Hot, Shot, and Bothered

by Nora McFarland

  Lee grabbed the railing and carefully walked down.

  “I was just looking around,” I said. “I thought maybe the police missed something.”

  “Does Byrdie know you’re out here?”

  “I doubt it.”

  He stopped at the bottom step. “Why didn’t you just ask to see the dock? You could have fallen stumbling around in the dark.”

  “Sorry. I only wanted a quick look.”

  “Well, there’s nothing to see.” He gestured to the side. “Except the empty space where our boat used to be.”

  “Lilly?” Rod appeared at the top of the steps.

  “She’s down here,” Lee called.

  Rod started down, but his cell phone rang and he paused to answer it.

  I looked at Lee. “Did the police talk to your neighbors about the night Jessica died? Did they see anyone coming or going from the house?”

  “None of our neighbors were here. Either they already evacuated or this is their second home.” Lee covered his nose. “Do you mind if we go back inside? We shouldn’t be out here without handkerchiefs.” He turned and started back up the steps.

  I followed and we joined Rod at the top.

  “That was Dennis.” Rod put away the cell phone. “He’s waiting for us at the top of the mountain. We need to go.” He turned to Lee. “I’m sorry. We’ll have to postpone the interview.”

  “That’s probably best.” Lee headed back toward the house and we followed. “I appreciate you giving Byrdie this kind of exposure, but it’s the middle of the night and she’s exhausted.”

  We followed him through a sliding glass door and then back through the house. Lee continued into the kitchen to speak with Byrdie, but Rod and I stayed with my gear in the living room.

  As soon as we were alone, Rod whispered, “Sorry I couldn’t stall her any longer. Fitzgerald came home unexpectedly.”

  I returned the gloves to my gear bag. “It’s okay. I had enough time.” I handed Rod the piece of the photo I’d found in the trash. “Someone shredded a bunch of stuff. It looks familiar, but I can’t place it.”

  He turned it over in his hands. “The photo is in black and white, but the paper’s not old. There aren’t very many kinds of modern photos that are printed in black and white.”

  That’ when I recognized it. “I’ve seen this background before. It’s in the Elizabeth yearbooks. The Fitzgeralds shredded their old school photos.” I looked up at Rod. “They must be hiding something. We need to confront them.”

  “Shredding photos is definitely odd, but it hardly qualifies as a smoking gun.” Rod shook his head. “And we need to go do our live shot.”

  I turned and entered the kitchen. Byrdie and Lee stopped talking when I entered.

  The black granite counters and stainless-steel appliances looked modern and sharp. They clashed with the kitschy knickknacks and lace doilies decorating the room.

  Byrdie looked up from pouring the contents of a stainless-steel carafe into a china coffeepot. Cups and saucers with the same flowery pattern sat on the counter. Lee hovered nearby at a plate of cookies.

  “Why didn’t you just ask to see the dock?” Byrdie said.

  I held up the scrap I’d found in the garage. “Why are you shredding your old photos?”

  She flushed. “You had no right to go through my trash.” Byrdie returned the carafe to the coffeemaker on the counter, then looked at Lee. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I shredded the old pictures we still had of Jessica. I was too upset to . . .” Her voice choked.

  He put his arms around her. “It’ll be okay, honey.”

  I held up the fragment of the photo. “Why didn’t you want anyone to see these pictures?”

  “I don’t care if people see them or not.” Byrdie blinked back tears. “I shredded the pictures so I wouldn’t have to see them. They make me feel guilty, and I don’t like feeling guilty.”

  Rod stepped forward from the doorway. “What do you have to feel guilty about?”

  “Nothing.” Lee pulled a tissue from a pink box and handed it to her. “You have nothing to feel guilty about.”

  “That’s not true.” Byrdie dabbed the tissue at her eyes. “I only saw Jessica for a few minutes last night, but she was heartbroken about the fire. She wanted me to stay. She said she needed to talk to someone, but I left her alone because I had a meeting.”

  Rod gave Lee a moment to comfort her, then said, “Given that the meeting was with the city council concerning a deadly wildfire, you really don’t have anything to feel guilty about.”

  “He’s right,” I said. “So there must be something else bothering you.”

  Lee pointed toward the door. “I think it’s time for you to go.”

  “It’s okay.” Byrdie pulled away from his grasp and took a moment to compose herself. “She’s right. There is something else.”

  She threw away the tissue in a bin under the sink, then poured coffee into a china cup.

  Lee opened the refrigerator. “You need something stronger than that. Don’t we have a bottle of chardonnay in here?”

  “No.” Byrdie frowned at him. “I told you it was gone. I think Jessica drank it last night.”

  “Oh, sorry.” Lee bent over and began looking through the shelves. “Isn’t there anything left?”

  Byrdie turned back to us. While she spoke, she added cream and sugar to her coffee cup. “Jessica’s mother had cancer. It dragged on for years before she died. When it finally happened, Jessica was a different person. She broke up with her boyfriend and stopped caring about the things that normal teenage girls are supposed to care about.”

  “So you dumped her?” My voice had sounded much angrier than I’d intended. “That’s why you feel guilty?”

  “Hey,” Lee said. “It wasn’t like that.”

  “I thought she’d snap out of it or something.” Byrdie added a packet of Equal to her coffee, in addition to the sugar, then stirred. “But then Green Seed arrived and Jessica joined right up. This was before all the development in Tilly Heights, and this area was pretty old-fashioned. A bunch of, well, hippies start telling people what they can and can’t do on their own land . . . everyone hated them.”

  “So you dumped her,” I repeated.

  Byrdie tossed the spoon down. It made a loud clank as it hit the granite. “Yes, all right. I dumped her.”

  Lee flinched.

  “But that was the least of her problems,” Byrdie continued. “She got arrested for doing some outrageous thing with the protesters, I can’t even remember what, but her father flipped out. It got really ugly between them.”

  “She chained herself to a tree,” I said. “How ugly did it get between them?”

  Byrdie took a drink of coffee, then lowered her voice. “He threatened to beat her if she saw anyone from that group again. I think he may have hit her once to show he meant it.”

  “He hit her?” Jessica had never said anything about her father being violent, but it would explain why she’d gone to such lengths to fool him. “Did you tell someone? A teacher or your parents?”

  “How do you think I found out about it? I overheard my parents talking.” Byrdie turned to Lee, who was watching her tell the story. “Sweetie, you’re letting all the cold air out.”

  He glanced down at the open refrigerator. “Oh, right. Sorry.” He shut the door, then took a cookie from a plate on the counter.

  Rod stepped farther into the room. He looked upset. “If your parents thought Jessica’s father might be abusive, why didn’t they intervene?”

  “Nobody thought he was abusive. I told you, everybody hated Green Seed and thought he was right to keep Jessica from seeing them. And they felt sorry for the man. His life unraveled after his wife died. He lost his job, and then his daughter starts chaining herself to trees.”

  “What about her brother?” Rod said. “Why didn’t he do something?”

  “Brad Egan had his own problems.” Byrdie topped off her coffee cup and added two more sugar cubes. I guess
she needed it because her tone was no longer sweet. “He was a big deal around here, but out in the real world he didn’t do so well. His big claim to fame was almost making it onto the Olympic team for archery.” She paused for emphasis. “Almost making it. He was washed-up at twenty-one.”

  “Still,” Rod said. “You’d think he would care that his father was beating his little sister.”

  “He was already grown and living somewhere else. And it wasn’t like Jessica had bruises all the time. I think it was just this one time when her dad really put his foot down about the protesters.”

  “And by put his foot down,” I said, “you mean literally, on her face?”

  “Don’t be melodramatic.” Byrdie took her coffee cup and started toward the living room. “Jessica wasn’t a saint. She was always putting things like lizards above human beings.”

  “Salamanders,” Rod said as we followed her.

  Byrdie didn’t appear to hear him as she crossed into the living room. “Like the nature preserve. She didn’t want to protect the land for future generations, or whatever. She wanted to put it under a glass dome and it would be this perfectly preserved place, and nobody would ever be allowed to use it or enjoy it. She wanted it all for herself.”

  Byrdie passed my camera and tripod and took a seat on the pristine sofa.

  Rod glanced at his watch and then looked at me. I nodded and began collecting my gear.

  Rod turned back to Byrdie. “If the nature preserve has always been so important to Jessica, then why did she only begin visiting this year?”

  “I told you before.” Lee had followed us out. “She was involved with those people, the ones she kept coming into the store with.” He hesitated near the sofa, presumably afraid to bring the plate of cookies any closer to the furniture.

  “I thought she was more than involved with someone.” Byrdie’s sharp eyes focused on Rod, then on me. “Maybe I’m wrong, and I don’t know who it was, but when I saw Jessica in the store, she looked like a schoolgirl in love. It reminded me of the old Jessica, before her mother died. Bright, open, excited.”

  “Then maybe her boyfriend wasn’t new.” I zipped up my gear bag and lifted the strap over my head. “Maybe she reconnected with someone she dated back when you were young?”

  Byrdie shook her head. “No. She only ever dated Arnie—the four of us were practically best friends—but he’s happily married now and hasn’t seen Jessica in over a decade.”

  “But he’s still living here?” Rod said.

  “Oh, sure.” Lee finished a cookie and wiped powdered sugar from his shirt. “Arnie’s born and bred. He’ll never leave. We used to run a landscaping business together out of the store, but then he quit to sell real estate.”

  I paused in the middle of picking up my sticks. “Is Arnie, Arnaldo Bedolla?”

  Byrdie and Lee glanced at each other and then nodded.

  I turned to Rod. “He’s with Search and Rescue. He’s the one who pulled Jessica’s body from the lake.”

  We’d only driven a few yards from the house before I called the IO and put him on speaker.

  “I know you wanted to interview Brad Egan on your ridealong,” he said, “but I haven’t been able to pin down his location yet. How about in the meantime Firefighter Bell takes you to that house in the nature preserve? The scientist and his students are still refusing to evacuate.”

  “Things have changed.” Speaking with Jessica’s brother again didn’t seem so important anymore. “I need to interview a man named Arnaldo Bedolla with the local Search and Rescue. I think he’s doing first aid or something down near the fire line.”

  Rod made a noise, but whatever he’d started to say, he thought better of it.

  “Okay, but consider us even after this. I appreciate your not using the tape of the mayor calling us liars, but I can’t keep doing you favors.”

  I agreed, then he promised to call back when he’d found Bedolla.

  Next, Rod called Callum. I wanted to avoid Callum for as long as possible, so I asked him not to put it on speaker. I listened as Rod apologized for missing our 4:00 a.m. live shot, but promised we’d be in place soon. He didn’t mention the drowning.

  When the call was over, Rod returned the phone to his inside coat pocket. “I’m going to finish editing. With some luck I’ll be done by the time we get there.”

  I kept my eyes on the road. “Was Callum mad we missed our slot?”

  “Yes, but he didn’t waste time dwelling on it.”

  “Does he know we’ve been working on the drowning?”

  “No, but you’ll have to tell him eventually.” Rod started to get up.

  “Hold on.” I reached into my back pocket. “See if you can do anything with Jessica’s cell. It needs a security code and I don’t know anything about iPhones.”

  He took it from me. “Where did you get this?”

  “It was in her car.”

  His voice rose. “Lilly. It could be evidence.”

  “Which is why I thought it was a bad idea to leave it sitting in an unlocked car like the Elizabeth PD did.”

  He shook his head, but took the phone with him into the rear.

  I got off the Lake Road where it intersected with Highway 55. This was the main highway over Mt. Terrill. It began at the lake, climbed through Tilly Heights, continued over the ridge, and then down into Terrill Valley. At first we had to fight against cars evacuating, but the farther up into Tilly Heights we drove, the less traffic came down.

  We stopped briefly where the road was closed. Only emergency personnel or property owners were being allowed through. Fortunately, the IO had called ahead. We were waved through and continued our climb. As we neared the top of the mountain, the sky began to warm. It looked like a sunrise trying to peak through the smoke. Sadly, it was at least an hour too early for that. I knew what was really making the sky glow with soft reds and oranges, but didn’t want to think about it.

  “We’re almost to the top,” I called back to Rod. “I figure we’ll do some live hits for Callum and KBLA, and then when the IO finds Bedolla, he can send Bell to take us on the ride-along.”

  “I’d rather he didn’t.” I couldn’t see him, but Rod’ voice sounded tired and apprehensive.

  “What do you mean? He was the dead woman’s boyfriend and never said a word about it the whole time he was pulling her body from the lake. Who knows how he could have sabotaged the autopsy? We need to get him on camera and let him have it. Maybe we can even get him to implicate himself.”

  “We’re talking about a potentially dangerous man and you almost drowned once already.”

  “So what are you saying? You won’t go? You want to do live shots for KBLA for the rest of the day?”

  Rod paused. After a few moments he said, “Don’t worry. If the IO finds Egan and Bedolla, I’ll go with you. But you’re right. I’d rather do the live shots.”

  We managed to avoid the topic for the rest of the drive. It wasn’t hard, since Rod was editing and I was busy navigating through equipment and firefighters amassing to protect Tilly Heights. After we passed the final developed lots with their expensive homes, a dense forest of ponderosa pines began. At this transition point, a firebreak was being constructed. When it was done, a twenty-foot-wide line of cleared ground would run straight across the mountain so that if the fire approached, it would run out of fuel and die.

  We passed a convoy of flatbed trucks loaded with enormous bulldozers. Teams of Hotshots like Brad Egan were gathering here too. They’d cut down trees and remove brush in the steep terrain bulldozers couldn’t reach. My headlights caught the reflective strips on their yellow helmets as the groups of mostly young men checked their supplies and equipment. They’d need to carry food, chain saws, tents, axes—everything they required to work and survive—on their backs.

  Just before reaching the top of the mountain, I turned left at a dirt road cutting through the trees. We were meeting Dennis at an abandoned Forest Service lookout on the ridge. In my headl
ights, I saw his wide tire tracks running through a thick layer of ash on the ground. Ash also covered the trees. The dirt road eventually ended in a large, flat clearing with trees on all sides. My headlights illuminated a three-story lookout tower surrounded by a chain-link fence.

  Rod shut down the editor. “I could have used another five minutes, but that’s going to have to be good enough.”

  He opened the side door, but immediately pulled his head back in. “The smoke is worse. It may be time for handkerchiefs or masks or something.”

  I’d seen the thickening haze in the headlights, so I wasn’t surprised. I went to my gear bag and removed two handkerchiefs I’d brought from Command Headquarters. We each tied one around our face so it covered our nose and mouth. We looked a little like old-time cowboy bandits.

  We got out. The ash was much, much thicker here. Our boots left prints as we walked to the other side of the building where Dennis had parked his satellite truck. I assumed he was inside, hiding from the smoke. The dirt road continued on the back side of the building and disappeared down the other side of the mountain into the trees.

  Dennis had set up his sticks and camera at the top of the road. It wasn’t a terrible place for a live shot. Despite trees blocking the view down into the valley, the striking red horizon would make a nice backdrop. But I wasn’t in the habit of settling for nice, and never on a story this big.

  I carefully walked a few feet into the thicket of trees. As my boots touched down, dead vegetation crackled under the ash.

  I got my flashlight out and continued. After roughly ten yards I stopped.

  Ahead the terrain took a sudden dip. Through a break in the trees I saw the mountain spread downward and flow out into the valley. The uninhabited land looked almost black, like an ocean at night. It suddenly ended in a horizontal line of fire.

  The explosions of yellow and orange reached into the night sky and turned the horizon bloodred. In some places, what looked like miles of pine trees were lit from within by a burning forest floor. In others, giant columns of flames strained upward into the polluted air. It looked to me as if this mass of fire, scorched ground, and smoke could swallow a person like the waters of an ocean.