Page 21 of Head Room

A new noise from the baby.Wasn’t nearly as loud as the caterwauling, but Hannah’s reaction resembled a general coming to attention.

“I have to go.”

“Wait.One more thing—”

“Have to feed her.”She was already around to the driver’s door.

“—did—” Should have made itdoesto protect her sensibilities, although she didn’t seem to view Sergeant Frank Jardos as possibly alive.In stark contrast to the colonel.“—the sergeant have any enemies?”

“Frank?I don’t think so.He could be pretty outspoken, but people ’round here don’t usually mind that.”The engine and the kid nearly drowned out her final words.“Glad you’re taking care of this now.”

Great.First, the colonel and now the young mother putting this — whateverthiswas — on me.The weeds were getting deeper and deeper.And those two were fertilizer.

I rubbed the middle of my forehead.

Either a headache or a new wrinkle.

We had a cabin lived in by a solitary man that burned down.A dead man found in the cabin who roughly matched the description of the resident.Occam’s razor was the perfect implement to cut through these weeds, saying the dead man was Frank Jardos, he killed himself, and accidentally burned down his cabin in the process.

But...that pattern seen through Diana’s camera.

Unless, he purposefully burned down the cabin, first starting the fire, then shooting himself once it was well caught.

That would match with hiscoincidentalrecent comments to Hannah about what to do with his late wife’s manuscript.Already planning suicide, he set the stage with Hannah.And he stashed the manuscript and the cherished insignias of his military career in a box that would help preserve them and—.

“Was that Hannah Chaney?”Diana asked, coming up behind me.

“Uh-huh.”I might have permanently associated those syllables with the young woman.

“What do you have there?”

“A bag of manuscript pages.Hannah said she saved it from the ruins.”

“The sergeant’s?”

“No.His wife’s.Apparently, she was writing a historical romance when she died last fall.”

Her interest dropped as quickly as mine had.She applied herself to loading her equipment into her vehicle.

“What do you know about veterans living up in the forests?”In response to her questioning look over her shoulder, I added, “According to Hannah, they were Frank Jardos’ real friends.”

She nodded slowly.“I’ve heard there are off-the-grid types living up there.”

“Public or private land?”

“A mix.Haven’t heard any complaints from landowners.”

“I’ll see what Tom knows.”

“You know who else you should talk to?”

From her tone, I was afraid to guess.

Then Diana confirmed the fear.“Hiram Poppinger.”

I groaned.

Our first encounter included having the delinquent gnome waving a shotgun toward me.Although the person who outright threatened to shoot me was Shelton.