Page 14 of Head Room

“Where was the body found?”Diana asked, already busy with her camera.

“Nola reported its feet were near the fireplace — probably that area under the beam that looks more intact and that’s why the boots survived.Then its head toward the room’s center.”I caught part of a frown behind her camera.

“What?”

“Most fires start at the fireplace.Unless it’s a lightning strike.Or, I suppose, an electrical fire.Or if they were cooking with propane or something like that.”

“That’s a lot of unlesses.”

She grunted acknowledgment of my point.

“Let’s go up there,” she said.

I looked around for stairs.There were none.Not even a ladder, which would be a distant second choice.

“Up where?”

Diana ignored my question and strode toward a gap in the outer circle of tape, where either the trees grew oddly taller or the ground rose above where we stood.

She exhibited far more energy than I felt at the prospect of that climb, even though she was carrying a not insignificant camera and equipment bag.

She’d spent years in her young adulthood slinging around bales of hay and otherwise helping her husband with their family ranch.That was before he died in a ranch accident and she leased out most of the acreage, while going to work at KWMT-TV to support their two kids, while also holding onto the ranch as their legacy.

During that same period, I was winsomely putting microphones in front of people who didn’t want to answer the questions I asked, but sure would love to be on camera for something other than what they were on camera for.

Her training came in handier in these circumstances than mine did.

I put off the climb by pretending walking around the scene outside the inner ring of police tape would tell me something — or anything.

Mostly what it told me was I could still feel heat coming off the pile in irregular spurts.It also told me the debris was quite irregular.Some places burned to ash.Others had charred remnants of structural wood.And now and then a recognizable object despite damage.

Most of the items were close to the hearth.Along with the pot I’d spotted earlier, a trio of fire tools survived, as did the metal legs of what might have been a small table to one side of the chimney.

“Elizabeth, c’mon up here,” Diana called.

With a put-upon sigh, I followed her, though nowhere near at her pace.

The path played tag with a creek running alongside, tracking the bank for a while, then pulling away, then returning.The creek was mostly narrow, occasionally widening, which often corresponded with rockier areas.

I huffed and puffed as I reached where she’d come to a stop on an inclined path created by those mountain goats you see hanging off the side of cliffs.

She had the camera pointed through a gap in the vegetation and was absorbed with whatever view its lens gave her, giving my lungs time to stand down from fear of explosion.

“Huh.”That was not Diana huffing or puffing.Instead, it was a comment of discovery, which also caused her to put room between her face and the camera’s viewfinder to look down at the burned-out scene she’d been filming.

She looked through the camera again, then repeated pulling back to look at the scene not through the camera.

I was curious enough to askWhat?But still too oxygen-deprived.

“Look at this,” she said without making me ask, demonstrating why she’s become one of my closest friends.

Satisfying my curiosity while sparing my lungs.How could you not value a person like that?

I looked through the viewfinder.

“What am I looking at?”

“No hints.”