Page 56 of Head Room

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.Wefound the evidence.Weknew it first.We’retelling 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 asorry.