Chapter 4 - THE PAGE MISSING FROM THE FIRE REPORT
“What did they bring into the warehouse?”
Theo asked the question three times.
Nina couldn't answer.
Not because she didn't remember.
Because, as she finally admitted, she had never been allowed to find out.
“My mother worked in the shipping office,” she said. “She knew something was wrong with the deliveries. That's why I went there that night.”
Rocco picked up his coat.
“I'm leaving.”
Theo blocked his path.
“Tell me what Dad meant.”
His uncle looked at him for a long moment.
“I gave your father a job when nobody else would. He was my younger brother. I loved him.”
“Then why won't you tell me the truth?”
“Because the truth won't bring him back.”
“No,” Theo answered. “But it might bring some peace to the people he left behind.”
Rocco's expression changed.
He looked at Nina, then Grandma, then me.
“Peace,” he said bitterly, “is something people talk about when they've never had to keep anyone alive.”
He walked out with his two men.
Nobody stopped him.
The bridal shower was over.
My mother began helping the restaurant staff clear untouched plates.
Mallory gathered the gifts and quietly asked the guests not to share photographs of Nina.
But before everyone left, Grandma asked us to sit together.
“I need to tell you something,” she said.
She explained that she had volunteered at a Pittsburgh community clinic in 2004.
After the warehouse fire, Nina arrived there with smoke irritation and cuts on her hands.
Grandma helped care for her.
More importantly, she listened.
“Nina told me the doors were locked before the fire,” Grandma said. “She told me Anthony had argued with the police officer.”
Theo looked down.
“Did she tell you my father signed the order?”
Grandma nodded.
“She saw the paper in his hands.”
Nina began crying quietly.
“I hated him for signing it.”
Theo didn't look away.
“You had every right.”
“But I saw him trying to stop what happened afterward.”
My grandmother reached for Nina's hand.
“She gave a sworn statement. Afterward, someone removed my medical notes from the clinic file.”
“Who?” I asked.
“I never found out.”
Grandma took a folded paper from her handbag.
It was an old receipt.
Not a photograph.
Not a confession.
Just a faded confirmation that a witness statement had been submitted in February 2005.
At the bottom was a reference number.
HS-04-119.
“I kept this because Nina was afraid nobody would believe she'd testified.”
Nina stared at it.
“I thought that was destroyed.”
“Some things survive because somebody refuses to throw them away.”
The following morning, Theo, Nina, Grandma, and I went to the municipal records office downtown.
Mallory stayed with my flower shop.
I had barely slept.
Theo hadn't slept at all.
He had spent the night studying his father's watch.
The record clerk located the Harbor Street file.
Most of it had been digitized years earlier.
The public report was forty-three pages.
I read every one.
The official account said an electrical malfunction caused the fire.
Six warehouse employees and Anthony Caruso died.
The loading doors were supposedly unlocked when emergency crews arrived.
The first confirmed alarm was recorded at 9:42 p.m.
And Anthony had allegedly been trying to enter the warehouse from outside when he died.
But Nina knew he had already gone inside.
The clerk pointed out something else.
“The index says there should be an attachment describing the security arrangements.”
Theo leaned forward.
“Where is it?”
“Not in the scanned file.”
“Could it be somewhere else?”
“Possibly in the archived paper collection.”
She checked another screen.
Then frowned.
“The records were transferred to the old Harbor Street municipal storage annex.”
“Is that still operating?” I asked.
“Only until the end of the month.”
She turned her monitor slightly.
The building and adjoining former warehouse property had recently been approved for redevelopment.
The developer's name was displayed on the screen.
CARUSO TRANSPORTATION HOLDINGS.
Rocco's company.
“He's tearing down the place,” Theo whispered.
Nina closed her eyes.
“He told me the old records were already gone.”
Grandma looked at the clerk.
“Can we request access?”
“Yes. But an archivist has to approve it.”
We filed the request immediately.
The clerk gave us a printed inventory.
Near the bottom, one entry caught my attention.
SECURITY AUTHORIZATION — ORIGINAL AND AMENDMENT.
“Amendment?” I repeated.
Theo leaned over my shoulder.
There was no amendment mentioned anywhere in the public report.
Beneath that entry was a handwritten notation transferred into the digital catalog.
RELEASE REQUEST RECEIVED — 9:11 P.M.
Theo stared at the words.
Then he looked at his father's watch.
9:17.
Six minutes later.
Grandma's voice was barely audible.
“Anthony tried to release those workers before the fire reached them.”
But Nina shook her head.
She pointed to the final line of the inventory.
May you like
The request had been marked:
DENIED BY SUPERVISING OFFICER D. KEENE.
