Chapter 5 Fire On Forsythia Lane
FIRE ON FORSYTHIA LANE
A WESTESS MYSTERY
WESTON
Rockford, New York, is one of those small country towns where nothing ever happens—which makes my father’s newspaper, The Rockford Chronicle, pretty desperate for interesting stories to report about.
While papers in Albany and Schenectady are running stories about burglaries and political scandals, the most sensational news our town has to offer is the outcome of local sports games or the annual fishing derby.
I guess it’s kind of nice to live in a place where crime is basically nonexistent and the worst thing you have to worry about after dark is getting sprayed by a skunk.
Luckily, my job at the Chronicle doesn’t involve sitting in front of a computer trying to write a one-thousand-word article about the world’s most boring local events.
I’m what Dad calls an “administrative supervisor”—which includes running background checks (aka Google searches), fact-checks (aka more Google searches), and occasionally calling people to see if they have additional comments to add to a story.
My apprenticeship also includes leaving sticky-note jokes on everyone’s desks (with the punchlines written on the backs), making Keurigs for people who are too important to do it themselves (aka Marcus, the Manhattanite who thinks he still works at the New York Times), and occasionally taking out the trash.
(In the words of my dad, nothing is too lowly for a true leader to take care of.)
All that to say: nothing exciting ever happens in Rockford.
That is, until one cold night in mid-April, when I jolt awake at one o’clock to the sound of fire engines bellowing through town, one after another.
Usually, the fire department is called out for false alarms or because someone’s overzealous bonfire scared the old folks next door.
But it’s not the season for bonfires. And it sounds like some of those fire engines are coming from neighboring towns.
When I see the hallway light turn on and hear the murmured voices of my parents outside my bedroom door, I know something is wrong.
Moving as quickly and quietly as possible, I fit on my prosthetic legs and climb out of bed, stumbling into a pair of pants and grabbing a hoodie on my way to the door.
Mom and Dad are downstairs now, talking in low voices so as not to wake my brothers.
“I don’t like this any more than you do,” Dad says, his words diced by the jangle of his car keys.
“But I know how Marcus likes to be in at the kill. He’s probably down there already, and I don’t want him sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong.
He represents the Chronicle, which means he represents me. ”
I frown, slinking down the stairs but staying out of sight when I reach the bottom. Part of me is dying to step out and ask what the heck is going on, what’s on fire, and what Marcus has to do with it—but I know Mom will dismiss the whole thing and send me back to bed, like I’m no bigger than Noah.
Instead, I sneak down the hallway and let myself out the back door, into the pitch-dark night. As I circle around the back of the house, I hear the crunch of Dad’s footsteps on the gravel driveway, approaching his pickup truck.
“Dad,” I whisper hoarsely, rushing over, “where are you going? What’s happening?”
He grumbles a sigh as he swings open the driver’s door. “Wes, you shouldn’t be out here. Go back to bed.”
“But I want to come with you,” I protest, walking around the truck to the passenger side. “Please, Dad. I won’t get in the way—I swear. Let me come.”
“Fine,” he mutters. “Get in. Hurry up. We don’t have much time.”
I don’t need to be told twice. Hopping into the passenger seat, I buckle up. “What’s going on? Something on fire?”
Dad nods, pulling out onto the street and driving south. “Montgomery’s place.”
“Which one? Doesn’t that guy have, like, three different houses?”
Dad grunts. “The one that was being renovated on Forsythia Lane. Old Victorian house, remember?”
“Yeah, I remember. Must be a pretty bad fire if they’ve been calling out of town for help. What’s Marcus doing there?”
Dad lets out an irritated sigh. “What Marcus does best. Getting into trouble.”
We drive in silence, the empty dark streets seeming more eerie with sirens wailing in the distance. I have a hundred questions, but I keep my mouth shut and let Dad concentrate on driving.
Forsythia Lane stretches over a hill, on the outskirts of town—which means we can see the fire before we even get close enough to smell it. The whole crest of the hill is glowing beyond the skeletons of leafless trees, sending billows of smoke into the night sky.
We pull over to let another fire truck zoom past, then cautiously make our way to Forsythia Lane.
Dad pulls the truck onto the side of the road, out of the way of any emergency vehicles that need to pass.
The Montgomery house is farther up the hill—all we can see from this distance is a haunting red glow against the inky sky.
Marcus’s little white Prius is parked on the opposite side of the road.
No Marcus in sight.
Dad curses again and shoves open his door.
I get out of the truck and immediately breathe in a lungful of smoky air.
I’ve never been this close to a structure fire before—and somehow, it’s even creepier when you can’t actually see what’s burning.
Just a massive plume of smoke flickering orange, flakes of ash floating down like snow and disintegrating when they hit the ground.
I can hear a chaos of noise farther up the road: voices shouting over the rumble of vehicles and equipment, the roar of the fire boiling under it all.
Dad yells Marcus’s name and looks in the windows of his car, but he’s nowhere to be found.
“He’s probably up there, taking pictures of the fire,” I say, pointing to the ominous glow.
Dad starts walking up the hill, yelling over his shoulder, “Stay close to me—understand? Don’t get in anyone’s way. This is a dangerous situation.”
As we near the crest of the hill, the air grows warmer and thicker with smoke and ash.
Fire engines line the street, crushed together as close as possible and blocking the view of the burning house.
Dad and I stay clear of the firefighters as they rush between vehicles, barking orders to each other.
I’ve driven by the Montgomery place a hundred times—but it’s never looked as big as it does now, engulfed in flames.
The firefighters have already put out the worst of the blaze, but I don’t need to be an expert to know that the whole house is lost. It used to be three stories high, with a turret on one corner.
Now all that’s left is the first floor and the skeletal structure of the second floor.
Flames still feast on the remaining wood, and firefighters blast water everywhere, but it won’t be enough to save any part of the house.
“Marcus!” Dad shouts when he sees the prodigal reporter crouched behind one of the fire trucks, snapping pictures with his phone. Not only did the guy have the nerve to strut onto the scene of a disaster in the middle of the night, but he apparently had the time to put on a suit jacket.
No joke.
“What the hell are you doing?” Dad demands, sounding more like a father than a boss as he grabs Marcus by the arm and drags him away from the fire truck.
Maybe it’s easy for him to use his Dad Voice because Marcus is barely four years older than me—still a kid, despite the custom-printed business cards he carries in his suit pocket.
“Mr. Ludovico, I was just—”
“I know what you were doing,” Dad cuts him off gruffly. “That’s not what I meant when I said ‘what the hell are you doing.’”
Marcus blinks, looking like a flustered rookie for a second. Then his gaze flicks to me, and he seems to rediscover his professional pride.
“I knew we’d want to cover this story in the Chronicle,” he explains calmly. “So I came to gather photographic evidence and document any witness statements.”
“Well, I don’t want you or anyone getting hurt for the sake of news reporting. Understood? Stay back, out of the way. Let the firemen do their jobs. You can take pictures from here, and you can question witnesses once the danger has been mitigated.”
Marcus looks like a kid who’s been grounded for a week. But he nods reluctantly and obeys my father’s orders—if only to keep his job.
“When did the fire start?” I ask, coughing into my sleeve as more smoke billows up from the rubble.
“I heard one of the firemen say they got the call at twelve forty-five,” Marcus answers, looking down at his fancy wristwatch. “So about half an hour ago.”
“Do you sleep with your watch on?” I joke, just to throw him off. Marcus Verne is a guy who isn’t easily thrown off—or easily amused.
He ignores my comment and turns to Dad instead. “The house burned faster than normal, wouldn’t you say? It doesn’t seem like an accident.”
“It could’ve had a number of accidental causes,” Dad adds before Marcus can start jumping to criminal conclusions. “Who called the fire department?”
“The lady who lives over there,” Marcus explains, turning to point at the farmhouse about two hundred feet away.
Even from this distance, I can see a white-haired woman in a bathrobe standing in the middle of her driveway, hugging herself as she watches her neighbor’s house burn to the ground.
“I’m going to question her some more about what exactly she saw, but I wanted to get photos while it still looked good. ”
I guess, in Marcus’s strange little world of reporting, a house engulfed in flames in the middle of the night looks “good.” Makes me wonder if he’s secretly a pyromaniac. Maybe he set the house on fire himself just to have something interesting to write about for the Chronicle.
“You’re free to question witnesses,” Dad says sternly. “But don’t press the woman for information. I’m sure she’s been through enough stress tonight.”