Spiked by Mark Arsenault Page B

the case. “Detective, you didn’t have to come all the way here for this.” To Eddie, he said, “Weren’t you just leaving?”
    â€œMr. Bourque stays,” Orr said, rooting around in her briefcase. “As I explained on the phone this morning, Mr. Keyes, we found something that belongs to this newspaper.”
    Orr took a plastic zipper bag from her briefcase and plunked it on the desk. There was a cellular telephone inside, or what was left of one. The device was melted and smeared with soot. Something worse than roaming charges had gotten to Eddie’s phone in the old triple-decker.
    Keyes frowned at the phone, and then said to Eddie, “Did you lose something at that fire last night?”
    They stared at him. The weight of their eyes pushed Eddie back into the chair.
    â€œI don’t—what fire?” he said.
    Annoyed, Keyes said, “Haven’t you seen the paper today?” He held up a copy. A firefighter was silhouetted against yellow flames in a two-column photo on page one.
    Eddie snatched the paper from him. “I saw it,” he admitted, “but I didn’t read the story.”
    The headline said:
    FIRE CONSUMES VACANT HOUSE
    Officials Suspect Arson in Acre Blaze
    Eddie recognized the house; it was where he had fallen through the floor.
    He read the story:
    By Russell Spaulding
    Empire Staff
    LOWELL —
A three-alarm fire leveled a vacant triple-decker apartment house in the Acre neighborhood last night, forcing the temporary evacuation of a dozen nearby homes.
    Nobody was hurt by the fire in the boarded-up building, though one firefighter suffered an apparent heart attack on the scene and was transported by ambulance to Lowell Methodist Hospital. He was listed this morning in serious condition.
    Fire officials have labeled the blaze “suspicious,” and are searching the rubble for evidence of arson….
    Detective Orr gave him time to read to the end, and then said, “The firefighter who was stricken on the scene has four kids, Mr. Bourque. In grade school.”
    Is she accusing me of arson?
    â€œI don’t know anything about this fire,” he insisted.
    Keyes suggested, “Maybe you lent your company cell phone to some arsonists, and they roughed you up when you asked for it back? Or are those burns on your hands?”
    Detective Orr looked Eddie up and down. Eddie saw her eyes linger a moment on his hands.
    â€œMr. Bourque and I need a place to speak in private,” she said to Keyes.
    â€œDon’t worry,” Keyes said, clearly enjoying himself. “They can’t hear us in the newsroom.”
    Detective Orr scrunched her brow. “I’d prefer if
nobody
could hear us.”
    â€œI had this office soundproofed,” Keyes assured her. She frowned at him and he got it. “Oh.” He looked at Eddie, who jerked a thumb toward the door. Keyes made a sour face, took a yellow lollipop from his desk, and then left, yanking the door shut.
    Eddie held up his hands. “These aren’t burns.”
    â€œObviously,” Orr said. “You should ice that bump on your head, it will keep the swelling down.” She was calm and businesslike. Eddie didn’t like that, though he couldn’t decide why. She leaned against Keyes’ desk, folded her arms and said, “This is the part where you tell me what happened to you last night.”
    He noticed how she had put the question.
What happened to you
? was less accusatory than
what did you do
? It was an old reporter’s technique to avoid putting people on guard. This cop was good, Eddie decided. But he was already on guard, rattled by the news of the fire and by his conversation with Keyes.
    Eddie said, “I want to know what happened to Danny.”
    â€œSo do I.”
    He told her about the Cambodian woman at the wake, and of his fall through the floor and splashdown in the canal. “Some, ah—homeless people saved me,”