Consumed (Firefighters #1)(50)

Don walked in. Her boss had his suit jacket off, and the sleeves on his business shirt rolled up. His tie was red and the city’s signature anchor was on repeat.

He looked like he was on the twelfth hour of a ten-hour shift. “We need to talk.”

“Yup, I got you something.”

As she leaned down to her bag, he muttered, “Is it Advil?”

Straightening, she held out a pink plastic bag. “Surprise.”

“You mind telling me why Charles Ripkin is on my phone.”

“Here, I’ll open it for you.” She put the bag on her desk and took out a wrapped-up object. “Unless you want to do the honors?”

“He’s threatening to go to the mayor and complain.”

She shrugged. “On what grounds?”

“He said you demanded a meeting with him? Wanted to see proof of insurance? Were harassing his executive assistant. What the hell are you doing? You think you’re a cop?”

Probably not a good time to remind Don about his pursuit-of-justice pep talk.

Anne unwrapped the white mug and turned the thing around so the black lettering faced him. “Ta-da!”

Don took the thing. “ ‘World’s Greatest Boss’?”

“You’re my Michael Scott.”

“I’m thinking about firing you again, FYI.”

“But it’s for a much better reason, right? Now you’re frustrated that I’m taking the job too seriously, so this is improvement.”

Don’s lids dropped to half-mast. “You are my punishment for sins in an earlier life.”

“More like virtues. Anyway, I went down to the registry of deeds this morning.”

“So I can expect a call from them as well? The private sector always moves faster than we in government do, which was why Ripkin got to me first about you.”

“Ripkin Development has purchased three of the six warehouse sites in the last twenty-four months. You don’t think there’s a connection?”

“He’s buying cheap real estate to develop. That’s what developers do. Hence the title of his company. And nothing devalues even depressed sites more than a good a fire.”

“He bought those warehouses before the fires.”

Don frowned. “The structures weren’t worth much. I mean, you want to make some money doing insurance fraud, you torch a mansion to the ground. Not a dilapidated warehouse.”

“What if you wanted to clear the land and not have to pay for it? You burn what’s on it, cash in the insurance policy, use the proceeds to clear what’s left in terms of debris—which is considerably less than even the rotted shells that were there first. It pays for itself—not that bad a strategy.”

“You could get away with it once. But you try that two or three times and it’s like an engraved invitation for fraud charges.”

“What if you had different insurance companies. The properties are all owned by different entities. It wasn’t until I went on a wild-goose chase through layers of incorporators that I discovered Ripkin owns them. He’s covering his tracks about a lot of things.”

There was a long silence. And then Don shut her door. “Listen, about Ripkin.”

“Do not tell me I can’t go talk to him. I reject completely the notion that rich people should be granted special privileges. He’s no different than any other witness or interested party.”

“I agree.”

“But . . .”

“You recall that fire at Ripkin’s oceanfront estate. It was about, what, just over a year ago?”

“I responded with the 499 to it.”

“I remember from the report.” There was another pause. “I put a really good investigator on the scene, a guy named Bob Burlington. He was doing a thorough job.”

“You’d accept nothing less from a subordinate.”

“But he didn’t finish the investigation because his body washed up on shore in the bay about three weeks into the case.”

Anne frowned. “Now that you mention it, I read something about that in the paper. And there was talk at the station. He had a heart attack though, didn’t he?”

“I don’t think we’re ever going to know the truth. His boat was found first by a trawler ,and there was no evidence of foul play. His remains turned up a day later, and they had been chewed on. The medical examiner stated that the cause of death was an MI, which given Bob’s affinity for fried food and no exercise wasn’t a news flash. The manner, however, was undetermined.”

From what Anne understood about determinations of death in Massachusetts, the Commonwealth’s medical examiner and his or her office assessed the remains and assigned a cause that could be anything from a disease process like cancer, cardiovascular , or an infection to trauma to the body like an internal bleed from a gunshot wound or blunt force from someone getting hit with something. The manner was then assigned to one of four categories: natural, accident, homicide, or suicide. If the medical examiner could not place the death within those criteria, then it was ruled “undetermined.”

In Bob Burlington’s case, you had to wonder if he’d had a heart attack on his boat and fallen overboard because of it—or whether someone had thrown him off the vessel and he’d died trying to swim to shore.