Chapter 11
After a few hours of burning intensely, the smelter fire settled down to a slow broil. To Diane, it looked like a toad squatting on the bank of the creek. It seemed to emit a low menace as heat waves shimmered off it despite the lack of flames.
“It’s all the metals and chemicals,” Ethan explained. “They burn up in strange ways, and metal stays hot for a long time. Especially when the fire was so hot. I doubt there’s much in there for us to salvage.”
“Well, at least the smoke has gone,” Diane said. She was very tired. A night of burning fumes had left most of the residents of Unity, so recently healed from the flu, with new sore throats, running noses, and persistent coughs.
She had insisted they wear bandannas over their noses and mouths in an attempt to ward off the worst of the fumes.
“It’s a disaster,” a voice said behind them. “You’ll never get back up to proper production levels now.”
“Morning, Mr. Rossi,” Ethan said with little enthusiasm. With the bottom part of his face obscured by a cloth, Diane could only imagine his expression. From the look in his eyes, he was less than thrilled with this man’s presence.
“Mr. Lewis,” Mr. Rossi said, nodding. “I take it you’re here to inspect the damage?”
“I’m here hoping to get inside sometime soon, yes,” Ethan said pointedly. “I’d like to find out how a smelter that had nothing out of place in it could catch on fire.”
“Ah, but surely there must be some mistake. Perhaps a fire in a smelter or a kiln that wasn’t quite out when you left?” Mr. Rossi suggested. He said the words casually, as though they carried no weight.
Ethan glared at the man. “There was no mistake,” he insisted.
“I check everything before leaving for the day, and I insist that my men do the same. As I told you before, the fires were out. The chemicals were back in the storeroom. All of them were properly put away. We run a tight ship because mistakes cost lives. Frankly, I’m quite insulted that you would think we were that careless. ”
Mr. Rossi smiled condescendingly at him. Diane saw the anger flash in Ethan’s eyes at the other man’s expression. It only grew and became more potent as Mr. Rossi insisted on continuing to insinuate it was all Ethan’s fault.
“Well, something happened in there,” Mr. Rossi said, pointing to what was left of the smelter. “Something was out of place. Don’t you think? Otherwise, the building would be fine, and you’d be heading in there to churn out more copper bars.”
“It wasn’t a mistake on our part,” Ethan insisted. “I know it wasn’t.”
“Yes, so you’ve said. Still, it will be in my report …” Mr. Rossi stopped speaking as a coughing fit overtook him. He blinked and swallowed hard.
“You should tie your handkerchief over your nose and mouth,” Diane pointed out. “It helps with the fumes.”
“I don’t plan to be here that long,” Mr. Rossi said.
“You didn’t plan to be in Unity this long either,” Ethan pointed out. There was a nasty twinge to his voice Diane had never heard before. He was very angry with this man and trying not to show it, but it was leaching through into his tone.
“Still, I wanted to warn you that I will be sending a full report to the board of directors,” Mr. Rossi said. “I should imagine they will have a replacement for you very soon.”
Ethan stared at him, his hands balling into fists.
“Well, we’ve got time then,” Diane said brightly, stepping in. “After all, you’ll have to wait for the investigation into the cause of the fire. Won’t you?”
Shaking his head, Mr. Rossi wore a self-satisfied grin. “What for? We know what happened. It was pure carelessness on Mr. Lewis’s part that caused the disaster. It’s a simple matter of deduction.”
“Really? And what about …” Ethan began, but stopped speaking before he finished. He seemed to swallow his words as though he couldn’t let them out.
“Ethan?” Diane asked.
He put a hand on her arm.
“I suppose you must do what you feel is right,” Ethan said through a clenched jaw that made ropes stand out on his cheeks and neck.
“However, know that we will be submitting a report of our own, and it will have actual facts in it, not suppositions.” He raised a finger and poked Mr. Rossi in the chest with it, emphasizing his words. “Actual facts!”
Diane stared. She’d never seen Ethan this angry before.
She understood though. Had someone come to her, suggesting that she had been careless in her duties, she would have had much the same reaction.
To say that Ethan didn’t care or ran the kind of enterprise where “anything goes” was the motto was utterly preposterous.
He was fastidious and particular, putting his men’s safety above all.
And how could this man make such assumptions when he didn’t have all the facts yet? It seemed strange.
Suddenly, Diane was worried. There were clandestine things going on, men being led away in the dark, supported between two others, Ethan had said. She hadn’t treated someone like that. What had happened to that person? What had Ethan been about to say when he quickly swallowed his words?
She turned and stared at him, wondering how she could ask this question. How could she word it to not sound accusatory?
“Come on,” Ethan said, taking her by the hand. “We’ve seen all we need to here.” They turned without a word to Mr. Rossi and stalked to the bridge. They were halfway across before Ethan turned to her, breathing hard, although the walk hadn’t been difficult.
“Can you believe him?” Ethan raged. “Implying that my men and I caused that disaster!”
“You didn’t, and you know it,” Diane said. “But there’s something you’re not telling me.”
Ethan swallowed. “Yes. There is, but—” He looked around nervously.
There was no one else on the bridge.
Diane waited while Ethan composed his thoughts. He looked up at the sky. Clouds were coming over in large gray swaths. Diane could only hope they would bring a spring shower and not sleet or snow, throwing them back into winter again.
“I don’t think someone who lives here started the fire,” Ethan said at last.
“Why?” Diane asked, turning and watching the water of the creek flowing swiftly by. It was such a strong current. She imagined that falling into it would be quite dangerous.
“There was a dead man,” Ethan said. “We found him by the crates.”
“Who’s we?”
“Grace, Chrissie, and Hector,” Ethan said. “They called me and Andrew over to show us. We moved him to the administration building.”
Diane was suddenly ice-cold. She swallowed hard. “All right,” she said. “I think you’d better show me.”
“Why?” Ethan asked. “He’s dead. You can’t help him.”
“But I can help you. I have helped with many autopsies, and I can possibly find something you might have missed. Maybe something that will help us to piece together what happened. How the smelter went up in flames.”
“You know, I didn’t think of that,” Ethan said, blinking incredulously. “You’re a very smart woman.”
“And don’t you forget it, mister,” she said, poking him in the chest with a finger. “Just wait a moment and let me get my bag.”
She hurried off to the office to get her things.
When she arrived, she found Sarah in the dispensary next door, shadowing Antoinette.
“I have to attend to something with Ethan,” Diane said. “I’ll be in later.”
“Okay. See you then,” Sarah agreed.
Diane hurried back to Ethan, who had waited on the bridge, and then they set off to the mine’s administration building.
It was built out of stone and wood and was a low, rambling construction that looked more like a lodge than an office building.
Ethan led her inside, through a maze of corridors and down a flight of steps.
The steps ended in a large, cavernous room that was lined with stonework.
It was quite cold down there. Diane pulled her light jacket around her and hoped she wouldn’t be too cold to do her job properly.
As a nurse she had been assigned to many different departments in the hospitals she had worked at, and she had always volunteered for all the shifts and work that others shied away from.
It earned her a reputation for being a team player, enthusiastic and reliable.
With each department she worked in, she picked up new skills, including, after a stint in the mortuary, autopsy skills.
It was rare that an autopsy was performed, but she had seen three done and had found them fascinating. Finding the cause of death had been tricky in two of them, one where it was poison and the other where the man had fallen and impaled himself on an icicle that had then melted in his body.
She doubted this one would be so interesting.
“I think it’s over this way,” Ethan said, leading her through what seemed to be something of a storage space into a smaller room.
As they approached it, they heard strange sounds. Voices made a low rumble in the air. There was also a smell. It was familiar, one that Diane equated with misery, sickness and pain. But why was it here? That made no sense. She should be smelling death, not this.
Reaching the smaller room, Ethan wrenched the door open and stopped. He stared. “What the heck is going on here?” he demanded.
Diane nudged him to the side and peered into the space.
A shirtless man sat in a chair in the middle of the room. He was bound to the chair with ropes, and he looked terrible. His head was lolling, and Diane could see large purple bruises on his ribs.
Andrew and Michael turned to look at them.
“We said we weren’t to be disturbed,” Andrew snapped.
Diane glared at him. “What have you done to this man?” she demanded as she strode into the room.
“Diane … now … hold on,” Michael said, holding out an arm to stop her. “It’s not what you think. Come outside and I’ll explain.”
Diane glared at him. “I need to examine him.”
“First you need to tell me why you’re here,” Michael said, looking pointedly at Ethan. “And then we’ll talk about it.”