Page 11 of Head Room

“Shelton would chew your derriere.But that night you weren’t on duty.”

The color intensified, but he remained silent.He was learning.Darn it.

“What else did you see or find out?”

“Nothing to find out.Cabin was owned by Frank Jardos and his wife.He retired from the Army as a sergeant.They moved here eight years ago.Irene passed away in late September — cancer — and he lived there alone ever since.Fire was reported Wednesday afternoon.Fire department worked to make sure it was contained.They were still keeping an eye on it the next day when I went back.That’s when they spotted the body.”

“And that changed things, because with the finding of a body, you were immediately back on duty, while Nola was on the story.”

He ignored the implication.“Called it in and started the process.Preserving the scene as much as possible.”

“Preserving the scene?You mean kicking out Nola Choi.”I shook my head at him.“Not the way to endear yourself to a journalist.”

“I wasn’t trying to— Besides, there wasn’t much of a scene, considering the fire and the firefighters fighting it.And she’d already been around it.And it was routine to secure it.”

Yeah.He hadn’t endeared himself to Nola and he knew it.We’d come back to that another time, but for now I had other matters to pursue.

“Could you tell anything about the body at that point?”

He side-eyed me.Justifiably.That question might elicit information from an onlooker, but not from most law enforcement, especially a Shelton protégé.

I segued into, “An ID?”

“Not until the post-mortem exam is completed.”

“By the doctor your sister, Sandra, works for?”

He didn’t speak, but he still confirmed it...which I wasn’t telling him.No reason to give him that feedback to accelerate his poker-face training.

I asked, “The general description matched the man who lived there?”

He paused.I guessed he was remembering firefighters confirming that on camera for Nola.I remembered it, too, but there was value in getting him to agree.

“Yeah.”

“With an apparent bullet wound in the head?”

“Yeah.”

“What about the gun?”

“It was found several feet from the body.”

“Oh?”

“No,” he said to my suspicions.“They knew whose cabin it was and he volunteered with them since he moved here.They went in as hard as possible.”

“He was a volunteer firefighter?”

“Some.Also support, him and his wife.”

“You think that in their zealous efforts to put out the fire, the gun was knocked out of its original position?”

“With the smoke and the debris around, it makes sense, especially considering they couldn’t even see the body was there until the next day.”

“Did the gun belong to Jardos?”

“It was badly burned.They’re trying at the lab, but with the damage...”