Trial By Fire

“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 ca

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 Caye

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.

Ali parked in the garage and then let herself into the house through the kitchen door. She wasn’t completely on her own, however; Sam showed up immediately, wrapping her body around Ali’s leg and complaining vociferously, as only cats can, for having been abandoned. This was all a lie, since Ali knew without a doubt that Leland would have fed Sam much earlier in the evening.

“You’re a terrible liar,” Ali told the cat aloud. “I know good and well that you’ve already been fed, and I’m not falling for your phony claims to the contrary.”

Ali was tired, but she was also wound up from her long night’s work. Knowing she wouldn’t be able to sleep right away, she stopped in the kitchen long enough to make herself a cup of hot cocoa. While there, she wrote a note for Leland.

“Have to be in Prescott between eight-thirty and nine,” she told him. “Don’t worry about breakfast.”

Once in her bedroom, she pulled off the clothing she had worn and wasn’t the least surprised that it smelled of smoke. A closer examination showed several places where falling embers had charred the material. The pantsuit had been expensive when she bought it and now it was ruined. She dropped it on the floor in front of her closet.

Maybe I should ask Sheriff Maxwell for a uniform allowance, she thought.

On that note she headed into her spacious marble-tiled bath for a luxurious shower. Afterward, dressed in a nightgown and robe, she took her cocoa and her computer into the small study next to her bedroom.

Time to do some homework, she told herself.

Opening her computer, she added the new names and addresses to her media contact list and then sent out an a

Finally, without even finishing her cup of cocoa, Ali gave up. She closed her computer and crawled into bed. It took no time for her to fall asleep. Not surprisingly, while sleeping, she had one recurring nightmare after another. They weren’t all exactly alike, but they were similar.