The Alpine Recluse Read Free Page B

taking photographs.
    Incredibly, a familiar—and welcome—voice was speaking in my ear. I turned to look up into Scott Chamoud’s handsome face.
    “I followed the sirens,” he said. “I didn’t get out of that damned commissioners’ meeting until almost eleven.”
    He had his camera. Without waiting for me to respond, he began to prowl around, looking for a good—and safe—angle. I’d started to cough and sneeze. The heat was still intense, although it appeared that the fire was burning down and the smoke was turning white instead of black. Having used up the single tissue I’d tucked into my bathrobe pocket, I wiped at my eyes with my sleeve.
    Scott kept shooting film. Milo was still across the cul-de-sac, talking to the medics. Walking out into the street and between the various emergency vehicles, I approached the sheriff. He didn’t see me until I poked him in the upper arm.
    “Where are Tim and Tiffany?” I inquired.
    He glanced at me impatiently. “How the hell do I know?”
    I realized he couldn’t know. A sickening feeling overcame me. What if the fire had started while Tim and Tiffany were sleeping? They might have been overcome by smoke inhalation. They might be dead.
    As the night’s tragic events unfolded, it turned out that I was only half-right.

TWO
    I STAYED NEARBY , keeping watch with Scott. The sheriff looked angry and helpless, shifting his tall frame from one foot to the other, occasionally exchanging a word with Del Amundson, one of the medics, or Deputy Sam Heppner, who had shown up in his regulation uniform. Sam, I figured, was on night duty, and probably had been patrolling Highway 2 or some of the side roads in Skykomish County.
    Waving my hand in front of my face in a hopeless attempt to dispel some of the heat and smoke, I tried to figure out where the flames seemed most concentrated in the house. It was impossible. Virtually all of the wooden structure was burning except for one wall to the east. Ironically, I could see a brick chimney that apparently had been part of a fireplace. On a hot August night, that wouldn’t have been the place where the blaze would have started.
    “No sign of Tim or Tiff?” Scott asked, echoing my own thoughts.
    I shook my head. We both had to raise our voices to make ourselves heard over the crackling cacophony of the fire. “Maybe they weren’t home.”
    Scott didn’t speak for a moment, standing motionless with his camera at the ready. For the moment, there was too much smoke for picture-taking. “Tiffany’s working,” he said suddenly. “I saw her at the Grocery Basket on my way to the meeting. I had to pick up a couple of things Tamara forgot this afternoon after she finished teaching at the college. Tiff checked me out, and was griping about her back.”
    I suddenly remembered that Tiffany was pregnant. The news had appeared in Vida’s “Scene” column a month ago, mentioning that the baby was due in December.
    “I wonder if she knows,” I said, grimacing. “Doesn’t the evening shift work until the store closes at midnight?”
    Scott looked at his watch, which had hands that glowed in the dark. “It’s getting close to that now. God, I hope somebody tells her before she gets home.”
    “Maybe Tim went to the store to give her the bad news,” I said hopefully.
    The flames were dying down, though the heat was still fierce. More people had gathered in the area between Fifth and Fir streets, including a half-dozen cars. I spotted Milo’s new deputy, Doe Jameson, directing traffic. Doe had been hired only a month earlier after the sheriff had squeezed enough out of his budget to accommodate some much-needed extra manpower. Or, in this case, womanpower. Doe was a solidly built twenty-seven-year-old part Native American from Seattle who preferred small towns to big cities because she liked to fish and hunt. Scott had written a feature story on her for the
Advocate,
and informed me that she was tough but fair. At present, she was