County.
Out in the garage, she stuck the blue emergency bubble light on top of the Cayenne and headed out. Even with the flashing light encouraging other drivers to get out of the way, it seemed to take forever to get through the construction zone and out to I-17.
Driving south, Ali caught sight of the fire from several miles away across the Verde Valley. At first glance it appeared as little more than a pinprick of light, but as she came closer, that one pinprick became two separate ones. Both blazes roared skyward, and surrounding them on all sides were the flashing lights from clots of emergency vehicles. Clouds of smoke, dotted with flaming embers, billowed skyward as well. It was dark, but as Ali approached, she noticed that the once black smoke was now a lighter smudge against a much darker sky. She knew enough about fires to understand that if the color of the smoke was changing from black to gray or even white, the fire crews must be making some headway in their fight against the two separate blazes.
As Frances Lawless had directed, Ali took the General Crook Trail exit and drove under the freeway. Signaling for the left turn onto the frontage road, she caught sight of an ambulance speeding toward her with red lights flashing and siren blaring.
Someone’s hurt, she thought. Is it a firefighter, or is it someone else?
Pulling over onto the shoulder, Ali stayed out of the way until the lumbering emergency vehicle roared around the corner and under the freeway. Once there, the ambulance turned south toward Phoenix, with its big urban hospitals and specialized medical practices. That probably meant bad news for the person inside, someone who was right that minute strapped on a stretcher and being rushed headlong through some kind of medical maelstrom.
Ali was about to move back into the roadway but she again had to wait for oncoming traffic as an arriving fire truck came roaring up behind her with its lights flashing. As it sped past, she noticed the City of Sedona decal on the passenger door.
Ali wasn’t surprised to see a Sedona-based fire crew so far outside the city limits. If the now four-alarm fire managed to spread from the burning structures to surrounding grass and brush, it would pose far more of a hazard to life and property, especially to the town of Camp Verde, itself a little to the north. That was no doubt why crews from other fire districts had been called in to supplement the locals.
With the GPS firmly telling her that the frontage road she was driving didn’t exist and that she was Off Road, Ali drove to the scene. At the first police barricade, Ali flashed the credentials she had been issued by the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department. The officer examined her ID. Then, after directing her to an appropriate place to park, he stepped aside and let her through. Ali was relieved to see there were no reporters or cameras milling around so far. She had beaten them to the scene by arriving while emergency equipment was still en route. They would be coming soon, however, and Ali needed to be ready.
Turning off the Cayenne ’s engine, Ali opened the door and stepped out into a world of noisy, smoke-filled chaos. Shouted orders flew back and forth over the roar of the flames. Pulsing strobelike flashes from emergency lights punctuated the darkness, while bright beams directed at the fires helped the firefighters who were battling the two separate blazes to see what they were doing.
Ali removed the blue emergency beacon from the top of the car, switched it off, and then stood for a moment, taking in the scene. Both houses appeared to be completely engulfed. In fact, just as she shut her car door, the burning roof of one of the houses collapsed in a loud whoosh, sending another cloud of embers skyward like a dangerous volley of Fourth of July fireworks. Firefighters hurried after the glowing trail of embers, trying to find and extinguish them before they set fire to something else.
Even without the roof, one wall of the collapsed building was still standing. Peering through the eye-watering smoke, Ali was able to make out one chilling detail. Scrawled in yard-tall spray-painted letters on the plywood walls were three letters-ELF.
The Earth Liberation Front, Ali thought.
Dave Holman came up behind her just then. “Hey, Ali,” he said. “Are you okay?”
She nodded.
“Nothing like a trial by fire for your first time out,” he added.
“An ambulance was leaving just as I got here,” she said. “Was someone hurt?”
Dave nodded. “Since the houses were under construction, no one expected them to be occupied, but then one of the Camp Verde firefighters heard her screaming. He went in and brought her out.”
“Her,” Ali confirmed. “A woman? Who is she? What was she doing there?”
“I have no idea.”
“What’s her condition, and where are they taking her?” Ali asked. When reporters arrived on the scene, those were some of the details they would want to know. Ali would need to have answers at the ready.
“She’s evidently badly hurt,” Dave answered, “but I have no idea where they’re taking her.”
“Do you know the name of the firefighter who rescued her?”
“Nope,” Dave said. “Sorry. For that you’ll need to check with the Camp Verde Fire Department.”
Someone summoned Dave and he was gone, disappearing into the smoke-filled night.
Squaring her shoulders, Ali followed Dave’s lead and set off to gather as much information as possible. She knew that in an hour or so, when she found herself standing in front of an assembled group of reporters for the very first time, they’d be looking to her for all available information-for answers to those pesky
One bit at a time Ali gathered the necessary information. The first 9-1-1 call had come in at eight twenty-nine. Arriving on the scene, the Camp Verde Volunteer Fire Department had assessed the situation and had radioed to request additional help, some of which had arrived at almost the same time Ali did.
Following the chain of command upward, she finally located Captain Carlos Figueroa of the Camp Verde Fire Department, who was directing the action from a vehicle parked across the street. He wasn’t thrilled when Ali introduced herself, but he grudgingly agreed to answer her questions.
“Lieutenant Caleb Moore is the guy who dragged her out of there,” Figueroa said. “He never should have gone in-too dangerous-but he did. I’ll have some serious words with him about that once we get him back from the hospital.”
“He’s hurt then, too?” Ali asked.
Figueroa nodded. “Not too bad, I hope, but he swallowed enough smoke that we need to have him checked out.”
“What about the woman?” Ali asked.
Captain Figueroa shrugged. “Who knows?” he returned. “Maybe she’ll make it; maybe she won’t.”
Just then a firefighter raced up to the car, dragged along by an immense German shepherd. “We got a hit, Captain,” he said. “Out here on the street, between the two houses.”
“What kind of hit?” Ali asked.
“You didn’t hear that,” Figueroa said. “But the dog is Sparks, our accelerant-sniffing dog. The guy with him is his handler. Sparks doesn’t need to wait for the fire to cool down to investigate if the perp was dumb enough to leave tracks for him outside on the street.”
“So it is arson, then?” Ali asked.
“Most likely,” Figueroa said, “but don’t quote me on that. It’s not for public consumption at this time.”
Ali’s cell phone rang at ten forty-five. “I understand there’s a whole slew of reporters waiting just inside the entrance to Verde View Estates,” Frances Lawless from Dispatch told her. “Any idea when you’ll be there to brief them?”
“Give me a couple of minutes,” Ali said.
She went back to the Cayenne, grabbed her computer, and spent the next ten minutes typing up a brief summary of everything she had learned. She’d be able to cover more ground if she started with a prepared statement before opening up for questions. Finally she closed her computer and headed back down the hill.
Don’t be nervous, she told herself on the way. They’re doing their jobs. All you have to do is yours.
When she reached the first van-cam, she stuck the Cayenne in park, turned it off, and then went to face the milling group of reporters, who immediately clustered around her, shouting questions at her and vying for her attention. She felt a momentary glitch in her gut. Once she had been one of the yellers. Now she was their
