Page 135 of The Reformatory

“Grab those extinguishers!” Haddock shouted even as the gleeful part of him whispered: Let them all burn.

Luckily, or unluckily, his men were well trained, and fire extinguishers hissed foam in the burning room as groundskeepers beat back the flames. Boone was a quick thinker, using the garden hose to fill a large tub because the hose wasn’t long enough to reach the fire. Boone gestured for a burly teenager to help him lift the sloshing tub closer to the smoky doorway.

“One… two… three…,” Boone and boy counted in unison, and they groaned with their exertion as they swung the tub of water with all of their strength, drenching the smoking stovetops. The wall within hissed and crackled under the gallons of water, sending more steam and smoke into the adjoining rooms, but Haddock felt the fire die. A groundskeeper stepped in with an extinguisher to spray foam anywhere left smoking. He coughed as he worked.

Time was, Haddock would have grabbed a fire extinguisher or the other end of that tub, but he stood watching his men work as if the scene were a picture show high up on a screen. He felt grief that he had arrived so late. Despite what a beautiful monster the fire had been, Haddock could not have invited it to dwell with him today. New stoves and remodeled walls would be covered by insurance, but if the fire had grown any bigger, Tallahassee might close him down. As of now, the entire kitchen hadn’t burned down—just one of the back rooms. The fire hadn’t even reached the shelves of food sacks in the storeroom beside it. And it hadn’t reached the new, costly freezer, thank God.

“Anyone else hurt?” Haddock called out. The boy who’d tried to swat the flames was sitting just outside of the doorway, still sobbing as Crutcher wrapped his burned hand with that oh-so-fancy white handkerchief always stuffed in his front coat pocket.

“Naw, suh, we got ev’rybody else away,” Boone said, huffing from his efforts.

In his half-fugue state, Haddock observed his men at work opening windows, sweeping smoking debris—Wasn’t that his favorite broom from the shed?—foaming down every inch of the now-ruined back room with his best cookstoves. Fire lived in raging beauty and died in silent ash, painting everything it touched black. For a time, Haddock regretted only that it had died so soon. After the sadness came anger.

“What the hell happened?” he shouted, and the flurrying motion around him stopped.

“I don’t know, suh, but we ’bout to find out,” Boone said, his face no less angry. “I was hangin’ meat in the freezer and next thing I knew, the room was on fire. I told all them boys in here to line up outside. The Funhouse is gonna be busy tonight. The Box too.”

When Haddock ducked through the doorway to go back outside, twelve shivering, sniveling boys were lined against the wall, in rough order of height. One stoic teenager stood at the far end, staring straight ahead with tear-pooled eyes—Kendrick, who was due for release at the end of the month and had avoided a day of trouble until now—and then a pathetic collection of wiry younger boys shaking like pine needles in the wind. Kendrick was sixteen or seventeen now, and from his size he was long overdue for a trip to the shed. The smaller boy with the burned hand was still crying, lined up with the rest, holding his bandaged hand over his heart.

The injured boy looked weakest, so Haddock started with him. “What’s your name?”

“Tuh… Tuh… Tuh…,” the boy said, struggling to speak. “Turner.”

“Let me see that hand.” The boy stuck his wrapped hand out, and it wavered, trembling.

“Hold still,” Boone warned him, and the boy tried.

Gently, Haddock rested the boy’s hand on his left palm and unwrapped the loose handkerchief with his right, until the blistered black and red peeked through. The burn was a doozy, maybe second-degree, or closer to third. The burned flesh smell teased Haddock’s nose.

“How’d this happen, son?” he said in his Pastor Haddock voice.

“When I… suh-suh-saw the fire, I ran in with a tuh-tuh—”

“The towel,” Haddock finished for him. “You ran in with a towel to try to beat the fire out.”

The boy nodded, relieved to be understood. “Yessuh.”

“Then what happened?” The boy hesitated, lip trembling. Haddock moved his face closer to loosen the boy’s tongue. “I said what happened?”

“It jumped up at me!” the boy said. “It was… luh-luh-little… on the stove… and when I hit it, it jumped up tuh-tuh-twice as big and cuh-cuh-climbed up the wall to the ceiling! Like it was… alive!”

“Mr. Haddock, that’s just what happened, sir,” Kendrick said at the far end. His voice rumbled like a man’s now, not a boy’s.

“That right?” Haddock said to Turner. “All right, son, you told it well. Go on and run to the infirmary. Tell the nurse to look after you.”

“Should I take him, Mr. Haddock?” Crutcher said.

“I expect he knows the way,” Haddock said.

Crutcher watched the boy as he scampered off, nearly tripping on the cement steps because he was half-blinded by tears. Crutcher, that impertinent SOB, wanted to challenge him like his bitch sister did at every turn. Crutcher hadn’t worked at the Reformatory a full year yet, and Boone said he coddled the boys too much. A black eye or loosened tooth might fix that—later.

Haddock strolled the length of the line of boys until he reached Kendrick at the end. “Did you see the fire start?”

“No, sir,” Kendrick said. He looked over Haddock’s shoulders, avoiding his eyes. “I only saw Stutterin’ John run in. Then he got burned.”

“Who’s responsible for the cookstoves?” Haddock said.

“You talkin’ to him right now,” Boone said with venom in his voice.