Page 55 of Head Room
“No idea.”
“He was supposed to be here.”
He shrugged, not interested.
She huffed a breath and walked out the bay door.
He rolled his eyes as he turned away.
I shifted to remain in his line of sight.
“And your name is...”I nudged.
“Ned Irvin.”
“You were in charge of the scene at Sergeant Frank Jardos’ cabin.”
Despite my making it a statement, he displayed reluctance to confirm.Didn’t make sense, since I clearly already knew, along with large portions of Cottonwood County, considering his name was on KWMT-TV and in theSherman Independence.
“As you know,” I said with a hint of irony, “the fire and the circumstances are being looked at more closely.”
He said nothing, turning to pretend great interest in Kam pulling away in her pickup.
“Are materials being tested for a possible accelerant?”
“Not sharing information with the public.”
“Did you see other elements that might indicate arson?The burn pattern or—”
“Not sharing information with the public.”
“Anything suspicious—”
“Not sharing information with the public.”
“—or unusual?”
“Not sharing information with the public.”
Shelton locked him down tight.
I considered asking about Miles Stevens’ observations about the wet weather and the clear-cut for less than a second.No sense throwing that against the stone wall of Ned Irvin’s attitude.
“Okay, tell me general information.How predictable are fires?”
He visibly relaxed.
Ah.He liked talking about this.
“Predictable in some ways.But there’re a lot of factors.So many factors and a twist of one, a tweak of another and it all changes.So not predictable in detail.Now, wildfires can be even harder, because the factors interact so fast.Terrain changes produce microclimates— But you’re thinking of structure fires, I’m guessing.So I’ll go back to not real predictable in detail.”
“Predictable enough, maybe, to get the gist,” I recapped.
“Most times.Sometimes, though, it stumps you until after.Not right after for the hot wash, maybe not even for the AAR, sometimes never.”
I hadn’t heardhot washbefore, but understood it from the context — one of those expressions that perfectly expressed its meaning.It captured the mood for on-the-spot post-newscast debriefs, too.
I so wanted to ask him where this fire fell on the predictability scale.He knew that.Just as I knew he wouldn’t tell me.
