He held his arm out at me, palm perpendicular like a stop sign. “Don’t you want the chronology from the horse’s mouth? Primary source. Catch me up, Billy.”

I had one hand on the wrought-iron railing but stopped to listen. “I’m a graphic designer, Detective. Worked late, stopped off for a burger and a couple of beers on my way home,” Billy said. He was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. There were smudges of ink or paint on his jeans, too dark in color to be blood, I thought. “It was about twelve-thirty when I got near the building. That’s when I saw this guy come tearing out the front door, down the steps.”

“What guy? Someone you know?”

Billy Schultz shook his head. “Nope. The fireman.”

Mike looked to Mercer. “Nobody told me about that. The fire department got here first?”

“Not for real,” Mercer said.

“I mean, I assumed he was a fireman. He was dressed in all the gear-coat, boots, hat, even had a protective mask of some kind on. That’s why I couldn’t see his face.”

“Did you stop him? Did he talk to you?”

“He flew by me, like there was a forest fire on Lexington Avenue he had to get to. Almost took me out. Even that didn’t seem odd until I looked up the street for his truck but there wasn’t one around. Just weird.”

“What did you do then?”

“I unlocked the door to the vestibule, and as soon as I got inside, I could smell smoke. I could see little waves of it sort of spiraling upward from the basement,” Billy said. “We don’t have a super who lives in the building, so there was no one for me to call. I figured whatever happened had been resolved. By the guy I thought was a fireman. But I wanted to check it out, make sure there was nothing still burning.”

“Sarge, you want to get me that mask?” Mercer said.

The older man walked to the nearest squad car and reached in for a paper bag while Billy Schultz talked.

“I went downstairs first. It was pretty dark, but I could make out a small pile of rubble in the corner of the hallway, a couple of feet from Tina’s door. Nothing was burning-no flames-but it was still smoldering. Kicking off a lot of smoke. That’s when I knocked on her door.”