Page 22 of Head Room (Caught Dead in Wyoming #15)

Despite us all agreeing we didn’t have much, I felt downright buoyant that my next stop was the fire department substation.

Mostly because it wasn’t Hiram Poppinger’s place.

As I navigated there, I could see why these firefighters got to the fire at the Jardos cabin first — even with volunteers needing to reach the substation before heading for the fire. The trip from Sherman was substantially longer to the site.

Three oversized bays with a slightly peaked roof in the center took up most of the substation’s building, with a generous, but regulation-sized bay off to the right as an obvious afterthought. All the bays had their doors open, with the equipment fronts visible.

A small, blue pickup was parked at the side, not blocking egress from the bays.

I went to the regulation-sized bay and called out, “Hello.”

The woman who’d been at the fire station in Sherman came out of a door.

“You’re E.M. Danniher from the TV station.”

I ignored her undercurrent of antagonism.

Smiling, I walked to her with my hand extended. “I am. I saw you at the fire station, but never had an opportunity to get your name or say hello.”

Some people you couldn’t bully with friendliness into revealing a thing . . .

“Kam Droemi.”

. . . and some you could.

I took her hand, nearly dragging it from her side into a shake. That motion seemed to break her resistance, though she still didn’t succumb to my charm.

“Is Ned Irvin around?”

I felt her tension ease through our connected hands.

Had she been afraid I was here for her? But why would she think that? And what about it could scare her?

“No. Should be back soon.”

“Great. I’ll stick around.”

“You here about that cabin fire?”

“Trying to get things straight,” I said without truly answering. “I understand Ned Irvin was the lead.”

“Yeah. Just because he was closer.”

Remembering a phrase from Penny about fussing over which one, I tried a leap, while keeping it as casual as I could with, “I guess there was dispute about who would be lead.”

“Ned can get touchy about stuff like that. He’s out here at the substation and doesn’t realize guys like Miles get a lot more experience and expertise faster, even though he’s been around longer. Should have been Miles’ lead. He’s the one everybody looks up to.”

Ah. One mystery solved.

Her antagonism was over Miles Stevens. I’d talked to him at the fire station and she might have thought I was here to see him again. My asking for Ned Irvin eased some of an apprehension likely borne of possessiveness.

“Sounds like you know him well.”

I infused as much admiration into the words as I could. Some admiration for him, but not too much, to avoid sparking jealousy, which it didn’t take a genius to work out was in play here. More admiration for her, for her perception.

“I was the first person he met when he moved to Sherman. He came into the station to look for a job. He didn’t know it was all volunteer except me. I felt bad for him, so I’ve helped with computer things for his job — he did get a job.”

Defending him against criticism I’d never voiced. I wondered if others had, though.

“He’s also working on his own now,” she added, “building up his own business.”

“A job, a side gig, and volunteering. That’s impressive.”

“Yes. That’s what—”

“Hey,” came a neutral male voice from the bright sunlight of the open bay.

Kam and I walked forward.

One man, with the beginnings of gray at his temples, became visible as he stepped out of the glare.

“Ned, this woman’s looking for you,” Kam said.

I introduced myself, including being with KWMT-TV.

He was unsurprised. I detected the fell hand of Shelton. My turn not to be surprised.

“Where’s Miles?” Kam asked him.

“No idea.”

“He was supposed to be here.”

He shrugged, not interested.

She huffed a breath and walked out the bay door.

He rolled his eyes as he turned away.

I shifted to remain in his line of sight.

“And your name is . . .” I nudged.

“Ned Irvin.”

“You were in charge of the scene at Sergeant Frank Jardos’ cabin.”

Despite my making it a statement, he displayed reluctance to confirm. Didn’t make sense, since I clearly already knew, along with large portions of Cottonwood County, considering his name was on KWMT-TV and in the Sherman Independence.

“As you know,” I said with a hint of irony, “the fire and the circumstances are being looked at more closely.”

He said nothing, turning to pretend great interest in Kam pulling away in her pickup.

“Are materials being tested for a possible accelerant?”

“Not sharing information with the public.”

“Did you see other elements that might indicate arson? The burn pattern or—”

“Not sharing information with the public.”

“Anything suspicious—”

“Not sharing information with the public.”

“—or unusual?”

“Not sharing information with the public.”

Shelton locked him down tight.

I considered asking about Miles Stevens’ observations about the wet weather and the clear-cut for less than a second. No sense throwing that against the stone wall of Ned Irvin’s attitude.

“Okay, tell me general information. How predictable are fires?”

He visibly relaxed.

Ah. He liked talking about this.

“Predictable in some ways. But there’re a lot of factors.

So many factors and a twist of one, a tweak of another and it all changes.

So not predictable in detail. Now, wildfires can be even harder, because the factors interact so fast. Terrain changes produce microclimates— But you’re thinking of structure fires, I’m guessing.

So I’ll go back to not real predictable in detail. ”

“Predictable enough, maybe, to get the gist,” I recapped.

“Most times. Sometimes, though, it stumps you until after. Not right after for the hot wash, maybe not even for the AAR, sometimes never.”

I hadn’t heard hot wash before, but understood it from the context — one of those expressions that perfectly expressed its meaning. It captured the mood for on-the-spot post-newscast debriefs, too.

I so wanted to ask him where this fire fell on the predictability scale. He knew that. Just as I knew he wouldn’t tell me.

Okay, Ned Irvin. Questions didn’t work? Let’s try statements.

“This fire did not act predictably. The likely accelerant would explain anomalies that you experienced.”

“Who told you that?”

“It’s apparent from video our cameraperson took from the rise behind the site. A copy of it” As I strongly suspected he already knew. “—has gone to the Cottonwood County Sheriff’s Department. We found the evidence. We knew it first. We’re telling you.”

“It’s not confirmed,” he said.

“I know there hasn’t been time for finalized results. That doesn’t stop the preliminary report from including that the patterns and other anomalies would be consistent with an accelerant.”

He was stubbornly silent.

“So you abandoned the site, dropped the whole thing, took no evidence—”

“Of course not,” he snapped.

Finally, the prodding reached him.

Though he tried to recover. “We preserved evidence in case, but . . .” He shrugged with would-be dismissiveness.

Dismissive because, with an assumption that Sergeant Jardos killed himself, what did it matter if he also used an accelerant to set fire to his cabin?

It might even make a kind of sense for someone committing suicide to destroy the physical vestiges of the life he was ending.

But Ned Irvin and I both knew he wasn’t truly shrugging off the possibility. He was preserving it — for Shelton.

“Tell me about when the fire was called in.”

“Nothing special. Somebody saw smoke. That started us. Knew the location when we got here to our equipment. Turnout was good. For as far out as it was, was real happy with our response time and the Sherman crew was right on it. Later, got help from the next county. Good to have fresh guys then.”

“Were you surprised by the size of the fire?”

“Lots of wood,” he said.

“What about the amount of smoke?”

A flicker of a frown, but no words.

I prodded again. “Was it wet around the cabin before you got there?”

“We’ve had wet weather.” But the frown flickered deeper.

“Wetter than you’d expect?”

Another pickup pulled in, this one dusty dark red. Irvin glanced at it without any noticeable reaction.

“Maybe. Nothing definite.”

I let him off there. It wasn’t worth pushing. “How did you come to be in charge?”

That returned his attention to me, along with a side dish of irritation. “Closer to the event, more experience. That’s the way it’s always been done.”

He looked over his shoulder at the truck, then back to me.

“I have things to do.”

It wasn’t a request or an excuse, much less a sorry.

But, hey, I could take it however I wanted.

“No need to apologize. I appreciate your time and that I can come back to you with more questions. Bye, Ned.”

He side-eyed me, but didn’t argue. With a small farewell raise of his hand, he headed toward an interior door.

I took one more step toward the exit when the figure coming inside from the pickup truck became recognizable as Miles Stevens.

Despite no questions immediately coming to mind, I reflexively slowed.

He smiled widely. “Hey, E.M. Danniher from the TV station.”

“Hi, Miles.”

He looked around. “That other one’s not here, the girl from the fire?”

This made me even more glad Nola wasn’t interested in him.

My parents, other loved ones, and anyone over eighty whom I like could call me a girl. No one else, and I hereby extended that rule to cover Nola Choi.

“No, you’ll have to make do with me. What are you doing here?”

“I do maintenance for our equipment, so I go back and forth, depending on what needs to be done where. With so much equipment called out to the cabin fire, I’m catching up. That’s the way it is with a mostly volunteer department.”

“It’s great of you to volunteer when I understand you’re working another job?”

“The maintenance is my job. Not full-time, but I don’t need a whole lot. Do some other jobs for folks, too.”

“You have another side gig? Something with computers?”

“Computers? What would make you think that?”

A fleeting temptation to give up Kam Droemi didn’t stand up to the professional instinct to protect sources, even over trivialities.

I hitched a shoulder. “Don’t even remember now. But I suppose every business, every side gig involves computers.”

“Well, that much is true.” He tried another grin. “Gotta get to work.”