No Clues in the Ashes

By Mike Holst

This former firefighter, turned author, brings you a story that's close to his heart.

Mike Flanagan was a young man, fresh out of high school and off his parents Minnesota farm, when he made his way to Minneapolis to find his role in life. Mired in a factory job he hates, he is on his way home one day when he comes upon a house on fire, and learns that there are kids trapped upstairs. In a daring recue he saves their lives, not knowing that they are the kids of a Minneapolis fire fighter named Deacon Crawford. With Deacon's help and encouragment, Mike joins the Minneapolis Fire Department.

He finds a career filled with danger and adventure, and he also finds Laura Evans, who steals his heart, and then disappears. Mike turns from firefighting to investagation, and the pursuit of a pyromaniac named David Bennett. He is as obsessed with catching Bennett, as Bennett is with destroying Mike. Always, though, there is a flame in his heart he can't put out. Her name is Laura.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 2, 2009
• ISBN: 9781440118234

Mike Holst

Mike Holst has been actively writing for the past twenty years. He is a popular columnist, journalist and author of many fiction books, and homespun stories. Mike’s a native Minnesotan whose roots go deep, yet now winters in Arizona close to family and friends.

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NO CLUES IN THE ASHES

Mike Holst

iUniverse, Inc.

New York Bloomington

No Clues In The Ashes

Copyright © 2009 by Mike Holst

The cover picture was taken by Mike Holst at a fire in Mineapolis on November 25th, 1982.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 9-781-4401-1824-1 (pbk)

ISBN: 9-781-4401-1823-4 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 1/27/2009

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

DEDICATION

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

THE CONCLUSION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book would not have been possible without my wife Kitty, my soul mate and my fiercest critic, who made me get it right.

This story itself would not have existed in my mind without the thirty years of friendship, memories and service together with my comrades at Brooklyn Park Fire Department.

A FIREMAN’S PRAYER

When I am called to duty, God

Where ever flames may rage,

Give me the strength to save some life

Whatever be its age,

Help me embrace a little child

Before it is too late

Or save and older person from

The horror of that fate.

Enable me to be alert and hear the weakest shout

And quickly and efficiently to put the fire out.

I want to fill my calling and

To give the best in me.

To guard my every neighbor and

Protect his property,

And if according to my fate

I am to lose my life

Please bless with your protective hand

My children and my wife.

Author unknown

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to all of the men and women of the Fire Service who have been there in that suffocating heat and smoke, facing all of the horrors and unknowns that exist there. These people have experienced the fear of not knowing if the building they are in will collapse and go down, or explode and go up. They know what it’s like to not be sure where they are or where they are going, and to conquer that choking claustrophobia that grips your guts and makes you want to turn tail and run. They know how it is to feel their way along hot floors, gauging them through their fingertips, reading the decks and walls as if translating the eerie scene in brail. Those clues and the muted sounds they hear through their protective earmuffs are all they have to guide them, and they pray to God they get to the fire before it gets to them. You stop to listen and get your bearings, but all you hear is your own ragged breathing, and the air you are exhaling through your regulator. Somewhere behind you there is a similar sound, only fainter, and you take solace in you comrade’s presence.

These are ordinary people that are driven to do extraordinary deeds, to insure the safety of their fellow man. Their bodies are checkered and pocked with the scars of all the times they came too close to losing it. Their minds, too, are everlastingly scared with the things they have seen and heard that will never go away. Yet everyday they set that all aside and go home to their loved ones, and pretend it never happened.

From one of you who knows. I salute you, my comrades.

The Author

PROLOGUE

From the moment he’d crawled over the window sill and lowered himself into this man made hell, he wasn’t sure if this was the smartest thing he had ever done. Had it not been for the kids trapped in here he might have hesitated, but it was kids, and they would surely die if someone didn’t at least try to get them out. The smoke was suffocating and making him claustrophobic. His eyes burned so bad he was essentially blind. He could hear the flames below coming up the stairs, and other windows in the house breaking out. The heat was becoming unbearable and common sense told him that they had about one minute or they would all be dead.

Mike Flanagan was one of the exceptions to the myth that fire fighters are born and not made. That somewhere in their linage is a gene that steers them into it. What he found was not what was often thought. Foolish pride or an egotistic lifestyle living on the edge, but instead he found a brotherhood of people dedicated to saving lives and property.

Then he met David Bennett, a crazed psychopath, out to destroy the very people who came and extinguished the pleasure he had created for his selfish sexual compulsions. Mike shifted gears and his passion shifted from putting fires out, to catching those who started them. He became as obsessed with destroying Bennett, as Bennett was in destroying him.

Through it all though, was Laura. Nothing burned brighter than the fire in his heart for Laura.

July 23, 1965

CHAPTER ONE

June evenings in Minneapolis are a long way from the dog days of summer, but they can be hot and sultry, and tonight was no exception at Fire Station One. The temperature was pushing ninety and the asphalt and concrete in the city was radiating all of the day’s sun and heat back into the air, adding to the misery. The bars and watering holes were just closing, and a few boisterous drunks, and some that were too pickled to speak, were finding their way to wherever they were going. It was the same parade every night.

Mike Flanagan, Stubbs Stewart, and Jake Miller sat propped up on steel folding chairs, leaning against the brick walls outside the wide-open station doors. Empty pop bottles and candy wrappers lay scattered at their feet. Stubbs took careful aim and flicked a cigarette butt out into the street, nearly hitting a street sweeper that was coming by, just in time to gobble it up in a shower of sparks. The city had a sleepy but charged feeling to it, as if it was barely alive just waiting for someone to turn on a switch.

The lights in the station had been turned down to keep the bugs away, and a thin trickle of water leaking out of Engine One ran down the apron and out to the gutter. In the background a scanner radio came on from time to time, with the usual chatter inherent to any big city fire department. Inside somewhere in the back was another radio playing soft jazz music and the pop, pop, of a ping pong ball could be heard along with an occasional shout of, In your face, and the reply of, Up yours, fat man.

Flanagan yawned and said, Think I’ll go lie down for a while, Stubbs.

Hotter than the furnace of hell up there, Jake said, nodding with his head to the upper level.

I know, but the wife’s got a big day planed for me tomorrow and I better be a little bit alert, besides there’s nothing going on down here but the usual crap.

That woman, she’s got you pussy whipped, Stubbs said.

Jake laughed and slid out of his chair. He put his hand on Mike’s back. Let’s go beddy- bye, big boy. If it was cooler you could lay with me and I’d tell you a story.

Flanagan ignored the friendly banter and started for the stairs in the back of the station. Jake walked behind him, patting him on the butt. Stubbs waved them both off and leaned back in his chair, watching an old, scraggly, black and white dog across the street eyeing the station suspiciously and then relieving himself on the hydrant. No wonder the damn caps are always rusted on, he thought.

These three men had been together for over four years now, and along with their captain and engine operator, they formed one of the better crews on the department. They all had at least five years of service, and Captain Ryan had fifteen. They knew everything there was to know about each other…wives, kids, likes, and dislikes. These five men were as different as wet and dry, yet they had one thing in common that bound them together tighter than a guitar string, and that was the fire service.

Mike went to his cot next to the stairs and lay back starting at the ceiling fan slowly turning overhead. He wasn’t tired, just bored. They hadn’t had a real call in over a week, he thought. Just the usual trivial crap, like false alarms and sick old ladies. Oh, there had been a car fire on Marquette Avenue two nights ago that caused a major traffic jam for an hour. But, oh hell, it was too hot to fight fire anyway. He put his pillow over his head to block out the light and tried to sleep.

His mind was so tuned to the sound of the klaxon, the loud shrill horn signaling a fire call that he was up and running for the stairs before anyone else even woke up. Jake and the four other men from ladder eight were soon on his heels. The big rigs roared to life, in a cloud of diesel exhaust. Engine One pulled out first, waiting for just a second as a chief’s car sped by on the way to the scene. The call that came in was for flames showing on the seventh floor of an eight story tenement on East 19th street called the Sheridan Apartments. They would be assisted by Engines Four, and Eleven. The Incident Commander was Battalion Chief Doug Farber, and his radio acknowledgments had him taking command thirty seconds from being on the scene.

The two big rigs wound their way south on Portland, their emergency lights flashing off the darkened store fronts, creating a disco effect of red strobes coming from everywhere. The sirens wailing in the big building canyons echoed back at them, doubling the noise and intensity. A few blocks from the station the Battalion Chief was on the scene, reporting fire showing and going up and over the roof. He quickly asked for a second alarm that would bring three more engines and two more truck companies. This was a working fire with a lot of people to care for. Ambulances out of Hennepin General Hospital were also on their way. The switchboard at the dispatch center was lit up with numerous calls from the building, some of them sounding desperate. There would be victims, no doubt.

Ladder Eight was ordered to set up right in front as they weren’t sure if they could reach the eighth floor, where people were on their balconies and in the windows waving frantically. The Battalion Chief, who was on the scene and inside the building, seemed out of breath as he spoke. He had radioed Engine One that the hallways above the sixth floor were unusable, and many people were trapped in their units. Engine One would hit the plug on the way in, and then Mike, Stubbs, and the Captain would take the stairs to try and get to the fire. There would be people begging for help but they would ignore them. Their job was to contain this inferno before the whole floor went up.

As Engine One came around the corner, the scene unfolded in front of their eyes. There were people in their night clothes carrying kids and pets, scurrying down the sidewalks trying to get out of the area. A car sped by and careened into another parked car with a sound of glass breaking and metal to metal screeching. Then, as if it had caught its second breath, it sped away. Obviously this was someone who was running for other reasons.

Both rigs pulled up simultaneously and parked as far across the street as they could to stay away from falling debris. Sirens could be heard coming from all directions in the dark night. The wind was blowing briskly from the south, so despite all of the fire and destruction that was going on, the area remained quite clear of smoke.

The building was old, possible from the turn of the century, and had no sprinklers, just standpipes on each floor. At one time there had been hose reels connected to them, but vandals had wrecked them so they were taken out.

Mike, Stubbs and Jake needed to get to the seat of this fire, and fast. If they were going to stop it, they had to get to where it started. First though, they had seven floors to walk up with their tools and hose bundles. The elevators were already out of order when they arrived. The fire alarms sounding in the hallways with their raspy buzz made it hard to hear the captain talking, as Jake and Mike waited for Stubbs, who had gone back to the truck for an extra hose bundle to catch up. The four men huddled just inside the entrance, as outside glass and burning window frames fell to the sidewalk, some of them bouncing off parked cars. The people exiting out the main entrance were being instructed by the ladder men to stay close to the building until they cleared it. On the smashed in hood of one car directly under the fire was a charred body lying on its back, its feet and legs through the windshield. The wide open eyes eerily staring upwards in a grotesque grin at the floor it had jumped from.

The look on the faces of the fire fighters was grim determination. Their guts were in knots, but the adrenalin was flowing through their veins and arteries in copious amounts, pushing the inherent fear out. Not completely out, just far enough away to keep it from getting in the way. They had all learned through experience that fear was good. Fear was necessary. It was what you did with fear that counted.

Let’s go, men, the captain shouted. By the time they got to the top of the fourth floor their hearts were racing, not only from the exertion of their heavy loads, but the anticipation of what waited for them at the end. Their voices were muffled in their air masks, but the masks were not yet plugged into the regulators. Not yet. They would wait until they got into the heavy smoke in an effort to conserve air. They had twenty minutes to a half an hour in those tanks, but in these extreme conditions it would go faster.

This is the last time I listen to your pissing and moaning about no action, Flanagan. This is all work. Stubbs was trying to catch his breath as he walked. He had a halagon bar for popping doors in one hand and a bundle of inch and a half hose over his shoulder. The bar banged on the wall as he ascended. They had to walk next to the wall as people were still coming down on the left, some of them with soot covered faces carrying crying kids and assisting elderly tenants.

Mike had not answered Stubbs but now turned and said, Get your ass in gear, old man. We need that hose.

Jake, bringing up the rear, was quiet for a change.

On the sixth floor the first sign of heavier smoke appeared and they stopped to plug in their masks, the captain telling them to stay put for a second while he went on ahead. The radio squawked as Engine Eleven checked onto the scene. They would be coming soon with another line.

The captain was back. It’s black to the floor up there boys and we have one more floor to go, so on your knees at the top of the stairs. Stay close to each other.

As they came to the top of the seventh floor stairs, things got downright miserable in a hurry. It was not only blacker than night, but the heat could be felt as well and the crackling of burning timbers could also be heard followed by a couple of small explosions. Most likely aerosol cans blowing up. It was still too thick to make out any flames, but they knew the main fire was right ahead.

Stubbs and Jake had both stopped to hook into the stand-pipe and then they started forward. Mike on the nozzle and Stubbs pulling line behind him. Jake stayed at the pipe to wait and charge the line. Ladder Eight was coming as soon as possible to pull open any roof hatches they could find, but right now the heat prevented them from going up another floor.

The extreme heat was becoming unbearable, and they were practically on their stomachs. The captain had fallen in behind Mike and Stubbs.

Jesus, if we don’t get there soon we’re going to cook. Stubbs voice was barely audible over the fire and the ringing fire alarms.

I can see something! Mike shouted back. It was just a patch of orange for a second and then it roared out the doorway and over their heads. A blazing jet stream feeding on over-heated gases, devouring everything in its path, just a few feet above the prone, squirming men.

Charge the line! The captain shouted and Jake turned the valve on the stand pipe just as the heated gas and smoke found its way to the end of the hall. He fell to the floor, holding his burned hand with the other one.

The line came alive and Mike pulled the handle back, directing the stream of water into the inferno. At first they made no headway, but slowly two things happened. The smoke and steam got thicker, and the fire that threatened to over-run them, was being pushed back into the apartment it came from.

Move in, the captain shouted. There was more movement behind them and the crew from Engine Eleven was there with another line to back them up. Mike pushed himself forward into the room swirling the line in front of him. The force of the water was blasting furniture and objects around the room like missiles. His air would not last much longer under these conditions.

He crossed the room and turned the corner into another fully involved room, and now Mike could make out the outlines of windows. The smoke was less here, venting out the broken burned-out windows. This was where it had all started. These were the windows that were showing all the fire when they pulled up.

Captain Ryan came up behind Mike and put his hand on his back. It’s time to take a breather, he said. Let’s let eleven’s crew mop up. Mike shut down his hose line while Ryan’s radio buzzed and he pushed his ear muff up to listen. His brow furrowed as he listened with a look of concern. Stubbs and Jake were already pulling line back out into the charred hallway.

Ryan motioned for Mike to come over. We have to get out right now. Ladder Eight says there’s fire in the cockloft and it’s through the roof over our heads on the next floor. He turned to go and tell Stub and Jake.

Maybe it was that his warning bell signaling low air had gone off and was making so much racket, but Mike never heard the breaking and snapping timbers that preceded the collapse of the floor above him. It wasn’t the roof that collapsed, it was the floor above them that came down when the attic above it collapsed on to it. It went in at the back of the room he was standing in, effectively cutting him off from his path of escape and his fleeing buddies, and it brought with it a whole lot of fire.

The line in his hand suddenly went limp, pinched off under the burning rubble. The windows he had just looked out of were now buried under a lean-to section of flooring. Outside a section of brick facade crashed to the sidewalk smashing parked cars and bouncing off Ladder Eight across the street. Fire fighters in the street ran for cover, and fortunately no one was hit.

Mike was trapped in the middle of an inferno with no water, no radio, and very little air. Above him was the burning roof with flames everywhere he looked.

His fist impulse was to try and move the rubble so he could get back out the way he came in but it was futile. He listened for activity on the other side of the pile. His buddies wouldn’t leave him, but they might not be able to help him either. They might not have escaped and were buried themselves. He had no idea what was going on behind the rubble.

Captain Ryan knelt on the other side of the rubble. He had followed the hose line back until it disappeared under the debris. He knew all to well where his nozzle man was, but had no idea right now what to do about it.

Captain One to Command, he literally screamed into the radio. We have a firefighter trapped in here. We need fresh air tanks and saws as soon as possible. His voice sounded almost frantic.

The incident commander responded. They’re on their way with tools and tanks, Captain. Ladder Eight will be directing a ladder line into that area, also.

There had been no time to set up an inside command post and a supply area in the building, as was always the practice on high-rise fires. Everything had to be brought up from the street. A third alarm was rung for more men and equipment.

Mike slumped to the floor leaning against the wall. His air tank was exhausted and he had disconnected his hose and stuck it inside his coat to filter the air as much as possible. The survival rules he had learned were running through his head. Don’t take off your mask. Lay as flat as you can and don’t exert yourself. Keep calm they’re coming. They know where you are. Did the others get out? Oh God, they might not know where I am if there was no one to tell them. Water. Tons of water was cascading down through the area now. They do know where I am, he thought.

Along with the water came more smoke and gases that were being driven down into his area by the water stream. He rolled into a fetal position. He was coughing violently into his mask right now and doing all he could to resist the impulse to rip it off. Breathing was getting harder and he was dizzy and disoriented.

Mike felt himself slipping away, losing consciousness. He rolled himself into a tighter ball but there was little he could do to stave off the blackness. There was no more good air to be found. This could be it-- the violent end all firefighters feared was coming, but he never thought it would be like this. He was no longer aware of anything going on around him and he felt almost peaceful.

My wonderful family. I feel so bad for them. It didn’t need to be like this, he thought. There had been other safer jobs. He thought about his dad and brother Buck. His sister Liz who idolized him. Was this his whole life passing in front of him? Was this what dying was about? Was this what others who had gone before him had felt at the end?

The men from Ladder Eight and others worked frantically tearing apart the wall that separated them, while other firefighters battled the flames that had come back with a vengeance. Outside another ladder truck had rolled into position and another water line was pouring thousands of gallons into the burning building.

At last they had a hole big enough for a man to get through, and Stubbs, who was back with a fresh air tank, demanded to be the one. He picked up the abandoned hose line on the other side of the rubble and started following it.

He located his unconscious buddy in just a few minutes. There was no time to waste and he stared pulling Mike backwards to the hole and the waiting hands.

Mike was unaware of what was going on. His breathing had stopped and his heart was faltering, starved for oxygen. His last thought had been of his mother standing there in a white gown with brilliant light all around her. She wasn’t holding her arms out to welcome him. She was motioning him to go back.

They ran with him to a safe area and tore off his equipment. Stubbs was doing mouth to mouth resuscitation and other men knelt around him, wringing their hands, their faces etched with pain and concern for their fallen comrade, waiting to do what ever they could. Overhead the fire was racing through the building now with breakneck speed, driven into the bowels of the structure by the very water streams that had been set up to save him. The order to abandon the building came over the radios from the fire ground command.

She sat by his bed in the early morning light while the machine flooding Mike’s lungs with pure oxygen made whishing noises. She held his hand and sobbed into her sleeve, all the time praying to God to spare him. She had lost him once; she could not tolerate losing him again.

The doctor had said bluntly, There’s no way to know how bad he is hurt until he wakes up, if he wakes up. This was the lonely vigil she had dreaded would happen some day. He could have stayed in the foundry or found other work. It didn’t have to be like this.

Suddenly Mike stirred and his eyes opened wide. For a second he looked startled and then he saw her and smiled. Hey, babes, how’re the kids?

June 1st, 1959

CHAPTER TWO

Mike watched the familiar rural Minnesota countryside slowly slipping away, his head bobbing softly against the cool glass of the Greyhound bus window as the tires below clicked in a staccato rhythm over the tar strips in the pavement. His eyes were half focused on the passing landscape, but his mind was still back where he had come from two short hours before. There was an old cliché that said, ‘You can take the boy from the country, but you can’t take the country from the boy.’ He would have to see how true that really was.

At some point the rural scenery became less and less country-like and blended into an increasingly urban landscape. In place of the fields and forests were small towns with strip malls and countless housing projects. Rambler style homes were laid out like an army camp, their fenced back yards filled with swing-sets, sandboxes, and children’s wading pools.

Then the grass, trees and houses were gone, and in their place were factories, warehouses and skyscrapers that he had only seen before in pictures in the paper. Now two and one-half hours from the time he had boarded it, the big silver bus came to a gentle stop in front of the Greyhound Depot with a final hiss from the brakes, and the click of the opening door.

For the first time in his life he was alone in a big city that he had only read about, standing amongst those tall buildings in silent awe and trepidation. It had seemed such a short time ago that he had walked backwards down that gravel driveway, taking one last look at the only home he had ever lived in, and waving one last time to his mother as she stood on the back porch holding her robe tight to her body to ward off the damp chilly morning air of northern Minnesota. He remembered her last words to him as she hugged him as if she had just spoken them minute ago.

I love you Son, please don’t forget about us. Her voice was cracking with emotion and he would remember those words forever, as if they were her last words to him. He was far enough down the drive at that time that he couldn’t see her tears anymore. He also couldn’t see that well through his own tears.

His father was gone to work when he left that morning, so there was no goodbye from him. There had been just a man to man understanding that they had come to the night before, on that same back porch. He would do his best to make his family proud. Fond memories of his brother and sister were also there, but he had let them sleep that morning rather than say goodbye. Besides he would come back to visit. It wasn’t like he was running away. It was just time for him to find his way in the world.

Graduation from the small-town high school had happened just two days ago. He sat on the gym stage in the middle of a class of eighty students. He had done nothing to leave a lasting mark on the school. He wasn’t a gifted athlete, although he played some baseball and ran the mile in track. Not a scholar, although he maintained a B average. His yearbook listed only three things under his picture that he had participated in.

He had gone through his entire senior year without a date. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t have liked a date, but he had no car and very little money. So much of his time had been spent working on the farm. He was also shy by nature and was reluctant to face the disappointment of rejection, so he never bothered asking.

It