One Careless Moment (8 page)

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LATE THE NEXT morning, I wake up on the floor, my pants around my ankles, an arm pinned under my thigh. Apparently, I didn't make it far from the door after Grey escorted me to my room. I was probably trying to undress and lost my balance. Motel rooms should come with emergency pull-cords, like hospital bathrooms. It takes me a while to roll over and sit up, longer to come to an upright position. Then I stumble again and crash onto my elbows.

“Sorry Lord, I'll be good now.”

The higher powers are not impressed and when I stand again, I'm in purgatory. There's a funeral in my head for the dead brain cells, complete with drums and chanting. I limp into the bathroom, rinse my mouth with water. The chlorine taste isn't much of an improvement. In the mirror I can see the weave of the motel carpet on my cheek. Nice to know I can still make a good impression. I want a long shower, but the water burns the scab on my back.

In the motel restaurant, I order apple juice. The waitress, a weary-looking woman in her fifties, tells me the special is bacon and eggs, but the mere suggestion of grease causes an unpleasant turbulence from below and I order waffles — food I can empathize with.

It's a lovely morning. I wander down main street, not really sure where I'm going. I just want to get away from the motel, want to be on the move. What I really need is a long drive and plenty of loud music, but since I have neither, I content myself with a roaring headache and a long meandering walk in the heat.

The town of Carson Lake is strung along the highway, conveniently forcing through traffic to slow down and stop at a half-dozen lights. While stopped, the discerning commuter can peruse a selection of grocery stores with casinos, gas stations with casinos, and restaurants with casinos. In fact, every building seems to advertise gambling and cold beer. There's even a laundromat and casino; if you're short on change, you'll have to decide if you want to play the slots or wash your underwear. I stop in the shade of a tiny ice cream parlour, buy an extra-large vanilla. The girl behind the counter offers me a selection of scratch-and-win tickets. I buy one, just to fit in.

I push on, taking advantage of patches of shade thrown by buildings and dim verandas. I'm downtown now, where buildings are closer together and there are fewer trees. A guy standing in the parking lot of the Chicken Coop Casino and Lounge is using the side mirror of his truck to shave. Kids on skateboards practise their moves in front of a grocery store. Pop's Family Restaurant sits across the highway from Mom's Grill and Souvenir Shop — they must have had a falling out. The door of a service station is plastered with purple ribbons and I begin to notice them everywhere. Passersby wear them like Memorial Day flowers and I realize with a jolt that is exactly what they are. A big rental sign along the highway proclaims, “We Miss You BB” and the flag at the post office is at half-mast. I pull my cap a little lower. Standing in the shade of a service station, a scruffy-looking kid sidles up to me.

“Hey man,” he says quietly. “You looking for something?”

He's maybe seventeen, with ripped jeans and a baggy jacket.

“My sanity,” I tell him. “Have you seen it?”

He ignores the remark. “I can hook you up with some good weed.”

“No thanks.”

“Homegrown.” He grins, showing me his two teeth. “No additives or preservatives.”

“I'm trying to cut down on mind-altering substances.”

But this is good shit, he persists — practically health food. I'm starting to lose my temper when he suddenly turns away, vanishes into the service station. A black-and-white sheriff 's suv pulls to the pump. Deputy Compton scowls from behind reflective sunglasses.

I'm not in a socializing mood and swing away from Main Street, past the back of the service station. Beyond this the streets are narrower. Large ponderosa cast shadows. Despite marginally cooler temperatures, the backside of town is somewhat less attractive. Trailers and old stucco houses sit amicably next to metal-clad shops and industrial storage yards. Swing sets and sandboxes share space with dead cars. What the area lacks in presence, it makes up for in churches — an interesting contrast with the casinos along the highway.

The streets wind and I find myself at the edge of town, among the trees.

I rest in the shade of a massive sign announcing the new Lazy Pine subdivision. A cheery, rotund face beams at me from the sign, espousing the virtues of Lazy Pine, a quiet neighbourhood of architecturally controlled single-family homes. It's quiet all right — there's nothing here but a maze of dead-end gravel roads with electrical service wires sticking out of the ground. I'm suddenly very thirsty and start back for the motel.

These streets were probably wagon trails at one time, the way they meander. Does Juniper Drive continue all the way to the highway? No, it ends at Birch Street. Naughty Pine Lane sounds interesting but dead-ends at a machine shop. I spend a bit of time going in circles around Larch Crescent until finding a secondary road leading straight to the highway. A service station lures me in and I buy a bottle of deliciously cold grapefruit juice, which I drink at the checkout. A woman standing by the window watches me.

“Are you Porter Cassel?”

I don't like being identified by strangers and pretend not to hear her, quickly stepping outside. I don't make it far before I hear the door open. There's a van with a familiar logo at the gas pumps. I've got to stop hanging around service stations.

“I'm a friend of Christina Telson,” she says, trotting up beside me.

Reluctantly, I stop and turn to face her.

“You are Porter Cassel, aren't you?” she says, her eyebrows arched. She's quite attractive even without the blue business suit and cameraman.

“If you're a friend of Christina's,” I tell her evenly, “you know that I don't give interviews.”

“Yes, well, we're colleagues,” she says, giving me a six o'clock smile.

I turn away, keep walking. She calls after me, asking for a few minutes of my time — that's all. Just a few questions. This is an opportunity to tell my side of the story, to set the record straight. I didn't know the record wasn't straight but pass on the opportunity. I think she's given up until the van rolls quietly beside me, the window down. She's got her microphone ready.

“Mr. Cassel, I understand it was your decision to go up on the ridge.”

I keep walking but she continues her rolling interview, so I switch directions. The van lurches, then backs up. Just as they catch me, I go forward again and the van rocks. So does the reporter, trying to steady herself with one hand on the dash. She sticks her head out the window.

“You were the incident commander —”

I switch directions again, but the novelty has worn thin and I make an undignified retreat across the service station lot, into a narrow walkway between two buildings. The van circles around, trying to corner me, but I double back and run across the highway, dodging logging trucks. A horn blares but I make it to the other side, dash into a pocket of trees. When I glance back, the van is still circling the service station.

I chuckle, head for the motel, keeping to back alleys. But the last laugh is on me. The parking lot of the motel is full of media vans. Cameramen are setting up, reporters doing sound checks.

I fade back, start looking for a phone booth.

A green minivan pulls to the curb, and for a second I think it's the reporters again, but it's Grey and a few unfamiliar faces. The door slides open and I'm practically yanked inside. Three serious-looking individuals in suits frown at me. Grey wasn't drinking last night, but he looks hungover.

“You should have stayed at the motel,” he says.

The minivan pulls away from the curb, turns down a back street.

“Good morning, Mr. Cassel,” says one of the suits, sitting beside me. He introduces himself as Mark Castellino, principal death investigator for the Missoula County Sheriff 's Department. Behind me is Robert Haines, a sheriff 's department arson specialist and, in the front passenger seat, Kirk Noble, a Forest Service special agent from Washington.

“Quite a zoo you got going here,” says Noble, looking back.

“Yeah. I had to run from one of them earlier.”

Noble looks concerned. He's chunky, balding, and sunburned. “You tell them anything?”

I shake my head.

“Good,” he says. “This is a sensitive situation. We don't have many arson-related fireline fatalities, and even fewer investigations involving out-of-country service people. In fact, I'd have to say this is a rather unique situation.” He loosens his tie as he talks. He's got a big neck and a few more chins pop out. “The plan for the next few days is to set you up out of town, where you'll be away from prying eyes. We'll be set up close by as well. We may need to speak with you on a fairly regular basis, until the circumstances are clear in everyone's mind.”

I thought they were already clear — I screwed up and someone got killed.

“How does this all fit together?” I ask. “The different jurisdictions?”

“I operate out of Washington,” Noble says, in case I didn't catch this the first time. “Our organization is a little different from the Canadian model. The US Forest Service has an autonomous law enforcement branch. We handle most criminal violations occurring in national forests, and arson is certainly one of them. But we don't handle crimes against people — that's the jurisdiction of the local sheriff 's department. In this case, the fatality does complicate things. We're looking at a potential homicide now, and this is where Mr. Castellino and Mr. Haines become involved. They'll be the leads from the sheriff's department.”

“Is the Forest Service conducting their own arson investigation?”

Noble frowns. “That hasn't been entirely worked out yet. Because the arson is essentially the homicide, the Forest Service likely won't conduct a separate investigation into the cause of the fire. We'll function as an attachment to the sheriff 's team, provide some expert advice.”

I glance over at Haines. “Have you investigated wildfire arson before?”

Haines shakes his head. He's pale, with a long face and thin sandy-blond hair. “Just structure arsons, but the concepts are the same.”

I nod, thinking this could be an awkward arrangement.

Noble gives me an appraising look. “I understand you're a wildfire investigator as well.”

“I do a little work with the Forest Service in Alberta.”

“Yes, I've heard about you,” he says ambiguously, which makes me a little nervous. “I'll be interested in your observations regarding the origin, since there doesn't seem to be any physical evidence remaining.”

It sounds vaguely like an accusation but I let it slide.

“What about the burnover itself?” I ask. “How is that investigated?”

“There'll be an entrapment investigation team,” Noble says, craning his neck — he's getting a kink from looking over his shoulder. “They'll try to determine exactly what happened; identify the contributing factors. I'll serve as liaison, but Mr. Grey here will be the lead.”

Grey doesn't say anything and we ride in silence for a few minutes.

“Have you had any contact with the Forest Service in Alberta?” I ask Noble.

He nods. “Our director called your director.”

I think about Gil Patton, Provincial Director of Forest Protection. With his blood pressure, this might kill him — I'd have two bodies on my hands. Maybe by the time I return, he'll have calmed down. Maybe I'll just move to the Caribbean and sell T-shirts on the beach.

We turn off the highway onto a secondary road, pass a log-building company with several partially constructed houses in their yard, and a small sawmill. We turn down another narrower road where a sign announces Lakeside Estates. Carson Lake flashes through the trees as we pull into a meandering driveway. Log cabins are set amid towering ponderosa. Lawns are manicured and there's a private beach. This is definitely a step up from the Paradise Gateway Motel. We park in front of a cabin, beside another unmarked minivan and a sheriff 's blackand-white.

Inside, it's obvious the cabin is being used as an operations centre. Maps are tacked to the walls, the fire boundary, origin, and fatality site marked. Photographs are pinned to a portable corkboard, images I'd just as soon forget — a bit of a contrast to the homey, fishing-lodge atmosphere of the room. We pull out chairs around a wide dining-room table. The chandelier is made of artfully interlaced elk horns. Paintings of serene mountains hang on the walls. The domestic splendour does little to quell my nervousness as we sit down.

“We've got a few things to discuss,” says Castellino. “We'll try to keep this informal.”

He pulls a mini-cassette recorder from an inside suit pocket, sets it on the table, the microphone pointing at me. Noble, Haines, and Grey all have pads of paper in front of them, pens poised to take notes. It looks like Castellino will be the ringleader.

“Let's start with the origin,” he says. “What was your first indication this was an arson?”

“I found a fusee cap,” I say, staring at the tiny recorder.“It was along the road, a short distance into the trees, as though someone tossed it as they ran to their vehicle.”

“Did you encounter any vehicles on your way in?”

“Nothing after we left the highway.”

“What about vehicle tracks?”

I shake my head. “The road surface was very hard. And our own vehicles didn't help.”

Castellino frowns. He's short and swarthy, with black hair going grey, receding at the temples, and a thin, fifties-style moustache.

“Did you search further up the trail?”

“No. I was a little busy.”

Noble looks at Grey. “Where does that road lead?”

“Goes another ten or fifteen miles, then dead-ends.”

“Someone said there were people living up there.”

Grey doesn't look terribly impressed. “Bunch of old hippies.”

“Do they have a lease or something?”

“Yeah, right,” Grey snorts.

“You're just letting them squat up there, on government land?”

“They dragged a couple of beat-up trailers onto an old wellsite,” says Grey. “Land belongs to the Bureau of Land Management, and the wellsite is still under some company's name. I think there's even a wellhead there. Either way, it's not really our concern. They'll stay until winter, grow their organic vegetables, or whatever the hell it is they grow, then give up when it gets cold and move on.”

“You ever have a problem with them?”

Grey looks thoughtful, shakes his head. Castellino and Haines exchange glances. “Nothing substantial from our end,” says Castellino. “You see them in town once in a while, buying groceries, but they pretty much keep to themselves.”

“What do you know about them?” says Noble.

“Nothing really,” admits Castellino. “They've only been there since spring.”

“Could they have started the fire?”

“I doubt it. They're not crazy about drawing attention to themselves.”

“Could someone be trying to get rid of them?” I ask.

“Not that we know of,” says Castellino. “But anything is possible.”

“Seems unlikely,” says Grey. “They're quite a bit north of the canyon, on the far side of a ridge.”

“Doesn't take a fire long to cross a ridge,” says Noble, giving me a critical look. There's a brief, uncomfortable silence during which everyone does a remarkable job of not looking at me.

“Have there been other fires like this?”

More silence. No one seems eager to answer my question. Castellino thoughtfully rubs his chin. Haines is redesigning a paperclip. Grey is twisting the end of his moustache. He glances around when my eyes reach him, seems to accept that he'll have to answer. “It's been a few years since we had anything we could say for certain was arson. Last time, it was some guy using homemade napalm. Glue and gasoline. He'd slosh the stuff around on the trees, then stand in one spot, throwing matches until one caught. We nabbed him at the hospital after his leg caught fire. Burned himself pretty good.”

“Could that be related?”

“I doubt it,” says Grey. “He's in the loony bin now.”

“What about motive? What's the employment situation like?”

Grey shakes his head. “Our crews are on all summer, and they've been busy.”

“Any contentious timber sales or land developments?”

“Not in that area,” says Grey. “Too rugged.”

Haines scribbles in his notepad. Castellino realizes I've been asking more questions than him and frowns. “Let's get back to this fusee cap you found near the road. What did you do with it?”

“I bagged it, to preserve any prints, and locked it in the truck.”

Castellino glances at Grey. “We'll have to get that cap to the lab right away.”

Grey nods, makes a note of this. “I don't think so,” I say.

“What?” Castellino gives me a dark look. “Why not?”

“It was in the Forest Service truck behind the ridge.”

“The vehicle that was incinerated?”

“That's the one. I told this to Aslund. It's probably in his report.”

“Did you mark the spot where you found this cap?”

I hesitate. “No.”

“Can you identify the location?”

“Sure. Unfortunately, the location has been disturbed.”

Noble looks irritated. “Like everything else.”

“What sort of disturbance?” asks Haines, his knobby fingers laced together.

“The D8 type of disturbance,” I tell them. “The area is now a parking lot.”

Noble stands, goes to a wall map printed on orthophotography — aerial photos corrected for scale so measurements can be taken from the image. The photo is a few years old but, other than the fire, little has changed. He taps a pen at a spot where the perimeter of the fire, marked with a heavy black line, approaches the main trail.

“Can you mark where you found the fusee cap?”

I oblige, put a red dot about where I think I found the cap.

“About a hundred and twenty yards from the origin,” says Noble. He tugs at his tie, still too tight for his thick neck. He mops his forehead with a kerchief pulled from a pants pocket and looks at me.

“Could you show me how you traced the fire back to the origin?”

Using the red marker as a pointer, I relate where I entered the fire, what signs I noted. Haines and Castellino join us at the map. Castellino has the recorder in hand, pointing it at me like a reporter. Noble frowns when I tell them about the mixed char patterns, how I used the fire spread rate and game trail to locate the origin.

“So, I wouldn't necessarily find the same origin,” he says.

It's my turn to frown. “What do you mean?”

He points to the origin marked on the map. “If I relied on char patterns, and other traditional indications of fire spread, I could easily draw a different conclusion.”

“Maybe,” I say slowly, wondering where he's going with this. “But I doubt it.”

“Why might that be?”

“Have you been out there?”

“This morning,” he says. “First light. But indulge me.”

“Okay. Like I said, the char patterns are multidirectional, indicating variable winds and correspondingly variable directions of fire spread; no doubt a result of complex terrain patterns. Unless you know something I don't, you'd have to rely on the same indicators — the rate of fire spread and the likely route of access into the origin area. What was your conclusion?”

“Based on what I found, I couldn't draw a conclusion.”

“You couldn't draw a conclusion?”

He shakes his head and I get an uncomfortable feeling he doesn't believe me.

“Are you questioning my origin?”

“Not at all,” Noble says hastily, raising his hands. “I didn't have the benefit of the physical evidence you found, or your early arrival at the fire. I was merely curious how you determined the origin. Given the char patterns, you did a hell of a job.”

There's a silence. Haines and Castellino study the map. Grey leans back in his chair, looking critical. Despite Noble's assurances, I can't help wondering if he doubts I found the origin at all, and it's making me a little defensive.

“I did find the origin,” I say. “And there was fusee slag there.”

“No one is questioning whether you found the origin,” says Noble. “You were there; we weren't. As for the contamination, it's not that uncommon. First priority is knocking down the flames. People tend to forget about the subsequent investigation, and its requirements.”

Haines is nodding.“I can't tell you how many times that's happened.”

There's an awkward pause, filled with the sound of a dripping coffee machine.

“You mentioned fusee slag,” Castellino says quietly. “Was there anything else?”

“I didn't dig around looking for a nail or the end of the fusee. I didn't have the time to do a thorough crime scene investigation, so I didn't want to disturb the site any more than necessary.”

“Understandable,” says Haines. “You were there as the incident commander, not a forensic specialist.”