After the Fire Page 4

  Chapter 4

  Over the next few days, Casey and Bev worked their way through the list of restaurant employees and patrons who had survived the fire. They took statements, which all told virtually the same story: it was a very festive night. The attendees at a wedding rehearsal dinner were getting loud and inebriated in one corner of the building and other celebrations were going on around the room. Italian music played in the background. The dining room smelled of garlic and tomato sauce and was filled with the sounds of laughter and and boisterous talk. The restaurant was noisy because of the high ceilings and poor acoustics.

  All of a sudden somebody screamed and then someone else yelled that there was a fire. People started running for the exit, which was on the end of the building where the fire started. The only other exit was through the kitchen but very few people went out that way. The fire was too hot near the exit. The people inside the dining room could not get out.

  Several of the witnesses said that Mazzoli and his son, who was the bartender, both tried to go into the dining room, but the fire and smoke were too hot. Instead they stood in the doorway screaming for people to go out through the kitchen. Kitchen workers said that they went into the dining room and pulled out a few people who were near the doors to the kitchen, but when they opened the back door, the fresh air caused the fire to burn even hotter, and the room filled with smoke so the patrons who were trapped in the dining room couldn't see.

  The stories all told of a pleasant evening out that turned into a hellish nightmare in a matter minutes.

  Five days after the fire, Bev, Tucker and Casey sat in Casey's office poring through the statements. Ben said, “They're all remarkably consistent.”

  Bev said, “The fire started in the corner of the building where the wedding party was sitting. Ed, what do we know about them?”

  Casey looked at his notes. “The groom's father is a local guy. He owns a car dealership. He's an ass by everyone's testimony, and I'll vouch for that because, after one miserable experience dealing with him years ago, I buy my cars in Dayton. The groom was a typical local kid. When he was in high school he played on the football team and was considered kind of the local chick magnet at least for certain kinds of girls. Went to college at the University of Cincinnati and, until recently, worked as a pharmacist in a hospital. No arrests. No lawsuits.

  “Bride's family is from Cincinnati. Her dad's a plastic surgeon. She was also a pharmacist, worked at a CVS drugstore. I'm guessing she and the groom met in pharmacy school.”

  Bev made a note on her pad, “You know any good PI's? I think we want to know more about the bride and groom and their families.” Ed gave her the name of a PI in Dayton. She sent an email to Cassandra asking her to hire the PI and have him call her later in the day to discuss the engagement.

  They worked their way through the statements and Bev made a list of details she wanted the PI to check out.

  By the end of the first week, the funerals began. Press from Cincinnati and Dayton as well as some national news agencies picked up the stories and reporters showed up at the funerals. Bev ranted about that, but Casey and Morehouse both told her there was nothing they could do to keep the press from covering a story.

  The day after the first funeral, Morehouse called Bev, “Bad news.”

  “Oh, let me take a wild guess. You got your first call from an attorney.”

  “Yep. He's not a local guy, either. He's Timothy Peters...”

  “Oh, shit!”

  “You know of him?”

  “Yeah, I not only know of him. I've been up against him before. Twice. Actually, come to think of it, this may not be a bad thing. Tim knows what he's doing. He may end up as lead plaintiff's counsel which may give us a prayer of getting out of this without destroying Ron's entire life.”

  Paul laughed, “You know, Bev, you give every appearance of being a really decent person for an adjuster.”

  “Oh, quit watching that damned TV!” She chuckled and asked, “What did you tell him?”

  “Basically, I told him that the fire was still under investigation and we are not in a position to discuss settlement until we know the facts and until all the damages are evaluated. I told him to send me a letter of representation and get in line.”

  “Good. Stick to that line with all the other lawyers who call you.” There was a long silence on the other end of the phone, “Is there something else?”

  “Yeah. Ron's granddaughter's funeral is tomorrow. I'm planning to go. I'm wondering if you would be able to attend as a show of support.”

  She thought about it. “I'd like to. I really would. I believe him and I want to support him. I'll have to check with my boss to make sure it's okay. I have to maintain some distance and I don't want to piss off my legal department and have them jerk this case from me. Some of the evidence is stacking up pretty heavily against Mr. Mazzoli. I don't want them to turn this over to the fraud unit prematurely. I'm afraid they will do that if they assign the claim to another adjuster. Tell the insured I will attend if my company will permit me. If it turns out I am not able to attend in person, it's because I can help him more by staying away.”

  “Are you losing your objectivity?”

  “No. I'm going with my gut here. I believe Mr. Mazzoli is telling us the truth. He did not burn that building. I just have to prove it. There are other issues, however. Even if we prove that it was an accident or that someone else set the fire, there are negligence issues. The place was a fire trap. The tables were too close together. I am afraid that there might have been too many people in the building that night. What I'm telling you, Counselor, is that even if this is a covered loss, Mr. Mazzoli has significant exposure beyond the limits of his insurance coverage.

  “By the way, do you have copies of his homeowners policy and those of his other siblings who are partners in the business?”

  “Yes, there are three siblings who are partners in the business. All have homeowners policies with $300,000 liability limits. All carriers are on notice and I have contact information for all the adjusters. None of them has assigned counsel yet.”

  “I'd like to have a conference call with all the adjusters. Would you mind setting that up?”

  “Not at all. Oh, and there is no umbrella or excess coverage.”

  Bev sighed. That was not surprising, but it was disappointing. “So. We have $1.9 million to work with. Fifty-two dead people and fourteen more seriously burned people who are racking up medical costs by the tens of thousands every day they live. Mr. Mazzoli and his siblings face a serious excess exposure.”

  “You gonna tender limits and walk away?”

  “I'm not tendering anything until the fire investigation has been concluded. I can't pay anything until we can establish that this isn't insurance fraud. That will buy us some time.”

  “What is your game plan?”

  “I want to hold onto the claim long enough to establish that the insured didn't set the fire and then try to negotiate some kind of settlement with the money that we have to work with.”

  She paused for a long time, chewing on a pencil and staring at the ceiling. Eventually, she said, “I want you to float something by the insured. To be clear, I am not making any commitments to pay anything at this point. My company will not pay a dime if there is any chance that the insured set that fire. However, if we can establish that it was an accident or that someone else set it, the building is insured for $2.5 million. Mr. Mazzoli has indicated he does not intend to rebuild. I believe there is no mortgage on the property and Mr. Mazzoli and his partners would be entitled to receive that amount in a cash settlement. I want to know if they would be willing to throw that money in the settlement pot. If I tender limits and walk away, the piranhas will gobble up everything they have. If you and I have a big enough pot to work with, maybe we can reach a global settlement that will leave the insured a roof over his head and a car to drive if nothing else. What do you think?”


  “I think that he'd happily go for that.”

  “Keep in mind, we can't make any commitment to pay anything, but I think you should gently float that by him if for no other reason than to impress upon the Mazzolis that they have a huge personal exposure here, even if the loss is insured.”

  “I understand. I think he knows it, too, but I'll spell it out to make it clear to him.”

  “Much as I hate it, I think you should remind him he is entitled to have his own attorney on board.”

  “We already talked about that. I'm going to represent him even if you pull the plug.”

  “Okay. I'll let you know what my company says about me attending the funeral.”

  Bev tried to go out as little as possible. Word was out that she was the adjuster. When she went into stores and businesses, people asked questions she couldn't answer or they made remarks she didn't appreciate. Therefore, Emily did most of the shopping and Bev laid low. It occurred to her that handling claims out of hotel rooms in faraway places where she was a stranger had certain personal advantages.

  The legal department sent word that there was no way in hell she should attend Mazzoli's granddaughter's funeral or any of the other funerals. She was ordered to stay away from events where the press would be gathered. She agreed and sent word to the insured through Paul that she was sorry but she would not be in attendance.

  By the time the funerals were over, the reporters moved on to Cincinnati where they camped outside the Shriner's Burns Hospital harassing the doctors about the condition of the survivors. Bev shuddered to think how much those claims would be worth.

  The accountant to whom Bev had sent the insured's financial records reported that the business had been teetering on the brink of bankruptcy for months and Ron Mazzoli, along with his brother and sister, had invested a significant portion of their personal savings to shore it up, and they had lost it all. They owed money to everybody in town and had defaulted on a loan to an uncle in Cleveland. Based on receipts for the two weeks before the fire, the restaurant would not have been able to meets it next payroll. She thanked the guy and asked him to submit his written report. She told him she'd be in touch if it came time for him to testify. She put down the phone and stared out the window, pounding her pen against the table, fast at first and gradually slowing as she managed to calm herself. She decided to keep that information to herself as long as she could justify doing so.

  Ben called early one morning, “I have some interesting lab results. Want to meet me at the fire chief's office?”

  “You not going to tell me first? I'm paying the bills.”

  “I know, but it's ambiguous information. Nothing that will cause you to have to turn it over to your fraud unit. I want you and Casey to hear it first before I give it to the crime lab in Cincinnati.”

  “I'll meet you at Casey's office in fifteen minutes.” She sent a text message to Emily to the effect that she'd have to take the bus home, and headed for her car.

  A half hour later, the three of them sat in the lunchroom at the fire department, with reports and photos spread out on the table. Bev stood up to get a better look. “Okay, so the fire started in the corner where the wedding party was seated. The accelerant was gin and the fire seems to have been ignited by a butane cigarette lighter. It flared and then really went out of control when the kitchen workers opened the back door.” She rearranged some pictures and looked up at Tucker with her eyes wide and something bordering on a smile, “Could this be an accident? A sloppy drunk spills a drink and then drops a lighter?”

  He patted her hand and shook his head, pointing at a series of photos, “I think it's a torch job that's supposed to look like an accident. The fire started in a corner. A sloppy drunk moving around would have spilled the drink on the table or on a walkway to somewhere.”

  She moved some photos around in a different order and said, “But, what if somebody seated at the table dropped a glass of gin on the floor. It shattered and splashed, then the lighter somehow ignited the alcohol?”

  “Maybe, except that we found no broken glass at the place you would expect it to be in that scenario.”

  Casey was digging through a file, apparently ignoring their conversation. After a few minutes he pulled out a sheet. “Here's their tab for the night. The cash register in the bar was not damaged and I had them print out all the tabs for the night. No one in that party was drinking gin. They were drinking wine, champagne, a few beers and two people were drinking bourbon. No gin.”

  Tucker walked over and looked over Casey's shoulder, “Was anybody drinking gin that night?”

  They ran their fingers down the columns on the report. Two people in the restaurant ordered gin drinks that evening. One lady had a martini before dinner earlier in the evening; she and her husband left the restaurant 30 minutes before the fire started. A patron at the bar ordered a gin and tonic fifteen minutes before the fire started.

  Casey said, “I'll find that guy.”

  Tucker made a face. “Yeah, you should for the sake of thoroughness, but a gin and tonic would not have ignited that fire. It would have taken a fairly large dose of straight liquor.”

  Bev stood looking at the photos, moving things around as if rearranging the papers would help her to see the picture more clearly. “The amount of alcohol it would have taken to start a fire that hot would be more than one drink. Somebody dropped or splashed the alcohol, probably directly from the bottle or at least a large glass with no mixer in it, and then ignited it. Did the fire start along a pathway where someone might be carrying a bottle of liquor to or from the kitchen or another location? Maybe someone tripped and dropped a whole bottle.”

  Tucker shook his head and said, “That's unlikely. Remember we found no glass, but I suppose there could be an explanation for that. I'll run some computer models to see, but that area looks like it would not be a pathway to or from any other place in the restaurant. I think it's a torch job.”

  Bev said, “Where were the owners at the time the fire started?”

  Casey consulted his notes, “Ron was at the reception desk in the front of the bar. His son and brother were tending bar. Sister was in the kitchen.”

  Bev held out her hands over the table in a blessing gesture. “None of the principals were in a position to actually start the fire.”

  Tucker said, “True, but there were other family members waiting tables and working inside the restaurant.”

  Casey said, “Mazzoli's wife was waiting on the wedding party.”

  Bev put her hands over her face, “Shit.” She turned to look at Casey, “She survived, though. Where was she when the fire started?”

  “In the kitchen.”

  “Then she didn't start it!”

  “What if she doused the area with alcohol and then walked away?”

  “Were people in the wedding party smokers?”

  Casey raised his eyebrows, “How would we tell?”

  Tucker rummaged through the photos. “We found no butane lighters anywhere except for the remains of a butane lighter at the location where the fire started.”

  Bev held her hands out to Tucker in a begging gesture, “Okay, what's your conclusion?”

  “At this point, it's inconclusive. I don't think it's an accident. None of the insured individuals was in a position to actually ignite the fire as far as I can see, but that doesn't mean that one of them didn't douse the area.” He paused and added, “Plus any one of them could have tossed the lighter from a short distance and made it to the kitchen or the bar before the flames got out of control.”

  Bev sat down, “Okay. Our preliminary finding is that the fire was not an accident. Somebody torched the place. We do not have evidence that clearly implicates the insured at this point. Are we agreed on that?” She stared at Tucker.

  He sat for a long time looking at the pictures, consulting his notes and reviewing some of the reports. A lot of peoples' futures hung in the balance, and everyone in the room knew he w
as choosing his words carefully. He said, “At this point, I can only say that the cause is still undetermined. I don't think it's an accident, but it is possible that it could turn out to be a freak accident. The evidence leans towards arson, and my gut agrees. Based on the evidence it could have been the insured, who we know had motive. However, it is also possible that someone else set the fire for their own reasons.”

  He looked at Bev and lifted his hands, palms up. “That's all I can give you now. I'll go home and start running computer models.”

  “This is enough to keep this out of the hands of the fraud unit and the FBI. I'll take it.”

  They sat for a while contemplating the pictures. Tucker asked, “So what are you guys going to do now?”

  Bev said, more to her self than to the men, “We need to run every computer model imaginable to figure out who might have been in that corner of the room in the last fifteen minutes before the fire started. We need to know everything we can about the people in that wedding party.” She looked up as though she were waking from a nap. “I haven't had a report from our PI friend. I think I'll pay him a visit.”

  Tucker said, “I'll report in to the crime lab in Cincinnati and then go home and start running computer models.”

  Bev nodded. “Excellent. My boss has been on my ass wondering when you're going home. He hates to pay hotel bills. See if you can get any information from the boys in the crime lab as to what they are thinking.”

  “Will do. I'll be in touch.” He shook their hands and left.

  At dinner, Emily said, “I heard that Mr. Tucker checked out of the motel today. Is he finished with his investigation?”

  Bev thought for a long time before she answered. “No. He has completed his on site investigation, but he is going back home to work on computer models and complete his report.”

  “Do you think Mr. Mazzoli burned his restaurant?”

  “No, I don't. Can I prove it? Not yet, but I'm working on it.”

  “People are starting to get antsy for something official.”

  “I know. We are all eager to know what caused this fire, but I'm telling you that we won't rush our investigation. There is too much at stake to come to any kind of hasty conclusion.”

  Emily studied her mother's face for a long time. “This is hard on you, isn't it, Mom?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it always so tough?”

  Bev thought about that. “When people die or are badly burned, it's always tough. I want to get it right because everybody involved deserves for me to get it right. When the fire turns out to be set by the insured it's hard because I have to walk away and there are usually a lot of lawsuits. Often I have to testify in criminal proceedings which could result in my insured going to jail. If I'm sending a guy to prison, I sure as hell want to get it right.

  “When the fire turns out to be an accident, I want to be sure that I'm fair in evaluating the liability situation so I don't pay claims I don't owe but I do treat everyone fairly. There are usually lawsuits over that as well, and I often have to testify.”

  “Mom, how long do one of these claims last?”

  “Sometimes they're over relatively quickly if they just turn out to be a covered fire loss with either no injuries or minor injuries. We can settle those sometimes in a few months. On the other hand, if there are a lot of complexities and litigation, it can take years. I closed a claim earlier this year that had been in litigation for more than a decade.”

  “Will this one end up in court.”

  Bev hesitated, but finally said, “I can't really discuss this too much, but I will tell you -- for your ears only, and don't spread this around -- I can barely imagine a scenario for this claim that will not involve lawsuits, probably a bunch of them.” She sighed and tried to smile, but it turned out to be more of a grimace, “Can we talk about something else, please.”

  Emily launched into a detailed account of the minutia of her day, which was precisely what Bev wanted to hear.

  Before she went to bed, Emily knocked on Bev's door. Bev called for her to come in. She was sitting in bed reading, and invited Emily to crawl into bed with her. They simply hugged for a while. Bev leaned back and asked, “What's up with you?”

  “Well I was worried enough about you but Gram called me today and got me really worried.”

  “In what way?”

  “Well, we both know that Gram is a little unusual and I know you two don't really get along but she does love you, in her own weird way, and she called me to ask about you because she says she doesn't think you'd tell her the truth if you were having trouble with this.” Emily tilted her head back and asked, “Is that true?”

  “You're damn right, it's true. The last thing I need in my life right now is my mother arriving from Chicago to 'take care of us'. God help us.”

  “Why don't you and Gram get along?”

  “Well, mainly because we have absolutely nothing in common except some genes and we have completely different world views, goals and purposes in life. My mother doesn't approve of my lifestyle, and I don't approve of hers.”

  Emily laughed. “Your mother thinks you work too hard and you're too intense.”

  “That's right.”

  “What kind of mom disapproves of that?”

  “The kind of mom whose entire life is about shopping, dressing up pretty and having fun.”

  “How in the world did Gram ever get hooked up with Grampy?”

  “I have never heard the whole story, but I think it was a case of opposites attracting and getting married before they realized how utterly unsuited they were for each other. Unfortunately they had me before they came to that awareness, and they fought over me forever after.”

  “How did you and Dad manage to be so nice about your divorce?”

  “I didn't run off to Chicago with my baby and refuse to let him see you. The problem between my parents was that they were so opposite they had nothing in common and they ended up hating each other. The problem between your dad and me was that we were too much alike. We are both kind of workaholics who never had a lot of time for each other or anything but work. We both love you and wanted what was best for you. Our break-up was amicable. Perhaps most of all, I was determined never to do to you what my parents did to me.”

  They were quiet for a while. Emily got out of bed and kissed her mother. “Good-night, Mom. I love you.”

  “Love you, too, Sweetheart. We'll get through this.”

  “I know we will. It just kinda sucks.”

  “I sucks big time.”

  “How do you do it so often?”

  “Until now, I've dealt with fires in other peoples' neighborhoods. That's often difficult. It is proving much harder to handle a claim in my home town, involving people I know. Maybe hardest of all has been having to do it while trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy in our home.”

  Emily kissed her mother's forehead and whispered, “You don't have to always be so strong.”

  Bev smiled and patted her daughter's cheek, “Yes, I do.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if I didn't maintain some level of control over myself, I'd go completely to pieces over all the people who have been killed and the ones who are suffering unimaginable torture in the hospital. I can't let myself do that. I'd be no good to you, me or anybody else if I let go and fell apart.”

  “You may have a point, but I guess it feels important to me to say, it's okay if you can't be that strong in every possible situation.”