Several firemen and a woman in a paramedic’s uniform were gathered to the side of the trucks and CJ wasn’t surprised when Simpson veered off toward the group rather than heading straight to the ambulance. She assumed he was going to ask them what was going on rather than bother the EMTs working in the ambulance, so she followed him. But while he stopped briefly, and opened his mouth as if to ask something, he then snapped his mouth closed without saying a word, and turned abruptly to continue on to the ambulance.
CJ stared after him with surprise, and then followed. But when he started to climb into the back of the vehicle where a male paramedic and a fireman were bent over someone sitting up on the stretcher, she caught his arm to stop him.
“They’re working on the man—wait here and give them room,” she admonished when he turned a blank face her way.
Officer Simpson didn’t respond, even in expression. That remained blank, she noted, and CJ was about to ask if he was all right when movement in the ambulance drew her attention. The fireman had straightened as much as he could and was moving toward the open doors with the paramedic following. Both of them were walking slightly bent at the waist to maneuver the cramped space.
“Is this a second victim, or did one of your men get hurt fighting the fire?” CJ asked as the fireman stepped down from the ambulance. Much to her amazement, he didn’t even slow down or glance her way to acknowledge the question. Expression oddly blank, the fireman simply walked past her to join the group of people several feet away.
“I was the only victim.”
CJ tore her surprised gaze away from the rude fireman and turned back to the ambulance at that announcement. She couldn’t see the speaker at first—the paramedic was now stepping down from the ambulance, his bulk blocking her view—but once he was on the ground and following the fireman, CJ was able to get her first good look at the speaker. A lack of light in the ambulance affected visibility, but he was a big man, with wide shoulders. She suspected he would be tall once he was standing. His hair was short and appeared dark, while his skin was very fair, but looked blotchy to her in the poor lighting. Although that could have been due to the shadows cast in the ambulance, she thought, and then asked, “I’m sorry, did you say you’re the only victim?”
The man was silent so long she didn’t think he was going to respond, but finally he said, “Yes. I live here alone. Or I was supposed to. I guess I shall have to find somewhere else to live now.”
“Then who did the first ambulance take away?” CJ asked with confusion.
“The first ambulance?” The question was sharp, with an undertone of concern.
“There was an ambulance leaving when I arrived,” she explained.
“Ah,” he said with understanding, “you must have arrived as they were heading for the hospital with me. Fortunately, I regained consciousness before they reached town and convinced them I was fine, so they turned around and brought me back.”
CJ’s eyebrows rose at that. “I was told the tub of water you were in was boiling by the time they got to you. Officer Jefferson told Simpson here that you were red as a lobster, parboiled and covered with large blisters. They didn’t expect you to survive.”
“Where is this Jefferson?” the man asked at once.
“He left before I got here,” CJ answered.
The man clucked with annoyance, and then pointed out, “Well, obviously this Officer Jefferson was wrong, was he not? Maybe all the flickering lights from your emergency vehicles played havoc with his eyes. But I assure you I am fine.”
CJ didn’t respond at first. He certainly sounded fine, but she couldn’t see him well enough to be assured that he really was. The interior lights in the ambulance had no doubt been on earlier, but were now off. They’d probably turned them off when they realized there was nothing that needed doing for him, if he really wasn’t injured. But then what had the men been doing in the ambulance when she and Simpson had approached? And why hadn’t they taken him to the hospital? He’d said he’d regained consciousness before they reached town. Something must have caused his unconsciousness. Probably smoke inhalation, she thought. In which case they definitely should have taken him to the hospital to at least be checked out. The man had barely escaped being burned to death, not to mention boiled alive, and rather than allow them to take him to the hospital, he’d made the paramedics bring him back to his burning home? “Mr.—”
“Argeneau,” he said when she paused expectantly.
“Mr. Argeneau,” she started again. “You really should go to the hospital. You’ve been through a traumatic experience, and could be suffering from shock or smoke inhalation. You should be treated for that.”
“They gave me oxygen here,” he announced. “I am fine.”
“Smoke inhalation is a serious business, sir,” she said firmly. “They don’t just give you oxygen for a bit and call it good. They give you humidified oxygen, bronchodilators . . . sometimes they even have to use suction and endotracheal tubes and—”
“I have no need for any of that,” he interrupted her.
“You don’t know that,” she responded at once, and lectured sternly, “You should have your lungs checked. You might think you’re fine, but you may have suffered some thermal damage to your lungs or throat. If so, you could go into bronchospasm, or your lungs could become infected, swell, and fill with fluid restricting your air supply, and if that happens you could suffer brain damage or even die.”
Rather than be dismayed by her words, she was quite sure the man smiled faintly as if amused by her concern before he asked, “So, you’re a doctor?”
“No,” she said with irritation. “I’m with the SIU.”
“Ah, a police officer,” he said with a nod.
“No,” she corrected quickly. “I’m not police.”
“Does SIU not stand for Special Investigations Unit?” he asked with surprise. “I thought from the TV shows I have watched that it was an arm of the law.”
“It might be in some parts of the world, but here in Canada we are a civilian-run organization that investigates the police,” she said stiffly. “I’m not a police officer anymore. I’m just helping out here tonight because the local police department recently lost their only detective, and I have some training in that area.”
“Ah.” Nodding, the man suddenly swung his legs off the gurney and stood up as much as he could in the cramped space, then made his way toward the back of the ambulance to get out. Once he was standing in front of her, she saw that he was indeed tall. The man was a good six inches over her own 5'11", and while she’d thought his shoulders wide from a distance, they were wider still once they were right in front of her, blocking out the world. The man now stood uncomfortably close, so that she had to tip her head back quite a bit to meet his gaze.
He clearly had no concept of personal space, CJ thought, and scowled at him, but didn’t step back as she wanted to do. She wasn’t the sort to back down from a challenge, and that’s what it felt like to her, like he was trying to intimidate her.
“You smell good,” he said suddenly, a smile definitely curving his lips.
CJ stiffened at the unexpected comment, and snapped, “You smell like smoke, which your lungs are probably full of. Now get back in the ambulance and let the paramedics take you to the hospital.”
“My lungs are fine,” he assured her with amusement.
Irritated by his attitude, she threw his own question back at him. “So, you’re a doctor?”
“Yes.”
CJ blinked at his answer, the steam running out of her like air out of a balloon as she squeaked, “You are?”
“Yes,” he repeated, grinning widely now. “So, I can assure you with some authority that I am fine.”
“But the fire—”
“Smoke rises,” he interrupted the argument she’d been about to give him. “Unfortunately, I was working in the basement when it started and didn’t realize there was a problem until the whole upper story was ablaze and I was trapped. I let the firemen know where I was and took shelter in the bathroom, filled the tub with cold water, and submerged myself to wait for them to get in and rescue me.”
He paused briefly, and then repeated, “As I said, smoke rises and I was as low as I could get in the house lying in that old claw-foot tub, so I inhaled a minimal amount of it at best. My lungs are fine.”
CJ’s mouth compressed at this news and she turned to glance toward Simpson, which also served to give her some space from the man. She’d lied when she’d said he smelled like smoke. He didn’t. In fact, he smelled good, like spices and the woods mixed together. It was a potent aroma that was playing havoc with her thought processes, and she was grateful to suck in a breath of some good clean, smoke-tinged night air to wash his scent away.
She was less pleased to see that Simpson had slipped away to join the circle of firemen and paramedics. His presence would have made a helpful buffer between her and this man. Aside from that, though, Simpson was the police officer here and should be the one questioning the man as to what had happened. Apparently, that hadn’t occurred to him yet, and the fact that it hadn’t made her wonder just how much of a rookie the kid was.
“Simpson,” she called with exasperation.
The patrolman turned a blank face her way, and then left the group to rejoin them. When he then just stood there, she asked pointedly, “Don’t you have some questions for Mr. Argeneau?”
“No.” The word was said without any inflection at all.
CJ gaped at the young officer briefly, and then shook her head and snatched the small notepad and pen out of his front chest pocket where she’d seen him place it earlier. She quickly flipped it open to the first clean page, and turned to Argeneau. “Can you give us your full name, Mr. Argeneau?”
“Macon Argeneau,” he answered easily. “But my friends call me Mac.”