder. He was busy snapping pictures with his phone and sending them off to people unknown. He stood a little taller than Luke, but it was difficult to tell because he hunched his shoulders and slouched his way around. That is, when he wasn’t sneaking phone pictures.
    “Thanks for your help.” Bruce was tall with broad shoulders encased in a fireman’s coat. He looked to be about forty years old, wore a fireman’s hard hat, and his brown eyes seemed to take in all the damage with a knowing eye. “We’ll have the public keep an eye out for any fires that pop up, but it’s unlikely any more damage will happen.” He moved on to another weary group of volunteers emerging from the other side of the airport.
    “Those fireworks should have never exploded,” Angus MacElroy said. “I know Rodney Rivers. He knew his way around pyrotechnics. There’s no way he would have let them be handled or exposed in an unauthorized way.” His hazel eyes sparkled with indignation and intelligence.
    Angus ran the Town Crier , Mackinac Island’s local newspaper. He was a senior gentleman who walked with a cane. His head was bald on top, with white hair around the edges and a short, cropped, white beard. He wore a blue knit cardigan over a blue and white striped polo and dark blue cotton slacks with topsider shoes. He was a big man, about six-foot-two if you caught him standing up straight—something that seemed difficult on most days.
    Unlike the rest of us, he was free from soot and dirt. His old knees would never have let him search the brush for cinders and ash. Instead, he’d hung a camera around his neck and taken action shots for the paper and notes on the notepad in his breast pocket. Angus was smart as a whip, but still old school when it came to reporting. His granddaughter Liz worked with him. She had told me he even took notes in his own shorthand.
    “The place was rigged to blow.” Rex wiped his forehead with what used to be a white handkerchief. It was as soot covered as his hands. “Transport and handling of fireworks is strictly regulated, but it’s also where most firework accidents happen. This was no accident. One of the guys hit a trip wire. He froze long enough for us to move the trucks back then Charles grabbed him and they hit the ground running.” Rex motioned toward the back of the ambulance.
    The doors were open and Officer Charles Brown sat on the back.