J. Jance - Trial By Fire

“With the current housing crisis, they’re not worth nearly that much. Probably three fifty to four hundred thou. Maybe ELF has decided to go downscale rather than up.”

“What about the wall?” Ali asked. “The one with the ELF tagline.”

“That’s still standing,” he said. “Once the sun comes up tomorrow morning, anybody with a pair of binoculars will know this was arson. We know it, too, thanks to Camp Verde ’s accelerant-sniffing dog.”

“I saw Sparks,” Ali told him, but the sheriff’s comment left Ali second-guessing her actions. “Should I have announced it was arson tonight?”

“Hell, no. You did exactly what I wanted you to do. I’ll make the arson announcement myself first thing tomorrow. Let’s say nine a.m. on the courthouse steps in Prescott. If you could send out a notice about that between now and then, I’d appreciate it.”

“I’m still not sure why we didn’t make the announcement tonight.”

“That’s easy,” Sheriff Maxwell said with a sardonic smile. “You can’t hand over every little detail all at once. Got to dribble it out a little at a time and give those yahoos reason to come back. That also gives them a reason to write two stories instead of just one. That’s good for them and good for us. How else am I going to keep my name out there in public?”

He started to walk away, then paused. “By the way,” he added, “the guy who asked about the ELF thing is named Kelly Green.”

“What kind of a name is Kelly Green?” Ali asked. “Is that some kind of joke?”

“His real name was the joke. His given name was Oswald. He changed it to Kelly a few years ago.”

“I guess I would have changed it, too,” Ali said.

“Mr. Green likes to think of himself as the Arizona Reporter’s star investigative reporter. He’s also a royal pain in the butt, but he was one of Devon ’s favorites, so watch your back around him.”

“Favorites?” Ali asked.

“As in feeding him scoops before information went to any of the other media outlets.”

“Got it,” Ali said.

Gordon Maxwell walked away then. Watching him go, Ali understood a whole lot more about Sheriff Maxwell than she had before. He was a politician and a canny operator. Yes, the man was caught in a war between rival union factions at work, but he was also an elected official who, in order to win reelection, needed to show the workings of his department in the best possible light. Sheriff Maxwell was using Ali Reynolds as part of his own charm offensive in the same way Edie Larson used her sweet rolls.

Dave Holman drove up behind her, stopped, and came over to where Ali was standing. “How’d you do?” he asked.

“All right, I guess,” she said. “Sheriff Maxwell seemed pleased.”

“You aren’t?”

After a short-lived romance, Ali and Dave had fallen back into their longtime friendship. It was nonetheless disconcerting for Ali to realize that Dave sometimes knew her better than she would have liked.

“One of the reporters nailed me with a gotcha question about an ELF-related fire up near Prescott a few years ago. He acted like I should have known all about it.”

“I remember that one,” Dave said. “It happened right after I came back from deployment-a fire that turned a Street of Dreams into a Street of Nightmares. The houses-expensive one-of-a-kind homes-were close to completion when they were burned to the ground. What the insurance settlement paid wasn’t enough to make the developer whole, and he ended up going bust. The poor guy walked away, and the project was abandoned.”

“What happened then?” Ali asked.

“They brought in an army of bulldozers and front-end loaders and carted away the debris. As far as I know, the property sits empty to this day. The trees were cut down to make way for construction. Now the trees aren’t there and neither are the houses. I believe ELF did claim responsibility for the fire, but no one was ever charged or arrested, to say nothing of tried and convicted.”

“In other words,” Ali said, “what ELF got for their trouble is one poor guy who’s been driven out of business and a beautiful piece of real estate that’s permanently wrecked.”

“That’s right,” Dave agreed. “It also means the terrorists won that round.”

“So far,” Ali said. “Maybe this time we’ll catch them.”

“We?” Dave repeated with a smile. “That sounds like you’re taking this investigation personally. I’m not so sure that’s just a consultant talking.”

Ali laughed. “I’m not so sure, either. Now, tell me about the victim. Do we know anything?”

Dave’s smile disappeared. “Before they hauled her away in the ambulance, I talked to Caleb Moore, the guy who brought the burn victim out. He’s really broken up about it. He says she’s badly hurt and isn’t likely to make it.”

“He has no idea who she is?”

“None, but I doubt she was the one setting the fire,” Dave said. “For one thing, she was stark naked and trapped on a stack of drywall piled in the middle of a sea of flames. I’ve come up against arsonists from time to time, but never one who went around setting fires buck naked.”

“A vagrant then?” Ali asked.

“Could be, but not likely,” Dave answered. “Even though it’s May, it can still get plenty cold overnight. These houses were under construction. That means there was no heat inside, and it makes no sense that she’d be there without any clothes on.”

“Young or old?” Ali asked.

“Caleb said he couldn’t tell exactly, but an older woman-mid-sixties to seventies. It’s unlikely that a grandmotherly type like that would be going around setting fires.”

A radio transmission came through summoning Dave back to the scene of the fire. Shaking her head, Ali climbed into the Cayenne and headed home.

Once the remodeling process on her own home had been completed and there were no longer workers coming and going at all hours, Ali had installed an electronically operated gate as well as an intercom at the bottom of the driveway. The gate closed automatically at 6 p.m. She and Leland both had gate openers in their vehicles. Overnight, anyone else had to call and ask for permission to enter.

When Ali came up the driveway, she noted that the lights were off in Leland’s fifth-wheel trailer, parked on the far side of the house.

“I don’t see why you don’t move back inside now that the house is finished,” Ali had said to Leland Brooks. “You’re more than welcome to stay in your old room.”

Leland had lived in the house for years, looking after both the troubled Arabella Ashcroft and her mother. He had moved into a fifth-wheel during the long months of remodeling.

“I’m quite accustomed to having my own place now,” he had responded cheerfully. “It’s tidy and small, and it gives us both some privacy.”

In case either of us ever needs any, Ali had thought.

Her brief romance with Dave Holman had ended even if their friendship hadn’t, and Leland’s long-term relationship with Yavapai County Superior Court judge Patrick Macey had also run its course.

Ali had let Leland’s housing decision stand without any further discussion, and in truth she was enjoying having the house all to herself. She had loved having Chris around in the house on Andante Drive, but it was also nice to be completely on her own and in her own place. There had been no question that the Beverly Hills mansion where she had lived with her second husband, Paul Grayson, had been his before she arrived, while she lived there, and after she left. And in many ways, the house on Andante Drive still bore the stamp of Ali’s aunt Evie, who had bequeathed it to her niece.

This home was Ali’s. It was far smaller than Paul’s but larger than Aunt Evie’s. That went for everything from furniture to appliances to the radiant heat in the floors.