One Careless Moment

by Dave Hugelschaffer

  “I needed an aerial view of the fire. Given the fire behaviour, this location appeared acceptable.”

  Both Compton and Aslund make notes in their flip pads. They don’t press further on my use of the ridge. That’ll come later, in a task force investigation. Compton asks the next question without looking up.

  “When did you discover the fire was an arson?”

  I tell them about finding the fusee cap on the side of the road, searching for and finding the origin. They’re both watching me but I talk to Aslund. If conditions were different, it would be me in his boots, investigating the arson. I conclude with a brief description of the way the fusee appeared to have been set, based on the residue; how I marked the spot with ribbon.

  “You didn’t post a guard?” says Compton.

  “No, but I communicated a warning to all staff on the fire to stay well back.”

  Compton frowns, writes something in his flip pad.

  “I’ll need you to show me the origin,” says Aslund.

  “No problem.”

  “You saved the fusee cap?”

  “Yes, I bagged it. Unfortunately, it was in the truck.”

  “The one that burned up?”

  I nod and they both take notes. I can’t help wondering, in a situation like this involving both a fatality and arson, what the protocol is between the Sheriff ’s Office and the Forest Service. So I ask. Aslund and Compton exchange glances and it occurs to me that they’re not sure. In fact, I doubt they’ll be the ones conducting the investigation. They’re front-line people, beat cops — senior staff will undoubtedly take over an incident of this magnitude. Compton glances toward Brashaw’s fire shelter.

  “Due to the arson, Mr. Brashaw’s death will be considered a homicide.”

  Aslund and I hike down the backside of the ridge, through a stand of blackened, branchless tree trunks. He doesn’t like helicopters, he tells me. Damn things tend to crash. A plane is one thing, but that main rotor goes and you fall like a stone. So we walk.

  Ash, whipped by wind, envelops us in a choking grey cloud. With the understory stripped away, the slope is visibly steeper than I remember and I marvel that Brashaw and I managed to scramble back up to the ridge so quickly.

  “So you found the fusee cap by the road,” he says, reviewing.

  “Yes. It was a few yards into the trees.”

  “Like someone threw it?”

  “Maybe. Or they were walking off the road, to avoid footprints, and dropped it.”

  Aslund nods, thinking about this. He’s in his early forties, lean to the point of emaciation. Hair, shaved to stubble, blends with stubble on his neck and chin. Adam’s apple like the wedge of an axe. Eyes like a falcon, alert and inquisitive. “What about tire tracks?” he says.

  “Not that I noticed. But we moved a lot of vehicles and the ground is as dry as concrete.”

  The slope begins to level as we near the trail to the old bear hunting camp. Visible through a picket of black trunks, twin ruts snake their way along the side of the slope. The truck can be seen from a distance, blackened and sitting strangely low. I notice as we approach that it is resting on its rims, tires vaporized. Everything not metal is gone, even the paint, giving the vehicle a skeletal look, like the husk of a dead beetle. The windows have melted out, blobs of glass on the ground like dropped marbles. Coil springs from the seat lie in perfect formation on the metal floor, looking strangely out of place. I reach through the vacant window, pull open the glove compartment. It yields with a painful scrape.

  “Anything left?” says Aslund, coming up behind me.

  “Nothing but ash.”

  “Why did you put the cap in the glove compartment?”

  “For security. In case there were fingerprints.”

  Fusee caps are waxy and would hold a good print, in case the arsonist was careless enough not to wear gloves. Aslund nods but doesn’t say anything and we continue down the trail.

  “You’re a fire investigator?” Aslund says, walking beside me.

  “Yes. I have a contract with the Alberta Forest Service.”

  “You get many arsons up north?”

  “Too many,” I say, thinking about the previous summer. “What about you guys?”

  “Nothing like this,” he says, echoing Grey’s comment.

  “No fusee fires?”

  He shakes his head. “This is the first wildfire arson around here in years.”

  “You have any idea why someone might want to start a fire here?”

  “Not yet,” Aslund says with a half grin. “But I’m working on it.”

  At the road, we’re mobbed by firefighters from Brashaw’s crew. They’ve been monitoring the radio and know the fatality must be their leader. They want details. More information doesn’t always make it easier but I tell them most of what happened. They’re suddenly silent, listening to me, the horror of it clear on their faces. This is every firefighter’s worst nightmare and they stare at their boots, scuffing dirt listlessly.

  “I’m sure it happened quickly,” I tell them. It’s not much, but it’s something.

  “Don’t tell anyone,” Aslund cautions. “We’ve got to notify the family first.”

  “This is going to kill Del,” says a young firefighter with long hair.

  “Does this mean we’re going home?” asks another.

  We push through the crowd, leave them to discuss the day’s events. It doesn’t take long to find where the game trail leaves the road and we follow it into the burn. I stop once or twice and look around to be sure we’re on the right trail. We seem to be, but I can’t see any ribbon.

  I pass the spot I’m sure was the origin and stop.

  “Where is it?” asks Aslund.

  “I don’t know,” I tell him, looking around. “It was right here.”

  3

  •

  THE FIREFIGHTERS, WITH nothing to do but work the tail of the fire, have progressed farther into the black than usual, mopping up the area to keep busy. Commendable behaviour, except they have obliterated the origin — sprayed it down and trampled the area with bootprints and hose drags — which is odd; in the openness of the burn, the pink fluorescent ribbon should have shone like a beacon. Wind might have blown down the ribbon, but this seems unlikely as I tied it tightly to the hardened branch of a burned tree. Even if the ribbon was lost for some reason, there should still be the hard, white slag tubes from the fusee; they’re not water soluble. But there’s absolutely nothing here.

  “Maybe we’re at the wrong spot,” says Aslund.

  I don’t think so. There are enough burned trees that look the same to create some doubt as to exactly where the ribbon was tied, but I’ve got a good memory and this is definitely the right area. I look around, trying to remember where I found the fusee slag. There has to be something left.

  Aslund shifts beside me, getting impatient. “Let’s look around some more.”

  “No, it was here.”

  The firefighters chewed up the ground pretty good with the high-pressure hoses. I landmark at a bend in the trail, walk a dozen paces, squat on my haunches and inspect the ground, looking for flecks of white. “I’m positive it was right here.”

  Aslund stoops over me. “What exactly did you see when you found it?”

  “Three or four slag tubes,” I say, pointing, as if that might help. “Some fine fuel residue.”

  He waits a moment longer. “I’m going to look around a bit more.”

  While Aslund prospects in the burn, I examine the immediate area more carefully, working in a grid pattern. I start well back from where I think the origin was, walking slowly and studying the ground. The ribbon and fusee residue had to go somewhere. A gust of wind could have carried the ribbon some distance beyond the origin. A firefighter could have mistaken the ribbon as marking a hotspot and pulled it down once he was sure the spot was out. Maybe the high-pressure jets of water chewed up the ground enough to obscure the slag, or blew it beyond the area we’ve searched. But afte
r a half-hour of searching, I find nothing, even though I’ve covered and re-covered a large area around the origin.

  Aslund returns, asks if I’ve found anything.

  Nothing, I tell him. He frowns, shaking his head. “I don’t know, Cassel —”

  “Well, it was here. I saw it.”

  “If you say so.”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “Sure,” he says. “I believe you.”

  “But?”

  Aslund shifts on his feet. He seems distracted, uncomfortable. “Nothing.”

  “Look,” I say. “Something is clearly bothering you. What is it?”

  “You mean other than the absence of any physical evidence?”

  “If everything is gone, then it’s not by accident.”

  “You think someone purposefully tore down the ribbon? Pocketed the residue?”

  “Maybe. It had to go somewhere.”

  He thinks for a minute. “What did you make of the burn patterns?”

  “Inconclusive. The wind in the canyon whipped the fire around quite a bit.”

  Aslund nods. I can see where he’s going with this. No physical evidence of arson and no conclusive pattern of fire travel to support that this is where the fire started. Good thing I called it in before the burnover, or they might have suggested my origin identification was a trauma-induced hallucination. Thankfully, Aslund is too professional to push this further. “Given the origin may have been sabotaged,” he says, “what do you suggest we do?”

  “Ask the firefighters. They may have seen something.”

  Aslund gives me a look mirroring my own thoughts: Or they may be responsible.

  After the burnover, Brashaw’s crew was pulled from the fireline and told to muster at the main staging area along the road. There’s nothing more dangerous than a distracted firefighter. Most of the mobile equipment has been moved to this new clearing and the firefighters sit in the shade of their crew bus. When they arrived, they were broad-shouldered warriors, ready for battle. Now their shoulders are slumped; they’re listless and tense. Beaten. The squad bosses are the only ones who bother to stand when Aslund and I approach. We pull the three of them aside, away from the rest of the men.

  “I need to ask you guys a few questions,” Aslund tells them.

  They nod, solemn and weary. All three are young, in their mid-twenties, stubbled and stocky. They could be brothers. Aslund gets right to the point.

  “Did you fellows see any pink ribbon out there?”

  They shake their heads. One of the men introduces himself as Brad Cooper, senior squad boss, meaning he’s second in command. “I heard you call BB,” he says, his voice filled with a southern twang. “After you told him about that origin, we kept our eyes out for it, but we didn’t see any pink ribbon. Just orange.”

  “Were you aware of the location of the origin?” says Aslund.

  “Yeah.” Cooper has a crooked nose; an old barroom wound by the look of it. “I copied your call when you hung the ribbon,” he says, looking at me, his expression indignant. “None of our guys would have disturbed it.”

  “Which squad did you have in the area?”

  Cooper frowns, turns to his co-worker. “You were workin’ that spot, weren’t you Phil?”

  Phil nods. He’s wearing a bear-claw necklace. “Didn’t see no pink ribbon.”

  “When did you get in there, Phil?” I ask.“How long after I called BB?”

  Phil gives this some thought. “Half-hour maybe.”

  “Did you see anyone else in the area?”

  “I didn’t,” Phil says, squinting. “But I could ask the boys.”

  Phil is about to head back to the bus to question his men when Aslund stops him, tells him not to worry about it. They’ll do that later, at the debriefing. I’d prefer an answer now, but it’s not my investigation, so I bite my tongue.

  “You worked that area with the hose?” says Aslund.

  “Yeah,” says Phil. “Wasn’t much else we could do.”

  “And you’re sure there was no ribbon?”

  Phil’s expression tells us he’s pretty sure.

  “What about stuff on the ground?” I ask. “You see any white residue?”

  “Why?” he says, looking concerned. “Should I have?”

  “There may have been some fusee slag,” says Aslund, his glance flickering in my direction. “You see any little white tubes or splotches or anything like that?”

  Phil shakes his head, frowning. Once again, he could ask the boys.

  “You sayin’ we screwed up the origin?” asks Cooper.

  “Someone worked it over,” I say. Aslund looks annoyed.

  “Damn,” says Cooper. “You sure?”

  I nod.

  “We’re not sure of anything right now,” says Aslund.

  Cooper’s brow furrows. “Well, if I fucked up, I’d sure like to know.”

  “Believe me,” I tell him, “when you fuck up, you’ll know.”

  Aslund gives me a strange look. I’m not sure if it’s because of what I said or how I said it. Cooper, fortunately, hasn’t seemed to notice. “Anyway,” I tell him, “if you didn’t see any ribbon, you have nothing to worry about.”

  “No ribbon,” he says, shaking his head.

  “What about your guys? Could they have taken down the ribbon?”

  Cooper stares at us. “You mean, like, accidentally?”

  Both Aslund and I don’t say anything and Cooper’s eyes narrow.

  “Maybe they thought it marked a hotspot or something like that,” I offer.

  Cooper crosses his arms. “No way. We briefed them. They knew it marked the origin.”

  “So you wouldn’t mind if we had them check their pockets, would you?”

  Cooper’s eyes narrow even further and Aslund gives me a startled look. “One minute,” he says, raising his index finger like a referee. He tows me away, behind a dozer on a lowboy, his face pinched and frowning. “Listen Cassel, I know you’re an investigator, but at this moment your continued participation in this event is strictly as a witness. If you have something of value to contribute, then I’m all ears. But when it comes to conducting an interview, you’re just an observer. I’m allowing you to observe as a professional courtesy. Perhaps you could extend the same courtesy to me, and allow me to do my job.”

  “Fair enough,” I say. “My apologies.”

  Aslund takes a deep breath, seems to relax.

  “So, are you going to check their pockets?”

  “No, I’m not going to check their pockets.”

  “Why not?”

  Aslund scowls, looks away for a minute. More vehicles arrive, churning up dust. Fresh firefighters troop out of buses. Another green Forest Service engine lumbers to a stop along the road. A uniformed Deputy stands next to his angled vehicle, controlling access. Aslundlooks at me again, trying hard to be patient.

  “Where are you going with this Cassel?”

  “Nowhere yet. But we need to find that ribbon.”

  Behind us the dozer fires up, belching and roaring, puffing diesel fumes. A skinner looks down at us, waiting, and we move away. Cooper, Phil, and the other brother stand together, watching us. “Those firefighters have just lost their crew boss,” says Aslund, shouting to be heard over the rumble of heavy equipment. “They’re pissed off and confused. Thinking we don’t trust them won’t help matters.”

  “But what if they have the ribbon?”

  “What would it prove? They couldn’t have started the fire.”

  “What if they found the ribbon somewhere else?”

  “So what?” says Aslund, raising his hands, clearly exasperated. I’m trying to get through to him, without telling him how to do his job, that you don’t overlook anything at a crime scene. Trivial details can become key later. Once the participants have dispersed and the scene is released, you’ve lost your chance.

  “It could have fingerprints on it,” I say. “And this is now a homicide.”

  Aslund c
onsiders, glancing toward the Deputy along the road.

  “Okay,” he says quietly. “But I’ll handle this.”

  Cooper is not impressed and does little to hide the fact. Never, in all his years of firefighting, has he been humiliated like this. Aslund is a little tense as well. The three squads form a loose line by the crew bus. Cooper, being senior, breaks the news to them.

  “The pink ribbon at the origin is missing,” he says, standing with his arms crossed. He sticks out his chin, straightens a crick in his neck. “Since we were working in the area, there’s a possibility someone pulled down the pink ribbon, accidentally, maybe stuffed it into their pocket.”

  “Doubt it,” says Phil. “They’d have to be colour-blind.”

  “Anyone colour-blind?” Cooper bellows.

  Amused looks. No one is colour-blind.

  “Good,” says Cooper. “Cause no one here would pull down that ribbon on purpose, right?”

  Vigorous nods of assent.

  “I know that,” says Cooper. “But not everyone knows you guys like I do. So, these two gentlemen here would like y’all to empty your pockets.”

  There’s a stunned silence. For a moment, none of the firefighters move, waiting perhaps to see if we’re serious. Finally, one of them pulls out a rumpled handful of orange ribbon.

  “This is bullshit, man,” he mumbles.

  Amid furtive glances in our direction, the rest of the firefighters commence rummaging in their packs and the pockets of their green fire pants. Granola bars, sticks of gum, and tins of chewing tobacco are produced. And lots of orange ribbon, but no pink. It’s a little hard to tell with everyone doing this at once, and I suggest, in a tone only Aslund can hear, that maybe they should do this one at a time. Aslund grinds his teeth and ignores me.

  I see a flash of pink. “Over there,” I say, pointing. “What was that?”

  Heads turn and everyone stops what they’re doing, hands half-full. One of the firefighters is staring at me, looking stricken. “What have you got there?” I ask, trying to sound calm and unaccusing.